Calvin George defends the Septuagint – My response to his attack on my book

The most vocal defender of textual corruption in the Reina Valera 1960, Calvin George (Frontier Baptist Missions), wrote an article attacking my book Not One Jot or Tittle. The article was only written in Spanish so I have translated his statements to English using Google Translate so that American Pastors can see what is being taught to our Fundamental Baptist Spanish churches. The original article can be found here.

In chapter 2 of my book, I show the errors of the Greek Septuagint or LXX and why it is a grave error to leave Masoretic Hebrew to follow this corrupt text. You can read this chapter here.

I then show many examples of the RV1960 following the LXX and not the Hebrew. Here are a few examples just from the book of Genesis for context.

Calvin George has a difficult task in defending these and other corrupt readings. As we will see, he follows in the footsteps of every corrupt Bible defender before him and uses the same arguments that are used to defend the NIV, ESV, RSV, or whatever corrupt English Bible you want to try to justify. Let’s see what he had to say:

George: “In his book Putney presents the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) as if it were a rival or cruel enemy of the Masoretic Text, rather than a tool for the translator that complements the Hebrew text: … This seems to be a case of not understanding how translators have historically gone about doing their translation works.”

In his article, Calvin George becomes the defender of what is almost universally viewed amongst Fundamental Baptists as a corrupt text. I am painted as an ignorant novice who just does not understand the issue.

George agrees with me that the Hebrew is reliable, and the Septuagint is corrupt. Quoting from his article:

George: “Others appropriately trained have studied the Old Testament text and have assured us that the Masoretic Text is reliable ... The Septuagint contains mistranslations in a few places and has many problems.”

One would think that with such an admission, George would be on my side. Should we not then follow the “reliable” text and not the one with “mistranslations?” This logic escapes George however because he must defend the RV1960 no matter the cost. He is now forced to defend the corrupt Greek translation of the Hebrew that has in his own words, “many problems.” Let’s take a look at how he does it.

1. George accuses Jesus of using a corrupt Bible

George: Even if you believe that Jesus and the apostles quoted from the Septuagint, and accepting that the Septuagint as it has come down to us has its flaws, and that there are a few places where it does not agree with the Masoretic Text, this does not constitute a crisis of faith, and ultimately does not affect any doctrine or the reliability of the Bible. We can trust the Reina-Valera as the Word of God!

George attacks me for explaining in my book why it is false that Jesus used the corrupt LXX and not the Hebrew Bible. This is important because by his logic if Jesus used a corrupt translation, it is okay for us to use corrupt translations as well (RV1960).

What George is doing here is accusing Jesus of being a hypocrite. Jesus spoke of the preservation of the Hebrew Bible, not the Greek Bible. In Matthew 5:18 Jesus said:

“For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

Jots and tittles are from the Hebrew language. Jesus is speaking to the importance of every minute detail of the Hebrew Bible. Why would Jesus then use a corrupt Greek Bible instead of the Hebrew? In my book, I provide much more evidence as to why Jesus used the Hebrew Bible and not the corrupt LXX. George seems to recognize that he has created a problem for himself by accusing Jesus of this and so he tries to back himself out of it by crying “mystery.”

George: “Although we long for answers to our questions, we must recognize that there will be aspects of how God has worked in history that will remain somewhat mysterious. In such cases we must be content to rest in the promises of God.”

George says that, although we want to know why Jesus would not be a hypocrite for abandoning the perfect Hebrew for the corrupt Septuagint, its simply just “mysterious” and "we must rest in the promises of God." Crying mystery when your argument is illogical and against what the Bible teaches is insulting to our intelligence and reminds me of arguing with a Calvinist.  

If we take this argument of George to its logical conclusion then there is not limit to the amount of corruptions we can accept in our Bible. If Jesus was ok with textual corruption, then why not use the NIV or New Living translation? Why should one have a problem with the dozens of verses removed from our Bibles if Jesus was ok with corruption? This argument is 100% against the teaching of Scripture. Deuteronomy 4:2 states:

“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.”

The reader must recognize that Bible critics like Calvin George never use Scripture to defend corruptions, only liberal and modernistic logic. You will never see them show a verse of Scripture to argue that corruption is acceptable in their Bibles because no Scripture exists that supports that idea.

I will not take the time to restate why Jesus did not use the Septuagint. I would recommend that the reader read Chapter 2 of my book or click here to investigate further. Dr. Phil Stringer has an excellent article on the subject as well that you can find here: Was the Septuagint the Bible of Christ and the Apostles?

2. George tries to make this an argument of “Ruckmanites”

George: To my knowledge, the apostate Peter Ruckman was the originator of these kinds of objections, especially that the Septuagint quotes from the New Testament, and not the other way around. Putney depends on Moorman, but Moorman confesses to having taken these ideas from Ruckman

First, I always think it's funny when critics bring up Ruckman's name, as if he were the only person who has written books about Bible preservation through the centuries. Dr. Stringer has a funny saying, "Ruckmanite is what critics call you when they're losing the argument."

This is one of George’s classic moves to defend the RV1960. Anyone who objects to its corruptions is a “Ruckmanite”. This is called an Ad Homonym attack. He doesn’t want to deal with the argument, so he just attacks the credibility of his opponents.

Second, George does not know what he's talking about. Ruckman did believe that the Septuagint did not quote Christ and was possibly made later, but this idea did not originate with him. Jerome (died in 420 AD) also doubted the authenticity of the Septuagint and disputed with Augustine over his assertion that the apostles frequently quoted it. Professor Pablo Kahle (1875-1964) wrote a lot about the subject as well. Many others have believed the same. George just doesn't know what he's talking about. Dr. Stringer documents this well in his article on the Septuagint.

3. George tries to provide an example of Jesus quoting the Septuagint

George tries to convince us that Jesus quoted the Septuagint with a comparison of Isaiah 61:1 and Luke 4:18. Let’s look at his example in detail.

Isaiah 61:1 KJV (Hebrew)

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me;

because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek;

he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

Isaiah 61:1 LES (Septuagint)

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

on account of which he has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the poor,

to heal those who are crushed in heart,

to announce release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind

Luke 4:18 KJV

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;

he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,

to preach deliverance to the captives,

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty them that are bruised,

If Jesus is reading from the Septuagint in Luke 4:18, why is there such a difference from the Septuagint? The reality is that Luke 4:18 has differences from both Hebrew and the Septuagint. Even in the Hebrew Old Testament there are quotes that are not the same. For example, Jeremiah 26:18 quotes Micah 3:12 in a slightly different way. This is because the Holy Spirit has the right to inspire the text as he wishes. Quoting Dr. Moorman:

"There are about 263 direct quotations from the Old Testament in the New, and of these only 88 correspond closely to the Septuagint. A further 64 are used with some variations, 37 have the same meaning expressed in different words, 16 agree more closely with the Hebrew, and 20 differ both from the Hebrew and the Septuagint."

Jesus would never be reading from a Greek Bible in the Synagogue when the sacred language was Hebrew and the spoken language was Aramaic. Calvin George’s accusation of Jesus doing so is absurd.

4. George attacks the King James Bible

George attempts to justify the LXX corruptions in the RV1960 by accusing the King James Bible of having abandoned reliable texts to follow corrupt texts. This is another one of his classic moves.

First, George cites the King James Bible translators using other translations as tools in determining the meaning of an ancient word. I agree with George and the King James translators that other ancient translations can be helpful in determining the correct translation of an ancient word. But this is very different than abandoning the pure text to follow a corrupt text as the RV1960 does. Then George refers to Edward Hill to prove his point.

George: An easy case to understand is Psalm 22:16, where in the last phrase of the verse a prophecy of the crucifixion appears: “They pierced my hands and my feet” (RV 1909 / 1960 / RVG / KJV). The issue is that the term “pierced” comes from the Septuagint, because the Hebrew word in the Masoretic Text in its natural translation would be “lion.”

This is simply not true. Yes, there are Hebrew manuscripts of the Masoretic Text that say "they pierced." In Hebrew, כארי can be translated "like a lion." The word כארו can be translated pierce. We should note that the difference between the words is only half a line in the first letter.

There are manuscripts of the Masoretic Hebrew that contain כארו (pierce), Ben Chayyim wrote about these manuscripts. Some manuscripts have כארו (pierce) and others כארי (like a lion). Pierce is also found in the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew), and Syriac. The KJV Bible translators correctly discerned that “pierce” is the correct translation in this case because there is evidence in the manuscripts and “like a lion” does not make sense. The KJV Bible translators did not abandon the reliable text for a corrupt text like the RV1960 does. George then brings up Jeremiah 3:9 and quotes Dr. Hill.

George quoting Hill: In Jeremiah 3:9, the KJV margin says “fame” along with the Hebrew “kethibh,” but the KJV text says “lightness” according to the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate.1.

Here George again omits key information to suggest that the Hebrew text was abandoned completely. On the same page that George cites, Dr. Hill noted that the variant readings were found in the Hebrew manuscripts as well. Why did George leave out this information? Maybe because he didn't support his point?

We must ask George, what fixed evidence do you have that these differences only appeared in the Septuagint and Jerome’s Vulgate? How about the oldest and most reliable Latin manuscripts they used? Translators also used many ancient and reliable Bible manuscripts in Latin before Jerome. Does George know they weren't in the dozens of ancient Latin manuscripts either? Have you researched this? Do you still know what all the ancient manuscripts and Bibles the KJV Bible translators used? If George wants to accuse the KJV Bible of using corrupt texts the burden of proof is with him. While I agree with Dr. Hill on many things, he is not the sole authority on the sources used by the KJV.

The truth is that the only way George can defend the corruptions in the RV1960 is to claim that the KJV is also corrupt. Those who have attempted to do this have failed miserably for over 400 years. George is just another statistic in the long list of critics who have tried and failed to discredit the purity and accuracy of the KJV.

Conclusion

I stand by what I wrote in my book on the fact that the RV1960 contains many corrupt readings from the Greek Septuagint and that this is not ok. I refuse to accept the liberal modern textual criticism put forth by those like Calvin George. These men seem to have no limits to the number of corruptions that they are willing to accept or the lengths that they are willing to go to so that they can defend those corruptions. We must reject their psuedo-scholarship and continue to teach and preach the importance of textual purity in all Bible translations. That is why I use the KJV in English and it is also why I use the RVG in Spanish.

1. (Hills, Edward. The King James Version Defended. Des Moines: Creation Research Press, 4th edition, 1984, p. 223)