Peter Ruckman
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Peter Sturges Ruckman (born November 19, 1921), is an Independent Baptist minister, teacher, writer, and founder of Pensacola Bible Institute, an unaccredited school in Pensacola, Florida (not to be confused with Pensacola Christian College). Ruckman is best known for his assertion that the King James Version constitutes "advanced revelation" and is the preserved word of God for English speakers.<ref>Peter Ruckman, The Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence (Pensacola: Pensacola Bible Press, 1990), 126; the website of David Cloud, another KJV-Only proponent, says that "For good or for bad, Peter Ruckman’s name is intertwined with the defense of the King James Bible. Personally, I think it is bad," because to some of his followers, "if a man does not believe about the KJV exactly what Ruckman believes and does not accept the KJV as 'advanced revelation' that can correct even the Greek and Hebrew from which it was translated and as the apex of Bible infallibility," he is “not a true Bible believer.” Furthermore, Cloud regards Ruckman a hindrance to the KJV-only position because of his "strange ideas, his multiple divorces, his angry spirit, his arrogance, his Alexandrian cult mentality, his extremism regarding the KJV being advanced revelation, and his bizarre private doctrines" that tend "to cause men to reject the entire issue."</ref>
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Biography
A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Peter Ruckman is a son of Colonel John Hamilton Ruckman (1888-1966) and a grandson of General John Wilson Ruckman (1858-1921). Ruckman was reared in Topeka, Kansas, attended Kansas State University, and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama. Ruckman married Janie Bess May of Sawyerville, Alabama, and they had five children together.<ref>Website of P. S. Ruckman, Jr. Ruckman, Jr., a political scientist, provides biographies of his grandfather and great-grandfather but comparatively little information about his father except for a photograph of the rakish young man.</ref>
Ruckman entered the U.S. Army in 1944 and became second lieutenant, although he never saw action. At the end of World War II, he volunteered to serve with the occupation forces in Japan and while there studied Zen Buddhism. Ruckman claimed to have had paranormal experiences during this period, including (in his words) "the experience of nirvana, which the Zen call samadhi, the dislocation of the spirit from the body....Looking at my moral life following that experience, and my desire at times to commit suicide, I realize I had produced a passive state that was an entrance for spirits." Ruckman returned to the United States "uneasy, unsettled, full of demons." Drinking heavily, he became a disc jockey during the day and a drummer in various dance bands at night. Sometimes verging on suicide, he began to hear voices, and he met with a Jesuit priest to explore the possibility of joining the Roman Catholic Church. On March 14, 1949, he experienced a conversion after talking with evangelist Hugh Pyle in the studios of WEAR radio in Pensacola. Ruckman then attended Bob Jones University (BJU), where he received a master's degree and Ph.D. in religion. <ref>Peter Ruckman, Dr. Ruckman's Testimony (audiotape), Bible Baptist Bookstore, n.d., quoted in R. L. Hymers,Jr., The Ruckman Conspiracy (Collingswood, N. J.: The Bible for Today, 1989), 3-4, 19.</ref> In 1959, after several separations, Ruckman's first marriage was dissolved. Ruckman has since been divorced again and married a third time.<ref>By his own admission, Ruckman's earlier family life was turbulent: "I have had two wives desert me after fifteen years of marriage....I have been in court custody cases where seven children's futures were held in the balance; in situations where Gospel articles were being torn out of typewriters, Biblical artwork torn off the easels, women trying to throw themselves out of cars at fifty m.p.h., mailing wedding rings back in the middle of revival services, cutting their wrists, threatening to leave if I did not give my church to their kinfolk; deacons threatening to burn down my house and beat me up; children in split custody between two domiciles two hundred miles apart, and knock-down, drag-out arguments in the home sometimes running as long as three days." Peter Ruckman, The Last Grenade (Pensacola: Bible Baptist Bookstore, 1990), 339.</ref>
Ruckman is the pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Pensacola, and his writings and recorded sermons are published by his Bible Baptist Bookstore.<ref>The bookstore also sells coffee mugs featuring Ruckman's photograph and artwork. Bible Baptist Bookstore</ref> Like his father, Peter Ruckman early demonstrated artistic talent, and he often illustrated his sermons in chalk and pastels while preaching.<ref>"John Hamilton Ruckman," at P. S. Ruckman, Jr. website.</ref>
King James Version-Only Proponent
Ruckman insists that the King James Version of the Bible, the "Authorized Version" ("KJV" or "A.V."), provides "advanced revelation" in English beyond that discernible in the underlying Textus Receptus Greek text. Arguing that the KJV is more authoritative for English speakers than the Greek and Hebrew texts, he believes the KJV represents the final authority for modern disputes about the content and meaning of the original manuscripts. For instance, in his Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence, Ruckman says, "Mistakes in the A.V. 1611 are advanced revelation!" Likewise, he advises where "the perverse Greek reads one way and the A.V. reads the other, rest assured that God will judge you at the Judgment on what you know. Since you don't know the Greek (and those who knew it, altered it to suit themselves), you better go by the A.V. 1611 text."<ref>Peter Ruckman, The Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence (Pensacola: Pensacola Bible Press, 1990), 126, 138.</ref>
Ruckman distinguishes between the Textus Receptus of the KJV, and the numerically fewer manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type underlying most modern New Testament versions. Ruckman characterizes those who endorse the latter as members of the "Alexandrian Cult" who believe that while the autographs were God-inspired, they have been lost, and that therefore his opponents believe there to be "no final, absolute written authority of God anywhere on this earth." <ref>The "Creed of the Alexandrian Cult" in the Bible Believer's Bulletin.</ref> Ruckman also believes that the Septuagint was a hoax created by the Alexandrian cult in the 3rd century A.D. in order to subvert belief in the integrity of the Bible.<ref>"The LXX is nothing more than a figment of someone’s imagination. The Septuagint represents PERFECTION in FRAUD, obviously intended to deceive, and cause doubt regarding the INTEGRITY of the Word of God." Septuagint hoax </ref>
Not surprisingly, Ruckman's position on the authority of the KJV is strongly opposed by many supporters of biblical inerrancy, including signers of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy who specifically "deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs [and] further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant." KJV-Only supporters are sometimes called "Ruckmanites," and those who take more moderate KJV-Only positions frequently criticize Ruckman because "his writings are so acerbic, so offensive and mean-spirited that the entire movement has become identified with his kind of confrontational attitude."<ref>White, 109.</ref> Many supporters of the King James Only movement reject Ruckman's position that the English KJV is superior to existing Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.<ref>James White, The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Modern Translations? (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1995), 1-4.</ref>
Controversialist
Ruckman is known for his confrontational approach. James R. White states in his book, The King James Only Controversy, that to call Ruckman "outspoken is to engage in an exercise in understatement. Caustic is too mild a term; bombastic is a little more accurate.…There is no doubt that Peter S. Ruckman is brilliant, in a strange sort of way. His mental powers are plainly demonstrated in his books, though most people do not bother to read far enough to recognize this due to the constant stream of invective that is to be found on nearly every page. And yet his cocky confidence attracts many people to his viewpoint."<ref>James R. White, The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Modern Translations? (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1995), 109. His invective has often been ad hominem. One of Ruckman's targets has been Stewart Custer, emeritus chair of the Bible department at BJU: "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 (The Sword of the Lord) and Bob Jones, Jr. (BJU) in actually seriously recommending" his work. Peter S. Ruckman, Custer's Last Stand (Pensacola: Bible Baptist Bookstore, 1981), iii.</ref> One Ruckman letter to an opponent begins, "Dear Scumbucket."<ref>Bible Believers Bulletin (October 1992), 11.</ref> The website of Ruckman's press notes that although some have called his writings "mean spirited," "we refer to them as 'Truth With An Attitude.'"<ref>Bible Baptist Bookstore</ref> He once described the New American Standard Bible as "more of the same old godless, depraved crap"<ref> Peter Ruckman, Satan's Masterpiece: the New ASV (Pensacola: Pensacola Baptist Bookstore, 1972), 67.</ref>and a rival KJV-Only supporter, a "puffed up conceited ass."<ref>WayofLife.org</ref> Although Ruckman graduated from Bob Jones University, he has referred to it as "the World's Most Unusual Hell Hole"<ref>The Separatist (December 1984), 11. The reference is to BJU's former promotional slogan "The World's Most Unusual University".</ref>
Ruckman has many ideas that differ from those of typical Baptist fundamentalists. For instance, he does not believe that a fetus becomes a living soul until it is born and takes its first breath.<ref>"I teach that a baby is not a living soul until it breathes. I'm considered a great heretic for teaching that, but then again if a man goes by the King James Bible he's bound to be a heretic these days. And so I don't teach that abortion is murder like the brethren do and for that reason I'm considered a heretic by some of the brethren...Some of the brethren get so hung up on these things you know, they say, 'Abortion is murder; abortion is murder.' They show you pictures. Well they're trying to prove, they're trying to prove that thing looks like a person, it is a person. That's what Darwin taught. You gotta watch that business."Ruckman sermon.</ref> His unusual ideas extend beyond the Bible as well. Ruckman believes in UFOs and blue aliens with blue blood, black aliens with green blood, and gray aliens with clear blood.<ref>Peter Ruckman, Black is Beautiful (Pensacola: Bible Believers Press, 1995), 85-86, 244, 310-11.</ref> Further, he believes that the CIA has implanted brain transmitters in children, old people, and African-Americans and that the agency operates underground alien breeding facilities.<ref>Peter Ruckman, Black is Beautiful (Pensacola: Bible Believers Press, 1995), 243, 256. According to Ruckman the CIA flies space ships developed from technology garnered from aliens after they were permitted to kidnap and eat children. (291, 295-97).</ref> In 1997, Ruckman claimed that Attorney General Janet Reno had drawn up a list with his name on it and prophesied that the "Government Mafia" would make a hit on him during "the next two or three years."<ref>Bob L. Ross quoting from Bible Believers Bulletin, May 1997.</ref>
Pensacola Bible Institute
In 1965 Ruckman founded Pensacola Bible Institute (PBI), in part, because of his disagreements with other institutions in regard to Biblical translations. Pensacola Bible Institute—unrelated to Pensacola Christian College—is not accredited by any agency recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or the United States Department of Education.<ref>Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Nevertheless, Pensacola Christian College is also unaccredited.</ref> It does not accept government funding nor participate in the student loan program. The school has no website other than the Bible Baptist Bookstore site.
Notes
Further reading
- Ed Barclay, What about Peter Ruckman? wide-ranging fundamentalist criticism of Ruckman and "Ruckmanism."
- David Cloud, "What about Ruckman?" criticism of Ruckman by another KJV-Only proponent.
- Calvin George, "The Danger of Ruckmanism as Applied to Foreign Language Bibles".
- Jeffery Khoo, "Non-Ruckmanite Answers to Anti-KJV Questions"
- Samuel Gipp, What is a Ruckmanite? defense of Ruckman.
- James White, "A Response To Dr. Ruckman".
- James White, "The Ruckman-White Correspondence".
- Sermons by Peter Ruckman
- Books by Peter Ruckman
- Anti-Ruckman website
