Modern Textual Criticism: Is it Reliable? Video 4

[CalvinandHodges]

Greetings all:

The fourth video in this series is now available online here:

Modern Textual Criticism: Is it Reliable? Part 4 - YouTube

These videos are about 15 minutes long. Criticisms/Comments of them are always appreciated.

Blessings in Jesus,

Rob

 

[rbcbob]

Thank you

 

[Gord]

Thank you.

 

[Fogetaboutit]

Good Job

 

[Romans922]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5352045/HasGodIndeedSaid.pdf

I'm in the middle of questioning some things about text criticism, so I'll have to watch your video series.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Thanks for the work you put into this, Rob!

Andrew, thanks for posting that article by Kayser and Pickering. Where did you find it? That one's new to me – I'll have to read through it. I have found Pickering's work to be excellent and very helpful, even though I go beyond what he posits in his Byz position with my TR / AV view.

 

[Bill The Baptist]

Nice job once again Rob. I especially liked it when you asked the question, "Would you give your sword to your enemy and ask him to sharpen it for you so that you can stab him with it?" Very nice

 

[CalvinandHodges]

Greetings:

Thank you all for your comments!

Bob and Gord: Thanks for your encouragement!

Andrew: I was not aware of that excellent article you posted - thanks for that. If you have seen this 4th video, then you may guess that my disagreement with the Critical Text men, the KJO group, and the MT men center around what I have listed as the 1st Principle of Text Criticism found in WCF 1:10.

Steve: Thanks brother!

Bill: I always enjoy your comments on my posts - both positive and negative.

Blessings to you all,

Rob

 

[CalvinandHodges]

Greetings:

Does anyone have any negative comments? Even such things as audio/video clarity, presentation problems, or such like?

Blessings,

Rob

 

[N. Eshelman]

One area where I disagree, Rob, is in saying that textual criticism has been given to believers in the NT because they are the priests. When you read the Pastoral Epistles, it seems that the Scriptures and their functions are given especially to the ordained officers of the church- and the "man of God" is to then teach, read, etc. The WCF gives the functions of the interpretation/preservation to the church... and I don't think that generally means all believers.

It may be a minor point... but....

Also, I think that the quotations were flashed way too quickly. I have no idea what they said. Also the turquoise background of the quotations was unbearable. Your study is a very nice background, but when you flash to a 1980s SoCal color, your eyes take a moment to adjust.. and just when they are adjusted... the quotation is gone.

Anyhow, I enjoyed this video. I did a 5 week study here at the LA RPC on the mss traditions as well. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Jesus is my friend]

Great Job Rob,thanks again keep them coming!!!!

 

[CalvinandHodges]

Greetings:

Thanks all for your encouragement!

I particularly thank Pastor Eshelman for his comments. I think you do have a point, pastor. I think, though, that at least one of the points I was driving at is that the Scriptures are the sole Treasure of the Church, and that they should be transmitted/interpreted not by an institution outside of the Church like a university, Bible Society, foundation, or a publishing house. I think that one of the advantages that the KJV has over the other translations is that it was translated entirely within the Church. King James was the head of the Anglican Church, and all of the translators were elders within that Church. All of these men were ultimately accountable to the Church. Also, I think, that it is in the catholic epistles that Peter refers to all believers as a royal priesthood, 1 Pt 2:9. I think that this may mean that one of the primary duties of Pastors and Elders is to be knowledgeable about Textual Criticism, but it does not therefore preclude the layman from learning it as well. I think the Church should be educated on this issue just as it should be educated on any matter of Theology, and those with more interest in the subject are encouraged to learn more.

The quotes that I put up on the videos are meant to be paused and read over. This saves me time in the video. I will look into a better background for the reading. Do you think that white would be better? I do not think that my room would be a good one to use because the words may be drowned out. I will look into all possibilities.

Thanks again, Pastor Eshelman, I do greatly appreciate your feedback!

In Jesus,

Rob

 

[N. Eshelman]

Greetings:

Thanks all for your encouragement!

I particularly thank Pastor Eshelman for his comments. I think you do have a point, pastor. I think, though, that at least one of the points I was driving at is that the Scriptures are the sole Treasure of the Church, and that they should be transmitted/interpreted not by an institution outside of the Church like a university, Bible Society, foundation, or a publishing house. I think that one of the advantages that the KJV has over the other translations is that it was translated entirely within the Church. King James was the head of the Anglican Church, and all of the translators were elders within that Church. All of these men were ultimately accountable to the Church. Also, I think, that it is in the catholic epistles that Peter refers to all believers as a royal priesthood, 1 Pt 2:9. I think that this may mean that one of the primary duties of Pastors and Elders is to be knowledgeable about Textual Criticism, but it does not therefore preclude the layman from learning it as well. I think the Church should be educated on this issue just as it should be educated on any matter of Theology, and those with more interest in the subject are encouraged to learn more.

The quotes that I put up on the videos are meant to be paused and read over. This saves me time in the video. I will look into a better background for the reading. Do you think that white would be better? I do not think that my room would be a good one to use because the words may be drowned out. I will look into all possibilities.

Thanks again, Pastor Eshelman, I do greatly appreciate your feedback!

In Jesus,

Rob

Personally, I think that black background with white text is best for video like this.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Rob,

It’s good you’re also asking for critical feedback, even if “negative”. Here are three (I really don’t like to find fault with you, since you are doing important work):

1) I think your reference to the priesthood of believers was appropriate, although not with regard to textual criticism, but to simply knowing, choosing, and keeping (even through persecutions such as the Diocletian, at risk of death) the Greek text common in the early church, which Dr. Pickering has established was that from the apostles and co., and later called the Byzantine. It was in the care of this “priesthood of believers”, lay as well as clergy, that the church’s true text was recognized and preserved.

2) I don’t think our primary use of the Scriptures is against the unbeliever (a [spiritual] sword with which to stab them), but with which to deliver them from captivity to the blinding of the devil and their own sin. Yes, we do use it to defend the Faith, but even there we are not against them, but against sin, delusion, refuges of lies, devils etc. I know you have a far more nuanced view than to assert that which I am criticizing, it just didn’t come out well (a thing I suffer from occasionally also).

3) I don’t have the Warfield work you quoted from, but I think that even there he already departed from the traditional (and original) understanding of the WCF 1:8. When he says that the “originals” are preserved “in the multitude of copies” he is not talking of the textus receptus (or Byzantine) editions, such as Letis or John Owen or yourself would assert, but the text generally – including Westcott and Hort’s Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (and their variant readings); see here. And in this post for further discussion on BBW: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/wcf-1-8-ct-40915/index3.html#post510367.

 

[CalvinandHodges]

Greetings:

Pastor Eshelman: I will use the black background in the future - thanks!

Steve: Thanks for those points. You are right that my view of the Sword of the Spirit is more nuanced than I let out on the video. However, the unbeliever does not want his sins exposed, and, consequently, if you gave him the sword used to expose his sins to sharpen, then one can only expect to receive a blunt sword in return.

Insofar as Warfield is concerned you are right in saying that Dr. Warfield understood the WCF to mean more than simply the Byzantine MSS. I did not wish to go into detail with Warfield's view in this video (maybe that is the shortcoming of it), but I did point out that Warfield "went beyond" what I quoted from him. It is very clear that the Reformation was solidly behind the Byzantine MSS: Erasmus, Stephens, Beza, and Elzevir were all Greek texts based on the Byzantine MSS (one could argue for Erasmus' later editions containing some Alexandrian inclusions). So also the translations: Tyndale, Luther, Coverdale, Olivetian, and the Diodati texts are all derived from the Byzantine MSS. When one considers that the WCF cites 1 Jn 5:7,8 as Scripture, then one is hard pressed to argue that the Assembly included what we now consider the Alexandrian MSS as part of the preserved copies of the autographs. Erasmus, by the way, was well aware of the Vaticanus (B) text, but never used it in his Greek text with the single exception of one verse in his 5th edition. His 5th edition was never used - it was his 3rd edition that stood in the line of the Textus Receptus.

I wrote all of that because I am going to quote what Warfield said in the very next paragraph, and we can all see now how he departed from the Westminster Confession on Textual Criticism:

No doubt the authors of the Confession were far from being critics of the nineteenth century: they did not foresee the course of criticism nor anticipate the amount of labor which would be required for the reconstruction of the text of, say, the New Testament. Men like lightfoot are found defending the readings of the common text against men like Beza; as there were some of them, like Lightfoot, who were engaged in the most advanced work which up to that time had been done on the Biblical text, Walton's "Polyglott," so others of them may have stood with John Owen, a few years later, in his strictures on that great work; and had their lot been cast in our day it is possible that many of them might have been of the school of Scrivener and Burgon, rather than of that of Westcott and Hort, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield, Works Volume 6: The Westminster Assembly and Its Work, pg. 239.

I think Letis does a good job in showing the non-Reformed roots of Walton's Polyglott (Journal of Christian Reconstruction Volume 12 Number 2, 1989, 43-60). Though Lightfoot was involved in the Polyglott - it was more for academic reasons than as an attempt to overthrow the Byzantine MSS (though that may have been Walton's intent). With all of this in mind one can see that Warfield's interpretation of the WCF was skewed by the influence of the German textual critics (Westcott and Hort being their interpreters in Britain and America).

Consequently, when you read the quote I made of Warfield in the context of the Byzantine priority view, then one can say that the quote is consistent with the Byzantine priority:

When it is affirmed that the transmission has been "kept pure," there is, of course, no intention to assert that no errors have crept into the original text during its transmission through so many ages by hand-copying and the printing press; nor is there any intention to assert that the precise text "immediately inspired by God," lies complete and entire, without the slightest corruption, on the pages of any one extant copy. The difference between the infallibility or errorlessness of immediate inspiration and the fallibility or liability to error of men operating under God's providential care alone, is intended to be taken at its full value. But it is intended to assert most strongly, first, that the autographs of Scripture, as immediately inspired, were in the highest sense the very Word of God and trustworthy in every detail; and, next, that God's singular providential care has preserved to the Church, through every vicissitude, these inspired and infallible Scriptures, diffused indeed, in the multitude of copies, but safe and accessible. "What mistake is in one copy is corrected in another," was the proverbial philosophy of the time in this matter; and the assertion that the inspired text has "by God's singular care and providence been kept pute in all ages," is to be understood not as if it affirmed that every copy has been kept pute from all error, but that the genuine text has been kept safe in the multitude of copies, so as never to be out of the reach of the Church of God, in the use of ordinary means, ibid, 238-238.

The problem as I see it in Warfield's view is that since the copies that were held by the Reformer's in their day contained the infallible autographs, then why is it necessary to continue to change the text based on new findings - especially findings that have been consistently rejected by the Church - such as the Alexandrian MSS? In the very next thing that Warfield states he argues that the Reformers and the Westminster divines did not have the "pure copies" of the originals in their hands:

In the sense of the Westminster Confession, therefore, the multiplication of copies of the Scriptures, the several early efforts towards the revision of the text, the raising up of scholars in our own day to collect and collate MSS., and to reform the text on scientific principles - of our Tischendorfs and Tregelleses, and Westcotts and Horts - are all parts of God's singular care and providence in preserving His inspired Word pure.

Since it can be proven that the Tischendorf/Tregelles views of the "older mss are better" is not consistent, and that the textual theory of Westcott and Hort is a false philosophy (which I am trying to show in these videos), then I would say that Warfield's statement above is entirely false. I do not believe that even Lightfoot would subscribe to the Westcott and Hort theory.

Warfield piggybacked the modern view of textual criticism on the true statements of the WCF, but the Westcott and Hort theory cannot be sustained by the WCF.

Blessings,

Rob

 

[Humble_penitent]

I did not realize it was legal to take Gulda's recording and use it for your production. I had assumed it would be considered copyright infringement.

I learn something everyday.

 

[CalvinandHodges]

Greetings:

The use of video's on YouTube follows the law's "fair use" act. One can quote or use portions of a video for the purpose of criticism - just like you can use to review a book. In the case of my first video I contacted Alpha/Omega ministeries and asked if I could use portions for my video, and they gave permission but mentioned that I did not have to as long as it followed the "fair use" act.

By the way, Who is Gulda?

Hope this helps.

-Rob