[Originally posted with the title 'Collective howls of derision']
Among my spam today was something promising “a wonderful study in and of linguistics,” with a message addressed “Dear Linguist Enthusiast” from someone in Michigan saying he’s sure it would be a blessing to me to take a look at some website.
As it happened, there were three of us checking emails in the office at the same time, discovering we were all the happy recipients of the same invitation. On the principle of safety in numbers this allowed us to visit the site – and on the principles of common sense it allowed us to be aghast together at its desperate misguidedness.
Basically, it’s a self-important advertisement for a book which makes a number of somewhat astonishing claims. [1] It claims you can find the meaning of each Bible word inside the Bible itself. [2] It claims that leading computational linguists from the world’s leading universities have discovered the fountainhead of letter meanings. [3] It claims that research tools from Edinburgh University prove “the purity of the King James Version and the depravity of the new versions.” And in case you’re not suitably aghast yet, it claims [4] that only the King James Version can teach and comfort through its miraculous mathematically ordered sounds. (It’s here, by the way, just to prove I’m not making it up.)
Let me hold my hands up and admit that the King James Version is my own bible version of choice – but please also allow me to make it very clear that each of these things that are claimed for it are simply not true. They’re either incoherent, or misleading, or both, and I can only hope that the people who wrote this are only clueless, as opposed to being deliberately deceptive.
[1] For one thing, it doesn’t make sense to say that you can find out the meanings of words from the words themselves. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading: words don’t have inherent meaning, as you can tell as soon as you start learning another language (or indeed thinking calmly about your own). The word ‘dog’ has an arbitrary relation to its meaning, if you’ll excuse me resorting to the textbook example – there’s no reason why we couldn’t use the word Hund or chien just like they do in Germany and France. In addition, supposing the bible happened to contain a verse which mentioned ‘dogs and canines,’ this would not define ‘dog’ for you (contra pretty much everything said in the pdf about the KJV’s so-called built-in dictionary, which I’m enough of a sucker to have browsed far enough to have read). You can’t define words by other words – at some point, you come full circle and discover you’ve ‘defined’ it by itself. This much is fundamental.
[2] It’s also pretty easy to dispute what’s said about computational linguists. Without being one myself, I’m still fairly sure they don’t make it a large part of their research endeavour to discover the fountainhead of letter meanings. Letters, for one thing, don’t have meanings. Fountainheads, meanwhile, are a hitherto unknown technical term whose use may in fact be restricted to the domain of avpublications.com. Either way, it doesn’t inspire confidence in their scholarship.
[3] Nor am I familiar with the research tools provided by Edinburgh University for deciding what bible versions are pure or depraved – especially not on the basis of age. This may be a good place to say that while I prefer the King James Version, it’s generally recognised that it is not “pure” in any absolute sense – it has unfortunate translations, it hasn’t benefited from any scholarship subsequent to the 17th century, and in any case, it is only a translation, one which the translators themselves fully realised was as error-prone as any other human effort, however carefully undertaken. Alternative versions, some of which are, indeed, “modern,” vary both in terms of the manuscripts they’re based on and in their closeness to those manuscripts, but the mere fact that they’re (a) modern or (b) not the King James Version is no reason to dismiss them all as depraved. And I’m still not sure what kind of “tool” you’d be looking at in order to reach a conclusion on this, one way or the other.
[4] Finally (from me – there’s plenty more on the website) – it isn’t remotely instructive or comforting to think of the KJV consisting of “‘miraculous’ mathematically ordered sounds.” Note: printed texts don’t consist of sounds. They’re only audible when you turn the pages, or perhaps when they’re being used to bash people. Note 2: the only mathematical ordering I’ve found in the bible is that of the positive integers used to number the pages, chapters, and verses. Note 3: the words which the King James does consist of were put together by a series of honest men who used their scholarly knowledge of Greek and Hebrew to bring the scriptures within the reach of people whose native language happened to be English. If arcane mysteries emerge from some distortion of the words or their letters, that’s neither here nor there in terms of getting teaching or comfort from the bible: you’d uncover pretty much the same wondrous revelations by applying the same techniques to any other tome of your choice.
By making such grossly over-inflated claims (not to say dishonest ones) these people make themselves a laughingstock – whether you have an academic interest in linguistics or not. But they also don’t care about dragging other Christians down with them. It’s not absurd to prefer the King James version for your daily readings – but it is most decidedly absurd to believe it’s inspired, or infallible, or somehow linguistically “pure”. Again, it’s not absurd to believe that the scriptures are inspired and infallible and (morally) pure – but you can’t equate the King James version with inspired scripture. God’s word is perspicuous and compelling, and God’s word is perfect, converting the soul, and God’s word is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword – but these things are not true in any absolute sense of any translation, including the King James. The claims of King James Onlyites, regrettably, do far more damage to the reputation of the bible by their hyperbole-not-to-say-fraudulence than the plain confessions of ordinary Christians can do in its favour.
You’ve only just now heard of Gail Riplinger? Her New Age Bible Versions has sold upwards of a half million copies. She gives lectures and some of these talks can be found on the internet.
This particular book, In Awe of Thy Word, is not all chaff. There is alot of wheat in it. If you value the AV 1611 you’re likely to find many interesting sections.
Having read your entire post I’d suggest gently that you reconsider some of the things you’ve written, or just hold off a little until you know more of what you criticize. Riplinger is mocked relentlessly (a bit too relentlessly) by those who champion the Alexandrian texts and who, even when they deny it, basically have a ‘thing’ against the King James Version. Riplinger, it has to be said, exposes much in their camp. They don’t like it.
With all influences use discernment to separate the wheat from the chaff. I wouldn’t write off Riplinger any more than I’d buy everything someone like James White says about the manuscript issues. Discernment. And don’t be afraid to go against the opinion of the world…
Um, hi Robert.
No, I’d heard of Riplinger before – the only reason I wrote this post was after our whole department was spammed about the avpublications.com site.
You’ll also notice that even tho my post is quite (inordinately!) long, I didn’t mentioned the Alexandrian texts or any manuscript issues at all. All four of the claims I’m disputing are on the front page of the site we were spammed about, and each of them is spurious.
The title of the post, perhaps, I admit, might do with some toning down – but I’m standing by the rest.
Cath
“it doesn’t make sense to say that you can find out the meanings of words from the words themselves.”
Well, whether one has or sees any practical application in what is being talked about regarding ‘built-in dictionary’ this isn’t what it is. And what Riplinger is talking about was known by translators such as Wycliffe and Tyndale.
“Note: printed texts don’t consist of sounds. They’re only audible when you turn the pages, or perhaps when they’re being used to bash people.”
Words consist of sounds though. The Word of God is not only to be read but to be proclaimed. Yet even when read silently words certainly carry or project their sounds. “The silent, slithery snake” can’t be read silently without the s sounds making an impact.
Anyway, as I said, there is chaff in Riplinger’s book(s), but there is a surprising amount of wheat as well. She digs things up. Of course it is de rigeur to mock Riplinger and to not admit that anything she’s written is worth a serious person’s time, but I don’t live in that particularly political-correct environment. I admire her zeal; she has a real faith; and as I stated above, she DOES expose things in the Alexandrian camp that they just simply don’t like being exposed.
One aspect of her book In Awe of Thy Word that is worth engaging is some of the history of the various translation (not just English) along with some of the things the older translators knew of that have been lost in time.
A side note: Riplinger is not a Calvinist, obviously. Yet if you listen to her talks she references Calvinists as being the most zealous for the Word of God (at least prior to the 19th century), and she references people like Foxe (I mean she really admires Foxe) acknowledging his Calvinism. Basically, though, she has a home base in a certain Baptist church culture and stays there. One gets the sense she is so beseiged she doesn’t mind having a home base to lean on…
‘Letters, for one thing, don’t have meanings. Fountainheads, meanwhile, are a hitherto unknown technical term whose use may in fact be restricted to the domain of avpublications.com.’
:D
Robert,
the so-called “built-in dictionary” is a farce, I’m afraid. There *is* no practical application, because it doesn’t make sense. In the pdf I linked to in the post, this claim is made:
One example of this, provided on p5 of the pdf, is the word ‘adamant,’ which happens to occur in two places in the OT, once in the phrase “an adamant harder than flint,” and once in the phrase, “an adamant stone.” The argument then goes: (a) Webster’s dictionary defines ‘adamant’ as “a very hard stone,” (b) the words ‘hard’ and ’stone’ occur in the bible in the same place as it uses the word ‘adamant’, (c) therefore the bible provides its own built-in definition of the word ‘adamant.’
The problem with this is, firstly, that the phrase “an adamant harder than flint” does NOT define the word ‘adamant’ (it’s simply a phrase which happens to contain that word) and, secondly, it’s not particularly interesting or insightful to notice that words often collocate with other words which mean roughly the same thing. — So when Webster’s happens to define this word using another word which just happens to collocate with it in the prophecy of Ezekiel, well, so what.
(This is of course quite apart from the two obvious methodological problems with the so-called research – how the words were identified as ‘difficult’ in the first place, and how the choice of these two dictionaries, Webster’s and the OED, was arrived at. Unless you’re doing lexicography, you just don’t do serious linguistic research relying on dictionaries.)
Btw – re the “words consist of sounds” thing – it’s actually a very fundamental principle of language-related studies that spoken language and written language should be kept separate. If you want to study them together, it needs to be done carefully. But using terms like the KJV’s “‘miraculously’ ordered sounds” is such a clanger – it makes it clear that the basic understanding of this fundamental principle is very much lacking in these publications.
So altho I’m not part of a circle where it’s de rigeur to mock Riplinger, I do know that making incoherent claims like these is one of the best ways known to mankind for ensuring that serious people don’t take you seriously – whether they’re overdefensive about the Alexandrian texts or not.
‘Adament’ would be singled out as difficult by the anti-KJV people. This is the only reason why it would be made an example. And the example given very much does give a general meaning of the word, as it is being used by Scripture.
You’re bringing your background to this and I would suggest reading more into it than the book or the is claiming for itself or for the things it’s presenting (many of which though were things known to folks like Tyndale and Wycliffe). Basically, the argument for the built-in dictionary is to counter claims by the Alexandrian folks that the KJV (and really, implied by them, the Bible itself) is just ‘too hard to undertand’ and what not.
Anyway, lexicons are not infallible authorities themselves for the meanings of words.
As for the sounds of words (written or spoken) that is discussed more in the realm of poetry and how words communicate rather than in any more sterile discipline of language study.
Okay, so firstly, i’ll pretend not to notice you writing off my whole discipline as sterile 8-0
Secondly, i agree that lexicons (i take it you mean dictionaries) aren’t infallible authorities … but then isn’t it a bit strange how they’re so crucial for the claims made in chapter 1 of that book – they’re cited as authorities which validate those claims, yet now we agree that they’re not even all that authoritative.
Thirdly, if the point is *only* that the KJV isn’t as hard to read as people make out, then that would be great. But it is completely unnecessary, as well as counterproductive, to dress up and surround that very reasonable statement with all the rubbish on that site! (I only picked FOUR claims which jumped out straight away – the rest is equally nonsensical and equally ripe for exactly the same kind of dismantling.) It’s a bit like children doing long division in primary school – sometimes they get the right answer, but by completely the wrong working. Except it’s not really like that, is it, because children struggling with long division usually get over it in the end, whereas Riplinger’s strategy, judging by what you’re saying, has only been to make her mistakes wilder and wilder as time goes by.
Finally, can i suggest that the only reason why people might think that the word ‘adamant’ is DEFINED in a phrase such as “an adamant harder than flint” where it’s only being MENTIONED, is because they already know what the word means (and it’s only because it’s one of so many similar examples that they don’t stop to wonder whether it isn’t in fact tautologous to say “an adamant harder than flint”).
Good… I completely agree with this point:
“The claims of King James Onlyites, regrettably, do far more damage to the reputation of the bible by their hyperbole-not-to-say-fraudulence than the plain confessions of ordinary Christians can do in its favour”
I think people discern the truth through all the noise from either side (and whatever more sides are making noise) when they can discern the truth. For me, any overstatement from the pro-KJV (or, speaking of manuscripts, pro-Traditional Text side) is mitigated by the fact that what the other side is presenting is ‘half pregnancy’ (which is full pregnancy) and the child in that womb has strange, red-colored eyes…
Eh?
You really can’t follow that?
You seem to be saying that you like this stuff even though it’s rubbish, just because it’s not anti-KJV.
But I honestly think you could set your sights a lot higher! That’s a very very low standard of acceptance for the arguments the Riplinger side is presenting – surely it would benefit everyone to recognise that nonsensical puffed up claims like these should be dismissed out of hand – then those of us who like the KJV wouldn’t be burdened with apologising for them, while people who have problems with the KJV could be met on some more intellectually viable basis.
Nobody should feel obliged to tolerate gibberish, when so many of the criticisms of the KJV can be countered on much more solid grounds than these. We don’t need to make things up in order to defend it!
(And note that I’m only saying “many of the criticisms of the KJV can be countered” – it would also be helpful to recognise that it really isn’t perfect! ‘The best we’ve got so far,’ is a big enough claim to be going on with.)
Once again: think wheat and chaff. Think ‘degree’. Riplinger isn’t all chaff. And her faith is real. Refreshingly zealous. Stands her ground against many fools and the opinion of the world. And she really, really does expose the Alexandrian side. And she really, really does dig up some interesting things in the realm of the history of English (and other languages) translation of the Holy Sciptures. And look up her responses to James White and other critics regarding ’solid ground’ and ‘intellectually viable’…
I was sure you two were never going to stop!
I haven’t read In Awe of Thy Word yet, but I do have a copy. I have been testing the “built in dictionary” to see if it works. Riplinger states that it will be defined in its first usage. I found froward in psalm 101, I don’t have a clue what froward means. I look it up in my lexicons and it says crooked or perverse, etc, etc. Most of them didn’t elaborate too much on the subject. Anyway, I looked up the first instance of froward and couldn’t find anything in the surrounding verses to back it up(Deuteronomy 32). So I’m thinking she’s out of her mind. However, Riplinger states to look at the peg words (words surrounding the difficult word) one of the pegs with froward is generation. I search generation in the chapter and in verse five we find crooked. I’m not saying it works everytime like is claimed, but I’m investigating it. We can’t knock something before we try it or read it. can we?
I don’t really have much to say about the book itself – my reaction is based on the claims which were advertised on the site.
I think the point numbered [1] in the original post, in conjunction with my reply #6, covers what you’re alluding to with this example.
Just going to leave the words of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ with you. You just read this and pray.
John 5:39 KJV
==========
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have
eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
good grief. I never read all this before. they’re serious!
8-0
Still, one step ahead of the woman this chap I know got talking to at a bus stop in Oxford – he couldn’t work out for ages what was odd about the conversation, until he worked out that she thought that the AV was the Bible, that is, the original version, not a translation!
Just going to leave the words of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ with you. You just read this and pray.
John 5:39-40 RSV
==========
You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
I’m reluctant to say publicly exactly how astounded I was when someone told me about KJV-Onlyism several years ago (reluctant because it would probably only add to their existing martyr complex). But yes, they really do seem to be serious.
And that choice of verses from John 5 are decidedly ironic, it did strike me at the time :)