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"By and By" Is Not a False Friend in the KJV

11/18/2024

6 Comments

 
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My previous articles have run a bit long even for me, but this one will be much shorter. This particular “false friend” claim is so simple to refute that it wouldn’t be worth writing about except for the fact that it perfectly demonstrates the poor quality of Mark Ward’s scholarship.

The Simple Truth
 
The basic refutation of Ward’s claim regarding the phrase by and by is that he is just plain wrong in his understanding of the phrase. Ward claims that, in our present time, the phrase by and by means “after a while” or “eventually.” This is simply false. By and by does not mean “after a while” or “eventually.” It means “before long,” “presently,” “soon,” or “shortly.” Every dictionary that I’ve examined has used some variation of this definition. Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Collins, Dictionary.com, YourDictionary, Wiktionary, the Googe Dictionary, and even the American Heritage Dictionary that Ward is so fond of quoting all say that by and by means “soon.”

But what about the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)? This is the dictionary that Ward praises in just about every video as the absolute best and most reliable English dictionary ever written. What does the OED say is the current definition of by and by? Unfortunately, Ward didn’t tell us that in his video, and I’m not wealthy enough to buy the $1,200 twenty-volume set of the OED, so I guess we’ll never know. At least, that’s the impression I’ve gotten from watching Ward’s videos. Happily, however, this is another one of Ward’s errors. The current edition of the OED is available online, and it costs a mere $10 per month for full access. Here is what the OED says is the modern-day definition of by and by:

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That’s the short answer to this “false friend” claim. Mark Ward is just plain wrong when he insists over and over again in his video that the phrase by and by means “after a while” or “eventually.” The current, modern sense of this phrase is that it refers to something happening soon, not to something happening in the distant future. Now, to be fair, there are some people who use by and by to mean something like “after a while,” but they do so disingenuously in the same way that someone might say “I’ll get to it sometime soon” to mean that they’ll get to it sometime not soon at all. Apart from this kind of disingenuous use, the phrase by and by always means “soon.”
 
Ward’s Character and Abilities
 
Now, I could stop there in an attempt to please a few of my detractors who complain that my articles are too long, but I don’t want to waste this opportunity to highlight a few things about Mark Ward’s scholarship. (And my attempts to make detractors happy never work anyway.) Ward’s determination to prove that by and by is a “false friend” reveals some interesting things about his character and abilities.

1. Twisting the Truth
 
Take, for example, his statement about the American Heritage Dictionary entry for by and by. Ward said, “Inexplicably to me, the American Heritage Dictionary does say that this phrase by and by can mean ‘soon.’” There is a subtle misrepresentation of the truth in this statement. The American Heritage Dictionary does not say that by and by can mean “soon.” It says that it does mean “soon.” This is the type of mental gymnastics that I would have expected from a teenager, not from a grown man. Telling my son to drive straight home can mean that he should not stop at a drive-through and get something to eat on the way, but it could just mean that he shouldn’t drive to a friend’s house to spend the night before coming home the next day, and if he assumes the second meaning, then he can get something to eat and innocently claim that he misunderstood my instructions. A teenager determined to get his way is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason (Prov. 26:16), and apparently, the same is true of men with PhDs in New Testament interpretation.

2. Cherry-Picking the Data

 
While we’re on the subject of dictionaries, take a moment to consider the implications of Ward’s decision to ignore what the OED says is the current definition of by and by. Why did Ward leave this out? He frequently lauds the accuracy and reliability of his favorite dictionary, and he mentioned in the video that “the Oxford English Dictionary lists multiple senses of the phrase by and by,” but he completely left out the fact that the OED only gives one modern-day sense of this phrase when used as an adverb, and that sense is defined as “before long, presently, soon, shortly.”

Now, it’s true that the OED does include a definition of this phrase which is kind of similar to the definition Ward gave it in his video. Ward’s definition of by and by as “after a while” or “eventually” could fit under the noun form of the phrase which the OED defines as “procrastination.” Ward is fond of singing a line from the 19th century hymn “The Sweet By and By” every time he talks about this “false friend,” and that hymn is also listed under the noun form of the phrase in the OED.
 
Unfortunately for Ward, all of the noun examples in the OED are actually adverbs used as nouns similar to how by and by is used as a noun in the sentence “By and by is an adverb.” Here’s one of the literary examples the OED provides of this phrase being used as a noun: “Never give credit . . . to the by and by of England, nor to the warrant you of Scotland.” The author’s point in this sentence is that one should not believe an Englishman who promises to do something soon (i.e. by and by) because Englishmen are known for their procrastination. All of the examples the OED provided of the phrase by and by meaning “procrastination” are similar to this one. They use the phrase as a noun to speak of someone else’s disingenuous use of the adverbial phrase as a synonym for soon. In other words, this phrase isn’t a noun at all, and it still means “soon” even when it is used to convey procrastination.
 
None of this was even hinted at in Ward’s video. He avoided any reference at all to the modern-day definition found in the OED. Cherry-picking the data to hide contradictory information is a major red flag, warning of a lack of integrity and revealing the possibility that Ward cannot be trusted to provide a full and honest evaluation of the facts. However, there is a possibility that Ward didn’t read the modern definition of this phrase in the OED. There are a whopping five whole definitions to filter through, and maybe he just didn’t have time to read all of them before broadcasting his ignorance to the whole world. I’ll grant that possibility and withhold judgement. Ward was kind enough to only very strongly suggest that it is a sin to give a KJV Bible to a child, so I’ll return the favor and limit myself to very strongly suggesting that Ward lacks integrity and cannot be trusted. You can decide for yourself whether that suggestion is true or not.

3. Swimming in the Shallow End
 
One of the things that frustrates me about how readily Ward’s claims have been accepted is the fact that his “scholarship” is entirely surface level with no real depth. I suspect that those who share his position are eager to embrace his claims solely because they share his position and not because of the quality of his evidence. The Bible tells us that we are to prove all things (I Thess. 5:21), and it warns us that we should not accept those who seem just in their cause until after their claims have been investigated (Prov. 18:13 & 17). I am perplexed by the eagerness with which Ward’s claims have been accepted, because his arguments are so shallow and easily refuted.
 
This can be illustrated in our current discussion by noting what Ward said about the Greek words which were translated as “by and by” in the KJV. Ward asserted that the “BDAG says they all mean ‘immediately’ or ‘at once.’” This is partly correct. The BDAG lexicon does say that the adverbs εὐθὺς, εὐθὲως (which are really two forms of the same word), and ἐξαὐτῆς can all mean “immediately” or “at once,” but a proper study of these words requires more than just looking them up in a single lexicon.
 
If Ward had devoted the tiniest bit of additional effort to his study, he may have noticed that the parable of the sower uses two of the Greek words that are translated as “by and by.” Both εὐθὺς and εὐθὲως are used in Matthew’s account of this parable. Εὐθὺς is translated as “by and by” in Matthew 13:21, and εὐθὲως is translated as “forthwith” in verse five. Had Ward made this observation, he could also have noted that the word forthwith in verse five does not mean either “immediately” or “at once” as the BDAG claims. The text of Matthew 13:5 says: “Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth.” Seeds do not spring up immediately after they are planted. Germination and growth have to happen below the ground before the first shoot begins to be seen above the ground. Ward should have seen this, and he should have realized that the Greek word εὐθὲως which can be translated as “by and by,” does not just mean “immediately” or “at once.” Sometimes it encompasses a longer period of time. Ward missed this important nuance because he didn’t take the time to study the evidence deeply before making his claims.
 
Ward’s haste to add this phrase to his list of “false friends” also caused him to overlook the use of εὐθὲως in III John 14 where John wrote, “I trust I shall shortly [εὐθὲως] see thee, and we shall speak face to face.” John was not telling Gaius, “Look up as soon as you finish reading these words, and you’ll see me in front of you.” That would be a silly interpretation of this verse, but it’s the only interpretation possible if we follow Ward’s example of blind adherence to the BDAG. What John actually said to Gaius was that he hoped to see him soon, not that he hoped to see him immediately.
 
It may seem like I am just nitpicking here, but there is an important point to be drawn from all of this. When we have a fuller view of εὐθὺς and εὐθὲως, we can see that their primary definition is closer to “soon” than to “immediately.” The LSJM lexicon gives a more comprehensive explanation of these words and draws the focus back to their root, which simply means “straight.” When used as temporal adverbs, they attach that root meaning to the concept of time to convey the sense of “straightaway” or, more accurately, “in a direct sequence.” This sense usually implies immediacy, but it is broad enough to allow for short intervening periods of time. All of this demonstrates that the proper understanding of εὐθὺς and εὐθὲως is that they mean “before long, presently, soon, shortly” exactly as the current definition of the phrase by and by.

5. Suppressing the Truth
 
One of the foundational premises of Ward’s argument is the claim that the words he labels as “false friends” have changed their meaning over time so that they mean something completely different now from what they meant in 1611. For that premise to be true regarding the phrase by and by, the modern definition of that phrase must have originated sometime after 1611. Now, I’ve already suggested (but I didn’t actually say) that Mark Ward lacks integrity and cannot be trusted because he neglected to mention that the OED presents “before long, presently, soon, shortly” as the current definition of by and by. Now let’s take things one step further and consider that this definition is not just listed as the current definition. The OED also points out that this definition had been in use for nearly one hundred years by the time the KJV was translated.
 
The definition of by and by has not changed. The definition that Ward listed is from 1526, and the definition that I listed is also from 1526. Why do both definitions date from the same time period? Because they are essentially the same definition. The phrase actually meant “soon,” and it occasionally carried the sense of “immediately” because immediacy is a subset of the range of time encompassed by the word soon.
 
Ward inadvertently acknowledged this in his video. He was attempting to demonstrate an erroneous conclusion about by and by meaning “after a while,” and in the process, he used the word soon as a synonym for immediately four different times. One of those was in reference to Luke 21:9 where Ward said, “Clearly, Jesus had to mean the end is ‘not yet’ or ‘not soon.’” Ward evidently realizes that the definition marked as obsolete and the definition identified as “the usual current sense” are essentially the same, but he studiously avoided any reference to the current definition in the OED.
 
Conclusion
 
Mark Ward’s claim that by and by is a “false friend” in the KJV is just plain wrong. Literally all of the evidence disagrees with him. His definition of this phrase is something that he just made up on his own. A viewer challenged his definition in one of the comments on the video, and Ward replied with: “I don’t advance arguments for that particular point in the video; I assume it.”

Ward claims in a separate article that his “disagreement with the average KJV defender is not actually about textual criticism, but about which authorities are worth trusting,” and I submit that Mark Ward is not an authority worth trusting. This video proves beyond a doubt that he is either incomprehensibly sloppy in his scholarship or intentionally deceptive. I’ll leave you to decide for yourself which of those two is more accurate.
 
 Click here to read about more words that are not "false friends" in the KJV.
6 Comments
Will Kinney link
11/18/2024 08:31:15 pm


The Greek is fine, the King James Bible is fine, the English is fine, the dictionaries are fine, the commentaries are fine.  The only error is found in these Bible critics' lack of understanding of the English language and their rush to falsely accuse the KJB of error.

These poor guys haven't done their homework at all. First notice the difference between "by and by", which according to Webster's 1967 Collegiate Dictionary 7th edition, and the Random House Webster Dictionary 1999 (not too outdated I hope) is an ADVERB and is not even listed as "archaic", the meaning of which is "before long, soon, presently".

In distinction to this is "by-and-by" (please notice the hyphens) is a noun, not an adverb, and means " in the future".

www.dictionary.com American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition by and by adv. After a while; soon. by-and-by (bn-b) n. Some future time or occasion. Preposition: Presently; pretty soon; before long.

Miriam-Webster - http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary by and by adverb : before long : Soon,  by-and-by noun : a future time or occasion.

So, there is a difference between the adverb "by and by" (soon, presently) and " the by-and-by" the noun (the future), as in "we shall meet in THE by-and-by", which is used with a definite article showing it to be a noun. Thus two distinguishing features are employed to show that one is a noun: a. the hyphens, and b. the definite article "the". In contrast, the adverb is used without the definite article "the" and has no hyphens.By and by

Easton's Bible Dictionary defines the expression "by and by" as: Immediately (Matt. 13:21; R.V., “straightway;” Luke 21:9).

In the King James Version, the expression "BY AND BY" is found only four times - Matthew 13:21; Mark 6:25; Luke 17:7, and Luke 21:9, and in every case it means immediately, soon, or shortly. Not only does the King James Bible use this expression "by and by" but so also do Tyndale's New Testament in Matthew 13:21, Mark 6:25, and Luke 21:9; Coverdale 1535, the Great Bible 1540 - "I wyll, that thou geue me by and by in a charger, the heed, of Iohn Baptyst.", Matthew's Bible 1549 - "I wil that thou geue me by and by in a charger the head of Ihon Baptist.", the Bishops's Bible 1568,  the Geneva Bible  1587 some 13 times -  Matthew 13:21, Luke 17:7; Luke 21:9; John 6:21 etc., and even the very modern versions of the King James Version 21st Century 1994, and the Third Millennium Bible 1998 in Matthew 13:21, and Luke 17:7 and the Jubilee Bible 2010 - in all four verses!
 
Other English Bibles that continue to have the expression "BY AND BY" - "give me BY AND BY IN A CHARGER the head of John the Baptist" - in Mark 6:25 etc. are The Word of Yah 1993, God's First Truth 1999, The Evidence Bible 2003, Bond Slave Version 2009, Hebraic Transliteration Scripture 2010 - “I will that you give me BY AND BY IN A CHARGER the head of Yochanan the Immerser.”

The Tomson New Testament 2002 - "BY AND BY he is offended" (Matthew 13:21; Luke 17:7; Luke 21:9 - "but the end followers not BY AND BY)


The Tomson New Testament 2002. - "would say unto him BY AND BY when he were come from the field..."
http://geneva97.tripod.com/tnt/luke.htm



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Michael Wald link
11/19/2024 08:20:09 am

Yeah I get this I think soon makes it differentBut this one kind of got me cause I think I did misunderstood it... And so I looked at the KJV STUDY PROJECT and there is this link

https://kjbstudyproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/KJB-Study-Project-Full-False-Friends-Responses.pdf

The KJVO pastors gave the wrong answer gave the wrong answerover and over.. I guess I'm like why. Why did they do that. Somethin must be going on with English. right??

Reply
Robert Vaughn link
11/19/2024 07:02:04 pm

I would say that I do find it disappointing that KJV pastors did as poorly as it looks here in the linked results.

However, when it comes to the 100 respondents at the given link, I think everyone needs to be aware that these were cold calls, and in the case of the 10 definitions, there were no multiple choice answers (as in the online test). The respondents just had to give a definition of a word they were given. On "By and By" it looks like about 10% got it right, and a few others may have been in the ballpark. That makes KJV pastors look bad. I think that was part of the intent. But everyone, think about this. How would you do if someone called you up out of the blue and asked you to define ten words. Any ten words. Could you do a good job spouting definitions off the top of your head? How many words would you miss in those circumstances, that you might actually understand if you were sitting down reading something in context?

Here's another problem I see. There should have been some kind of control questions for comparison. That is, other words that were given to see if these respondents could define them, so there might be a comparison whether the problem is in the so-called "false friends" or maybe something else. This was not done. If people who can, will think about it, the survey was not a proper one, and the results are skewed in the direction of the results the surveyor wanted to get.

Reply
Bill Fortenberry
11/20/2024 07:17:30 am

Ward tried to use his "KJV Study Project" against one of my previous articles, and when I challenged him on the flaws in the study, he said: "I did not perform this survey with academic standards in mind, because I did not and do not have academic resources. I sought grant funding but was denied thrice." Here are the flaws that I pointed out to him:

There are about 200,000 pastors that use the KJV in America alone. That number doesn't include the thousands in the UK, Australia, Canada, India, or anywhere else where one might find an English speaking church. Your sample size to represent this huge population of pastors was a mere 100. That's less than a tenth of a percent of the total.

There are many other problems with your survey. I don't have time to cover all of them here, but I'll list a few in no particular order.

1) I find it suspicious that you did not mention your process for selecting the 100 pastors that were called. Were they chosen at random, or did you call pastors that you suspected would give the answers you wanted? Did you take any steps to guarantee that the sample would be a true representation of the whole? Did you adequately control for all the factors that might have influenced the answers from your sample group? These are fundamental questions that should have been answered before your results were published.

2) The questions were not properly crafted to test your hypothesis.

3) The telephone format did not allow you to control the environment around the participants.

4) It is suspicious that you published the education levels and the positions held by the respondents, but you did not publish the effect that these two demographic categories had on the results.

5) It is suspicious that you intentionally did not interview men with Ph.D. degrees. You explained this by saying that "effort was made to reach out to standard pastors," but there are pastors who hold Ph.D. degrees. Plus, 25% of the people you did reach out to were not pastors.

I have read hundreds of studies across at least a dozen specialties, and the flaws in your methodology and reporting have raised huge red flags in my mind. As a researcher, I could never feel comfortable relying on the data from your study in any thing that is published with my name on it.

You can read more here: http://www.increasinglearning.com/blog/false-friends-1

Reply
Robert Vaughn link
11/20/2024 08:23:48 am

Very good detailed explanation about problems with the survey.

For a long time I mostly ignored the survey as something biased to get a biased result. I had also missed the fact that 25% of the respondents were not pastors. Kinda puts a question mark on the explanation that an "effort was made to reach out to standard pastors."

Robert Vaughn link
11/19/2024 11:32:42 am

Good work, Bill. (And Will.)

There is a general modus operandi I have noticed in Mark's work. It goes unnoticed by the less noble "Thessalonians" who uncritically accept most or all of what Mark says. It is hard to miss for those "Bereans" who are willing to check every word. Here is the M.O.:

1. Define a word in a way that limits its range of meaning. Debate = a formal discussion on a particular topic....
2. Fail to include other definitions in the semantic range. E. g.: Debate (the 1st definition in the modern Merriam-Webster online dictionary) = a contention by words or arguments. (Contention, shockingly, one of the very words Mark said it "used to mean.")
3. Declare you proved your point.
Easy peasy. (But not true or accurate.)

(I did this one on Mark's discussion of the word "debate," but it is a similar operation in most cases, as you (Bill) showed here. Just say that "by and by" can only relate to off in the future, and then declare it is a "false friend.")

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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.

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