Author: The Young, Textless, and Reformed

Is the Pericope Adulterae A “True Story That’s Not Inspired”?

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

The Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53-8:11) is said to be “A true story that is not inspired” by many modern seminary professors and pastors. Recently, Dr. Lanier from Reformed Theological Seminary presented the case that this passage does not belong in our Bibles today. Dr. Riddle took him to task in his Word Magazine (and James Snapp in the comments) for his lopsided (and in some places inaccurate) presentation of the data. In this article, I want to explain how the argument against the PA is only convincing due to biased presentations of the data. In other words, if the average person had the full picture of the data, they would likely not find any argument against the passage convincing.

A Summary of the Argument

The ESV Study Bible includes a note at John 7:53-8:11 which says, “There is considerable doubt that this story is part of John’s original Gospel, for it is absent from all of the oldest manuscripts…it is best to view this story as something that probably happened during Jesus’ ministry but that was not originally part of Scripture and should not be used as the basis for building any point of doctrine unless confirmed in Scripture.” In the various copies of the ESV, there is bracketed material that simply says, “[THE EARLIEST MANUSCRIPTS DO NOT INCLUDE JOHN 7:53-8:11]” and the entire passage is in double brackets. In short, translations like the ESV and NIV inform the reader that this passage should not be read as Scripture on the basis that “All” early manuscripts do not include it. Some commentators like Dr. Lanier and James White make the claim that it was a “floating tradition,” where it was allegedly never in the text at John 7:53-8:11 due to the fact that it is found placed at other locations in some manuscripts.

Problems with the Argument

In the first place, the strategy for arguing against this passage as authentic starts by under informing the layperson who reads any number of the popular modern translations. I want to start by addressing the argument on two points, 1) the claim that “All early manuscripts” exclude it is misleading, and 2) that dating a manuscript as early means very little as to the matter of authenticity.

The first claim, that “all early manuscripts exclude the passage” seems to rely on the assumption that the average Christian is unfamiliar with the manuscript evidence. It is simply not the case that “all” early manuscripts exclude the passage. GA 05 (400AD) includes the passage, so to exclude that witness you must say that late 4th century/early 5th century is not an “early” witness to the passage. In addition to GA 05, GA 02 and GA 04 from the same time period have what’s called a lacunae at John 7:52, a gap in the manuscript, leaving room for the passage. This indicates the scribe was aware of the passage as he was copying. If the claim is that the early church wasn’t aware of the passage at John 7:52, it would be an erroneous claim. This is further evidenced by references to the passage by Papias (100-130), the Didascalia (230), Didymus the Blind (350-398), and most importantly Augustine (more on that later).

The second assumption is that early dating of a manuscript means it is authentic. There is no textual scholar alive that would agree with the claim that the early dating of a manuscript indicates authenticity. Dr. Peter Gurry, in his book, A New Approach to Textual Criticism, states, “A text of a manuscript may, of course, be much older than the parchment and ink that preserve it” (3). In other words, there is no rule of textual criticism that says, “oldest means authentic.” While we’re on the topic of text-critical rules, Dr. Gurry says, “As with so much textual criticism, there are no absolute rules here, and experience serves as the best guide” (ibid. 57). The built in argument to the claim that “All of the earliest manuscripts exclude” a passage is that early must mean authentic. As I have demonstrated, the claim itself is erroneous, and even if it were true, it wouldn’t be a singular case for or against authenticity. In other words, the entire body of evidence should be considered, if we’re considering evidence at all. You can’t just look at one slice of data and make a conclusion.

If you’re going to provide manuscript evidence, however, I think it important to include all the evidence. James Snapp points out that 1,503 manuscripts include the passage and 272 omit it. Further, only 68 manuscripts support the “floating tradition” idea. According to Wilbur Pickering, the vast majority of extant manuscripts (85%) include the passage at John 7:52 and the minority exclude it (15%). There is also no evidence to support that the passage spontaneously appears later on in the manuscript tradition because it is in GA 05, and there are lacunae at the location in GA 02 and GA 04. Further, early citation of the passage dispels the notion that a scribe merely invented the passage in the 5th-8th century.

In short, presenting the argument in such simple terms as “all early manuscripts exclude it” is in the first place incorrect, and secondly it severely under represents the data. On the note of under representing the data, Dr. Lanier cites Chris Keith to support his “floating tradition” argument. For the uninitiated, Chris Keith is the foremost PA scholar alive, next to Tommy Wasserman and Jennifer Knust. In the very same article Dr. Lanier uses to support his “floating tradition” argument, Keith comes to the very opposite conclusion when he says, “There is no extant evidence that PA was read in a canonical gospel text in any location other than John 7:53-8:11 until the late ninth/tenth century CE” (Chris Keith. “The Initial Location of the Pericope Adulterae in Fourfold Tradition”. Novum Testamentum 51 (2009). pp. 209-231). In other words, another way to describe the “floating tradition” theory is pure textual mythology.

The Argument Against the PA is Well-Poisoning

If you have only ever heard that the PA doesn’t belong because “All of the earliest manuscripts exclude it,” you have had the well poisoned against your understanding of the data. In the first place, there are early manuscripts that have it, and there are earlier citations of the passage. You have been primed to disbelieve this passage by simply reading the ESV or NIV or any number of Bibles that bracket the passage (NASB) without hearing both sides of the matter. The Bible says, “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” (Proverbs 18:13). Yet the publishers of these translations and the scholars that present the argument in a lopsided way force people into a conclusion before they have heard the whole matter. This is an egregious abuse of authority by translation committees to funnel readers into a conclusion in this way without presenting all of the evidence.

Answering the Real Question of the PA

What my reader needs to understand is that the passage was in fact early and found at John 7:52. The question is not, “Is this authentic?” but rather, “Why did a small number of manuscripts exclude it?” Before I answer this question, I want to touch on a problem with using extant manuscript evidence at all. When scholars say, “all manuscripts,” what they actually mean is “surviving manuscripts.” It is foolish to assume that there were only several hundred early manuscripts, and we have all of them. The reality is, that thousands of manuscripts were destroyed due to the fact that paper is fragile. The reason we have early ones from Alexandria is partly due to the fact that Alexandria is dry, and has the best climate for paper to survive. The fact that a manuscript has survived does not speak to its authenticity or quality.

Further, there are early manuscripts that have survived that contain the reading, and were therefore copied from somewhere. That is to say, if a manuscript dated to 400 had the reading (GA 05), manuscripts before it had the reading, because that manuscript was copied from somewhere. We do not posses now most of the manuscripts that have existed in history. The fact stands, that we have less manuscripts now than have ever existed because more time has passed now than ever before. In fact, Dan Wallace says that we have lost somewhere in the ballpark of 500 manuscripts in the last ten years. So my statement is objectively true, even in the last ten years. We have less manuscripts now than we did ten years ago.

Now to answer the question of, “Why do some manuscripts not have the PA?” Fortunately, we have an answer from Augustine. “Certain men of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, that their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if He who had said, ‘sin no more,’ had granted permission to sin” (De adulterinis coniugiis 2.7). This is the context that helps us understand why GA 02 and GA 04 have a lacunae at John 7:52 and why GA 05 includes it. According the Augustine, there was a doctrinal controversy where men were concerned this passage gave their wives’ permission to commit adultery, and it was being excluded as a result.

The fact is, that Augustine considered the passage authentic, and even provided a polemic against those who were removing the passage from their manuscripts. This tells us two important things: 1) The passage was in manuscripts in the 4th century and 2) some people were removing it from manuscripts. If we trust that Augustine wasn’t lying, than it is a matter of fact that manuscripts had the passage, and the passage was being removed. This is important, because by the 9th century all of our manuscripts included the passage. A question I have is, do we think we have more context in 2026 than Christians in the 6th-9th centuries? Do we somehow know more, despite having less extant data? I think not. Christians were clearly aware of the textual controversy, and by the 9th century, it was concluded.

In Conclusion

It is quite apparent that the argument against the PA is biased from the start for most people due to the fact that their translation under represents or misrepresents the argument. Further presentations from modern scholars commit the same errors. Hardly any Christian even gets a chance to hear a positive presentation for the case to retain the PA before they’ve heard the negative multiple times. This means that anybody making the case for the PA is arguing as though the passage should be included and not retained. The fact is, the PA has overwhelming evidence, and the argument is not whether we should put the passage back into the text, because there was no good reason ever to eject it. It is our prerogative as Christians to retain the PA.

If the argument is that “earliest means authentic,” you stand alone in believing this axiom because readings found on later manuscripts could be the earliest witness to a passage. If the argument is simply counting manuscripts, you especially have no reason to doubt the PA because 1,503 manuscripts have it, including early ones. What this comes down to, and most scholars won’t admit this, is the secret rule of textual criticism: always prefer Sinaiticus (GA 01). The problem with this is that nobody knows who copied Sinaiticus, what manuscript it was copied from, and the text of Sinaiticus is hardly copied after the 4th century. In other words, Sinaiticus stands nearly alone in the manuscript tradition. It is a novel manuscript in our tradition of manuscripts. The church had set aside this manuscript for over 1,000 years, for good reason.

Many people believe that Sinaiticus represents a “text-type,” but this manuscript is not related closely enough to any other for that to be the case. Use of computer models has demonstrated this unequivocally, even though Burgon demonstrated this decades ago. Dr. Peter Gurry states, “The most significant and, for that reason controversial is that it has convinced the editors to abandon the concept of text-types traditionally used to group and evaluate manuscripts” (ibid. 7). This is primarily in reference to the so-called Alexandrian text type, because these same computer models have demonstrated the early readings of the Byzantine text (11). The point is, that even the computer models have demonstrated that later manuscripts contain early readings, and have validated the “later” Byzantine text as early.

Many people believe that the reason early manuscripts are so important is because they represent authenticity. There are no scholars making this claim today. So the bracketed material which serves as an entry point for most into the discussion means very little when considered. If it is the case that early does not mean authentic, and some early manuscripts include the PA, not only is the bracketed material in modern Bibles incomplete, it is inaccurate, and therefore misleading. Therefore it is my strong conviction that the PA should not only be retained, but defended as authentic and inspired.

For more on the topic, see Dr. Jeff Riddle’s pamphlet here.

Modern Scholarship, Textual Variation, and the Received Text

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Dr. Peter Gurry published a short article entitled Cole on Preservation and the Westminster Divines’ Sermons back in January of this year. This is an addendum to his academic article posted in the Midwestern Journal of Theology called “Textual Criticism in the Reformation.” This is a part of the continued effort to support the claim that modern textual scholars are doing the same thing as the Reformed during the Reformation and post-Reformation era, “These arguments are the all-important context for understanding the practice of textual criticism in the Reformation” (pg. 20). He notes correctly that this is not a term the Reformers used, which is of course true because the concept of critical studies was yet to be born. He also does a great job of pulling from Milne, Muller, and Turretin to give appropriate context, which many of his colleagues avoid. He cites Muller, saying that the Reformed did not “seek the infinite regress of the lost autographa as the prop for textual infallibility” (pg. 27). He rightly notices that the Reformed considered the copies of Scripture to be authentic as the originals.

Here is where, I think, the modern textual scholars get the argument confused. The tendency seems to be to anachronistically apply the term, “Textual Criticism” to the efforts of the Reformed and post-Reformed. Where many popular level apologists go wrong is to make the claim that the giants of our tradition were ignorant of textual variation in the manuscript tradition. Gurry does not make this error as his peers often do. He says, “None of this means that scholars and theologians in this period were unaware of variants within Greek manuscripts. One can find discussion of them in Erasmus and Beza, of course, and in plenty of other scholars’ too” (pg. 29). This of course is true, and these discussions continue all the way through Turretin, Owen, Gill, and more. Dr. Gurry even invokes Jan Krans correctly in his analysis of Erasmus, noting that Erasmus was engaging in some proto-genealogical method. An important addition is to remember that this actually distinguishes Erasmus from Beza, who was far too theologically motivated for Krans’ liking.

One important observation here is that Dr. Gurry invokes one of Turretin’s questions, “Are the sources so pure that no fault has crept into the sacred manuscripts, either through the waste of time, the carelessness of copyists or the malice of the Jews or of heretics?” (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. 1, 106). He correctly characterizes the Reformed position via Turretin, which is to answer, “no.” This is where Dr. Gurry gets off the Reformed boat. He points out that modern evidence makes such claims such as the inspiration of the vowel points, “impossible to make” (pg. 33). He uses this as a starting point to argue that the Reformed could not have had a complete theology because they did not have a complete set of evidence.

This is the crux of the difference between the evangelical textual scholars and the non-evangelical textual scholars – the evangelicals appreciate the work of the Reformed and take their words into consideration. However, at the end of the day, they ultimately conclude that modern evidence has discredited the Reformed conclusions. Yet the question remains as to whether or not the Reformed would have consented to the conclusions of modernity. The modern scholars obviously say, “yes, how could they not?” Those in the Confessional Text camp say, “I don’t think they would.”

Would the Reformed have valued the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls as highly as modern scholars do? Would they likewise value Vaticanus and Sinaiticus as highly as modern scholars do? Dr. Gurry acknowledges that the Reformed were aware of textual variation, and yet they denied corruption, unlike modern textual scholars. The reason this is important, is because if the modern textual scholars are correct about the evidence discovered in the 19th and 20th centuries, the first chapter of the Reformed confessions must be understood in a different light and even reformulated. The evangelical textual scholars understand this, as they have produced several treatises and statements on the doctrine of Scripture in the last several years (Jongkind, Wallace, Brash). If chapter 1 of the confessions were adequate in light of modern evidence, there would be no need to add to the formulations produced in the Reformation and Post-Reformation period.

The reality is, most modern Reformed have already adopted the conclusions of modern textual scholars regarding the vowel points, the textual evidence, and the doctrinal statements regarding Scripture. The question that I always ask myself is this, “Would the Reformed have understood this evidence differently than our modern scholars?” My answer of course is, “yes.” Ultimately, this work by Dr. Gurry indicates a shift in the modern textual argument from, “The Reformed agree with us” to “The Reformed laid the foundations, but were ultimately betrayed by their lack of evidence.”

I see this as a welcome update to the conversation, which has been difficult to navigate due to modern scholars claiming the Reformed as their own for the past several years. The impact of this debate proliferates down to the layman quickly. The Reformed believed that their translation of the Hebrew and Greek to be inspired, literally God’s Word. The moderns believe that every translation is imperfect, and the Hebrew and Greek must be consulted at every turn. The Reformed believed that there were no places of corruption, meaning that every jot and every tittle had been preserved and made available. The moderns believe that some passages and words have indeed fallen away, yet what we have is “good enough” to ascertain all important doctrines. The pastor who believes the modern conclusions will preach in a manner which aligns with the modern textual scholars. The layman who believes the conclusions will read their Bible in a manner which aligns with the modern textual scholars.

While it may be true that this is an “open handed issue” as it were, it nevertheless has a significant impact on the Reformed and non-Reformed churches in the world. It changes preaching, reading, and practice. For that reason, this remains an important debate. Every pastor preaching through the Bible verse by verse will eventually have to side one way or another on this issue. Every Christian reading through the Bible will eventually have to do the same. Unfortunately, that debate is not easily settled, as it more or less comes down to answering the question, “Does modern evidence disprove the conclusions of the Reformed?” Those that answer, “Yes” will adopt the methods of Dan Wallace, Andrew Nasselli, Mark Ward, and Dirk Jongkind in Bible reading and preaching. Those that answer, “No” will retain the translation of the Reformed, say “Jehovah” instead of “Yahweh,” and so on. My point is this – whatever conclusion a believer lands on will impact the practice of their faith in a very noticeable way.

It is for this reason that this conversation continues to come up. You can be unaware of your brother’s doctrinal views on a number of issues, but not this one. It is inevitably going to come up, because it impacts the Bible translation you carry around, the words you use to pray, and the way a pastor preaches. It is unavoidable, and it is my hope that the modern day Reformed are at least more friendly to those of the Textus Receptus position than they have been in the past decade or so. It is my opinion that it is absolutely the position of the Reformed tradition, even if that tradition is considered wrong according to the modern perspective.

Book Now Available

The Young, Textless, and Reformed5 Comments

Dear Reader,

I have published a book through Kept Pure Press entitled, The Received Text: A Field Guide. It can be found here. There is a discount available for readers of the Text & Translation blog.

The purpose of this book is not to be a deep dive into the topic, or an utter refutation of individual textual variants. I set out to detail as best as I could the scope of the conversation for newcomers and lay people. One of the issues I often see is lofty language and credentialism which are barriers to entry for the average person. So I put together a short book which outlines clearly the theological and methodological frameworks of the most commonly held positions. Once I establish the boundaries of the conversation, I offer a hefty critique to the methods and beliefs of the critical text establishment and provide a somewhat unique approach to defending the Received Text position.

God Bless,

Taylor

Addressing The Intelligibility Argument

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

There is an argument against the KJV which says that because the translation has archaic words, it is sinful to either read or tell people to read it. This argument is presented by Mark Ward in his book Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. Many people who respect and enjoy Ward’s other work are not aware that he makes this claim. It is even the case that his fans will deny that he has made this claim when it is presented. In this article, I am going to demonstrate that Ward does make this argument, and why it is incorrect.

The Argument

I have addressed this argument before in the context of my chapter-by-chapter review of Authorized, but I wanted to give it some more attention here. Ward states that while the KJV is not unintelligible as a whole, it contains words which are archaic or “false friends” and therefore violates 1 Corinthians 14. This is likened to putting a “stumbling block in your own path in order to increase your resilience and skill” (Ward. Authorized. 120). He concludes that to hand somebody else a KJV is to “stand in their way” and to put a stumbling block in front of them (Rom. 14:13). Ward’s entire premise is that these “false friends” are landmines of sorts, and that the reader is not aware of an archaic word when he encounters it. In other words, when you read the KJV or convince another to read the KJV, you are causing them to stumble because it contains words which have evolved in meaning or are otherwise archaic.

Based on the verbiage and context of 1 Cor. 14, the argument is that the archaic words in the KJV are the same as somebody speaking an unknown tongue. This is a purely novel interpretation that has never been understood from the text by anybody other than Mark Ward. If you have been around in Christian circles for some time, you know that this passage is talking about spiritual gifts and their use (or lack thereof) for edification of the saints. In fact, this passage is used as a proof text for the cessationism debate frequently. It has never been used as a proof, until now, for the intelligibility of bible translations.

Let’s for a moment grant this is the interpretation of the passage. The key word here is that the language being used is so unintelligible that it is not useful for edification. Is it the case that any word in the KJV is unknown? Clearly the answer is “no.” Every single word and phrase found in the KJV can be adequately defined and understood by people today. There aren’t any words in the KJV that have been lost to us. Therefore, even if 1 Cor. 14 was in any way applicable to Bible translations, it wouldn’t even apply to the KJV.

In order for this argument to be true, Ward would have to find a word that could not be defined in the KJV. Of course he won’t, because he’s already found all of the “false friends” and defined them for us. I have made this point before, but the thrust of Ward’s work disproves his primary thesis. That is to say, in order for his argument to work, the KJV would have to be unintelligible to the degree that 1 Cor. 14 describes. This is where the average layperson might be fooled by Ward’s apparent doublespeak. On one hand, Ward states that the KJV is not overall unintelligible (pg. 118), and on the other hand says that it is a totally different language (pg. 79). In order to understand Ward’s argument, we have to understand the soft language in which he couches a rather harsh argument.

A Harsh Argument Seated in a Soft Couch

On page 79 of Authorized, Ward articulates his argument in a list.

  1. We should read the Scripture in our own language
  2. The KJV is not in our language
  3. Therefore we should update the KJV to be in our language, or we should read vernacular translations

He concludes, “I therefore do not think the KJV is sufficiently readable to be relied upon as a person’s only or main translation, or as a church’s or Christian school’s only or main translation” (pg. 85). I want to make this clear for my reader, Ward’s argument is that people should not use the KJV as their main translation, and that it is a stumbling block for those that read it. This is an extremely harsh perspective. Yet, you will see people online claiming that “Mark Ward loves the KJV! You’re slandering him!” It may be true that Ward has an appreciation for the KJV. We can see this in chapter two of Authorized, where he makes note of the KJV heritage. The salient point here is understanding in which way Ward loves the KJV. We have already seen that he does not love the KJV as a translation that should be used. The entire thesis of his book is to discourage Christians from reading it, after all. What we see in Authorized is Ward’s apparent appreciation for the KJV’s place in church history, and that’s all.

This is where you will see a sort of bait and switch by people defending Ward. One will say, “Ward does not think reading the KJV is sinful, he loves the KJV!” Sure, we can grant that Ward loves the KJV as an artifact or a museum piece, but certainly not as a translation that should be used. This is where many people become confused. When somebody says, “I love my ESV,” they typically mean, “I love using my ESV.” So when people hear Ward say, “I love the KJV,” they assume he means, “I love using the KJV.” We know this is not true because he wrote an entire book explaining why the KJV should not be used. Mark Ward does not love using the KJV. This is confusing, because it allows him to couch a harsh argument in soft language. He is saying, “Yes, I love the KJV, but it is a different language and a stumbling block for those that use it.” Ward is advocating for absolute abstinence from the KJV. It’s like saying, “I love drinking alcohol, but you shouldn’t drink alcohol lest it become a stumbling block for you.” The strange part is, Ward is not arguing that the KJV is a stumbling block for some, he is arguing that it is a stumbling block for all.

Of course, Ward’s argument hinges on the established fact that the KJV is a different language which is unintelligible to the English Christian. This is the point of 1 Cor. 14. Even though he says that the KJV is not altogether unintelligible, his argument demands that it is. Let’s just say we were to take Ward’s novel interpretation of 1 Cor. 14 as true, it still would not apply to the KJV. Since these archaic words are not unknown, the simple answer is to learn what these words mean just like we learn words to read any book. This is why the argument is actually incredibly dumb or incredibly dishonest. The argument really just says, “We shouldn’t have to learn new words to read the Bible. We should be able to read the Bible with the words we already know.”

Reading Comprehension, or the KJV?

This is the spirit of nearly every single author on the topic today. They say the Bible should be comprehensible by the average reader. Now, I agree with this principle, but not in the way that these men mean it. What is meant by the average reader? Are we talking about the average adult? Ward has said that it is a sin to hand a child the KJV, so perhaps he means, the average child. What reading comprehension level are we saying is the standard for a translation in order for it to be intelligible? According to the Nation’s Report Card, the average reading level in the US is between 7th and 8th grade, with over 54% reading below a 6th grade level. Nationwide, 21% of adults in the US are illiterate. California boasts the lowest literacy rates in the country, with 23% of adults having little to no proficiency in reading skills. This means that over half of the US would find every translation except the Message unintelligible by Ward’s standards, and 21-23% of the US having zero valid translations available to them. I wonder if Ward would put his money where his mouth is and break ground on producing The Golden State Authorized Interlinear (GAI) for our neighbors in California.

This highlights a strange feature of this argument, that the KJV is a stumbling block because of lack of reading comprehension. But we see that over half of US adults read at below a 6th grade level, which means the ESV is equally a stumbling block by this logic. This means that Ward, presumably, would prescribe the same antidote to them for the ESV as we do for the KJV – learn the words. This idea that we should not learn to read the Bible because it has difficult words cannot be justified by any historical or biblical principle because it is essentially saying “People shouldn’t be competent readers.” I have said this before, but most public schools teach Shakespeare, which demands the same task. That is to say that American public schools demand more from the students then Ward would demand of Christians.

The American Church is not facing a KJV crisis, it is facing a reading comprehension crisis. Ward’s solution is to hand half of America The Message and ignore the 20% who simply cannot read at all. That is why Ward’s problem is one that could only be concocted in the ivory towers of the academy. He has taken on the opposite spirit of Tyndale, who said, “I defy the pope and all his laws…If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.” Tyndale believed the illiterate plowboy could learn to read for the sake of God and the Scriptures. Ward believes that the words of Tyndale cannot be understood, even by the most learned men of our society. He believes such things because he thinks you are stupid. Do not fooled by such silly arguments any longer, dear Christian, we have work to do.

Sola Scriptura Not Compatible with Modern Bibliology

The Young, Textless, and Reformed9 Comments

In recent years, I’m sure my reader has seen, like I have, a mass return to more traditional sects of Christianity such as Orthodoxy or Catholicism. One of the claims both of these churches make is the antiquity of their religion and the authority of their counsels. This is one of the counter-reformation arguments that still rings loud today. A church without centralized authority is subject to the whims of cultural decay and depravity. Now I can’t speak for evangelicals, but Protestants and other conservative independent denominations both hinge their arguments of authority on a doctrine known as Sola Scriptura. In other words, Scripture alone determines the authority of what the people of God believe and how they practice Christianity.

This doctrine is founded on 2 Timothy 3:16, which states, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Modern bibliology, often called the doctrine of ” biblical inerrancy” is historically different than the doctrine of the protestants as defined in the 17th century confessions and catechisms (WCF 1.6-7). Both 2 Timothy and WCF 1.6 assume that “scripture” is a defined object. The protestant and post-reformation theologians also considered the original texts to include the copies or apographs. “By the original texts, we do not mean the autographs written by the hand of Moses, of the prophets and of the apostles, which certainly do not now exist. We mean their apographs which are so called because they set forth to us the word of God in the very words of those who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit” (Francis Turretin. Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. I, 106.)

The Chicago Statement, and thus the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, does not assert that the scriptures available today are inspired. Only the autographs were inspired, and the material we have today is greatly accurate. “We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original” (Chicago Statement, article X). In other words, the bibles that we have today are only considered scripture insofar as these texts can be ascertained from extant manuscripts.

At the time of writing the Chicago Statement, the authors deemed the process of textual criticism “greatly accurate.” If we take the standard definition of this phrase, it means “correct in all the details, exact.” There is not a single biblical or textual scholar alive today who would say that the text of scripture is “exact” or “correct in all the details.” In fact, the scholars say precisely the opposite. Let me list several examples for my reader.

“We do not have now – in any of our critical Greek texts or in any translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it. There are many, many places in which the text of the New Testament is uncertain” (Elijah Hixson & Peter Gurry. Myths & Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism. xii. Quote by Dan Wallace.)

“I do not believe that God is under any obligation to preserve every detail of Scripture for us, even though he granted us good access to the text of the New Testament.” (Dirk Jongkind. An Introduction to the Greek New Testament. 90.)

“The New Testament philologist’s task is not to recover an original authorial text, not only because we cannot at present know on philological grounds what the original text might have been, nor even because there may have been several forms to the tradition, but because philology is not able to make a pronouncement as to whether or not there was such an authorial text” (DC Parker. Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament. 27.)

“We are trying to piece together a puzzle with only some of the pieces” (Peter Gurry. A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence Based Genealogical Method. 112.)

So we see clearly the evolution of modern bibliology. When the Chicago Statement was penned, there was a strong belief that textual criticism had produced a greatly accurate, or exact text. Yet the theological wording of the statement left the door open for this to change based on the effort of textual scholarship. As we can see above, it is not just one lone scholar who believes that scripture is not exact. Scholars who share this opinion are Dirk Jongkind, editor of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament and senior research fellow in New Testament Text and Language at Cambridge. I do not share these quotations to bash these men, but rather to highlight that this is the mainstream evangelical position and not some fringe ideology. The opinions of men like James White, Mark Ward, Dan Wallace, Richard Brash, and every person who advocates for the modern critical text are informed by these men and their cohorts. Nearly every seminary espouses this view of Scripture, and this is irrefutably taught in pulpits and classrooms everywhere.

The main concern with this view is that it is completely incompatible with the doctrine known as Sola Scriptura. In order for Christians to have authority in their doctrine without a pope or centralized church, there must be an infallible source of doctrinal truth. That is the premise for Sola Scriptura. The Reformers claimed that counsels and popes can fail, but God and His scripture cannot. Therefore, all matters of faith and practice should be founded on infallible scripture, not the authority of men. If it is the case that scripture cannot be accurately ascertained, then this doctrine crumbles. It is evident for all to see that the modern evangelical church has no authority. Churches teach whatever they want, ordain whoever they want, and organize however they want. There is no regulating principle around which evangelical churches organize, because there is no authority. There is no Sola Scriptura without scripture, and therefore churches that believe in modern bibliology are without authority.

In order to have authority as a post-Protestant church, that church needs to reject modern bibliology and embrace the sound doctrine of the Protestant Reformation or return to Rome. That is why I have come up with new terminology for those who believe in modern bibliology, post-Protestants. Post-Protestants, commonly called evangelicals, do not believe that the bibles we have today are completely inspired, and therefore have no authority. They believe that the ideas are inspired, but that is a post-Protestant doctrine found nowhere in scripture. In order for the churches to be healthy and authoritative again, post-Protestant bibliology must be rejected.

TurretinFan Attempts to Make an Argument

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

On Monday, anonymous blogster TurretinFan published an article titled The “Stable Text” King James Version Argument which can be found here. The point of the article is to say that the “misleadingly labeled” Confessional Bibliology position is the same position that the KJV translators had to respond to, and is essentially the position of the Roman Catholics. I want my reader to notice that this article is about 10 sentences worth of assertions, and the rest citations which he claims prove his point. TurretinFan hasn’t actually made an argument in this article, nor has he addressed the material I have written. Let’s break down his assertions and see if we have anything to engage with from the article.

Confessional Bibliology is Misleadingly Labeled

In the first sentence of the article, TurretinFan asserts that the label “Confessional Bibliology” is a misleading label. He does not explain why or how it is misleading. He continues to say that Confessional Bibliology “seems to recognize the authority of the original languages” but “seems to conform to whatever Greek or Hebrew was followed by the translators/revisers of the King James Version.”

Apparently it is news to TurretinFan that the King James Version translators used the base text which we now call the Textus Receptus to create the King James Version translation. Again, no argument provided by our anonymous poster, simply an assertion as to what “seems” to be the case. In other words, there is nothing we can reasonably engage with here.

The Stable Text Argument is a Roman Catholic Argument

TurretinFan’s major blunder here is a common error that Critical Text advocates make, which is to confuse an argument for the text with an argument for the authority of a translation. He references Clement VIII who is making an argument for the stability of the Latin manuscripts, which are translations. This is a common argument made by James White, and not original to TurretinFan. This is not the argument I am making, nor have I ever made. Perhaps if TurretinFan understood the moniker “Confessional Bibliology,” he would know that the position I defend is simply the position of chapter 1 of the 17th century confessions, which state, “The Old Testament in Hebrew, (which was the native language of the people of God of old,) and the New Testament in Greek, (which, at the time of writing of it was most generally known to the nations,) being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them. But, because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto an interest in the scriptures, and are commanded in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore the are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come, that the word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable manner, and, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, may have hope” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.6).

TurretinFan ends by stating that my objective is to move from manuscripts to a single, stable text. This is arguably the strangest assertion he has made in the article, as this is simply what happened in time and space. Is he arguing that the church uses manuscripts today? Do Christians carry around various manuscripts to church? It is already the case that the form of the Bible has moved from manuscripts to printed texts and translations. This is true for both the Critical Text and TR position. The question is not whether we should migrate from manuscripts to printed texts, that has already occurred as a matter of history, not my opinion. The question is what those printed texts represent, and which of those printed texts and translations should be used by the people of God.

Interestingly enough, in his critique of me, TurretinFan has critiqued the nature of his preferred text. If my desire is a single, stable text, and this is the “wrong priority,” then he is really saying that the Critical Text is not a stable text, and “it is a mark of wisdom to revise when we discover errors.” TurretinFan has no basis for determining what an “error” is, however, because his preferred textual methodology cannot say what is an error. His methodology can only determine what is most likely the oldest reading, which is an evaluation that is agnostic to the idea of original or authentic. The concept of error requires the idea of verity or authenticity, which the Critical Text methodology does not claim to provide.

Turretin Vs TurretinFan

So if TurretinFan’s critique of my position is that I am wrong to desire a single, stable text, then it is clear that his position is the opposite. The only history repeating itself is for gainsayers such as TurretinFan to question the authenticity of Scripture, such as 1 John 5:7, Mark 16:9-20, and John 7:53-8:11. Ironically, Turretin himself agrees with me in my doctrine of Scripture.

“By the original texts, we do not mean the autographs written down by the hand of Moses, of the prophets and the apostles, which certainly do not now exist. We mean their apographs which are so called because they set forth to us the word of God in the very words of those who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit” (Turretin, Francis. Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Volume 1. p. 106). In other words, Turretin rejects the idea that the Bible is inerrant in its autographs, but rather that it was kept pure in all ages via the copies or apographs.

Turretin continues by defining the difference between a textual variant and a corruption, “A corruption differs from a variant reading. We acknowledge that many variant readings occur both in the Old and New Testaments arising from a comparison of different manuscripts, but we deny corruption (at least corruption that is universal)” (Ibid., 111). In other words, Turretin does not agree with the modern critical text idea that there are variants which should be marked with a diamond, indicating corruption.

Turretin finishes by defending the passages that TurretinFan himself rejects, “There is no truth in the assertion that the Hebrew edition of the Old Testament and the Greek edition of the New Testament are said to be mutilated; nor can the arguments used by our opponents prove it. Not the history of the adulteress (Jn. 8:1-11), for although it is lacking in the Syriac version, it is found in all the Greek manuscripts. Not 1 Jn. 5:7, for although some formerly called it into question and heretics now do, yet all the Greek copies have it, as Sixtus Senesis acknowledges: “they have been the words of never-doubted truth, and contained in all the Greek copies from the very times of the apostles” (Bibliotheca sancta [1575], 2:298). Not Mk. 16 which may have been wanted in several copies in the time of Jerome (as he asserts); but now it occurs in all, even in the Syriac version, and is clearly necessary to complete the history of the resurrection of Christ” (Ibid., 115).

Here is the most entertaining conclusion that we can arrive at by actually reading Turretin:

  1. Turretin lots TurretinFan in with the heretics in his rejection of 1 John 5:7
  2. Turretin was aware of the manuscripts TurretinFan prefers (Jerome’s referenced manuscripts)
  3. Turretin details how doctrines are impacted by the removal of passages as found in the Critical Text (the history of the resurrection of Christ)
  4. Turretin rejects the notion of corruption (indeterminate readings, which are found in the ECM)
  5. Turretin rejects the reframing of the WCF by Warfield and the Chicago Statement

In other words, Turretin disagrees with TurretinFan on nearly every point as it pertains to Scripture, both textually and theologically. It is interesting that TurretinFan accuses me of making a Roman Catholic argument. This is a little known fact, but the Textus Receptus was actually the text of the Protestant Reformation. It makes no sense that defending such a text would be considered…Roman Catholic. I suspect the reason for such shoddy and inept argumentation is due to the fact that this is simply a regurgitation of assertions made by James White. Let me remind my reader that assertions are not arguments, and you actually have to explain why a quote supports your argument. This is persuasive writing 101. What we have to recognize is that a community college English 101 professor would send this article by TurretinFan back for revision because he hasn’t made an argument, he’s simply made assertions in between citations.

Conclusion

The greatest condemnation of this article is not it’s poor structure and lack of persuasion, it is the fact that Turretin himself disagrees with TurretinFan so fundamentally that he should really consider changing his moniker. Perhaps he should consider Dr. SpyOptics, the bargain bin version of Dr. Oakley.

Death of Logic

The Young, Textless, and Reformed7 Comments

Welcome to the new year, reader. In 2024, I fully expect that we will find ourselves debating the same arguments and talking points afresh. The reality is that many of the theological controversies prevalent today are already resolved. Consider topics such as soteriology and eschatology. These have been discussed at great length by men much more capable than anybody alive today, yet modern men exhaust themselves, thinking that they have come up with some clever argument. Despite this, Christians will descend upon internet forums to cast their thoughts into the void, regardless of outcome. Such is the nature of debate disconnected from the real world.

Many, if not all, of the popular debates can be resolved by logical rules as simple as the law of noncontradiction or excluded middle. In other words, two things that cannot be true at the same time or one of two things must be true, given the claim requires it. The entire textual discussion can, at the very least, be reframed by evaluating foundational claims by these two laws of thought. For example, if our primary claim is “Scripture exists”, then we can exclude any claim which posits that “Scripture does not exist.” By “exist” we mean here that the Scriptures exist in such a way that we can access and use it. Many modern views of Scripture attempt to redefine the term “exist” to mean that the words are out in the world, somewhere, we just don’t have access to them. Yet, this is an illogical claim, for this view also allows for the possibility that the words are not out there in the world. This is why textual scholars hedge their claims with words such as “possible” and “likely.” In short, if it is “possible” that a text is original, it is also possible that a text is not original. Using this type of language violates the law of noncontradiction if we are trying to defend something which is said to “exist.” Something cannot exist and “possibly exist” at the same time.

Herein lies the nuance which muddles the debate. If you are a Christian, your premise is that Scripture exists, not that it “possibly exists.” This is a requirement for all Scriptural truth claims. We do not say in evangelism that, “It is possible that God so loved the world..” and so on. When we present the Gospel, we do so assuming the premise that the words exist, and that the words we have in front of us are correct. There is not a scenario where a Christian can confidently present the free offer of salvation given that the words on the page could be inauthentic. Yet, if you inspect the average claim of the modern bibliology camp, this is how they argue for Scripture. In one context, they read their Bible, listen to sermons, and debate theology with absolute confidence in the words on the page, and in the text-critical context, they argue with varying degrees of “possibility.” We know that this is not logically valid.

If we investigate what it means for the Bible to “exist,” we find that this concept is captured within the doctrine of preservation. To the traditional camp, the Bible exists because we have always had it, despite attempts at corruption. To the modern camp, the Bible exists insofar as we have it today. The first group has, at the very least, logical consistency because the definition of “Bible” has not changed over the years. The second group has a serious problem because in order to make the claim that the Bible exists, they must change the form of the Bible to mean something different in every age. The Bible, in other words, is more of a concept than an object. This is the primary difference between the two groups, as far as I can tell.

The traditional group sees the Bible as an object with a defined number of words, whereas the modern group sees the Bible as an object with a defined number of ideas. This is the explanatory mechanism the moderns use to describe how the words can be added, removed, or changed, and the thing (Bible) still be the same. According to this model, so as long as the core ideas are preserved, the Bible is preserved. This is a clever formulation, but unfortunately it has no explanatory mechanism. It cannot be demonstrated to be true, which means it is purely conjectural. This is due to the fact that literary ideas are derived from words. A text cannot preserve an idea without words. So if it were the case that a text can change while the ideas remain constant, one would have to actually demonstrate that additions, subtractions, and substitutions do not alter the substance of the text. This of course cannot be demonstrated to be true because any addition, subtraction, or substitution must, by definition, alter the substance of a text. This is how words work. Unless a modernist is willing to make the claim that all omitted portions of text are void of meaning, or all substitutions are merely synonymic, this must be the case. Ultimately, this claim is evaluated true on the simple merit that it has been said out loud.

We see that the textual debate is really a matter of definitions. In order for the modernists to be correct, they must employ a functional definition of “Bible” and “exists” and “preserve” in a different sense than the traditionalists. This is how they use historical writings such as the Westminster Confession to defend their claims. “If by Scripture they mean this, and if by preserved they mean this, then the Scriptures are indeed preserved!” Yet we can all agree that simply changing the definition of words does not win an argument, it simply means that the argument itself is different. This is my main point, the modern position of bibliology is comprised of claims which are substantially different than that of the traditionalists. That is to say, when these two groups collide in debate, they are using different functional definitions of key terms such as “Bible” and “preserved.”

This is important to recognize the next time you engage in a debate over a text such as 1 John 5:7. The textual modernist views his Bible as a collection of concepts and ideas, not a defined collection of texts. That is why a primary argument against the importance of the Comma Johanneum is that “the idea is contained elsewhere.” What I want my reader to understand is that this is actually an argument in support of a different definition of “Bible.” Take time to notice when somebody argues that, “1 John 5:7 isn’t even about the Trinity” or “It wasn’t even quoted at Nicaea in defense of the Trinity.” They are arguing this because in their mind the Bible isn’t defined by the texts contained within it, but the ideas. Yet we have already established that in literature, ideas are derived from words. Thus, adding, removing, or altering the words necessarily adds, removes, or alters the ideas.

Herein lies the primary logical problem with the modernist position on Scripture. In order for the text to mean something in itself, the ideas must be derived from the text. If it is the case that the ideas themselves are preserved apart from the text, then it is the case that the ideas have another preserving mechanism. Let us return to the argument related to the Trinity and 1 John 5:7. One of the chief arguments presented by textual modernists such as James White is that the doctrine of the Trinity can be derived elsewhere. Note the framing demands that the doctrine exists, and it can be found in the text. The doctrine is assumed first, and collected from Scripture as it exists to the modernist. In other words, the doctrine is preserved apart from the text. In this view, the reader brings a fully built out doctrine of the Trinity into Scripture. This is the implied assumption of this argument against the Comma Johanneum.

So we see the foundational logical problems that exist in the current iteration of the textual discussion. The modern side must redefine historical terms in order to fit their view into the Protestant frame. That is why some textual scholars avoid referring to Scripture as “The Bible” and instead opt for “bibles.” This is because at the core of the Critical Text position, the assumption is that “bibles” exist, but “the Bible” hasn’t existed since the first or second century. This is obviously problematic for Christian bibliology. The answer the modernists give is that, “we don’t need the Bible, as long as the ideas are preserved in the bibles.” One of the main problems in the textual discussion is that when a textual modernist employs the term “Bible” or “Scriptures,” they mean, “the bibles.” This demonstrates one of the foundational disconnects in the debate, both sides are using different functional definitions.

This is why the debate will continue into 2024 the same as it has since I have been involved. There are two theologies of the text, two logical foundations, two sets of definitions. My prediction is that 2024 will continue to highlight the differences in the positions with each discovery and evolution of the textual scholars. Happy New year and may the Lord bless you and keep you, reader.

A Poor Attempt at Representing the Argument

The Young, Textless, and Reformed4 Comments

Every now and then, somebody discovers James White and feels the need to demonstrate their newfound intelligence. This week, a brave, anonymous person decided to completely dismantle the “KJV Only” position in a Textus Receptus forum. The poster presented his argument in the form of a question and answer. The question he posed was, “Where was the Bible prior to 1611?” He then proposes that there are only three possible answers, which are as follows:

  1. The Bible did exist with these exact words and in this exact order prior to the KJV being produced. This is essentially a conspiracy theory since we have zero evidence to suggest this and Erasmus (who’s work makes up the majority of the KJV) did textual work between manuscripts to arrive at his work.
  2. The Bible didn’t exist in a perfect state prior to 1611 and was restored by God in the KJV. This is a restorationist view and totally destroys the doctrine of preservation.
  3. Finally, you can argue that God did preserve his Word via the text history, which does require textual criticism to weigh different manuscripts to better determine which words are most likely to be original to the text.

In this article, I will address this argument for the edification of my reader. In the first place, I suspected that this poster received his textual education from James White, which he later confirmed in a comment exchange with Dr. Peter Van Kleek. This is the kind of argumentation you’re going to see out there, folks.

Point 1

The first argument demonstrates the lack of organization in the poster’s train of thought. He uses the terminology “KJV-Only position” in his introduction, yet fails to define what he means by it. According to James White and Dr. Andrew Naselli, “KJV Onlyism” ranges from more extreme than Ruckman all the way down to somebody who prefers the KJV. At the outset of the argument, we have no idea what the poster means by “KJV Only,” which makes his argument difficult to engage with in any meaningful way. We will see his definition come through in his argumentation, so I’ll do my best to pull that out for my reader. This is not all that problematic, however, considering that his argument is incoherent regardless of his definition of “KJV Only.”

In the first point, he claims that one of the three possible viewpoints is that the Bible existed in the exact wording and word order of the KJV (the assumption being I suppose that the KJV is preserved because of that). This is, as far as I’m concerned, not a position anybody holds. In the first place, Greek and English are not grammatically the same as it pertains to word order, so the very act of translating the KJV would violate this view. Further, it is well known that the KJV translators were not attempting to create a “word-for-word” translation. That means that anybody holding to this view could not simultaneously believe that the KJV was inspired and that it was created. The very creation of the KJV invalidates this viewpoint.

He then calls this idea a “conspiracy theory” (one of James White’s personal favorite attacks on the so-called “KJV Onlyists”) and then makes the strange claim that the KJV is primarily Erasmus’s work (another one of James White’s favorite things to say.) We conclude then, that one of the only three valid positions is not only illogical, it is impossible, and does not represent any current or historical perspective on the KJV. In other words, this is not a “possible” answer to the question at all.

Point 2

Interestingly enough, the second position is very similar to those in the Critical Text camp. According to the anonymous poster, the second of three choices is that the Bible did not exist until 1611, when the act of creating the KJV restored the text of Scripture. This is a position held by some, as I understand it. What is more important is the similarity of this position to the Critical Text position. The CT position states that the Bible existed in the originals, but was lost in transmission and must be restored. This process cannot ever be completed with certainty, however, because we do not have the originals nor do we have evidence that any extant manuscripts are directly related to an original. As the poster rightly points out, a restorationist view “totally destroys the doctrine of preservation.” The person that believes Scripture was restored in 1611 has a Bible, whereas the Critical Text camp does not. Both camps believe that the Bible needs to be restored, this position posits that it was actually done. What is quite entertaining is that the OP actually dismantles his own position in point 2.

Point 3

The third and final point is that God preserved his Word in the text in history, and therefore textual criticism must be applied to determine what is “most likely” the original. This is just the Critical Text position, which “KJV-Onlyists” reject. Feel free to browse this blog if you want a thorough analysis as to why this isn’t actually a view of preservation at all, unless we’re fine with redefining what “preservation” means. The anonymous poster concludes by suggesting that this is a view of “preservation held by all non-KJV Onlyists” and is a “valid view God used for the majority of history.” As I pointed out in my analysis of point 2, this view “totally destroys the doctrine of preservation,” to use OP’s words.

While we never get a definition of what “KJV-Onlyism” is from OP, his conclusion assumes that anybody who rejects the Critical Text model is a “KJV-Onlyist,” which supports my idea that this guy has been educated at the James White Academy for Text Criticism. Further, the modern critical text position isn’t even close to the historical view of the text, as the OP suggests. This is well documented in Jan Krans work, Beyond What is Written. Later in the thread, the poster reveals that he is not familiar with Pickering, Burgeon, or Letis. This suggests that the poster’s only exposure to the discussion is through James White. It has to be exhausting for my Majority Text friends to constantly be lumped in with those pesky “KJV-Onlyists.”

In Summary

Yet again we find ourselves faced with James White’s half-baked argumentation in the wild. According to him, you have to believe in conspiracy theories or the Critical Text. Not only did our anonymous poster regurgitate Dividing Line talking points, he failed to represent almost every other position that results in reading the KJV or a non-Critical Text Bible. He presented his reader with a false choice, and then smiled and hit “enter” on his keyboard. This is why I heavily discourage anybody interested in Textual Studies to get their information from James White, because I’m sure the anonymous poster thought he was accurately representing the discussion and had come up a clever argument.

The problem is that this argumentation wasn’t accurate, and therefore can’t possibly be clever. The poster never defines what he means by “KJV-Onlyist,” so we can only make assumptions based on his argumentation (our assumption being that OP believes there are KJV-Onlyists and Critical Text Onlyists demonstrated in his conclusion). The OP begins his argument with a fake KJVO position that not only isn’t believed, it cannot be believed. He continues his argument by presenting a restorationist KJV view, which in effect is just the Critical Text position with an end product. He concludes by presenting the CT position and determining that “You either believe point 1 and 2, or you believe point 3.”

In short, we see the argumentation of James White in the wild, and as expected, it’s nonsensical.

The Average Critical Text Proponent Provides Weak and Contradictory Argumentation

The Young, Textless, and Reformed4 Comments

Hello reader, it’s been a while. I thought I’d come off of hiatus to comment on the fact that many critical text proponents do not understand their own arguments. I follow a number of groups related to the textual discussion on various social media platforms. I imagine that most of my readers are involved in the same or similar groups. Over the years, I have seen the same arguments from the critical text side. One of the most common arguments that I see is that the age of the manuscripts that the critical text uses as a base text are the oldest we have, and are therefore authentic or at least better than manuscripts dated later. This is a poor argument for several reasons.

Appealing to the age of a manuscript probably seems to most people like a good idea. If the manuscript is older, it has to be better, right? Unfortunately, this is both scientifically and theologically wrong. First, we have to identify what exactly we’re after when we consider the age of a manuscript. The question of age has to support some sort of claim we’re making for it to be relevant, right? If we assume that a person is a Christian, then the purpose of our evidence is to support the authenticity or originality of a text. The oldest complete, extant manuscripts are usually dated to around the fourth century. One might say, “The age of this text dates back to the fourth century, therefore…”. In reading this argument, you may have noticed a glaring issue with the premise – it doesn’t serve in supporting authenticity, originality, or even quality.

We cannot say, “This text dates back to 325 AD, therefore it is authentic.” We cannot say, “This text dates back to 325 AD, therefore it was the best text available in 325 AD.” When we lay out the argument like this, we can clearly see that the appeal to age is not particularly strong in supporting authenticity, originality, or quality. This is why we read statements like, “earliest and best” rather than “earliest and authentic.” That is because there is nothing in the current scientific textual method which could state anything positively in the direction of authenticity or originality. The framer of the “earliest and best” statement is merely commenting that the referenced document is “the best that is currently in our possession from this period of time.” This kind of statement is misleading, unfortunately. The only thing age describes from an empirical standpoint, is well, age. “Best,” by definition, is a relative term. A thing is “best” compared to other things. Saying that the earliest manuscripts are “best” in this example is like a man who has one child saying, “You’re my favorite child.” So we can see that earliest does not support authenticity or originality, and best is a term describing relative quality. The problem is that Christians are not assuming the Bible is the “best we have.” Christian Theology posits that the Bible is the original, inspired Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16).

“Oldest” or “best” is not a Christian theological benchmark. The Christian is making the claim that Scripture is “original” or “authentic.” The theological error assumed in the appeal to age is the fact that the text-critical methods are not attempting to support authenticity or originality, and appeals to quality are relative. That is to say, that text critical methods are only supporting a text that is “earlier and better than the other ones.” In the beginning of this thought, I presented the idea that the goal is authenticity or originality. Textual studies has nothing to say on the matter because it cannot say anything on the matter. There is no method that can make manuscripts suddenly appear to fill in the 200-300 year gap. Since empirical methods cannot resolve this issue, all sides of the discussion fill in the gaps with theological arguments. A Critical Text advocate will usually not admit this, but a claim that “oldest equals original” is a theological claim, not an empirical claim. Their argument is effectively, “God preserved His Word in the oldest manuscript, even though I have no scientific reason to arrive at that conclusion.”

Another application of this argument is to say that because a text is older, it is better than texts that are dated later. For example, “The Vatican Codex is better than the Byzantine Text because it is older. Show me a complete manuscript from the fourth century and I will consider your argument.” My reader knows that this is not a serious argument, because we have already established that age does not equal authenticity or even quality for that matter. However, for the sake of argument, let’s consider with nuance why this is especially egregious. The above argument assumes that the age of a manuscript describes the origin of the words on that manuscript. If manuscript A is dated to 325 AD, and manuscript B is dated to 800 AD, than the words of manuscript A must be older, right? Not at all, actually. Interestingly enough, nearly every textual scholar agrees that the age of a manuscript does not necessarily indicate the age of a text. That is one of the foundational premises of genealogical methods of textual criticism. The question that scholars ask is “how old is this reading and where did it come from?” not, “how old is this manuscript?” It is not controversial at all to say that an ancient reading can exist in a later manuscript. The question the textual scholar concerns himself with is that of directionality. Did the reading come from here, there, or elsewhere? I am not aware of any serious textual scholar who claims that a reading is oldest based on the age of the paper it was printed on.

This is one of the biggest problems I have with the average critical text proponent, they aren’t familiar enough with their own methods to make a coherent argument. Not only is the age of a manuscript irrelevant to authenticity, it is not even the most important consideration in a comparison to other manuscripts, unless the person is legitimately saying that the readings of a manuscript dated to 800 AD came into existence in 800 AD. Both sides of the discussion accept the genealogical premise that the text was transmitted in space and time. The Critical Text advocate is assuming the two “earliest and best” manuscripts were born from non-extant “earlier and better” manuscripts. The average Critical Text proponent seems to believe that the text was not transmitted in time, only in the 20th and 21st centuries. They seem to assume that if a manuscript is lost to us today, it never existed at all. We know a great multitude of manuscripts have been lost and destroyed by the workings of time and war. It is chiefly a modern perspective to say that the Bible must be reconstructed now, when we are further away from the creation and circulation of manuscripts then at any time in history. It is a foolish claim to say that “we have more data now than ever before.” This is profoundly incorrect. We have less extant data than ever before, and that is quantifiable. If you don’t believe me, take a look at Dan Wallace’s record of how many manuscripts have gone missing in the last 100 years.

This is one of the reasons why, in my opinion, the Majority Text position has gained such popularity. The text group boasts near conformity across all of its representatives in manuscripts dated nearly 1,000 years after the pen was set down. This is a staggering evidential argument for authenticity. The Critical Text has no such uniformity nor quantity. In fact, the two major representatives of the Critical Text, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, have close to zero children, have no discernable parents, and are so dissimilar that they are not properly called a “text type.” The only claim they have is age, which we have already discussed is essentially a non-argument. Are we really to believe that those were the only two manuscripts in circulation at that time? That would be absurd. If we can acknowledge that there were a multitude of complete texts in existence at the time, we can easily say that those manuscripts looked like the thousands of uniform texts we have today. Instead, the claim is that all of those lost manuscripts looked like two, idiosyncratic manuscripts that don’t even relate to each other enough to be considered a text type. I’ll say it again, absurd.

We can see that appealing to the age of our oldest available manuscripts is problematic from both a scientific and theological perspective. We cannot make any claims from authority if we do not have an authentic text. The best we can say is perhaps, “In all likelihood, this is what God said.” Further, I have demonstrated that those who make such arguments of “this manuscript is older than that one” are not familiar with the actual textual scholarship. That is why I appeal to Providential Preservation as an argument for the Received Text. The textual scholars are not making claims or authenticity or originality because their methods cannot make such claims. Even though the textual scholar’s methods acknowledge that the age of a manuscript is not the age of the readings in that manuscript, their strongest argument is still, “We have the oldest surviving text.” The method itself which states that, “Old does not equal original” contradicts any argument which says, “Old equals original.” It is a prime example of a violation of the law of non-contradiction. Hopefully this argument helps my reader navigate conversations with Critical Text advocates, because many of them don’t realize how weak their argument actually is in reality.

100 Reasons to Believe the Critical Text Position

The Young, Textless, and Reformed4 Comments

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*Some of these reasons are not included in our earliest manuscripts*

23, 49, 50, 73, 91, 95, 96