 The error in Ward’s claims about the word hell differs from those in his other videos in a very significant way. Ward’s entire video on this word can be refuted with a single exercise to expose his confirmation bias. Ward claims that the word hell describes a place where both the righteous and the wicked go after death before being ushered into either Heaven or eternal torment. About twelve minutes into the video, Ward said, “Here’s the key point: this is a place to which the righteous can also go. Presumably, it is the intermediate state. That’s really the key here.” Ward’s entire argument for hell being a “false friend” rests on his claim that the KJV translators sometimes used hell to refer to a place where both the righteous and the wicked go after death.
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 One of the issues that I have with Mark Ward’s argument against the KJV is that Ward is operating from a position of willful ignorance. Thomas Jefferson once contemptuously observed of Thomas Paine that he “thought more than he read,” and I’ve found the same sentiment to be true of Mark Ward. His arguments often reveal a lack of genuine study and a contempt for the more laborious requirements of true scholarship. Ward’s video on the word excess in Ephesians 5:18 stands as a glowing testament of this shortcoming.
 In one of his “false friend” videos, Mark Ward attempts to prove that modern versions do a better job than the KJV of translating I Corinthians 15:19. The KJV translates this verse as: If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. The NKJV translates it as: If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. Ward claims that pitiable is a better word choice here because miserable has supposedly changed over the years to mean something different today than it meant when the KJV was translated in 1611. Unfortunately for Ward, his attempts to prove this claim failed miserably (pun intended). Every single piece of evidence he presented actually argues against him.  I originally thought this article would have a different title. When I decided to do an article on the word prevent, I fully expected my title to be something like “Prevent Is an Actual False Friend in the KJV.” I chose that as my working title because everyone that I have ever read or listened to regarding the word prevent in I Thessalonians 4:15 has claimed that it doesn’t have the same meaning that we ascribe to that word today. However, the more I studied this word and the underlying Greek word, the more convinced I became that prevent is the best word to use both here in I Thessalonians and in every other passage where it occurs in the KJV.  Mark Ward’s handling of the word let is a deliberate attempt to manipulate his audience into accepting a falsehood. This is a textbook case of deceptive framing—where key details are selectively presented, linguistic meaning is distorted, and critical context is omitted to shape a misleading narrative. Ward doesn’t address this supposed “false friend” very often. Apart from a passing reference in an article, I’ve only been able to find a single thirty-second segment devoted to this word in one of Ward’s videos, but the amount of deception that Ward managed to cram into that tiny segment of video is literally mind-blowing.
 Mark Ward proclaims that the phrase wait on is a “false friend” based on a story about a woman misunderstanding Romans 12:7 and a single piece of evidence. Ward’s sole piece of evidence is that the Oxford English Dictionary says that the verbal phrase wait on which was used in Romans 12:7 is obsolete. That’s it. Ward didn’t bother to investigate this phrase any further than that. The OED said the phrase was obsolete, Ward believed it, and that settled it.
 Out of all of Mark Ward’s so-called “false friends” that I’ve studied so far, the word convenient has come the closest to being an actual “false friend,” yet Ward has devoted remarkably little effort to studying and discussing this word. I’ve found Ward’s scholarship to be sloppy in general, but the section of his book devoted to the word convenient is even worse. If Ward actually wanted to prove his case with logic and reason, this term would be one of his prime examples, but I suspect that it lacks the emotional appeal to fit within his normal modus operandi. I’m going to begin by correcting Ward’s shoddy scholarship and presenting the case that he should have made before arguing against that case and demonstrating that convenient is not a “false friend” after all.
 Mark Ward claims the word commendeth is a “false friend” he has “rediscovered for the twenty-first century.” Yes. Those are his exact words, and lest we think Ward is being facetious with that claim, he immediately follows it with “I’m not exaggerating.” I’m not entirely sure what Ward thinks he has rediscovered, but his video on this word is one of the worst examples of scholarship I’ve ever seen.
 John 14:2 is a passage that is often brought up in discussions of the differences between the KJV and other translations, and it is no surprise to find the word mansions from this passage listed among Mark Ward’s “false friends.” In his video on this word, Ward follows the typical anti-KJV argument by saying that “there’s an obvious contextual conflict. What in the world does it mean for the Father’s house to have many mansions inside it? Mansions are houses.” Regarding the Greek word translated as “mansions,” Ward claims, “The word means ‘room.’” Room is the word that most modern translations use here, and it has become widely accepted as accurate. Ward claims that the KJV translators also understood the Greek word to mean room and that they only used the word mansion because that word used to mean “room.” Ward is mistaken on several counts.
 Let me begin this article by explaining why I am going through these “false friends” in this order. I am not just choosing the “false friends” that are the easiest to refute. I was asked to review the “false friends” that Ward mentioned in his debate with Dan Haifley before moving on to the rest of Ward’s claims. This seemed reasonable to me since I expected Ward to have brought out his best examples for the occasion. I thought that this approach would allow me to deal with the most difficult and challenging words first before moving on to Ward’s weaker examples. Unfortunately, it appears that Ward did not use his best examples in the debate. (At least, I hope for the sake of his followers that those were not his best examples, that those are not the examples that have convinced so many young pastors to latch on to Mark Ward’s teachings.)
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Bill Fortenberry is a Christian philosopher and historian in Birmingham, AL. Bill's work has been cited in several legal journals, and he has appeared as a guest on shows including The Dr. Gina Show, The Michael Hart Show, and Real Science Radio.
Contact Us if you would like to schedule Bill to speak to your church, group, or club. "Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning." (Proverbs 9:9)
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