Author: The Young, Textless, and Reformed

The Modern Critical Text(s) and Inerrancy

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

In the new year, I have written a handful of articles demonstrating why the modern critical text should not be used. 

  1. It was conceived in 1881 by rule-breaking (Link)
  2. The reconstruction effort is not  justified (Link)
  3. It is a new text that does not stand in the “classic mainstream” of Tyndale, and therefore the burden of proof is on its advocates to justify its continued use (Link)
  4. The Bible teaches preservation, and the modern critical text shows itself to be a corrupt text (Link)

In this article, I want to comment on how the “new and better” data actually condemns the continued use of the modern critical text(s) by showing how it does not comport with the modern, downgraded doctrine of inerrancy. Again, I’ll remind the reader that the modern critical text is not “a” text, but a collection of texts. It is also important to note that what is “new” to us is not new to the church throughout history. At one point, a manuscript that we are calling “new” had some amount of exposure to people. So when we hear the claim that we have “new data,” we need to remember that it is properly “new to us.” At one point, that data was available to some degree or another, and for whatever reason, it ended up buried, thrown out, or destroyed. 

“New and Better”

A common refrain among those that advocate for the modern critical text is that, “if the Reformed had the data we do now, they would adopt the modern critical text.” The claim itself is something that needs to be examined, because I’ve never actually seen somebody explain what about the new data would convince the historically Reformed to adopt the modern critical text. I want to take a critical look at this argument and attempt first define what is being said when this claim is made. Let’s start by stating that it is true, that if by “new data” we mean “new manuscript discoveries,” we certainly do have new data that the Reformed did not have. That being said, new manuscripts do not necessarily mean new readings. In the case that a manuscript discovery yields new readings, then that is truly “new” data. In the case that a manuscript discovery yields the same readings as other New Testament witnesses, then it is less significant as it serves as a supporting data point. In other words, the manuscript may be new to us, but that doesn’t mean that the new manuscript has provided any new readings. So if somebody truly wants to make this argument, it is more important to discuss whether our “new data” introduces a new reading that the Reformed did not have, and then to make a case for the quality of that reading. I have yet to see any sort of analysis of this kind. 

The real question to ask, is what is so compelling about these “new” data points that would cause the Reformed to adopt a different text platform? Do the standards set forth by the modern critical methods measure up to the standards of the Reformed? 

There are certain quality control measures that are unfortunately set aside when a “new” witness is found and catalogued. Due to the axioms of modern textual criticism, all new pieces of evidence are considered as valuable as the next, because it is not a method that considers orthodox doctrine, faith, providence, or the church. So it does not matter to the modern critical text machine if a witness was found in a trash heap or non-orthodox monastery, contains readings that present heterodox doctrines or remove orthodox doctrines, or contain a multitude of idiosyncratic readings and grammar errors. If a manuscript is found that can be dated in the first 1,000 years of the New Testament church, it is considered more valuable than the manuscripts used after 1,000 AD, regardless of the quality. It is actually built into the axioms of modern textual criticism to prefer readings that are short, abrupt, grammatically difficult or less harmonious. 

Herein lies the greatest problem with evangelicals claiming that this “new” data is better than the vast majority of manuscripts and that the Reformed would adopt this “new” data as authentic if they had access to it. Those making these claims never consider the theology and methods of the Reformed against the theology and methods that produce the modern critical text. Further, those making these claims do not usually consider the theology of modern conservative evangelicalism against the theology and methods that produce the modern critical text. The standard which would make that data “better” is completely ignored, especially if one holds to the doctrine that God has preserved the meaning of the Bible, but not the words. Though the doctrine of inerrancy says nothing in terms of the material text of New Testament witnesses, it still assumes that doctrine hasn’t changed over time. This is necessary if one wants to say the Bible is without error in all that it teaches. If something is without error, then it must not change. Change indicates that something has gotten better or worse, and therefore a changing Bible is one that is either becoming inerrant or was inerrant and no longer is. The nature of preservation from an innerancy perspective is that the change of words hasn’t introduced any doctrinal changes. If this is the case, why is that not factored into the evaluation of “new” data? Yet modern textual scholars openly admit that the “new data” produced by the CBGM could change doctrine, theology, preaching, and so forth. The evaluation of the new data produced by the CBGM actually discredits the doctrine of inerrancy because it admits that the Bible is moving towards an improved form. In fact, any text critical method that has at its foundation a changing, uncertain text necessarily denies an inerrant text. 

What this means is that evangelicals should not be excited about “new” data, even by our low theological standards. If innerancy says that the Bible is without error in all that it teaches, what is the doctrinal support for adopting “new” readings without considering the doctrinal impact? If the doctrines are not without error, and doctrines will likely change, that means that the doctrine of inerrancy must be qualified further than it is now or redefined. It needs to be redefined as “The Bible is without error in much of what it teaches.”  Does inerrancy only apply to certain verses and not others? Further, the doctrine of inerrancy is not properly a doctrine that is identified with the material text itself, just the sense or doctrines. In other words, inerrancy is really just a doctrine of Biblical interpretation. The doctrine of inerrancy is not touched by a changing text because innerancy doesn’t have anything to do with the text – it has to do with how we interpret the text. If the text changes, but our interpretation of the text does not, then a passage can be considered inerrant. 


That is to say, that “new and better” data actually doesn’t even matter in terms of inerrancy or the Bible. It is of no concern that the modern critical text is changing because according to this doctrine of Scripture, the text itself is not the material foundation of doctrine. The continued effort of textual criticism is a complete waste of time, if the Bible is inerrant. If it is inerrant now, give it a rest, we’re done here. This actually must be the case, if we are to say that the material text can change but the doctrines cannot. Since the doctrines can exist in a stable form apart from a changing text, then the appeal is either to innate theological truth from nature, some other form of revelation, or historical theology (tradition). In order to prove that doctrine hasn’t changed as the material has changed, a regression test would need to be done for every iterative change to the text. It is clear that inerrancy is not a function of the text itself, it is a function of interpretation. So either the material text is changing and the Bible is not inerrant, or the material text is not the primary source of doctrine. The only case in which inerrant doctrine is founded upon a changing material text is if those material changes were matters of words meaning the same things – synonyms, word order, spelling, etc. Since the changes in the modern critical text extend beyond this category, then the plain reality is that the material text is not the thing that is inerrant. According to this view of the text, the Bible is inerrant by virtue of our interpretation, not by virtue of the text itself. 

Conclusion

In order for somebody to hold to both inerrancy and a changing material text, they have to admit that Scripture itself is not the material foundation for doctrine. So when somebody appeals to “new and better” data, they are really making a doctrinal statement about the inerrancy of the Scripture. If it is the case that a previous iteration of Scripture was not inerrant, and that the “new and better” data corrects these errors, then they are saying that the Bible can move from being errant and inerrant, or it is becoming inerrant.  If it is the case that the Bible is inerrant no matter which iteration of Scripture you look at, then it does not matter which Bible one uses, as inerrancy is a function of interpretation, not the text itself. 

The argument that the “Reformers would adopt the modern critical text if they had our new and better data” sounds good on paper. It is easy to imagine, because most of the prominent names in conservative evangelicalism have adopted the modern doctrines of Scripture and the text that goes with it. In fact, that is often the next step in the flow of the argument. “If this text is wrong, why do all the top scholars advocate for it?” Set aside the argument from authority for a second and consider the merits of the text itself. Consider the doctrine of inerrancy, if you hold to it, and try to understand how that works with a changing text. What surprises me the most, is that people who hold to both inerrancy and a changing text have any issues with people who advocate for the traditional text. Since inerrancy doesn’t speak to the material text, just the doctrines, what does it matter that their text is different? It doesn’t appear that they actually have any right to be upset, because inerrancy allegedly affirms that the Bible has not changed in doctrine across all iterations.

Yet, they do have a problem with the traditional text, because it is a materially different text than the modern critical text(s). Not only that, it has doctrinal differences. There is no escaping the reality that the modern critical text and its axioms have not been justified. The greatest defense for this text is the fact that a lot of popular preachers use it. I would bet, however, that a lot of these popular preachers are completely unaware of what is going on in the world of textual scholarship. It is easy to say that the “Reformers would adopt the modern critical text” without actually proving it. It is simple to appeal to a favorite authority in textual scholarship and say, “well if they believe this then I’m sure it’s justified.” It is easier yet to simply defame and mischaracterise your opponents to invalidate their position to those that do not with to think critically. It is much more difficult to make an argument for the critical text(s) that actually works with what the Bible says about itself. It is for this reason that the use of modern critical text(s) is not justified. Not only does it violate the principles set forth in Scripture, it doesn’t even work with the downgraded doctrine of inerrancy. 

Are KJV Onlyists Asking the Same Questions as Mark Ward?

The Young, Textless, and Reformed4 Comments

Introduction

In an article posted on the website “By Faith We Stand,” Mark Ward addressed an article published by the Trinitarian Bible Society called, “Five Questions about the Authorised (King James) Version.” If you haven’t read Ward’s article, I recommend reading it before continuing here. I wanted to offer a response to his response in this article. In the opening paragraph, Ward applies the term, “KJV-Only,” to the Trinitarian Bible Society. As a side note, the reason they are charitable is because the people at Trinitarian Bible Society are Christian, not because they are British. I’m sure you can find as many unpleasant Brits as you can Americans. In any case, Trinitarian Bible Society is not a “KJV-Only” organization. In fact, in the “About” section of the website, they list six objectives of the society which demonstrate as much.

  1. To publish and distribute the Holy Scriptures throughout the world in many languages.
  2. To promote Bible translations which are accurate and trustworthy, conforming to the Hebrew Masoretic Text of the Old Testament, and the Greek Textus Receptus of the New Testament, upon which texts the English Authorised Version is based.
  3. To be instrumental in bringing light and life, through the Gospel of Christ, to those who are lost in sin and in the darkness of false religion and unbelief.
  4. To uphold the doctrines of reformed Christianity, bearing witness to the equal and eternal deity of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, One God in three Persons.
  5. To uphold the Bible as the inspired, inerrant Word of God.
  6. For the Glory of God and the Increase of His Kingdom through the circulation of Protestant or uncorrupted versions of the Word of God

It is clear by the first objective listed that “King James Onlyism” is not their purpose. If this were their purpose, point one would read: 

  1. To publish and distribute the Authorised Version throughout the world

The Trinitarian Bible Society does not promote “King James Onlyism” as it is defined by most people. Here is a quote directly from the TBS on the matter:

“The Trinitarian Bible Society does not
believe the Authorised Version to be a
perfect translation, only that it is the best
available translation in the English language”

Cited from the Quarterly Magazine, Q1, 2007, Page 8

In fact, they just completed the task of translating the Bible into Farsi, which is not the King James Bible. The fact that the society uses the same base Hebrew and Greek text as the Authorised Version does not make them King James Onlyists. That would be like a publishing house using the same underlying text as the ESV to make a new translation, and calling that a new translation of the ESV. In fact, most recently published Bibles use a printed edition of the modern critical text as a base text. In any case, it should be clear that a Farsi Bible is not an English Bible. The Reina Valera is not an NKJV. A simple question can be used to demonstrate this category error: 

“Can a King James Onlyist advocate for, sell, and read other versions than the King James and be a King James Onlyist?” 

If the answer is no, than Trinitarian Bible Society is not “KJV-Only.” If you answer yes, then this definition of “KJV-Only” applies to versions other than the Authorised Version, and the term is being employed incorrectly. If somebody wishes to insist on calling people who distribute and read other versions than the King James a “KJV Onlyist,” well, there’s not much we can do about that.

It should be clear that by producing, printing, and distributing other versions of the Bible than the KJV, TBS has proven themselves to be unabashedly not KJVO. In addition to this, the godly men and women at Trinitarian Bible Society do not claim to be King James Only nor advocate that one must be reading a King James to be reading the Bible. I understand that Ward’s ministry is to help retire the use of the AV and apparently all Traditional Text Bibles, but name calling and miscategorization are the signs of a failed argument. It is also important to remember that the Trinitarian Bible Society was founded in part due to certain other Bible Societies allowing Unitarian and Jesuit heretics to be members who sought to produce and distribute corrupt translations, not to advocate for “King James Onlyism.” Such an idea didn’t even exist during that time. 

These miscategorizations and rhetoric employed by Ward should be enough to discredit the article altogether for the discerning reader, but if you want to see a response to some of his points continue reading. Ward’s stated goal in writing his response to TBS seems to be to convince the TBS to revise the AV by trying to demonstrate that people who advocate for the AV have trouble reading it. He does not provide any testimonials or data within his response to support this claim, so it is purely anecdotal. He states that,

“This TBS article’s mere existence is a powerful argument against its viewpoint”

Part of the problem is that we live in a culture that believes the KJV is as confusing as Chaucer or Shakespeare, and won’t open it as a result. I encourage those who think that to go and read some Chaucer and Shakespeare, and then read some passages from the Old and New Testament in the AV. Those same people that do not read the AV then go around and tell people that the AV is unintelligible and should not be read. There is certainly a need for an article like this from the TBS. The people that are the most loud about how difficult the AV is to read, are those that do not read it. I found myself perplexed at this perspective. It seems he is saying that people who read the AV, love the AV, and advocate for others to do the same, cannot understand it. Though the response to the TBS has many mischaracterizations and lacks the data to support Ward’s claim that TBS supporters believe the AV to be incomprehensible, there are some points that I have not addressed on this blog that I think will be valuable to my readers nonetheless. 

Response to Point One

Ward begins by answering TBS on the question:

“Why update other translations and not the KJV?” 

Ward gives a response to the TBS article before saying he’s “not willing to chase down an official answer to that question right now,” so I’ll avoid answering his points until he chases those answers down. He then asks a question that, according to Ward, has gone unanswered. I myself have heard this question answered plenty of times, so it could just be that Ward hasn’t engaged with those who actually read the AV, or he’s simply never heard the conversation take place. The question is: 

“At what point will our English have diverged far enough from Elizabethan English to justify a revision or replacement of the KJV?” 

First, it is important to point out that if the 1769 AV is Elizabethan English, Shakespeare might as well to us be as archaic as Chaucer. While the AV retains some of the prose of Elizabethan English which gives it the majestic feel that Ward claims to enjoy, it is not purely Elizabethan if Shakespeare is our guide – it’s closer to modern English actually. Take this passage of Shakespeare for example: 

You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose sir, a father: he that so generally is at all times worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather than lack it where there is such abundance.

It is true, that if the 1769 AV was written in Elizabethan English as is found in Shakespeare, it would indeed be quite difficult to understand for many readers. To a modern reader, Shakespearean word order may seem more random than calculated. It seems like figuring out the word order of the AV would be a simple task for somebody who has a basic understanding of the word order of Spanish, and especially easy for those that can diagram sentences in Greek. Children seem to figure it out without issues, anyhow. It also stands to reason that somebody who has taken such an interest in defining many of the “false friends” in the AV would, after some time, have a good handle on the vocabulary of the thing. In any case, the simple fact is that the syntax and vocabulary is in between Elizabethan and modern. Take a look at Psalm 119:86-87.

All thy commandments are faithful: They persecute me wrongfully; help thou me. They had almost consumed me upon earth; But I forsook not thy precepts

It should be evident that while the AV is beautiful, it is not written in the Elizabethan English of Shakespeare, so the identification of the AV as “Elizabethan” English seems to be more of a rhetorical device than anything else. For those that have trouble with the “thou” and “ye,” in English: if it starts with a “T” it’s singular, and if it starts with a “Y” it’s plural. Funny enough, the distinction between singular and plural “you” in the AV is actually quite a great reason to retain it because it adds clarity!

Now I’ll give my not-so-short answer to the question: At what point will the AV need to be retranslated?

If we take the most colloquial version of American English and lowest average reading comprehension level, one could easily make the case that now is the time. Though I imagine the same case would have to be made for the ESV if we apply that standard across the board. If the requirement for a Bible to be adequately intelligible is that it must be perfectly comprehensible at every word at a fourth grade reading level, I suppose we’re all stuck with the NLT. Even the NIV has words like aloes, dappled, filigree, forded, galled, offal, portent, and retinue. Pretty much every English translation of the Bible is off the table at this point. This is one of the challenges of Ward’s claim, that he hasn’t defined how much of the AV is unintelligible compared to other versions. I get the picture from Ward that every verse has a “false friend,” when some of the words he lists only occur once in the whole Bible. Two of the other words are words for livestock. Are there more difficult words in the AV than the ESV? Of course. Are there so many difficult words that it needs to be revised? I think not. 

At what point will the AV need to be retranslated?

I’d like to point out the fact that this question itself is a bit beggy. Tucked away behind the scenes of this question seems to be the assumption that people cannot understand the AV now. This stands against common reason, as many, many people read and enjoy the AV. In fact, the polls show that of those who read their Bible, the AV enjoys a great percentage of these readers. Since Ward has not given us any data to evaluate, we are stuck going on his word that his “KJV Only” friends don’t seem to understand their Bible. This provokes an interesting question. What percentage of words do you need to understand for comprehension? What if somebody falls below that threshold for the ESV? Is it the case that the ESV must be retranslated, or that somebody needs to learn some new words? What is the most simple solution for those that actually desire to read the KJV? If the problem is with difficult words, is it simply not the case that Ward prefers a Bible with a smaller quantity of difficult words? The question also seems to assume that people cannot learn how to read the AV. I grew up in a family of teachers, and from a pedagogical standpoint, it’s sort of a chief blasphemy to tell somebody not to learn. This being the case, it does not stand to reason that the AV is so incomprehensible at this point in time that somebody with an average reading level cannot read it. This seems to be more of an issue with English pedagogy and language learning than an issue of translation. That may be a worthy thought to explore some time. Is the “incomprehensibility” of the AV a matter of an outdated translation, or poor pedagogy, or perhaps people are just unwilling to learn new words?

I get the sense that it may be the last option. In a world where Twitter is a chief means of communication, that really shouldn’t surprise anybody. In any case, I can offer a response that may serve the church well. It is not outlandish to think that even if somebody with an average reading level who has trouble with some of the words in the AV cannot use a dictionary to help them learn as they go. In fact, Ward says that such a solution has worked in his life! Most printed editions of the AV come with an archaic word list, and many even have difficult words rendered more easily in the margin. Most KJV text blocks quite literally have helps on every single verse, where it isn’t even necessary. Ward has actually provided a valuable resource in defining so many “false friends” in the AV in his attempt to prove it incomprehensible. If anything, he has provided an adequate solution to his problem, which requires much less time and effort than revising the AV – learn some vocab. 

Since this doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue with translation as it is with English, humour me for a moment on this tangent. We all learn words in order to speak. We learn words as we go through life. We learn words in our Biology and maths classes in order to graduate school. We learn even more words as we enter the workforce. We even learn words in church,  like “propitiation,” a word found in the ESV. Life is a constant exercise of expanding our vocabulary, and most of the time it’s accidental. I learned as many words working in the kitchen at Chipotle as I did in my psych 101 class at university. This particular jab at the AV could easily be confused for an attack on English pedagogy and even the ability of people to learn new words. 

Just like a lawyer has specialized vocabulary, so does a plumber and a key maker and an insurance adjuster. We learn words all the time, so it should not be a difficult ask that we learn words for the most important aspect of the Christian life – hearing God’s voice. In fact, if you’re reading this article, I’m sure you, at one point, had to learn words like propitiation, justification, sanctification, inspiration, and so forth. These are all words we use frequently in a Christian context, and much of our Christian theological grammar is more complex than the archaisms of the AV. Many people even jump into Latin to better understand theological grammar. No matter which version one reads, he has to learn new words to read it. The real issue here seems to be that Ward finds the difficulty curve too steep for the AV.

The question also completely ignores the demographic of KJV readers the article is apparently pointed to, those that read it daily and raise their kids reading it daily. The simple reality is, that if you read the KJV growing up, you’ll likely learn all the words by the time you hit adolescence. If Ward is actually looking for solutions to this apparent problem, there is a simple one – catechism, not retranslation. That seems to be the straightforward Reformed answer, anyway. At what point are we going to ask the question, “Does Mark Ward have a problem with the AV, or just a problem with people learning English words?” 

To respond to the initial question directly, the answer is simple: the AV will need to be retranslated when we are as approximately far from it linguistically as we are now from Chaucer. The AV wasn’t the colloquial form of English even when it was printed, and the plow boy certainly didn’t mind. Ward may be right that there will never again be a time where the church is united enough to produce a successor to the AV. I suppose that’s just another one of life’s happy accidents (and, yes, surely a plan of providence). In a spell of British humour, it seems Ward has produced an argument from providence in favour for the KJV.

Response to Point Two 

“If it’s okay to put modern words in the margins, why not the text?” 

The argument being made by the TBS is that the AV isn’t archaic enough to need a revision just yet. It is being made by people who know the meaning of, or can find the meaning of, leasing (Psalm 4:2;5:6; deceiving), kine (Deut. 28:18; Cattle), prevent (2 Sam. 22:19; hinder, obstruct, intercept, confront), besom (Isa. 14:23; broom), chambering (Rom 13:13; Sexual immorality; coitas), bewray (Isa. 16:3; uncover, reveal), beeves (Lev. 22:19,21; Num. 31:28-44; plural for beef, or cow), bolled (Ex. 9:31; budded, in bud), and so forth. Listing off archaic words doesn’t exactly speak to how we understand language either (though I suppose it is a decent rhetorical device). Context is just as important as vocabulary, especially in English. Again, this seems to be more of a confusion over how to learn and read words than a problem with the AV. At this point, I’m genuinely having a hard time understanding why somebody who loves the King James Version so dearly and has spent so much time learning all the difficult words wants it changed. 

Ward proceeds to split his response into three sub points.

In sub-point one of Ward’s response, he addresses this question: 

“How do you know what counts as archaic?”

TBS responds with a perfectly reasonable answer – it’s difficult to determine where the threshold is for archaic. In other words, it’s probably just easier to produce a new translation than revise the old. To see the TBS’ full response to the question, “Why Not Produce a Modern Version for the 21st Century?”, see this link. Ward responds with what seems to be some rather uncharitable jabs at the problems with “KJV Onlyists”, namely that they are ignorant of just about things pertaining to language and translation. He then provides a two links to online dictionaries. This may serve as a gentle reminder to the audience that he is the one saying the KJV is incomprehensible, not the people who, you know, read it. The real question that must be asked is, “Does a translation containing difficult words need to be retired?” I argue that no, this is not a good justification for retranslation. That is not to say that people do not struggle with words in the AV at all, they do. A major disconnect, is that the people who typically struggle with the AV are often times educated people. In other words, this problem of unintelligibility is expressed most loudly by those who are able, but simply unwilling to learn new vocabulary. Pastor Pooyan Mehrshahi, comments on the demographic who struggles most with the language of the AV:

Coming back to something I started with, the problem is not with the young; the problem is with our elders. Have you ever heard a child complain about the complexity of the language of the Authorised Version? They may say they do not understand; and then you explain it and they accept it. An educated Englishman, however, says he does not understand this Elizabethan language and even if you explain it, he still says he does not understand it. The difference is what is happening to a child or a young person: their English, their vocabulary is growing, and they are learning the language. A person coming from another culture, like myself, in learning the language, simply accepts it. I must learn the vocabulary of the Word of God, that is all! So it is that a child does not complain about this book. It is always, in my experience, adults, who are well educated, white, English, men and women, who complain about this book.

Pastor Pooyan Mehrshahi delivered a sermon on the topic of the relevance of the AV in a young and multicultural society, published in the TBS magazine, and is well worth a read.

At this point, I have a really hard time believing that a person who knows what the word bewray means has any trouble reading the AV, but we’ll take Ward’s word for it. If I’ve learned anything, the people he calls KJV Onlyists are people that occupy a very slim demographic – those that aren’t aware of online dictionaries. Ward then offers his services to TBS to help them identify archaic words – an offer that might be received a little bit better if he didn’t spend an entire article miscategorizing them and then linking an online dictionary to help them understand the Bible they read and sell. Keep in mind, this article is addressed to “KJV Onlyists” who read and support the TBS. I think it’s a fair assumption to say that this particular audience can read the AV. Ward hasn’t yet provided any poll data or substantial evidence that they cannot, so let’s let common reason guide us.

In sub-point 2 of Ward’s response, he addresses this statement:

“Updates would be clumsy compared to the KJV”

Ward here seems to assume that the men and women at TBS believe that “God is incapable of speaking in modern English.” The AV is early modern English, if we’re being specific. Perhaps Ward is intending to say, “Modern Colloquial English.” In any case, the question is not whether the KJV is inspired, the question is, “Does it need an update?” The view of myself and TBS, is that no, it does not. Ward again seems to make another assumption in this short paragraph, that the folks at TBS believe that the “KJV is perfect” in the sense that it cannot ever be improved. Again, the question is not, “Is it possible to be improved?” it is “Should it be improved?” To the first question, it is possible, just not necessary. I’d be curious to see what entity could pull off the feat of revising the AV and getting people to adopt it on a massive scale. One of the reasons to retain the AV is that it is a standard English version that churches can memorize together. Introducing another translation simply adds more discord. To the second question, the view of myself and TBS is emphatically, no, not now. Ward and his colleagues seem to often miss the point that those in the “Confessional Bibliology” camp do not believe you have to be reading an AV to be reading God’s Word. The AV is simply, by our standards, the English version that should be used because it is an accurate translation of the Masoretic Hebrew and Greek Received text, and the best version in English that meets that criteria. Those are two entirely different discussions than the one being presented in this article by Ward, however. If I remember correctly, the discussion is not over the underlying text or the accuracy of the translation, it is over the intelligibility of the archaisms. Categories are important, dear reader. 

The third and final sub-point under this section is an answer to the question:

“What do you do about spelling?” 

Ward basically talks about how he prefers British spelling because the AV is the product of the crown, and how archaic spellings are “an unmistakable part of the character of the KJV.” It may be wise to point out here that people aren’t interested in the value of the AV as it exists in a museum, as an artifact of history. It is an accurate translation of God’s Word in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and is therefore God’s Word – not a museum piece to admire from afar. 

Response to Point Three

“What about other translations of the Masoretic Text/Textus Receptus?” 

In the final leg of Ward’s response, he details the intricacy of the Bible translation process to a Bible translation society. At least Ward seems to have a sound grasp on British humour at this point. I’ll address the only real point made here, that Ward claims TBS falsely calls the NKJV a “Critical Translation.” Ward, in scholarly fashion, employs the rhetorical strategy of saying two things at once – that the TBS told a lie and that they didn’t tell a lie. Ward certainly has a right to disagree with the TBS, but I think he missed the point of what the TBS was saying. What the TBS did not mean is that the NKJV is based on the amoebic blob that is the modern critical text. What they were saying is that it employs modern translation philosophy, different from that of the standards set forth by the TBS.

The NKJV has a critical apparatus which details various readings from different text platforms. This is a question of translation philosophy, and TBS disagrees with the philosophy employed by the NKJV. Somebody reading their Bible should not have to choose a text like an RL Stein Goosebumps novel, especially if the critical notes associated with those variant readings are more befuddling than anything. I agree with Burgon, that these kinds of critical notes in a translation only serve to sow doubt to a reader. If a translator isn’t sure what the text is supposed to be, perhaps it’s wise not to force that uncertainty upon the person who is completely unequipped of making textual decisions with the limited apparatus of an English translation. And if Ward wants to advocate that Bible readers learn to use a critical apparatus to read their Bible, I can think of a more productive way to spend some time – learning a few vocab words. It may be a good conversation for another time to discuss the differences between the kind of notes in the 1611 AV and the NKJV, but perhaps it may be profitable to read some of the articles published by the TBS on the matter. The men and women at the TBS do know a little bit about translation methodology, after all.  

Conclusion

*Incoming Rhetorical Device*

The response article ends with Ward expressing how disheartened he is. Somewhere in the distance I’m sure somebody is playing the world’s smallest violin. He then makes a heartfelt appeal to the TBS, after shamelessly mischaracterizing them, to stop what they are doing. So I will join with Mark Ward. TBS, I’m talking to you. Please stop translating the Bible and distributing it to the world. Please stop selling those beautiful calfskin Westminster Reference Bibles. Instead, rededicate your time to retranslate the AV so that men like Mark Ward can finally sleep easy at night. We need another English Bible! The church cannot spend another minute teaching their children English words and how to read their Bible, it is simply too arduous of a task. It is clear that the KJV is completely unintelligible and needs to be retired to a museum where we can love it properly. I also love the KJV with all my heart, I just cannot understand it! Restore the Word of God to the temple, TBS! 

Are Christians Justified in Adopting the Modern Critical Text?

The Young, Textless, and ReformedLeave a comment

Introduction

In my latest series of articles, I have questioned the validity of the “revision” effort of the 1800’s, which has evolved into a full blown reconstruction effort. Since then, scholars have produced Greek text after Greek text, applied methodology after methodology, all to no avail. Those that align with the axioms of modern textual criticism are unfortunately swimming in a sea of texts, and the scholars heading up the effort have voiced their increasing levels of doubt in the text of Holy Scripture. It is no longer accurate to say that the modern critical text is “a” Bible, because it’s not. It is a dataset of variant readings, a timeline of all of the significant extant corruptions produced by scribes in the first millennia of the church. The modern critical text is the anthology of the scribes as they copied manuscripts. 

An intriguing phenomenon is how men will defend this anthology of variants as though it were “a” text, applying historical protestant language to it as if it were one defineable thing. According to the modern doctrine of preservation, the Scriptures may be preserved within the whole manuscript tradition. The thing that is preserved is somewhere in the stack of datapoints, and many scholars agree that some of those data points have been lost to time. Even more concerning is that there are many data points which we know exist, but do not have in our possession for analysis. According to some scholars, there may be as many as 525 manuscripts left to discover (Gurry & Hixson, Myths and Mistakes, 62). That means that the textual criticism being done is not only operating on a data set that has destroyed data points, it is operating on a data set that has missing data points. This is the “text” that people defend when they fight for “the” modern critical text. 

Is Using This Text Justified? 

Take a moment and put aside all that you know about how slapdash Erasmus was, and all of the driftwood that popular apologists toss into the discussion. Forget for a moment all of the scary words like “Traditionalist” and “Fundamentalist” and take a look at what the modern critical text actually is on its own merits. It is a text that was never used until 1881, and didn’t gain real popularity amongst conservatives until the end of the 20th century. It is a text that is hard to define, and the definable printed editions of it are constantly changing. The methodology being used to develop the most popular printed edition of the modern critical text will not be done until at least 2030, and that’s if they can scrounge up all of the materials needed for the job. The Bibles translated from such texts, or adapted from previous translations and amended by this text, are in flux until this is done.Any Bible that claims to use the Nestle-Aland/UBS platform as a base text is as gooey as the modern critical text itself.  

Now inspect that against what you, as a Christian, know about God’s Word. Do you believe God’s Word as enigmatic as the modern critical text? Will you stake your doctrine on a text that can be described like this? 

 “Clearly, these changes will affect not only modern Bible translations and commentaries but possibly even theology and preaching”    

(Wasserman & Gurry, A New Approach to Textual Criticism, 6)

It is well documented that the initial “revision” team of 1881 stepped beyond their function as revisors into the role of creators. The story of the modern text is full of massive changes to the text of Holy Scripture. That might be forgivable if the process ever stopped going in that direction, but it has only gotten worse. Even the scholars have growing uncertainty about their own text,

“There has also been a slight increase in the ECM editors uncertainty about the text, an uncertainty that has been de facto adopted by the editors of the NA/UBS”

(Ibid., 6). 

The evaluation of the levels of uncertainty is slight, however, because a brief survey of the scholars working on the ECM shows that “slight” uncertainty is actually full blown skepticism held together by historical protestant sentiment. Due to this phenomenon, it is important to evaluate the text-critical conclusions made by these scholars in a separate category as the theological statements by these scholars. As text critics, the men and women producing texts have great skepticism, but that skepticism is balanced out by the theological foundations set in the previous generations. Putting aside all arguments against the Traditional Text of Holy Scripture, can you, as a Christian, justify a text that can be described in this way:

“The text is changing. Every time that I make an edition of the Greek New Testament, or anybody does, we change the wording. We are maybe trying to get back to the oldest possible form but, paradoxically, we are creating a new one. Every translation is different, every reading is different, and although there’s been a tradition in parts of Protestant Christianity to say there is a definitive single form of the text, the fact is you can never find it. There is never ever a final form of the text.”

DC Parker

Conclusion

Due to the polemic nature of this discussion, it is easy to get swaddled in arguments against a position without evaluating the merits of your own position. This is overwhelmingly the case when it comes to those who vehemently advocate for the modern critical text. As long as we can shout about how Erasmus was a humanist (so was Calvin, by the way), and how Beza was just like Bruce Metzger, and how those that retain the Traditional Text are just “snowflakes” and “traditionalists,” then everything is fine! That may work on Facebook, but when it comes down to it, those that defend the modern critical text will exchange their Bible for a new one every five years until they die, and with every exchange their Bible will look a little bit different. 

So, is it justified to adopt the modern critical text? You be the judge. Take some time and investigate the axioms of modern textual criticism and the text that those axioms produce. Were the Scriptures originally choppy, abrupt, grammatically difficult, and lacking harmony? Did the Orthodox church corrupt the Scriptures to develop the Christology, add pericopes to retain beloved stories of Christ, and amend the text to contend against heretics? Did God lose the ending of Mark? Or did the text start out harmonious, robust, and theologically complete? Did God keep His Word pure in all ages? Did the men of the Reformation have this preserved text? If they did, why continue arguing for readings they rejected? Why strip out the passages they stood on against Rome? And if they didn’t have the preserved text, what is it we have now? We certainly do not have “a” text, we have an anthology of the scribes.

Yes, the Bible Teaches Preservation

The Young, Textless, and Reformed11 Comments

Introduction

The chasm between the axioms of lower-criticism and historic Protestant Theology grows wider every single day. Yet the two live side by side in the seminary. A student at seminary may go from a systematic theology or foundations class directly to an exegesis or New Testament class, wherein the concepts espoused are completely at odds with each other, and more likely than not, directly from Bart Ehrman. In this article, I want to examine some statements made by Dan Wallace which I believe represent the wider sentiment of many, if not all, conservative evangelical textual scholars. Prior to examining the theological statements made by Dan Wallace, I want to clarify that my analysis of his words is not an attack on the man himself, but the doctrine he is espousing is worth a look. Take for example these three statements: 

“First, the doctrine of preservation was not a doctrine of the ancient church. In fact, it was not stated in any creed until the seventeenth century (in the Westminster Confession of 1646). “

“I have no theological agenda in this matter because I don’t hold to the doctrine of preservation. That doctrine, first formulated in the Westminster Confession (1646), has a poor biblical base. I do not think that the doctrine is defensible –either exegetically or empirically. As Bruce Metzger was fond of saying, it’s neither wise nor safe to hold to doctrines that are not taught in Scripture.”

These quotes found here.

“We do not have now – in our critical Greek texts or any of translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it.”

(Gurry & Hixson, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, xii)

A Symptom of a Larger Problem 

The point of this article is not to slam Dan Wallace, that is not my intention. It is safe to say that these quotations represent the current and past thought in New Testament textual criticism among evangelical textual scholars, and are therefore helpful in addressing the modern doctrinal articulations on Inspiration and Preservation. The common term employed by evangelical New Testament scholars is Quasi-Preservation, which I have labeled partial preservation in previous articles found here and here and here. The fact is, that there is nothing in Scripture that would support a quasi-preservationist view of the Scriptures. This doctrinal position is a response to men like Bart Ehrman, who essentially agrees with Dan Wallace, and not an exegetically derived position. It is also a doctrine developed based on the axioms and text platform that modern textual scholars have produced. It is a doctrine adapted to the scientifically developed text, and not from the text itself. It is a meta-doctrine which is exegeted from the axioms of modern textual criticism. It is a theological position that says, “Well the text is hopelessly corrupt, so therefore God must not have preserved it.” The only way one can arrive at a view that says the Scriptures are not fully preserved is if you first believe the Scriptures are not preserved. 

Wallace, like many of his colleagues, appeals to the historical councils of the church to prove that the doctrine of preservation is a 17th century invention. It is true, that the formulation of such doctrines were codified in the 17th century, because the Protestants were protesting the Papist doctrine of Scripture. Considering that the Protestant Reformation was an Ad Fontes movement, this makes sense. This is a common appeal made by the defenders of the modern text – if a doctrine isn’t codified in a council, it never happened. James White often makes this argument when trying to denigrate the Received Text. The form of the argument is bad, and we shouldn’t be caught up by it. As Protestants, we reject the authority of councils as ultimate. 

Though there aren’t any councils or creeds which affirm the purity of the Scriptures, the doctrinal kernel existed in the early church. We see reference in the ancient church to the perspicuity of the Scriptures. Irenaeus, writing in his work, Against Heresies, says,

“The Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit.”

(AH 2.28.2)

In any case, a quasi-doctrine of preservation is difficult to even defend historically, because one typically has to say that the Scriptures were corrupted right out of the gate. If this is the case, then any attempt of reconstruction is a well-intentioned goose chase. Yet if we are to use the standard set forth by Wallace and friends, the first time we see his view codified in a creedal statement is in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, adopted in 1986. 

Regardless of what we think of appeals to councils, we are to be discerning Protestants. We admit that the church and councils have erred, and that the sole rule of faith is the Scriptures. Even if the historical consensus of the church in councils is that the Bible has been perfectly preserved, we appeal to the Scriptures themselves as our final authority. Wallace and friends often talk as though they are in the mainstream of protestant thought, believing in quasi-preservation. The fact is, that they are, at this point in time, the minority within conservative theologians, pastors, and laymen. I can’t imagine many reputable pastors would get up to the pulpit and affirm the three quotes that I began this article with. Think of yourself, sitting in the pews of your church, and your pastor opens up his sermon on 2 Timothy 3:16 with the statement, “We do not have now – in our critical Greek texts or any of translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it.”

I imagine, if the seminaries continue giving these scholars a stage, that too will change, and statements like these may very well ring out from pulpits everywhere. They have already given Bart Ehrman a massive voice in our seminaries by using his approved textbook as the curriculum for textual criticism, so we should not expect this to change on its own. This is one case where the divide between the academy and the church is truly a blessing to the people of God. The real question is, should we take to heart what modern textual scholars think about the preservation of Scripture? I answer no, we shouldn’t. If we do not care what Bart Ehrman thinks about Scripture, then we should too reject the theological axiom that the Scriptures have not been preserved. Think back to the disconnect I mentioned between the lower-criticism of evangelicals and the theology of evangelicals. This disconnect is most clearly demonstrated in these two statements made by Dan Wallace:


“First, I want to affirm with all evangelical Christians that the Bible is the Word of God, inerrant, inspired, and our final authority for faith and life”

“We do not have now – in our critical Greek texts or any of translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it” 

To this I ask a simple question: How can something be the final authority if we do not know what that something is?

In order to get to the task of exegesis, we must have something to exegete. I’m sure everybody would agree on that point. The place where myself, and modern scholars differ, is the nature of the text. I believe, along with many others, that there is no justification for a reconstruction effort, because I do not believe the Scriptures have fallen away. In order for something to be a rule of faith, or foundational to faith, it cannot be changing. If the something we exegete is changing, it simply cannot be a final authority, just an authority. To the credit of evangelical textual scholars, they are genuinely trying to determine the thing that we must exegete. The problem is the methodology that they have chosen, which cannot, and will not, arrive at a final product.

The modern critical text machine produces bibles, not the Bible. Just as we should be careful not to allow our differences to result in character defamation, we should be more careful not to let the friendliness of these scholars get in the way of our good judgement. Many modern scholars seem to be a genuine Christians, though that does not make their doctrinal positions correct, or immune from critique. Given the multitude of articles all over the internet calling people like me fundamentalists, traditionalists, cultists, and so on, it does not seem that the other side has a problem with issuing critique. We have to remember that niceness is not a fruit of the spirit. In any case, let’s look at one inconsistency in the appeal to church councils for proof that the doctrine of preservation is a new invention of the 17th century. Wallace appeals to councils and creeds when supporting his position that the Scriptures do not claim to be preserved. He appeals to an external standard to defend his position on the text he says is the final authority. 

The appeal to church councils is really just a misdirect that Protestants should brush off, if we are still calling ourselves Protestants. The appeal to councils is not an argument that Jan Huss, or we, modern day Protestants, should find particularly compelling. It is clear that historically the church has believed God had given them His Word. That really shouldn’t be in question. The question that we ought to be asking is, “do the modern texts really not affect doctrine?” The question itself assumes a stable, doctrinal rule to compare against. When somebody says, “No doctrine is affected,” they are really saying, “Our new text doesn’t change doctrine from the historical text.” Even in making such a statement, they are assuming an unchanging rule of faith as a comparison point to their changing rule of faith. More importantly though, if the modern text does not change doctrine, why is it that the doctrine of preservation is changing? What changed from the time of the 17th century until now that has caused such a doctrinal shift? The text. The text has changed, and is changing. Therefore it does not stand to continue believing that the modern text does not change doctrine, because it plainly has. A simple comparison of the WCF to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy demonstrates, that doctrine has changed. It has even changed in the creeds of the church, ironically. 

Conclusion

The church went from believing that the transmission of the Scriptures was guided by providence and preserved in the apographs (copies), to believing that the Scriptures were only perfect in the autographs (originals). It went to believing that the matter (words) and sense (meaning) of the Scriptures are preserved to believing that only the sense is preserved. If it is true that a changing, unstable text is the best we have in the 21st century, it is clear that neither is true. How can something be preserved in meaning if the words that the meaning is derived from are not preserved? Meaning comes from words, and when words change, meaning changes. The claim that “no doctrine is affected” is empty, and this is evidenced in the reality that even the creedal statements of the church have changed with the changing text. If you want proof that doctrine has changed, there it is. 

Christians shouldn’t be as concerned with Wallace and other evangelical textual scholars as they should with the doctrines that they are espousing. The Scriptures tell us to “prove all things” (1 Thess. 5:21), not to “hold fast to that which is unproved.” The modern text is fundamentally unproved, because it is unfinished. The church had a stable text heading into the post-Reformation period. It was the text that caused the greatest Christian revival in the history of the world. It is the text that all of Protestant theology was built upon. All of our theological grammar comes from this text. It still remains the most widely used text by Christians around the world to this day. So when a new text comes onto the scene, one that demonstrates the Bible has not been preserved, that is the thing that must be proved.

Christians forget that the adoption of the modern text is a new thing. Until very recently in English speaking church history, there was one major English translation and one Greek text used as a base text. Today’s church is genuinely experiencing a new thing, and that new thing is the modern text. Rhetoric, polemics, and our desire for “science” has clouded the conversation greatly. Put aside the rhetoric, the name calling, the pejoratives, and test what you, as a Christian, can test – the doctrine. You may know nothing of textual criticism, but you as a Christian are commanded to “try the spirits,” and God has given you the tools to do so. I especially appeal to the consistency of those in the presuppositional camp – if you don’t think you have to learn about geo-rock layers to give a defense for the faith, why do you think you have to learn about genealogical text-critical methods to defend the faith? Demanding that you must learn a scientific discipline to defend the faith is antithetical to presuppositionalism. Those that make such appeals are really just saying that they are evidentialists. Instead of appealing to apologetics, councils, and your favorite scholar, try answering this basic question: Do the Scriptures teach that they will fall away, even partially?

Appendix 

Consider this basic exegesis of Matthew 5:18:

The text expressly sets forth that Jesus came to establish exactly what was said about Him from the Old Testament Scriptures, and the perpetuity of that establishment until all is fulfilled on the Last Day. From good and necessary consequence, we can also establish that the means that He will continue fulfilling that law will also continue in perpetuity until all is fulfilled. In the latter days, the means God uses to “make men wise unto salvation” are His Holy Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:15-16; Heb. 1:1). So while there is no text that says literally, “The Old and New Testament will be preserved perfectly,” the Old and New Testament are the means God uses to fulfill His purpose, and therefore “shall in no wise pass.” If the means of the fulfillment pass away, so too does the fulfillment of Christ’s ministry. Therefore, this is a legitimate inference from the text of Holy Scripture that is both good and necessary. This being the Scriptural standard, we then can look at passages like Psalm 12:6 -7 and see the nature of preservation:

“The words of the LORD are pure words: As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever”

This is again affirmed in Matthew 24:35:

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

Finally, ask yourself this question: Is the Holy Scripture God’s words? 

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16).

It is clear that the Scriptures do teach this doctrine, the problem is that many Christians simply do not believe it. 

Is the Reconstructionist Effort Justified?

The Young, Textless, and Reformed6 Comments

Introduction 

It has been about 140 years since the reconstruction efforts began on the text of the New Testament, if we use 1881, the year Westcott and Hort’s new Greek text was published as a starting point. The Traditional Text of Scripture had been well under attack before that point, but this was the first successful effort to unseat it. Since then, scholars have tried their hand testing many theories, all of which have proved completely unproductive. At some point, Christians need to seriously stop and question if this effort is justified now, or was ever justified. See, going into the 19the century, the church had a text. It was the text that sparked the Reformation. It was the text that was used during the high orthodox period. It was the text of the Great Awakening. All of the Reformed confessional standards from the 17th century appeal to this text as the pure and preserved text. 

For just a minute, let’s step into the world of business and apply a lower standard to the text of Holy Scripture than what the church gives lip service to. If you were a financier, and were in charge of funding a construction project, what sort of progress would you expect? At what point would you pull funding? How many years would you give the effort? How many failed attempts would you allow? What level of accountability would you hold the construction manager to? If every five years the construction manager came to you and said, “We made a mistake laying the foundation, we have to start again,” would that make you question the construction team’s methods? This is the case for the textual reconstruction effort, except Christians, instead of holding the scholars to basic standards, they have adopted the incomplete work of the reconstructionist scholars, and have even become apologists for it. They have even convinced themselves that this building is the only way buildings should be built, and that anybody living in a completed structure that hasn’t wavered for 400 years is actually foolish. Let’s stop pretending  for a minute, that Christians hold textual scholars to any sort of meaningful standard. If these scholars were held to a basic secular standard, they’d be out of jobs. 

Further, how would you feel if the people responsible for the construction project did not believe they had all of the materials to erect the structure, did not believe they could even erect the structure, and had not yet succeeded in erecting the structure? Who in their right might would continue hoping, defending, and financing this construction team? Even from a secular standard, that is absurd. Why is it the case that after 140 years, with all of this alleged “new and better” data, scholars still cannot seem to give the church a final product?

Assessing the Materials 

The earliest and best manuscripts are often appealed to in text-criticism discussions. Yet this tagline really deserves a second look. First, these manuscripts are not the earliest, just the earliest that we have today. The earliest complete New Testament manuscript is from the fourth century. The Bible was written in the first century. Therefore, the statement “Earliest and best” is already misleading. Second, these manuscripts are not the best by any reasonable standard. They disagree more than they agree, some are even paraphrastic like Codex D and P45, and they frequently disagree with the vast majority of our extant Greek manuscripts. The manuscripts labeled “earliest and best” are more appropriately titled “earliest extant.” Further, these manuscripts have no pedigree. We do not know who penned them in most cases, and the places where they do depart from the mainstream textual tradition are often conveniently in places which directly target major Christological doctrines. If we are going to call something “best,” we should at least be willing to develop and apply a consistent qualitative standard to them. Scholars like Dr. John Burgon did this extensively in the 19th century. Even when the genealogical method, which is preferred by modern scholars, is applied to these manuscripts, they differ to such a degree that they are not considered a textual family. They stand in no continuous text tradition handed down by the church. These manuscripts should have never even been considered as an option as a textual foundation, and yet almost every modern Bible uses them as such. It would be like laying the foundation of a building with different types and sizes of wood and expecting that building to withstand a storm. These manuscripts should have never been more than the muse of the secular academy, and yet the church has wholeheartedly bought into them. 

So what do we say to these manuscripts, that are of no particular quality worth mentioning, which we do not know where they came from or who used them, and which disagree with the mainstream text in a multitude of places? We reject them. When Codex B is collated against the Traditional Text, at least 2,877 words have been removed from just the Gospels alone. 3,455 words removed from Sinaiticus, and 3,704 from what we have of Codex D (The Revision Revised, 75). It is high time that the church sets aside the well intentioned words of scholars which say that, “They are essentially the same text.” How can two texts be “essentially the same” when they differ in thousands of places? How exactly is the word “essentially” being defined here?  With Burgon we must say, “Will the English church suffer herself to be in this way defrauded of her priceless inheritance, – through the irreverent bungling of well-intentioned, but misguided men?” Will we stand around as, “these eminent Divines undertake to decide which shall be deemed the genuine utterances of the Holy Ghost? – which not?”

Let us conclude with Burgon, “Now, in the present instance, the ‘five old uncials’ cannot be the depositories of a tradition, whether Western or Eastern, – because they render inconsistent testimony in every verse. It must be further admitted (for this is not really a question of opinion, but a plain matter of fact,) that it is unreasonable to place confidence in such documents. What would be thought of in a court of law of five witnesses, called up 47 times for examination, who should be observed to bear contradictory testimony every time?” (31). If we wouldn’t trust building materials of such quality, and we wouldn’t trust the testimony of such witnesses in court, why do we continue to trust such manuscripts as the basis for the Holy Scriptures? No amount of extant Papyri can resolve the inconsistencies within these uncial manuscripts the church has placed her trust in. 

Returning to a Reasonable Position 

It is not traditionalism, or fundamentalism, to reject manuscripts of such low quality. It is not “sacrificing truth for comfort” to look at the last 140 years of Reconstructionist text-criticism and reject it. At this point in history, it is actually illogical to continue hoping in an effort that has not succeeded. If we are to consider God’s providence at all, a plain story can be told about the fruit of each text. One text, the Traditional Text, was defended against the Papists and other heretical movements, and led to the largest Christian revival in the whole of human history. The other text, the Critical Text, based on mostly just two manuscripts of low quality, is adopted and even created by the Papists and cults, and has led to conservative scholars rejecting preservation and adopting and applying the evolutionary theories of the academy. It has led to hundreds of translations, none of which are considered complete or correct. It is anti-Berean to look at the fruit of such an effort, the text of such an effort, and the Theological statements of the men conducting the work, and to say, “Everything is fine.”

I exhort you, Christian, to stop defending a building that cannot stand, that has proven itself unstable. If you’re looking for evidence, look at the fact that the modern text is changing, and will continue to change. That alone is enough to cast doubt on the reconstructionist model. If the manuscripts are of such quality that they should unseat the Traditional Text, why can they not be used to create a stable text? Why don’t the scholars themselves have confidence in them? I encourage you to investigate the theories and theological standards which have produced the modern Greek texts. Are you comfortable aligning with the theological position that says we do not have now, and probably never will have, the text of the Apostles? Investigate the claims of “fundamentalism” and “traditionalism” and see that they are simply smokescreens to distract from the reality that the modern methodology has not produced a text. 

Look at the character attacks and storytelling on Erasmus and see them for what they are, a distraction. Look at the pedantic presentations of critical text apologists that are aimed almost exclusively at the character, credentials, and even age of those who defend the Traditional Text. Study the polemics of the Papists against Beza and see that their arguments are often the same exact arguments employed against the Traditional Text by Reconstructionist text-criticism apologists. If you are hoping that the direction of the modern text is going to slow down, it is not. There will never be a final product, and your modern Bible will continue changing. Compare that with your theology of Scripture and “prove all things.” The reconstruction of the New Testament was never justified, and never necessary, because the Word of God was never lost. It never needed reconstructing, and the fruit of such a reconstruction has shown the folly of ever thinking that that was the case.  

If you want proof of the low quality of the earliest extant texts, look at the doctrinal statements made by those who know them best. Start with the Chicago Statement and see that the only thing that modern theology will defend is the inerrancy of the non-existent autographs. If the earliest manuscripts are our only shot at having a New Testament, then by their own words, we will never know exactly what the New Testament said. By their own testimony, the Bible doesn’t teach that the Scripture would be preserved perfectly. By their own admission, God never desired to preserve His Word perfectly. Is that the stand that the 21st century church wants to take? That the Bible has not been kept pure in all ages? At least they are being consistent. These doctrinal positions are the logical conclusion, if the quality of the earliest texts are considered “best.” 

Conclusion

The reconstructionist effort began with deception. The Revisionists in the 19th century created a new text when they were only authorized to make a small amount of revisions to the AV. They made changes they were not authorized to make, created a Greek text that they were not authorized to create, and justified it by a theory that has been so thoroughly debunked the whole effort should be questioned. If the earliest extant manuscripts aren’t the best, then the reconstruction effort should have never been considered. The only reason it took place initially was due to breaking the rules set for the revision. Further, the foundational theological premise of the continued use of such a “revised” text is that God has not kept His Word pure in all ages. It requires the belief that certain parts of God’s Word have fallen away. It requires the use of theoretical genealogical models which are demonstrably arbitrary to produce a text. It requires that the church adjust their view of Inspiration and Preservation to changing theories that are constantly falling in and out of vogue. If the modern critical text doesn’t affect doctrine, why does doctrine change as the modern text changes? 

The reconstructionist effort should be rejected. Not because the scholars are mean, or malicious, or have poor intentions, but because the effort itself is not justified. The materials being used are not of proper quality or quantity. The methods used are theoretical and devoid of spiritual quality. The product of the effort speaks for itself. The fruit has grown and fallen off the tree. Christians must rally around a stable text if it wants a stable church. Dear Christian, receive your inheritance that the great fathers of our faith fought for. Doubt not that God has preserved His Word, and stop defending theological frameworks that insist that He hasn’t. Have confidence in the Word of God, and God Himself in His ability to prevent His Word from falling away. 

 “The words of the Lord are pure words: As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them O LORD, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” (Ps. 12:6-7)

Reconstructionists, The Burden of Proof is On You

The Young, Textless, and Reformed13 Comments

Introduction

A common refrain in the text-criticism discussion is the appeal to “the burden of proof.” The burden of proof is on those who advocate for the traditional text to demonstrate that the readings within the text are original. This appeal is a simple misdirect that should not fool any sound thinking Christian. In making this argument, it draws the attention away from the failure of reconstructionist textual criticism apologists to fulfill any sort of burden of proof themselves. Typically, those in the modern critical text camp do not venture past manuscript evidence to examine the theological, epistemological, and logical implications of approaching the text in the way they do. Due to framing the discussion within the narrow frame of manuscript evidence and textual variants, it is possible to completely avoid the marrow of the discussion. If it is possible to demonstrate that a variant is supported by one manuscript, or a church father, or an ancient version, then it doesn’t matter what the theological implications are of adopting that particular reading. This methodology is appealing because it seems scientific, logical, and conclusive. In the case of evidential reconstructionist textual criticism the reality is that it merely has the form of science, but not any sort of real power. In other words, it is completely, and utterly, arbitrary. Let me explain. 

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that modern reconstructionist textual criticism is consistent in its methodology – which it is plainly not. At one reading, they appeal to one standard, and at another they appeal to entirely different standards. Any claim saying that the axioms of modern textual criticism are consistent is either misleading, or relying upon their audience’s ignorance of the system.  Even if these axioms were consistent, they will never be able to claim any sort of practical certainty on a given reading. Since the goal is reconstruction of the text, the starting principle of the methodology itself is that the text of Holy Scripture has been lost. Since this is the theological and epistemological starting point, all methods that proceed from this point begin the effort of textual criticism standing three feet in mid air, because the earliest manuscripts do not reach back to the time of the Apostles. No matter how you spin this reality, you will never escape the fundamental truth that all reconstructive methodologies are operating entirely from conjecture. The genealogical methods employed to reconstruct the text of the New Testament simply cannot demonstrate a reading original. It may be the case that somebody believes a reading original, but that belief does not originate from reconstructionist principles. They have to borrow that from a system which offers epistemological certainty. The method of reconstruction is arbitrary, and any claim to certainty of any kind is alien to the reconstructionist system. 

The Arbitrary Standard of Reconstructionist Textual Criticism

These methods are arbitrary because of the standard itself. Often times, proponents of reconstructionist textual criticism will appeal to the axioms of other systems to bolster the weaknesses of the system they have chosen. In other words, they borrow capital from the theology of the Protestants to put newspaper over the milk that they spilled. See, if the Bible has been lost to the point that it requires reconstruction, then it has not been preserved. There is no escaping this reality, and this is colorfully highlighted in the fact that the term Initial Text is being employed in place of Original or Autographic Text. Even when the term Original is used, it is employed in an entirely different way than it has been historically in Protestant Theology. No matter how hard one tries to put a Theological spin on this concept, a duck dressed up as a swan is still a duck. Simply calling the theological concept of the Initial Text equitous with the Original text does not make it true, and the methodology used to construct such an Initial Text cannot make any such claim responsibly. The fact remains that our earliest manuscripts are not the earliest manuscripts, patristic quotations are not inspired and often are paraphrastic, and ancient versional evidence faces the same problem as ancient manuscript evidence. The plain truth is that our earliest manuscripts have no pedigree. We don’t know who made them or who used them. The only thing these sources demonstrate is whether or not a reading existed, and has nothing to say about whether that reading was original from the pen of the Apostolic writers or a machination from an early heretic. The simple problem with genealogical reconstructions is that they can just as easily place a late reading in the spot of an early reading without being detected at all. In fact, scholars are quite vocal in admitting this. In addition to the logical flaws with these early manuscripts, the material flaws are overwhelming. There are more places where the darling early Uncials disagree than agree, and if our manuscripts of Shakespeare were of such quality, we would have something like, “The question is, to beat, or not to beat Toby?” We wouldn’t have Shakespeare at all, just an echo of Shakespeare. 

This is what happens when human reconstructionist principles of textual criticism are inscripturated. The educated Christian church has been catechized to believe that these axioms are the only way to determine the text of Holy Scripture, and therefore forcing an arbitrary text onto the church. A text that can present later, unoriginal readings, into the text and pass them off as original without any knowledge of such an event. The major problem with this is that if reconstructionist text critical principles are the only way to determine what is Scripture, then Christians must place their faith in a method that is entirely arbitrary and in no way conclusive. Since the material is not perfectly preserved, the doctrine of inspiration must be refashioned around a text that is not materially pure. 

The Reconstructionists Must Defend Their Thesis 

At the outset, the method admits that the text of Scripture, at least part of it, has been lost and must be reconstructed. The principle axiom of the method looks at the text of Scripture and says, “We don’t know what it says, and we don’t have the whole thing.” The next step should have been, from that point on, figuring out if a reconstruction effort could be done with the materials. “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28). In fact, this was done by Dr. John Burgon in the 19th century (The Revision Revised), wherein he conclusively demonstrates that the source material for this reconstructed text was utterly devoid of the quality required for such an effort. This was again demonstrated by H.C. Hoskier in the 20th century (Codex B and its Allies). In the 21st century, the answer to whether or not the extant data is sufficient is succinctly answered by Dan Wallace, “We do not have now – in our critical Greek texts or 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” (Myths and Mistakes, xii). If the answer wasn’t apparent in the time of Westcott and Hort, it certainly is now. If the theological and epistemological case that I have laid out in this blog over the last few months is not convincing, the fruit of the reconstructionist effort should be. If the data is available, if the text of Scripture is preserved, why can’t the well meaning scholars get back to it? How long is the church going to entertain this project? 

Theologically, the church should reject any method that starts with the premise that any text of Scripture has fallen away (Mat. 5:18; Mat. 24:35). Epistemologically, the church should reject any method that says the Word of God must be authenticated by scientific principles (2 Tim. 3:16). Logically, the church should reject any method that plainly admits they have not, and cannot reconstruct the text (Luke 14:28). Yet reconstructionist textual criticism continues to be the muse of the Christian academy. With each passing year, the incomplete text continues to be propped up and celebrated by Christians all over the world. The conversation of “Which text?” is irrelevant from a reconstructionist textual model because the method itself doesn’t believe that any text is “the text.” Why would somebody entertain the arguments of somebody whose starting point rejects the concept of “the” text of Holy Scripture? That is why it is important to investigate the effort that led to conservative Christian scholars adopting such a theological position. If the effort cannot be justified, and has not borne good fruit, why should the church continue to prop it up? Why should Christians act like the modern critical text is the “better” text, when the scholars producing it and advocating for it are unwilling to call it “the” text? If the so called “new” data has given us so much more insight than our fathers of the faith, why has it produced so much uncertainty? It is one thing to make appeals to “new and better data,” and another to actually prove it. It is foolish to continue to defend such “new” data when the data has overwhelmingly failed in producing anything but uncertainty. 

Conclusion

Christians are called to “Prove all things” (1 Thess. 5:20), and the axioms and text of the reconstructionists is objectively the new thing on the scene that must be proved. It has the burden of proof, not the traditional text. The reconstructionists need to demonstrate that their method can produce a text. The traditional text is not the problem, it is not the newcomer that needs to be proved. Why unseat the text of the Protestant church for a model that has not produced a text, cannot produce a text, and will not produce a text? What reason shall we give for such an illogical departure? It is time that Christians reject the misdirection of the reconstructionists who insist that the burden of proof is on the traditional text advocates, when the method they demand for establishing that proof is insufficient to do so. Since the reconstructionist model has not proved a text, those that advocate for the ongoing effort are literally defending an immaterial text that doesn’t exist. On one hand they say “we do not have the text,” and on the other they say, “But our text is better.” These two principles cannot stand together, and until the reconstructionists demonstrate that their effort is justified, the burden of proof is on them. 

Going Back to the Start

The Young, Textless, and Reformed1 Comment

Introduction

There are approximately 450 Bible translations in English, each one unique. The most popular of these include the NIV, KJV, NLT, ESV, NKJV, NASB, and CSB. All of these utilize different translation methodologies, and all of these are either revisions from earlier translations, or follow the translational choices of previous translations. Among conservatives, the KJV and ESV reign supreme, though the ESV has largely won the hearts of the modern Calvinist camp. Prior to the late 19th century, there was really only one Bible used by all English speaking churches, the King James Version (KJV), also known as the Authorized Version (AV). We’ve come a long way in just over 100 years. It is easy to get bogged down in discussions over which version is the best, and that certainly does happen, often. It is often said that the English speaking world has an “embarrassment of riches” as it pertains to Bible versions, and I suppose that is true if we’re counting noses. Unfortunately, the quality of this multitude of versions should cause the sound minded Christian to see the hundreds of versions for what they are – simply an embarrassment. So how did we get here? How did we get from a church with one text to a church with more texts than there are genders recognized by the state of New York? 

A Short History of English Translations 

Prior to taking a trip through time, it is important to evaluate the state of affairs of Bible versions, and the fruit of such Bible versions. In the first place, it should be apparent to all that the number of Bible translations are not a blessing, but a blight to the English speaking church. Not only is it common, but inevitable, that you will encounter a multitude of translations wherever you go to fellowship. I could write several blog posts chronicling the various occasions on which an NASB devotee and an ESV reader went at it, ultimately resulting in the Bible study devolving into a shoddy attempt to do word studies using some online lexicon. Rather than going back to the Greek, let’s go back in history and see how this all started. 

In 1881, a revision of the Authorized Version was completed, and the product was called the Revised Version. The committee responsible for this effort were authorized with the simple task of removing the “plain and clear errors” in the AV. Some of the rules for such a revision included: 

  1. To introduce as few alterations as possible into the text of the AV
  2. To indicate such alteration in the margin
  3. Only necessary changes were to be made

Not only did the “revision” team not follow these rules, they broke them in excess. They didn’t just “revise” the AV, they created an entirely new underlying Greek text, an entirely new translation, and the notes which they left in the margin to detail such additions and subtractions were so inadequate that even the most learned reader could be misled by them. The vague statements such as “some ancient authorities” in the margins have been carried over in spirit into the beloved modern versions, most notably the ESV, NIV, and NASB. These kinds of footnotes are not only bewildering, they introduce doubt where doubt need not be introduced. That is not to say that the intentions of the revision team were malicious, but if they were graded on how well they could follow directions, they would have failed. This is relevant because almost all of the modern versions stand in this textual tradition. 

In the preface of the ESV, it reads that it “stands in the classic mainstream of English Bible translations over the past half-millennium. The fountainhead of that stream was William Tyndale’s New Testament of 1526; marking its course were the King James Version of 1611 (KJV), the English Revised Version of 1885 (RV), the American Standard Version of 1901 (ASV), and the Revised Standard Version of 1952 and 1971 (RSV).” 

If you’ve read both the ESV and KJV, you’re probably thinking what I thought when I read that: What loose definition of “classic mainstream” is being used? 

If by “classic mainstream” it is meant that it has 66 books in it, then it certainly does stand in the same stream. Yet, anybody who has read these two versions knows that this is a plain abuse of the term which only serves to obfuscate the reality to the reader. The reality is that the ESV, and almost every modern version stands in the stream of either the RSV or the ASV, and only the KJV can properly claim to stand in the tradition of Tyndale. One cannot say responsibly that a text is in the same tradition as another when they are different in hundreds of places, and those Bibles which stand in the RV stream omit over forty verses from the KJV stream. See, the English Bibles leading up to the KJV in 1611 all had the Longer Ending of Mark, the Pericope Adulterae, the Comma Johanneum, John 5:4, Acts 8:37, Romans 16:24, and so on. They all translated the same reading at John 1:18 and 1 Timothy 3:16. They all stood in the same textual tradition. So it is rather disingenuous when the revision team first introduced their text, advertising it as a “revision,” and again disingenuous when Crossway published their preface saying that the ESV was in the “Classic Mainstream” going back to Tyndale. This same strategy is still employed today by many top scholars who consistently prop up this idea that the two streams are essentially the same. 

It is important to note that not only is the text vastly different between the RV tradition and the KJV tradition, the textual methodologies are completely different as well. If the two streams are different, every Christian should be asking three questions: 

  1. Why is there such a concentrated effort to mitigate the differences between the two streams? 
  2. Why is it so important that the two streams stand in the same tradition? 
  3. If the “revision” effort resulted in an entirely new Greek text, should we adopt that text? 

Answering the Difficult Questions

The reason there is an effort to mitigate the differences between the two streams is due to the fact that if the streams are truly significantly different, the classic Protestant doctrine of inspiration and preservation is incorrect. If the Scriptures have been kept pure in all ages, there wouldn’t be, and cannot be, two textual traditions that are both valid. And if the modern textual tradition is valid, then the sum of classic Protestant doctrine was built on an incorrect text. That is why it is so important that the two texts stand in the same tradition. If we were talking about a handful of insignificant readings which were simply ignored for a hundred years or so, that is easily written off by the fallibility of the textual criticism done in the 16th century. That is not the case, however. The reality is, that we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of differences. So many differences, in fact, that the two text platforms are entirely different Bibles. That should cause every single Christian who cares about Inspiration and Preservation to give serious thought to the reality of two different textual platforms. If the ESV, for example, does not stand in the “classic mainstream” of Scripture, what should we think of it? 

Rather than viewing the discussion over translation as a matter of preference, we need to revisit the history of translations and see if that first “revision” was even warranted, and what exactly was done as a part of the effort. The reality is, if the revision team had followed instructions, it is likely that I wouldn’t be writing this blog post. We’d all be reading a faithful update to the Authorized Version. That of course, did not happen. Instead, we have hundreds of Bible versions, endless debates over which translation is best, the enemies of the faith constantly attacking our embarrassing situation, and utter chaos in our churches as a result of our multitude of Bible versions. Yet these are not the only products of that fateful “revision” effort. As a result of the modern textual methodology, pastors and layman alike are taught to read their Bibles critically and subjectively, picking and choosing verses to believe and not to believe. The common opinion is that “no translation can adequately bring forth the original,” resulting in people utilizing Greek lexicons to warp the text into what they want it to say. The plain fruit of this is that people simply do not trust their Bible translation. Even worse, the latest textual methodology that has evolved from the 19th century has brought the levels of skepticism to dire extremes. Not only is it the conservative position to approach the text skeptically and subjectively, it is perfectly normal to reject the preservation of Scripture altogether. In fact, it is naive, and even considered fundamentalism to affirm that God has preserved the matter of Scripture perfectly into the 21st century. 

The reality is that the “revision” done in 1881 has led to an embarrassment of problems for the modern church. It has given license for people to not only doubt their translation, but to doubt the text it was translated from. It has introduced division by forcing the church to take a stand on the traditional text against the modern text. It has created controversies, debates, strife, confusion, chaos, and has opened the door for not only the enemies of the faith to discredit the Scriptures, but given full license for Christians to do the same. Look around, Christian. There is not a Bible anymore, just bibles. Rather than squabbling for hours on Facebook over textual variants, perhaps it is a good idea to back up for a second and look around. Which text is the real problem? Which text really needs to be justified? Who is the burden of proof really on? It is abundantly clear which text has caused more problems. The question to ask, and an important one at that, is: Was it justified for the church to adopt a text that was conceived in scandal, and should we adopt the children of that text today?

In the following blog posts, I will be exploring these questions. Happy New Year!


Update Post

The Young, Textless, and ReformedLeave a comment

I will be taking a break from posting on this blog until January 1, 2020. Until then, I will be focusing on some reading and writing projects that I have had backlogged for some time now. My plan for 2020 is to release a series of articles highlighting the fight of Dean Burgon, arguably the most capable text critic of the 19th century. Much of his work has been neglected or pushed under the rug, and I believe many of his critiques have gone unanswered. Hopefully the series will be a helpful guide for those that are interested in the history of the modern critical text, as well as some of the more powerful arguments for retaining the Traditional Text and translations made from it.

Substantial Preservation and the Sin of Certainty

The Young, Textless, and Reformed3 Comments

Introduction

In today’s world of Biblical scholarship, a common idea is that Christians should have a good amount of confidence that the sum total of the Bible has been preserved. This means that while Christians should not have any dogmatic ideas of perfect preservation of words, they should have confidence that God has given to His people enough. That is to say that despite the fact that there are challenging passages in the Scriptures, none of these challenges are so great that Christians should lose confidence in their Bible as a whole. This concept of general reliability is agreeable even to some unbelieving textual scholars, which is possibly why it has become a sort of default position within Evangelical textual scholarship. The idea of absolute certainty in every word of the Bible is not considered a viable theological position due to the perspectives of modern textual scholars. According to this view, there is simply no justifiable reason to believe that every word has been kept pure, and to hold to a view like this is unnecessarily dogmatic. This article is not meant to challenge the integrity of the scholars, some of which are genuine brothers in Christ, but rather to put forth a serious problem with the general reliability theory of the New Testament. While I understand the sentiment behind this mediating position between radical skepticism and absolute certainty in the Text of the New Testament, I believe that this perspective, which may be called Substantial Preservation, is not defensible, practical, or Scriptural. 

Substantial Preservation is Not Demonstrable by Evidence

John Brown of Haddington wrote on this very topic in his systematic theology in the 18th century when defending the Scriptures against such a view that certain truths had fallen away. He argued that all Scriptures, while some are less essential than others, are “essentially necessary in their own place.” That is to say, that while many passages discuss matters not pertaining directly to salvation, that does not make those passages any less important is it pertains to the whole of what God is saying to His people. The Scriptures affirm as much in 2 Timothy 3:15-17. Despite some passages which may be considered more or less important by some, the Bible is clear, “all Scripture” is profitable and is to be used for every matter of faith and practice. Brown then comments on the fundamental challenge of dividing the Scriptures into essential and non-essential.

“All attempts to determine which are fundamental, and which not, are calculated to render us deficient and slothful in the study of religious knowledge; – To fix precisely what truths are fundamental and what not, is neither necessary, nor profitable, nor safe, nor possible” (Brown, Systematic Theology, 97). 

When the theological position is taken that says that the “sum total” or the “necessary” or the “important” parts of Scripture have been reliably transmitted, this is what is taking place. An attempt is being made to say that while some or many words have fallen away from the Scriptures, the whole sense of the thing is not lost by certain words falling away or indeterminate. Brown makes an extremely pointed observation here – how would one even come to a determination like that? There is absolutely no way to know if a doctrine is lost, unless of course that person is omniscient, or all knowing, and can determine that those words were not meant to be preserved by God. The weight of the substantial preservation argument rests on a faith claim that God never desired to preserve every word, and that Christians should have a reasonable amount of certainty that the words we can have confidence in are the ones God intended to preserve. 

Since the starting point of this claim is evidential, the conclusions and further claims made from this starting point must be evidential as well. That means that if one is to make the claim that the evidence demonstrates a substantially preserved Bible, one has to demonstrate that the words we do have represent substantially what was originally written. This of course is impossible to demonstrate from evidence. Dan Wallace admits as much, “We do not have now – in our critical Greek texts or any translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it” (Gurry & Hixson, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, xii). So in this view, we don’t know exactly what the “authors” of the New Testament wrote, and we have no way of demonstrating what they wrote, even if we did have it. This being the case, there does not seem to be a reason to responsibly make such a determination regarding the general reliability of the New Testament. The claim that the New Testament is generally reliable is not proven by lower criticism, it is simply believed despite the conclusions of textual scholars. Since our earliest extant New Testament manuscripts are dated to well after the authorial event, there is no way of determining, evidentially, how different those manuscripts are from the authorial text. This perspective may have been rejected, even fifty years ago by Evangelicals, but according to Wallace, believing textual scholars are  “far more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty than the previous generations” (Ibid., xii). While many scholars may be comfortable with this view, the millions of Christians around the world who believe in verbal plenary inspiration may not be. 

Substantial Preservation is Not Practical 

If the Bible is preserved in the “sum total” of its material, then Christians must add an additional layer to their Bible reading. Rather than simply reading the words on the page, Christians must first establish that those words are reliable. Since some words cannot be trusted outright, there is no reason to believe that all of the words can be trusted outright. That is due to the fact that the methodology which deems some verses reliable and others not is completely and utterly subjective. In some cases, the majority reading is the deciding principle, in other places, the least harmonious reading is the deciding principle, and in more places, what is considered the earliest reading is the deciding principle. In order to validate these deciding principles, Christians must become text-critics themselves. They must examine the evidence for each verse in the Bible and determine if it meets some threshold of certainty based on the current canons of text-criticism or develop their own. Most Christians are not equipped for this kind of work. 

Since the reality is that the vast majority of Christains are not equipped for this kind of work, this is done for the Christian by the editors of various translations and rogue Christians with some knowledge of the original languages. Christians are told which verses they are to have confidence in by a handful of people. The footnotes tell a Christian what to read, popular opinion tells a Christian what to read, or Christians decide for themselves what they ought to read. Yet, underneath every verse is a mountain of textual variations and a sign that says, “We do not have now, in our critical Greek texts or any translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it.” That is to say, that every Christian is held captive by the judgements of textual scholars, translation committees, and the opinions of one or two people with a platform when they read their Bible. What a Christian considers Scripture today could easily be out of vogue tomorrow. This is plainly evident in the transformation of modern Bibles in the last fifty years.  

Even if there is no critical footnote in the margin of a translation, the Christian has to know that every single verse can be questioned with the same amount of uncertainty applied to the verses which do have footnotes. This is due to the fact that the axiom itself produces “radical skepticism.” That is to say, that if a Christian cannot know for sure that the words they are reading are authentic, they must adopt some sort of theological principle which gives them certainty. The common view seems to be, “We don’t know what the original said, yet we are going to read it as though we do anyway.” Yet this view is entirely contingent upon external methods, and produces different results for each Christian. It is perfectly reasonable, for two Christians adhering to this same view of the text to have radically different opinions on each line of Scripture. Since, according to the top scholars, we can’t know who is right, both Christians are equally justified in their decision. There is nothing wrong with one person accepting Luke 23:34 and another rejecting it in this view of the text. On what grounds would one even begin to make a dogmatic statement one way or the other using text-critical methods? In an attempt to combat “absolute certainty,” the people of God are held hostage by the opinions of men. The practical task of reading a Bible has been turned into a task that only the most qualified men and women can execute. The act of reading the Bible is unmistakably transformed into an activity of scrutinizing the text and then reading that text with only a reasonable amount of certainty. The Bible has yet again been taken from the hands of the plowboy. 

Substantial Preservation is Not Scriptural

The Bible is clear that Christians are to have absolute certainty in the Scriptures (Mat. 24:35; Ps. 19:7; 2 Tim. 3:15-17; 2 Pet. 1:20-21; Heb. 1:1-2; Mat. 4:4; Mat. 5:18; Jn.10:27). Absolute certainty in God’s Word is not a bad thing, despite the strange opinions of men and women who say that it is something to be fought off and beat down out of the church. No pastor in his right mind would mount the pulpit and say that we do not know, and have no way of knowing what the original text of the New and Old Testament said. There is no gentle way to put it, this view is dangerous and the proponents of such a view would have been put outside of the camp for saying such a thing all throughout church history. Yet, in this day and age, the view of absolute certainty in the Holy Scriptures is called “dangerous” and is demonized. The visceral reality is, if Christians are not to have absolute certainty in their Bibles, they have no reason to believe it is God’s Word at all. If some of God’s Word is compromised, why should Christians believe that all of it isn’t compromised? That is to say, that if God had the ability to preserve some of the words, He had the ability to preserve them all. There is no reason to believe that God would conveniently preserve the words we, in the 21st century, think are preserved. In order to make a theological claim that God only preserved some words, you must adopt a contradictory view that God is both a) powerful to preserve the words of Scripture and b) not powerful enough to preserve them all. This position is adopted with the guise of humility. Since we “know” that there places where the Scriptures weren’t kept pure, then God must not have preserved all of them! It is actually anachronistic and prideful to think that God preserved every word! Yet, these places where God didn’t keep His Word pure conveniently have aligned with the theories and conclusions of textual scholars for over 200 years. It is rather peculiar that God would think so much like a text-critic.

If Christians are to take a mediating position between radical skepticism and absolute certainty, the process of reading a Bible becomes a burdensome act that few Christians are even capable of doing. 99% of Christians do not know the original languages, and even those who do are not up to date on all of the changes in textual scholarship. That means nearly every Christian is held captive by their preferred scholar or pastor on what their Bible really says. They either have to simply put their head in the sand and go with the flow of every changing edition of their Bible, or get lost in the radical skepticism that is espoused by textual scholars. Do not be mistaken, the idea that we cannot know what the prophets and apostles wrote is absolutely a form of radical skepticism. It may not be the case in intention or heart of these scholars, but in practice I see no way around it. If the Bible is only generally reliable, than each Christian has the responsibility of figuring out the places of general reliability. This view leads to opinions like the one I received on my YouTube channel, where a man said, “The textual apparatus is the lifeblood of the pastor.” This view is so disconnected from any sort of pastoral reality I wanted to scream. No sir, every word that proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God is the lifeblood of the pastor, not the places where God’s Word has been called into question. The act of reading the Bible is not to be an activity of constantly saying, “Yea, hath God said?”

Conclusion

The doctrine of Scripture which says that the words are generally reliable is one that is not defensible, practical, or Scriptural. It is one that is so far disconnected from the people of God that I hope it never succeeds in being forced upon people who actually read their Bible daily. Not only is there no way of determining which passages of Scripture are “important” enough, there is no way to even prove that a passage is reliable if we have no way of validating those passages. This view, as it is articulated now, leaves every single Christian hanging three feet in mid air in the clutches of people who are “qualified” to make judgements on the text of Holy Scripture. The bottom line of this view is that each Christian needs to either a) trust a scholar to tell them what God’s Word says, b) develop their own canons of validating God’s Word by learning Greek and Hebrew and the history of text-criticism, or c) put their head in the sand and ignore the sign post under each verse that says, “this may or may not be God’s Word.” It seems that in an attempt to appease the mockers of God’s Word, scholars have simply given up God’s Word altogether. Yes, this is an all or nothing sort of situation. You cannot say in one breath that the Word of God is reliable, and then in the next say we don’t know what God’s Word originally said. There is no middle ground here. Either we know or we don’t. I think if Evangelical scholars took Bart Ehrman more seriously they may recognize that his fundamental problem is the fundamental problem with modern textual scholarship. It is the problem that the historical protestants defended by standing on the self-authenticating principle of Scripture. 

The false dichotomy of “radical skepticism” and “absolute certainty” misses the point of this discussion entirely. All Christians are commanded to have absolute certainty in the Holy Scriptures. If one rejects absolute certainty, then there is no middle ground between that and radical skepticism. This perhaps would require some scholar producing a work which catalogues all of the verses that are generally reliable and those that are not. Even if that work were produced, it would have an asterisk next to every determination that would read, “I have no way of proving this.” The fruit of such an opinion is evident in the real world. Since the axioms and implementation of modern text-criticism has only produced a data set, and not a text, every single Christian with a bit of knowledge on the topic is encouraged to produce their own text.This is made clear in the fact that this is exactly what Christians are doing. 

The modern printed texts are simply a guide as to what one should read as Scripture. Protestantism was founded on the self-authenticating principle of Scripture, Sola Scriptura. This was the foundational doctrine which caused the Reformation to succeed. Christians did not need a magisterium for Scripture to be authenticated, the Scriptures themselves provided the authority. Yet, in the modern period, this has been abandoned. Every Protestant has their own Bible, their own authority, which may or may not be God’s Word. Christians leap into battle with this Bible and try to combat the Muslim or the Roman Catholic, and they do so thinking that they are winning. The fact is, when Christians adopt an uncertain view of the text, they rush into battle with a Nerf sword thinking they have a hardened Claymore, and the opponents of the faith know it. Why do you think these apologists are so eager to broadcast these debates worldwide? 

I can already see people trying to make this conversation about textual variants, because that is all they can do. Yet, I want people to remember, when an Evangelical shouts about variants from a modern critical text position, they are standing on grounds that cannot support any of their claims with any amount of certainty. Absolute certainty is bad, if you recall. Remember this quote the next time somebody tries to say they know what the author originally wrote at Ephesians 3:9 or 1 John 5:7: “We do not have now – in our critical Greek texts or any translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it.” Any argument for absolute certainty on a text from a modern critical perspective is built on a foundation that does not claim to know what the original reading said absolutely. There is no consistent methodology that can produce a printed text that represents exactly what the prophets and the apostles wrote, and the honest scholars admit as much. So when somebody says, “I want what Paul wrote!” and then argues for a modern critical methodology, just remember that they have not adopted a methodology that can produce what Paul wrote. 

Even if it could, they would not know it. At the end of the day, they are cold and naked, trusting with blind faith that their autonomous reasoning and critical methodologies have given them at least a middle ground between skepticism and certainty. That is why the war which is waged against those with absolute certainty doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. The real argument that is made when somebody asks, “Which TR?” or makes a demonstration from evidence against or for a reading is, “Why are you so certain that this reading is original?” The only thing that is inherently problematic, from a modern critical perspective, is absolute certainty, not the readings themselves. Anybody who says that the readings themselves are wrong is simply being inconsistent, because they have adopted a system that does not pretend to have produced original readings (or at least know they have produced original readings). It is impossible to have any legitimate problems with a particular printed text because these critics aren’t claiming to know what it says themselves! The only appropriate answer from a modern critical perspective to somebody who believes 1 John 5:7 is Scripture is simply, “I don’t have confidence that that is original, but I can’t prove it either way.”

I imagine that many will take issue with this article. They will say that I have misrepresented the perspectives and opinions of those who adopt a form of substantial preservation. To these critics I say, can you produce a list of verses that the people of God should be certain about? Would you be willing to take those verses to Bart Ehrman and DC Parker  and Eldon J. Epp and say that those readings are original? Can you detail the methodology you used to determine which doctrines are important and which are not? Can you prove to me that the verses you deemed unoriginal weren’t in the original text of the prophets and apostles? Did you use a methodology that is consistent and repeatable? The fact is, there is not a single responsible scholar alive who would be willing to produce answers for these questions. Instead, they will instruct Christians to believe that a) we don’t know absolutely what the prophets and apostles said and b) that Christians should believe that the words placed in the printed Greek texts and translations are the words of the prophets and apostles anyway, with a medium amount of certainty. Either that, or they will continue to shout about a particular variant they have researched and ignore the underlying reality that I have presented in this article. 

This is not the ticket, church. The only outcome of this view, ironically, is radical skepticism. Fortunately, God is not tossed to and fro by the opinions of 21st century scholars. He has indeed given His Scriptures to the church, and the church has received them in time. I don’t believe that God is “generally reliable,” I believe He is absolutely reliable. Which means I believe His Word is absolutely reliable, and should be absolutely trusted. If the only grounds we have for believing in Scripture is the conclusions of modern textual scholars, I don’t see any good reasons for any Christian to believe in the Scriptures at all. Yet, the Scriptures are clear. The grounds for believing in Scripture is the fact that God has spoken, and has spoken in His Word. If God has truly spoken in His Word, the Holy Scriptures, then Christians have every reason to believe that they can be absolutely certain about God’s Word.