Another King James Bible Believer
Answering Doug Kutilek's anti- Preservation in Psalms 12
Psalms 12:6-7 - Answering Doug Kutilek’s article “Why Psalm 12:6-7 is not a Promise of the Infallible Preservation of Scripture”
Doug Kutilek, like many today, professes to believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scriptures, and yet does not have a copy of them to show anybody. He may not know (and he most certainly doesn’t) where God’s preserved words are, but the one thing he continually tells us is that they are not found in the King James Holy Bible.
He has written several articles criticizing the King James Bible, all of which reveal a great deal about his own self-contradictory thinking when it comes to his beliefs concerning “The Bible”. You can see this particular article about the preservation of God’s words and Psalms 12 here:
http://www.kjvonly.org/doug/kutilek_why_psalm.htm
Let’s examine some of Doug’s thoughts and see if you want to follow his logic and reach the same conclusions he has.
Mr. Kutilek starts off sounding like he is a 100% genuine, Fundamentist Bible believer, referring to the Scriptures left and right, but if you pay close attention to what he says, we see that he is just another Bible Agnostic in search of a Bible to believe in.
In one of his opening statements he makes this claim. “A much-discussed point of theology in recent years has been the matter of the preservation of the Word of God. All conservative, Bible-believing scholars, teachers, and pastors agree to the Bible doctrine of divine inspiration, verbal inerrancy, and infallibility of the Scriptures IN THE ORIGINAL WRITINGS.”
A few things should be pointed out about Mr. Kutilek’s opening salvo. He is right about the point of theology concerning the preservation of the words of God is something that has come about “in recent years”. The Preservation of God’s words has only been widely doubted within the last 50 to 60 years since we have been bombarded by a mutiplicity of conflicting and contradictory modern bible versions. When the first formal church Confessions of Faith in the Scriptures came out (and they all came out after the King James Bible was widely believed to be the very words of God), they all supported the KJB point of view rather than today’s “only in the originals” mindset.
Read for yourself some of these formal Confessions of Faith regarding the Scriptures. Not one of them was like todays “originals only” position.
http://brandplucked.webs.com/confesskjb.htm
Secondly, Mr. Kutilek repeats a common confusion of terms when he refers to “the Word of God” (capitalized). The Word of God refers to the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. Whereas “the word of God” refers to either the written or spoken revelation of God’s inspired words of truth. The word of God did not die on the cross, rise from the dead nor will it come again in power and glory, but the Word of God did and will.
Thirdly it should be pointed out that the recent “originals only” point of view leaves every Christian on this earth with NO complete, infallible and 100% true words of God in ANY language.
The reasons are simple. #1- Neither Mr. Kutilek nor any man living today has ever seen a single word of the “the original writings” a day in his life. They do not exist and everybody knows this, yet Bible agnostics like Doug Kutilek continue to talk about them using present tense verbs as though they had them or even a copy of them right there in front of them and were comparing what they say to the King James Bible or any other translation.
#2 - The original writings never did make up a complete 66 book canon of Scripture called The Bible - never.
#3 - The “originals only” point of view makes God either a liar or at least guilty of using hyperbole and exaggeration when He said such things as “heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35); “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35) and “the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” (Isaiah 40:8)
Nobody seriously defends any modern version or any single Hebrew or Greek text as being the complete, inspired and 100% true words of God. In fact, most “scholars” today come right out and tell us that no single Hebrew or Greek or translation can be the perfect and infallible words of God. Don’t believe me? Just ask them to tell you where you can get a copy of the complete and 100% true words of God so you can compare it to any bible you are using now to see the differences and similarities. They cannot and will not tell you.
They will usually give you some pious sounding baloney about how God has “preserved” His words out there somewhere among thousands of variant readings in several different languages, but not one of them will agree all the time with anybody else as to what these “preserved words” may or may not be.
Their pratfall position is much like saying “God has preserved His words in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary - they’re in there somewhere, all mixed up and out of order and found among thousands of other words that are not inspired, but Hey, they’re in there somewhere.”
#4 - The “originals only” position makes man a Bible agnostic because he ends up not knowing for sure which parts of the multi-choice, contradictory bible versions on the market today are God’s words and which are not. There are literally thousands of textual differences alongside of hundreds of different meanings in the verses they do have. Which, if any, are the right ones?
For a further development of this idea, please see my article - “The Inerrancy of Scripture - Are you a Bible believer or a Bible agnostic?”
http://brandplucked.webs.com/biblebelieveragnostic.htm
Mr. Kutilek continues his argument: “That they had the perfect Scriptures in ancient times is fine, but the question is, do we have them today? Or, has God preserved the Word He gave in time past? The main proof text employed to teach an infallibly preserved Bible is Psalm 12:6, 7, which in the KJV reads,
“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” (End of section by Mr. Kutilek)
I find it interesting that Mr. Kutilek reveals a bit too much about his own beliefs here in the way he phrases his statements. He’s trying to disprove that the Bible teaches that God would preserve His words in any “book of the LORD” (See Isaiah 34:16). Why? Because Mr. Kutilek does NOT believe in “an infallibly preserved Bible” in any language and so he sets out to try to make you think that what Psalms 12 teaches, not only in the King James Bible but many others as well, is not really what it seems to say at all.
To make you think the verses are not teaching that God will preserve His words, he goes into the long debated grammatical aspects of these verses. He admits the rule of immediate antecedent would be “the words” but then promotes the alternative view that the more remote antecedent would be “the poor and needy” of verse 5.
(By the way, has God indeed preserved “the poor and needy from this generation for ever”? Haven’t they all died off and many were persecuted and martyred rather than being preserved?)
Doug Kutilek starts off his arguments with a completly false statement when he tells us: “We are not limited to the English translation but have access to the Hebrew original.”
This is completely untrue. Doug has never seen one word of “the Hebrew original” a day in his life. The modern versions he promotes like the NASB, RSV, ESV, NIV and others ALL frequently reject the clear, preserved Hebrew readings, and not even in the same places.
See these two studies for proof. -
http://brandplucked.webs.com/nivnasbrejecthebrew.htm
and
http://brandplucked.webs.com/nivnasbrejecthebrew2.htm
If one tries to argue that Mr. Kutilek is not referring to “the Hebrew ORIGINAL” (even though that is what he clearly says) but rather to the copies of the Hebrew, then he is defeating his own argument by referring us to “the preserved Hebrew words of God”, which he goes on to tell us is not what these verses in Psalm 12 teach!
Mr. Kutilek then continues summing up his argument as to why he thinks this Psalm is not talking about God preserving His “words” but rather “the poor and needy” by saying: “When we turn to the Hebrew text of Psalm 12, the ambiguity of the English disappears. Hebrew, like many non-English languages, has a feature that English lacks -- that of grammatical gender...In languages that have grammatical gender, it is usual and customary for pronouns to agree with their antecedents in gender and number. Hebrew here is like the rest. And also like the rest, there are occasional exceptions to the principle of agreement in the Hebrew Bible (see Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, 135 o), but the Book of Psalms is exceptionally regular on the matter of gender agreement.”
He continues: “In the Hebrew of Psalm 12, the pronouns translated them in verse 7 are both masculine -- the first them being plural in number, the second being singular (him, literally), particularizing every individual in the group (with slightly different vowel points in Hebrew, the second pronoun could be understood as the first person plural common, viz., us). So, the antecedent noun can be expected to be masculine in gender and plural in number.
The word rendered words twice in verse 6 is a feminine plural noun in both cases; the words poor and needy in verse 5 are both masculine and plural in Hebrew. While the English translation is ambiguous and allows two different antecedents, the Hebrew is clear and plain -- the antecedent of them is the poor and needy ones of verse 5, not the words of verse 6. Gender agreement of pronoun and antecedent demonstrates this.” (end of section by Mr. Kutilek)
This grammatical argument has scholarly proponents on both sides and Mr. Kutilek is flat out wrong when he tells us “the book of Psalms is exceptionally regular on the matter of gender agreement.”
Let me quote Dr. Thomas Strouse, of Emmanuel Baptist Theological Seminary: "Next, [Academic Dean William Combs in an article for the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary Journal, (and Doug Kutilek)] argues that the grammar of Psalm 12 vv. 6-7 is against the word preservation interpretation. Instead, the gender differences between the masculine plural pronominal suffix 'them' and its antecedent feminine plural 'words' forces one to look for another antecedent which is masculine plural (i.e., 'poor' and 'needy' in v. 5).
"However two important grammatical points overturn his argument. First, the rule of proximity requires 'words' to be the natural, contextual antecedent for 'them.' Second, it is not uncommon, especially in the Psalter, for feminine plural noun synonyms for the 'words' of the Lord to be the antecedent for masculine plural pronouns/pronominal suffixes, which seem to 'masculinize' the verbal extension of the patriarchal God of the Old Testament. Several examples of this supposed gender difficulty occur in Psm. 119. In verse 111, the feminine plural 'testimonies' is the antecedent for the masculine plural pronoun 'they.' Again, in three passages the feminine plural synonyms for 'words' have masculine plural pronominal suffixes (vv. 129, 152, 167). These examples include Psm. 119:152 ('Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou has founded them for ever')…"
I would like to address the two final thoughts of Mr. Kutilek in his anti words preservation article, before posting a Bible version comparison chart. - What he calls “Context” and finally his “Conclusion”
Mr. Kutilek’s thoughts on Context
Mr. Kutilek says: “The best guide to Bible interpretation is careful examination of the context of the passage or verse under consideration. ...The basic thrust of the message of Psalm 12 is clear; the psalmist bemoans the decimation of the upright and the growing strength of the wicked. The strong get stronger, the weak get weaker. Dishonesty and deception abound. The psalmist can only appeal to God’s justice. Man cannot set the score right; God must do so. But God’s promises are sure. His words are trustworthy. The Lord knows them that serve Him and will indeed come to their aid.
To find a promise in verse 7 of the promise of God’s written word is to introduce a subject totally foreign to the context.... It is persecuted men, not written words, that occupy the psalmist’s attention and thought. To employ verse 7 as a proof text for any doctrine of Scripture preservation does extreme violence to a context which is unmistakably clear.” (end of section by Mr. Kutilek)
I am somewhat amazed to read these thoughts by Doug Kutilek about what he thinks the context of Psalm 12 is. What seems obvious to me is the simple fact that throughout this Psalm it is God’s words in stark contrast to man’s words. Notice the following when speaking about man’s words ... “they speak vanity...with flattering lips...do they speak. The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?”
Finally a few thoughts about Mr. Kutilek’s “Conclusion”
He writes: “Based on clear evidence from grammar and context and confirmed by the best Bible expositors, it can only be concluded that Psalm 12:6, 7 has nothing at all to do with the preservation of God’s Word. It says nothing for or against it. It does not speak to the issue at all. It is, therefore, wholly irrelevant to the discussion and must not be appealed to as a proof text regarding Bible preservation. We can understand how some through ignorance have misapplied this text, but with the above evidence in hand, to continue to apply these verses to any doctrine of Bible preservation is to handle the Word of God deceitfully and dishonestly, something unworthy of any child of God. Let the Scriptures speak, and let us follow them wherever they lead us.” (end of section by Mr. Kutilek)
So, according to Mr. Kutilek, who himself does not believe that ANY Bible in ANY language IS the complete, inspired and 100% true preserved words of God, men like John Wesley, C.H. Spurgeon (whom Mr. Kutilek falsely assumes supported his view) G. Campbell Morgan, Dr. Thomas Strouse, Dr. Donald Waite, Jack Moorman, numerous Bible translators and thousands of Christians today who believe that Psalm 12 is talking about God preserving His WORDS are “handling the word of God deceitfully and dishonestly, something unworthy of any child of God”, and all this because we happen to disagree with his understanding and interpretation of a couple of verses in Psalm 12. Very charitable of Mr. Kutilek, don’t you think?
Spugeon agrees that it is God’s words in contrast to man’s words that being preserved.
Spurgeon’s sermon on Psalm 12 - “What a contrast between the vain words of man, and the pure words of Jehovah. Man's words are yea and nay, but the Lord's promises are yea and amen. For truth, certainty, holiness, faithfulness, the words of the Lord are pure as well-refined silver. In the original there is an allusion to the most severely-purifying process known to the ancients, through which silver was passed when the greatest possible purity was desired; the dross was all consumed, and only the bright and precious metal remained; so clear and free from all alloy of error or unfaithfulness is the book of the words of the Lord. The Bible has passed through the furnace of persecution, literary criticism, philosophic doubt, and scientific discovery, and has lost nothing but those human interpretations which clung to it as alloy to precious ore. The experience of saints has tried it in every conceivable manner, but not a single doctrine or promise has been consumed in the most excessive heat. What God's words are, the words of his children should be.”
Bible Version Comparison
Psalm 12:6-7 - God’s promise to preserve His words
Has God promised to preserve His words here on this earth till heaven and earth pass away? Well, a lot depends on which particular bible version you are using.
The Book which I and thousands of other Christians all over the world believe to be the complete, inerrant, infallible and 100% true words of God tell us that He did promise to preserve His words.
Here is a simple Bible version comparison regarding the promise found in Psalm 12 of the King James Bible.
King James Bible - “Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD, thou shalt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.”
Also agreeing with the King James Bible in this verse are the following modern day versions, several of which are Jewish and Jewish Christian translations: the 1936 Hebrew Publishing Company version, the 1993 Word of Yah translation, the 2001 Sacred Scriptures Family of Yah, the 2000 Holy Scriptures Jubilee Bible, Green’s 2000 literal, the 2008 Ancient Roots Translation, the 2001 A Conservative Version, and the 2008 Natural Israelite Bible.
Webster’s 1833 translation, and the Lesser Bible 1853 - “Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD, thou shalt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.”
English Revised Version - 1881 “Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD, thou shalt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.”
ASV 1901 - “Thou wilt keep THEM, O Jehovah, Thou wilt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.”
World English Bible - “You will keep THEM, Yahweh. You will preserve THEM from this generation forever.”
Darby - “Thou, Jehovah, wilt keep THEM, thou wilt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.
Hebrew Names Version = KJB -”You will keep THEM LORD, You will preserve THEM from this generation forever. “
NKJV 1982 - “You shall keep THEM, O LORD, You shall preserve THEM from this generation forever.”
The 1985 New Jerusalem bible - “Yahweh's promises are promises unalloyed, natural silver which comes from the earth seven times refined.
7 You, Yahweh, will watch over THEM, you will protect THEM from that brood for ever.”
However there are many other versions that disagree not only with the King James Bible but also with each other.
NASB - “You, O LORD, will keep THEM; You will preserve HIM from this generation forever.”
NIV - The NIV is very different, not only from the KJB but also from the NASB. It says: “And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times. O LORD, you will keep US SAFE AND PROTECT US FROM SUCH PEOPLE forever.”
Douay-Rheims - “Thou, O Lord, wilt preserve US: and keep US from this generation for ever.”
Lamsa’s 1936 translation of the Syriac - “Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD; thou shalt preserve ME and save ME from this generation for ever.
Jewish Pub. Society 1917 - “Thou wilt keep THEM, O LORD; Thou wilt preserve US from this generation for ever.
RSV 1954- “Do thou, O LORD, protect US, guard US ever from this generation.
ESV 2001 - “You, O LORD, will keep THEM; you will guard US from this generation forever.”
Young’s - “Thou, O Jehovah, dost preserve THEM, Thou keepest US from this generation to the age.”
The Spanish La Biblia de las Américas 1997 agrees with the KJB saying : “Tú, SEÑOR, LOS guardarás; de esta generación LOS preservarás para siempre.” So too do the Spanish Reina Valera 1909, 1960, 1995 and Las Sagradas Escrituras of 1569.
The French Louis Segond 1910 also agree with the KJB - “Toi, Eternel! tu LES garderas, Tu LES préserveras de cette race à jamais.”
Dutch Staten Vertaling agrees with the KJB _ “Gij, HEERE, zult HEN bewaren; Gij zult HEN behoeden voor dit geslacht, tot in eeuwigheid.”
The Italian Rivudeta 1927 = KJB “Tu, o Eterno, LI proteggerai, LI preserverai da questa generazione in perpetuo.” So too does the 1991 La Nuova Diodati.
Bible commentators disagree among themselves as well as to what these words mean. John Wesley commented: 12:7 Thou shalt keep them - Thy words or promises: these thou wilt observe and keep, both now, and from this generation for ever.”
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan agreed with the rendering. He writes, "The psalmist breaks out into praise of the purity of His words, and declares that Jehovah will 'keep them' and 'preserve them.' The 'them' here refers to the words. There is no promise made of widespread revival or renewal. It is the salvation of a remnant and the preservation of His own words which Jehovah promises." (Notes on the Psalm, Revell Comp., p.32).
Adam Clarke says: “Instead of the pronoun THEM in these clauses, several MSS., with the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Arabic, have US.”
Jewish commentaror Aben Ezra believes the promise concerns the preserving of the words of God from generation to generation.
And others are of the opinion that God is promising to preserve His people. The bible versions are in wide disagreement as are the commentators regarding both how the text should read and what the meaning is. I, of course, side with the King James Bible in that God has promised to preserve every one of His inspired words. All modern versionists deny that He did so and they all believe that the Hebrew texts have been corrupted in numerous places, though none of them agrees with any of the others as to where or how.
Will Kinney
Additional Notes of Interest - Hebrew Grammar and recent Jewish Translations
Recently during an internet discussion of these verses, Mr. Steven Avery posted the following information.
“While we may assume that gender agreement will occur between a pronoun and its antecedent, the following authorities acknowledge that frequently this is not the case. The standard Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley grammar says: “...masculine suffixes (especially in the plural) are not infrequently used to refer to feminine substantives, (#135-0).”
Also, the recent Hebrew grammar by Waltke and O'Conner: “The masculine pronoun is often used for a feminine antecedent. (Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. WinonaLake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns Publ., 1990, #16.4b).”
In commenting on the passage itself, Rabbi Samson Hirsch writes:
“Thou O Lord wilt constantly keep them, Thy promises...The word [them] has a masculine ending in order to stress the constancy and immutability of these assurances. (Psalms. New York: Feldheim Publ., 1960, p.85).”
"THE MAIN HEBREW TRADITION"
It is argued that most commentators refer verse seven to the poor and needy rather than the words. Doug Kutilek lists a number of earlier commentators who take the words position, but does not give enough notice to the fact that it is among recent major publications that a reappraisal seems evident. Scholarly works acknowledge at least in part that it is the words that are being kept.
“...it may refer to the promises (verse 6), i.e. 'keep them'. (Derek Kidner, Tyndale OT Commentaries, 1973). ...or the object ('them') may refer to the promises... (A.A. Anderson, New Century Bible; 1972).
This sincerity and integrity of the words of God is demonstrated by the fact that Yahweh "keeps" (cf. Jer. 1:12) his word. (H.J. Kraus, Psalms. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publ., 1988).
J. H. Eaton makes a remarkable assertion about the words interpretation.
“...but we may rather follow the main Hebrew tradition: Thou O Lord shalt keep them (i.e. watch over the words to fulfill them, Jer. 1:12)..." (Torch Bible Commentaries, 1967).”
This is in line with our quotation above from Rabbi Hirsch. It was the position of Aben Ezra (died 1167), who was considered the foremost of the early rabbinical commentators. J.H. Eaton would have known that while some rabbinical opinion (as Rashi) disagreed with Ezra, yet he felt secure in saying that this was the main Hebrew tradition!
These three recent Jewish publications of Psalms will give an idea of the translations. The Hebrew traditional understanding expressed in recent translation.
http://books.google.com/books?id=TXKbHVSAy60C
Tehillim: Eis ratzon : a time of favor - translated Yaakov Yosef Iskowitz, 2004
The words of the Eternal are pure words;
like purified silver, revealed to the world,
refined seven times.
You, O Eternal, will guard them;
You will protect them from a generation such as this, forever.
http://www.chabad.org/library/articl...Chapter-12.htm
Tehilllim Ohel Yoseph Yitzchok -Y.B. Marcus, Nissen Mangel and Eliyahu Touger (1994)
The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined in the finest earthen crucible,
purified seven times.
May You, O Lord, watch over them;
may You forever guard them from this generation,
[in which] the wicked walk on every side;
when they are exalted it is a disgrace to mankind.
In both cases it is easy to see that the flow of the verses, the simple and clear meaning, is the watching, guarding, protecting of the words of the LORD.
Here is another, on the web.
http://www.freewebs.com/jewish-spiri...l/Tehillim.pdf
In The Morning: Selected Psalms translated by Yaacov Dovid Shulman
The words of God
Are pure words.
They are silver refined
From a caldron onto the ground
And filtered seven times.
You, God, guard them.
Keep them from this generation
Constantly,
From the evil-doers who prowl in a circle,
When depravity is exalted amidst all men.
Answering Doug Kutilek's anti- Preservation in Psalms 12
Psalms 12:6-7 - Answering Doug Kutilek’s article “Why Psalm 12:6-7 is not a Promise of the Infallible Preservation of Scripture”
Doug Kutilek, like many today, professes to believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scriptures, and yet does not have a copy of them to show anybody. He may not know (and he most certainly doesn’t) where God’s preserved words are, but the one thing he continually tells us is that they are not found in the King James Holy Bible.
He has written several articles criticizing the King James Bible, all of which reveal a great deal about his own self-contradictory thinking when it comes to his beliefs concerning “The Bible”. You can see this particular article about the preservation of God’s words and Psalms 12 here:
http://www.kjvonly.org/doug/kutilek_why_psalm.htm
Let’s examine some of Doug’s thoughts and see if you want to follow his logic and reach the same conclusions he has.
Mr. Kutilek starts off sounding like he is a 100% genuine, Fundamentist Bible believer, referring to the Scriptures left and right, but if you pay close attention to what he says, we see that he is just another Bible Agnostic in search of a Bible to believe in.
In one of his opening statements he makes this claim. “A much-discussed point of theology in recent years has been the matter of the preservation of the Word of God. All conservative, Bible-believing scholars, teachers, and pastors agree to the Bible doctrine of divine inspiration, verbal inerrancy, and infallibility of the Scriptures IN THE ORIGINAL WRITINGS.”
A few things should be pointed out about Mr. Kutilek’s opening salvo. He is right about the point of theology concerning the preservation of the words of God is something that has come about “in recent years”. The Preservation of God’s words has only been widely doubted within the last 50 to 60 years since we have been bombarded by a mutiplicity of conflicting and contradictory modern bible versions. When the first formal church Confessions of Faith in the Scriptures came out (and they all came out after the King James Bible was widely believed to be the very words of God), they all supported the KJB point of view rather than today’s “only in the originals” mindset.
Read for yourself some of these formal Confessions of Faith regarding the Scriptures. Not one of them was like todays “originals only” position.
http://brandplucked.webs.com/confesskjb.htm
Secondly, Mr. Kutilek repeats a common confusion of terms when he refers to “the Word of God” (capitalized). The Word of God refers to the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. Whereas “the word of God” refers to either the written or spoken revelation of God’s inspired words of truth. The word of God did not die on the cross, rise from the dead nor will it come again in power and glory, but the Word of God did and will.
Thirdly it should be pointed out that the recent “originals only” point of view leaves every Christian on this earth with NO complete, infallible and 100% true words of God in ANY language.
The reasons are simple. #1- Neither Mr. Kutilek nor any man living today has ever seen a single word of the “the original writings” a day in his life. They do not exist and everybody knows this, yet Bible agnostics like Doug Kutilek continue to talk about them using present tense verbs as though they had them or even a copy of them right there in front of them and were comparing what they say to the King James Bible or any other translation.
#2 - The original writings never did make up a complete 66 book canon of Scripture called The Bible - never.
#3 - The “originals only” point of view makes God either a liar or at least guilty of using hyperbole and exaggeration when He said such things as “heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35); “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35) and “the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” (Isaiah 40:8)
Nobody seriously defends any modern version or any single Hebrew or Greek text as being the complete, inspired and 100% true words of God. In fact, most “scholars” today come right out and tell us that no single Hebrew or Greek or translation can be the perfect and infallible words of God. Don’t believe me? Just ask them to tell you where you can get a copy of the complete and 100% true words of God so you can compare it to any bible you are using now to see the differences and similarities. They cannot and will not tell you.
They will usually give you some pious sounding baloney about how God has “preserved” His words out there somewhere among thousands of variant readings in several different languages, but not one of them will agree all the time with anybody else as to what these “preserved words” may or may not be.
Their pratfall position is much like saying “God has preserved His words in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary - they’re in there somewhere, all mixed up and out of order and found among thousands of other words that are not inspired, but Hey, they’re in there somewhere.”
#4 - The “originals only” position makes man a Bible agnostic because he ends up not knowing for sure which parts of the multi-choice, contradictory bible versions on the market today are God’s words and which are not. There are literally thousands of textual differences alongside of hundreds of different meanings in the verses they do have. Which, if any, are the right ones?
For a further development of this idea, please see my article - “The Inerrancy of Scripture - Are you a Bible believer or a Bible agnostic?”
http://brandplucked.webs.com/biblebelieveragnostic.htm
Mr. Kutilek continues his argument: “That they had the perfect Scriptures in ancient times is fine, but the question is, do we have them today? Or, has God preserved the Word He gave in time past? The main proof text employed to teach an infallibly preserved Bible is Psalm 12:6, 7, which in the KJV reads,
“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” (End of section by Mr. Kutilek)
I find it interesting that Mr. Kutilek reveals a bit too much about his own beliefs here in the way he phrases his statements. He’s trying to disprove that the Bible teaches that God would preserve His words in any “book of the LORD” (See Isaiah 34:16). Why? Because Mr. Kutilek does NOT believe in “an infallibly preserved Bible” in any language and so he sets out to try to make you think that what Psalms 12 teaches, not only in the King James Bible but many others as well, is not really what it seems to say at all.
To make you think the verses are not teaching that God will preserve His words, he goes into the long debated grammatical aspects of these verses. He admits the rule of immediate antecedent would be “the words” but then promotes the alternative view that the more remote antecedent would be “the poor and needy” of verse 5.
(By the way, has God indeed preserved “the poor and needy from this generation for ever”? Haven’t they all died off and many were persecuted and martyred rather than being preserved?)
Doug Kutilek starts off his arguments with a completly false statement when he tells us: “We are not limited to the English translation but have access to the Hebrew original.”
This is completely untrue. Doug has never seen one word of “the Hebrew original” a day in his life. The modern versions he promotes like the NASB, RSV, ESV, NIV and others ALL frequently reject the clear, preserved Hebrew readings, and not even in the same places.
See these two studies for proof. -
http://brandplucked.webs.com/nivnasbrejecthebrew.htm
and
http://brandplucked.webs.com/nivnasbrejecthebrew2.htm
If one tries to argue that Mr. Kutilek is not referring to “the Hebrew ORIGINAL” (even though that is what he clearly says) but rather to the copies of the Hebrew, then he is defeating his own argument by referring us to “the preserved Hebrew words of God”, which he goes on to tell us is not what these verses in Psalm 12 teach!
Mr. Kutilek then continues summing up his argument as to why he thinks this Psalm is not talking about God preserving His “words” but rather “the poor and needy” by saying: “When we turn to the Hebrew text of Psalm 12, the ambiguity of the English disappears. Hebrew, like many non-English languages, has a feature that English lacks -- that of grammatical gender...In languages that have grammatical gender, it is usual and customary for pronouns to agree with their antecedents in gender and number. Hebrew here is like the rest. And also like the rest, there are occasional exceptions to the principle of agreement in the Hebrew Bible (see Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, 135 o), but the Book of Psalms is exceptionally regular on the matter of gender agreement.”
He continues: “In the Hebrew of Psalm 12, the pronouns translated them in verse 7 are both masculine -- the first them being plural in number, the second being singular (him, literally), particularizing every individual in the group (with slightly different vowel points in Hebrew, the second pronoun could be understood as the first person plural common, viz., us). So, the antecedent noun can be expected to be masculine in gender and plural in number.
The word rendered words twice in verse 6 is a feminine plural noun in both cases; the words poor and needy in verse 5 are both masculine and plural in Hebrew. While the English translation is ambiguous and allows two different antecedents, the Hebrew is clear and plain -- the antecedent of them is the poor and needy ones of verse 5, not the words of verse 6. Gender agreement of pronoun and antecedent demonstrates this.” (end of section by Mr. Kutilek)
This grammatical argument has scholarly proponents on both sides and Mr. Kutilek is flat out wrong when he tells us “the book of Psalms is exceptionally regular on the matter of gender agreement.”
Let me quote Dr. Thomas Strouse, of Emmanuel Baptist Theological Seminary: "Next, [Academic Dean William Combs in an article for the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary Journal, (and Doug Kutilek)] argues that the grammar of Psalm 12 vv. 6-7 is against the word preservation interpretation. Instead, the gender differences between the masculine plural pronominal suffix 'them' and its antecedent feminine plural 'words' forces one to look for another antecedent which is masculine plural (i.e., 'poor' and 'needy' in v. 5).
"However two important grammatical points overturn his argument. First, the rule of proximity requires 'words' to be the natural, contextual antecedent for 'them.' Second, it is not uncommon, especially in the Psalter, for feminine plural noun synonyms for the 'words' of the Lord to be the antecedent for masculine plural pronouns/pronominal suffixes, which seem to 'masculinize' the verbal extension of the patriarchal God of the Old Testament. Several examples of this supposed gender difficulty occur in Psm. 119. In verse 111, the feminine plural 'testimonies' is the antecedent for the masculine plural pronoun 'they.' Again, in three passages the feminine plural synonyms for 'words' have masculine plural pronominal suffixes (vv. 129, 152, 167). These examples include Psm. 119:152 ('Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou has founded them for ever')…"
I would like to address the two final thoughts of Mr. Kutilek in his anti words preservation article, before posting a Bible version comparison chart. - What he calls “Context” and finally his “Conclusion”
Mr. Kutilek’s thoughts on Context
Mr. Kutilek says: “The best guide to Bible interpretation is careful examination of the context of the passage or verse under consideration. ...The basic thrust of the message of Psalm 12 is clear; the psalmist bemoans the decimation of the upright and the growing strength of the wicked. The strong get stronger, the weak get weaker. Dishonesty and deception abound. The psalmist can only appeal to God’s justice. Man cannot set the score right; God must do so. But God’s promises are sure. His words are trustworthy. The Lord knows them that serve Him and will indeed come to their aid.
To find a promise in verse 7 of the promise of God’s written word is to introduce a subject totally foreign to the context.... It is persecuted men, not written words, that occupy the psalmist’s attention and thought. To employ verse 7 as a proof text for any doctrine of Scripture preservation does extreme violence to a context which is unmistakably clear.” (end of section by Mr. Kutilek)
I am somewhat amazed to read these thoughts by Doug Kutilek about what he thinks the context of Psalm 12 is. What seems obvious to me is the simple fact that throughout this Psalm it is God’s words in stark contrast to man’s words. Notice the following when speaking about man’s words ... “they speak vanity...with flattering lips...do they speak. The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?”
Finally a few thoughts about Mr. Kutilek’s “Conclusion”
He writes: “Based on clear evidence from grammar and context and confirmed by the best Bible expositors, it can only be concluded that Psalm 12:6, 7 has nothing at all to do with the preservation of God’s Word. It says nothing for or against it. It does not speak to the issue at all. It is, therefore, wholly irrelevant to the discussion and must not be appealed to as a proof text regarding Bible preservation. We can understand how some through ignorance have misapplied this text, but with the above evidence in hand, to continue to apply these verses to any doctrine of Bible preservation is to handle the Word of God deceitfully and dishonestly, something unworthy of any child of God. Let the Scriptures speak, and let us follow them wherever they lead us.” (end of section by Mr. Kutilek)
So, according to Mr. Kutilek, who himself does not believe that ANY Bible in ANY language IS the complete, inspired and 100% true preserved words of God, men like John Wesley, C.H. Spurgeon (whom Mr. Kutilek falsely assumes supported his view) G. Campbell Morgan, Dr. Thomas Strouse, Dr. Donald Waite, Jack Moorman, numerous Bible translators and thousands of Christians today who believe that Psalm 12 is talking about God preserving His WORDS are “handling the word of God deceitfully and dishonestly, something unworthy of any child of God”, and all this because we happen to disagree with his understanding and interpretation of a couple of verses in Psalm 12. Very charitable of Mr. Kutilek, don’t you think?
Spugeon agrees that it is God’s words in contrast to man’s words that being preserved.
Spurgeon’s sermon on Psalm 12 - “What a contrast between the vain words of man, and the pure words of Jehovah. Man's words are yea and nay, but the Lord's promises are yea and amen. For truth, certainty, holiness, faithfulness, the words of the Lord are pure as well-refined silver. In the original there is an allusion to the most severely-purifying process known to the ancients, through which silver was passed when the greatest possible purity was desired; the dross was all consumed, and only the bright and precious metal remained; so clear and free from all alloy of error or unfaithfulness is the book of the words of the Lord. The Bible has passed through the furnace of persecution, literary criticism, philosophic doubt, and scientific discovery, and has lost nothing but those human interpretations which clung to it as alloy to precious ore. The experience of saints has tried it in every conceivable manner, but not a single doctrine or promise has been consumed in the most excessive heat. What God's words are, the words of his children should be.”
Bible Version Comparison
Psalm 12:6-7 - God’s promise to preserve His words
Has God promised to preserve His words here on this earth till heaven and earth pass away? Well, a lot depends on which particular bible version you are using.
The Book which I and thousands of other Christians all over the world believe to be the complete, inerrant, infallible and 100% true words of God tell us that He did promise to preserve His words.
Here is a simple Bible version comparison regarding the promise found in Psalm 12 of the King James Bible.
King James Bible - “Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD, thou shalt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.”
Also agreeing with the King James Bible in this verse are the following modern day versions, several of which are Jewish and Jewish Christian translations: the 1936 Hebrew Publishing Company version, the 1993 Word of Yah translation, the 2001 Sacred Scriptures Family of Yah, the 2000 Holy Scriptures Jubilee Bible, Green’s 2000 literal, the 2008 Ancient Roots Translation, the 2001 A Conservative Version, and the 2008 Natural Israelite Bible.
Webster’s 1833 translation, and the Lesser Bible 1853 - “Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD, thou shalt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.”
English Revised Version - 1881 “Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD, thou shalt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.”
ASV 1901 - “Thou wilt keep THEM, O Jehovah, Thou wilt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.”
World English Bible - “You will keep THEM, Yahweh. You will preserve THEM from this generation forever.”
Darby - “Thou, Jehovah, wilt keep THEM, thou wilt preserve THEM from this generation for ever.
Hebrew Names Version = KJB -”You will keep THEM LORD, You will preserve THEM from this generation forever. “
NKJV 1982 - “You shall keep THEM, O LORD, You shall preserve THEM from this generation forever.”
The 1985 New Jerusalem bible - “Yahweh's promises are promises unalloyed, natural silver which comes from the earth seven times refined.
7 You, Yahweh, will watch over THEM, you will protect THEM from that brood for ever.”
However there are many other versions that disagree not only with the King James Bible but also with each other.
NASB - “You, O LORD, will keep THEM; You will preserve HIM from this generation forever.”
NIV - The NIV is very different, not only from the KJB but also from the NASB. It says: “And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times. O LORD, you will keep US SAFE AND PROTECT US FROM SUCH PEOPLE forever.”
Douay-Rheims - “Thou, O Lord, wilt preserve US: and keep US from this generation for ever.”
Lamsa’s 1936 translation of the Syriac - “Thou shalt keep THEM, O LORD; thou shalt preserve ME and save ME from this generation for ever.
Jewish Pub. Society 1917 - “Thou wilt keep THEM, O LORD; Thou wilt preserve US from this generation for ever.
RSV 1954- “Do thou, O LORD, protect US, guard US ever from this generation.
ESV 2001 - “You, O LORD, will keep THEM; you will guard US from this generation forever.”
Young’s - “Thou, O Jehovah, dost preserve THEM, Thou keepest US from this generation to the age.”
The Spanish La Biblia de las Américas 1997 agrees with the KJB saying : “Tú, SEÑOR, LOS guardarás; de esta generación LOS preservarás para siempre.” So too do the Spanish Reina Valera 1909, 1960, 1995 and Las Sagradas Escrituras of 1569.
The French Louis Segond 1910 also agree with the KJB - “Toi, Eternel! tu LES garderas, Tu LES préserveras de cette race à jamais.”
Dutch Staten Vertaling agrees with the KJB _ “Gij, HEERE, zult HEN bewaren; Gij zult HEN behoeden voor dit geslacht, tot in eeuwigheid.”
The Italian Rivudeta 1927 = KJB “Tu, o Eterno, LI proteggerai, LI preserverai da questa generazione in perpetuo.” So too does the 1991 La Nuova Diodati.
Bible commentators disagree among themselves as well as to what these words mean. John Wesley commented: 12:7 Thou shalt keep them - Thy words or promises: these thou wilt observe and keep, both now, and from this generation for ever.”
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan agreed with the rendering. He writes, "The psalmist breaks out into praise of the purity of His words, and declares that Jehovah will 'keep them' and 'preserve them.' The 'them' here refers to the words. There is no promise made of widespread revival or renewal. It is the salvation of a remnant and the preservation of His own words which Jehovah promises." (Notes on the Psalm, Revell Comp., p.32).
Adam Clarke says: “Instead of the pronoun THEM in these clauses, several MSS., with the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Arabic, have US.”
Jewish commentaror Aben Ezra believes the promise concerns the preserving of the words of God from generation to generation.
And others are of the opinion that God is promising to preserve His people. The bible versions are in wide disagreement as are the commentators regarding both how the text should read and what the meaning is. I, of course, side with the King James Bible in that God has promised to preserve every one of His inspired words. All modern versionists deny that He did so and they all believe that the Hebrew texts have been corrupted in numerous places, though none of them agrees with any of the others as to where or how.
Will Kinney
Additional Notes of Interest - Hebrew Grammar and recent Jewish Translations
Recently during an internet discussion of these verses, Mr. Steven Avery posted the following information.
“While we may assume that gender agreement will occur between a pronoun and its antecedent, the following authorities acknowledge that frequently this is not the case. The standard Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley grammar says: “...masculine suffixes (especially in the plural) are not infrequently used to refer to feminine substantives, (#135-0).”
Also, the recent Hebrew grammar by Waltke and O'Conner: “The masculine pronoun is often used for a feminine antecedent. (Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. WinonaLake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns Publ., 1990, #16.4b).”
In commenting on the passage itself, Rabbi Samson Hirsch writes:
“Thou O Lord wilt constantly keep them, Thy promises...The word [them] has a masculine ending in order to stress the constancy and immutability of these assurances. (Psalms. New York: Feldheim Publ., 1960, p.85).”
"THE MAIN HEBREW TRADITION"
It is argued that most commentators refer verse seven to the poor and needy rather than the words. Doug Kutilek lists a number of earlier commentators who take the words position, but does not give enough notice to the fact that it is among recent major publications that a reappraisal seems evident. Scholarly works acknowledge at least in part that it is the words that are being kept.
“...it may refer to the promises (verse 6), i.e. 'keep them'. (Derek Kidner, Tyndale OT Commentaries, 1973). ...or the object ('them') may refer to the promises... (A.A. Anderson, New Century Bible; 1972).
This sincerity and integrity of the words of God is demonstrated by the fact that Yahweh "keeps" (cf. Jer. 1:12) his word. (H.J. Kraus, Psalms. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publ., 1988).
J. H. Eaton makes a remarkable assertion about the words interpretation.
“...but we may rather follow the main Hebrew tradition: Thou O Lord shalt keep them (i.e. watch over the words to fulfill them, Jer. 1:12)..." (Torch Bible Commentaries, 1967).”
This is in line with our quotation above from Rabbi Hirsch. It was the position of Aben Ezra (died 1167), who was considered the foremost of the early rabbinical commentators. J.H. Eaton would have known that while some rabbinical opinion (as Rashi) disagreed with Ezra, yet he felt secure in saying that this was the main Hebrew tradition!
These three recent Jewish publications of Psalms will give an idea of the translations. The Hebrew traditional understanding expressed in recent translation.
http://books.google.com/books?id=TXKbHVSAy60C
Tehillim: Eis ratzon : a time of favor - translated Yaakov Yosef Iskowitz, 2004
The words of the Eternal are pure words;
like purified silver, revealed to the world,
refined seven times.
You, O Eternal, will guard them;
You will protect them from a generation such as this, forever.
http://www.chabad.org/library/articl...Chapter-12.htm
Tehilllim Ohel Yoseph Yitzchok -Y.B. Marcus, Nissen Mangel and Eliyahu Touger (1994)
The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined in the finest earthen crucible,
purified seven times.
May You, O Lord, watch over them;
may You forever guard them from this generation,
[in which] the wicked walk on every side;
when they are exalted it is a disgrace to mankind.
In both cases it is easy to see that the flow of the verses, the simple and clear meaning, is the watching, guarding, protecting of the words of the LORD.
Here is another, on the web.
http://www.freewebs.com/jewish-spiri...l/Tehillim.pdf
In The Morning: Selected Psalms translated by Yaacov Dovid Shulman
The words of God
Are pure words.
They are silver refined
From a caldron onto the ground
And filtered seven times.
You, God, guard them.
Keep them from this generation
Constantly,
From the evil-doers who prowl in a circle,
When depravity is exalted amidst all men.
