Custer's Last Stand - Dr. Peter S. Ruckman 33 Pgs
Custer's Last Stand - Dr. Peter S. Ruckman 33 Pgs
Custer's Last Stand - Dr. Peter S. Ruckman 33 Pgs
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The Scripture quotations found herein are from the text of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible. Any deviations therefrom are not
intentional.
BB BOOKSTORE
P.O. Box 7135 Pensacola, FL 32534
www.kjv1611.org
Other works available on Kindle
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Watching the Professional Liar at Work
2. In Defense of the Alexandrian Cult
3. Treeing the Coon
4. How to Avoid Every Issue You Are Supposed to Deal With
5. Donald Duck in the Bible Department
INTRODUCTION
The shocking pamphlet we are about to examine is what Bob Jones University and the Sword of the Lord call a
“SCHOLARLY” work or a “SCHOLARLY” treatment of five issues that deal with FINAL AUTHORITY. There
has been perhaps no more shameful and disgraceful nomenclature given in the annals of Christian education, at least
not in the last 200 years. We have given a title to this analysis that is undoubtedly too serious and too accurate. In
view of the disgraceful display of ignorance found in the pamphlet, a more appropriate title for it might be “The
Sword of the Lord and Road Runner” or “Donald Duck at Bob Jones University.” Nevertheless, the Sword of the
Lord (Jan. 1, 1982) and BJU have both given their unqualified approval to (and recommendation of) this shambles
we are about to look at and have called it “SCHOLARLY.” BJU went so far as to say that it dealt in a scholarly
manner with the ISSUES regarding the King James “controversy.” As we shall see, the writer of the pamphlet
adroitly sidestepped EVERY ISSUE as soon as he approached it.
The five issues that we presented in 1970 that dealt with matters of Final Authority stated that:
1. The Mythological Septuagint (a COMPLETE OLD TESTAMENT in Greek) had no existence on the face of
this earth until the last Apostle had died. We gave the manuscript evidence for every known reading found in the
Septuagint before (or AFTER) the discovery of the impotent “Dead Sea Scrolls” and challenged any faculty member
of any school in the world to find ONE GREEK MANUSCRIPT written before the birth of Christ that was quoted
by ANY writer in the New Testament. After looking for twelve years, the faculty at BJU was unable to produce one
manuscript. In the pamphlet by Stewart Custer, which we are about to examine, the only manuscripts he mentioned
in connection with quotations were two that were written more than 200 years after the completion of the New
Testament. He spent twelve years banging his head against a stone wall.
2. The ASV and the NASV are basically Roman Catholic New Testaments (like the Jerusalem and “American”
Bibles) from Constantine the Great, coming up from Africa via Eusebius and to America via Jesuit priests in
Rheims, France. We have fifty verses to support this contention. After twelve years of study, the faculty at Bob
Jones couldn’t even discuss ONE VERSE of the fifty listed in relation to Roman Catholic Bibles. While trying
desperately to justify the depraved NASV, Custer didn’t even attempt to face THAT issue: Hills, Miller, Burgon,
Scrivener, Hoskier, Fuller and Wilkerson all faced it and dealt with it.
3. Often the English text of 1611 is able to give advanced revelation on truth which the Greek scholars cannot
find in any Greek text. After twelve years of study, the faculty and staff of Bob Jones (and the staff and editors of the
Sword of the Lord) decided that they couldn’t answer ONE SAMPLE which we gave in 1970, and put in print in the
very books that they are reading.
In Custer’s pamphlet, he just pretended that the evidence had not been given. The evidence was given on pages
115-137 of a book that Custer cited more than half a dozen times while he was trying to duck the issues.
4. Alexandrian associations in general and Origenistic associations in particular tend to degeneration and
apostasy, especially in connection with the so-called “Alexandrian family” of manuscripts (Vaticanus and
Sinaiticus). After twelve years of study, no one at BJU was able to open their mouth about this issue. All Custer did
was refuse to discuss the readings in the Alexandrian manuscripts; he suggested that because some highly respected
men had been fooled by the phony theories of Hort (Robertson, Machen, etc.) that the manuscripts could be counted
on as “reliable” and “orthodox” WITHOUT EXAMINING THEM. He subsequently ducked under the issue like it
was a bullet aimed at his head and ignored over 3000 pages of documented evidence already in print by Hills,
Mosheim, Ray, Neander, Fuller, Orchard, Armitage, Scrivener, Hoskier, Burgon, Waitte and Miller.
5. All members of the Alexandrian Cult and all of its leaders think exactly alike when it comes to final
authority and freely confess that there is no such thing on this earth as a Book that is infallible and inerrant (and
therefore can always be counted on in dealing with ANY issue to be correct, whether these matters be ones of
FAITH or PRACTICE). Custer doesn’t dare even mention it. After thirty-six pages he would admit that no one on
this earth has a BOOK that is so perfect and so holy that it can CORRECT men like himself and the Alexandrian
Cult to which he belongs. If you talked with him you would find that he freely admits that anyone as intelligent as he
thinks he is (or the men that he thinks are that intelligent) may correct the HOLY Bible wherever and whenever they
see fit.
In short, Stewart Custer’s pitiful and disgraceful tract was written while turning tail and running from all five
issues just as fast as his legs would carry him. But by far the most shameful and shocking thing about Stewart’s
work is not his lying (we would expect that) and his stupidity (we take that for granted, but we will document it for
the reader); the most shocking thing was the performance of Robert Sumner (Sword of the Lord) and Bob Jones Jr.,
(BJU) in actually seriously recommending the work as a “scholarly treatment of the Issues.”
They weren’t even handled. Stewart found them too hot to handle.
Now, unlike Stewart Custer, we will give the reader exact documentation as to our criticisms of his tract. There
will be no pious talk about “feeding spiritually on the word” and “God alone being able to judge” and “finding
Christ, while leaving textual problems alone for the experts,” etc. No, we assume that any honest Bible believer is
more of an expert in “textual problems” (see Problem Texts, 1980) than any dishonest “expert” who is as stupid as
Stewart Custer or the men who taught him.
That two amateurs like Sumner and Jones Jr., could think that such a pamphlet as we are about to examine is
“scholarly” is the limit to which modern TV fantasy can be stretched. Dayton Hobbs (Santa Rosa Christian Schools),
Mrs. Norton (Pensacola Christian Schools), Fink (Hyles Anderson), Rodney Bell (Virginia Beach) and others also
recommend this pamphlet to their students. They do it knowing that the author is not only a joke as a “scholar” but
that he is a muckraking liar and has been documented as a LIBELER by a Law Court Decree (Judge Hubert Hall,
28th Circuit Court, Bay Minnette, Alabama, Feb. 27, 1962). We published this proof in the Bulletin where 26,000
readers could make photostatic copies of it.
Horton, Bell, Hyles, Custer, Jones, Sumner, Hutson, Hudson, Wallace, Hobbs, etc. have all seen the evidence.
They simply justify Custer’s sins on the grounds of expediency.
The reader of this work can arrive at his own conclusions. Since the works by “Ruckman” are banned on the
campuses of Santa Rosa, Pensacola, Tennessee Temple, Bob Jones University and other Alexandrian Cult centers,
the reader will not be able to check the twelve lies documented in Custer’s work unless he gets hold of the
SOURCES which Custer quoted.
We here enter upon a brief, and we trust enlightening, critical review of the bamboozle of the century, a
libelous piece of Disneyland scholarship called “THE TRUTH About the King James Version Controversy.”
The author of that pamphlet has all of the qualifications to pose in this last church age as a Champion of
Apostate Fundamentalism. The “scholarly requirements” for a King of the Cult in this age are as follows:
1. He must be egotistical (i.e. smart enough to correct the Book by which he was saved).
2. He must be innately stupid, while counting on “degrees” to prove his intelligence.
3. He must be extremely dishonest (check the documented evidence which follows).
4. He must appeal to the Adamic nature in saved apostates who want CHRISTIAN EDUCATION TO BE THE
FINAL AUTHORITY IN ALL MATTERS OF FAITH AND PRACTICE.
Stewart Custer (BJU) fulfills all four requirements perfectly. It will be seen in what follows that he is fully
qualified to represent the Alexandrian Cult in the last half of the twentieth century. One might say that no man on
earth today is better qualified; we certainly could not find a greater liar among Fundamentalists or a more ignorant
man in a Christian university that sported “earned degrees.”
CHAPTER ONE
Watching the Professional Liar at Work
Here is a pamphlet with one of the most pious professions of “godly” Christianity that was ever placed on the
front of a polemic. It is called “The Truth About the King James Version Controversy” and is published by the Bob
Jones University Press. The cover on this tract shows a man’s hand in the act of taking an oath in court and swearing
to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH” (quite a profession!). The man’s hand is not
on anyone’s “original autographs” or “plenary, verbally inspired originals.” IT IS ON A “HOLY BIBLE.”
With such a cover you are to believe that “THE TRUTH” is to be found in the pamphlet on the basis of the
profession of the author (see p. 36). Further, you are led to believe (by pious implication) that if the author were ever
hauled into court for libel that he would solemnly tell “the truth, the whole truth, and NOTHING BUT THE
TRUTH.” (After taking his oath on a Book that he declared was full of errors!)
If Custer, or any other member of the Alexandrian Cult, took an oath on a King James Holy Bible it would
mean nothing; the standards of their own profession of faith, which they teach and practise, state that the King James
Holy Bible is not “THE WHOLE TRUTH” nor is it “NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.” Hypocrites sometimes have a
hard time appearing credible.
This pious work opens with a great big whopping lie. Stewart begins by saying that Mr. Ruckman has claimed
to know “more than fundamental Bible scholars on any campus” and that Ruckman has claimed to have “absolute
authority to teach and preach” (Custer, Introduction). As PROOF (documented evidence dealing with “facts” not
“dreams”) for this opening statement Stewart cites p. 6 of The Christian’s Handbook of Manuscript Evidence, 1970.
Now, any saved or lost sinner in America can obtain a copy of this source reference at the Bible Baptist
Bookstore here in Pensacola. He can read page 6. There is nothing on the entire page that matches either clause that
Stewart began his pamphlet with. There is no documented evidence given for one thing that Caster said; he lied
about EVIDENCE before he had written one line and he knew he was lying when he wrote because he had the
source reference open on his table when he wrote. He simply concluded that people as stupid as Robert Sumner
(Sword of the Lord), Bob Jones Jr. (BJU), Dayton Hobbs, Faulkner, Mrs. Horton, Afman, Price, Martin, Rodney
Bell, etc. would not look up the reference TO SEE IF HE WAS LYING. He figured his POSITION would guarantee
that no one would question his INTEGRITY (Prov. 14:15).
There is nothing in the very first line of Stewart’s tract that is related to ANY truth in his source reference
material, let alone “the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” “Scholarship” doesn’t enter the matter anywhere.
Custer couldn’t read.
Now, this is the most charitable way to look at it. Since there is nothing on page 6 of the Handbook that proves
anything Stewart said, we are left to speculation as to why he lied:
a. He was just plain stupid and couldn’t read English.
b. He was just plain crooked and knew he was lying when he wrote it.
c. He was spiritually diseased with “Ruckmanitis” and was so anxious to slander his opponent that he didn’t
look up ANYTHING.
Now take your pick. (We couldn’t care less. I don’t care which one of the three it was. A man as ignorant as
Stewart is [see following documented evidence] is not worth analyzing.) With all of his talk about “facts” and
“evidence” and with two incredible frauds like Sumner and Jones, III, talking about his “scholarly work” dealing
with “the issues,” one must face the first fact: The opening statement in Custer’s pamphlet is not a reference to
anything that he gave as a reference. With that for a starter, you are to believe that the rest of the references he is
about to give (p. 1-34) are trustworthy!
Custer continues. He says that Ruckman claims that his “life work” is demonstrating that the “AV 1611 is the
Word of God.” For this remarkable falsehood Stewart cites page ii of the Preface to The Christian’s Handbook of
Manuscript Evidence.
No such statement is found anywhere on the page.
There is no statement about ANYONE’S “life work” on the page. There is no statement about ANYONE
“demonstrating that the AV 1611 is the Word of God” on the page.
Stewart evidently is “crippled too high for crutches.”
The Sword of the Lord and Bob Jones called that type of lying “SCHOLARLY!” As we shall see shortly,
Stewart is one professional liar who is pathological as well as chronic; he cannot quit lying, for it seems to be his
NATURE.
All anyone has to do (who thinks we have judged a little too harshly) is buy a copy of Manuscript Evidence
(Pensacola Bible Press, 1970) and read page ii of the Preface. No “scholarship” is necessary to spot the liar. Stewart
Custer simply lied about REFERENCES three times in a row in the opening five lines of his tract. That is
“SCHOLARSHIP” at Bob Jones University and the Sword of the Lord. Real godly folks, don’t you think?
Now, let us understand exactly what is going on here. No one is “calling names.” We are identifying LIARS.
Custer is not being called a liar because we believe in “name calling” and “downing everyone who doesn’t agree
with us, etc.” No, we are identifying falsehood and the propagator of falsehood and have written and documented it.
Both of Stewart’s source references are false, yet they followed a cover-picture of a man in the act of taking an oath
to tell the TRUTH on a King James Bible!
Could anything be more preposterous?
Imagine THAT being recommended in the Sword of the Lord!
Let us go a little further.
Custer now addresses himself to Fundamentalists and informs them that they “MUST REMEMBER that the
court of last resort in DOCTRINAL MATTERS is not any translation” (Introduction).
And what is the Biblical authority for such a didactic and dogmatic decree?
Nothing.
Stewart couldn’t find one Biblical authority (not one verse in either Testament) for the fiat he laid down; he
laid it down like he thought it was one of the essential Fundamentals of the Faith! Why, the teaching Stu gave is the
standard creed of the Alexandrian Cult that they have used for 200 years, without ONE VERSE TO BACK IT UP
IN EITHER TESTAMENT. It is pure pagan imagination abetted by traditional hogwash. Here is some egotistical
upstart trying to split the local churches by making them think that no member in them can be a “Fundamentalist”
unless he abides by the Cult Creed which he stated above; why, it is nothing but personal opinion, which he arrived
at by reading opinions of people like HIMSELF.
Is “the wording of the original Greek and Hebrew texts” the “last resort” in doctrinal matters (Custer,
Introduction)? Are any of you deluded souls smart enough to know what a “RESORT” in that sense means? Did you
look it up in a dictionary? No man on this earth, saved or lost, could go to ANY “original Greek and Hebrew texts”
as a “court of last resort” because they are not here. Such a “court” doesn’t even EXIST. Custer knew it when he
said it. He said it because the leaders of the Alexandrian Cult are going to USE that to prove that even though “we
don’t have the originals” we are “close to them”; therefore, we “Greek and Hebrew scholars” ARE THE FINAL
AND LAST COURT OF RESORT IN DOCTRINE. Custer was just too yellow to carry you that far. We don’t
shrink from such issues; we face them head-on and deal with them (in plain language!).
Custer continues and complains that, “What Mr. Ruckman does not make clear is that there is not a single
doctrine found in the King James Version that is not also found in the New American Standard Bible” (Custer,
Introduction). (Observe the sly change of the God-honored text of the Protestant Reformation into a “version” and
the exaltation of the Roman Catholic Dark Age translation into) “BIBLE.”)
Well now, who would “make THAT clear” but an unprincipled liar with no moral conscience? How could any
honest man make THAT clear without adding that “there is not a single doctrine found in the New American
Standard Bible that is not found in the Jehovah’s Witness Bible, the Living Bible, Today’s English Version, the New
English Bible, the RSV, the NRSV and the Jesuit Rheims Bible”? After all, every apostate “Bible” on earth has the
correct doctrines SOMEWHERE in it; why would this stupid child (professor of ancient languages!!) think that
anyone should “make it clear that the NASV” is an exception when it is not? That would be lying again by telling a
half truth. (They seem to have a proclivity for it, don’t they? It is almost like they were on “automan.”)
Now this is what they call a “scholarly” facing of issues at Bob Jones University. To the Sword of the Lord this
is FUNDAMENTALIST SCHOLARSHIP of the highest caliber.
As far back as 1960 we pointed out the obvious fact (obvious to anyone but a Greek scholar!) that if you found
a ten dollar bill in a sewer, that would not entitle you to call the sewer a BANK (see Monarch of the Books, 1970).
Of course you can find some orthodox verses somewhere in any “Bible.” What does THAT mean? Why, there is no
one on the Board at BJU or the Sword who knows! Somewhere during their education they must have lost their
MINDS.
In reference to the grossly polluted Alexandrian Manuscripts, Stu says, “There is no fundamental doctrine that
is at stake between these two families” (a reference to Syrian Receptus manuscripts) “of manuscripts” (Custer,
Introduction).
Then why doesn’t he recommend the Living Bible and the New RSV as reliable? THEY ARE FROM THE
ALEXANDRIAN MANUSCRIPTS, exactly as the ASV and NASV. Not recommended because of the
PROFESSION of the translators? Well, what has that got to do with the TEXT they translated and published?
What did Stu mean when he said, “There is no fundamental doctrine that is at stake....” Is there any scholar
who would decipher that God-forsaken blank for us (“at stake”)? What do you mean “at stake”?
He didn’t say. They never do. They cannot even DEFINE an issue clearly, let alone discuss it. What Stu meant
was “if you can find a doctrine SOMEWHERE in the Alexandrian Manuscript it is all right if the same doctrine is
attacked somewhere ELSE in the same manuscripts.” Stu was just too chicken to say what he meant. Members of
the Alexandrian Cult have that problem also.
Custer (supposedly citing Mr. Ruckman): “Mr. Ruckman does admit that all the early manuscripts belong to the
Alexandrian Family.” (!!) He further states that it is Ruckman who believes in “leaving the Syrian text standing like
a cold cat in the snow” with nothing but late manuscripts to back it up. (Here Custer is supposedly citing page 89 of
the Handbook.)
Lied again, didn’t he? The old hypocrite!
Sumner and Bob Jones recommended his lying too, didn’t they?
What junior high school student who had page 89 of the Handbook on his table would have believed THAT
lie?
On page 89 of the Handbook the text says that it was the German apostate Griesbach (1745-1812) who gave the
opinion cited above and the “cold cat” in the snow is the result of believing what Griesbach said about the
“families” of manuscripts. We may assume that:
a. Either Custer was too stupid to know who Griesbach was.
b. Or Custer was so sloppy in his scholarship that he couldn’t read a whole paragraph at one time.
c. Or he was such a dishonest liar that morally he was not fit to write a tract on prayer.
No man, saved or lost, with ANY amount of education would have thought that “Ruckman admitted” anything
that Custer said he admitted. All a man would have to do is read THE SOURCE CUSTER QUOTED. Fortunately
for “Stu baby,” the SOURCE is banned on the campuses at Tennessee Temple, Pensacola Christian Schools, Santa
Rosa Schools, Bob Jones and Hyles Anderson: this makes LYING easy. Where censorship is exercised in favor of
the LIAR, he “has it made.” This “Christian” censorship is to make people think that the Head of the Bible
Department at Bob Jones has personal integrity. He has the personal integrity of an alley cat: he has lied FOUR
TIMES on two pages, and he is only warming up.
Now, what is a real Bible-believing Christian to think about all of this? Or, better still, what crippling disease
do you suppose could have infected Bob Jones Jr., and Bob Jones, III, and Robert Sumner (The Sword of the Lord)
that they would subscribe to (and promote) such libelous trash?
What could this strange Laodicean disease be?
Here is the Head of a “Bible” (!!) Department at a major Christian university that brags about the “militant
stands” it takes for the TRUTH (!) and they are recommending a character who has lied about his source references
FOUR TIMES on two pages and then expects us to believe his source references for the next 33 pages. (Now there
is an optimist if you ever saw one!)
At the end of his “Introduction,” this fraudulent faker concludes with the statement that “THE EVIDENCE
demonstrates that Mr. Ruckman is not a reliable INTERPRETER”!
Isn’t that the limit?
Who is a “reliable interpreter”?
This poor irresponsible child, egged on by opportunists (who know that flattery will make him think he is a
scholar), couldn’t be counted on for an honest TWO pages of written material even when he professed to be quoting
“EVIDENCE,” and now he says “THE EVIDENCE demonstrates....”
The evidence demonstrates that Stewart Custer is a liar.
That is the scholarship of Bob Jones University in 1982.
CHAPTER TWO
In Defense of the Alexandrian Cult
Part II of Stewart Custer’s tract has been called “THE CONSERVATIVE POSITION.” We are to assume from
this that Custer knows what the position is and that he takes it. (It is rather ludicrous when one thinks about it, for if
the “Conservative Position” is anything like Custer’s “Introduction,” we might safely say that the “Conservative
Position” in this age is that of an habitual liar. [See documented evidence just given, and be sure to check ALL
source material.])
Page 5 is standard Cult material found in all Cult publications. It presents the typical Alexandrian Cult way of
putting over standard lies by telling partial truths (Gen. 3:1-4). We have already commented on this practice a dozen
times in Problem Texts, 1980, and in the forty articles on the Alexandrian Cult (1980-1981); but since this tract is
now recommended literature at “Christian” schools, we should give it further attention.
Custer: “In about 90% of the manuscripts’ readings all the manuscripts are agreed” (p. 5).
Partial truth (Gen. 3:5): Ninety percent of the Textus Receptus manuscripts agree. The Alexandrian
manuscripts not only disagree with these but have very little agreement between themselves: in many cases less than
fifty percent. (Not being as “scholarly” as Custer, we are going to LIST the differences and name the manuscripts
and cite the authorities for them and quote them CORRECTLY. Our “unscholarly” ways should certainly be at least
ten times better attested to than the ridiculous work of some jackleg who thinks he is intelligent because he has been
puffed up by opportunists who wish to use him.)
Custer tells us that the comparisons of manuscripts led to “the discovery of four different types of texts” and
that “all the manuscripts fall into four different patterns of readings” (p. 5).
Desperate lying of the worst sort. The family classification has proved to be a hoax (we will document).
Custer says that the two earliest (texts) are “the Alexandrian and Western texts....The Byzantine text originated
in the middle of the fourth century” (p. 6).
Desperate, wicked falsification of fact of the very worst sort (we will document). Custer meant that
GRIESBACH and those stupid enough to follow him (Hort, Tischendorf, Lachmann, Nestle, Aland, Metzger and
Robertson) couldn’t find what THEY called the Byzantine “family” before the fourth century. The Byzantine
READINGS and TEXTS are all through the second and third centuries (we will document), but they are called
“ALEXANDRIAN” on the lying assumption that the ALEXANDRIAN had to be earlier even when it read as the
BYZANTINE (we will document).
Although Burgon, Scrivener, Miller and Hoskier were well able to see through this little ploy, ignorant scholars
like Robertson, Machen, Warfield and Custer don’t have the intelligence to discern the difference between such
English words as “READINGS,” TEXTS” and “FAMILIES.” For example, notice that Custer used the word
“pattern” (“four different PATTERNS,” p. 5). This is the term that is used to avoid dealing with the ISSUE: the
issue is what the manuscripts SAY in their text. But when could Custer ever face an issue?
Custer (p. 6): “The IMPORTANT THING to note is that each of these four types of texts is
THEOLOGICALLY CONSERVATIVE.”
Not according to Zane Hodges, Donald Waitte, Otis Fuller, Burgon, Miller, Scrivener, Edward Hills,
Wilkerson, Pickering, or Hoskier. Custer just gave you his own personal, unscholarly opinion and expected you to
think he was talking about FACTS. He dreams up his “facts.” He expected you to accept that statement above
without questioning it. We say he is a deceived fool and we will document why we say that.
Custer (p. 6): “Not one of these texts can be called heretical or apostate as Mr. Ruckman alleges.”
Flim-flam. According to two dozen Bible-believing Conservatives, Custer is an uneducated fool. Any
knowledgeable person who has investigated the hundreds of pages of documented evidence on the Alexandrian
manuscripts (patterns, family, pattern of texts, “niceties,” idiomatic expressions, wording, etc.) knows of the
HERETICAL and HETERODOX nature of those manuscripts (we will document).
On pages 7 and 8 of this pamphlet is the joke of the age. Here this poor, miserable little liar (see pages i, ii)
tried to prove that the NASV was “reliable” by comparing it with the AV and the NWT on SIX verses. If the reader
will pick up the Handbook of Manuscript Evidence (1970) he will find that the ASV has been compared to fifty
verses, including the NWT, and the fifty verses there (1970) are still good for the NASV (1982). Not one word about
saying that Elhanan killed Goliath instead of David (NASV, 2 Sam. 21:19). Not one word about saying that Satan
was a “crocodile” (NASV, Job 41). Not one word about the RSV readings in Job 19:26 and Romans 1. Not one word
about the Roman Catholic readings in Matthew 1:25 and James 5:7. Not a peep about the attacks on the Virgin Birth
in Luke 2:33 and Acts 4. Not a murmur or mention of attacks on the Deity of Christ in 1 Timothy 3:16 and Luke
23:42. Not a word.
Instead, we are given six verses to be compared with TWO translations (we cited twenty-three translations) and
one of the verses on two Gods matches the Jehovah’s Witness Bible nearly to the letter (only three words vary in
John 1:18) for it is the Vatican (ALEXANDRIAN) manuscript that is being used to prove that there are two Gods: a
begotten God and an unbegotten God. (We discussed this at length in 1970 in “Satan’s Masterpiece, the NASV.”)
Custer’s booklet doesn’t even give the MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE FOR THE HERETICAL READING.
This is what the Sword of the Lord calls a “scholarly” work.
The Arian reading in John 1:18, adopted by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the NASV, is from P66 (Alexandrian),
Vaticanus (Alexandrian), Sinaiticus (Alexandrian), P75 (Alexandrian), and ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT.
(See Nestle’s critical apparatus, p. 231.)
Custer tells us that there is “overwhelming evidence” that the Alexandrian text (see above) was “widely attested
and well known in the early second century” (p. 9).
Partial truth (Gen. 3:5): So was the Byzantine text if by “text” you mean THE WORDS FOUND IN THE
MANUSCRIPTS. One must remember that in dealing with two-faced liars like the leaders of the Alexandrian Cult
that “text” to them can mean “FAMILY PATTERNS OF READINGS.” They switch terminology to suit fantasy.
(You may have noticed this already in Custer’s work.)
Custer now appeals to our positivistic humanism and informs us that the “vast majority of conservative scholars
for the past century have agreed that the Alexandrian text is the closest to the wording of the original” (p. 9).
Partial truth (Gen. 20:2): 1. So have the vast majority of unsaved Liberals in the National Council of Churches
as well as all Jesuit scholars in the Roman Catholic Church. 2. The scholars referred to above were not soul-winning
pastors or evangelists. 3. Since not one scholar that Custer has in mind ever saw “the wording of the original,” we
are dealing with conjectural subjectivism from start to finish. “Agreement” between a bunch of professing Christians
in the Laodicean church (2 Tim. 4:1-6) often means collusion to propagate falsehood: as, for example, the
recommendation of Custer’s work by Hyles Anderson, Midwestern, BIOLA, Santa Rosa Christian, Tennessee
Temple, Falwell Schools and Pensacola Christian College. (Sometimes the “vast majority” of Conservative scholars
[see Nicea, Trent, etc.] are the majority mentioned in Acts 4:6 and John 7:48.) The “vast majority of conservative
scholars” were wrong in 7520 when Luther showed up; they were wrong in 2500 B. C. when Enoch showed up; they
were wrong in 590 B.C. when Jeremiah showed up; they were wrong in 30 A.D. when Christ showed up; and they
were wrong in 1881 when the Revised Version came out in England. Stewart is betting his money on the Cult and
taking advantage of your ignorance. You are to believe that because a man is a Conservative or a Fundamentalist
that he could not be a member of the Alexandrian Cult: it has some OUTSTANDING Conservatives in it (see
documented evidence in Problem Texts, 1980).
Custer: “The earliest evidence for the Byzantine text is found in the following: W (IV-V century, Matthew and
Luke), A (V century, Gospels), E (VIII century), etc.” (p. 9). He is a liar.
He is paid to lie. (We will not call him “names.” We will identify him shortly with documented evidence).
Custer: “It is also CLEAR that the Byzantine text is a DERIVED text” (p. 10). Proof?
Don’t be silly. That was Hort’s theory (1880). He called it a “derived” text by making CONFLATED
READINGS: the theory was proved to be a joke by Dean Burgon as far back as 1890 (we will document) when Hort
couldn’t defend one question put to him about the theory.
Custer: “It OBVIOUSLY incorporates into itself the earlier readings found in both the Alexandrian and
Western text” (p. 10). Proof?
Are you kidding? When could a man like Stu Custer produce OBVIOUS proof for something that was
OBVIOUS (see above)? Did you really think that such an unscholarly hot air expert, who lied six times in a row,
could back up such words as “IT IS CLEAR” and “OBVIOUSLY” with anything but a blank space? Stu is quoting
the conflate theory of Westcott and Hort (we will document) given more than eighty years ago. Custer could only
mention one sample of a “conflate reading” out of 31,000 plus verses in the New Testament (Luke 24:53). Hort only
found eight and had to stick to the Gospels (so did Custer) to find them (we will document). Hort thought that
EIGHT VERSES in four Gospels proved that the Receptus was a text “derived” from Western and Alexandrian
Texts. (We produced FIFTY-ONE VERSES to show that Hort produced a Roman Catholic text for the ASV and
NASV. [The Christian’s Handbook of Manuscript Evidence, 1970].)
Now, what is one to think of such “scholarship” if he is HONEST? And what is one to think of the dumbbells
who think that such nonsense is scholarly? The theories above were called by Dean Burgon “excursions into
CLOUDLAND” (see Appendix in Problem Texts, 1980). None of them held water. But further! You understand that
this “derived-conflated” gas bag is being called “THE CONSERVATIVE POSITION” by the Sword of the Lord and
Bob Jones University (Jan. 1, 1982, Faith Magazine, Dec. 1981).
You see, the title of the chapter where Hort’s deluded theory of conflation was given as “FACT” was called by
Custer “THE CONSERVATIVE POSITION.”
This means that Edward Hills, Billy Sunday, Donald Waitte, General William Booth, Pickering, Wilkerson,
David Otis Fuller, Bob Jones, Sr., Mordecai Ham, Alex Dunlap, Zane Hodges, J. Frank Norris, and Ian Paisley were
not “CONSERVATIVES” but Westcott and Origen and Hort were!
Could anything be more fantastic?
Custer says that “Ruckman” refers to the Textus Receptus as though “it were the original” (Custer, p. 10,
supposedly citing the Handbook, pp. 25, 30, etc.).
I have both pages open on the table in front of me.
“Mr. Ruckman” referred to nothing of the kind on either page.
HE LIED AGAIN.
That is seven lies on ten pages. Custer’s lying is just as deliberate and just as consistent as if he were a man
who had been hired and paid a salary to LIE FOR A LIVING.
Where does this place THE SWORD OF THE LORD and BOB JONES UNIVERSITY?
Where does it place PENSACOLA “CHRISTIAN” COLLEGE and HYLES ANDERSON?
“Birds of a feather....???”
Like Origen, Augustine, Jerome and Hort, Custer is a saved LIAR.
The Laodicean church is filled with them, but few have the gall to put a cover on their writings with a man
swearing to tell the TRUTH on a BOOK that HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN! On pages 10-11, Custer lets us know in
no uncertain terms what he thinks about the AV’s credibility in 1 John and Revelation. In his spiritual dementia Stu
cries out, “WHAT IS EVEN MORE DEVASTATING” (boy is this going to be important!!) “is the FACT that there
is not a single manuscript of the BYZANTINE text that agrees completely with any one of these editions” (p. 10).
You are to think, with Robert Sumner and Bob Jones Jr., that THAT is scholarship.
What student at FBI with a high school education doesn’t know that there is not ONE SINGLE MANUSCRIPT
of ANY ALEXANDRIAN GREEK TEXT or WESTERN TEXT that completely agrees with ANY edition of ANY
Greek text put out by ANYONE?
Who didn’t know that but the faculty members at Bob Jones University?
Imagine calling such a commonly known thing a “DEVASTATING...FACT”!!
Why, the differences within the Alexandrian family of Greek manuscripts are more than the combined
differences found in all four editions of the Receptus as printed by Beza, Erasmus, Stephanus and Elzevir (we will
document).
In relation to the Book of Revelation, Custer tells us that Erasmus “created some words that are not in any
Greek manuscript anywhere” (Custer, p. 11). Promptly he calls these words “SPURIOUS READINGS” (p. 11).
From what did Erasmus create them if they are not in Greek manuscripts?
Since when have they been proved to be spurious?
Since the “vast majority of scholars” have always believed that Christ and the Apostles quoted an Old
Testament “LXX,” without ONE SHRED OF MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE of any kind, why wouldn’t Erasmus be
just as accurate as they were in producing a text with NO GREEK MANUSCRIPT of any kind behind it? Since the
“vast majority” of Conservative scholars between 1884 and 1940 were duped into believing that the Alexandrian
text was “orthodox,” why would Greek manuscripts bother them? Vaticanus doesn’t even have ANY part of the
Book of Revelation in it! (We will document for the reader and show him how “spurious” these “created” words
were, and we will list them since Stu doesn’t have the scholarship or the ability to tell you what they were.)
After all of these bungling Alexandrian tautologies, without ONE piece of evidence to confirm a word of them,
this inimitable liar says, “This involves the question not simply of principles, but also of FACTS” (p. 11)! Stu then
accuses champions of the Receptus of often inventing or DREAMING “their facts” and then drawing their
“inferences” (p. 12).
Seven lies on twelve pages: Four partial truths and three false theories given to you with the dogmatism of a
Jesuit priest and this pious liar has the nerve to talk about “FACTS” and a Bible believer dreaming them up!
And the “Sword of the Lord” had the brass to call such a disgraceful performance “scholarly” (Sword of the
Lord, Jan. 1, 1982)!
On goes this muddled amateur with this brilliant piece of logic. “To say, as Mr. Ruckman does, that the King
James is inerrant is to say that God favors the English-speaking peoples of the world” (p. 13). (You wonder
sometimes if any one “got out of the cuckoo’s nest.” All the cuckoos seem to still be there.) In Stewart Custer’s
letter to Mr. Wood of Flint, Michigan, we learn that God was so vicious in His discrimination that he gave an
inerrant “Bible” to Stewart Custer written in a dead language that less than two percent of the world’s population
understands. (We printed this evidence in the Bulletin.)
Is anyone to take such a liar seriously? Look at the “favoritism” that God showed to the Jewish people (1500-
400 B.C.), according to Custer’s “logic.” He gave them an inerrant Bible (in the original autographs ONLY,
according to the Alexandrian Cult), ignoring the fact that Hebrew was never a universal language BEFORE or
AFTER it was written or spoken. God chose to give that inerrant Scripture to a people who comprised less than two
percent of the world’s population. But who didn’t know all of this except the editors of the Sword of the Lord and
the faculty members at Tennessee Temple, Hyles Anderson and Bob Jones University? Why, this “logic” was
attempted back in 1974 by John R. Rice in his correspondence with Herbert Evans and was answered so soundly
and thoroughly that Rice had to backtrack on everything he said and then had to cut off the correspondence (for a
similar case, see Foxx’s correspondence with Pastor Bobby Clark, which we printed in the Bulletin).
But there is no stopping a chronic pathological liar once he gets to making an ass out of himself. Observe: “A
few others, like Mr. Ruckman, argue that the ‘A.V. 1611’ is INSPIRED and ASSUME that the Greek text of
Erasmus agrees with it” (p. 13).
Proof?
Don’t waste your time, kiddies. These half-baked upstarts just put out dogmatic fiats with the authority of a
puffed-up toad full of buckshot, and they put them out without one source reference, without one verse of scripture
and with nothing to back them up but their own CONCEITED OPINIONS. This time Custer didn’t even attempt to
lie (see pages i and ii in his Introduction) in giving a false source reference. He just made the statement and expected
you to believe it. I’ve never thought for five seconds that all of Erasmus’ Greek text matched the AV of 1611, or
ANY other English translation. Custer knew that when he wrote: He just had to follow his “habit.” (Drug habits are
hard to kick—almost as hard as lying habits). He had to lie because it is his NATURE. Thirteen lies in less than
seventeen pages.
Now, the trite material on pages 13-15 about 1 John 5:7-8 was handled more than twenty years ago in the
works of Dr. Edward Hills, who holds three earned degrees from Yale, Harvard and Columbia. We refer the believer
to Believing Bible Study and The King James Version Defended by that author for the rebuttal of this standard Cult
position on 1 John 5:7, 8. Custer was not intelligent enough to give a full discussion; Hills does.
And now it is time to show our readers the difference between a blatant liar shooting off his mouth about things
he knows nothing about (see documented evidence by Judge Hubert Hall, 28th Judicial Court of Alabama, Feb. 27,
1962) and the documented facts of history backed up by written evidence, cited in their context without perversion
or distortion. Basically this now becomes the difference between the “integrity” of the Sword of the Lord, Bob
Jones, Tennessee Temple, Santa Rosa Schools, Pensacola Christian College, etc., and the factual findings of saved
men who do NOT take Custer’s “CONSERVATIVE POSITION.”
CHAPTER THREE
Treeing the Coon
We mentioned Custer’s qualification as a leader of the Alexandrian Cult and we mentioned extreme dishonesty
as an essential qualification. We did not mention this through sarcasm or levity; to the contrary, we meant it in all
seriousness. Now that the reader has seen Custer’s “CONSERVATIVE POSITION” and has observed that it was the
position of Westcott and Hort back in 1880, he is in a place to properly evaluate the “QUALIFICATIONS” which
we gave, for it is a well-known fact that neither Westcott nor Hort, nor the “vast majority of the Conservative
scholars” who believed in them, had any personal integrity when it came to LYING.
Observe: “The committee was instructed to undertake ‘A Revision of the Authorized Version,’ with a view to
‘the removal of plain and clear errors,’ and that the first RULE was ‘To introduce as few alterations as possible into
the text of the Authorized’“ (Philip Mauro, cited by Fuller, True or False, p. 63). They promptly made 36,000
alterations (Ibid.). “No middle course presents itself, since assuredly to construct a NEW GREEK TEXT formed no
part of the Instructions which the Revisionists received at the hands of the Convocation of the Southern Province”
(John Burgon, cited by Fuller, p. 129). “A limit was prescribed to the amount of license...which however is now
discovered to have BEEN ENTIRELY DISREGARDED BY THE REVISIONISTS” (Ibid., p. 130).
Would an honest scholar support such duplicity even if he were in the “vast majority of Conservative
scholars”? Hoskier, Scrivener, Burgon, Miller, Pickering, Toy and Wilkerson didn’t. One might say that since the
vast majority of Conservative scholars were crooked in Christ’s day (Matthew-John), that there were some who did
NOT support them: Peter, James, John, Matthew, Paul, etc.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Liars like Hort and Custer (Conservative liars of course!) have Jesuit
propensities you would not believe.
“I traced the mischief home to its true authors—Drs. Westcott and Hort; a copy of whose UNPUBLISHED
TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT (the most VICIOUS IN EXISTENCE) has been confidentially, and under
PLEDGES OF THE STRICTEST SECRECY, placed in the hands of EVERY MEMBER OF THE REVISING
BODY” (Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. xi and xii).
“The result was obvious. When the minority, headed by Dr. Scrivener, appealed to the chair, they found
themselves confronted by a prejudiced ADVOCATE...” (Burgon, Ibid., p. 406). Under pledges of strictest secrecy, a
copy of the wild performance (marked “CONFIDENTIAL”) had been entrusted to every member of the Revision
body (Ibid, p. xi). Burgon, who wrote these words, was not allowed to be on the committee because he was “well
entitled to rank as an EXPERT, for he was familiar with all varieties of READINGS, and had probably handled and
collated very many more MSS’s than either Westcott or Hort” (Salmon, Some Criticism of the Text of the New
Testament, p. 23).
That is, the scholarly expert was kicked OUT because of the fear of the UNSCHOLARLY amateurs who
couldn’t face the issues he might bring up.
“The foregoing extracts are CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE that ten or eleven of the Company were fully
determined to go in for the principle of ‘thorough,’ and to turn out as exact and literal a reproduction of their
adopted Greek text as possible” (Hemphill, A History of the Revised Version of the New Testament, 1906, p. 32).
What did the Roman Catholic Church and Catholics think of this replacement of the Receptus Greek Testament
with the Greek Text smuggled secretly into the RV committee of 1884? “Catholics were quick to see that the
Revised New Testament favored THE CATHOLIC VERSION, but seemingly few American Protestant scholars”—
AH, THERE ARE THOSE “VAST MAJORITY OF CONSERVATIVE SCHOLARS” THAT CUSTER
MENTIONED!!!—”perceived that MANY of the revised readings of the Revised New Testament were simply
IMPORTATIONS FROM THE CATHOLIC VERSION” (George Coy, The Inside Story, 1973, p. 225).
The CONSERVATIVE POSITION of Custer and the “vast majority” was immediately recommended by a
Catholic bishop (Tobias Muller, see The Canon of the Old Testament, p. 366, cited by Wilkerson, Our Authorized
Bible Vindicated, p. 227); it was recommended by a Catholic cardinal (Wiseman, Essays, Vol. i., p. 104); it was
recommended by Catholic magazines (Dublin Review, July 1881); and it was recommended by Catholic PRIESTS
(Warfield, Collection of Opinions, Vol. 2, p. 21, cited by Wilkinson).
Stewart Custer, like Hort, was a liar.
Hort and Westcott went into a committee after agreeing to resolutions that stated that only a few changes were
to be made (they broke the contract) and that no one intended for them to REPLACE any Greek Testament or Greek
edition of the Receptus with a Roman Catholic edition (they broke the contract). They produced a nineteenth
century ASV and NASV. They produced the ROMAN CATHOLIC BIBLE recommended in the Sword of the Lord
and at Bob Jones University, for BOTH of these organizations called Custer’s treatment of the KING JAMES
CONTROVERSY a “TRUTHFUL” and “SCHOLARLY’ work.
These “Conservatives” (1881-1884) pretended they were publishing a Protestant text: they published a Roman
Catholic text. They pretended they were going to make as few changes as possible; they made changes that were not
even necessary. (See The Revision Revised [pp. 41-100, 126-183, 399-413] for exact documented evidence on
chapter and verse, and observe how the scholarship of Burgon is unlike the “scholarship” of Bob Jones University.
Observe that Burgon refers the reader to BOTH Greek texts [Alexandrian and Syrian] and BOTH English versions,
citing book, chapter and verse for his comments.)
They pretended to be restoring “the original text” and all they were doing was reinserting the readings of the
Jesuit Rheims’ Bible of France (1582) and taking advantage of the gross ignorance of “THE VAST MAJORITY OF
CONSERVATIVE SCHOLARS.” The same may be said for Stewart Custer and all of his “colleagues.”
You have to be extremely DISHONEST to be a leader in the Alexandrian Cult.
The Textus Receptus is virtually identical to the Traditional text found in the majority of Greek New Testament
manuscripts (Hills, Ibid., p. 196). Lake found that “the most popular text in the manuscripts of the tenth to the
fourteenth century” (Lake, Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 21, 1928, p. 340) “differed from the Textus Receptus
only four times” (Hills, Ibid., p. 196). It is highly instructive to notice that Custer’s Alexandrian manuscripts (“for
the vast majority of Conservative clowns”) “in this same chapter Aleph, B, and D differ from the Textus Receptus
69, 71 and 95 times respectively,” arid yet in that same chapter the Alexandrian manuscripts (only two of them!),
compared with over 100 Receptus manuscripts, differ 34 times among themselves IN ONE CHAPTER (Hills, Ibid.,
p. 196). This was the ninety percent agreement of all manuscripts, was it, Stu baby (Custer, p. 5)?
“The five Old Uncials (XABCD),” (four of them classified as Alexandrian by Custer) “falsify the Lord’s Prayer
as given by St. Luke in no less than forty-five words. But so little do they agree among THEMSELVES,” (see
Custer, p. 5!!) “that they throw themselves into six different combinations...in the course of those 12 verses...there
will be found to be 60 variations of readings....What would be thought IN A COURT OF LAW,” (see Custer’s
cover picture!!) “of five witnesses,” (four Alexandrian) “called up 47 times for examination, who should be
observed to bear contradictory testimony EVERY TIME?” (Burgon, The Traditional Text, p. 84, The Revision
Revised, p. 30-31).
Why, that’s easy. Custer and Bob Jones Jr., would put their hands on a King James Bible (see cover on
Custer’s tract) and swear by God that they believed them because they were 90% IN AGREEMENT (Custer, p. 5).
There are more disagreements within the Alexandrian family of manuscripts in four Gospels than there are in all the
published editions of twenty-seven Receptus New Testament books as found in Beza, Colinaeus, Erasmus, Elzevir
and Stephanas (Hoskier, cited by Pickering, Ibid., p. 120).
Now who didn’t know THAT but the Bible Department at BJU? Custer: “...There is not a single manuscript of
the Byzantine text that agrees completely with any one of these editions” (Custer, p. 10). Why, sonny boy, there is
not one single manuscript in the Alexandrian family that even agrees with any one of twenty Alexandrian
manuscripts in the same family!
How dumb can a “scholar” get?