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The issue was did Letis engage in an ad-hominem attack. He did not!

Bear in mind that I don't have an ax to grind on this White / Hills / Letis disagreement that has been raging here for the past several days. I've mostly kept out of it.

I did read the first few lines from the article that mycountach liked to, the one by Letis, and it did sound to me as though Letis was engaging in ad hominem. His comments about White just sounded insulting.

If he didn't mean to attack or insult White, he could've worded the introductory paragraphs in a much more dignified, charitable manner than he did -- and the fact that he did try to link White with Riplinger by placing their names in the same sentence is also telling.

"Can you trust the modern versions?" Does he mean all of them in every point? The book does not fulfill this tall order.

Why does White have to defend all modern verisons of every stripe at every reading?

All versions are based on the same principles:
a) based on previous versions and/or
b) claiming to be translated from Hebrew/Greek mss or texts,

with even those under letter "a" having an ancestry involving versions that fall under "b" on the list.

Hence, all White has to do is explain the principles to the average Joe Blow.

By bringing that up, aren't you (or Letis, since I presume you're quoting one of his points?) distorting the modern version user position, since we modern version users do NOT use or defend every modern version, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses' NWT.

Nor do we MVUs (as White states in his book) believe that the modern versions are always superior at every instance when compared to a Byzantine / KJV reading.

There is even one instance in the book when White says regarding one (and I think even more than one) reading (sorry, I don't recall off hand which verse it is) says that he prefers the KJV reading at that point rather than the NIV's.

Trying to lump in valid versions with non valid ones into the same group, (or paint modern version users as being those who lump together valid versions, such as NIV and NKJV with NWT) is a guilt- by- association practice.

I think White's tactic of showing the trustworthiness of some modern verisons, especially the ones most attacked by KJVOs (e.g., NASB, NIV and NKJV, all which White gives the most attention to in his book), was sufficient.

The fact that White gives a basic explanation of why versions read differently (i.e., textual vs. translational differences) is also sufficient.

It's one of the reasons I don't engage in verse by verse debates with KJOs: they love to prattle on endlessly about how "x" number of Byzantine versions contain that reading, etc., etc., and thus make out a version that does not retain it as being Evil.

Well, thanks to White (and those like him), instead of jumping to paranoid, panicked ideas and assuming that the NIV's committee was demonic, I can sit there and say
'hmm, if the NIV doesn't have the word "Christ" at point "x" but the KJV does, it's because either the translators differed on how to translate a term, or else it was a manuscript-based difference. No Satanic plot here, just a disagreement over which translational methods are better, which manuscripts are 'better' at a particular spot."

I am a layperson who is not interested in examining every minute detail of manuscripts, Greek verb tenses, and so forth.

I also agree with mycountach who said that the White book is not intended to be a book aimed at textual critics in the field.

It's a book by a guy (White) who is knowledgable about the topic who is trying to educate lay persons (rather than seminary scholars) on it so they won't fall for the misinformation spilling out of websites and books by KJOs, materials which are also often times aimed at laypersons (much like the Jack Chick KJVO tracts).

If you want to read ultra-brainy papers on the issues, you'd go to the bible.org site and read stuff by Dan Wallace, or read books by Metzger, for instance.

KJV Onlyism is a False Teaching

Christians For Biblical Gender Equality: Resources