“Ellipsizing” in a point

“Baptists and the American Standard Version of the Bible” by Doug Kutilek was first published in As I See It, Volume 19, No. 3.[i] It has been republished at Sharper Iron, and Kutilek (on 16 Feb 2024) republished it to the Baptist History Preservation group on Facebook. Doug Kutilek is a very active anti-King James Onlyist promoter of modern versions.

This curious excerpt from his post obtained perhaps more notice and discussion than the rest of what he wrote about the ASV.

“In a book written around 1967, Dr. Richard V. Clearwaters, founder of Central Baptist Seminary of Minnesota and Pillsbury Baptist College, and widely recognized during his lifetime as a ‘Fundamentalist’s Fundamentalist,’ wrote:

“Honesty compels us to cite the 1901 American Revised as the best English Version of the original languages which places us in a position 290 years ahead of those who are still weighing the King James of 1611 for demerits.[ii] ... We know of no Fundamentalists ... that claim the King James as the best English translation. Those in the mainstream of Fundamentalism all claim the American Revised of 1901 as the best English translation.”[iii] The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise, pp. 192, 199.

The excerpt is curious in what it asserts and what it leaves out. The quote below includes a bit more material from before and after what Kutilek shared, plus a full sentence on page 199 without the ellipsis.

“One mark of scholarship at Central is that the Revised Standard Version of the Bible is never given praise or blame over the ‘straw man’ of the Authorized Version, either orally or in writing as some schools have delighted to do to impress people that they are up-to-date. Honesty compels us to cite the 1901 American Revised as the best English Version of the original languages which places us in a position 290 years ahead of those who are still weighing the King James of 1611 for demerits…We know of no Fundamentalists except the Carnell variety that claim the King James as the best English translation. Those in the mainstream of Fundamentalism all claim the American Revised of 1901 as the best English translation. We know of no competent scholar who would not rate it far above the Revised Standard Version, which Carnell quotes throughout his book.” The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise, pp. 192, 199.

By means of ellipsis (... three-dot punctuation to indicate material passed over, omission of words, admitting alteration of a direct quote), Doug Kutilek would have Richard Clearwaters say that no Fundamentalists thought the the KJV was better than the ASV. Additionally, Clearwaters himself creates some “plausible deniability” for his comment by later using the phrase “the mainstream of Fundamentalism,” thereby simply writing out of “the mainstream” those who disagree with him about the ASV!

However, we could take for example Philip Mauro. Mauro was a contributor to the original fundamentalist series The Fundamentals: A Testimony to The Truth. Surely one of that pedigree could not be written out of “the mainstream.” He wrote Which Version in 1924, defending the King James Version over and against the English and American revisions, as superior in underlying text, the quality of translation, as well as in its style and composition.

While Clearwaters touts the ASV as the Bible of “The” Fundamentalists, the editors of The Fundamentals: a Testimony, and particularly the author James M. Gray (then dean of Moody Bible Institute), criticizes the English Revised and ASV translation of 2 Timothy 3:16 – noting the superiority of the King James translation.

“As this verse is given somewhat differently in the Revised Version we dwell upon it a moment longer. It there reads, “Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable,” and the caviller is disposed to say that therefore some scripture may be inspired and some may not be, and that the profitableness extends only to the former and not the latter.

“But aside from the fact that Paul would hardly be guilty of such a weak truism as that, it may be stated in reply first, that the King James rendering of the passage is not only the more consistent scripture, but the more consistent Greek. Several of the best Greek scholars of the period affirm this, including some of the revisers themselves who did not vote for the change.” The Fundamentals: a Testimony to the Truth, Volume II, R. A. Torrey, editor. Los Angeles, CA: BIOLA, 1917, pp. 16, 21[iv]

When Richard V. Clearwaters writes “the Carnell variety” of Fundamentalists, he means the type of Fundamentalist mentioned by Edward John Carnell, a Baptist preacher and president of Fuller Seminary, in his book The Case for Orthodox Theology. Clearwaters is not identifying Carnell as a Fundamentalist. Rather, in his book Carnell complained of Fundamentalists clinging to the King James Version, writing:

“The mentality of fundamentalism is dominated by ideological thinking. Ideological thinking is rigid, intolerant, and doctrinaire…The fundamentalists’ crusade against the Revised Standard Version illustrates the point. The fury did not stem from a scholarly conviction that the version offends Hebrew and Greek idioms, for ideological thinking operates on far simpler criteria. First, there were modernists on the translation committee, and modernists corrupt whatever they touch. It does not occur to fundamentalism that translation requires only personal honesty and competent scholarship. Secondly, the Revised Standard Version’s copyright is held by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ. If a fundamentalist used the new version, he might give aid and comfort to the National Council; and that, on his principles, would be sin. By the same token, of course, a fundamentalist could not even buy groceries from a modernist. But ideological thinking is never celebrated for its consistency.” The Case for Orthodox Theology (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1959), p. 114

“The intellectual stagnation of fundamentalism can easily be illustrated. Knowing little about the canons of lower criticism, and less about the relation between language and culture, the fundamentalist has no norm by which to classify the relative merits of Biblical translations. As a result, he identifies the Word of God with the seventeenth-century language forms of the King James Version. Since other versions sound unfamiliar to him, he concludes that someone is tampering with the Word of God.” The Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 120

So, Clearwaters is not trying to make an accurate historical statement, but rather a polemical point, to distance himself from the Fundamentalists that Carnell criticized – and in doing so to assert that the “true” Fundamentalists are those who do not hold such a position. Carnell knew better, Clearwaters knew better,[v] and we know better. Kutilek should know better. This claim cannot be considered a completely valid historical statement of the relationship of the Fundamentalists (or Baptists) to the King James Bible.

Ellipses serve a purpose. When we quote authors there is not usually room to reproduce everything they said. Brevity has its place. However, we should not “ellipsize” out the facts in order to make our point – most especially when that point contradicts the original source.[vi] Too many “Bible version arguers” of all stripes do just that. Let us resolve to do better!

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[i] Probably published in March 2016, though I have not seen the year clearly given anywhere I have looked. As to Clearwaters’ book, The Great Conservative Baptist Compromise, it is hard to date as well. It is a mix of writings from various times. Chapter 12 was written in or after 1965, for at the time Blain Myron Cedarholm had served his 18 years as General Director of the Conservative Baptist Association (1947-1965; p. 180); it also mentions receiving a letter dated November 17, 1967 (Compromise, p. 184). So after 1967.
[ii] 290 is the number of years from the King James Bible of 1611 to the American Standard Version of 1901. This is a confusing comment, since Clearwaters and those in his orbit can only be ahead of others who are “still weighing the King James of 1611 for demerits” by the amount of time they began using the ASV to whenever this “still weighing” is occurring.
[iii] After this sentence Clearwaters writes, “We know of no competent scholar who would not rate it far above the Revised Standard Version, which Carnell quotes throughout his book.”

[iv] This is not to say that Gray consistently preferred the KJV above the ASV, but simply to show he did not think the ASV was always better. Gray acknowledged some Christians “who would be willing to retain the rendering of the Revised Version as being stronger than the King James” by introducing a word to make it say, “Every scripture (because) inspired of God is also profitable” (p. 16). Both J. M. Gray and L. W. Munhall take the position that translations are not inspired (p. 37).

[v] Thomas Cassidy, a former student and friend of Richard Clearwaters, in his praise of him included this telling statement: “Doc Clearwaters was my pastor and mentor while I was a member of Fourth Baptist and a student at Central Seminary. He was a truly great man. A bit flawed where his ego was concerned, but a great man nevertheless.” It is worth noting that Carnell’s position, against which Clearwaters argued, is the position of the modern text critic – that Bible “translation requires only personal honesty and competent scholarship.” The modern fundamentalist followers of Richard Clearwaters are, on this matter, closer in belief to Carnell than to Clearwaters, who held that “‘natural’ men who ‘receive not the things of the Spirit of God’ and hence totally unfit to translate or interpret what God has inspired” (Compromise, p. 199).

[vi] I also use ellipses (plural of ellipsis); most every one who quotes anyone does at some point. I am sad to say many King James Defenders use them ill-advisedly (see Getting It Right, for example). The wide distribution of material (books, tracts, etc.) has made it much easier to check original sources to see what had been left out of quotes. Many times we need to do so. It is worthwhile every time we have the sources to do so.