W. C. Bitting and KJVO in 1898

W. C. Bitting seemed to think that there were KJVO Baptists – those who believed “that the King James’ Version was dictated by the mouth of God” – among the Northern Baptists in 1898.

“Side by side in our fold exist the allegorist and the literalist; the scientific student, and the traditionalist interpreter; the higher critic and the one who believes that the King James’ Version was dictated by the mouth of God: the eager recipient of every ray of light from history, the spade, philology, comparative religion, and every possible source of illumination, and the one who was scorning all these helps, looks for immediate and direct illumination by the Holy Spirit.”

– W. C. Bitting, “The Opportunity for Baptists in Present Religious Progress,” in Proceedings of the Baptist Congress at Buffalo, NY, 1898, p. 40 (as quoted in The Making of a Battle Royal: The Rise of Liberalism in Northern Baptist Life, 1870-1920, by Jeffrey Paul Straub, p. 236)