Reprinted with permission from Bible Baptist Church International
By Geneha Kim
There are Baptists truly thinking that Dr. Ruckman was the one who created a cult belief that the KJV is infallible or given by inspiration of God. They accuse Bible-believers accepting the infallibility or inspiration of the KJV for being “Ruckmanites.” However, this charge is conjecture without evidence or scriptural proof. The only attack that the Fundamentalists can use is that there was no person claiming that the King James Bible is infallible or given by inspiration of God before Dr. Ruckman in 1950. But just because there is no such claim found in many old books that are extinct, it does not really prove that there was no Christian believing in the infallibility or inspiration of the King James Bible.
Let me display some true documentation of people believing in the infallibility and inspiration of the King James Bible without either associating with Dr. Ruckman or hearing about the name of Ruckman.
The Englishmen of the 17th Century:
“Woodbridge and Balmer admit ‘it is true that in the 17th century A GOOD NUMBER OF CHRISTIANS ESTEEMED THAT THE BIBLES THEY HELD IN THEIR HANDS WERE INFALLIBLE….’ Whitaker used the word ‘originals’ interchangeably for both the AUTOGRAPHS AS WELL AS HIS PRESENT COPIES. Whitaker: ‘We must hold therefore that we have now those very ancient SCRIPTURES which Moses and the prophets published, although we have not perhaps precisely the same forms and shapes of the letters….God’s Word [citing John Jewel] yet continueth still without adding or altering OF ANY ONE SENTENCE, OR WORD OR LETTER.’…‘Some Englishmen apparently did think that their Bibles PERFECTLY REFLECTED THE ORIGINALS.”
Philpotts in 1880:
“The AV we believe is the grand bulwark of Protestantism; the safeguard of the Gospel and the treasure of the church, and we should be TRAITORS, in EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD, if we consented to giving it up to be rifled by Puseyites, concealed Papists, German Neologians, Infidel divines, Arminians, Socinians, and the whole tribe of the ENEMIES OF GOD AND GODLINESS…To alter our Bible ?the KJV? would unsettle the minds of thousands as to which was the word of God…there would be TWO Bibles spread throughout the land and what CONFUSION this would create in almost every place.”
John Bunyan in 1680:
“A University man met Bunyan on the road near Cambridge. Said he to Bunyan, ‘How dare you preach when you do not have the original scriptures?’ ‘DO YOU HAVE THEM, the copies written by the apostles and prophets?’ asked Bunyan, ‘no,’ replied the scholar, ‘but I have what I believe to be a TRUE COPY OF THE ORIGINAL.’ ‘And I,’ said Bunyan, ‘believe THE ENGLISH BIBLE to be a true copy, too,’”
Hugh Martin in 1800’s:
“Is the written Word of God no longer God’s written Word because it has been TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH?…The translated Word of God is still the Word of God when translated and TAKES RANK WITH YET UNTRANSLATED SCRIPTURE scrupled freely to quote and to wield as possessing divine character and authority…And He being in His graciousness, not ill to please, but pleased with reverential HONEST effort—counts TRANSLATED SCRIPTURE GOD’S SCRIPTURE still, we surely may be content.”
Benjamin Franklin Dearmore in 1900’s:
“As for me, I will take the King James translation as the very Word of God for the English people. I believe it is without error. It is 100 percent correct…I do positively state that people who do not know a word of Greek can become real Bible scholars. Many times their understanding is far greater than the Greek scholars.”
William Aberhart in 1878-1943:
“My heart leaped for joy as my mind was saturated with new confidence. The moment the story began to dawn upon me as we were tracing our way following the pure stream of the divinely inspired Bible, back, back to the divinely inbreathed autographs, my whole life changed…Mr. Aberhart was one of the greatest Bible teachers in Canada. He was the first person I came in contact with WHO KNEW THE TRUE STORY OF THE DIVINE INSPIRATION AND PRESERVATION OF GOD’S HOLY WORD. He explained how it came down from the first apostolic faultless autograph, its safe keeping through the Byzantine church, the majority reformation copy by Erasmus of Rotterdam, William Tyndale’s translation, the Authorized committee of mental and spiritual giants and the resultant glorious treasure—the Authorized Version.”
Sam Morris before 1946:
“Open the Bible [KJV] where you will, and the first impression is that of vastness…It is the writing of God, and is NOT the work of man BUT OF GOD HIMSELF…This is not verbal inspiration, it is letter INSPIRATION. It is carrying inspiration to the very finest point possible. For if every letter was inspired, then every word, syllable, verse, chapter and book had to be inspired and is, therefore, authoritative. That is exactly the claim Paul made for the Scriptures when he wrote, ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God…it wasn’t Paul speaking anyway. It was the great God of MY MOTHER’S BIBLE [KJV]. He did not know it because He created men and so His Spirit took possession of Paul and ‘moved’ him to write this scientific truth…when we open the New Testament, the Word which was in the beginning with God becomes flesh and dwells among us, and we behold His Glory, the Glory as one of the only begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth.”
Solomon Malan from 1800’s:
Thus, then, the ENGLISH BIBLE has not only stood for centuries, and now stands on its own merits AS A TRUE WITNESS OF THE INSPIRED TEXT OF SCRIPTURE…but God enabled them to stand as upon Mount Sinai, and crane up their country’s language TO THE DIGNITY OF THE ORIGINALS…It [the KJV] may be compared with any translation in the world, without fear or inferiority; it has not shrunk from the most rigorous examination; it challenges investigation; and, in spite of numerous attempts to supersede it, it has hitherto remained unrivalled in the affections of the country.”
Common Fundamentalists throughout History:
“For fundamentalist society as a whole the Authorized Version functioned as the direct
and immediate expression or transcript of divine revelation…The virtual use of only one English version, and it one originating within very traditional early seventeenth-century Christianity, thus indirectly but very powerfully supported the alienation of the fundamentalist public from, and its opposition to, the positions, interests and methods from which all biblical criticism grew and on which it depended.”
“That is why the KJV has such life and power and authority. It is the INSPIRED, INERRANT, Word of God…Those who want to call the KJV the Word of God, but say that it is not inspired or inerrant have an obvious problem…Almost all common, ordinary, Bible-believing fundamentalists have accepted the KJV as their final authority. We speak not of professors or scholars but of the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians. Their final authority was never the autographs, nor Nestle’s Greek, nor any other Greek text, nor any scholar. The final authority for Bible-believing fundamentalists has been the King James Bible.”
These numbers of witnesses, including ordinary Fundamentalists, have believed the KJV to be given by inspiration of God without even hearing the name of Dr. Peter S. Ruckman. Ministers, who have labeled KJV Bible-believing people to believe in a cult named “Ruckmanism,” are careless in trying to make Dr. Ruckman as the inventor for the infallibility and inspiration of the KJV.