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The Battle Against Onlyism

The Young, Textless, and Reformed6 Comments

Introduction

One of the biggest victories of postmodernism in the church is the demonization of objectivity. Subjectivity is celebrated and put on a pedestal so often that Christianity has all but lost its identity. This is abundantly clear if you have been following the SBC in recent years or have had a conversation with the average person about Christianity recently. There are as many forms of Christianity in 2021 as there are Bible translations. New translations and paraphrases have flooded the market with essentially no real pushback. So called “reformed” men have written textbooks endorsing the MSG.

Rather than fighting against the absurdity of having over 500 English Bible translations, “Conservatives” have labeled this an “embarrassment of riches” and encourage believers to read a smattering of translations. The problem, according to the modern church, is not that there are four different versions of the ESV, or that the MSG exists. The issue, they say, is against the people who decide to read one translation – the “Onlyists”.

It is clear that the battle that mainstream conservative wants to fight is onlyism rather than pluralism in Bible translations. This being the case, I want to examine what is being set forth by a pluralistic view on Bible translations. I have summarized it in a list below.

  1. There should not be unity over Bible translation
  2. There is not one translation that is better than the other
  3. Bible translations should be viewed as tools to access the Word of God, not the Word of God itself
  4. Changes to translations or new translations demonstrate that the words themselves do not matter

Unity in Bible Translation

The battle against the “Onlyists” is launched from the place that there is not one translation that is better than another, and that unity should not be had in one translation.. This points to the reality that the pluralists understand translations as a tool to access the Word of God, not the Word of God itself. This of course is stated plainly in the theological statement, “There are no perfect translations.” What this actually means is that there are no perfectly accurate translations. Every translation has errors, and therefore all must be used as a tool to understand Scripture. They claim that this is because language cannot be translated perfectly into another. In other words, translations are tools that imperfectly point to the Word of God.

Now this raises an important questions then, if translations are tools, what exactly is Scripture? What exactly are we looking at when we open up an English bible translation? Since a translation cannot be perfectly accurate, the translation itself is not “the very Word of God,” it is something that estimates or perhaps approximates the very Word of God. This must be true, seeing as the pluralists take no issue with any of the four versions of the ESV that exist. Using just one translation as an example, we can clearly see that the exact material of the translation does not matter.

That means that theologically speaking, the modern view understands the original language texts as “The Word of God,” and that translations are tools that point to it. Since there are no translations that accurately set forth the original, we must then look to what they say about the original language texts. According to them, we do not have the original in any original language texts or in any translations. In summary, not only does the original not exist today, if it did, we wouldn’t know we had it, and further, we couldn’t translate it accurately. That is to say that if you are at a church that holds to the modern doctrine of Scripture, your doctrinal statements mean absolutely nothing.

What is peculiar is that this is not seen as an issue, despite it clearly contradicting even the most simple orthodox statement of faith on Scripture which says, “The Bible is the very Word of God.” If by “the Bible” these statements mean “The Bible we use here at this church,” then the statement itself is actually contradictory because that Bible is just an imperfect approximation of texts that are not original. Despite the fact that this view voids the majority of doctrinal statements found in Church charters and doctrinal statements, the real problem is seen to be the “Onlyists.” That is the fight the modern church wants to take in the 21st century.

Conclusion

As much as conservatives in 2021 want to think that they have a sturdy theology of Scripture, the reality is that they do not. Recently, a pastor stated in a sermon that, “We can get back to what the autographa or original documents said via the transmitted text; it’s truly incredible.” This is quite common, even though there is not a single textual scholar who believes that or says that. If any pastor has done this, he should probably produce that original so that the textual scholars can close shop. The above quote demonstrates the disconnect between what the textual scholars are actually saying and what the average pastor thinks has been said. The problem is that these very same pastors can listen to a Dan Wallace lecture, hear him say that we do not have the original, and somehow come away from the lecture believing that we have the original.

Now the truly paradoxical thing about all this is that the very same people who advocate for this view present the discussion as though the “onlyists” are the problem. Further, the average pastor believes that we have truly found the original while appealing to men who adamantly state the opposite. I invite my reader to come to a conclusion. Does the person who upholds the pluralistic view have any ground to object to any other view of Scripture? Is the battle against the “onlyists” warranted? I will suggest, in conclusion, that the pluralists are sailing in a burning boat, shouting at a boat that is not on fire.

Young, Textless, and Reformed YouTube Content

The Young, Textless, and ReformedLeave a comment

Greetings to those that follow my blog! I wanted to make a quick post letting people know that I have also been posting content on my YouTube channel which can be found here. My goal for 2021 is to continue posting articles and to also do video reviews of various blogs, comment threads, and other interactions related to the theology of textual scholarship on my YouTube channel. Here is a video I recently did reviewing the Critical Text view on preservation.

Objectives for Young, Textless, & Reformed in 2021

The Young, Textless, and Reformed9 Comments

In this post I am going to give an overview of the goals and accomplishments of this blog, as well as provide an outline for what I will be working on in 2021.

Original Goal

The original goal for this blog was twofold. The first objective was to present and defend the historic Protestant view of the doctrine of Scripture. The second was to present a polemic towards the Critical Text using the source material as published by scholars working in the field of New Testament textual scholarship. I have generally avoided writing articles on textual variants unless I can use them to comment on the theological implications of the textual discussion. I see this as the niche I can add most value to and will continue staying in the lane of historic Protestant theology as it applies to this discussion.

Accomplishments

While I can’t speak to how successful I was at achieving my goal, this blog has definitely drawn the attention of many Critical Text apologists, including James White and Mark Ward. I have written 143 posts totaling 249,889 words and has received over 37,000 views since the end of 2019 when I started the site. I never expected this much traffic, which is very humbling, especially for a topic that is so specialized.

Goals Going Forward

This year, I want to make this blog more accessible by organizing the posts into helpful categories and cover any aspects of the conversation that I have not covered yet. The question I have for my audience is whether I should continue writing at a popular level or offer a more technical look at the discussion. I have intentionally avoided being overly technical so that the concepts are accessible by all, but I see the value in writing some articles that can be used as a better resource outside of popular polemics.

User Input & Conclusion

Since I started this blog, I have been overwhelmed by the great feedback and interactions of my audience. I want to continue being accessible to my audience and writing articles “on the fly” as they are requested. Now, to you, my reader. What would you like to see from this blog in 2021? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated in the comments. Thanks again to my reader, I look forward to what this year has to offer.

Critical Text Conspiracy Theories

The Young, Textless, and Reformed3 Comments

Introduction

Occasionally a conspiracy theory comes along that is so compelling that it actually becomes mainstream “science.” This is actually quite common in the scientific community. In just my lifetime, the world was supposed to end at least three times due to apocalyptic climate events. I can recall at least two blockbuster Hollywood movies from my childhood that detailed the impending demise of the Earth. Seeing that I am writing this article now, that clearly never happened. In my relatively short time on Earth, I have learned that scientists have a tendency to do more storytelling than actual science. This especially applies to the scholars and “Scientists” of the Critical Text.

A Conspiracy Theory That Makes the Flat Earthers Blush

According to the Critical Text scholars, the Bible was originally penned according to God (possibly), but quickly became corrupted due to the fact that Christians haphazardly and carelessly copied the text. Due to persecution, wars, and the fact that these manuscripts were scribed on highly sensitive papyri, we do not have any direct extant manuscript evidence that the entire New Testament existed until around the fourth century. Only lists of canonical books and extant quotations, often paraphrased, let us know that the Bible wasn’t a fourth century invention. So while it is commonly accepted that a Christian text existed, the exact form of the original is unknown. Shortly after the fourth century, which is the first time in history that we have evidence for a complete New Testament, Christians engaged in a massive, multi-regional conspiracy to amend the text to solidify orthodoxy.

They added stories and passages, smoothed out grammar, and amplified Christ’s divinity. As a result of this conspiracy, the majority of New Testament manuscripts are largely uniform and do not represent the original form of the text. This obviously could not have been God’s work. Fortunately for the church, God was watching and acted. Not wanting His people to permanently corrupt the text, He providentially stashed the Scriptures away in barrels, caves, trash heaps, the Vatican, and a monastery lined with skulls, knowing that Christians would not find them. Nearly 1800 years later, God appointed it time that the true text of Holy Scripture should be found by more reasonable men, only not in totality. Despite God’s best efforts, some portions of the text were permanently corrupted by Christians in their attempt to solidify orthodoxy and harmonize the text to fix contradictions that were present in the original. The original may exist in the totality of the manuscript tradition, though, as some scholars say, we wouldn’t know it even if that were the case.

A Grand Conspiracy

Like all conspiracy theories, the Critical Text proposes that a wide spread network conspired to deceive and manipulate a population of people. In this case, the Christians changed the Bible, and were successful in deceiving the people of God for over 1,000 years. One way to scrutinize such theories is to call into question the technological sophistication and coordination of such an effort. How could the United States have faked a moon landing under the nose of the American people? The amount of coordination and precision to execute such a conspiracy without evidence would have had to be breathtaking. In the same way, such a grand recension of the Biblical text would have been stunningly secret, as we have no evidence that anything like that ever happened. If the Christian church did indeed fix the Biblical text, it would be the most well organized conspiracy in the history of the world.

Conclusion

There are two main stories that are told when it comes to explaining the manuscript tradition of the New Testament text. The first is detailed above. The second is that these early manuscripts are anomalous survivors that don’t represent the original as well as the majority of manuscripts. Rather than proposing a grand conspiracy, the lack of pure majority text manuscripts in the first four hundred years of the church can be justified using the same explanation the Critical Text scholars use to explain why there is no uniform “text-type” at all in the first 500 years of the church – wars, persecution, and fragile manuscripts. Both stories share the same common thread, only one of them requires a grand conspiracy to fill in the gaps. It should not shock anybody that the papyrus which the New Testament was written on, which has a maximum shelf life of 500 years, didn’t survive in any substantial way into the 21st century.

There is a reason Occam’s Razor is such a popular principle. The simplest of two explanations that accounts for all the facts is more likely to be correct. So what is more simple, that a few manuscripts were severely corrupted during a time of persecution and doctrinal dispute, or that the majority of manuscripts were corrupted in a grand conspiracy to change the text of Scripture? The lack of manuscripts in the early church is easily explained by what is known by everybody who has studied that time period – war, persecution, fires, and manuscript decay. The uniformity of later manuscripts is most easily explained as simply being the continuation of the same tradition that previously existed. All factors are accounted for with the second scenario, and the variation in the majority tradition is explained in the same way variation is accounted for in the minority tradition. There is no need to imagine a grand conspiracy theory to explain something that has a rather simple explanation.

The Absurdity of Anti-KJV Rhetoric

The Young, Textless, and Reformed4 Comments

Introduction

There are a number of reasons people choose a Bible translation. For those in the Modern Critical Text crowd, it’s often the same logic that caused many people to vote for Joe Biden – because he wasn’t the other guy. In the same way, the modern axiom seems to be, “So as long as it’s not the KJV it’s fine.” In fact, this is exactly the logic found in mainstream, “Reformed” New Testament exegesis textbooks such as How to Understand and Apply the New Testament authored by Andrew Naselli. All translations are permissible, even the Message, so as long as it’s not the KJV. The Living Bible even has more to offer than the King James, according to Naselli!

This, in my opinion, is astronomically stupid. There are plenty of reasons to believe that the King James is the best available translation without believing that the English of the King James was re-inspired. This is true, even if the modern scholars and armchair warriors disagree. In this article, I will examine two common arguments made by anti-KJV Christians to see if what they say actually makes any sense.

Reading One Bible Version is Bad

This is a rather common complaint from the Modern Critical Text crowd. They suppose that being an “onlyist” is a bad thing. Yet when we look at this claim simply, it doesn’t make all that much sense. There are plenty of people who read the NIV and only the NIV. Same goes with the ESV and the NASB. They do this because they prefer one translation over another. Despite this being quite common, I’ve never seen a Gospel Coalition article condemning people for preferring the ESV or people writing books about people who only read the ESV. What this reveals is that the issue, at least when considered broadly, is not with people only reading one translation, the problem is with the KJV itself. So when somebody says, “I just have an issue with people who only read the KJV because they believe all of the other translations are bad,” they are really saying that they just don’t like that people read the KJV. It’s okay if somebody only reads the ESV, just not the KJV.

The problem is not with the “Onlyist” part of KJVO, it’s the “KJV” part of KJVO. Ironically, when I was in the critical text crowd, I constantly saw people bickering, especially on behalf of the NASB, about how their choice translation is the BEST translation. This may be news for some people, but it’s okay to have an opinion about which translation is best. It demonstrates that somebody cares about the words on the page of their Bible. It’s actually more concerning, in my opinion, when people give so little concern about the words in their Bible that they actually think all Bibles are made equal. This is drawn to its absurd end when respectable scholars such as Andrew Naselli defend the MSG in a textbook marketed to Reformed Christians. If somebody says it is more profitable to read the MSG than the KJV, what would you say the real issue is? If Naselli and the critical text advocate’s only issue is “Onlyism,” I’d like to see a chapter dedicated in the next “Reformed” textbook about why “ESV Onlyism” is heresy. Of course they won’t because the issue isn’t with “Onlyism,” it’s with the KJV.

KJV Onlyism is Bad Because it Rejects Modern Translations

The premise of this argument assumes that modern translations are not bad, or that somebody is not allowed to believe that modern translations are bad. This again, is absurd. The scholars who claim to specialize in this topic, such as Mark Ward and Dan Wallace, admit as much when they say there are no perfectly accurate modern translations. They write this off as the inevitability of sinners having produced them, but secular scholars accurately translate things all the time. Modern Scholars talk about modern translations like a mother talks lovingly about her child who got held back two years in grade school. “He’s gets the answers wrong a lot, but he has a huge heart and has a lot to offer in other areas.”

If the modern Bible translations, by admission of the scholars, get it wrong a lot, why is it so absurd when people choose something else? If the top scholars tell Christians that reading all modern translations is profitable because none of them get it 100% right, is it possible that the “KJVO” crowd might be onto something? Who am I kidding though, it might pain a modern critical text advocate to be overly charitable to people who read the KJV or admit that a gap-toothed KJVO might be correct about something. This again highlights that the real issue that the modern critical text advocate has is with the KJV and nothing else.

Further, people that don’t read the KJV reject modern translations all the time. There is a reason John MacArthur made his own translation rather than subjecting himself to the NASB 2020. Is John MacArthur now a Legacy Bible onlyist? Should somebody write treatises against him too? I’d like to see Mark Ward issue a “sincere” offer to John MacArthur like he did to Trinitarian Bible Society to convince him to change his ways. Since rejecting translations is common in the modern critical text crowd, it seems reasonable to say that rejecting Bible translations isn’t the unforgiveable sin of somebody who reads the KJV. As one would expect, reading the KJV is the unforgiveable sin of the person who reads the KJV.

Conclusion

Whenever I interact with people who think they doing the world a service by eradicating “KJV Onlyists” from the face of the earth, it always comes to light that they aren’t actually talking about “KJV Onlyism.” I run a somewhat-popular blog in the “KJV Only” world and I have only ever had one person in support of Peter Ruckman comment on my blog or YouTube. Ultimately, the term “KJVO” is just another tool for people to bludgeon people on the internet. If you actually make somebody define what they mean by “KJVO,” they are simply talking about people who read the King James. The great sin of only reading one translation, despite being something that many people do, is only wrong when that one translation is the KJV.

I have pointed this out before on this blog, but the “KJV Onlyists” seem to be the only people that are actually paying attention to what the scholars are saying. Scholars are praised for saying the same exact thing that “King James Onlyists” are saying. The “KJV Onlyist” will say that all modern translations have error, and that is why they read the KJV. Dan Wallace will say the same thing and he gets invited to speak in your churches and seminaries. So what makes the “KJV Onlyist” different than Dan Wallace? Dan Wallace doesn’t read the KJV. The problem that modern critical text advocates have is not with “KJV Onlyism,” it is with the KJV.



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

Elijah Hixson & Peter Gurry. Myths & Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism. xii. Quote by Dan Wallace.

The real problem is when somebody believes that the theology behind the above Dan Wallace quote is less dangerous than believing than God has preserved His Word and the KJV is an accurate translation of it. Perhaps we will see some scholars writing treatises about that in the future, but I won’t hold my breath.

Anti-KJV Discussion Board Sustains Injury While Highfiving Each Other

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

I recently discovered a Bible Version Discussion board devoted to people who love cheering each other on in an Anti-KJV bubble. I spent some time perusing the post titles and content and I’ll admit, it was very entertaining. I imagine in some alternate timeline I would enjoy hanging out with these people, as they have a similar sense of humor to mine. If we can learn anything from this discussion board, is that Christians need to be able to take an insult and not record 20 hours of Dividing Line content demonstrating what thin skin looks like in real time. So my reader can have some context, I will be very loosely using a post entitled, “Dane Johnson Writes About Preservation But Says Nothing Important” as a mold for this post. I am particularly entertained by this post title because it a) in accordance to the Chad handbook, intentionally spells Pastor Johannsson’s name wrong and b) is dismissive in a way that I find particularly fun. The first rule to asserting dominance is to pretend like you don’t know somebody’s name. In any case, this article is not going to be a rebuttal, but rather an introduction. Hello, my name is Taylor “Hernando” DeSoto and I accept your invitation to banter.

Finding a Needle in a Haystack with No Points

I’m sure there are plenty of things to critique my articles for, which is unfortunate that “Maestroh” couldn’t find any. Unfortunately, for somebody who calls themselves “Master”, he is equally awful at thinking and spelling. Or perhaps he’s going with the Spanish word for teacher…in any case, the mispelling of either is rather unfortunate. I’m actually not a fan of correcting grammar or spelling, but in this case I felt it appropriate.

Now you may think that I am being quite uncharitable, and you’d be correct. This is how we have fun together, right? If I were to take every critique seriously I’d have pulled all my hair out years ago. Out of the rebuttals given, the most substantial I could find were claims of strawmen and simply ignoring what was said in the article being addressed. Since there is nothing substantial to rebut in the post responding to Pastor Johannsson, I’ll simply offer a critique to demonstrate to my reader the “kind of argumentation you’re going to find out there.” Shouts of “strawmen” and “Genetic Fallacy” might mean something if Maestroh and his pals didn’t do so themselves at every turn (Although I do like that I’ve been fondly nicknamed “hernando” and “The little bald guy”). I rather like the alternate reality in which I am descended from a Spanish Conquistador and am not a 200 pound fat man. In any case, the examples given of strawmen and genetic fallacies weren’t relevant to the points made by Pastor Johannsson, which I suppose I’ll investigate in further detail in a later post. This is an introduction after all.

The real problem with all of Maestroh’s critiques, as I can tell, is that he refuses to take the scholars at face value. For example, he looks at what Dan Wallace says, and shouts “context!” when Dan Wallace clearly says that there is no Bible and will never be a Bible. The surrounding context is that Dan Wallace doesn’t think that not having the Bible shouldn’t give Christians any discomfort because finding the original text isn’t in Dan Wallace’s per view. Unlike those in the Critical Text crowd, we let our reader decide if such statements should be cause for concern. Furthermore, Maestroh, despite engaging in polemics himself, seems to dislike it when others engage in polemics. If you’re wondering why I haven’t actually rebutted anything our critic has said (yet) is because he hasn’t actually engaged with anything said other than to blame “context” or “strawmen” or “genetic fallacies” for his inability to offer a meaningful response. I highly advise my reader to check the article linked above out to see for yourself the quality of argument we see from our dear Maestroh.

In Maestroh’s world, the scholars don’t mean what they say and nobody is questioning our beloved passages such as John 3:16. It would be easy enough to simply read my articles or the quoted source material to find that he is characteristically wrong. Perhaps Maestroh and MMR can have fun finding the “context” of the quotes from this article in his next post. I suggest the title, “Funny Bald Man Tyler Soto Can’t Read”. For those that perhaps don’t know me in real life, I write this article with a light heart as I sip my third cup of black coffee. I have a feeling Maestroh can handle critique better than James White. If not, I suppose I read the room wrong, which is common for a person like me.

Conclusion

As I understand it, our dear Maestroh is away at a funeral, so I’d appreciate if my reader would join me in praying for him and those near him. And no, that is not tongue and cheek. I look forward to engaging with our Masked Maestroh in the future. I hope my reader is excited for articles that address his specific rebuttals. As for now, consider this an introduction to a new series in which I will demonstrate to the world what Critical Text argumentation looks like in the blogosphere and beyond. Hopefully you can have as much fun as I did reading the absurdity that is the KJV Only discussion board on Tapatalk.

Quotes That Everybody Should Copy and Paste on Any Post About Textual Criticism

The Young, Textless, and Reformed10 Comments

Introduction

Have you ever wanted to disperse the crowd of Critical Text enthusiasts from a Facebook feed? Here are some quotes that should help you demonstrate to the fool his folly.

The Modern Critical Text is Not the Original, Inspired Text

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

Elijah Hixson & Peter Gurry. Myths & Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism. xii. Quote by Dan Wallace.

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

Dirk Jongkind. An Introduction to the Greek New Testament. 90.

The CBGM Isn’t Going to Give Us the Original Text

“I do not think the method is of any value for establishing the text of the New Testament”

Bengt Alexanderson. Problems in the New Testament: Old Manuscripts and Papyri, the New Coherence-Based-Genealogical Method (CBGM) and the Editio Critica Maior (ECM). 117.

“The reason is that there is a methodological gap between the start of the textual tradition as we have it and the text of the autograph itself. Any developments between these two points are outside the remit of textual criticism proper. Where there is “no trace [of the original text] in the manuscript tradition” the text critic must, on Mink’s terms, remain silent.” 

Peter Gurry. A Critical Examination of the Coherence based Genealogical Method. 93.

“Many of us would feel that Initial Text – if inadequately defined and therefore open to be understood as the First Text or Starting Text in an absolute sense – suggests greater certainty than our knowledge of transmission warrants.”

Eldon J. Epp. Which Text?. 70.

“In all, there were in the Catholic Letters thirty-two uses of brackets compared to forty-three uses of the diamond and in Acts seventy-eight cases of brackets compared to 155 diamonds. This means that there has been an increase in both the number of places marked as uncertain and an increase in the level of uncertainty being marked. Overall, then, this reflects a slightly greater uncertainty about the earliest text on the part of the editors.”   

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence Based Genealogical Method. 7.

“At best, pregenealogical coherence [computer] only tells us how likely it is that a variant had multiple sources of origin rather than just one…pregenealogical coherence is only one piece of the text-critical puzzle. The other pieces – knowledge of scribal tendencies, the date and quality of manuscripts, versions, and patristic citations, and the author’s theology and style are still required…As with so much textual criticism, there are no absolute rules here, and experience serves as the best guide”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence Based Genealogical Method. 56,57. Emphasis mine.

Articles on the CBGM

The Initial Text is Not the Authorial or Original Text

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

DC Parker. Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament. 27.

“But we need not then believe that the Initial Text is an authorial text, or a definitive text, or the only form in which the works once circulated”

DC Parker. Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament. 29.

What Textual Scholars Believe About Scripture

“In practice New Testament textual critics today tend to be Christians themselves, but not always. It does not matter, for the quality of their work does not depend on their faith but on their adherence to academic standards.”

Jan Krans. http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2020/10/why-textus-receptus-cannot-be-accepted.html. October 22, 2020.

“I should add a word of warning, that in the case of biblical research and bibliography will inevitably find theology dragged into it at some point. Where a text is revered by some people as divinely inspired, in some cases as verbally precise pronouncement by an all-powerful God, or even at its least dramatic when it is viewed as a helpful guide for daily life, the findings of the bibliographer may be of particular importance. And in case we get too carried away with the importance of penmanship and of the texts by which it is preserved, let us remember that our codices are not all in all, and may be no more than a byproduct of our lives”

DC Parker. Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament. 30,31.

“We are trying to piece together a puzzle with only some of the pieces.”

Peter Gurry. A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence Based Genealogical Method. 112.

The Textus Receptus Was the Text of the Protestant Reformation

“Historically speaking, the Textus Receptus was the Greek New Testament of the Reformation.”

Jan Krans. http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2020/10/why-textus-receptus-cannot-be-accepted.html. October 22, 2020.

“Beza acquired a very high status in Protestant and especially Calvinist circles during his lifetime and in the first generations after him. His Greek text was not contested but faithfully reprinted; through the Elzevir editions it was elevated to the status of ‘received text’, textus receptus. ”

Jan Krans. Beyond What is Written. 197.

Article: No, Beza Was Not Doing Modern Textual Criticism

The Reformed Did Not Believe, As Modern Scholars Do, That “The Original” Meant the Lost Autographs

“By the original texts, we do not mean the autographs written by the hand of Moses, of the prophets and of the apostles, which certainly do not now exist. We mean their apographs which are so called because they set forth to us the word of God in the very words of those who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit”

Francis Turretin. Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. I, 106.

Hopefully this gives you some helpful ammunition when dealing with people who reject that God has given His Word to His people.

Just Give Me a King James

The Young, Textless, and Reformed3 Comments

We are in tumultuous times, dear reader. Pastors are being arrested and fined for obeying the command to meet. Cowards and effeminate men abandon pulpits for Zoom conferences while the people of God hunger for the preached word. An entire generation missed a whole year of communion, fellowship, hugs, school, and more due to these men. Many people learned of the term “Pediatric Suicide” in the last year. Even more people were far more concerned with their personal safety and not getting sick than the aforementioned horror. The youth do not respect their parents, but that should not be a surprise, given that the elders in our society have delegated child-rearing to the state. The parents who should have been bold examples capitulated at every turn, and the children saw it happen.

Meanwhile, the church is doing what it has done best for decades – bicker. She squabbles about textual variants while Mark Ward makes videos about how the English language is too difficult to understand. The academic-seminary-elites have replaced the authority given to pastors by God. In 2021, the church is ruled by “Thus saith the doctor” rather than “Thus saith the Lord.” Moses borrowed from Hammurabi because the doctor said so. The Old Testament isn’t about Christ because the doctor said so. Christianity is inseparable from white supremacy because the doctor said so. Going to church is selfish because the doctor said so. Christians cannot sing together because the doctor said so. Humans are subservient to the Earth because the doctor said so. We don’t have a Bible because the doctor said so. Welcome to 2021, where as long as a doctor says it, it must be so. Christians are more fearful of being “anti-scientific” than of God Himself.

The church faces a new papacy, and its priests and cardinals are men with letters after their name. Christians have turned from the I AM to the PhD for their authority, and the resulting fruit is rotten. The church needs another Reformation, and like the first, it must begin with a return to God’s Word. What the church needs is for the saints to be radical, and not in the Dave Platt sort of way. God has not bestowed the means of grace to the academy, and where the academy disagrees with God’s Word, so too must Christians disagree with the academy. The most simple way to do this, is to just give the people of God a KJV.

Before you balk at this, think of it this way. The academics say, “We do not have now -in our critical Greek texts or in any translations – exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it. There are many, many places in which the text of the New Testament is uncertain” (Dan Wallace). Those very same academics who reject the infallibility and preservation of Scripture devote chapters of their books to “debunking” the text basis for the KJV. They hold seminars dedicated to convincing the church that the KJV should be retired. They create entire units in seminary for the same cause. Why is that? Because the Christian who reads the KJV is not swept up by their pseudo-intellectual clanging. The Christian who reads the KJV is immune to the drivel of the doctor.

The Christian who reads the KJV has a Bible that does not change, much to the dismay of the doctor. The Christian who reads the KJV has a Bible with clearly defined gendered language, much to the dismay of the doctor. The Christian who reads the KJV has a higher reading comprehension than those that read a modern version, much to the dismay of the doctor. The Christian that reads the KJV rejects the entire scope of modern, liberal, academic effort to change and dismantle the Bible, much to the dismay of the doctor. The Christian who reads the KJV trusts that translations can be accurate, much to the dismay of the doctor. The Christian who reads the KJV isn’t a cash cow to the Christian publishing complex, much to the dismay of the doctor. The Christian who reads the KJV makes the work of the doctor irrelevant, because the doctor has nothing relevant to say.

Just give the people of God a KJV, and if the doctor wants the ear the of church, make him say something the church is actually interested in. The people of God do not need to hear about how the Bible is impossibly corrupt, they get that from the world. The Christian does not need a lesson on how Christ is void from the Psalms, they get that from the world. The Christian does not need to be told of the “historical Jesus”, they get that from the world. If the doctors want the respect of the church, they must say something different than what the world is saying – and right now, they are saying nothing other than what the world is saying. And since the church takes its lead from the doctor, the church is saying what the world is saying. The world doesn’t need a worldly church, it needs a faithful church. It needs a bold church. It needs a church that trusts the I AM and not the PhD.

The Academic Veil: Modern Research Methods

The Young, Textless, and Reformed8 Comments

Introduction

This article is going to be different than my usual brand of writing, as it does not directly pertain to textual criticism, but rather research methods. Research methods is the most neglected topic of study, in my opinion. Many people are easily fooled by academics because they are unfamiliar with how to evaluate footnotes and sources. I recently had a book recommended to me called Stamped from the Beginning, which I was told was legitimate because it had “hundreds of footnotes.” When I began to read it, I noticed that many of the footnotes were simply references to the author’s peers and colleagues. When I studied The King James Only Controversy, I found many issues with the way footnotes were employed. In both cases, the authors utilized footnotes and citations to give the guise of credibility despite the footnotes not providing any value to the point that was being made.

In almost every modern controversy that I have taken the time to research, it seems to be the case that the way authors cite their sources and approach historical studies is rather vacuous. This is especially the case with popular level writers more so than scholars. This effectively means that a scholar or non-scholar can cite another work while simply imposing their own viewpoint over the historical data without regard to the citation itself. The citation does not need to be relevant, nor does the author need to represent the cited material accurately, because the chances of the reader actually checking the validity of the citations is extremely low. This creates the effect of a work being well researched, well cited, while at the same time being nothing more than assertions presented by the author. Yet, it has “hundreds of footnotes,” and is therefore “legitimate.” In this article, I’d like to detail what is called gatekeeping (probably a different application of the word than you are used to) while pointing out how various modern tactics can mislead readers under the guise of “proper scholarship.”

Research Methods: Gatekeeping

Gatekeeping is one of the most valuable skills any reader can employ as they approach a new text. Simply put, a gatekeeper is someone that stands in between two points. Gatekeeping, as it pertains to studying, is a method that stands in between the reader and the author. In the application of evaluating a work, gatekeeping allows a reader to identify the quality of a citation. It is easy to read a book with hundreds of citations, and think that it is well sourced and legitimate on those grounds alone. It gives the reader a false sense of security that the material is more trustworthy than it actually is in reality. That is why gatekeeping is so important. It protects the reader’s mind from any unlawful access.

Simply put, gatekeeping is the process of researching the research. When a reader stumbles upon a footnote, he should test the quality of that citation. Who is the author citing? What are the qualifications of the cited source material? What are the beliefs or systems set forth by the author of cited material? Does the cited material directly apply to the point the author is making within the main text? Is the cited material well sourced itself or just the same assertion being made by another author? Answering these questions will help a reader develop a mature understanding of the material.

It is not enough simply to cite a source, that source has to be meaningful to the point the author is making. It has to amplify the credibility of an assertion by adding weight. It grounds an assertion to reality. Many footnotes fail to do this, yet give the reader a false sense of security that a point is legitimate simply because the footnote or citation exists. It is often the case, especially in modern scholarship, that scholars will incestuously cite scholars within their own camp to prove a point that was no more established in the cited source material than it is in the work where the citation is employed.

Another way that gatekeeping protects the reader is by evaluating the system of the of the author of cited material. In a book recently published by a well known Reformed Baptist on Covenant Theology, the author makes repeated reference to Meredith Kline, JV Fesko, Tom Schreiner, and John Owen when making points supporting his framework of Reformed Baptist Covenant Theology. It is always a red flag when an author utilizes source material to arrive at a different conclusion than the cited text. The author may not be wrong for doing so, but the reader must ask, “Why is the author using material to support a point that the cited material wasn’t making?” The reader must demand that the author justify the use of every citation, and connect that justification to the actual point being made. It is not wrong to cite sources from people who disagree, but it is important that the reader scrutinize those citations if the author does not make the purpose of using such a citation abundantly clear in his point.

Simply put, the reader must ensure that the author is accurately representing the data, or at least explain why he is using a citation to support a different system than that which was set forth in the cited material. A careful reader examines the validity of every citation. In this example, it is important to try and understand why modern Reformed Baptists are using John Owen to support a new system on Reformed Baptist covenant theology. If the claim is that “this is what Baptists believed,” why must the author travel to different systems to support it? The author may be justified in the citation, but the reader must apply a careful eye to ensure that he does not adopt an incongruent view. It is not the case that Reformed Baptist is necessarily incorrect for citing a Paedobaptist or New Covenant Theologian, but the reader must take the time to ask and answer the questions if the author doesn’t make it abundantly clear. Do not allow an author to smuggle an idea into your brain in the trojan horse of a footnote. A careful reader must demand that an author justify his citations. If the author has not done that, there is no reason to accept any assertion supported by such a citation.

Conclusion

In every discipline, whether it be political science, critical studies, Biblical studies, etc., modern academic methods have played on the reader’s ignorance in evaluating cited material to make assertions that the cited material does not support. As a reader, you must demand that an author not only cite his sources, but also justify those sources. Why is the author employing this source? Is the cited material saying the same thing as the author? Did the author of the cited material arrive at a different conclusion than the author who cited it, and did the author interact with that disagreement? Is the cited material sound in itself or is it just another scholar making the same assertion? In short, what is the value of the cited material, and how does it support the point the author is making?

Taking the time to be a gatekeeper will protect your mind from adopting vain philosophies. It will teach you to scrutinize new teachings. It will teach you to avoid adopting a new perspective on something too hastily. As a reader myself, I never adopt a position on the grounds of one author’s perspective. It is important to read a wide body of material, representing many sides of an issue, prior to settling on a topic. This is especially relevant to the discussion of textual criticism. Most people approach the conversation as an argument, seeking to prove their point while doing research into other viewpoints. If this is how a reader operates, he will most certainly arrive at the conclusion he started with in the beginning. It is the same phenomenon that occurs with low information voters. Assertions are as good as absolute truth, and nothing can change that in the minds of the undiscerning. When it comes to the issue of textual criticism, the practice of gatekeeping could not be more important when it comes to evaluating the claims of modern scholars. Hopefully this article, though off-topic for this blog, will help my reader as they approach the discussion of textual criticism.