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I got a Jews for Jesus mailing last week and it had their Christmas catalog. They sold several different mezuzahs, the piece to be placed on the doorpost with the shema inscribed. Shema is the first word of Deuteronomy 6:4, "Hear," in "Hear, O Israel." And then, "The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Since there is only one Lord, He should be loved with all your heart, soul, and might. That love should not be divided with other gods or with yourself, but sanctified unto Him.
One Lord. Proceeding from Him is one Word. Not two. And yet, through many various unscriptural arguments, multiple version or critical or eclectic text supporters expect you to accept two, not one. From one Lord comes one Word. You can't accept two Lords. You can't accept two Words. You can't ever accept two Words, either in inspiration or preservation. And that is the biblical and historical position.
I move to the "Which TR?' question, which exists to argue for two Words.
From my observation and experience, which is opinion, but fairly scientific at this point in my life, the main arguments for "preservation" from the eclectic text, critical text, or various iterations of the multiple version position are really just attacks of the scriptural and historical position on preservation of scripture. They are motivated to write a book that could include a section on preservation in order to prove that we should keep restoring the text of scripture that is still not restored and will never be. That isn't preservation. Perhaps it is preservation, but only in the same sense that the cottage cheese is being preserved under the kitchen sink in that wastebasket. Sure, it's still there, but it has deteriorated from its original state. A sane person shouldn't swallow a non-restored-text view as preservation, even if told that we must do so to preserve unity among Christians.
I've read a lot of the criticism from the yet-to-be-restored-text people, and as I see it, their main argument is that if there is one word that could be different, then we have an opening for an eclectic text. Where does that stop? I don't know. There is no standard that I have read to guide on how much variation or error can be acceptable to those willing to accept any. Kevin Bauder writes in Only One Bible?
If they are willing to accept a manuscript or a text that might omit any words (even a single word) from the originals, or that might add any words (even a single word) to the originals, then their whole position is falsified. . . . If preservation does not really have to include every word, then the whole controversy is no more than a debate over percentages.
But Scripture teaches every Word preservation of itself. That is the doctrine we should accept, because it is what the Bible teaches. Every doctrine about scripture requires belief in biblical teaching -- inspiration, canonicity, authority, sufficiency, and preservation. Bauder would say that we also must prove that every Word we have is also in the original manuscripts, or else a position of perfect preservation is falsified. Really? The position of perfect preservation comes out of God's Word, so it must be true. God's Word is true.
If you take a biblical position on preservation of scripture, it will be verbal plenary preservation. But men like Bauder add something to the Bible, as though it is not sufficient on preservation, unlike all the other doctrines of bibliology. In addition to what the Bible says, they add that you also have to prove with empirical evidence that we have every Word. And "since we can't,' it is as he writes, "a debate over percentages." Is that what we should expect from reading the Bible? No one ever answers that. Imagine preaching that position to a church: "we're talking about what percentage of the Bible we have, not that we do have it, so be assured, brethren."
An additional red herring of the eclectic text and multiple version side, the opponents of preservation (which could only be perfect preservation), is that if there is one word that is brought into question, then, as Bauder has written, "Our discussion should turn from theologizing to the doing of textual criticism." Why? Why are Bauder and others sure about this binary choice, the existence of only two alternatives?
Our theologizing should give us one choice: what the Bible says. That's what we believe. Then I look at how the churches applied it. The position of Bauder and others is a recent one and in the tradition of modernism. It bifurcates truth into two stories: the top story, subjective and questionable, and then bottom story, objective and sure. The identity of the text is subjective and questionable, like theology. You should rely on science for the text, because science is objective and factual. This position is an apostatizing of bibliology. It's not how Christians have believed.
The attack on the one biblical position often takes shape with the question, "Which TR?" The editions of the received text of the New Testament are not identical. According to Bauder, this would mean we're now "debat[ing] over percentages" as well as "turn[ing] . . . to the doing of textual criticism." Understand that there is no biblical basis for this conclusion. It is the conclusion of the lower story that separates theology from science. But how do perfect preservationists answer the "Which TR?" question? This was recently asked in the blog comment section, "Where was the generally available perfectly verbally preserved text in AD 1829?" I'm going to answer "Which TR" in that form of the question.
I don't think there is anything significant to the year 1829. That's just random, but for the sake of the answer, I'm going to deal with only before 1829. I would think that the point of the question was to deal with verbal preservation before Scrivener 1881, the so-called "reconstructed Greek text behind the King James Version." I often say, "They translated from something." And Edward F. Hills, the summa cum laude graduate of Yale and PhD from Harvard in textual criticism, wrote that "the King James Version ought to be regarded not merely as a translation of the Textus Receptus but also as an independent variety of the Textus Receptus." Were the Words translated into the King James Version in the printed editions of the TR? Yes. Preachers who used the King James were studying from a Greek text. In 1815, Frederick Nolan had published An Inquiry Into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, Or Received Text of the New Testament. If the received text didn't exist, then how could there be a book written about its integrity? I add to this all the exegetical commentaries before 1829 from the received text and using the King James Version. How could they exegete from a text that did not exist? If we do write a second edition of Thou Shalt Keep Them, which deals with the history, I want to look into the quotations of exegetical commentaries from 1550 or so to 1881 to show that they were referring to those Words.
The biblical position on preservation says that all the Words were available to every generation of churches. If there are differences between the TR editions, they were minimal, so small in number relatively not to be considered to be different. But they are different. They vary. And this then brings us to the single word challenge of Bauder and others, where they say that one word of difference opens the door to the science of textual criticism and an ongoing and never ending "restoration" of the original text. No. Believers settled on the words. And this is where the doctrine of canonicity is applied to the Words -- the unity of the Spirit, the Spirit guiding believers. A settled text is required for "adding" and "taking away" to mean anything. It should be assumed.
From here, perfect preservation opponents engage in a game of "gotcha." They try to find places where the KJV misses on Scrivener or misses on Beza, looking for that one word of difference to send everyone in the direction that Bauder described, willy-nilly assuming a binary choice without regard of a scriptural and historical doctrine of preservation. This is an assumption against preservation. For sure, the Bible doesn't teach the need of restoration of the text. It does not. That should never be accepted. Just like with canonicity of 66 books, believers should be willing to live with the possible minor tensions of the arguments over those few words. This is what Hills called "the logic of faith." He wrote:
If we are Christians, then we must begin our thinking not with the assertions of unbelieving scholars and their naturalistic human logic, but with Christ and the logic of faith. For example, how do we know that the Textus Receptus is the true New Testament text? We know this through the logic of faith. . . . In biblical studies, in philosophy, in science, and in every other learned field we must begin with Christ and then work out our basic principles according to the logic of faith. . . . The defense of the Textus Receptus . . . is entailed by the logic of faith, the basic steps of which are as follows: First, the Old Testament text was preserved by the Old Testament priesthood and the scribes and scholars that grouped themselves around that priesthood (Deut. 31:24-26). Second, the New Testament text has been preserved by the universal priesthood of believers by faithful Christians in every walk of life (1 Peter 2:9). Third, the Traditional Text, found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts, is the True Text because it represents the God-guided usage of this universal priesthood of believers. Fourth, The first printed text of the Greek New Testament was not a blunder or a set-back but a forward step in the providential preservation of the New Testament. . . . When we believe in Christ, the logic of faith leads us first, to a belief in the infallible inspiration of the original Scriptures, second, to a belief in the providential preservation of this original text down through the ages and third, to a belief in the Bible text current among believers as the providentially preserved original text. . . . In short, unless we follow the logic of faith, we can be certain of nothing concerning the Bible and its text.
The one word for which opponents of verbal plenary or perfect preservation are seeking or desiring does not contradict the logic of faith. It does not veto the theology, the doctrine. That all stands. The "gotcha game" does not work.
Let God be true and every man a liar.
7 comments:
Bro. B., I appreciate this answer.
However, there's a couple of points where I take issue, as you might expect.
1) When you say pre-Scrivener exegetes referred to a Greek text, you may certainly be right, but that doesn't mean a)it was the exact text underlying the KJV, or that b) they never had to resolve real differences between the English and the Greek they had before them, or that c) if faced with two Greek texts, one of which partially matched the KJV and the other of which matched the remaining portions of the KJV (a whopper of a hypothetical anyway) that they would have necessarily affirmed only the portions that seemed best to match the KJV were the actual words.
2) In regards to the "gotcha game": your position, to some extent, calls for a visible, historical "fullfilment". So for critics of your position to bring your position under historical, empirical scrutiny is not a defection from the approach of faith. Hence my question. You take what is essentially a totality of the manuscripts position. But you cannot demonstrate that all the (Scrivener) words were available to Beza and Erasmus, as Scrivener's own preface seems to indicate (re: the Vulgate, etc).
3) Let's hypothosize that the KJV were not the actual Words, but that all the words were truly available in 6 Gk manuscripts set down before you, Sutton, Webb, Bauder, Strause, Doran--a whole big committee of genuine believer luminaries. Let's even throw in Carl Trueman and Phil Johnson to get some celebrities in there (we're assuming for sake of thought experiment that they all have come to agree with your position). What would the "recognizing the words" process look like? I ask this because you, conveniently, don't have to do what believers throughout the centuries, according to you, have done, namely, deal with and choose among the readings of various Gk. texts. You get to accept a ready packaged product. So this is a fair question too. (Says I.)
Of course, I can answer dv4 excellent questions without doubt, since my position is not hypocritical, but authoriative.
Kent, in your case, he makes great points against your Greekitis that shows up all the time when dealing with "what saith the scriptures", because you CANNOT divest yourself of what God set aside since Wycliff, the Greek and Hebrew texts.
In believing the Holy King James Bible is the inerrent, perfect, inspired text to the English church, I follow Hill's "logic of faith" based on born-again Holy Ghost believers determining final authority as the church of Jesus Christ without argument since the 17th century.
Satan showed up in the 19th century with a new GREEK text, not a new english text because he knew these high-minded scholars who love the preeminance would not hold up their Holy King James Bible and SQUASH their stupid arguments in 1881!
And you follow along with this same historic tactical argument that has divided the church in the last 100 years.
While I do not expect to have a lot of time to comment here, I wanted to mention that the article here:
http://faithsaves.net/inerrancy-critical-text-which-textus-receptus/
deals with the question of which TR, while the study here:
http://faithsaves.net/canonicity-of-the-received-text-or-textus-receptus-established-from-reformation-and-post-reformation-baptist-confessions/
shows that modern textual criticism was not the way that churches were determining what words were the words of God.
Furthermore, since in the same manner that churches agreed on the books of the Canon they have agreed on the words of the TR underneath the KJV, the burden of proof is on opponents of the position that follows from good and necessary consequences of scriptural teaching to show that those words were not available, which cannot be done. Indeed, to say that the words in the only TR that large numbers of Baptist churches have ever said is perfect were not available to Beza, etc. is actually a historically problematic affirmation to a very high degree.
By the way, one who believes in the providential preservation of Scripture but does not believe that God will prevent every hand copyist from ever making a mistake would expect that before a printing press made it possible to reproduce thousands and thousands and thousands of absolutely identical copies that one would have differences among the handwritten copies, but that in all ages the people of God would still be able to know what the right words were.
This is probably all I'm going to say on this post. Thanks for the article, Pastor Brandenburg.
D4,
I do wish someone would take on the philosophical and theological points that buttress all this. A Bauder is stronger on music than he is the Bible.
D4: "When you say pre-Scrivener exegetes referred to a Greek text, you may certainly be right, but that doesn't mean a)it was the exact text underlying the KJV," KB: This is answered in the post. I would tell you how, but maybe you could reread.
D4: "b) they never had to resolve real differences between the English and the Greek they had before them," KB: I didn't answer this in the post, but I have written about it here and Thomas Ross (TR, :-D) answers it between the two articles he writes below.
D4: "c) if faced with two Greek texts, one of which partially matched the KJV and the other of which matched the remaining portions of the KJV (a whopper of a hypothetical anyway) that they would have necessarily affirmed only the portions that seemed best to match the KJV were the actual words." KB: This is like canonicity. We look at what believers/churches used. We look at what they copied, at what they relied upon. It was the TR, and then we get into the small number of variations between TR editions for 100 years, leading to a settlement on the KJV (see first Hills quote above).
D4: "In regards to the "gotcha game": your position, to some extent, calls for a visible, historical "fullfilment". So for critics of your position to bring your position under historical, empirical scrutiny is not a defection from the approach of faith." KB: I would like to see how my position is not the historical and biblical position and, hence, not my position, but THE position, that is, there were no other positions. Why 66 books? Because it would be too awful to remove a whole book, but leaving out words is tolerable? The principles are the same, come from the Bible, and canonicity flows out of the argument for the text. There is no preservation of books in the Bible, and yet people assume that from the same references.
D4: "Hence my question. You take what is essentially a totality of the manuscripts position. But you cannot demonstrate that all the (Scrivener) words were available to Beza and Erasmus, as Scrivener's own preface seems to indicate (re: the Vulgate, etc)." KB: I reference this in my post, but you misrepresent it when you talk about it, because you don't give it perspective. How many differences are there between Vaticanus and Sinaiticus and do they believe the text has been restored? You can't glean that position from scripture. I'm saying we live with the tension as a matter of faith, but I do that with a lot of doctrines I believe, that is, live with tension. Evangelicals say that in response to the tension, you give up on inerrancy. All the words are there and preserved and churches settled on a Bible. That's not enough for you and others, so you go to something impossible and new? That is faithless to me.
D4: "Let's hypothosize that the KJV were not the actual Words, but that all the words were truly available in 6 Gk manuscripts set down before you, Sutton, Webb, Bauder, Strause, Doran--a whole big committee of genuine believer luminaries. Let's even throw in Carl Trueman and Phil Johnson to get some celebrities in there (we're assuming for sake of thought experiment that they all have come to agree with your position). What would the "recognizing the words" process look like? I ask this because you, conveniently, don't have to do what believers throughout the centuries, according to you, have done, namely, deal with and choose among the readings of various Gk. texts. You get to accept a ready packaged product. So this is a fair question too. (Says I.)" KB: This is where I say, read what men have said in history. They already have accepted what I believe, and then after hundreds of years, men left it. We don't need to start over. Just go back to the position based on the Bible. Why do you think we need to start over?
Anonymous:
We know who you are, but I left the comment, because you've been sending me so many, that I thought it would be good to see what I've been getting as a contrast to what I'm saying.
Anonymous: "Of course, I can answer dv4 excellent questions without doubt, since my position is not hypocritical, but authoriative." KB: God is authoritative. Speaking like you are certain doesn't make it authoritative.
Anon: "he makes great points against your Greekitis that shows up all the time when dealing with "what saith the scriptures", because you CANNOT divest yourself of what God set aside since Wycliff, the Greek and Hebrew texts." KB: Interesting. Since Wycliffe, when Wycliffe translated from the Latin Vulgate, and into English. Greekitis. God had Greekitis, because He inspired the NT in Greek. English wasn't a language yet. Again, you really do need to be using an original 1611 to be consistent or as you would say non-hypocritical.
Anon: "In believing the Holy King James Bible is the inerrent, perfect, inspired text to the English church, I follow Hill's "logic of faith" based on born-again Holy Ghost believers determining final authority as the church of Jesus Christ without argument since the 17th century." KB: "Inerrant" was a word coined in the late 19th century to apply to a hypothetical original manuscript, but you use it here to apply to the "inerrent" (sic) 1611 that has been changed. In that way, you are very similar to Warfield. Changing the letters and the words doesn't affect inerrancy. Faith comes by the Word of God, and preservation applies to what God actually wrote, what He inspired, the jots and tittles. So you don't have a faith position, unless it is the kind of faith that I heard in a peanut butter commercial when I was a child, "I believe in Peter Pan."
Anon: "Satan showed up in the 19th century with a new GREEK text, not a new english text because he knew these high-minded scholars who love the preeminance would not hold up their Holy King James Bible and SQUASH their stupid arguments in 1881!" KB: This is indecipherable. I don't know why you capitalize GREEK. I don't ever hear someone refer to the English as a text, because it is a translation, a version. I get why you capitalized SQUASHED though -- same reason why you use an explanation point. You're screaming, and if the mortar is thin, you must fling it hard.
Anon: "And you follow along with this same historic tactical argument that has divided the church in the last 100 years." KB: Which church? My church isn't divided. When we talk about division, we should be talking about the historic position, not what divides someone from a new position. Yours is new and unbiblical, a position that says that God did not preserve His Words. And you also have a strange view on the Trinity, which makes this strange view make more sense.
Kent, thanks for addressing my points. I will do more (re)reading before I come back to this post. But I may not come back to rebut.
I do think you are right about some philosophical foundations of yours not being addressed as well as some gaps in the CT position that should be fleshed out. I'm kind of in the midst of formulating a list of questions the (we) CTers should answer. Maybe SI will publish them.
I cannot believe that "anonymous" poster believes my questions are of any help to him. If he is who I think he is, I am closer to Bro. B in my position than he and his. Crazy.
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