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Mark Ward Proves That Defending Inerrancy Means Nothing

The Young, Textless, and Reformed1 Comment

Many Christians believe that it is fundamental to defend the modern doctrine of Inerrancy. This would be true, if the doctrine of Inerrancy actually set forth anything meaningful. According to Mark Ward, Inerrancy means that “The Bible speaks truly in everything it affirms” (Ward. Bibliology for Beginners. 29.) Inerrancy is the doctrine that affirms the inspiration and authority of the Bible, but only in the original texts, which are no longer extant. This effectively makes it an utterly useless doctrine. Despite this fact, Ward gives four Scripture proofs to support this doctrine (I will use Ward’s translation from the book):

  1. “Your Word is truth” (John 17:17)
  2. “God is not a man, that He should lie” (Num. 23:19)
  3. “God, who cannot lie” (Titus 1:2)
  4. “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35)

Ward continues his thought by saying something quite interesting.

“It is sin to doubt God’s words, and like all sin it is a slippery slope…But how do we know what we have in our hands is really the Bible?”

(Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible? 33. Ellipses represent a break.)

So here Ward has to answer the most important question possible. If he does not answer this question adequately, the entirety of his book is useless. The answer to this question informs what is actually substantiated by the doctrine of Inerrancy. It is one thing to say that the Bible is inerrant, and another to be able to point to a Bible and say, “This is inerrant.” So how does Ward answer this question? Well, we know, according to Ward, based on “a work called ‘textual criticism'” (49). This is where I need my reader to pay attention. See how he finishes this thought.

“Here’s where I need to say very directly, don’t be alarmed. Yes, there are differences among Greek New Testament manuscripts. Yes, I sometimes wish they weren’t there, that we knew with precise certainty what every last syllable of the Greek New Testament was. It may even seem like that’s what Jesus promised us.”

(Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible? 50.

Ward has used a clever use of words to obfuscate what he is actually saying, so I will translate for you. Surrounding this statement are explanations of the various kinds of scribal errors which do not amount to any serious variants. In this statement, he leads his reader to believe that these are the kinds of variants that we do not know “With precise certainty,” or that we are actually after “every last syllable.” What Ward is actually saying here is that we do not know with precise certainty what the original text said. At that point, whether we are talking about syllables or words does not matter, because there is no amount of granularity that can be determined with his standard. The entire purpose of this chapter is to lower the guard of the Christian’s that read this book. He concludes with this statement:

“The fact is that every available edition of the Greek New Testament gives the same law – and the same grace. They all teach the same Christian faith.”

(Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible? 50.

The first thing my reader should notice is that if this is what Ward actually believes, he has no right to attack the TR. In fact, he has no reason to write this book at all because all bibles are basically the same. The TR falls into the category of “every available edition of the Greek New Testament.” So either Ward doesn’t actually believe what he wrote here, or a good portion of his ministry is folly, according to his own standard. Not only is it folly, it is actually sin, again, according to his standard.

Secondly, my reader should notice that Ward introduces his own standard for how you should view the Bible. This is common among the Critical Text crowd. They almost always avoid exegeting the entirely of 2 Timothy 3:15-16. The Scriptures are “able to make thee wise unto salvation” in addition to being profitable for “doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” The Bible is not just a bare bones document that is only to be used for bringing people to Christ. It also informs the Christian’s entire life as it pertains to faith and practice. According to Ward, the “textual critics have weeded them (variants) out with a high degree of confidence” (Ibid. 58). That is to say that Ward has a low degree of uncertainty.

So let’s put this all together. According to Ward, “it is sin to doubt God’s words.” According to Ward, “every available edition of the Greek New Testament gives the same law – and the same Grace. They all teach the same Christian faith.” According to Ward, we can have “a high degree of confidence” in our Bible. So not only is Ward in sin for doubting the TR, he is also in sin for not having full confidence in his own Bible. He is further in sin for teaching people to sin by doubting God’s words. Keep in mind that this is all according to Ward’s own standard that he set in his book.

Lastly, I want my reader to note that nowhere has Ward actually answered the question, “how do we know that what we have in our hands is really the Bible?” He never identifies a particular text or translation and he never says anything other than that “we have a high degree of confidence” that what we have is a Bible. Which is to say, “we have a low degree of doubt.” Which again, according to Ward, is sin. The most important thing to recognize about this “high degree of confidence,” is that it is entirely arbitrary. There is no metric or component of the critical text methodology that actually allows for such a determination, which is apparent in the fact that Ward doesn’t actually substantiate anything he says in this book regarding his levels of confidence. This is the fatal flaw of the Critical Text, and everybody knows it. Mark Ward wrote an entire book about the Bible, and couldn’t even tell his reader what the Bible was, or that they could be fully confident in said Bible. According to Ward, that makes him “in sin.”

My reader needs to recognize that while this theology is actually foolish, but it is also a blessing. It is a blessing because men like Mark Ward very confidently state that they don’t actually believe in a Bible. They believe in a reconstructed text that bears witness to the Bible with a high degree of confidence. That is not the Protestant view, which allows people like you and me to mark and avoid teachers like Ward, Wallace, and White. It is the dividing line. It is the fight of this generation. People have stopped believing in the Bible and the authority of the Bible, and the aforementioned men are leading the charge to convince conservative Christians to do the same.

Mark Ward the Conspiracy Theorist

The Young, Textless, and Reformed8 Comments

Introduction

Mark Ward recently published a pamphlet in November 2020 called, Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. I’m going to do a full analysis on my YouTube channel in the coming weeks, but I ran across something too good not to comment on here. If you’re familiar with Ward’s work, you know that above all else he values that people be “nice” when disagreeing with him and people he likes. He re-emphasizes this on pages 65 and 66 when commenting on Crossway’s “Permanent Edition.”


“This means that when Crossway put out a Permanent Text Edition of their popular and excellent translation, the English Standard Version, promising no more revisions, Christian people should have complained on social media (nicely) and written into Crossway to object (nicely).”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 65-66.

Now it is comical that Mark Ward simultaneously lauds the ESV as an “excellent translation” while also stating that it is not excellent enough in its current state to be settled. I have said this often, but it’s entertaining to note that modern scholars praise their modern versions while at the same time commenting on the fact that they aren’t good enough to stay the same for more than a decade or good enough to be read in isolation. If it was such an “excellent” translation, why does it go through revisions so often or need to be supplemented with other “imperfect” translations? I imagine Crossway wouldn’t sell a lot of Bibles if they released a marketing campaign around Ward’s idea of “An imperfect Bible for an imperfect church!” Getting back to my point, we see here that Ward values the first commandment of evangelical scholarship so much he included it twice.

It is ironic that Ward very loudly and repeatedly states how much he needs people to be nice while simultaneously offering the harshest and most uncharitable critiques of people who disagree with him. He slaps people with the same hand he offers fellowship, but it’s fine as long as he does it with a soft voice and plenty silly, quirky, quips and analogies. If you don’t believe me, he literally compares the transmission of the Bible to the germs left on a cookie that one of his kids licked from top to bottom and put back in the cookie jar. In this article, I am going to demonstrate that Ward seems to have an extremely conspiratorial view of what he calls “KJV Onlyists.”

Wide Eyed Conspiracy Theories

On page 67, Ward offers the most honest definition of “KJV Onlyism” employed by Critical Text advocates.

“KJV-Onlyists insist that the KJV is the only truly trustworthy translation of Scripture. It is, they say, the best translation of the best texts.”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 67.

I have been saying for a long time that men like Ward and James White define “KJV Onlyists” as anybody who reads a KJV, but here he says it clearly. What my reader needs to recognize is that when people use the term “KJV Onlyist,” they are not talking about the views of people who graduated from Ward’s Alma Mater. They are talking about anybody who reads a KJV.

After defining “KJV Onlyism,” Ward continues to produce one of the most unhinged takes I have ever seen on page 68.

“It must be pointed out that most KJV-Only Christians believe that the vast majority of Christians who can read Greek and Hebrew are stupid, crazy, or evil (rather than simply wrong) – dupes, dummies, or devils involved in a plot to undermine the Bible’s teaching about Christ’s deity. KJV-Onlyism is, in other words, a conspiracy theory.”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 68.

In a remarkably matter-of-fact statement made by Ward, he actually alleges that “most KJV-Only Christians” believe in a vast conspiracy propagated by “stupid, crazy, or evil” Christians. He shockingly insinuates that people who read the KJV believe that “vast majority of Christians who can read Greek and Hebrew” are “dupes, dummies, or devils involved in a plot to undermine the Bible’s teaching about Christ’s deity.” This is by far the most absurd thing I have read in a very long time. There is a difference between somebody saying, “This textual variant teaches something different about the divinity of Christ” and “There is a vast conspiracy to take Christ’s divinity out of Scripture.” Ironically, there are many people in Ward’s camp who allege that a conspiracy took place in the early church to add Christ’s divinity into the text, and that is pretty mainstream!

I will do my best to pick through Ward’s wild ideas. In the first place, the number of Christians who can read Greek and Hebrew is astonishingly small. Secondly, this statement demonstrates that the foremost recognized “KJV Scholar” hasn’t the slightest clue who actually reads the KJV. I suspect this could be due to the fact that he believes nobody can actually read the KJV. It seems that in order to make sense of why people read the KJV, Ward has concocted a world in which there is a massive group of conspiracy theorists in the church. This must be the only reason somebody would read a KJV! Instead of charitably stating that people who read the KJV simply disagree with the conclusions of modern textual scholarship, he sends his reader off the deep end into a ridiculous conspiracy theory that KJV readers are unhinged conspiracy theorists. Even though Ward states that “They say” that it is because the KJV is the best translation of the best texts, Ward posits that the true reason is a rampant conspiracy theory plaguing the church.

Conclusion

It’s funny how Critical Text advocates cannot write a book about their theology without talking poorly about the KJV and those who read it. In Ward’s case, it seems he got done watching CNN and realized that the “QAnon” strategy could also work in the realm of the Bible translation debate. Here’s the strategy:

  1. Find a conspiracy theory
  2. Misrepresent the conspiracy theory
  3. Paint all people from the group you don’t like as the same as those conspiracy theorists

There are certainly people that believe as Ward has described above, just like there were/are people who believe things on anonymous message boards. The same way that CNN paints “most conservatives” as “QAnon,” Ward paints “most KJV Onlyists” as conspiracy theorists. This is honestly embarrassing and I’m not sure who signed off on actually publishing these statements. It is such a bad take, in fact, that it is a conspiracy theory in itself. If Ward truly values being nice and charitable so much, it makes zero sense to call most of the 55% of people who read a Bible conspiracy theorists.

Overall, I found Ward’s take highly entertaining. He would rather believe that most KJV readers are conspiracy theorists than actually look at the arguments and interact with them. If anything, this should be encouraging to my readers who are TR advocates because the Critical Text guys have resorted to CNN arguments in their attempts to justify their text. When it comes down to it, Critical Text advocates have openly admitted that they have no ultimate standard by which they judge texts (James White), and that they don’t have a text today (Dan Wallace). I’ll leave my reader with four quotes, which are mostly for Mark Ward, because I know that he reads my blog.

“It is found again in the words of Jesus, who said, ‘The Scripture cannot be broken’ (John 10:35).”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 30.

“Even if the text of the Gospels could be fixed – and, when viewed at the level of object and material artifact, this goal has never been achieved”

Knust & Wasserman. To Cast the First Stone. 15.

“Think about this: if we need the testimony of a professional historian to testify that the testimony of Luke the Apostle is reliable, then who’s going to testify that the professional historian is reliable?”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 42.

“At some point, we’re just going to have to trust someone – why not let it be God?”

Mark Ward. Bibliology for Beginners: What Does the Bible Say About the Bible?. 42.

Review: The King James Version Discussion – Chapter 7

The Young, Textless, and Reformed3 Comments

Introduction

Chapter 7, entitled “Fourteen Theses,” makes up over 25% of the page count in this work, so I will try my best to handle each thesis in as little words as possible. As I commented in a previous article, this chapter would have likely been sufficient as the sum of the whole book to accomplish Carson’s objective. He begins the chapter by stating that he is not going to argue that defenders of the TR are “knaves or fools,” yet all throughout chapter 7 he uses language that is essentially synonymous. He harshly critiques defenders of the Byzantine tradition such as Zane Hodges and Edward F. Hills, and John Burgon, despite all three being a far more careful, studied, and respected scholars than himself, especially on this topic. Keep in mind that Carson is not a text-critic so his hostile analysis of these scholars is rather peculiar, considering he accuses people of blindly following and repeating their claims – which is the exact thing he seems to be doing throughout this work, only with Metzger. In order to keep this article at a manageable length, I will respond with very simple counter-arguments.

Thesis 1: There is no unambiguous evidence that the Byzantine text-type was known before the middle of the fourth century

I’ll just quote Carson in response:

I do not deny that readings found in the Byzantine text-type are found in the ante-Nicene period;

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 44). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

He of course follows this statement with a “but,” but that is irrelevant if the claim is that “The Byzantine text-type didn’t exist.” You can’t say, “The Byzantine text didn’t exist, except where it did exist, I just don’t count that.” He further buries himself when he says,

It has not been proved conclusively that the Byzantine text-type did not exist before the fourth century.

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 44). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In his first thesis, Carson has seemingly undone the whole foundation of his argument.

Thesis 2: The argument that defends the Byzantine tradition by appealing to the fact that most extant manuscripts of the Greek New Testament attest to this Byzantine text-type, is logically fallacious and historically naïve

Here Carson demonstrates that he does not understand what the term “logically fallacious” means. The fallaciousness of a statement is determined by the coherence of an argument from premise to conclusion, not by whether or not you have a counter premise. Something can be logically coherent and still false. He could have just offered his counter argument rather than insulting Zane Hodges’ ability to think, but I suspect that Carson knows his argument is not that strong without poisoning the well first. Carson’s actual argument is as follows,

“It is quite possible to conceive that the best manuscripts of the New Testament were removed to some relatively quiet corner of the Mediterranean world while inferior manuscripts dominated in publishing centers.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 48). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So Carson’s response to what he calls “logically fallacious” and “historically naïve” is that God stashed the Bible away for over a thousand years in the Mediterranean rather than preserving it in the transmitted copies of the New Testament. In the rest of the chapter, Carson goes on to argue that “it is not asking to much” to reject that historical tradition of the church based on “the type of text found in B and Aleph” (50), engaging in what appears to be special pleading on behalf of two manuscripts over the majority tradition.

Thesis 3: The Byzantine text-type is demonstrably a secondary text

Carson bases the premise of his next thesis upon conjecture of what scribes may have done. Here is one example:

“One might argue that particularly heterodox scribes might well make a text more complicated.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 52). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

He then makes the argument that the Byzantine text is “given to harmonization” (52). I’ve always found this argument rather strange, as it requires the belief that the original New Testament was lacking harmony and “abrupt.” Ultimately, the Scriptures being “given to harmonization” is not an argument against originality unless you are supposing the original text was not harmonious.

Thesis 4: The Alexandrian text-type has better credentials than any other text-type now available

Carson here uses a double standard to support his fourth thesis. In thesis 1, he argues that ante-nicene father quotations and versional evidence are not enough to defend the existence of the text type, yet here he uses it as a primary example of a credential for the Alexandrian text.

“Not only is the Alexandrian text-type found in some biblical quotations by ante-Nicene fathers, but the text-type is also attested by some of the early version witnesses.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 53). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

“I do not deny that readings found in the Byzantine text-type are found in the ante-Nicene period; but almost all of these readings are also found in other text-types (mostly Western).”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 44). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

One would think that Carson’s own analysis would support an earlier Byzantine text, seeing as it is shared among multiple traditions, as if other traditions adapted the Byzantine text, but he arrives at the opposite conclusion. According to Carson, since there isn’t a complete record of the Byzantine text, the individual witnesses must be discarded. The important point to note here is not my own theory, it is the fact that Carson uses the same standard to reject the Byzantine text as he does to support the “better credentials” of the Alexandrian text. As a side note, I would expect the use of the word “credentials” to mean that we know who created Aleph and B and who used them, which we do not know.

Thesis 5: The argument to the effect that what the majority of believers in the history of the church have believed is true, is ambiguous at best and theologically dangerous at worst; and as applied to textual criticism, the argument proves nothing very helpful anyway

Here Carson argues that because Christians are fallible, the texts they produced also can be fallible, and therefore the argument is moot. I would argue that Carson has misunderstood the argument, either intentionally or unintentionally. However, if we apply the same argument to his position, could the Byzantine defender not argue that the text of Aleph and B were also subject to the same error as those who produced the Byzantine text? Carson has not yet made any case for the quality of the two flagship manuscripts, other than they meet his arbitrary criteria of being as early as 350AD.

Thesis 6: The argument that defends the Byzantine text by appealing to the providence of God is logically and theologically fallacious

Carson argues that if God has providentially preserved the Byzantine text, he has also preserved the others.

“God, it is argued, has providentially preserved the Byzantine tradition. That is true; but He has also providentially preserved the Western, Caesarean, and Alexandrian traditions.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 56). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Interestingly enough, the Byzantine text is the only former text-type that is considered to be a text group still. He ends this argument by misunderstanding the difference between corruptions and variations, and closes with this statement:

The interpretation of individual passages may well be called in question; but never is a doctrine affected.

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 56). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Here Carson unintentionally refutes the whole point of his book. If the manuscript tradition is all providentially preserved, that includes the Byzantine. And if doctrine is never effected, there is no doctrinal difference between the providentially preserved traditions. Therefore, Carson has no purpose for writing this book, and has refuted himself.

Thesis 7: The argument that appeals to fourth century writing practices to deny the possibility that the Byzantine text is a conflation, is fallacious

Carson’s argument in this thesis is so incredibly misleading that I would go as far to say that he has slandered Edward F. Hills, broken the 9th commandment, and shown himself to be a juvenile scholar not worthy to mention Hills’ name.

“Hills, in his book The King James Version Defended! argues that the Byzantine text could not be a fourth-century compilation from other texts because editors of that period did not have desks to write on.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 57). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The only word I have to describe this interpretation of Hills is “stupid.” DA Carson is stupid for what he has just told his reader. In the first place, this is Hills’ secondary argument, in which he is making the point that no scholar or scribe could have possibly had the resources such as a textual apparatus in a standard printed volume, and yes, a desk and chairs. Hills does this, appealing to Metzger, ironically enough. Hills’ point is that there is no evidence that such a blending of textual traditions could have been possible with the available resources and scribal practices, and thus the traditional text had to have occurred organically.


“Hence, the kind of mixture would be sporadic and unsystematic and not at all of the kind that would be required to produce the Traditional (Byzantine) New Testament text. Thus the theory that the Traditional Text was created by editors breaks down when carefully considered.”

Hills, Edward F. The King James Version Defended. 177.

Thesis 8: Textual arguments that depend on adopting the TR and comparing other text-types with it are guilty, methodologically speaking, of begging the issue; and in any case they present less than the whole truth

DA Carson unashamedly says that TR defenders “present less than the whole truth” after claiming Hills rejects the “recension” theory on the basis of lack of desks. He ends this point by saying that “slanted arguments in these issues ought to be rejected by lovers of truth” (61). At this point, Carson’s argumentation has devolved into misrepresenting other scholars and appealing to the emotions of his reader. In this section, his problem is with using the TR or KJV as a base text for comparison of other texts. This would be a valid point, if he didn’t do the same exact thing with Aleph and B. Rather than starting with the TR, he starts with the Critical Text. His disagreement is not in methodology, it is in the form of the text that is to be used as the standard for comparison.

Thesis 9: The charge that non-Byzantine text-types are theologically aberrant is fallacious

His argument in this thesis is that doctrine cannot be effected by the differences in the manuscript tradition.

However, I would argue that none of the text-types distinguished by contemporary textual criticism is theologically heretical in the way that defenders of the KJV sometimes suggest.

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 62). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This doctrine says that even if a passage is not supposed to be in the text, the doctrine can be found elsewhere. This is standard fare for the “doctrine cannot be effected crowd.” One interesting thing to note is that Carson constantly uses the term “fallacious,” confusing it with the words, “I disagree.”

Therefore the charge that the non-Byzantine text-types are theologically aberrant is fallacious.

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 66). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Again, something being fallacious entirely depends on the structure of an argument. Carson’s structure is that a difference in words in the Bible does not change the meaning of the Bible. According to his premise, the claim he is interacting with is fallacious – but that’s not the premise of the argument he is opposing. The argument that he is opposing goes like this:

The meaning of the Bible is communicated through words. If the words change, then the meaning changes. The words are changed between the traditional and critical text. Therefore, the meaning is different between the traditional and critical text.

Carson has not interacted with that argument other than to disagree with the premise and then call it fallacious, by which he means “I disagree.”

Thesis 10: The KJV was not accepted without a struggle, and some outstanding believers soon wanted to replace it

This argument is rather straight forward, the KJV wasn’t immediately accepted. Defenders of the KJV may have argued that in Carson’s day, but I have not seen that argument before, so I’ll leave it as is. In any case, I don’t think the reception argument hinges on the KJV being immediately adopted by every single Christian in the 17th century.

Thesis 11: The Byzantine text-type must not be thought to be the precise equivalent of the TR

This point is one of clarity that I think everybody is aware of, that the TR isn’t a pure majority text. There are minority readings in it.

Thesis 12: The argument that ties the adoption of the TR to verbal inspiration is logically and theologically fallacious

Carson correctly identifies what Scripture teaches about itself in this thesis.

The argument, briefly, is this: Since God inspired the Scriptures verbally, therefore He must have preserved them even to the details of their words; and these passages presuppose that God has done just that.

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 69). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

His argument is essentially that it is impossible to say that the TR or Byzantine tradition is the verbally inspired text. The Bible doesn’t promise “an infallible text-type” (72). He continues by saying,

“Third, to concede that total inerrancy or verbal inspiration is restricted to the autographs does not mean we have no sure word from God.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 73). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The way he deals with this doctrinal issue is the same way scholars and apologists deal with the problem today.

“In like fashion the vast majority of the New Testament is textually certain. (3) Even where the text is less than certain, high probability of this reading or that exists. (4) No doctrine and no ethical command is affected by the “probability” passages, but only the precise meaning of specific passages. (5) In my judgment the degree of uncertainty raised by textual questions is a great deal less than the degree of uncertainty raised by hermeneutical questions.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 73). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

He ends by stating what I wish more Critical Text advocates knew:

“Fourth, the purpose and goal of textual criticism is to get as close to the original text as possible. To fail to recognize this is to misapprehend what textual criticism is all about.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 74). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In short, textual criticism is not about getting to the exact original, it is about getting “as close to the original text as possible.” Carson, while being necessarily constrained by his understanding of text-types, is quite accurate when discussing the purpose and goal of text-criticism.

Thesis 13: Arguments that attempt to draw textual conclusions from a prejudicial selection of not immediately relevant data, or from a slanted use of terms, or by a slurring appeal to guilt by association, or by repeated appeal to false evidence, are not only misleading, but ought to be categorically rejected by Christians, who, above all others, profess to love truth and to love their brothers in Christ

It seems that if Carson was slightly more self aware he might see the glaring problem with this thesis.

Thesis 14: Adoption of the TR should not be made a criterion of orthodoxy

I agree. I would also argue that believing that God gave His people the verbally inspired text, in its words, should be. The issue the TR advocate has with the Critical Text is first one of doctrine, and second that of the actual text. If we can agree that God actually preserved His whole word, we can have a conversation. The fundamental difference is that, as Carson has stated many times, the Critical Text advocate does not believe we have the exact inspired text today, and that the words of our Bibles can change and not effect doctrine. The TR is the logical end of having the correct Bibliology.

Conclusion

This chapter is the substance of this entire work so far. I think it would have been adequate just to publish this chapter. In Carson’s fierce attempt to defend the Critical Text, he refuted many of his own claims in the process. Overall, this chapter is again a rehashing of Metzger with a lot harsher language than the previous chapters. The main take away I will leave my reader with is this:

If the Bible is preserved in the whole manuscript tradition, and doctrine isn’t changed between manuscripts, why this book? Why attempt to discredit a textual tradition that Carson claims is correct doctrinally? This is a question I have not seen answered yet. According to the “no doctrine is affected” doctrine, I would expect Critical Text advocates to actually defend the Byzantine text, which they claim is doctrinally complete.

Review: The King James Version Debate – Chapter 6

The Young, Textless, and ReformedLeave a comment

Introduction

In Chapter 6 of The King James Version Debate, Carson addresses the “Modern Defense of the Byzantine Text-Type.” I will take the liberty of interacting more heavily with the material in this chapter and the next, offering more of a critical review than a summary.

After some introduction, Carson describes the defenders of the TR as those who are critical of modern textual criticism starting with Westcott & Hort.

“In the opinion of the defenders of the TR, the textual-critical theories advanced by B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort toward the end of the last century are both bad theology and bad textual criticism.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 40). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This is most certainly still true. He continues to detail Westcott & Hort’s theory that is the foundation for the supremacy of the Alexandrian texts.

They argued that the Byzantine textual tradition (which includes the TR) did not originate before the mid-fourth century, and that it was the result of a conflation of earlier texts. This text was taken to Constantinople, where it became popular, spreading throughout the Byzantine Empire. This text-type, which I have designated Byzantine, Hort referred to as Syrian. Because, in their view, it was a conflation of the Western and Alexandrian texts, it is the fullest; but for the same reason it is the furthest removed from the autographs. Westcott and Hort gave much weight to the Alexandrian tradition; but preeminent emphasis was laid on B and א (Vaticanus and Sinaiticus), considered to be a parallel development of the Alexandrian tradition and designated by them the “Neutral text.” Subsequent textual-critical work accepted the theories of Westcott and Hort, although with modifications.

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (pp. 40-41). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

While Wescott & Hort’s theory, as far as I know, isn’t held to anymore, the general principle that Aleph and B are witnesses to the earliest text still seems to drive the Critical Text in its methodology and shape, despite the concept of text-types no longer being the driving framework for textual criticism. Carson’s analysis may show itself to be dated here as a result of being produced over 40 years ago, but I imagine many of the arguments he presents are still used today and therefore relevant to review.

Carson’s Presentation of the Byzantine Priority Position

After giving a very brief history of Westcott & Hort, Carson details what he understands to be the argument against the Alexandrian texts in favor of the Byzantine. This is my summary of his presentation which I have organized into 10 points (pp. 39-41):

  1. The Byzantine tradition stands closer to the original
  2. The other text types were rejected by the early church
  3. The Alexandrian text type omits material rather than the Byzantine adding
  4. These omissions were due to heretics such as Arians attempting to remove doctrines
  5. Codex Aleph and B are products of fourth century heresy and careless scholarship
  6. The Byzantine tradition was used from at least the fourth century and therefore cannot be ignored
  7. Westcott & Hort were heretics whose bias prevented them from engaging in objective text-criticism
  8. All modern versions based on the Critical Text deny verbal inspiration
  9. The reason there are no early Byzantine mss is due to heavy use
  10. Westcott & Hort’s theory demands circular reasoning
  11. The Alexandrian text is a revision of the Byzantine, not the other way around

Carson’s summary of the arguments still represent much of the argumentation we see today. I will write a brief analysis of each argument here:

Points 1-3 are essentially the foundation for rejecting the Alexandrian text, and represents the alternative argument to Alexandrian priority. Point 4 is a common observation of commentators throughout history on texts such as John 7:53-8:11, Mark 16:9-20, and 1 John 5:7 being removed, and it is more of an explanation of how the Alexandrian texts came to be rather than a foundational premise for the defense of the Byzantine text.

Point 5 and point 7 are arguments still made, mostly when defending the KJV and critiquing the Revised Version 1881. Aleph and B were indeed produced during a time in which Jerome writes about how Arianism nearly overtook the church, and Westcott & Hort did indeed deny verbal plenary inspiration along with substitutionary atonement and reportedly engaged in some strange practices including “communion with the saints,” so the argument against Westcott & Hort may be of interest to some. These arguments are often dismissed or even mocked, despite the Critical Text crowd heavily criticizing Erasmus as an objection to the Received Text. It’s okay to mock Erasmus, but definitely not Westcott & Hort!

I’ve never heard point 8 phrased in that way, but I have seen similar arguments. I will critique Carson’s formulation of the argument and provide what I think is a more legitimate form here:

If the creators of a text reject verbal plenary inspiration, and they deny that the text itself is the exact authorial, verbally inspired text, then it seems fair to make an argument similar to point 8 with proper nuance. As far as I have read, there aren’t any scholars who would say the NA28 for example, represents the exact verbally inspired text, though most would say that “we have good access to the text of the New Testament.” Though Westcott denied verbal plenary inspiration, many Critical Text scholars today hold to the doctrine, though it is not included in their text-critical methodology as set forth by volumes that describe the methodologies of modern textual criticism. The main problem with the structure of the argument as presented by Carson is that it would be a personification fallacy since an inanimate object cannot deny anything. So if you’re a TR advocate, it’s probably wise not to use this argument, lest you find yourself as an example in a book describing TR argumentation.

It would be better stated that the Critical Text is based off of a methodology that does not consider the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration in its axioms and the scholars who create critical texts do not claim that they have created an exact representation of the verbally inspired text, and therefore the Critical Text is not exactly what the prophets and apostles wrote by way of inspiration. I’m sure many have made this argument, I hope my tangential commentary provides some clarity for my reader.

Point 9, like point 4, is explanatory rather than foundational. Both the Critical Text and other text-critical positions start with a foundational premise and use the extant data to try and explain that data. There is a lot of data that is difficult to explain through the lens of Alexandrian priority, such as Byzantine readings in the Papyri and in the Alexandrian text. This points to the reality that the story we tell to explain the earliest manuscripts is ultimately informed by what we think of God’s providential care over the text and the way God preserved the Scriptures. Defenders on each side of the discussion present explanations for the manuscript data in the absence of extant meta-data of our manuscripts.

Point 10 is actually quite a good observation and I still think is valid today. There doesn’t seem to be any foundation for the argument that Aleph and B are “best” other than that they are the earliest extant we have. Even Carson has stated that late manuscripts can represent early readings, so the argument that I have seen in favor of the Alexandrian mss is simply that they are the “best because we think they are the best.” If you withdraw this assumption, in my opinion, the data actually points quite strongly to an early Byzantine text, and I don’t exactly see any data that can necessarily disprove that. This list demonstrates that the general arguments have not changed all that much, though in my opinion the CBGM data really adds a layer of intrigue into the Alexandrian vs. Byzantine discussion and seems to give a lot of validity to an early Byzantine text.

Conclusion

Carson ends the chapter by saying that pastors and laypersons are caught off guard by the Byzantine argument, and in many cases have no ability to refute such arguments. This has changed in the last 40 years, as most seminaries teach the Alexandrian priority argument from Metzger & Erhman’s textbook. The current climate seems to be that pastors trained at mainstream seminaries typically believe in some version of Alexandrian priority, though there are Byzantine movements throughout. In my opinion, the Byzantine argument is still quite strong in comparison to the Alexandrian priority theory.

If anything, we can learn that the Byzantine argument is sturdy, especially considering the fact that seminaries typically do not teach its merits alongside of Metzger and Ehrman, and if they do, it is often framed in the context of “King James Onlyism,” as we see in Dr. Andrew Naselli’s textbook which is endorsed by many seminaries and Bible translators. One piece of data that is hard to ignore is the fact that Byzantine readings are present in the Papyri, which really makes the case for Alexandrian priority much more difficult to defend as a “text-type” that predates the Byzantine tradition. Carson employs this chapter to frame the main thrust of his book, which is to offer a refutation to those who believe in the superiority of the TR and KJV, which we will see in Chapter 7.

Review: The King James Version Debate – Chapter 4

The Young, Textless, and ReformedLeave a comment

Introduction

In the fourth chapter entitled, “Some Criteria for Making Textual Choices,” Carson provides a brief summary of some of the axioms of Modern Textual Criticism as presented by Metzger. I will highlight again Carson’s use of “most likely” in the opening paragraph.

“Before turning to the nub of the debate, I propose now to sketch in some of the criteria scholars use to determine what reading is most likely closest to the original.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 29). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In other words, this criteria is by no means a definitive standard for determining an original text.

The Criteria for Making Textual Decisions

Carson sorts the criteria into two categories: External and internal. He lists manuscript date, geographical location, and text type as the three external criteria. As far as the value that external evidence can offer, Carson clarifies that these categories are not decisive.

“None of these considerations is considered decisive; all have to be weighed.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 29,30). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

One major point that Carson makes demonstrates the age of this book. He states that “the date of the text-type is more important than the date of a particular witness.” In today’s model, the date of a witness is considered more important and the concept of text-type has been mostly retired.

Under internal evidence Carson lists the preference for the shorter reading (or perhaps the longer reading), the preference for the most difficult reading, the preference for readings with similar vocabulary choices, and the preference for the reading that best explains the other variants.

One thing that I will note here is that the assumptions of this model are not conducive with an inerrant original text, as Carson believes. If the original texts are as Carson describes, they are short and grammatically difficult. This seems to be in conflict with the doctrine of inerrancy and either the original was not perfect, or in these rules the scholars admit that the closest to the original we can get is a choppy, short, grammatically difficult version of it.

Carson ends the chapter by stating that most of the lines in the New Testament are certain.

“Nevertheless, the vast majority of the lines of the Greek New Testament may be regarded as textually certain. A number of others are certain to a high degree of probability. A relative handful constitute famous problems that are debated constantly in books and in journal literature.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 33). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This is still the argument from Modern Critical Text apologists, though I have not seen this claim substantiated anywhere. The trend, according to scholars such as Dr. Peter Gurry, is towards more uncertainty as the effort of Modern Textual Criticism progresses, not less. According to Dr. Daniel Wallace, “There are many, many places in which the text of the New Testament is uncertain.”

Conclusion

In Chapter 4, we again see a summarization of Metzger with some interesting commentary from Carson. He acknowledges that the criteria set forth by textual scholars are not a definitive method for finding the original, so in that sense he is still quite relevant. This chapter is probably the most dated of the book so far, as Carson leans heavily on the text-type framework for his understanding of textual criticism. This is not unusual, however, seeing as the book was first published in 1978. The real substance of this book is in the upcoming chapters, but I will review every chapter for the sake of being thorough.

Review: The King James Version Debate – Chapter 3

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

Similar to the second chapter, the third is mostly just information condensed from Metzger. Carson begins the chapter by presenting an accurate picture, even today, of Modern Textual Criticism.

“The aim of the textual critic is to ascertain, as precisely as possible, what reading of any particular passage is closest to the original, or accurately reflects the original.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 25). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Note that he does not say, “The aim of the textual critic is to ascertain exactly what the original contained.” Rather, he states accurately that the aim of the textual critic is to find the reading that is “closest to the original.” This is a common way that modern critical text advocates confuse the conversation. They will say, “The goal is to find the original or the closest thing to it.” It is extremely important to understand exactly what is being said here. What Carson is saying essentially is that textual critics goal is to find the passage that a) accurately reflects the original and when they cannot b) to find the passage that is closest to it. The second part of that statement is where the Critical Text position finds itself in serious theological trouble.

I won’t tarry any further on that point, as I have written at length on this blog about the issues surrounding this particular topic. The main substance of this chapter is giving an overview of text-types.

A Brief Presentation on Text-Types

What I was surprised to notice in this chapter is how well Carson presents the topic of text types.

“The most common general classification of text-types is summarized in the following paragraphs; but I should point out that research continues, and the classification may prove somewhat idealized. A greater number of early manuscripts boast a mixed text than has often been thought.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 26). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

It seems Carson anticipated the retirement of text times well before it actually happened. He identifies and defines four distinct text-types:

  1. Byzantine
  2. Western
  3. Caesarian
  4. Alexandrian

The only thing I will comment on is Carson’s high-evaluation of the Alexandrian text-type.

“Nevertheless the Alexandrian text has excellent credentials, far better than its harshest critics have been willing to concede.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 28). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The Alexandrian texts are far from being well credentialed. In the first place, we have no clue who created them and they disagree with a vast majority of the 5,000 manuscripts that are often cited. This alone is enough to question Carson’s statement here. Second, scholars have recently determined that the Alexandrian manuscripts are in fact not a text type. Third, there have been extensive analyses done of Codex A and B by men such as John Burgon and HC Hoskier, which very clearly demonstrate that these manuscripts are not of particularly great quality. Carson unfortunately does what many Critical Text apologists do, and assert that the former Alexandrian text family are of great quality, well, because they are early and extant and the scholars prefer them.

Conclusion

In chapter 3 of The King James Version Debate, Carson gives a brief overview of the text-types traditionally accepted by Modern Textual Criticism. He shows a great amount of insight which was eventually vindicated when textual scholars recognized that text-types are not necessarily a meaningful tool to categorize manuscripts. Interestingly enough, he makes the claim that the Alexandrian text has “excellent credentials,” and the “harshest critics” seem to have been vindicated in their critiques when the Alexandrian texts were demoted as a text-type.

Review: The King James Version Debate – Chapter 2

The Young, Textless, and Reformed1 Comment

Introduction

This next chapter titled, “Kinds of Errors in New Testament Manuscripts” is a summary of the various types of scribal errors that can be observed in extant manuscripts, so this article will likely be short. Carson employs this chapter to give his reader context to the actual decision making process that is practiced by textual critics.

The Kinds of Errors in Manuscripts

Carson categorizes scribal errors into two categories: Intentional and unintentional. The study of scribes has been improved upon in the last decade and is most thoroughly examined by Dr. Jim Royse in his book entitled Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri published by Brill in the New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents series edited by Bart Ehrman. This book can be had for $436.00. Despite the further development of scribal habits, much of what Carson says in this chapter is still relevant today.

I will make one note on the study of scribal habits overall. While there are many things that can be discerned by the habits of scribes, some practices will never be understood fully. Take for example Carson’s commentary on marginal notes.

“Occasionally, honest errors of judgment have led to the introduction of an error. For example, if a scribe accidentally left out a line or a few words, the corrector might put them in the margin. The next scribe who came along and copied this manuscript might reinsert the words into the text at the wrong place. Alternatively, the marginal note may have been a scribe’s comment rather than an integral part of the text; but the scribe who copied that manuscript might well have inserted the note into the new copy he was writing, thus adding something to the text of Scripture that should not be there.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 22). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Notice how Carson employs the words “may” and “might.” This is very important for the layperson to understand if they are not familiar with the way scholars interpret data. What these types of words should signal to everybody is that any statement that is prefaced with “may,” “might,” “probably,” etc. is that the statement is not some established record of fact. That does not mean that using such language is wrong or bad, just that it should be interpreted as what is likely, not what is certain. Scribes did not leave definitive guides to interpreting their annotations and much of what scholars come up with are educated guesses. Again, this practice is not wrong, it is just important to note as it is relevant when discussing with certainty what is in the text of Scripture.

The reason I take note of this is due to the fact that the average person will read this statement and others like it, and take it as a statement of certainty as to what is occurring. Because the scribes who inserted words in to margins do not offer explanation as to what the marginal note is or why it is there, the scholars must use “may haves” and “might bes” to speculate what exactly those marginal notes are. This is an accepted practice in every discipline of scholarship where the data does not offer certainty. It is a responsible practice, though Christians should be aware that any statement of certainty issued on top of the premise of a “might be” is severely irresponsible from a scholarly perspective. This practice is quite common among Critical Text apologists, so I wanted to make note of it here. If the goal is determining the text of Scripture with certainty, then statements prefaced by “may bes” and “might bes” are not adequate to do furnish that goal.

What Carson does practically in this chapter is assure his reader that despite the errors that he is describing, there is no cause for worry.

“Before taking the discussion further, I should pause and set at rest the troubled concern of anyone who, on the basis of what I have written so far, concludes that the manuscript tradition is entirely unreliable, or that we can not really be certain of any of it. There is no need for such rigorous pessimism.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 24). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Based on what Carson has said, he is correct in making this statement. The problem with this statement is with the scholarship that informs this statement. If the situation were as simple as correcting errors with a complete set of manuscripts, then there is no issue at all with what Carson says here. The problem is that there is not a complete extant record to draw from and ultimately much of, if not all of the conclusions made by textual scholars end up being prefaced with “may,” “might,” “likely, ” and “probably.” Dan Wallace makes a nearly identical argument when he presents the scenario as a spectrum between radical skepticism and absolute certainty. I address this topic in further depth frequently on my blog, but this brief survey of quotations should help my reader understand the thin foundation Carson’s statement is built upon.

The last note I will make on this chapter is regarding Carson’s sources. In this chapter, Carson quotes Metzger on the topic, which should inform us that what we are going to find is essentially the condensed thoughts of Metzger. This is an important observation as it gives the reader an idea of the school of thinking Carson is drawing from.

Conclusion

This chapter is essentially a brief summary of the types of scribal errors described by Metzger. There isn’t a lot to comment on here, other than the references to Metzger inform the reader the school of thought behind Carson’s thinking. If the reader wanted to do further studies on the material in this chapter, they could pick up a copy of The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration which is the text referenced by Carson and the standard textbook in most seminaries on the topic. Bart Ehrman co-edited this textbook, which might be an important detail for some readers. This book is still recommended as introductory material on textual criticism by current scholars such as Dr. Peter Gurry and Dr. Elijah Hixson.

Review: The King James Version Debate – Chapter 1

The Young, Textless, and Reformed1 Comment

Introduction

In the first chapter of The King James Version Debate, we see a combination of helpful terminology and data points combined with Modern Critical Text Theory. Carson opens up this chapter by highlighting the importance of the printing press to frame the narrative of transmission via hand copying.

“The invention of the printing press is, arguably, the most significant technical invention since the wheel. When it put in an appearance, not only did it make books much cheaper, circulate knowledge more widely, and contribute largely to the education of the masses, it produced thousands of copies of books and papers that could not be distinguished from one another. The relevance of this latter observation to the present discussion is obvious. Before the printing press, the New Testament (and all other) documents were copied by hand.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 15). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

He continues to by starting to tell the Critical Text version of transmission.

The New Testament documents were copied in several different settings. In the earliest period, manuscripts were copied by Christians either for their own use or for the use of sister churches.

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 15). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

While Carson may agree with White and Ehrman, he does the reader a favor by describing the process (at least initially) broadly enough to allow for the narrative that churches oversaw the copying of manuscripts rather than the independent free-for-all described by modern scholars. Though, we will see shortly that he falls in line with the mainstream Critical Text narrative as he adds onto the story. This view is in line with that of mainstream Modern Textual Criticism that copying was done by individuals in the church. See this quote from the King James Only Controversy.

“If you wanted a copy of the Gospel of John, either you had to pay a professional scribe to copy one for you or you had to do it yourself. If you tried to do it yourself, you had to find somebody to lend you his copy long enough for you to undertake this very difficult and very tedious task.”

White, James R. The King James Only Controversy (p. 53). Bethany House Publishers. 2009. 2nd Edition.

Copies of Copies of Copies

Carson goes on to engage in storytelling regarding the transmission of the New Testament similar to Metzger and Ehrman.

“Perhaps one of the members on a business trip to Macedonia took a copy with him; and while in Philippi he copied out the Letter to the Philippians at the same time someone in the church at Philippi copied out the Letter to the Colossians. Of course any error that the Colossian businessman inadvertently introduced into his own copy of Paul’s letter to the Colossians would get picked up by the Philippian copier. Perhaps the Philippian copier knew the Colossian businessman. He recognized him to be a nice man, very devout and godly, but somewhat flamboyant, and judged him to be somewhat careless in scholarly enterprises. The opinion of the Philippian copier might be confirmed if he detected several spelling mistakes in his friend’s copy, or if he discovered the Colossian businessman had accidentally put in a word or a line twice, or seemed to have left something out. Without saying anything, he might decide to correct such errors.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 16). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This is a common narrative presented by scholars of the Critical Text. The Christians who commissioned copies or perhaps were copyists themselves were “flamboyant” and “careless.” This is a conclusion that is made, not based on any extant records of a Christian describing the copying process, but rather by examining the quality of the favored early extant manuscripts and making determinations about the scribe on that basis. In other words, by calling a copyist “Flamboyant” and “careless,” Carson has also said a lot about the quality of the extant copies which such careless scribes have left to us.

I understand that Carson is using a storytelling device to relate to the common Christian how copyist errors could be made, but it is only a story you’d have to tell if the manuscripts you have are of such poor quality that an excuse has to be made on their behalf. This is the story that Critical Text scholars have to tell in order to defend their text, that Christians really didn’t care about the quality of their manuscripts.

The Job of the Text Critic

Having framed the problem, Carson then describes the necessity of the modern textual critic.

“The textual critic sifts this material and tries to establish, wherever there is doubt, what reading reflects the original or is closest to it. When it is realized that there are approximately five thousand manuscripts of a part or the whole of the Greek New Testament, in addition to about eight thousand manuscripts of the relevant versions, it is clear that the textual critic has his work cut out for him.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (pp. 16-17). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

He goes on to describe the different types and quantities of manuscripts (Uncials, Cursive, Lectionary, Papyri, versional evidence) and how they might be used by a textual critic to understand a parent Greek manuscript (18).

At this point in the chapter, Carson has been helpful in describing, according to the tenets of Modern Textual Criticism, the reason the modern church needs modern textual criticism and textual critics. He ends by providing his reader with a simple reason that the age of a manuscript might not be as definitive as one might think in order to further emphasize the difficulties presented to the textual critic and to frame the next chapter.

All agree that one cannot simply take the oldest manuscripts and trust them, for they may conceivably be very poor copies, while later manuscripts may be good copies of excellent parents that are now lost. For example, a tenth-century minuscule may conceivably be a good copy of an excellent fourth-century uncial, and therefore prove quite superior to a fifth-century uncial. Nor can one trust oneself to the majority reading at any place. It is quite conceivable that a bad manuscript was copied many times, and that a good manuscript was copied scarcely at all.

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (pp. 18-20). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This highlights the reality, that even before the CBGM took the mainstage, it was common knowledge that the age of the words on a manuscript may be different than the age of the manuscript itself. This is extremely important, as nearly every modern Bible uses the verbiage “Earliest” as a metric to describe why a reading is delegated to brackets or a footnote, despite scholars consistently saying that “earliest” doesn’t necessarily mean “best.”

Conclusion

In the first chapter of The King James Version Debate, Carson begins to frame the discussion in terms of Critical Text theory while providing some helpful terminology and data points to his reader. He also compares the New Testament manuscript data to that of the Iliad (18), which has been recently discouraged in chapter 4 of the book Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism by Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry. It is important that the reader of this first chapter recognize that while being largely objective, Carson has included one major tenet of Modern Textual Criticism in his description of Bible transmission. He has made the assumption that early Bible copying was done loosely and carelessly. This has been challenged by a newer principle called “The Principle of Parsimony” which is detailed in Peter Gurry and Tommy Wasserman’s book A New Approach to Textual Criticism, which says that scribes generally copied faithfully, though the narrative of sloppy transmission still remains intact for the most part.

A possible reason that the assumption of careless copying is still retained is due to the fact that it is determined based on the quality of oldest extant manuscripts, not any extant record detailing the commissioning process of a New Testament manuscript. Notice that he uses the fictional character “the Philippian on a business trip” to build out this point. Despite the lack of extant evidence detailing the copying process of the New Testament in such a manner and the introduction of the principle of parsimony, Carson’s claim, though not unique to him, has gone largely uncontested in modern New Testament scholarship. This claim has been challenged by Dr. Jeff Riddle, who notes that there are extant documents showing that an early Christian could compare their copy of the New Testament to the authentic copy that existed in Ephesus, which points to a much more structured transmission narrative than that proposed by Carson here.

More important than speculation about how the Bible was transmitted in the early church is what our transmission narratives say about our view of the Bible altogether. Do we believe that it was carelessly and flippantly transmitted? Do we believe that the original became corrupted in the second generation of copying? If we answer yes, it points to the rejection of the historical doctrine of providential preservation as set forth in the Protestant Confessions and opens the door for the endless process of “finding the original.” This process, which the scholars admit, has not been done and can never be done (See the scholarship of Eldon Epp, Dan Wallace, DC Parker, Tommy Wasserman, Jennifer Knust, Bart Ehrman, and so on). In the first chapter of Carson’s work, we are given some helpful information, as well as some Critical Text storytelling.

In the next article I will review chapter 2 of The King James Version Debate.

Book Review: The King James Version Debate – Preface

The Young, Textless, and Reformed1 Comment

Introduction

Recently I was asked what I thought of DA Carson’s The King James Version Debate in a comment on my blog. I have not read it, so I thought I would purchase a copy and do a chapter by chapter review like I did for Mark Ward’s Authorized. The reason I initially did not read this small book was largely due to the fact that it was written in 1978 and in many ways cannot represent the current thought of New Testament Textual Criticism. Despite this reality, this book is still used as a resource and many people’s understanding of the conversation is comprised of the material in this book. For that reason, this series should serve not only as an analysis, but also demonstrate to my reader the ways that trends in New Testament Textual Criticism have changed in 40 years. All quotations in this series will be taken from the Kindle edition. In this introductory article I will be giving an overview of the occasion, audience, goal, and organization of The King James Version Debate.

Occasion for Writing This Volume

Carson begins his work by explaining the occasion for his writing it.

“This little book is not the sort of thing I like to write. Yet for a variety of reasons I have been called upon again and again to say something about English versions of the Bible; and it has therefore been impressed on me repeatedly that a short volume on the subject, written at an easy level, was sorely needed.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 7). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The purpose of this volume is to address growing concerns over modern Bible versions, specifically in the context of the “sizable and vocal body of opinion that defends the King James Version (KJV) as the best English version now extant” (9).

Scope and Audience of This Volume

According to Carson, this book is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise on textual criticism, but rather an accessible look at the discussion at large.

“The present slender volume is not an exhaustive treatise. It is not even a rapid survey of modern English translations of the Bible. That sort of book has already been written. Rather, these pages are given over to an easy introduction to two things: biblical textual criticism, that branch of biblical study which examines and correlates the manuscripts from which our English Bibles are translated; and some of the principles upon which translations are made. Moreover, with the possible exception of the appendix, this book aims at being minimally technical.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 10). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This volume should be treated as an entry point into the discussion aimed at Christians who perhaps haven’t had any exposure to textual criticism or the Bible version discussion.

Stated Goal of This Work

After identifying his intended audience, Carson goes on to state his goal for writing The King James Version Debate.

“It is designed for students, pastors, and laymen who have no personal knowledge of the primary literature, but who find themselves influenced by the writings of the Trinitarian Bible Society and parallel groups, and do not know where to turn to find a popular rebuttal.”

Carson, D. A.. The King James Version Debate (p. 10). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So then we can take this book to be an a) entry level look at textual criticism and translation methodology b) aimed at students, pastors, and laymen who haven’t studied textual criticism c) with the goal of providing a popular rebuttal to groups such as the Trinitarian Bible Society.

Organization of This Work

Carson organizes this work into two parts made up of 9 chapters which I will list below.

Part 1

  1. The Early Circulation of the New Testament
  2. Kinds of Errors in the New Testament Manuscripts
  3. Text-Types
  4. Some Criteria for Making Textual Choices
  5. Origins of the Textus Receptus
  6. Modern Defense of the Byzantine Text-Type
  7. Fourteen Theses

Part 2

8. Preliminary Considerations

9. Some Thoughts on Translating Scripture

10. Conclusion

Conclusion

I have not provided any analysis of Carson’s book in this introductory article because I will be doing a chapter-by-chapter review in the upcoming days. Initially, I can say that much of what Carson says in this work is dated and likely should not be used today. That being said, his approach is far more respectable than that of James White and Mark Ward and I look forward to handling Carson’s work in the same manner that he handles the subject. DA Carson is a well respected scholar within conservative Evangelicalism, which means there are many out there who still understand the topic in the same way as he did at the time of writing this book. Overall, it may not be worth the time to do such an in depth review of a book that is over 40 years old, but it is still sold in Church book stores, so I’m sure somebody will benefit from it.

There is No “Alexandrian” Text Family

The Young, Textless, and Reformed7 Comments

Introduction

One of the greatest challenges to overcome when discussing textual criticism with the average Christian is breaking through the wall of misconceptions regarding the topic. My personal theory is that if those in the Modern Critical Text had more information, they likely would not support the ongoing efforts of textual scholars. One of the most powerful claims that a Critical Text advocate will make is that their text is based off of the “earliest and best” manuscripts. It is the kind of jargon that is located in the footnotes of study bibles that compels people to believe that they have a high quality product in their hands.

One of arguments used to support the claim that modern bibles are based on “better” manuscripts is that they come from a textual family or group that is earlier than the text family that Reformation era Bibles were made from. So the argument for the Modern Critical Text is that it is made from manuscripts that represent an earlier form of the text closer to the original than later manuscripts. There is a major problem with this assertion – these early manuscripts differ so greatly from one another that even the scholars admit they are not a part of a manuscript family. What this practically means is there is no way to substantiate that the Modern Critical Text represents a uniform version of the text that can be traced back to some authorial manuscript group. This seems to be evidence strong enough to pump the breaks on the whole Critical Text machine, but as we see it still charges forward.

The Scholarly Perspective on Text Types Has Changed

Formerly, the idea of “text types” was a major engine for the inner workings of textual criticism and scholarship. The way that variants would be assigned value was in large part based on this text-type formulation.


“The Alexandrian is typically considered the most reliable text-type, with the Western, Caesarean, and Byzantine generally following in that order”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 8.

“If one reads Bruce Metzger’s well-known commentary that accompanies the UBS, the notion of text-types is absolutely essential to his explanation of the history of the New Testament text and, with it, to the practice of textual criticism itself”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 8.

This foundational way of thinking has shifted in the last ten years to acknowledge that the concept of textual families, at least as it applies to the Alexandrian, Caesarean, and Western text-types, is not supported by the data. While the concept of text-types has been retired, the Byzantine texts have been retained as a group.

“One exception here is that the editors still recognize the Byzantine text as a distinct text in its own right. This is due to the remarkable agreement that one finds in our late Byzantine manuscripts.”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 9.

Now this is usually dismissed because, as the quoted material notes, these manuscripts are “late.” Yet it is acknowledged by all that the age of the paper a text is printed on does not necessarily speak to the age of the words on that paper. Due to the same data analysis that demonstrated that the Alexandrian text-type was not in fact a text type, scholars have acknowledged that the Byzantine family is quite old. This is also evidenced by the fact that Byzantine readings were found in the Papyri.

“As just noted, the editors still accept a Byzantine group even if they do not view it as a traditional text-type. In fact, they do much more than merely accept it; they have reevaluated it and concluded that it should be given more weight than in the past.”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 10.


“But when the CBGM was first used on the Catholic Letters, the editors found that a number of Byzantine witnesses were surprisingly similar to their own reconstructed text.”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 10.

“There were fifty-two changes to the critical text. In thirty-six cases the changes were made in conformity with the Byzantine text and in only two cases against the Byzantine text. Further, in 105 of 155 passages where the editors leave the decision open about the initial text, the Byzantine witnesses attest to the reading deemed to be of equal value to variant a (=NA28).”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 11.

What this is saying is that not only were Westcott and Hort wrong, but so was Metzger. When computer based analysis is applied, the Byzantine text gains a great deal of value, even when only considering the first 1,000 years of textual data.

What Does This Mean for the “Earliest and Best” Manuscripts?

In abandoning the former framework of text-types, the value of the Byzantine group has been elevated in many places to equal or even above the formerly titled Alexandrian text-type. This is interesting, but not as much as what the same analysis revealed about the quality of the so-called Alexandrian family. When the witnesses in the Alexandrian family are compared using computer tools, they share a very low level of agreement in the places of variation. For example, Codex Sinaiticus’ closest relative in the synoptic gospels is the NA28, not any known manuscript. Vaticanus comes in second.

“Sinaiticus’s closest relative is A, the editor’s reconstructed text (i.e., the NA28/UBS5 text. These two agree at 87.9 percent. Next in line is 03, with 84.9 percent, and so on.”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 46.

Interestingly enough, if you go to the manuscript clusters tool today, 01 and 03 only agree 65% in the same tool provided in the quoted material above. What that seems to demonstrate is that the NA28 is the closest relative to both Sinaiticus and Vaticanus by a very large margin, even more than Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are relatives to each other.

If we use this tool on both the synoptic gospels and on John, we find that there aren’t any witnesses used in this analysis that are coherent enough to warrant any sort of direct genealogical connection. In short, the NA28 is the closest related text to Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Out of the thousands and thousands of manuscripts often cited in debates to support the Critical Text, the closest living relative to the “earliest and best” manuscripts is the scholar’s own reconstructed text.

How could it be then, that this is still the prevailing theory among Critical Text advocates? Does this not warrant a significant departure from favoring the “earliest and best” manuscripts? Well, no, because according to the scholars, there are no absolute rules to textual criticism.



“As with so much in 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. 57.

“The significance of this selectivity of our evidence means that our textual flow diagrams and the global stemma do not give us a picture of exactly what happened.”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 113.

“However, there are still cases where contamination can go undetected in the CBGM, with the result that the proper ancestor-descendent relationships are inverted.”

Peter Gurry & Tommy Wasserman. A New Approach to Textual Criticism. 115.

Conclusion

The scholarly assessment of text-types and the new methods being employed to create modern bibles should tell us a few things. First, it should tell us that the previous era of scholars such as Westcott, Hort, and Metzger were incorrect in their conclusions. Second, it should tell us that the scholars that came after don’t share the same confidence in the CBGM to find the original as perhaps James White. Third, it should tell us that anybody still using text-types and Alexandrian priority to argue for the validity of textual variants are severely behind the times. Not only have the scholars abandoned such notions, but the data simply does not support the conclusion that the Alexandrian texts are better than later manuscripts. Since the closest relative to such manuscripts is the text that scholars themselves have created, the data does not appear to be the driving factor for this camp. The driving factor seems to be the notion that Vaticanus must be the best because it is the earliest surviving manuscript we have.

The Received Text position is not one that attempts to reconstruct the original from extant data because it recognizes a) that the Bible never fell away and therefore does not need to be reconstructed and b) that the data is insufficient to do so. Even so, we can look at the scholar’s own analysis and see quite plainly that even their conclusions are established on a thin layer of presuppositions that are not supported by the data. This data, by the way, is the very same that is the foundation for the footnotes, brackets, and removed words and passages from modern bibles. The Received Text crowd has already rejected such a practice, but the Modern Critical Text camp embraces it with open arms.

The texts that serve as a foundation for modern bibles are not a text-family. They have no widespread attestation in the manuscript tradition. Since this is the case, what are we doing using them to make modern bibles? Is this all it takes for the church to toss out passages such as Mark 16:9-20? The burden of proof is set remarkably low for a passage to be thrown out of the bible as inauthentic. It seems rash that this is all it would take for a Christian to believe that a passage should be stripped from the text of Scripture, and yet here we are. As I often say, if the average Modern Critical Text advocate simply listened to their own scholars, they might express the same concerns as the Received Text crowd. It takes a strong tradition and a priori belief to discover that the foundational principle is incorrect and still believe the outcome of that principle to be true.