Breaking My Two-Year Silence* on Confessional Bibliology

 I just broke my two-year silence regarding Confessional Bibliology with a big video on my channel that you don’t want to miss—a discussion with Drs. John Meade and Will Ross about the recent Reformation Bible Society LXX Conference. I think I need to explain why I’m breaking that silence. This will also allow me to clarify something that I think got buried two years ago when I decided not to engage publicly with proponents of the Confessional/Ecclesiastical/Reformation/Classic Protestant Text viewpoint. I want to explain the relationship between Confessional Bibliology and KJV-Onlyism.

I stopped public engagement with proponents of Confessional Bibliology 1) because I achieved clarity on our major impasse—clarity that further discussion didn’t seem to increase¹I personally felt that Dr. Riddle’s formal replies to me were so weak and confused that I was embarrassed to continue the discussion. Effectively everything I would have said to him was said by TurretinFan in this long video that I commend to the truly dedicated.; 2) because I dislike disliking Christian people, 3) because my opponents went to extremes that I found I could not in good conscience interact with. I find it embarrassing and truly dreadful, in the etymological sense of that word, to talk to educated and intelligent men who say truly bizarre and extreme things, and this happened to me multiple times with leading proponents of Confessional Bibliology. I mentioned a few examples in the video two years ago.

I said to these proponents in that final video, and I quote, “If I talk about the far larger group of traditional, mainstream, IFB KJV-Onlyists and you, my Confessional Bibliology brothers, think I’m subtweeting you, I’m telling you in advance that that’s not my fault.” To my knowledge, I did that one time, about a year ago—hence the asterisk* in my title. I came at least perilously close to engaging Confessional Bibliology in public by evaluating a Trinitarian Bible Society booklet. But here’s why I did what I did: I found out that a large KJV-Only college was assigning to students Christian McShaffrey’s TBS booklet, How the Bible Came to Be, which contains Gail-Riplinger-level arguments about KJV English. For example, it claims that the modern versions “remove” certain words like “devil” and “damnation” and “sodomite” and “effeminate.” The booklet claims that these and other words were removed because they were “politically incorrect.” This is misleading to the point of malpractice.

And it was also proof of the validity of one of the very few predictions I’ve ever made in my life: I said that IFB KJV-Onlyists were going to start using CB material, further blurring the already tiny lines between the bibliological views of the two groups. So I subjected Christian’s TBS booklet to critique—because my target audience, the IFB KJV-Onlyists, were using it. This booklet was assigned mere days ago to the son of a good friend of mine, a son who attends that KJV-Only college. Nothing I critiqued in that booklet was unique to Confessional Bibliology; it was all standard argumentation used by KJV-Onlyists in the IFB.

I chose to break my silence because Confessional Bibliology has taken their argument from the New Testament text to the Old through their recent Reformation Bible Society Conference. I felt the need to answer quickly by appeal to gifted OT scholars. 

Since I have chosen to break my silence, I want to spend a little time demonstrating the overlap—and acknowledging the contrasts—between Confessional Bibliology and standard, mainstream IFB KJV-Onlyism. I’m doing this for the record, as it were, because I hope to be done talking to and about CB again soon. I’ll be done at the end of 2024 in all my popular-level engagement with KJV defense (I have some more academic work to do in the future). Leaders of Confessional Bibliology have insisted to me from the very beginning of my discussing with them that they are massively distinct from mainstream KJV-Onlyism. But it is my belief that the mainstream IFB KJV-Onlyism and Confessional Bibliology are 95% the same.

Contrast

I did publicly commit to Jeff Riddle that I would not call Confessional Bibliology “KJV-Onlyism.” I have not violated that promise publicly or privately. There are indeed key differences between mainstream, IFB KJV-Onlyism and Confessional Bibliology. There are two differences in substance in my estimation, and two in style:

Substance

1. The CB group cites Westminster Confession 1.8 as authoritative²A friend pointed out to me: “While most do point only to WCF 1.8, occasionally, well-studied proponents prop up their interpretation of WCF 1.8 by reference to other confessions. For example, Garnet Milne writes, ‘And when it comes to Reformation confessional symbols, it is not only the WCF which asserts that the whole of Scripture was available in their own day’ and seeks to demonstrate further support in other confessions., which the IFB does not do.
2. The CB group appeals to figures who are not respected in the IFB such as (especially) John Owen, Francis Turretin, and the Protestant Scholastics.

Style

There are more differences in style, though not in substance:

1. CB folks are Calvinists, of course, and the IFB KJVOs almost never are. This doesn’t seem to me to have any bearing on their bibliology, however, aside from the two points above.
2. Another difference in style: CB proponents include some educated men with legitimate PhDs. There are almost no legitimate PhDs in IFB KJV-Onlyism (though that may be changing). That, too, is not a distinction in viewpoint. Several CB leaders can write academic papers and book reviews, and they do. This tends not to happen much, if ever, in the IFB KJV-Only world.

Those are the contrasts I see.

Comparison

And here are the similarities, 26 in substance and 1 in style.

Substance

1. Both groups use the same prooftexts (Mt 5:18; Ps 12:6-7; Ps 119:105; Mt 4:4; etc.). Both groups have figures who use Psalm 12:6–7 as a prooftext for perfect preservation (Brown, IFB; Van Kleeck Sr, CB) and those who don’t (Surrett and Ouellette, IFB; Riddle, CB)—but who don’t complain when others in their group do.
2. Both groups use the same key words to describe the TR/KJV: “preserved,” “pure,” “stable,” “settled,” “unchanging” (CB; IFB)
3. Both groups insist that inspiration demands perfect preservation, but they waver on the “perfect” part—generally making statements that assume perfection but occasionally (among the more knowledgeable folks) acknowledging that minor variants exist even among TR editions.
4. Both groups put “the Textus Receptus” or “the Received Text” in their church (and other institutional) doctrinal statements but fail to specify which TR they believe to be perfect or preserved.
5. Both groups produce more heat than light when asked, “Which TR?” They consistently claim to have a perfectly pure text but just as consistently evade the questions of which TR is perfect and why (IFB; IFB; CBish; CB; CB citing CB and IFB).
6. Both groups maximize the differences between the TR and the critical text. Jeff Riddle called the critical text a “completely different underlying text.” I have heard CB leaders and IFB KJV-Onlyists call the two “radically different” and “drastically different.”
7. Both groups call the critical text “corrupt” and argue that it undermines or attacks Christian doctrines.
8. Both groups call the practice of evangelical textual critics today “naturalistic” or “atheistic” textual criticism (IFB; CB; CB).
9. Both groups attack the character and credibility of Westcott and Hort (though I’d say this happens much less often in the CB world than in the IFB).
10. Both groups functionally resort to Scrivener’s TR. And that TR is, in a very real way, simply the KJV.
11. Both groups refuse to explain specific differences between TR editions.
12. Both groups adopt Scrivener’s TR. I am not aware of a single living, influential person in either group who has clearly adopted a reading that is at variance with Scrivener’s TR.
13. Both groups assume that omission equals denial: if a given statement or verse appears in the KJV and not in the NIV, someone “took it out” on purpose for doctrinal reasons—namely in order to deny or subvert whatever doctrine was contained therein.
14. Both groups spend zero time explaining all the meaningless textual variants in the New Testament manuscript tradition; their attention is focused on those which fit the narrative in the point above.
15. Both groups spend a great deal of time discussing the “big three” passages: John 7:53–8:11; Mark 16:9–20; 1 John 5:7.
16. Both groups cite the writings of Dean Burgon and E.F. Hills (CB; IFB).
17. Both groups insist that the KJV is a literal translation and therefore superior to others.
18. Both groups consistently turn articles and conferences talks that were slated to be about KJV readability into talks about textual criticism (IFB; IFB; CB). Even when a conference talk (for example) is explicitly dedicated to KJV readability, the speaker will talk about textual criticism for up to 90% of his allotted time.
19. Both groups take a) mention of archaisms and b) criticisms of KJV-Onlyism as attacks on the KJV itself. I am continually saying to both groups, “I love and trust the KJV; to mention its archaisms is not to denigrate in any way the work of the KJV translators.”
20. Both groups claim that the KJV uses something called “biblical English,” an especially accurate and timeless form of English that cannot be improved upon (CB; IFB).
21. Both groups dismiss and ignore my false friends argument. They say, ironically, that people should just study to show themselves approved (unaware of or refusing to acknowledge that “study” is a false friend). Perhaps two KJV defenders—one in each group—have publicly or privately acknowledged learning a specific false friend from me. And very, very few (Robert Truelove [CB] being a very notable exception, Bryan Ross [IFBish] being another) have acknowledged that there are any false friends in KJV English at all-even though their own TBS Westminster Reference Bible and Defined KJB list numbers of my false friends. I get many vague comments from both groups about how there are very few false friends, but almost no specific engagement with concrete examples. Almost no one ever looks up false friends in the OED and offers a different assessment of any one of them.
22. Both groups insist to me repeatedly that they (and their rural congregation and/or young children) can read the KJV just fine, that all they need is a dictionary, that updating the KJV is as foolish and needless an idea as updating Shakespeare (IFB; CB).
23. Both groups insist that the superior accuracy of the second-person pronouns in the KJV is an essential reason for insisting upon the primary and/or exclusive use of the KJV (CB; IFB).
24. Both groups have ignored or dismissed the KJB Study Project; I’m not aware of anyone from either group who has publicly acknowledged that the KJBSP is a strike against their viewpoint. Both have gone silent.
25. Both groups reject the NKJV, and for the same reasons: it capitalizes deity pronouns, it includes NU text readings in the margins, it uses quotation marks (!), it uses poetic indentation (CB; IFB). The translation decisions in the NKJV that they object to also have a great deal of overlap (CB; IFB). Neither group allows KJV archaisms to weigh anything in the balances when the KJV is compared to the NKJV.
26. Both groups repeatedly claim that money is the reason that modern English Bible translations exist (CB; IFB), and that the NKJV in particular is a bridge Bible. (The IFB—though not CB—commonly adds that it’s part of a conspiracy to move people away from the KJV.) 

Style

Both groups frequently employ the same angry, these-go-to-eleven tone, with frequent recourse to ad hominem and charges that their opponents are lying or disingenuous. This is admittedly a more subjective judgment than the previous points. And there are many definite exceptions in both groups (my friend Bryan Ross is one in the IFB; Robert Truelove and Dane Johannson are two such in the CB group). I don’t expect this comment to be persuasive to the skeptical, but for the cause of truth I must say it. All the mockery, nastiness, intractability, and tribalism visible in one group is visible in the other.

I won’t claim that my own crowd is free from these things, but I can only say what I’ve seen: both major groups of KJV defenders are notably marked by a divisive and malicious spirit, especially on social media, and especially among followers (leaders do tend to do better). Both groups move very quickly to ad hominem; I would actually say that the average proponent of CB is, if anything, more bitter and hateful than the average proponent of IFB KJV-Onlyism—if such things can be measured. I’m going to explicitly decline to give examples, because I’m their target and I don’t want to defend myself. Many things both groups have said to me are unprintable, and I rarely see leaders pushing back against the extremists.

Cross-Pollination

Naturally, the two groups have cross-pollinated. I have seen Jeff Riddle (CB) cite Chuck Surrett and other IFB KJV-Onlyists. I have seen them cite him—specifically, I have heard IFB KJVOs using the “kept pure in all ages” line and pointing directly, by name to the work of Jeff Riddle. Why shouldn’t they cite one another as authorities when they’re saying exactly the same things? As I said earlier, a major KJV-Only college is using a booklet by Christian McShaffrey (CB) to teach KJV-Onlyism to its students.

Pushback

When I have previously made some of the points above to Dr. Riddle, he has insisted that the proper definition of “KJV-Onlyism” is Ruckmanism, double inspiration—hence, he is not a KJV-Onlyist. And indeed, Confessional Bibliology is not Ruckmanism (well, most of the time).

In a way, I don’t care what label is used. It’s the substance that I see as similar. But in another way, I think I ought to know better than Dr. Riddle what counts as KJV-Onlyism, because I was a self-conscious, self-described KJV-Onlyist in a large, mainstream, IFB KJV-Only church in high school. I was given in that IFB church effectively all the same arguments Confessional Bibliology leaders give today (minus an appeal to WCF 1.8, and with no mention of Owen or Turretin), and we had no compunction calling ourselves “KJV-Only.”

I have made this clarification to Dr. Riddle on more than one occasion. Each time, he has gone back to insisting that KJV-Onlyism means Ruckmanism and therefore I shouldn’t call him that. I got tired of having what felt like a petty debate over labels; that is why I acquiesced to saying that I wouldn’t call his viewpoint “KJV-Onlyism.”

It’s also true that there is some fuzziness at the edges: Riddle did praise the MEV in a blog post a few years ago, and I suspect that CB pastors—who have often studied Hebrew and Greek—feel more free than most IFB pastors to check other translations in their study. The KJV-Onlyism I grew up with was not officially opposed to the idea that other translations might contain valid renderings, but in daily practice I gather that many IFB pastors refused literally to touch, let alone own, a corrupt modern English Bible translation. CB pastors don’t seem to be this superstitious.

I will also say that CB leaders tend to be better able to distinguish text from translation. Robert Truelove told me that he doesn’t think the IFB “cares one whit about the TR.” I think that is frequently true, and that it is far less true of my CB brothers.

Brett Mahlen, whom I’ve met personally in recent months and with whom I enjoyed conversation about evangelism and theology, is one CB figure who has taken my arguments above seriously. He pointed out to me recently that Ted Letis in chapter 8 of his Ecclesiastical Text pushes back explicitly against IFB views of Scripture. But I might point out where I “met” Ted Letis: in the infamous Leaven in Fundamentalism videos put out by IFB, KJV-Only Pensacola Christian College in the late 1990s. Overlap between the two groups is not new. And the notes Letis plays in that chapter do not at all fit with the rhetoric of leading CB figures today. Letis basically cites Dean Burgon’s eagerness to correct the TR against the contemporary Dean Burgon Society’s refusal to do so. It seems to me that Letis’ arguments apply equally well to modern Confessional Bibliology.

Jeff Riddle and Christian McShaffrey have both said to me after I’ve pointed out similarities and overlaps between CB and IFB KJV defense, “Well, good—the IFB KJVOs are getting taught the CB position.” No, this is not what’s happening: I can assure you that my KJV-Only pastor in my high school years was not reading Ted Letis or, certainly, listening to Jeff Riddle (who was not yet a KJV defender at the time!).

Confessional Bibliology and mainstream, IFB KJV-Onlyism are as similar as two TR editions.