The Unbound Scriptures, by Rick Norris - A Response

Hi all, I recently was sent Rick Norris' new book, The Unbound Scriptures. I have finished it and it gave me a lot to think about.

I have written a response to his book from my point of view as a King James only Bible believer. It will be long, so those not interested, need proceed no further. But, I believe it will give a serious and well studied refutation to his premise and conclusions.


God bless,

Will Kinney

A Response to Rick Norris' book, The Unbound Scriptures, A Review of KJV-only Claims and Publications.


Part One - The "logical" Premise of Mr. Norris

James D. Price Ph.D, one of the NKJV translators, writes the Foreward to Rick Norris' book called The Unbound Scriptures. In this preface Mr. Price sums up the conclusions of Mr. Norris saying: "Norris demonstrates that the doctrine of inerrancy can be successfully applied ONLY to THE ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPHS, but not to any translation, including the KJV."
(Caps are mine throughout)


He also says: "Norris shows that the doctrine of preservation can be applied properly ONLY to the text of THE ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPHS, and that the application of this doctrine to subsequent copies or translations is not a historic Baptist doctrine."

Mr. Price is correct in his analysis of Mr. Norris' conclusions. It is ironic to see Mr. Norris use "logic" when he attempts to refute the King James only position. Mr. Norris says: "A conclusion can only be considered valid and true when the premises on which it is based are true....One false assumption or fallacious link can break a chain of evidence and render the whole argument a failure."

Norris' book is full of his references to "the inspired, inerrant original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures". He starts off his first chapter affirming "THE Bible IS the inspired word of God" - he doesn't say The Bible WAS the inspired word of God - yet he never identifies for us what this Bible IS nor WHERE we can find these ORIGINAL Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.

Mr. Norris is very big on logic. He says: "The questions involved in this disagreement are not about what God can possibly do but are about what God has actually done. Only an open examination of the evidence can settle this issue. The validity of any claim or argument concerning this or any disagreement must be settled by the use of logical means." He goes into great detail explaining how we need logic to arrive at sound conclusions concerning the Bible version issue, yet it is blatantly obvious to me that Mr. Norris' logic has failed him miserably in arriving at his conclusions. He has built his entire argument upon a false assumption.

Mr. Norris concludes his first chapter saying: "God's preserved Word in THE ORIGINAL languages MUST BE THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY and Standard of truth for evaluating and validating all translations."

Mr. Norris has neglected to inform us of the fact that no such animal as "the original Hebrew and Greek" exists on this planet, and he knows it doesn't exist, yet this is the foundation of his anti-King James Only position.

THERE ARE NRIGINALS, and there is widespread and profound differences of opinion as to what they might have said, as is amply witnessed by the multitude of conflicting bible versions so prevalent today. The Bible consists of 66 books, and never has there been such a Book composed only of "the originals" all placed together in one book to form the Bible.

Mr. Norris makes abundant use of quotes from past theologians in an effort to prop up his "historical view" of inspiration and preservation. Here is one of many typical quotes which sounds good on the surface, but in fact says nothing of actual substance. He quotes Francis Turretin (1623-1687) who says: "Our teaching is that ONLY the Hebrew of the O.T. and the Greek of the New have been and ARE authentic in the sense that all controversies concerning faith and religion, and all versions, are to be tested and examined by them."

Well, this would be very nice indeed, if such a thing as THE Hebrew and THE Greek existed, but they don't, and everybody knows it. How then can we consult something that doesn't exist and use them to "test and examine all versions"?

It doesn't matter how many godly men of old said "only the originals are the standard". They were posturing a textual position that does not exist, and they knew it didn't exist when they said it! And Mr. Norris has the nerve to accuse the King James Bible believer of holding a false premise on which he bases his conclusions!

Regarding the practical outworking of the doctrine of the preservation of God's words, the modern version proponents either believe the true words of God are "out there somewhere" in all the variant manuscripts but we are not sure which ones they are; or they reduce "preservation" to the idea that the general, overall message is in all "reliable translations", though the particular words and numbers, many whole verses and the meaning of much of Scripture remains uncertain or even lost. Neither view really means that "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" has actually been divinely preserved through history to the present day.

Instead of "heaven and earth shall pass away, but MY WORDS shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:36), the modern versionist really thinks along the lines of "heaven and earth shall pass away, but most of the general sense of what I said won't pass away."

Here are some quotes from several textual critics you won't find in Norris' book. These men prepared the way for and later adopted the textual theories of Westcott and Hort, whose Greek text forms the basis of most modern New Testament versions, as the NIV, NASB, RSV, ESV, ISV.

As early is 1771 Griesbach wrote, "The New Testament abounds in more losses, additions, and interpolations, purposely introduced then any other book."

In 1908 Rendel Harris declared that the New Testament text had not at all been settled but was "more than ever, and perhaps finally, unsettled." Two years later Conybeare gave it as his opinion that "the ultimate (New Testament) text, if there ever was one that deserves to be so called, is for ever irrecoverable."

In 1941 Kirsopp Lake, after a life time spent in the study of the New Testament text, delivered the following judgment: "In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort and of von Soden, we do not know the original form of the Gospels, and it is quite likely that we never shall."

In 1960 H. Greeven also has acknowledged the uncertainty of the neutral method of New Testament textual criticism - "In general, the whole thing is limited to probability judgments; the original text of the New Testament, according to its nature, must be and remains a hypothesis."

In 1963 R. M. Grant adopts a still more despairing attitude - "The primary goal of New Testament textual study remains the recovery of what the New Testament writers wrote. We have already suggested that to achieve this goal is well-nigh impossible."

In contrast to the modern scholar's affirmation that the Standard or final authority is "the Bible AS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN", here are a couple examples of confessions of faith from the past. Notice there is no mention of "the originals only".

 In 1678 the General Baptists of England published the Orthodox Creed. It says: "And by the holy Scriptures we understand the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, AS THEY ARE NOW TRANSLATED INTUR ENGLISH MOTHER TONGUE, of which there hath never been any doubt of their verity and authority in the protestant churches of Christ to this day." What Bible do you suppose these people were using in 1678?

Observe this personal confession of faith by a man named Mr. Kinney (no known relation) and the date when he wrote it. LeBaron W. Kinney  wrote in 1942, "When a Bible teacher refers to the original languages of the Bible, there is a danger of giving a wrong impression about the authority and true value of the standard King James Version. Too many are ready to say that they have a better rendering, and often in such a way as to give an impression that the King James Version is faulty, or that other versions are much better. We believe that God overruled His gift of the King James Version of 1611, so that we have in it the very Word of God. We believe that no other English Version will ever take its place. Every one of the various English versions claims to be nearer the original than the others. This could not be true of more than one of them." (Hebrew Word Studies, Acres of Rubies" page 9, published by Loizeaux Brothers).


Examples of Norris' "logic" are found throughout his book. On page 11 he takes up the argument of a KJB believer. He says:"KJV-only advocate Ralph Yarnell claimed: "If the Holy Spirit was in the translation, then it is an inerrant translation, for the Holy Spirt would not be a party to anything less". Mr. Norris then responds: "If this claim were true, would it not also mean that believers must be 100% perfect, infallible, and sinless since the Holy Spirit is in them?"

What Norris misses here is the fact that the Bible itself claims to be the perfect, inspired word of God, whereas the same Bible tells us that believers are not perfect or sinless now, but one day shall be. This is an example of the logic Mr. Norris employs to build his case.

Commenting on a KJB believer who says the AV of 1611 is the standard by which all translations are judged, Mr. Norris says: "In contrast to the claims of KJV advocates, God's Word does not teach that God infallibly guided the KJV translators to restore perfectly the original text from a number of slightly imperfect printed editions of the Greek New Testament. Should the authority of God's Word in Hebrew and Greek be dethroned and replaced by the finite renderings of the uninspired KJV translators?"

Mr. Norris' "logic" has once again failed him here. He speaks of the authority of the Hebrew and Greek, yet does not identify WHICH GREEK and which Hebrew he is talking about. There are easily 25 to 30 very different Greek texts in print, and thousands of manuscripts which differ from each other. The NASB, NIV, ESV, RSV and most modern versions are based on a very different Greek text than those of Tyndale, Coverdale, Bishop's, the Geneva Bible, the King James Holy Bible and the NKJV. It omits some 3000 words in the New Testament alone and even these modern versions do not always follow the same Greek texts among themselves.

A very well done and easy to follow chart showing just SOME of the textual differences between the King James Bible and versions like the NIV, NASB is found at this site. These are not "minor differences". The equivalent number of words from the combined epistles of First and Second Peter have been omitted in most modern versions.

http://av1611.com/kjbp/charts/themagicmarker.html

As for the NASB, NIV, and the ESV, they each reject ALL Hebrew texts in scores of places, thinking they have been corrupted, and often do not even agree with each other on which parts of the Hebrew text they think contain "scribal errors" or where they believe the text is incomplete and must be suplimented from some other source like the Syriac, Septuagint, or the Latin.

For factual documentation of where the NIV, NASB, and ESV depart from the Hebrew texts, and thus would be disqualified as legitimate Bible versions even by Mr. Norris's standards, see my articles on the NASB, NIV here:

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/NIVapos.html

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/NIVapos2.html

And for the ESV, the 2001 English Standard Version now being used by many evangelical churches, which departs from the Hebrew texts much more than even the NIV, NASB see:

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/ESV.html

It is true that God's word does not mention the King James Bible - But neither does it mention the NASB, NIV, or ESV. God does promise to preserve His words somewhere on this earth till heaven and earth pass away. Mr. Norris tries to give the impression that he knows what they are, but he NEVER ONCE tells us exactly WHERE we can find them.


Mr. Norris goes into great detail explaining how the KJB translators used a variety of Greek texts, manuscripts and other versions to put together the finished product, explaining for us that no two manuscripts are exactly the same and the KJB does not match any of them 100%.

However it should be noted that today's scholars go through the same sifting process in an attempt to restore what they think are the words of God and no manuscript reads the way the NASB, NIV, or ESV do either. Mr. Norris seems to dismiss the possibility that God has kept His promises to preserve His words and done so by guiding a group of men to put together a perfect Bible in the form of a translation. Only God knows for sure which readings are His and only He can guide men to put them in His Book.

The King James Bible believer puts his faith in Almighty God to fulfill His promises; not in any group of fallible and imperfect men, not in the King James translators, and certainly not in men like Westcott and Hort, Bruce Metzger, or cardinal Carlos Martini.

In Mr. Norris' view, only the originals are inerrant and inspired. Mr. Norris has never seen the originals nor has anyone else, mainly because they turned to dust a couple thousand years ago. Norris tells us that no translation can be the inspired word of God and they all are imperfect and limited. Yet throughout his book he says the non-existent "originals" are the Standard by which all versions are to be judged. The only logical conclusion we can then draw from his premise is that there is no inerrant, infallible, inspired Bible anywhere on this earth. Even though Mr. Norris continually speaks of "the inspired original Hebrew and Greek autographs" as the Final Standard, I challenge him to tell us where these can be found.

It is extremely important that from the outset we clearly see where Mr. Norris is coming from in his premise. He and others like him who criticize the Authorized Version have no objective, absolute, infallible Standard by which they sit in judgment on the King James Bible.

The Premise of the King James Bible Believer

In contrast to Mr. Norris' Final Standard premise, which is the non-existent "originals" and a mystical bible that exist only in his own mind, the King James Bible believer relies on the promises of God to preserve His infallible words.


Isaiah 40:8: "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."

Psalm 12:6-7: "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever."

Psalm 138:2: "I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy Truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name."

Psalm 100:5: "For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."

Psalm 33:11: "The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations."

Psalm 119:152, 160: "Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever. ... Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

Isaiah 59:21: "... My Spirit that is upon thee [Isaiah], and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever."

Matthew 5:17-18: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 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."

Matthew 24:35: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

1 Peter 1:23-25: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever... But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."

John 10:35: "... the Scripture cannot be broken."

God never promised to give every nation or individual a perfect Bible. I know God uses imperfect men and imperfect bible versions to bring people to Christ. The gospel is found in any version out there - this is not the issue. The issue is Did God keep His promises to preserve His complete, inerrant, pure and perfect words somewhere on this earth till the heavens pass away? I believe He did.

"He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD." Psalm 147:19-20.

Will Kinney

 

Kevin, Rick and I have been in email contact. I have sent him the complete 17 part response to his book. I would welcome the opportunity of discuss his book and his premise, conclusions, and examples here at this club.

By the way, thanks for sending me his book. I appreciate it.

God bless,

Will K

 

Part Two - Those Dreadful Archaic Words

In chapter Two of Rick Norris' book, The Unbound Scriptures, he takes up the issue of archaic words. Mr. Norris says: "Nothing does more dishonor to God's Word than to leave it in the condition where there is a necessity for the ordinary preacher to update its archaic words, clarify some renderings, or correct its errors, whether errors of printing or of translation."

Mr. Norris asks: "How are differences in explaining the meaning of archaic words different from having an updated translation with the correct updated meaning of the archaic words?"

Mr. Norris overstates his case just a tad when he says: "Words used with quite different meaning from what they once possessed are like hidden rocks which give no notice of their presence but on which a boat is more likely to be shipwrecked than on rocks that can be seen above the water."

"When KJV-only advocates complain about claimed archaic words remaining in modern translations, in effect they are also condemning the greater number of archaic words in the KJV."

First of all, when Mr. Norris says "nothing dishonors God's word more than having to update or explain archaic words", I strongly disagree with his assessment. If I am to choose between an older version that occasionally uses archaic or difficult words yet is in fact the true, preserved, inerrant, and doctrinally sound words of God, and a more modern version that may be easier to understand but which omits thousands of God inspired words, waters down or perverts sound doctrine and changes the meaning of what God has said, then the choice is a clear and easy one to make.

Mr. Norris is being more than a little inconsistent in applying his standards. On the one hand he tells us ONLY the original Hebrew and Greek are the final authority for evaluating all translations. Yet the Hebrew and Greek languages are both far more difficult and archaic than anything you will find in the King James Bible.

Then he recommends we use a more modern bible version, without ever identifying WHICH Bible version he personally thinks is more accurate and true to "the originals".

I myself have not always been a King James Bible only believer. Several years ago I was presented with the claims of King James Onlyism and I began to examine what I really believed about the Bible. As I studied, prayed and compared the various versions out there, it soon became obvious that they are not all the same and that I can easily find proveable errors in them all except one - the King James Bible.

God has clearly set His providential mark of approval on the English Bible in the way He has used it throughout history. I believe in the sovereignty of God. It was the King James Bible and its underlying texts that was used from the late 1700's to the mid 1900's to carry out the worldwide missionary movement and to translate the Bible into hundreds of foreign languages.

It was the King James Bible that was used of God in every legitimate revival among English speaking people, including the First and Second Great Awakenings in both England and America. The King James Bible was the one taken to the moon and read from outer space - just a "coincidence".

It is the King James Bible that is defended as the only true, inerrant, complete word of God by many believing Christians not only in America, but also in England, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and the Phillipines. None of the modern versionists seriously defend their versions as being the inerrant word of God.

It is the King James Bible that has been mercilessly attacked by its critics and yet after all this time not one single error has been proven to exist within its pages. Believe me, I have heard most of the allegations of error in the King James Bible and upon further examination they are found to be groundless.

The King James Bible has become the Standard for all other English translations. Tyndale's New Testament did not follow the same book order as is found in the KJB, and the Geneva Bible, which was the first English Bible to have chapter and verse numbering, did not match the King James Bible's verse numbers. Yet now every English bible version follows the chapter and verse numbers of the KJB, and even when versions like the NASB, NIV, RSV, ESV, ISV omit whole verses, they simply "skip over" the numbered verse.

Of far greater dishonor to God's pure words is the perversion of sound doctrines and the subtle attacks on the character and deity of Christ found in ALL modern versions.

Various modern versions teach that God can be deceived; Jesus lied; Christ has an "origen"; there was a time when Christ was not the Son of God; Christ needed a sacrifice to atone for His sins when he was a baby; Satan is the ruler of this world; and our righteousness is our "good deeds".

For several examples of how modern versions detract from the Person of Christ and undermine sound doctrine see my article titled No Doctrines Are Changed? at this site.

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/nodoctrine.html

It seems that Mr. Norris cares little about what the various bible versions actually SAY, and which texts they are based on, just so long as they are "easy to understand".

Mr. Norris is mistaken when he says King James Bible believers "complain" about archaic words in the modern versions and thus condemn those that are found in the KJB. Rather we try to point out the inconsistency of those who attack the KJB for words hard to be understood when most modern versions contain many words that the typical high schooler would not know how to define.

Try giving this vocabulary test from the NIV to the average English speaker and see if they would get a passing score.

NIV Vocabulary Test

abashed, abominable, abutted, acclaim, adder, adhere, admonishing, advocate, alcove, algum, allocate, allots, ally, aloes, appease, ardent, armlets, arrayed, astir, atonement, awl, banishment, battlements, behemoth, belial, bereaves, betrothed, bier, blighted, booty, brayed, breaching, breakers, buffeted, burnished, calamus, capital (not a city), carnelian, carrion, centurions, chasm, chronic, chrysolite, cistern, citadel, citron, clefts, cohorts, colonnades, complacency, coney, concession, congealed, conjure, contrite, convocations, crest, cors, curds, dandled, dappled, debauchery, decimated, deluged, denarii, depose, derides, despoil, dire,dispossess, disrepute, dissipation, distill, dissuade, divination, dragnet, dropsy, duplicity, earthenware, ebony, emasculate, emission, encroach, enmity, enthralled, entreaty, ephod, epicurean, ewe, excrement, exodus, factions, felled, festal, fettered, figurehead, filigree, flagstaff, fomenting, forded, fowler, gadfly, galled, gird, gauntness, gecko, gloating, goiim, harrowing, haunt, hearld, henna, homers, hoopoe, ignoble, impaled, implore, incur, indignant, insatiable, insolence, intact, invoked, jambs, joists, jowls, lairs, lamentation, leviathan, libations, loins, magi, manifold, maritime, mattocks, maxims, mina, misdemeanor, mother-of-pearl, mustering, myrtles, naive, naught, Negev, Nephilim, nettles, nocturnal, nomad, notorious, Nubians, oblivion, obsolete, odious, offal, omer, oracles, overweening, parapet, parchments, pavilion, peals (noun, not the verb), perjurers, perpetuate, pestilence, pinions, phylacteries, plumage, pomp, porphyry, portent, potsherd, proconsul, propriety, poultice, Praetorium, pretext, profligate, promiscuity, provincial, providence, qualm, quarries, quivers (noun, not verb), ramparts, ransacked, ratified, ravish, rabble, rawboned, relish (not for hotdogs), recoils, recount, refrain, relent, rend, reposes, reprimanded, reputed, retinue, retorted, retribution, rifts, roebucks, rue, sachet, satraps, sated, shipwrights, siegeworks, sinews, sistrums, sledges, smelted, somber, soothsayer, sovereignty, spelt, stadia, stench, stipulation, sullen, tamarisk, tanner, temperate, tether, tetrarch, terebinth, thresher, throes, thronged, tiaras, tinder, tracts, transcends, tresses, turbulent, tyrannical, unscathed, unrelenting, usury, vassal, vaunts, vehemently, verdant, vexed, wadi, wanton, warranted, wield, winnowing and wrenched.

It is funny that I can put together the phrase from the KJB which says; “The very sad green giant was hungry” and in the NIV it would be: "The overweening dejected verdant Nephilim was famished."

So you see, the modern versions also have many words that are hard to be understood and Mr. Norris' "logic" has again been shown to be fallacious.

Many people clamor for updating the language of the King James Bible, and I will admit there are a few words that do need to be explained and that could be modernized, such as "conversation" when it means "manner of living" and "let" when it means "to hinder", and possibly "prevent" when it means "to go before or to precede", but who is going to do it and not mess with other things that make it worse?

The NKJV and several other modern versions have "modernized" these few words but in addition they have messed up scores if not hundreds of other passages. For some examples of this see my article on The Old Fashioned Language of the King James Bible at:

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/langKJB.html

Is Archaic language always bad? What about all those "Ye"s, and "Thee"s?
Would you change all those words like "ye, thee, thine, and thy"? Do you know the difference in meaning and why they are actually more accurate than the modernized, generic "you" as found in the NKJV, NIV, ESV?

Most languages have a singular and a plural form of the second person - the person being spoken to - "you". There is the singular "you" and then there is the plural, like "you all". This is found in the Hebrew and Greek languages as well as Spanish, French, Italian and many other world languages.

In English this distinction is expressed by "Thou" meaning "you singular, and you alone" and "Ye" meaning "all of you, plural". This distinction makes a big difference in hundreds of passages in the Bible.

For instance, in Luke 22:31-32 the Lord says to Peter: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have YOU, that he may sift YOU as wheat: But I have prayed for THEE, that THY faith fail not: and when THOU art converted, strengthen THY brethren."

Here the word YOU is plural in both the Greek and the English, meaning Satan was going to sift all of the disciples, "you all", but Jesus is letting Peter know that He had prayed for him (thee) specifically as an individual.

In John chapter four, the Samaritan woman at the well is speaking to Jesus and says: "Sir, I perceive that THOU art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and YE say (all you Jews)that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

Then the Lord says to this individual: "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when YE shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. YE worship Ye know not what: we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews." Here the YE means "all of you who are Samaritans", not just the individual woman to whom He was speaking.

One more of hundreds of such examples that could be given shows this important distinction between "thee" (an individual) and "you" meaning "you all". The young David had gone out to meet Goliath the Philistine and he was speaking to one individual, the giant. David says to him: "THOU comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield, but I come to THEE in the name of the LORD..for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give YOU into our hands." David was not just telling Goliath that God would deliver him up, but ALL of the Philistines - "you all".

A simple rule of thumb is if the word begins with a T, as in thou, thy, thee, then it is singular; and if it begins with a Y, as in you, your, ye, then it is plural, meaning "you all".

The use of "thou" and "ye" may be "archaic" because we don't speak this way today, but it is far more accurate and reflects the Hebrew and the Greek languages that underlie the King James text. In fact, not even in 1611 did they speak this way. Read the preface to the KJB and you will see they did not use the "thee"s and "ye"s as they are found in the Scriptures.

Not only does the King James Bible use "thy" and "thee" and "ye" but so also do the Revised Version, and the American Standard Version 1901, the Douay version 1950, Young's, Darby, the KJV 21st Century version and the Third Millenium Bible.

Even the RSV 1952 and the NASB in 1977 used "thee" and "thou" when addressing God in prayer, though the words "thee" and "thou" are not just used to show reverence for God, but rather express the second person singular of anyone, including the devil himself. The NASB, RSV both say in John 17:2 " thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him." But then in 1995 the NASB changed their texts again and now read the generic "You". So were "thou" and "thee" not archaic in 1977, but then became so in the next few years?

The King James Bible is more precise and accurate with its use of "thou" and "ye", and when you update and modernize these "archaic" words to the generic "you", you do so at the expense of sacrificing an important distinction God has placed in His inspired words.


Will Kinney