Trying to Fly with One Wing, Part 4: Four Criteria of a Great Argument

I pored over dozens of different versions of the Bible. There was a whole wall full of them with names like Amplified, J.B. Phillips, Thompson's Chain Reference, Nave's Topical, Revised Standard, New Revised Standard, American Standard, New American Standard, Holcomb, Living, and the ever-present King James Version (KJV).

The large Inter-City Baptist Bookstore adjoined the church by the same name in the suburbs of a large metropolis. It was 1973, and having just accepted a job as a Youth Minister at the local Free Methodist Church, I was determined to have the best Bible available to assist in my new position. I was also aware that I needed to set an example for the youth by carrying the biggest and most sacred looking Bible that I could carry into church short of using a fork-lift. It would be the measure of my spirituality.

I was surprised at the large variety of Bibles for sale that came in every conceivable size, color and edition — pocket-sized, paper-back, soft-back, hard-back, simulated leather, Moroccan leather, imitation cow hide, authentic vinyl, blue denim, heirloom, and psychedelic — don't ask.

Equal in variety were the interpretive aids — red letters (for the words of Christ), concordances, maps, footnotes, endnotes, paintings, photographs, diagrams, charts, time-lines, cross-references, glossaries and sticky-tabs. The Thompson Chain Reference Bible was particularly impressive with its encyclopedic appendixes that rivaled the biblical text in length.

For a while I just stood there — soaking up the sacred vibes. This must be what heaven is going to be like — a wall full of Bibles. (Indulge me — that was sarcasm.)

This heavenly shopping moment, however, had a downside. The sole clerk, a distinguished, elderly lady, gray hair in a bun, spectacles drawn down her nose suspiciously, was glaring at me as if I was about to commit a crime. Little did I know, that in her eyes I was about to do just that. I figured that I had better stop medicating on the smell of the Moroccan leather — and buy something, fast.

I made my way to the checkout with a beautiful New American Standard Study Bible that must have weighed-in at just under six pounds. I lowered it proudly onto the counter next to the cash register being careful not to pinch my fingers under its weight.

My bespectacled clerk was aghast. "Why do you want to buy that?" she asked backing away, pointing at the Bible as if I had just found the snake from the Garden of Eden.

"What? Well, I need a Bible for my — Bible studies," I said.

"Well, buy a real Bible, then," she charged.

"Huh? This is a real Bible — isn't it?" She had me wondering.

"No it's not. The only authorized Bible we sell is the King James Version. It says so right in the front."

"I'm sorry, madam, but you're mistaken," I said carefully. "The King James translation was completed in 1611 and was based on a variety of other translations that came before it."

I trotted back to the Bible wall, grabbed a new copy of the Thompson Chain Reference KJV Bible, opened to the help section in the back and found the chart (No. 4220) that showed how the KJV was based on a number of earlier translations including the Bishops, Geneva, Tyndale, Wycliffe, and Vulgate versions.

"You can't fool me," she said. "That chart isn't 'in' the Bible. It's in the back. It's not part of the authorized Bible. You can't believe any of it."

"Okay," I admitted. "But this Bible was authorized by King James — not Jesus Christ."

She laughed, conjuring up her experience with the 1st century Church. "Oh, that's where you're wrong. The King James Bible is the only authorized version because it is the Bible that Jesus used."

Now, I was aghast: "Who told you that?"

Unrattled, she narrowed her eyes and stepped into my space. "Our pastor!" …and she pointed across the street to the large independent Baptist Church.

Dear reader, that is a true story — nearly word for word.

Today, some years later, I am still unsure how to argue with such a sincere yet misguided person. I meet them occasionally — like the woman I know professionally who explained to me last week why she wasn't Catholic: "I know all about the Catholic Church. In college I did a term paper and I discovered that the Vatican owned two birth control companies as profit centers. They're just a bunch of hypocrites."

In the face of such ridiculous opinion it seems that all reason is washed away by the tsunami of irrationality. I am clueless how to deal with such people. Perhaps there will be a poster in Purgatory that will explain it all to me. I can only hope.

Both the clerk and I wanted to present evidence that supported our positions. But in the heat of the moment it was difficult to think coolly and logically about just how to do that. Nevertheless, some things about informal logical arguments are always true. And the more we contemplate them in the calm moments, the more readily they'll come to mind in the clamorous ones. So, here's how we might dissect what was going on in the store, and use it in our daily lives as we communicate about important things.

Four Criteria

Good arguments use evidence that satisfy four criteria or principles. The evidence must be (1) relevant to the issue; (2) acceptable as true, although not provable; (3) sufficient in number, kind and weight; and (4) capable of rebutting the strongest counter argument.

In general, the evidence presented by the clerk fell far short of these four criteria. That the KJV was authorized by King James was certainly relevant to those that lived under his rule, but it is not so relevant today; that is especially true in light of more recent translations that reference earlier Bible manuscripts. Likewise, the pastor of an independent church can only speak for his congregation (or actually, just for himself), and not for all of Christianity.

That Jesus used the KJV is clearly a claim (i.e. "evidence") that any historian will not accept as true. And while some people argue that a fact must be in the Bible for it to be true, I wonder how they'd react if a bank clerk refused to cash their payroll checks because there's no record of them or their employment in the Bible. Clearly we all accept things as true because of our own personal experience or family tradition; and the Bible has never claimed to be an exhaustive compendium of Christian doctrine, scientific fact or psychology. The Bible is a "sufficient" but not "comprehensive" record of supernatural revelation. As John says in his Gospel, "the whole world could not contain all the books" that could be written about all that Jesus did and said (John 21:25).

The clerk's evidence, then, is hardly sufficient since none of the evidence can stand as valid; and it is not likely that a rebuttal argument could be mounted. So, I doubt that we'll see an endorsement on the back cover of any KJV any time soon signed by Jesus Christ.

Another Conclusion

This Bible store experience did, however, present several pieces of evidence in credible support of another argument — that the Bible needs a single infallible interpreter to be of much practical use. At the time, I had no idea Catholicism was even in the running for such a claim; and unfortunately, the Catholic Church in America isn't known for its marketing or public relations, preferring instead to sneak into heaven and hope no one notices. So, it took years for me to figure out some of this.

Under the Relevancy Principle, I discovered that individual pastors are hardly infallible interpreters of the Bible or how the Bible came about. Under the Acceptability Principle, I began to see that all the talk about Protestants agreeing on the essentials is not true — the Bible is an essential, I think. And if the various Protestant churches could not agree on essentials, how could the truth be known infallibly?

I also realized that for the Sufficiency Principle to be applied on issues involving the origins of the Bible, a great deal of relevant and acceptable evidence, in place of irrational opinions, would be needed about history. That is, it's hard to bring historical evidence into the argument when your opponent is ignorant of history.

Finally, I discovered that the Rebuttal Principle, like the other three principles, required an opponent that was more interested in truth than maintaining the status quo of his or her opinion. In such a case, quickly throwing down the cash in order to consummate the sale and then getting out of sight may be the best tactic.

Finally, the clerk stubbornly sold me the NAS Bible. I used it for decades until the binding fell apart. But the incident has long reminded me of the strange ideology in some sectors of Christianity — that before his ascension Jesus supervised the writing of the KJV (in Elizabethan prose), oversaw its printing on imported India paper, and approved the first edition leather bindings, before letting the Apostles organize a book signing. From that day on, I wondered where the Bible came from.

The experience also forced me to ask the question, "What version of the Bible did Jesus use?" From my Evangelical training I knew the answer was the Greek Septuagint of the Old Testament. Later, I was to discover that the Septuagint included 73 books. And, surprisingly, my prized, six-pound, New American Standard Bible had only 66.

Yes, some fallacious thinking was at work. Next time we'll look deeper at the principle of relevancy, and how fallacies of relevance hinder our thinking.