Pastor Edward Rice

Good Sam Baptist Church

54 Main St Box 99

Dresden, NY 14441

GSBaptistChurch.com

5/29/2007

Dan Vander Lugt

Department of Biblical Correspondence, RBC Ministries

PO Box 2222

Grand Rapids, MI 49501-2222

Dear Brother Vander Lugt,

You recently wrote to a widow of our Church chastising her for the stand that her Baptist Church took on the King James Bible. Shame on you! She was aghast at your audacity and brazen attack, your ill presumptions and your twisting of the truth, all to discredit her Churches position on this issue. She brought me the letter, and I was equally repulsed by your demeanor and false hood.

Dr. M.R. DeHaan was a stalwart of fundamentalism and would not be dancing with this whore of modernism that you are courting. I understand your financial motivations to appeal to the widest gate and the broadest path on the Bible version issue, it is ecumenically sound and economically profitable. However, your disseminating misleading information to grandma's and widows who love their KJB is noticeably ghoulish. Your hyper sensitive form letter tells me you have already been rebuked by greater scholars than I but please take note of my comments and stop antagonizing King James Bible enthusiasts, especially the my widowed Baptist Church members.

Your letter starts:

“You mentioned that your church teaches that only the King James Bible version should be used. We are familiar with literature claiming that only the original King James Version is reliable. A clever person who supported the continued use of the Tyndale Bible or another translation that preceded the King James could have made the same kinds of arguments against the King James when it was first written. For that matter, a person who opposed the creation of any English translation could write books attacking the wording of any conceivable translation.

This paragraph infers that I, this widow's Pastor, am a clever but mislead, and misleading, malcontent who does not like 'modernist versions' just because they are new. You mislead by pretending that you are 'familiar with literature' and that such literature does nothing but fuss about wording and attacks 'any conceivable translation.' If you really do not understand that the copyright requirements for modernist and international versions of the Bible require 'significant deviation' not just alternate wordings, then you should get out of the business, you are disgracing your founder. If you know these things then please quit deceiving the fatherless and widows. Tyndale translate from the Latin Vulgate only. The King James was a needed English translation divorced from the Vulgar Vulgate. I expect you knew that when you set out to deceive with your illustration.

“The most authoritative text is the original Hebrew and Greek, not any English translation. The differences that exist in the English versions exist (1) because of differences that exist in the original texts and (2) because of the different ways the same Greek and Hebrew or expressions can be accurately translated into English. If you are familiar with even a modern foreign language like French, Spanish, and German, you realize that wording for word translations are often impossible. Different expressions, or idioms, must often be used to capture the meaning of a word or phrase.

This paragraph contains two numbered and boldfaced lies. You again infer that there are no differences with the modernist's ecumenical, copyright bibles except for minor English wordings and now contend that faulty originals are to blame. If this is truly what you believe, then do not pretend that you have a familiarity with the available literature. There is ample literature chastising the origins of the Alexandrian family of perverted manuscripts and their major deletions and alterations. There is ample literature on the race for copyrights that could educate you about the different expressions or idioms being inadequate to secure a new version copyrights. You are either letting your ignorance flow into our church pews, or you are deliberately deceiving. Either way you need to revisit this paragraph in your form letter and stop.

“ We realize that we possess neither a perfect manuscript copy nor a perfect translation of the original biblical text. However, we do possess more than 5,000 handwritten copies of all or part of the New Testament, and these copies, remarkable in their similarity, vary from one another in less than 10 percent of the text. Moreover, these differences do not call into question even one major doctrine or event.”

If you were truly familiar with the literature on this issue you would have Dr. D. A. Waite's book “Defending the King James Bible, A fourfold superiority: Texts, Translators, Techniques, Theology. ” Therein he lists and illustrates the attacks on at least 5 major doctrines. Your soft peddling the modernist's ecumenical bible omissions, your saying that verbal inspiration don't hold for 1 word in 10, your false boast that modernist bibles rely on the 5,000 handwritten copies and not on the two Alexandrian copies that offer them the 'significant deviations' that they long for, is worse than ignorant, it would make M.R. turn his back on you in his grave. Stop echoing the modernist's lie about 'no doctrines are effected by our significant deviations.' Be honest. They do not care a hoot for doctrine. Your supposed to. Don't be ignorant here, if you choose to be, keep it out of our pews.

“It is questionable whether God is as concerned about the exact wording as He is about the meaning. If God were concerned about the exact wording, He would have preserved a perfect manuscript copy. Moreover, Jesus and the apostles were not slavish about exact words when they quoted from the Old Testament.

“Compare Isaiah 61:1,2 with our Lord's quotation of it in Luke 4:18,19. The wording is quite different, but the meaning is the same. (Once again, anyone familiar with the difficulties involved in translation realize that exact wording usually can't be transferred from one language to another.)

Talk about false teachings. This is not even “perhaps heretical” (as you called me this I noted that for 1600 years catholic and protestant 'christians' labeled us heretics for the sake of the unity of the faith and they 'suffered not a heretic to live.' RBC needs to be very very careful with that label, I'd advise that it not pass a true Christian's lips because of the persecutions that are naturally attached to it, especially when you are attempting to 'burn' the 'KJB only' crowd for upsetting your ecclesiastical ecumenical unity) ... This is not even “perhaps heretical” consider that you have just categorically denied verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture. Does RBC ministries know what you said in this letter? Is this the position of RBC on verbal inspiration? Shame on you all for putting this in print, and more so for having anyone on staff who thinks 'God is not concerned about exact wording'. In this horrible analogy you are claiming for yourself (and for any modernist scholar who wants to reword Scripture) the same license that The WORD, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, had in rewording Old Testament Scriptures. You are asserting that since 'the apostles were not slavish about exact words' then the new NIV committee changing 'Father God' to 'Mother God' has the same license to use different words. Shame shame on RBC. Your founder should rightfully disown you for this. One who asserts the same right to word or reword Scripture as the inspired author of Scripture is on very dangerous ground and is without probability a false teacher!

“We all admire the beautiful Elizabethan English of the King James Version. However, we don't want to be like the Judaizers who exalted their traditions and threatened the unity of the church and the proclamation of the gospel. The King James translators had poorer manuscripts and were no more scholarly or godly in character than modern translators. We seriously question the “King James only” point of view. We fear that it can lead to a dangerous and perhaps heretical viewpoint of the relationship between tradition and inspiration.

The 'King James only' tribe do not base an ounce of their argument on traditions. The only tradition in view here is that unregenerated baby baptizing ecumenical majorities traditionally twist scripture to suit their purposes. A sadly broken tradition is that DeHaans are now assisting them. The King James translators did not have poorer manuscripts, they just left out the Alexandrian deviations that modernist textual critics love. The King James translators were far more scholarly than and more educated in more languages than any of the modernists translators who think themselves evolved to a higher state of learning. The King James translators were far more Godly, especially concerning the fundamental doctrine of verbal plenary inerrant infallible inspiration. As a contender for the faith and a Baptist by conviction Preacher of the Gospel, I seriously question RBC's point of view. I know, if you stand by the above denial of verbal inspiration, that it IS a dangerous viewpoint. Recant this apostasy. Rewrite your form letter, try being honest and truthful. Stop harassing widows with these twisted views.

“We are removing your name from our membership list as you requested. If you should ever change your mind, or if you would like literature on a specific biblical topic, please be free to contact us. Sincerely, Dan Vander Lugt, Department of Biblical Correspondence.”

We would certainly never change our mind after reading your letter but I would like some literature from RBC on a specific biblical topic. What do you have wording your position on the verbal plenary inerrant infallible inspiration and preservation of the Holy Bible, and does it differ from the apostasy found in this letter?

Contending for the Faith.

Pastor Ed Rice