Acts 12:4 (KJV) After Easter?

Acts 12:4 (KJV)
And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

This is one of those places the critics of the King James Version like to attack, claiming that the word should be Passover. My intention is not to explain the use of Easter rather than Passover. Others have done so very well.[1] I want to put together some thoughts having to do with what to do when you have no explanation of what critics call a mistake in the King James Bible.

I approach the Bible as correct even when I can’t explain itThere are any number of Bible passages that are too high for man. We can’t explain them; we can only believe them. It’s called faith. Obviously the God described in the Bible is too high for finite man to fully comprehend. Should it surprise us then that we can’t fully comprehend His Word? When I see something I don’t understand I accept that I have not grasped it yet, not that the Bible is wrong.

I accept the King James Bible as without error even when I have no answer for the critics.This is because I approach the Bible as having to be without error in order to be the Bible. My understanding is that God has in fact preserved His Word. I do not need to prove it. I accept it as fact.

The critic, as much as he would argue this, operates from the position of proving the Bible wrong. He wants to find mistakes so he can justify changing the Bible to suit his fancy.

The critic will often use the argument of intellectual honesty. He says the evidence is too strong to claim the Bible has no mistakes and that intellectual honesty demands he admit those mistakes and seek and correction for them. I claim intellectual honesty too. I am honest enough to claim my intellect will never completely understand why God did what He did and said what He said. I accept that His thoughts are higher than my thoughts .

Specifically regarding the use of the word Easter, and other passages like it, the critic will say that even the KJV translators were fallible and admitted they may have made mistakes.

My response is that Moses was fallible, David was fallible Jeremiah was fallible but God used them to do infallible work. The translators were not inspired as Moses, David and Jeremiah were but they did not have to be. They had the Bible. All they needed to be was illuminated and guided by God. They were that perfectly. Someone may ask, “Why couldn’t the same claim of perfect illumination be made for a different, more modern version?”

The plain answer is that none of them have ever made that claim and the claim has never been made of any of them. They were all translated from the premise that the Bible could never be perfect. The King James Translators never made the claim that their work was perfect. That claim was made some time after and was embraced by scores, even the majority of believers. The translators did work from the basic premise that the Bible was the infallible word of God. They believed the Bible to be without error. This was a fundamental difference between them and modern translators.

I believe the word Easter is the correct word because it is the word the translators settled upon. There are others who have explained why they settled upon it but I do not need to be satisfied by their explanations to be satisfied that the Bible is infallible. I am satisfied because I believe God’s intent was to leave us an infallible Bible.

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Acts 12:4 (KJV) After Easter?

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[1] I refer any reader to the work of Sam Gipp if interested.