Jack McElroy

I am not a King James Version Only (KJVO) advocate, but I do want to learn about the subject so I can understand and respond to the arguments better. I started reading the book with a couple of expectations: 1) The book would not likely change my opinion; 2) I would learn the arguments for the KJVO position. Unfortunately, even after finishing the book, I feel I didn't learn good arguments for the KJVO position. McElroy presented several straw-man arguments that are easy to demolish; both KJVO and non-KJV sides could agree on some of them.

The premise of the book is that Jesus would only use one version of the Bible, but I believe the premise is wrong. In Luke 4:17, Jesus is in a synagogue reading from the book of Isaiah, to Jews, probably reading in Hebrew. In other parts of the New Testament, Jesus speaks to non-Jews, most likely in Greek, probably using the Septuagint (a translation of the Hebrew scriptures done about 250 B.C.). Scholars believe most of the Old Testament quotes in the New Testament are from the Septuagint. On page 22, McElroy shows the Hebrew and Greek texts are different in Ecclesiastes 8:10, clearly implying one of them is wrong (and presumably shouldn't be used). I think Jesus's use of two Bibles (albeit in different languages), disproves the thesis of the book.

The first chapter points out eight verses that contain contradictions between different English Versions of the Bible, but nowhere in the book does McElroy present the KJV wording, nor does he defend the KJV translations for these verses.

There were a number of times when McElroy criticized scholars who argue against the KJVO position. He asks who has given them the authority to reject the KJV, but a similar question could be asked of McElroy: who gave McElroy the authority to reject other versions?

Most of the book gave criticisms against the use of other versions, but there was little discussion about why those same arguments don't apply to the KJV. McElroy spent very little time defending the use of the KJV, and his main argument is that it's been in use for 400 years, therefore it must be accurate.

I felt the most informative chapter in the book is chapter 15: Inspiration of Scripture--What it is and what it isn't.

On a minor note, the formatting of the book seemed amateurish. Almost every page had points in bold, centered text. It did emphasize the point, but it seemed unprofessional, and I think actually detracted from the arguments that were being presented. I greatly appreciated the book using footnotes instead of endnotes.

I really dislike giving bad reviews, and normally I'd prefer to not give any review than a bad one, but I just saw to many problems with this book to let it pass.… (más)