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NASB | John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 1:1 In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. [Gen 1:1; Is 9:6] |
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Bible Note: Distortions, errors, corruptions, lies 'Wilkinson's book lay unused and unknown (and how good it would have been had his errors died with him!), until 1955 when J. J. Ray, who is self-described as "business manager, missionary, Bible teacher" published a little volume, God Wrote Only One Bible (Ray is apparently still living, but I can find out nothing about him, and he refuses to reply to certified letters; if anyone can supply specific information about this man, I would greatly appreciate it). In his book, Ray heavily plagiarized, without note or acknowledgement, Wilkinson's book, repeating and propagating wholesale Wilkinson's errors and misstatements (the fact of Ray's plagiarism and dependence is documented in Gary Hudson's article, "The Real 'Eye Opener'," Baptist Biblical Heritage, vol. II, no. 1, Spring, 1991). Ray's book has gone through numerous printings, with total copies numbering perhaps in the tens of thousands. I first saw a copy myself in 1971 as a first-year student at Baptist Bible College, Springfield, Missouri, where I was also introduced--by students from Ohio--to Ruckman's Bible Babel and Fuller's Which Bible? I find it of particular interest that Ray acknowledges that there are some erroneous translations in the KJV which do demand revision (pp. 30, 31, 102), a position today's KJVO (King-James-Version-Onlyism) mainstream would consider rank heresy. (...) 'From Wilkinson in the first generation, through Ray in the second, and Fuller and Ruckman in the third, the entire KJVO movement has arisen, and every present-day KJV-onlyite is a direct spiritual descendant of these ill-informed men. And as the movement has progressed from one generation to the next, with each new arising from intellectually-incestuous inbreeding, the views have become more radicalized and extreme. First, the KJV was viewed as better than other English versions, though not above some revision and correction (thus Ray); then, the view was taken that the KJV was error-free (but not without insoluble problems; thus Fuller); then, the KJV came to be accepted as perfect, and infallible, unalterably exact, superior even to the Greek and Hebrew texts from which it was made, and in fact was alleged to contain new revelations not found in the Greek and Hebrew (thus Ruckman); and now it is asserted that a person cannot be saved unless through the English KJV (thus Hyles and others), and all foreign Bibles should be revised to conform to the KJV (a view advocated by, among many others, some Americans visiting in Romania, by an American missionary in Japan, and by a church in Arizona which insists that the Reina-Valera Spanish translation, which has brought the conversions of millions, is not the Word of God), a point of view so absurd that only the most culturally isolated could believe it. The movement has become a vulgar caricature of itself, rushing at break-neck speed to ever more extreme views, and as the adherents grope about in the intellectual smog of KJV-onlyism, having lost all perspective and ability to discern truth from error, they become easy prey for every false doctrine. One leading KJVO advocate in the upper Midwest was recently ostracized from his circle of associates because he has begun espousing British Israelism, the view that the English- speaking peoples are Israel (the view of Garner Ted Armstrong; this view arises naturally from KJV-onlyism, for after all, the English-speaking people must be special, since to them alone God gave an infallible, inspired, perfectly preserved translation, right?). 'Every KJVO advocate is a lineal descendant of Wilkinson, Ray, Fuller and Ruckman, and all are the victims (unwitting, I hope) of the multitude of gross distortions, errors, corruptions, misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and, in some cases, outright lies of these men. These men are collectively a bruised reed of a staff, upon which if a man leans, it will pierce his hand. They are unreliable in the extreme and are deserving of no confidence as to the truthfulness of anything they affirm. But I have no doubt that some will blissfully continue in their ignorance, willfully ignorant of the truth, not seeing because they do not want to see. '"So then Wilkinson, when he had conceived, brought forth Ray, and Ray, when he was full-grown, brought forth Fuller, Ruckman, Waite, Chick, Riplinger, Hyles, Bynum,...."' To read more go to: www.tegart.com/brian/bible/kjvonly/ doug/kjvoroots.html |