Recent James White Videos and the Bible Version Issue, pt. 5

Part One (this one has the videos linked).  Part Two.  Part Three.  Part Four.

After the 18 minute mark, White says that the text handed down by the providence of God and received by His churches "is not just a narrow spectrum of the Byzantine manuscript tradition," referring to the textus receptus of the New Testament.  Part of the doctrine of preservation, as taught in scripture, is general accessibility.  Something unavailable isn't received, and that is another part of a scriptural doctrine of preservation, the reception by the churches.  God preserved His Words for His people to possess, use, apply, and live.  An inaccessible manuscript is not preserved.  Something buried for all of history until the 19th or 20th centuries is a text that God's people have not been using.  There can be numbers of reasons why that didn't happen, but those manuscripts cannot be now a source for altering what God's people have accepted as scripture.

The person with whom White was debating on the social media, and he's answering in this video, asks him a couple of questions.

Upon what basis do you have any confidence that 3 John is canonical, seeing that it was not mentioned until the middle of the third century and was debated up until the fifth. Number two, upon what basis do you accept that the Pentateuch as we now have it, looks anything like the work of Moses?

White says that those questions look like an abandonment of the actual subject.  I would say, how about just answering them?  You expect people to debate your specific examples of textual variation.

Then White says that, second, "it introduces connections and confusions that really worry me, because if I didn't know who this came from, it sounds like it comes from Catholic answers."

This is a non-answer.  It's a strategy.  Again, he's worried.  Stop that. And then stop equating someone with Roman Catholicism.

Rome believes in sola ecclesia, but does that mean that believers have no association with canonicity? The Bible itself doesn't teach a canonicity of books.  It teaches a canonicity of words.  Books are an outgrowth of a canonicity of words.

The Spirit of truth would guide believers into "all truth" (John 16:13). The Westminster Confession says in the first section on scripture:

[O]ur full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

The church of Thessalonica received Paul's words as the Word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Was the church at Thessalonica a counsel?  Paul's epistles were circulating among the churches even during apostolic times (Colossians 4:16).  This is a means, a methodology, for knowing what scripture is. Peter recognized Paul's writings as inspired by God and equated them with the rest of the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:15-16). Paul quoted the Gospel of Luke and called it scripture (1 Timothy 5:18).  The Words received widespread acceptance.  This is a fundamental principle for reception of God's Words and it is scientific like science was accepted pre-enlightenment, an aspect of total truth, not the bifurcated truth, two book theory, of White.

The work of the Holy Spirit through His people in the acceptance of the Words He inspired is the means by which His people know what His Words are.  This is a method.  This is a means, a supernatural one in fitting with a supernatural book.  If you can't trust this, which is taught in scripture, sola scriptura, then you can't trust the Bible.  I believe this is also the theme behind the questions White was asked, that he mocked.

The sacral nature academia has taken on itself, standing above scripture, is a much better example of Roman Catholic type authority.  God's people are taken out of the equation, and scholars and publishers, using a very subjective, non-biblical means, replace them, holding sway over God's Word.  That's what White sees as a tool of God's providence.  No way.

The means or method we are required to accept is the biblical means or method, and textual criticism doesn't look anything like what the Bible says is the method or the means.  This is not semper reformanda, always reforming.  This is deviation from the path God set for His people.  This is by far a trajectory to Rome than what White says.

Instead of answering the 3 John question, which seems to be a test question to flush out White's thinking on the scriptural method for ascertaining scripture, White asks a question and in his typical suspicious, mocking manner.  He sets off on a few minutes of red herring -- Carthage, Hippo -- answer the question!  If he answers the question based on orthodox canonical thinking, he's trapped. He also attempts to shame the guy (who has now linked to his answer in the comment section of this series).

White then goes off in admiration of the manuscript attestation toward the preservation of the Bible. Everyone is happy about that, but that's not enough for a supernatural book.  It's as if White applauds the existence of variants.  We have even more copies available.  The Bible was never up for question, and textual criticism has made it more so, giving new fodder for Muslim apologists.  If we question our own Bible, why shouldn't they?  And White is one of the biggest questioners out there.  It isn't settled with him.

White says at almost 23 that the strength of Christianity's position is all of the manuscript evidence, which is sacrificed by the ecclesiastical text position.  Those who believe in supernatural preservation have manuscript evidence too.  If they want to rely on modern science, they've got that too.  For someone who doesn't accept divine authority, which it seems White doesn't, there is manuscript evidence, which means something, but it still leaves White and people like him with errors in their Bible.  Muslim apologists wonder rightfully how that a supernatural book written by a God Who created everything could allow it to fall into a degree of error.  That's not what believers should be preaching or believing.  The church has capitulated on that, and now we have a world filled with doubt.

White says it is a completely different world talking about the Old Testament text.  That is an error.  Both Old and New are scripture and they were authenticated and recognized in the same way.  God gave the Pentateuch to the congregation of God in the Old Testament, Israel, and Israel received and kept.  That's not all there was to it, but the basics are identical.  Why does White accept the Pentateuch?  He can't answer the question.  The man asking the question for sure isn't saying that it is by counting manuscripts or else he wouldn't receive the TR.

The last two minutes are a flurry of bombasticity to put down the man he's questioning, so there's nothing there.  What one can see with White is that he doesn't start with a biblical view of this issue.  I would hope he could change. I wish he would.  He should.  I don't expect it.  He'll double down, because he's got too much at stake.  He is doing great damage in the nature that I have related in this series, spreading doubt and uncertainty about God's Word.