King James Only Idiocy

Author's Intention

All we know of the author’s intention is what the author did express in the text, not what he planned to say but did not express. Our knowledge of the author’s plan (intention) is limited to the inspired text itself. So to speak of an intention which did not get expressed is to shift the locus of authority from the text to the author’s mind behind the text…Finally, the proper meaning of the intention of the author is the expressed meaning in the text. Just as we do not say that the beauty is behind the painting, so the hermeneutically discoverable meaning is not located behind the text in the author’s intention. Rather, the meaning is expressed in the text the way beauty is expressed in the pigments on the canvas of a painting. The misuse of the word intention, to stand for the purpose (why) of the author, rather than for the meaning (what) of the author, often leads to unorthodox conclusions.

Geisler in Zuck, Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 144.

Authority of Scripture

Once you can make scripture stand on its hind legs and dance a jig, it becomes a tame pet rather than a roaring lion. It is no longer “authoritative” in any strict sense; that is, it may be cited as though in “proof” of some point or other, but it is not leading the way, energizing the church with the fresh breath of God himself. The question must always be asked, whether scripture is being used to serve an existing theology or vice versa.

N.T. Wright, The Last Word (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005), 70