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Do Capitals Matter?


There are varying degrees of belief among King James Bible believers. I am of the belief, and I am fully able to defend that belief, that the Cambridge Text of the King James Bible as it was edited during WWI, and as it was printed by Cambridge until 1985, is an exact replica of a King James Bible sitting in heaven. When God the Father thinks in English, it is in King James English; and when he thinks of the word of God, he thinks of the Pure Cambridge Text of our Authorized Version.

With that in mind, capitals matter. Such thinking is foreign to many of our brethren. It never seems to occur to them that a perfect Bible requires a perfect text. Whether a word is capitalized or not affects the doctrine of the verse. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones, Isaiah 57:15. The word Holy is in the verse twice. Once it is God's name, therefore it is capitalized. The next time it describes a place, therefore it is not capitalized. The word Holy with a capital H is in the Bible 144 times. With a small h (holy), it is in the Bible 467 times.

What is the difference? When it is a proper noun it is capitalized. When it is an adjective is is not capitalized. That is very simple, but amazingly the difference manages to escape the brethren far too often. Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you, Leviticus 22:32. When the word holy is merely describing God's name it is not capitalized. As we saw in Isaiah 57:15, when it is capitalized, it tells us that it not a description of his name. It is his name.

He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name, Psalm 111:9. With this rule of capitalization in mind, is the word reverend a proper noun or an adjective? Is the psalmist telling us that among God's many names, Reverend is one of them? No he is not. He is telling you that when you hear any name of God, that you should reverence that name. Is reverence something that only God should receive? No, wives in particular are told to reverence their husbands. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband, Ephesians 5:33.

It is popular among some of the brethren to claim that a man is stealing the name of God if he takes the title reverend. That is a bogus claim based on a faulty understanding of the text. God's name is not Reverend. God's name is reverend. The psalm says, holy and reverend is his name. Those are two descriptions of God's name. There is nothing wrong with revering a person. David was revered, II Samuel 9:6. We revere our fathers, Hebrews 12:9.

If a person doesn't trust the rules of punctuation, spelling and capitalization in a King James Bible he is in trouble. He doesn't have a perfect bible. What if two King James Bibles disagree on some point of capitalization? Maybe you had better find out which one is correct. Just how big is your God? Do you mean to say that he can preserve the words of God perfectly in English, but when it comes to adding those all vital points of orthography (punctuation, spelling and capitalizations), he trembles in heaven unable to help us? I wouldn't serve such a God. 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 5:18. My God is a God of jots and tittles.

I do want to make one more point. Please don't call me Reverend Asquith. I have a plaque that some Filipinos gave me in love that calls me that, but the name conjures visions in my mind of some Hollywood preacher played by Don Knotts. Or, as Billy Sunday described some men of the cloth, "He looked more like a preacher than a man".

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