God’s Marked Places in the King James Bible Debate
In the Bible, God gives places spiritual meaning as witnesses. Jerusalem is not just a city. Egypt is not just a country. Babylon is not just an empire. These places show us where God is working, what God is blessing and what God is calling His people out of.
That’s why Acts 11:26 flashes like a neon light. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. This chapter and verse with its location is a great Biblical history turning point where the gospel goes beyond Jerusalem. The door opens to the Gentiles. The faith once centered among the Jews throughout the entire Old Testament now moves outward into the Gentile world. And in that transition, God puts His mark on a specific place—Antioch.
And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch is not a throwaway detail. God attached the Christian name to Antioch. Jerusalem was the great Jewish center. Antioch became the early Christian center. In Antioch, believers were taught. From Antioch, Paul and Barnabas would later be sent out by the Holy Ghost for missionary work (Acts 13:1-4).
Bible version locations
With that in mind, let’s expand out to where the Bible versions we use today originate from. In broad terms, the English Bibles available today come from two different ancient-text streams associated with locations. The KJV New Testament comes from the Antioch/Received Text stream. On the other hand, most modern versions lean heavily on the Alexandrian line of manuscripts and the methods of textual criticism.
Alexandria. Where is that? Egypt. What do we know about Egypt (and Alexandria) from Scripture? Egypt is not the place of spiritual purity. Egypt is the place God calls His people out of. Israel came out of Egypt. Joseph’s bones came out of Egypt. Moses rejected his Egyptian upbringing, choosing “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.”
That raises a simple spiritual question: why would God place the Christian name and missionary base in Antioch, yet preserve His Bible through Alexandria, Egypt?
Alexandria itself has revealing Biblical associations. In Acts 6:9, Alexandrians appear among those disputing with Stephen, a man full of faith and power. The disputation led to Stephen’s stoning.
Historically, Alexandria is a “heady” place. It is associated with disputation, eloquence, incomplete light, scholarship, and unbelieving Bible scholars who were the forefathers to “textual criticism.” What is that? Textual criticism approaches the ancient Bible manuscripts as text to be reconstructed. It asks, “What did God probably say?” (Read here for further details on manuscript evidence.)
Faith asks a better question: “Where did God preserve what He said?” Psalm 12:6-7 says, 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.
The best approach to the Bible is not an understanding of proud, “scholarly” parsing of manuscripts. I ask, is it better to stand over the Bible as judges or under it as believers?
God put His signature on Antioch. He gave the Christian name there. He sent missionaries from there. He blessed Bible teaching there.
Is it any surprise that in the last days, the world has shifted its attention from Antioch to Alexandria, from faith to criticism, from preservation to reconstruction. In these last days before Jesus returns, we think nothing of rewriting the Bible every few years for something “fresher.” But God did not promise to keep His words fresh. He promised to keep them pure.
Read here for further thoughts on why people are so adamant about the KJV, and read here for what Bible colleges teach about Bible versions.
R&J Shee