Not looking for answers

Many people are not looking for answers. Instead, they are looking for problems. Rather than being under biblical authority, they like being their own authority.

I wrote the above sentences a long time ago. Recently I ran across a vivid example of “not looking for answers” – Mark Ward’s “King James Bible Study Project.” In it he has 20 questions to evaluate “the current readability level of the King James Bible.” I have deliberately ignored Mark’s “test” or “survey” site until now, because I believe the test itself is designed to deceive (that is, collect answers merely to prove a point). To see what was going on, I clicked on the “Take the Survey Yourself” link. The first thing I found was this statement at the head of the page.

“King James Bible Study Project Survey

“This is a twenty-question survey that is sponsored by the Textual Confidence Collective and focused on the English of the King James Bible. Opponents of current pulpit use of the King James Bible argue that it is too hard to read. We are trying to evaluate whether or not KJV English is as difficult as those opponents believe. This survey should take less than twenty minutes. Your name will not be made public.”

Most of those of us engaged in the Bible versions debate will know who (and what) the “Textual Confidence Collective” is. However, the name will be mostly meaningless to others. Additionally, “confidence” probably will have a different connotation to the average person than its meaning in the name of the TCC. After identifying the sponsors, the site states a purpose: “Opponents of current pulpit use of the King James Bible argue that it is too hard to read. We are trying to evaluate whether or not KJV English is as difficult as those opponents believe.”

That statement tries to create the feeling of a neutral survey, but that attempt is disingenuous. If you know who is behind the survey – Mark Ward – then you will also know that (1) he is an opponent of current pulpit use of the King James Bible, and that (2) he is not really “trying to evaluate” something, but rather “trying to prove” what he already been saying for six or more years (that people should not use the King James Bible in institutional settings, and even should not give it to children to read).[i] He is “not looking for answers” but rather a tool to further his agenda.[ii]

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[i] In one question in the survey, Mark references Proverbs 22:28 KJV, and asks, “What does it mean to ‘remove’ a landmark?” He gives four possible answers, only one of which he will allow could be correct: (1) To progress in a direction; (2) To change position, to move a short distance or in a certain direction; (3) Take (something) away or off from the position occupied; (4) I don’t know. In Mark’s mind “remove the ancient landmark” cannot mean “Take (something) away or off from the position occupied” and must only mean “To change position; to move a short distance or in a certain direction.” And yet this is a distinction with little difference, at least without a good bit of detailed discussion and explanation of what one means by it. To move something off the position occupied can be to change its position, to move it a short distance. If you move a boundary mark “a short distance,” you have moved it off the position occupied. The folks surveyed cannot read Mark’s mind, which he has closed to any objections, but they can know that these things could describe the same thing! In the survey itself it is not clear whether the answer “Take (something) away or off from the position occupied” implies to haul something off for miles & miles (to make it disappear, which it means in Mark’s mind) or to simply move it from the position occupied to a different location ten feet away. Such a survey question suggests to me that the surveyor did not really want to know if they people surveyed are understanding the meaning of “remove the landmark,” but rather “was not looking for answers.” Additionally if it were true that readers cannot understand “remove” in Proverbs 22:28 in the King James Bible, is it not also likely true that they cannot understand “remove” when it is used in the Common English Bible (2011), International Standard Version (1995-2014), Lexham English Bible (2012, by Logos, for whom Mark used to work), New American Bible Revised Edition (1970-2010), New King James Version (1982), New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (2021), and Revised Standard Version (1952-1971)?
[ii] Mark Ward has built a False Friends Restaurant chain and is selling franchises all over the world. There will be a time when Christian friends will find they are built of wood, hay, and stubble. I pray it may be sooner rather than later.