Peter Sturges Ruckman is an
Independent BaptistIndependent Baptist churches are Christian churches generally holding to conservative Baptist beliefs. They are characterized by being independent from the authority of denominations or similar bodies. Members of such churches comprised three percent of the United States adult population according...
pastorThe word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
, teacher, writer, and founder of Pensacola Bible Institute, an unaccredited school in Pensacola, Florida (not to be confused with
Pensacola Christian CollegePensacola Christian College is an unaccredited fundamentalist, Independent Baptist college in Pensacola, Florida, USA, founded in 1974 by Arlin Horton. The college is actively pursuing accreditation, and as of 7 November 2011 had been awarded candidate status with Transnational Association of...
). Ruckman is best known for his assertion that the King James Version constitutes "advanced revelation" and is the final, preserved word of God for
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
speakers.
Biography
A native of
Wilmington, DelawareWilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, Peter Ruckman is a son of Colonel John Hamilton Ruckman (1888–1966) and a grandson of General
John Wilson Ruckman-Early life:Ruckman was born at Deers, Illinois, a flag-station just southeast of the University of Illinois. Biographies, however, usually list his place of birth as Sidney, Illinois . His parents, Thomas and Mary O'Brien Ruckman, were farmers. His uncles, John W...
(1858–1921). Ruckman was reared in
Topeka, KansasTopeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...
, attended
Kansas State UniversityKansas State University, commonly shortened to K-State, is an institution of higher learning located in Manhattan, Kansas, in the United States...
, and received a bachelor's degree from the
University of AlabamaThe University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....
. Ruckman married Janie Bess May of Sawyerville, Alabama, and they had five children together.
Ruckman entered the U.S. Army in 1944 and became second lieutenant, although he never saw action. At the end of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he volunteered to serve with the
occupation forces in JapanAt the end of World War II, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, led by the United States with contributions also from Australia, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This foreign presence marked the first time in its history that the island nation had been occupied by a foreign power...
and while there studied
ZenZen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
Buddhism. Ruckman claimed to have had
paranormalParanormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
experiences during this period, including (in his words) "the experience of
nirvanaNirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
, which the Zen call
samadhiIn Buddhism, samādhi is mental concentration or composing the mind.-In the early Suttas:In the Pāli canon of the Theravada tradition and the related Āgamas of other early Buddhist schools, samādhi is found in the following contexts:* In the noble eightfold path, "right concentration" In Buddhism,...
, 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 jockeyA disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
during the day and a
drumThe drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
mer 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 ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
.
On March 14, 1949, he was converted to Christianity after talking to evangelist Hugh Pyle in the studios of
WEARIn materials science, wear is erosion or sideways displacement of material from its "derivative" and original position on a solid surface performed by the action of another surface....
radio in Pensacola. Ruckman then attended
Bob Jones UniversityBob Jones University is a private, for-profit, non-denominational Protestant university in Greenville, South Carolina.The university was founded in 1927 by Bob Jones, Sr. , an evangelist and contemporary of Billy Sunday...
(BJU), where he received a master's degree and Ph.D. in religion. In 1959, after several separations, Ruckman's first marriage was dissolved. Ruckman has since been divorced again and married a third time.
Ruckman is the pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Pensacola, and his writings and recorded sermons are published by his Bible Baptist Bookstore. Like his father, Peter Ruckman early demonstrated artistic talent, and he often illustrated his sermons in chalk and pastels while preaching.
Proponent of King James Version supremacy
Ruckman "presents the most extreme form of King James Onlyism," "uses the strongest language," and "presents the most strident form," although according to Roy E. Beacham and Kevin T. Bauder, Ruckman's first book on the Bible translation controversy demonstrated "unmistakable dependence" on an earlier work, James Jasper Ray,
God Wrote Only One Bible (1955).
Ruckman insists that the
King James Version of the BibleThe Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...
, the "Authorized Version" ("KJV" or "A.V."), provides "advanced revelation" beyond that discernible in the underlying
Textus ReceptusTextus Receptus is the name subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek texts of the New Testament which constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most other...
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."
Ruckman distinguishes between the
Textus Receptus of the KJV, and the numerically fewer manuscripts of the
Alexandrian text-typeThe Alexandrian text-type , associated with Alexandria, is one of several text-types used in New Testament textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of biblical manuscripts...
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." 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.
Not surprisingly, Ruckman's position on the exclusive authority of the KJV is strongly opposed by many supporters of
biblical inerrancyBiblical inerrancy is the doctrinal position that the Bible is accurate and totally free of error, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact." Some equate inerrancy with infallibility; others do not.Conservative Christians generally believe that...
, including signers of the
Chicago Statement on Biblical InerrancyThe Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was formulated in October 1978 by more than 200 evangelical leaders at a conference sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, held in Chicago. The statement was designed to defend the position of Biblical inerrancy against a perceived...
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."
Even other supporters of the King James Only movement reject Ruckman's position that the English KJV is superior to existing Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, and they also 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."
Other ideas
Ruckman does not believe that a fetus becomes a living soul until it is born and takes its first breath. Ruckman also believes in UFOs and blue aliens with blue blood, black aliens with green blood, and gray aliens with clear blood. Further, he believes the CIA has implanted brain transmitters in children, old people, and African-Americans and that the agency operates underground alien breeding facilities. In 1997, Ruckman claimed that Attorney General
Janet RenoJanet Wood Reno is a former Attorney General of the United States . She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1993, and confirmed on March 11...
had drawn up a list with his name on it and predicted that the "Government Mafia" would make a hit on him during "the next two or three years."
Personal style
Ruckman is known for his confrontational approach. Beacham and Bauder declare that "Ruckman is without any doubt the most caustic and abusive among King James-Only partisans."
James R. WhiteJames Robert White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, an evangelical Reformed Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author of more than twenty books and has engaged in numerous moderated debates...
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." One Ruckman letter to an opponent begins, "Dear Scumbucket." 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.'" He once described the
New American Standard BibleThe New American Standard Bible , also informally called New American Standard Version , is an English translation of the Bible....
as "more of the same old godless, depraved crap" and a rival KJV-Only supporter, a "puffed up conceited ass." Although Ruckman graduated from
Bob Jones UniversityBob Jones University is a private, for-profit, non-denominational Protestant university in Greenville, South Carolina.The university was founded in 1927 by Bob Jones, Sr. , an evangelist and contemporary of Billy Sunday...
, he has referred to it as "the World's Most Unusual Hell Hole."
Pensacola Bible Institute
In 1965 Ruckman founded Pensacola Bible Institute (PBI), in part, because of his disagreements with other institutions in regard to
Biblical translationsThe efforts of translating the Bible from its original languages into over 2,000 others have spanned more than two millennia. Partial translations of the Bible into languages of the English people can be traced back to the end of the 7th century, including translations into Old English and Middle...
. Pensacola Bible Institute—unrelated to
Pensacola Christian CollegePensacola Christian College is an unaccredited fundamentalist, Independent Baptist college in Pensacola, Florida, USA, founded in 1974 by Arlin Horton. The college is actively pursuing accreditation, and as of 7 November 2011 had been awarded candidate status with Transnational Association of...
—is not accredited by any agency recognized by the
Council for Higher Education AccreditationThe Council for Higher Education Accreditation is a United States organization of degree-granting colleges and universities. It identifies its purpose as providing national advocacy for self-regulation of academic quality through accreditation in order to certify the quality of higher education...
or the
United States Department of EducationThe United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
. 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.
Further reading