“Mark Ward uses as his primary argument against the exclusive use of the King James Version of 1611 (KJV1611) words Dr. Ward identifies as “false friends.” Ward does not focus on the debate between the Received Text or Textus Receptus and the Nestle-Aland Greek Textus Rejectus, or on words that are archaic. Rather, “false friends” (words still in use but for which meaning has changed) are crucial to Dr. Mark Ward’s attack on the King James Bible (KJB1611) or Authorized Version (AV1611). Ward presses the “false friend” argument in his book Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, in public debate with Daniel Haifley of the King James Bible Research Council (KJBRC), in many YouTube videos, and in a survey made by the “Textual Confidence Collective,” and in other resources.

However, Mark Ward’s case against King James Onlyism from “false friends” is invalid. There are many more words that are like what he calls “false friends” in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament than there are in the English Authorized Version. Ward cannot consistently make his argument against the KJV from false friends without, by good and necessary consequence, concluding that one must likewise set aside the Hebrew OT and Greek NT for their “false friends.”

The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew states that “1,796 words [in the Old Testament] have at least one homonym; as many as 120 words are registered with five homonyms, while two words (ידע and ענה) reach the total of thirteen homonyms.” While there are many challenges to diachronic study of particular Hebrew words in the holy Scriptures, in some—indeed, in many cases—one or more homonyms is almost surely more archaic than a second and identical word that was in much more common use among the Old Testament people of God. Indeed, difficulties with Hebrew homonyms caused trouble for not only ancient plowboys but even for ancient translators—elite, highly skilled ancient readers–as evidenced in the LXX, the Latin Vulgate, the Targums, the Syriac, and other ancient sources such as Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian.

If Dr. Ward were able prove (first) that the number of “hard” words he calls “false friends” in the English Authorized Version unambiguously and clearly exceeded the number of comparable words in the Hebrew Old Testament, (second) the number of “hard” archaic words in the KJV unambiguously and clearly exceeded the number of comparable words in the Hebrew Old Testament, and (third) that the syntactical structure of the KJV clearly and unambiguously were more complex than the syntax of the Hebrew Bible, he would have an objective basis for his claim that the KJV is not “sufficiently intelligible.” Since Ward cannot do this—because the language level of the KJV falls easily within the parameters of difficulty that the Hebrew Old Testament would have had to Jews, say, in the days of Ezra—then, based on the pattern provided by God Himself in the holy Scriptures, the KJV is certainly intelligible enough.

New Testament passages such as Matthew 16:22 (hileos) and Revelation 3:14 (arche) illustrate that the NT also contains words comparable to what Ward calls “false friends.”

While the objective standard for what is “too hard” and for when a vernacular translation should be revised is connected to linguistic difficulty in the original language texts, people also intuitively know if they are understanding a text in their own language. Christians in King James Only churches intuitively know, without any argument, that when they read their King James Bibles, they are reading understandable English; on the other hand, if they open a Latin Vulgate or a Spanish Reina-Valera, they are not reading their language, while if they read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or Langland’s Piers Plowman, they are reading an earlier form of English.

Dr. Ward adopted—and improperly adjusted—the concept of “false friends” from page 87 of John McWhorter’s book Words on the Move: Why English Won’t—And Can’t—Sit Still, as Ward makes clear on page 31 of his book Authorized. Mark Ward’s use of the “false friends” concept, and his conclusions from it, differ markedly from those of the linguist and English scholar John McWhorter. Dr. McWhorter illustrates “false friends” from Shakespeare, who employed an approximately 258% larger vocabulary than did the KJV translators. Working on the far more complex English of Shakespeare, Dr. McWhorter never drew the extremely pessimistic conclusions about comprehensibility that Ward drew for the much simpler language of the KJV. McWhorter did indeed speak of “false friends” as words for which meaning has changed over time, but he did not draw the kind of negative conclusions from them for Shakespeare that Mark Ward drew for the KJV. Ward distorts the term “false friend” to attack the KJV. His misuse of the term is itself a “false friend,” as Ward himself is a false friend to the 1611 KJV.”