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 David W. Norris, editor of Dayspring Magazine in the United Kingdom, published an unequivocal defense of the KJV and its underlying Hebrew and Greek texts in 2004 under the title of The Big Picture: The Authority and Integrity of the Authentic Word of God (Authentic Word, P.O. Box 22, Cannock, Staffordshire, England, U.K. WS12 4HR, http://www.authenticword.co.uk/). This 393-page book has some excellent studies on the crucial doctrines of inspiration, revelation, and preservation, with accompanying exposure of how modern man has undermined these. A valuable feature is the author's discussions of popular relativistic theories of linguistics and how these have permeated the field of Bible translation.

Following are some excerpts from 'The Big Picture':

“The father of modern linguistics was the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure. The book for which he is best known, Course in General Linguistics, was put together by his students and colleagues after his death in 1913. Although little-known outside academic circles, his influence in the field of linguistics can be likened to the work of his contemporaries, Emile Durkheim in sociology, Charles Darwin in biology, Karl Marx in economic and political thought, and Sigmund Freud in psychology. The effect of his work was just as devastating as these other men and just as godless. Saussure explicitly denies what the Bible affirms and then sets off in the opposite direction. He vandalises our understanding of language. Were his theories remotely akin to the truth, real communication between men would be impossible, and the possibility of God’s Word reaching human hearts a pious dream--which is precisely the point! Having implicitly denied the existence of the non-physical human soul and its inherent self-consciousness, Saussure must, and does deny any place for pre-existing concepts or of anything having a non-material essential nature, being expressed physically through language. Immediately, all grounds of meaning disappear for in that scheme of things there can be no place for an all-embracing plan and purpose of God. ...

“Modern version translation methodology does not demand a careful reading of an inspired given text. It is concerned with the subjective response of the reader rather than the infallible transmission of the objective truth of God to the minds of men through the written Word. ... The linguistic analysis methodology in Bible translation was pioneered by the American scholar, Eugene Nida, who was translation secretary for the American Bible Society and the United Bible Societies. He also had connections with the Wycliffe Bible Translators who adopted his methods in their work around the world. He was a leading influence in the production of the Good News Bible. His methods are based on Saussure’s understanding of language and more specifically on the work of linguist Noam Chomsky’s system of ‘transformational grammar’. Chomsky was concerned to examine the ‘deep structure’ of the ‘semantic components’ below the surface structure of sentences. The New International Version was produced also by this method of translation” (Norris, The Big Picture, pp. 142, 143, 364, 368).

“Only someone with faith worked in his heart by God can say with any measure of reality, ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path’ (Psalm 119:105). Blind men see nothing, not even with a lamp in their hand. A light in the hand of a blind man does not help him to see where he is going. To the spiritually blind, what God has revealed of Himself in the Bible and in nature is obscured, even as those privileged to witness the coming of His Son in the flesh knew Him not (John 1:10-11). They ought to see what is plain, but they do not because of their blindness. ‘Modernising’ the language of the Bible will do nothing to make it more understandable. What spiritually blind men need is the healing touch of the Lord Jesus upon their eyes! Something He is more than willing to perform when they ask Him” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 159).

“All created reality was brought into being and continues to be determined in every detail by the will of God--and this therefore, above all, will include the giving of Scripture! The transmission of the sacred Word into languages understood by others beyond the original readers, for whom it is also intended, takes place under the providential eye of God, who preserves His Word in every detail that we too may share His thoughts. If the hairs of our head are all numbered and no sparrow falls to the ground without our Father, then it is inconceivable that such a watchful Father should pay no regard when His Word passes from one language to another or that He should have made no provision for this” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 187).

“One of the most evil effects of the proliferation of modern bible versions, each one claiming to be more authentic than the last, is that the single standard by which we can identify deceivers has been cast aside” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 230).

“The Word of God is the meaning of meanings, the fulcrum upon which the whole system of truth moves, it is the Sign around which all others revolve and which they reflect. For this to be so, the Word of God must have pre-existed all other words” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 239).

“All modern bible translations, but especially those translated by ‘dynamic equivalence’, are largely designed for ‘dynamic’ reading. The reader is not recovering a communication given by God once-for-all-time in the past, but listening for the voice of God from a string of words that have no fixed meaning. They may say one thing to one person and something quite different to someone else, depending upon the circumstances. The same words may even say something different to the same person on different occasions. Truth is in the end what the reader makes it. There is no underlying fixed meaning. No single reading of this bible is right or wrong, just different. The reader is not a passive recipient but an active co-creator to whom the bible text provides reading ‘cues’. This is how our children are taught to read in state schools today. Text books used in teacher training colleges throughout the land will say that reading is not about retrieving meaning from the text, it is not decoding, but creating a variety of meanings. There can be no single given meaning for any text only plausible meanings--whatever that means, if it can mean anything at all! ... Today’s readers will often find it difficult to read the Authorised Version, not because it is ‘old’ language, but because they have not been taught to read in the way the structure of its language demands. God, not the reader, is the Creator of the meaning of Scripture and He has something to say to us. Those who approach the Bible with any other conviction than this are condemned to remain sitting in deep darkness. Contemporary linguistic methods cast a veil over the Word of God” (Norris, The Big Picture, pp. 243, 244).

“Scripture is not the dictation of a law or doctrine, but is a divine in-breathing of a revelation of God Himself into the world as one element of His redemptive action towards us. Inspiration cannot be isolated from the rest of God’s redemptive working in human history, but itself forms part of it. The same grace of God going out to the sinner to save him has also given us an infallible Bible” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 250).

“Rather believe what the Bible says about men, than what men say about the Bible” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 252).

“No one’s life is going to be radically changed by reading a corrupted version of Shakespeare, but relying on a corrupted version of God’s Word has eternal consequences. When the meaning of a verse hangs on a single word or even a single letter, we cannot afford to have an unsure and approximate text. The Bible is not a text penned in the heat of literary and human inspiration, but it was given in words carried into the minds of its human authors on the breath of God, and then written by that same breathing into holy pages. Why should we think that God would take such great care by a divine act of inspiration to secure the perfect recording of His every word, if at the last all is lost? The Word that God gave, He also keeps. Those who treat the text of God’s Word like a Shakespeare folio will end up with a text like Shakespeare, a probable text with no certainty at all. It must be obvious that all those, professed friend or patent foe, who treat the Bible as though it were a human text will be unable to give us any more certainty for the Bible than they can for any human book. This is completely inadequate” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 292).

“If we need to prove it true before we believe it to be true, we have already declared beforehand our lack of faith in it” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 293).

“There are two ways and two ways only of approaching the whole issue of the preservation of Scripture. Those who seek a middle road delude themselves, there is none. God does not preserve Scripture using men and methods rooted in a denial of what He has said. As the actual autographs written by the prophets and apostles are long since gone, what guarantee can we have then apart from a divine promise that the words once given have been preserved and can be perfectly recovered in the copies, or ‘apographs’? The best we can hope for otherwise is to reconstruct something as near as possible to what we imagine the originals to have been like employing methods textual critics would use on Shakespearean manuscripts and the early printed copies of his works. This approach is a total waste of time since all it can give us is a thoroughly human book. It flies in the face of all the Bible itself tells us about its own preservation” (Norris, The Big Picture, pp. 293, 294).

“To profess verbal inspiration and at the same time to subject the Scripture texts to rationalistic critical methodology is to live in a crazed schizoid world, denying on the one hand what is confessed on the other” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 294).

“Throughout the twentieth century, a view of inspiration gained ascendancy among evangelicals and many fundamentalists that marked a departure from that which was previously confessed by believers since New Testament days. ... Recent scholarship has shown that men like Princeton professor Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921) were not as committed to the biblical doctrine of verbal inspiration as we are sometimes led to believe. Thinking to answer rationalist theologians on their own ground and legitimise textual studies, these men began to suggest that only the autographs (originals) were inspired, apographs (copies) were not. For this reason many of the Statements of Faith issued by various bodies now speak of the Scriptures being inspired ‘as originally given’ whereas before this time the conviction was that inspired Scripture was preserved in the copies. All this took place almost unnoticed, but we are being asked to swallow a real whopper! What this means is that as the originals have long since turned to dust, no inspired text exists today. ... Warfield’s book on biblical inspiration is still hailed as a ‘classic’, but his viewpoint has done more to undermine confidence in Scripture than almost any other in the last 150 years or so” (Norris, The Big Picture, pp. 295, 296).

“We have a clear choice between one of two diverging pathways, the road of faith or the road of human reason and unbelief. Do we begin with the Word of God or do we begin with the word of men? This is the question and it has in the first instance little to do with texts, but with the faithfulness of our God. To decide these things we need only a believing heart and the ability to read. Of course, textual scholars will deem all non-academics meddling in what they regard as their exclusive area of work unworthy to tie their bootlaces, still less to steal their clothes! Only after giving a positive answer to this question, do we turn to the manuscripts and texts, and scoop away the dross and scum from the gold, to uncover the authentic Word of God. For it to be of any use, textual study must be grounded upon what the Bible already says about itself. If we do not begin with the Word of God, we shall never end with it!” (Norris, The Big Picture, pp. 321, 322).

“Apart from a doctrinal slide away from the truth, a widespread Philistinism and aesthetic illiteracy now dominates much of the professing Christian world. As sophisticated prose is indicative of an advanced culture so decadent language is indicative of one that is disintegrating. Following Hebrew and Greek vocabulary and syntax enables the English reader to enter into the atmosphere and the meaning of the passage as though he were reading the original. Modern versions deprive the reader of this privilege” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 358).

“The church of Rome, unable to forbid the reading of Scripture, took the next best course available to see as many different bible versions circulate as possible. Humanist theologians will work until their fingertips are calloused to the same end. As long as there are many different bibles, the authority of one can be denied by pointing to another that seems to say something else. The possibility of one authoritative Word has then gone. No sooner is one version off the press than another comes along. With so many different bibles, godless religion or reason remains the final arbiter of the truth. This is why those whose cry is -- there is only one Book! -- will always be reviled. The argument has little to do with scholarship and everything to do with faith in the one Word God has given us” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 359).

“The term ‘equivalence’ of any kind with respect to Bible translation is entirely inappropriate. Following structuralist views of language, it suggests that the translation is something similar but not quite the same. A merely equivalent meaning, formal or dynamic, is not an identical one. It accommodates the notion that the reproduction of the thoughts of one person in the mind of another in another language through translation is not a credible purpose. ... therefore even the term ‘formal equivalency’ should not, strictly speaking, be applied to the Authorised Version. In accepting this distinction, we legitimise Nida’s methodology” (Norris, The Big Picture, pp. 373-74).

“The task of the Bible translator is to carry the biblical text from the source language to the target language in complete faithfulness” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 390).

“What we object to most strongly in modern versions is not any inadequacy in the translation, such as may be said of English versions before the Authorised Version, but the deliberate attempt to change, pervert, and deceive” (Norris, The Big Picture, p. 391).