# Francis Turretin & Textual Criticism



## TaylorWest (Feb 16, 2010)

I'm not a student of Turretin's (all I have is his _Institues of Elenctic Theology_, P&R, 1992), but I'd love to know if anyone knows what else he might have written on textual variants in the manuscripts. I'm finding these sections particularly interesting:

III.The question is not Are the sources so pure that no fault has crept into the many sacred manuscripts, either through the waste of time, the carelessness of copyists or the malice of the Jews or of heretics? For this is acknowledged on both sides and the various readings which Beza and Robert Stephanus have carefully observed in the Greek (and the Jews in the Hebrew) clearly prove it. Rather the question is have the original texts (or the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts) been so corrupted either by copyists through carelessness (or by the Jews and heretics through malice) that they can no longer be regarded as the judge of controversies and the rule to which all the versions must be applied? The papists affirm, we deny it. (Page 106)​
And again:

VIII.Although various corruptions might have crept into the Hebrew manuscripts through the carelessness of transcribers and the waste of time, they do not cease to be a canon of faith and practice. For besides being in things of small importance and not pertaining to faith and practice (as Bellarmine himself confesses …), they are not universal in all the manuscripts; or* they are not such as cannot easily be corrected from a collation of the Scriptures and the various manuscripts.* (Page 108)​
And again:

VIII.*The various readings which occur do not destroy the authenticity of the Scriptures because they may be easily distinguished and determined, partly by the connection of the passages and partly by a collation with better manuscripts.* (Page 114)​


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## CalvinandHodges (Mar 18, 2010)

Hi Christopher:

Turretin writes many things which pertain to Text Criticism. You may like pg. 85: 'From what source does the divine authority of the Scriptures become known to us" - the answer to this question is the bedrock of all Reformed Textual Criticism. Also, pg. 70, "Do real contradictions occur in Scripture" is an excellent answer to those who seek to undermine inerrancy. You have also mentioned pg. 106 "The Purity of the Sources" but I would point you to section II which refutes the modern view that the WCF is referring inerrancy to the "original" manuscripts, and not the authentic copies of those mss.

Blessings,

Rob


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