Here’s another refuting the false logic and unscriptural position of KJV Onlyist. This time the text in question is Acts 8:37. Here is the false and illogical accusation of a KJV Onlyists on this particular text:
“Acts 8:37 – Unbeliever’s Baptism
And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. (KJV)
Omitted. (ESV and other Vaticanus-based versions)
The KJV refutes infant baptism. It is omitted or bracketed as spurious by the Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and modern translations, thereby providing support for baptizing people who have not believed, such as infants and the dead. Phillip said baptism was contingent on saving faith when the Ethiopian eunuch asked if he could be baptized immediately:
And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? (Acts 8:36)
Baptizing adults who professed faith in Christ was anathema to the founders of many modern Protestant churches. Luther for example was incredulous that Anabaptists (wiedertaufers or re-baptizers) wouldn’t accept that infant baptism, including of unwilling Jews, was effective. Other leading figures of the Protestant Reformation expressed similar views, even going so far as to say the children were born holy (Beza and Knox, below), which is a stark perversion of New Testament teaching:
How can baptism be more grievously reviled and disgraced than when we say that baptism given to an unbelieving man is not good and genuine baptism! …What, baptism rendered ineffective because I do not believe?… What more blasphemous and offensive doctrine could the devil himself invent and preach? And yet the Anabaptists … are full up to their ears with this teaching. I put for the following: Here is a Jew that accepts baptism, as happens often enough, but does not believe, would you say that this was not real baptism, because he does not believe? That would be to think as a fool thinks not only, but to blaspheme and disgrace God moreover. (Luther, on whether involuntary baptism of Jewish children was efficacious)
Be baptized every one of you…, for the promise is unto you and to your children! … This passage therefore sufficiently refutes the Anabaptists, who deny baptism to the children of the faithful while they are still infants, as though they were not members of the Church…. This gross presumption is of no profit to them … What was I, that I could withstand God? … Those who are opposing infant baptism, are waging war against God. (Calvin)
The children of Christians are not less the children of God than their parents are, or than the children of Old Testament times were: but if they belong to God, who will refuse them baptism? (Zwingli)
Good News! Let’s all go for a plunge in the Limmat! Let every pious Christian observe with what fabrications the old enemy comes now to trick us in order to deceive us. (Zwingli, mocking Anabaptists for baptizing adults in a local river)
Since the young babes and infants of the faithful are in the number of reckoning of God’s people, and partakers of the promise touching the purification through Christ; it followeth of necessity, that they are as well to be baptized, as they that be of perfect age which professes the Christian faith (Bullinger)
It cannot be the case that those who have been sanctified by birth and have been separated from the children of unbelievers, do not have the seed or germ of faith. (Beza)
The conviction of the writers of that Book of Common Order was thus the biblical perception that the children of believers are Christians already, before being baptized in their infancy. (Knox)
Many more quotes could be added to these, but the fundamental incompatibility of the views of the Reformers and Scripture is immediately apparent. The former teaches the effectiveness of unbeliever’s baptism while the latter teaches baptism is only meaningful for people who are old enough to make a profession of faith. Not surprisingly, the same modern, liberal churches that abandoned the KJV have embraced translations compatible with Rome’s teachings and the Vaticanus text.”
Here is my response to the above argument.
Once again fake news coming from the KJV Only Camp. Consider the following facts:
1.) It is not omitted in modern versions to provide “support for baptizing people who have not believed, such as infants and the dead.” Not true all ! It is omitted because the earliest manuscripts does not have this. (See number 4)
2.) As pointed out, how could the omission of this verse support the fact that the KJV refutes infants Baptism when the KJV translators were part of the Church of England and they supported infant baptism ! Nothing in the KJV indicates that they refuted infant baptism ever ! (nor in any literature anywhere)
3.) The word English word “baptism” is not a translation at all. It is a mere transliteration from the Greek word “baptizo.” It means to dip, immerse. The question is why did the KJV translators “transliterate” instead of using “immerse” ? Anti-KJV-only conspiracy theorists postulate that the KJV translators did this to hide the fact that THEY SUPPORTED INFANT BAPTISM AND NOT IMMERSION ! (There goes your conspiracy theory ) They go as far as saying that the KJV translators wanted to conceal the fact that infant baptism is wrong so they transliterated and they did not translated the full meaning of the word which should be better translated as “immersion.” However don’t you worry KJV Onlyists, I am on your side on this, I do not wholly agree with this conspiracy theory considering the fact that the KJV Translators made this statement in the KJV’s preface:
“We have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put washing for Baptism, and Congregation instead of Church.”
In other words they decided to render “baptiso” as “Baptism” not because they want to conceal something but because they want to retain the “Ecceliastical words” considering that these words has long been used before the KJV. (They wanted to retain the traditional use of these words)
4.) The simple fact is, Acts 8:37 is not in any of the earliest manuscripts hence it’s being part of the original text is in doubt. Consider the following comments by scholars:
John Polhill professor of New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky writes in the New American Commentary:
“Verse 37 is omitted from the NIV text of Acts, and for good reasons. It is not found in the early manuscripts of Acts and seems to be a later scribal addition. It is given in a footnote of the NIV and consists of a profession of faith on the part of the eunuch. Evidently a scribe felt this [Vol 26: Acts, p. 227] was lacking and so provided the missing confession of faith. He did not need to do so. Luke had summarized Philip’s sharing the gospel with the eunuch in v. 35, and one can assume it included an appeal for the eunuch to respond. The eunuch’s desire for baptism would indicate a favorable response to Philip’s appeal. The added verse, however, has considerable value. It seems to embody a very early Christian baptismal confession where the one baptizing asked the candidate if he believed in Christ with all his heart, to which the candidate would respond by confessing Jesus Christ as the Son of God. This old confession is of real significance to the history of early Christian confessions and would be appropriate to the baptismal ceremony today. To that extent we can be grateful to the pious scribe who ascribed to the eunuch the baptismal confession of his own day.”
Scottish New Testament scholar I. Howard Marshall in the Tyndale Commentary writes “the lack of any clear mention of these things led some early scribe to ‘improve’ the story by including the additional matter which appears as verse 37 in the AV and as a footnote in modern versions of the text: ‘And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”’ The content of the addition is perfectly sound theology, but the style is not that of Luke and the MS evidence is weak.”
So once again by retaining this verse the KJV is wrong because the evidence shows that this is not in any of the early manuscripts and it has been determined that this a scribal additional later on.
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