Mark Ward vs. Daniel Haifley: Is the KJV Sufficiently Intelligible for Readers? Debate Review 2 of 2

On debate topic: “The King James Version is sufficiently intelligible to contemporary English readers," Dr. Daniel Haifley took the affirmative and Dr. Mark Ward the negative in an October 21, 2024 debate sponsored by the King James Only school Dayspring Bible College & Seminary and InGrace, ministries of the King James Bible Only Quentin Road Baptist Church of Lake Zurich, IL, pastored by Jim Scudder, Jr. Both Dr. Daniely Haifley and the debate hosts are associated with the King James Bible Research Council. Mark Ward is the author of the book Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible, ed. Elliot Ritzema, Lynnea Fraser, and Danielle Thevenaz (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).

The Ward / Haifley debate is reviewed by Thomas Ross.

This video is a follow-up to the "KJV Debate Preview: Mark Ward vs. Daniel Haifley: Is the KJV Sufficiently Intelligible for Readers?" video on the KJB1611 YouTube and KJBIBLE1611 Rumble channels.

Please also watch the Mark Ward vs. Daniel Haifley: Is the KJV Sufficiently Intelligible for Readers? Debate Review 1 of 2" video.

In Mark Ward's second statement, he claimed that the NKJV (New King James Version) is translated from the same Hebrew and Greek text as the KJV. He said that he has said this so many times that he has a shortcut on his computer to tell people this. However, that statement is false, as an examination of the preface to the NKJV demonstrates. Examples such as Isaiah 9:3; Revelation 6:11 & 2 John 7 demonstrate this fact.

In the Question and Answer period, Mark Ward quoted the following statement from the prefatory material to the King James Version: “But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itself, as in the language of Canaan, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar.” Daniel Haifley could have used this opportunity to explain how the KJV translators themselves wanted Scripture to be “understood” by the common man but never said that the Bible would be “in” the language of the common man. The KJV translators wanted Scripture to “speak like itself,” and so they translated it literally. The KJV fits within the parameters of the difficulty of the Hebrew and Greek texts. Daniel Haifley missed the opportunity to point out these facts.

Mark Ward also made an inaccurate and unfair comparison of people who believe they should continue to use the KJV exclusively in English with people who wanted to hide the Bible in the totally incomprehensible, dead language of the Latin Vulgate.

In his closing statement, Mark Ward made the shocking claim that “literally no one out there who is doing more work than I am to help people understand the King James Version. I am not boasting; there’s no competition; nobody else is even trying to teach people how to understand and define King James words.” Every Bible preacher and teacher who makes sure the sheep under his care understand their King James Bibles would strongly disagree. Every editor of the numbers of KJV Study Bibles that have marginal notes defining KJV words would disagree.

Mark Ward, in his closing statement, mentioned that he played William Tyndale in a school play when he was a child. Regrettably, Ward misrepresented the translation philosophy and practice of William Tyndale. Tyndale invented words like "atonement" and "scapegoat" that were not in English and put them into his Bible version. When he did this, he was following a practice seen in Scripture in passages such as Hebrews 4:9, where Paul coined the word "sabbatismos." The preface to Tyndale's 1526 New Testament also states that his version contains “words which are not commonly used,” and says that there are “many” words in Scripture which are “otherwise understood of the common people.” Tyndale's solution was "a table” telling people what those words mean—a word list! Tyndale’s own preface to his translation says that his translation has words that were not in common use and words that are (so called) “false friends”—words used differently from the ordinary way that the “common people” understood them. Tyndale’s solution to this is a “table”; a list of these words and an explanation for what they mean. In other words, Tyndale’s solution to uncommon words and what Dr. Ward calls “false friends” is exactly what King James Only Christians and advocates of Confessional Bibliology say is the solution for these words in the KJV—a list of the archaic words that explains what they mean. Since Tyndale invented a small number of words in his translation of the Bible, and the human authors of Scripture under the control of the Holy Spirit invented a small number of words in the original Biblical language texts, their practice is different from Mark Ward's affirmation that Scripture must be "in" the language of the common man, rather than being "comprehensible" to the common man.

Mark Ward's arguments against the KJV are invalid. However, what Daniel Haifley does is worse. Haifley denies Biblical repentance and corrupts the gospel.