# Douglas Wilson vs James White



## ThomasCartwright (May 24, 2009)

I realise some of you may have seen this before, but some no doubt have not.

Whilst I disagree with Douglas Wilson on some aspects of the TR debate, I have corresponded with him and found him unfailingly polite and gracious. Wilson's central thrust of seeking a presuppositional approach to the textual debate is biblical. Therefore, I commend these arguments:

Disputatio - Volume 10, Issue 1

Wilson deals with the whole issue of the TR in this edition:

Volume 10, Issue 1


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## DMcFadden (May 24, 2009)

Wilson would not be my lodstone for finding theological direction generally. However, this was an illuminating discussion with some valuable arguments on both sides. I agree with you that he raises some important issues relative to textual criticism. Thanks for posting it.


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## rbcbob (May 24, 2009)

Maurice Robinson has some very persuasive arguments in favor of the Majority (Byzantine) Text at Robinson, The case for Byzantine priority which as of 2007 James White had continued to decline answering.
Bob


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## Scott1 (May 24, 2009)

Without commenting on the topic at hand in this thread, and allowing Mr. Wilson is biblically right about some things,

I can't get past the fact Mr. Wilson is a leader of the serious error of "federal vision" theology. He has been challenged on this, yet remains hardened. 

It may seem at this moment this individual's profile is only increasing among biblical reformed people, and that he is sought out by secular media to represent the face of it. But, I can't get past the Scriptural admonition of teachers who give themselves over to false teaching, and harden themselves in it.

It would seem unwise to rely upon such as teaching authority unless and until repentance is forthcoming.


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## DMcFadden (May 24, 2009)

Scott, I fully agree with you about the FV issue. I was only commending the interesting discussion on textual critical matters with one of my heroes, James White.


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## SolaGratia (May 25, 2009)

*Quotations on Textual Purity

Various Saints and Observers*

It is admitted on all hands that the Text used as the basis of the Authorized Version correctly represents a Text known to have been widely (if not everywhere) in use as early as the second century (for the Peschitta Old Latin Versions, corroborated by patristic quotations afford ample proof of that). On the other hand it is not known that the two Codices we are discussing represent anything but copies of a bad original, made worse in the copying.

*Philip Mauro*

. . . but a review and comparison of the present and fashionable opinions of biblical critics. We call these the opinions now fashionable; for those who watch the course of this are aware that there is as truly a fashion in it, infecting its votaries, as in ladies' bonnets, medicines or cravats.

*R.L. Dabney*

The nemesis of superstition and idolatry is ever the same. Phantoms of the imagination henceforth usurp the place of substantial forms. Interminable doubt, wretched misbelief, childish credulity, judicial blindness, are the inevitable sequel and penalty. The mind that has long allowed itself in a systematic trifling with evidence, is observed to fall the easiest prey to imposture. It has doubted what is demonstrably true, and has rejected what is indubitably divine.

*Dean Burgon*

In addition, the Protestant orthodox held, as a matter of doctrinal conviction stated in the locus de Scriptura sacra of their theological systems, the providential preservation of the text throughout history.

*Richard Muller*

The Scripture is the library of the Holy Ghost; it is a pandect of divine knowledge, an exact model and platform of religion. The Scripture contains in it the credenda, "the things which we are to believe," and the agenda, "the things which we are to practice."

*Thomas Watson*

In these scriptures God requires all sorts of people, both men, women, children, and strangers, both learned and unlearned, to read the Scriptures, and to search after the heavenly treasures that are laid up in them, as men search for gold and silver in the ore.

*Thomas Brooks*

It can, then, with no colour of probability be asserted (which yet I find some learned men too free in granting), namely, that there hath the same fate attended the Scripture in its transcription as hath done other books. Let me say without offence, this imagination, asserted on deliberation, seems to me to border on atheism. Surely the promise of God for the preservation of his word, with his love and care of his church, of whose faith and obedience that word of his is the only rule, requires other thoughts at our hands.

*John Owen*

Today these sacred texts must have none of the smell of the ancient Near-East upon them; they must be made to speak in an American colloquialism that offers neither a window to the transcendent, nor an entry way to the religious consciousness that animated the communities that composed, preserved and transmitted these materials as a sacred trust. Hence, today we have Bibles that havee been custom fitted to the immediacy of the modern situation, primarily for marketing purposes, but always under the guise of "needing to communicate." One publisher alone, the Zondervan Publishing House, has excelled in this endeavor, aiming for every consumer group imaginable. This, however, is diversification gone mad: The Quest Study Bible, The New Student Bible, Women's Devotional Bible, The Adventure Bible, The Teen Study Bible, Men's Devotional Bible,Couples' Devotional Bible, The NIV Life Application Bible, The NIV Study Bible, Youthwalk Devotional Bible [?!]. This is scandal beyond belief.

*Theodore Letis*

Q. 6. What was the end of writing the word? 
A. That the church to the end of the world might have a sure, known, standing-rule, to try and judge all things by, and not be left to the uncertainty of traditions; John v. 39. Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.

*John Flavel*

If we would destroy the Christian religion, we must first of all destroy man's belief in the Bible.

*Voltaire*

What strange mistakes have been made by some who have thought themselves able to interpret Scripture by their own abilities as scholars and critics, though they have studied with much diligence!

*John Newton*

The only antidote to this plight is for those small remnant Reformation communities who still retain confessional and catholic integrity to act as salt and light in this insipid and ever dimming age. With little promise of success they must walk by faith and not by sight and celebrate their distinctives with intelligence, dignity, and winsomeness in hopes of attracting with the full fragrance of the old classic translations those whose senses have been dulled by the pollutants of modernity (2 Cor. 2:14_17).

*Theodore Letis*

The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old)and the New Testament in Greek (which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them.

*Westminster Confession of Faith*

This section teaches—That the original sacred text has come down to us in a state of essential purity.

*A.A. Hodge*

I have just spent the better part of the last five years attempting to localize just what was the specific dynamic, or chain of events, that led to this bankrupt state within the modern confessional churches. Obviously we all know that Biblical criticism lay at the heart of the matter, but what I wanted to discover is how and why so many well-armed and forewarned ecclesiastical bodies could all fall in time, one after another, without so much as knowing the process had taken place. Certainly everyone rightly feared and trembled at the German higher criticism, with its speculative theories about sources and carrying out an agenda dictated by the various philosophical schools of German Idealism. But it was while everyone was staring steadfastly at this Philistine, would-be invader of the Church, that time and again an apparent out-flanking took place and fall ensued. How and why?

*Theodore Letis*

For an orthodox Christian, Burgon's view is the only reasonable one. If we believe that God gave the Church guidance in regard to the New Testament books, then surely it is logical to believe that God gave the Church similar guidance in regard to the text which these books contained. Surely it is very inconsistent to believe that God guided the Church in regard to the New Testament canon but gave her no guidance in regard to the New Testament text. But this seems to be just what many modern Christians do believe. They believe that all during the medieval period and throughout the Reformation and post-Reformation era the true New Testament text was lost and that it was not regained until the middle of the nineteenth century, when Tischendorf discovered it in the Sinaitic manuscript Aleph and when Westcott and Hort found it in the Vatican manuscript B.

*Edward Hills*

A sacred book rejected is like a king dethroned.

*C. S. Lewis*

They were far too shrewd to feed this disconcerting thirst for ideas with a Bible in plain English; the language they used was deliberately artificial even when it was new. They thus dispersed the mob by appealing to its emotions, as a mother quiets a baby by crooning to it. The Bible that they produced was so beautiful that the great majority of men, in the face of it, could not fix their minds upon the ideas in it. To this day it has enchanted the English-speaking peoples so effectively that, in the main, they remain Christians, at least sentimentally. Paine has assaulted them, Darwin and Huxley have assaulted them. But they still remember the twenty-third Psalm when the doctor begins to shake his head, they are still moved beyond compare (though not, alas, to acts!) by the Sermon on the Mount, and they still turn once a year from their sordid and degrading labors to immerse themselves unashamed in the story of the manger. It is not much, but it is something. I do not admire the general run of American Bible-searchersMethodists, United Brethren, Baptists, and such vermin. But try to imagine what the average low-browed Methodist would be if he were not a Methodist but an atheist!

*H.L Mencken*

The distressing realization is forced upon us that the "progress" of the past hundred years has been precisely in the wrong direction—our modern versions and critical texts are several times farther removed from the original than are the AV and TR! How could such a calamity have come upon us?!

*Wilbur Pickering*


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## ThomasCartwright (May 25, 2009)

rbcbob said:


> Maurice Robinson has some very persuasive arguments in favor of the Majority (Byzantine) Text at Robinson, The case for Byzantine priority which as of 2007 James White had continued to decline answering.
> Bob



You are right about James White avoiding the central questions in this deabte. Douglas Wilson pins him down at the end of his short debate as to where his authority is derived from. Note White states,



> While related, canon and textual variations involve separate issues and methodologies.



White has no Biblical mandate as a putative presuppositionalist to adopt such a contradictory position in recognising the canonised books from the Words of those canonised books. This is something I have been repeating on a number of threads here and no one from the CT side has come up with an Biblical presuppositional approach to determining/restoring the text of the canon.

Some may argue that White did not get a chance to reply to Wilson's charge here but I believe he does not have an answer. No CT advocate that I have read does. This inconsistency of White's approach can be seen in his book _Scripture Alone_ published in 2004. One should carefully note that White does not have a single bible verse to argue for a 66 Book Canon, but note the presuppositional approach he adopts for the "Received Canon" but rejects it for the "Received Text." White begins his section on canonicity by asking rhetorically, 



> Is a clear knowledge of the canon’s extent important to the function of scripture in the Church? Yes. So does it not follow that God will both providentially preserve the Scriptures and lead His people to a functional, sufficient knowledge of the canon so as to fulfill His purpose in inspiring them? Indeed, will He not exercise just as much divine power in establishing and fulfilling His purpose for the Scriptures (their functioning as a guide to the Church) as He as in inspiring them?
> White then goes on to tell us, “the true foundation for confidence in the Canon of Scripture is found in God’s Sovereign power to fulfill His own purposes (Psalm 135:6), and it is His purpose for Scripture to function in the church as a means of instruction, admonishment, and encouragement.



Speaking of II Tim 3:16-17, White explains that the apographs referred to by Paul, “in God’s providence, the very form of the church, having elders in the position of teaching and admonishing and leading, requires it to have access to this God-breathed source of authority, the Scriptures.” White is very clear in another section that the idea of any lost Scripture is a slight on God, 



> The entire idea of “lost Scripture” requires us to believe that God would go through the work of inspiring His word so as to provide for His church guidance and instruction and encouragement; but then, having inspired His Word, be shown incapable of protecting and preserving it and leading His church to recognize if for what it is. Arguing that God might wish to give to give more Scripture at a later point is one thing: charging God with delinquency of duty in light of His own stated purposes for the giving of Scripture is simply without any foundation in His truth as taught in the Bible. From a Biblical perspective of God’s sovereignty, the idea of “lost scripture” is an unambiguously self-refuting concept.



White goes on to say, “God is eternal and has infallible knowledge of the future; He surely knew every situation the church would face when He inspired the Scriptures long ago. Are we to believe that He is incapable of giving a revelation that would be sufficient throughout the church age?”

Evangelicals who believe in providential preservation of the canon but not canonized words because of their Enlightenment foundationalism need to explain why if God can protect His Word on that scale, why do we have so much trouble believing He could protect individual Words. Certainly, the true Church has settled providentially on the fact that the Bible contains 66 books and that Mark 16:9-20 is in one of them. If we believe that God could use imperfect men such as the murderers: David, Moses and Paul to write the Bible and other imperfect men to recognise the true canon, then why would He withhold His guidance to imperfect men to receive His Words? Even Christ, the living Word, was conceived and born from the womb of an imperfect person. If the living Word can flow through imperfection, why do we doubt that the written Word can? If God used man to write the original autographs, then why is He prevented from using man to preserve them? Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit is still working behind natural processes (Matt 5:45; 10:29). Logically, if the Hortian Text theory were true, then it is only reasonable to declare that the New Testament canon is still open. To cite E. F. Hills, “If God has preserved the New Testament in such a way that it is impossible to obtain assurance concerning the purity of the text, then there is no infallible New Testament today, and if there is no infallible New Testament today, it may very well be that there never was an infallible New Testament.” The doctrine of divine inspiration of the original writings, clearly implies the doctrine of the divine preservation of Scripture. What settles inspiration and inerrancy for us is the explanation we get in Scripture. We were not there when it happened. The same should be true concerning perfect preservation.

Do anti-perfect preservationists really believe that God inspired the original, and then withdrew any intervention like a deistic creator of writing? However, this approach simply introduces other problems. We could not be certain that God did not inspire other books not in the Protestant Canon as we have accepted the premise that all God did was inspire and then was completely hands-off, leaving the rest to humanity to determine. With this pre-suppositional approach, we lose any ability to determine what is inspired and what is not. Indeed, if we believe God was involved how do we determine how much He was involved and if He stopped being involved or was only imperfectly preserving, when did He stop being fully involved? The Scriptures teach that God Sovereignly works in time to control revelation (Gal 4:4; Eph 1:10).


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## ChristianTrader (May 25, 2009)

Dr. Ferguson,
Do you have a reading list for the TR vs. MT vs. CT topic?


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## rbcbob (May 25, 2009)

Dr. Ferguson writes
_"Evangelicals who believe in providential preservation of the canon but not canonized words because of their Enlightenment foundationalism need to explain why if God can protect His Word on that scale, why do we have so much trouble believing He could protect individual Words."
_

As can be seen from my post above I am fully persuaded by Dr. Robinson's arguments for the Byzantine Text. That being said I am continuing to think through how the Lord superintended the transmission of the various manuscripts. I do not doubt that for the most part the Siniaiticus and Vaticanus MSS are spurious impositions upon the Church, albeit under the Sovereign Providence of God. In regard to _canonized words_ we are faced with the matter of seeking to understand the differences among the 5000 extant copies. As a Reformed Baptist committed to the Sovereignty of God this does not cause me any anxiety. It is just something to work through.

Years ago Pickering considered that the age of the computer might serve to expidite the process of comparing all the variations and the possibilities. It is comforting to remember that no inspired words of God have perished. Logically they continue among the extant manuscripts as a whole.

On a related matter I find something helpful that I heard in a lecture by Carl F.H. Henry on the subject of God's Revelation as it pertains to the communication of Truth. He said that the smallest unit of truth is not a word because a word in isolation does not convey truth. The minimal unit of truth is a proposition. The propositions transmitted in the Scriptures are necessarily true and man has the obligation of believing them.

As this relates to the various manuscripts we can take comfort that no propositional truth is missing within the family of extant manuscripts. If it please God that we are ever able to collate _all_ and _only_ the _original_ words that would be a delightful blessing. Till then we have the promise of God that not one jot or tittle shall fail!

In Christ,
Bob


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## DMcFadden (May 26, 2009)

Evangelical Textual Criticism http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/
The King James Bible Page, King James Bible Page: Information on Bible versions
*One Bible Only?: Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible* (Paperback) by Roy E. Beacham
*King James Version Debate, The: A Plea for Realism* (Paperback) by D. A. Carson
KJV Asia http://www.KJV-asia.com/authorized_version_defence.htm. Scads of articles defending the KJV
The King James Only Resource Center (anti KJV Onlyism) http://www.kjvonly.org/
"The King James Version Defended" by Edward Hills The King James Verison Defended by Edward F. Hills
Theodore P. Letis Resources http://www.holywordcafe.com/bible/Letis.html
*Bible in Translation, The: Ancient and English Versions* (Paperback) by Bruce M. Metzger 
*The Identity of the New Testament Text II* by Wilbur Pickering http://www.revisedstandard.net/text/WNP/
"New Testament Textual Criticism: The Case for Byzantine Priority" by Maurice A. Robinson Robinson, The case for Byzantine priority
"Why I Do Not Think the King James Bible Is the Best Translation Available Today" by Daniel B. Wallace Bible.org: Why I Do Not Think the King James Bible Is the Best Translation Available Today
*King James Only Controversy, The: Can You Trust Modern Translations?* (Paperback) by James R. White

ChristianTrader, what I have been finding reading some of these resources (plus the excellent posts by our own JerusalemBlade on PB) is that it boils down to a pretty "simple" set of choices . . .

* Textus Receptus Only
* Alexandrian priority
* Byzantine priority

- Most of James White's arguments are against the nearly cult-like adherents of the KJV Only groups.
- Most of the scholarship (liberal to conservative) is on the side of Alexandrian priority, although Byzantine readings are getting more respect than WH days
- A minority (growing) seems to opt for Byzantine priority, although they allow for an Alexandrian reading here and there


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## ThomasCartwright (May 26, 2009)

ChristianTrader said:


> Dr. Ferguson,
> Do you have a reading list for the TR vs. MT vs. CT topic?



I came to my view from a collation of sources and thinking. Bahnsen, Frame and Van Til (unwittingly) influenced my development of a presuppositional approach to the Text. Rusdooney (By what Standard) and Doug Wilson (Mother Kirk) especially also. 

The TBS have some good stuff, Ted Letis' books and a book that heavily influenced me was "Thou shalt keep them" edited by Kent Brandenburg. Obviously it is written from a Baptist view of history and needs some realignment to our thinking but it is an excellent Scriptural presuppositional approach. Much of Brandenburg's views on the TR are set forth on his website on a list on the side bar:

WHAT IS TRUTH

I would recommend you read his replies to comments as he is very transparent in his answers. 

I concur with Br McFadden that some of the sharpest thinkers in this field (from both sides) are here on PB. Promoting the TR: Jerusalem Blade, Thomas Holland and Rev Winzer have written some excellent incisive analysis. 

Far Eastern Bible College in Singapore and David Cloud have also a lot of good research on this subject on their respective websites:

Far Eastern Bible College | Singapore

Home

Finally, I found that the best way was to do your own thinking and research. I spent many hours trawling Journals, libraries and websites such as www.archive.org to read the Puritan and Reformed writers such as Fulke, Cartwright, Jewel to discover what they really believed was the authentic text. The revisionist history since Warfields day on this subject has been very misleading.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (May 26, 2009)

DMcFadden said:


> Evangelical Textual Criticism Evangelical Textual Criticism
> The King James Bible Page, King James Bible Page: Information on Bible versions
> *One Bible Only?: Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible* (Paperback) by Roy E. Beacham
> *King James Version Debate, The: A Plea for Realism* (Paperback) by D. A. Carson
> ...


Another one:
www.bibleprotector.com


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