Mark Ward KJV / KJB Critique: Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible Review, part 1

Mark Ward is a popular opponent of the exclusive use of the King James Version of 1611 (KJV1611); indeed, he argues that not only exclusive use, but using the King James Bible (KJB1611) or Authorized Version (AV1611) at all is in many contexts, actually a sin: "For public preaching ministry, for evangelism, for discipleship materials, indeed for most situations outside individual study, using the KJV violates [Scripture.]"

Ward argues against the KJV in his book Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, in public debate with Daniel Haifley of the King James Bible Research Council, in many YouTube videos, in a survey made by the "Textual Confidence Collective," and in other resources. Refusing to debate publicly or provide a careful written response to Thomas Ross, Ward created three videos to respond to Ross's case for the KJV's sufficient intelligibility. Ward's arguments appear on his YouTube channel in videos entitled: Brand New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 1 of 3), More New KJV-Only Arguments (Part 2 of 3), and Surprising New KJV-Only Arguments! (Part 3 of 3).

In the video series of which this is the first part, Thomas Ross evaluates many of the invalid arguments of Mark Ward against the KJV. By objective standards of evaluation in Scripture, there is no doubt that the King James Version is clearly intelligible to contemporary English readers.

Words Ward calls "false friends" are at the heart of this attack on the KJV. Ward claims: “I am the greatest expert on KJV false friends … I’ve written hundreds of scripts and two books and shot videos and put in thousands of hours studying KJV false friends.” “[There is] literally no one out there who is doing more work than I am to help people understand the King James Version … nobody else is even trying to teach people how to understand and define King James words.” In his book Authorized, Mark Ward claims: “[Y]ou could have almost no way of knowing about … the phenomenon of ‘false friends’ … if you hadn’t picked up this book." However, Ward’s claims are false and overblown.

Sadly, Ward’s book Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible contains almost no exposition of Scripture at all. Dr. Ward takes the extreme, grossly unbiblical position that Scripture contains no promises at all about its own preservation, much less about the means through which that preservation would take place. He declares: “God gave us zero direction on how to do textual criticism aside from the light of nature.” Also sadly, Ward's book never examines the linguistic level of the Hebrew and Greek texts God has given His people in order to ascertain the appropriate level of difficulty for vernacular Bible translation. Indeed, as Ward admits in his three videos responding to Thomas Ross, this idea never even entered his mind. He views it as a “new” King James Only argument. Ward's only attempt at an exegetical argument in his Authorized is a silly abuse of 1 Corinthians 14, specifically a verse about employing clear enunciation when speaking miraculously in a foreign language or tongue.

Unfortunately, just like Mark Ward takes Scripture out of context, so he takes his extrabiblical sources out of context. He misuses Deissmann to claim that the New Testament is at the same literary level as the majority of Greek papyri. However, the serious Greek scholar Daniel Wallace points out that the New Testament is actually "above the level" of the papyri. Ward similarly misuses the T & T Clark Companion to the Septuagint to claim that the LXX is at a very low, "sub-literary" Greek, drawing conclusions radically different from the plain meaning of that book's author in context and evidencing little understanding about the Septuagint.

Mark Ward adopted his key concept of “false friends” from English scholar John McWhorter’s book Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still. However, Mark Ward alters the meaning of "false friend" found in Dr. McWhorter and draws very different conclusions from McWhorter. Mark Ward misuses David Clines to argue that “[r]egular Bible readers” and even “scholars studying the KJV” “should look up the OED for every word,” a radical conclusion nobody is drawing for Matthew Henry’s Commentary, the 1650 Scottish Psalter, 17th century Baptist Confessions, the Westminster Confession of Faith, 17th century hymn writers, or for any secular 17th century literature, including the much more complex English of Shakespeare.

Ward also misuses William Tyndale, who commended readers to a word list or "table to expound the words which are not commonly used"-exactly the solution to misunderstood words employed by KJV-only Christians today. Moreover, Christ, the Apostles, and men like Tyndale actually invented words used by nobody else-they did not use only common words.

Mark Ward’s book Authorized is poorly argued and filled with distortions of Scripture, ancient historical sources, and modern writing about the English language.