# Letis on Inerrancy, and Warfield



## Logan

I did an inordinate amount of reading this week. As posted in another thread I was trying to find out more about Letis' position and was excited to find a lengthy interaction between him and Dr James White. Unfortunately it is not Letis at his best and he repeatedly demeaned Dr White, refrained from answering questions (instead he criticized him for not having read Muller and Preus) and overall seemed very pompous. I am told that this was not Letis' best moment and certainly there was no content there to understand his position. So I dug deeper and found some writings on this website (though many links are dead) as well as two essays that Steve posted.

I also found his dissertation (pdf), which Letis repeatedly referred to in his discussion with Dr White. Interestingly to me, Letis repeatedly attacked "inerrancy of the originals" and when Dr White asked if he believed in "the inerrancy of the originals" responded by saying it was not the appropriate question and did Dr White still beat his wife?

At first glance, it would seem that Letis is not taking an orthodox view at all, but to clear up any misconceptions people might have, here is Letis' explanation:



Letis said:


> Allow me to say that many have been confused by my advocacy of the word "Infallible," and my pronounced dislike of the modern term "inerrant," because the former word is the word always used by Luther, Calvin, and the Westminster Divines, in its Latin form, "infallibilitas." On this please consult Richard Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), s.v. "authoritas Scripturae." There you will see the meaning of "infallible"contains the sense that Scripture is "without admixture of error...historically true in its record of words, deed, events, and doctrines." As for the word "inerrant," it has no pedigree as a theological term until late in the 19th century and because when it arrived in a new context (its original context was as an astronomical term), it always and only had reference to the "autographic" form the text, a sweeping revisionism of the WCF which taught a preserved "infallibility," not a lost "autographic inerrancy." I trust this makes clear that the earlier accusation about me was intended to suggest not that I actually have a historically more grounded statement of Scripture (via the WCF), but that somehow I have a weaker view because I choose to hold to the WCF's language and content on this issue (because, with this standard my own Lutheran orthodox view is in complete agreement).



Unless I am mistaken, Letis seems to think that one cannot hold to both "inerrancy" and "infallibility". Surely he would agree that the originals were without error, but he dislikes the term because in his mind it makes a distinction between the autographa (original scripts by the original authors) and the apographa (copies of the originals). I don't deny that the word "inerrancy" is usually made to make a distinction between the autographa and the apographa, but I do deny that this is purely 19th century Warfieldianism. Letis says



Letis said:


> Hence, it was the use of the word "inerrancy" by B.B. Warfield in the 19th century (a non-theological innovative terminological alteration to the language of Biblical authority), that resulted in the "quest for the historical text" i.e., the endorsement of the Westcott and Hort edition of the Greek N.T., (which assumes the extant text is corrupt), which in turn evolved into the quest for the historical Jesus and the Jesus Seminar, the most blatantly arrogant project of unbelief presently active on this planet. Moreover, his use of the word at Princeton was a major contribution towards that Institution going liberal in 1929.



Letis asserts over and over that this distinction between the autographs and the apographs is a post-enlightenment idea, and that to believe only the originals were "inerrant" is distinctly Warfieldian. I never saw him actually deal with Warfield's evidence (in Warfield's volume on the Westminster Assembly, especially pp 236 ff), but perhaps he does in other writings I don't have access to. However, to criticize someone of Warfield's scholarship repeatedly, seems worthy of defense. In Warfield's own words:



Warfield said:


> 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 that of Westcott and Hort. But whether they were good critics or bad is not the point. It admits of no denial that they explicitly recognized the fact that the text of the Scriptures had suffered corruption in process of transmission and affirmed that the "pure" text lies therefore not in one copy, but in all, and is to be attained not by simply reading the text in whatever copy may chance to fall into our hands, but by a process of comparison, i.e. by criticism. The affirmation of the Confession includes the two facts, therefore, first that the Scriptures in the originals were immediately inspired by God; and secondly that this inspired text has not been lost to the Church, but through God's good providence has been kept pure, amidst all the crowding errors of scribes and printers, and that therefore the Church still has the inspired Word of God in the originals, and is to appeal to it, and to it alone, as the final authority in all controversies of religion.



I agree with this statement, and Warfield follows it up with primary source quotation after quotation (some from the Westminster Divines) to back this up. Letis, apparently does not agree, repeatedly saying Warfield introduced this post-enlightenment idea (even using the strong phrase 'the Warfieldian heresy of "Inerrant autographs.'"). To defend his position, he seems to constantly refer to R. Muller and Preus which he says is necessary to an historical understanding of the period and for evaluating the writings of pre-19th century authors. Perhaps Letis is unknowingly guilty of "Mullerism" or "Preusism", instead of everyone else being seduced by "Warfieldianism". In any event I wish he would say where Warfield is misinterpreting these writers.



Letis said:


> This doctrine, therefore, is a dramatic departure from the WCF which never stated Biblical authority in such absurd terms [(inerrancy)]. The above is also incomplete because it fails to point out that this is NOT classic Protestant orthodoxy as found perfectly expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which says absolutely NOTHING about "autographs" or "inerrancy," but rather puts its stress on a PRESERVED text that it calls "infallible."



That the Westminster divines believed their present Scriptures to be an "infallible" rule, I agree, but that they believed it to be without error of transmission I disagree, or would say they at least allowed for it. That they believed no Scripture had been lost over time was also clear, but was in some manuscript or another.

Since Warfield's view has been so much maligned as being a 19th century innovation, I would like to devote my next post to some lengthy quotations from Turretin, to show at the very least it was nothing new. If Warfield inherited this view from Hodge who inherited it from Turretin (whose text was the standard Systematic Theology for many years at Princeton) then so be it.


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## Logan

Continuing the previous post and the accusations made against Warfield. Letis stated that anyone who believed in "inerrancy of the originals" was departing from orthodoxy (he called Warfield's view "heresy") and that nearly everyone today has been so influenced by Warfield's post-enlightenment teaching that we are guilty of reading a historical view into the WCF and other authors that is not found there. He accuses Warfield of holding autographa as _alone_ authoritative. Warfield would have agreed that the apographa are also authoritative, because they accurately represent the autographa.

I believe Letis' allegations to be false, especially since this view has been around longer than the time of the Warfield.

The words "inerrancy of the originals" may not appear in Turretin but the distinction certainly is made. In fact, I found Turretin's formulation to be extremely close to that of Warfield, and rather than help Letis' case, made a strong case against him. In Letis' dissertation he selects quotes from Turretin and Owen and these seem to be supporting his case, but unfortunately (perhaps not intentionally) does not read far enough.

That they and the formers of the WCF believed in the authority of the copies they had there can be no doubt. But it was _because_ they believed they accurately represented the originals. Here are some extensive quotes from Turretin but they are well-worth reading.



Turretin said:


> The question does not concern the irregular writing of words or the punctuation or the various readings (which all acknowledge do often occur); or whether the copies which we have so agree with the originals as to vary from them not even in a little point or letter. Rather the question is whether they so differ as to make the genuine corrupt and to hinder us from receiving the original text as a rule of faith and practice.
> The question is not as to the particular corruption of some manuscripts or as to the errors which have crept into the books of particular editions through the negligence of copyists or printers. All acknowledge the existence of many such small corruptions. The question is whether there are universal corruptions and errors so diffused through all the copies (both manuscript and edited) as that they cannot be restored and corrected by any collation of various copies, or of Scripture itself and of parallel passages. Are there real and true, and not merely apparent, contradictions? We deny the former.
> 
> The reasons are: (1) The Scriptures are inspired of God (theopneustos, 2 Tim 3:16). The word of God cannot lie (Ps 19:8-9; Heb 6:18); cannot pass away and be destroyed (Mat 5:18); shall endure forever (1 Pet 1:25); and is truth itself (John 17:17). For how could such things be predicated of it, if it contained dangerous contradictions, and if God suffered either the sacred writers to err and to slip in memory, or incurable blemishes to creep into it?
> 
> (2) Unless unimpaired integrity characterize the Scriptures, they could not be regarded as the sole rule of faith and practice, and the door would be thrown wide open to atheists, libertines, enthusiasts and other profane persons like them for destroying its authenticity and overthrowing the foundation of salvation. For since nothing false can be an object of faith, how can the Scriptures be held as authentic and reckoned divine if liable to contradictions and corruptions? Nor can it be said that these corruptions are only in smaller things which do not affect the foundation of faith. For if once the authenticity of the Scriptures is taken away (which would result even from the incurable corruption of one passage), how could our faith rest on what remains? And if corruption is admitted in those of lesser importance, why not in others of greater? Who could assure me that no error or blemish had crept into fundamental passages? Or what reply could be given to a subtle atheist or heretic who should pertinaciously assert that this or that passage less in his favor had been corrupted? It will not do to say that divine providence wished to keep it free from serious corruptions, but not from minor. For besides the fact that this is gratuitous, it cannot be held without injury, as if lacking in the necessary things which are required for the full credibility of Scripture itself. Nor can we readily believe that God, who dictated and inspired each and every word to these inspired men, would not take care of their entire preservation. If men use the utmost care diligently to preserve their words, especially if they are of any importance, as for example a testament or contract, in order that it may not be corrupted, how much more, must we suppose, would God take care of his word which he intended as a testament and seal of his covenant with us, so that it might not be corrupted; especially when he could easily forsee and prevent such corruptions in order to establish the faith of his church?
> 
> The principal arguments for the integrity of the Scriptures and the purity of the sources are four. (1) The chief of these is the providence of God, who as he wished to provide for our faith by inspiring the sacred writers as to what they should write, and by preserving the Scriptures against the attempts of enemies who have left nothing untried that they might destroy them, so he should keep them pure and uncorrupted in order that our faith might always have a firm foundation. (2) The religion of the Jews who have always been careful even to the point of superstition concerning the faithful keeping of the sacred manuscripts. (3) The diligence of the Masoretes who placed their marks as a hedge around the law that it might not in any way be changed or corrupted. (4) The number and multitude of copies, so that even if some manuscripts could be corrupted, yet all could not.



Turretin gives some examples of alleged contradictions and then continues:



Turretin said:


> Although we give to the Scriptures absolute integrity, we do not therefore think that the copyists and printers were inspired, but only that the providence of God watched over the copying of the sacred books, so that although many errors might have crept in, it has not so happened (or they have not so crept into the manuscripts) but that they can be easily corrected by a collation of others (or with the Scriptures themselves). Therefore the foundation of the purity and integrity of the sources is not to be placed in the freedom from fault of men, but in the providence of God which (however men employed in transcribing the sacred books might possibly mingle various errors) always diligently took care to correct them, or that they might be corrected easily either from a comparison with Scripture itself or from more approved manuscripts. It was not necessary therefore to render all the scribes infallible, but only so to direct them that the true reading may always be found out. This book far surpasses all others in purity.



Turretin passes to some more examples, including the mention of "Cainan" in Luke 3:36:



Turretin said:


> This [is spurious and] is plainly proved: (1) by the authority of Moses and of the books of Chronicles which, in the genealogical records formed in three places (Gen. 10:24; 11:13; 1 Chron. 1:18), make no mention of him; (2) the Chaldee paraphrases which uniformly omit Cainan in the book of Genesis and Chronicles; (3) Josephus does not mention him, nor Berosus guided by him, nor Africanus whose words Eusebius quotes in his Chronicorum (cf. 1.16.13 [PG 19.153-54]); (4) the sacred chronology would thus be disturbed and brought into doubt in the history of Moses, if the years of Cainan are inserted between Arphaxad and Sala. Abraham would not be the tenth from Noah as Moses asserts, but the eleventh. (5) It does not exist in any of the Codices. Our Beza testifies that it is not found in his most ancient manuscript (Annotationes maiores in Novum ... Testamentum, Pars prior [1594], p. 262 on Luke 3:36). Ussher ("De Cainano Arphaxadi filio" in Chronologia Sacra 6; cf. Whole Works [1847-64], 11:558) asserts that he saw the book of Luke written in Greek-Latin on the most ancient vellum, in characters somewhat large without breathings and accents (which having been brought from Greece to France was laid up in the monastery of St. Irenaeus in the suburbs of Lyons; and being discovered in the year 1562 was afterward carried to England and presented to the University of Cambridge), and in it he could not find Cainan. Scaliger in his prologue to the chronicle of Eusebius ("Prolegomena," Thesaurus temporum Eusebii .. chronicorum canonum [1606/1968], 1:ii) affirms that Cainan is lacking in the most ancient copies of Luke. Whatever the case may be, even if this passage proves to be a mistake, the authenticity of Luke's gospel cannot be called in question on that account: (a) because the corruption is not universal; (b) this error is of little consequence and a ready means of correcting it is furnished by Moses, so that there was no necessity for that learned man Vossius to throw doubts upon the purity of the Hebrew manuscript in order to establish the authenticity of the Septuagint.



Note above that Turretin clearly believed the common text of his day to be in error, upon the authority of other Greek manuscripts. He continues to clarify his position on the purity of the sources:



Turretin said:


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



Which Turretin follows by making arguments that they have not been "corrupted", including that copies had been spread "far and wide". Nowhere does he refer to any kind of "ecclesiastical text" as the authority.



Turretin pg 108 said:


> 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 and which, moreover, he holds do not affect the integrity of the Scriptures), 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.



Turretin then clarifies what he means by "corruptions"


Turretin said:


> A corruption differs from a variant reading. We acknowledge that many variant readings occur both in the Old and New Testaments arising from a comparison of different manuscripts, but we deny corruption (at least corruption that is universal).



Turretin continues on to defend the various readings.



Turretin said:


> There is no truth in the assertion that the Hebrew edition of the Old Testament and the Greek edition of the New Testament are said to be mutilated; nor can the arguments used by our opponents prove it. Not the history of the adulteress (John 8:1-11), for although it is lacking in the Syriac version, it is found in all the Greek manuscripts. Not 1 John 5:7, for although some formerly called it into question and heretics now do, yet all the Greek copies have it [habent tamen omnia Exemplaria Graeca], as Sixtus Senensis acknowledges: "they have been the words of never-doubted truth, and contained in all the Greek copies from the very times of the apostles" [et in omnibus Graecis exemplaribus ab ipsis Apostolorum temporibus lecta] (Bibliotheca sancta [1575], 2:298). Not Mark 16 which may have been wanting in several copies in the time of Jerome (as he asserts); but now it occurs in all, even in the Syriac version, and is clearly necessary to complete the history of the resurrection of Christ.



Note that Turretin was mistaken in his claims for support from the Greek, nevertheless his method is clear: support from the Greek must be found, not simply its use by the church or acceptance as an "ecclesiastical text".

Finally, Turretin turns to the section I most wanted to point out in this discussion, as it has much bearing on the criticisms of Warfield and the attacks of Letis. His section on "authenticity". I will add some emphasis to certain portions.



Turretin p 113 said:


> An authentic writing is one in which all things are abundantly sufficient to inspire confidence; one to which the fullest credit is due in its own kind; one of which we can be entirely sure that it has proceeded from the author whose name it bears; one in which everything is written just as he himself wished. However, a writing can be authentic in two ways: either primarily and originally or secondarily and derivatively. That writing is primarily authentic which is autopiston ("of self-inspiring confidence") and to which credit is and ought to be given on its own account. In this manner, the originals of royal edicts, magistrates' decrees, wills, contracts and the autographs of of authors are authentic. The secondarily authentic writings are all the copies accurately and faithfully taken from the originals by suitable men; such as the scriveners appointed for that purpose by public authority (for the edicts of kings and other public documents) and any honest and careful scribes and copiers (for books and other writings). *The autographs of Moses, the prophets and apostles are alone authentic in the first sense. In the latter sense, the faithful and accurate copies of them are also authentic.*
> 
> Again, the authority of an authentic writing is twofold: the one is founded upon the things themselves of which it treats and has relation to the men to whom the writing is directed; the other is occupied with the treatise itself and the writing and refers to the copies and translations made from it. *Over all these this law obtains---that they ought to be referred to the authentic writing and if they vary from it, to be corrected and emended.* The former authority may be either greater or lesser according to the authority of him from whom the writing comes and and in proportion to the power which he has over the persons to whom he directs his writing. But in the sacred Scriptures this authority is the very highest such as can be in no other writing, since we are bound straightway to believe God for that supreme power which he has over men as over all other things, and for that highest truth and wisdom distinguishing him, and to obey in all things which his most sacred word (contained in the authentic Scripture) enjoins for belief or practice. But the latter consists in this, that the autographs and also the accurate and faithful copies may be the standard of all other copies of the same writing and of its translations. If anything is found in them different from the authentic writings, either autographs or apographs, it is unworthy of the name authentic and should be discarded as spurious and adulterated, the discordance itself being a sufficient reason for its rejection. Of the former authority we spoke in Question Four "On the Divinity of the Scriptures." We will now treat of the other which occurs in the authentic version.



Now what Turretin would believe to be "accurate and faithful copies" may certainly be debated. I don't know that the case can be made for just the Byzantine texts but I would not rule that out entirely. Nevertheless, it is clear that Turretin distinguished between the authority of the autographs and the authority of the apographs, the former alone being free from all error, and the latter having authority dependent upon its closeness to the former and _especially that the common Greek text of his day must likewise be held up to this standard._ To that end, he argues that we do have manuscripts that accurately represent the original and that any corruptions or variants can be found out by comparing copies. That he did comparisons himself indicates to me that he didn't think the published editions of the TR to be perfect but still needed correction from manuscripts found to be authentic writings.

Does this differ from what Warfield taught? The words may vary but I believe the concept to be identical. In which case Letis (if I understand his position) is incorrect in saying this was an innovation of Warfield (or heresy) brought about by post-enlightenment thinking and unknown before his time. Turretin includes several quotes from men writing to him regarding his defense particularly of the Hebrew, saying that it is clear that this has been the position of the church in her sparrings with Rome. Warfield almost certainly went further in what he believed were "authentic copies" but he also certainly would have agreed that the Scriptures possessed of the church in all ages have indeed been authentic and authoritative, an infallible rule of faith and practice.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Hi Logan,

I haven't read your 2nd post re Turretin yet, but I wanted to ask if you have read Letis' essay, "B.B. Warfield, Common-Sense Philosophy and Biblical Criticism", in his book, _The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical Authority and the Popular Mind_ (The Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies, 1997)? And if you haven't, where are you getting your ideas and quotes of Letis re Warfield from? I don't want to be in the position of defending all that Letis says, but I also don't want inaccuracies or half-truths about him held forth, as his scholarship is of great value.


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## MW

There is no reason why Dr. Letis should be judged on the basis of one "performance" on an email discussion list, especially one which was early in the history of reformed discussion lists and people were still trying to work out the etiquette of such a forum.

Dr. Letis was quite within his rights to stand on confessional ground and call into question the unconfessional nature of the critique made on his views. "When did you stop beating your wife" is a well known example in the field of logic for identifying a loaded question. It is a simple way of showing that any answer to the question requires the respondent to admit the fault against which he is defending himself.

I believe the issue with "inerrrancy" pertains to the doctrinal baggage which comes with it. "Infallibility" can be historically defined without having to advocate later views. "Inerrancy" contains reactionary elements to theological liberalism, and in some instances it reacts too far the other way; this is especially the case with matters relating to the letter of Scripture.


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## Logan

A very understandable concern Steve. I believe I have linked to every source I used and I tried to be as thorough in my web searches as possible, but clearly not everything Letis wrote is available online. I have not read the essay you mention, but I tried to be very careful not to characterize Letis against what he himself would have said, to that end I tried to quote his own words whenever I could. I did concede that perhaps Letis dealt more fully with Warfield in some writing unavailable to me.

Do you know of a copy of this online?


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## Logan

armourbearer said:


> There is no reason why Dr. Letis should be judged on the basis of one "performance" on an email discussion list, especially one which was early in the history of reformed discussion lists and people were still trying to work out the etiquette of such a forum.
> 
> Dr. Letis was quite within his rights to stand on confessional ground and call into question the unconfessional nature of the critique made on his views. "When did you stop beating your wife" is a well known example in the field of logic for identifying a loaded question. It is a simple way of showing that any answer to the question requires the respondent to admit the fault against which he is defending himself.
> 
> I believe the issue with "inerrrancy" pertains to the doctrinal baggage which comes with it. "Infallibility" can be historically defined without having to advocate later views. "Inerrancy" contains reactionary elements to theological liberalism, and in some instances it reacts too far the other way; this is especially the case with matters relating to the letter of Scripture.



I don't believe I was trying to judge Letis based on this one "performance", and tried to make that clear it was not his "best" moment.

I am aware that "did you stop beating your wife" is a loaded question example. However, it was clear James White was honestly wanting to know Letis' position and the difference or issue could well have been answered as quickly and simply as you very ably did above. I agree that I think it was the "baggage" that Letis objected to with the term "inerrancy", which is why I wanted to quote him on it, as opposed to simply stating "he doesn't believe in inerrancy".


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## Jerusalem Blade

Logan, this is not an auspicious beginning to what could be a scholarly discussion. First, you further expose Letis’ personal failure (which is widely known already) rather than cover his sin (nor which really pertains to his scholarship), and then you presume to weigh in on a topic involving him and Warfield without even consulting the seminal essay on the matter! May it not be meted to you as you have meted to him, and may you have occasion to hear the matter before thinking to answer it!

To which end I am presently scanning the aforementioned essay to post on Scribed as were the other two. But this chaffing at the bit to delve into and pronounce on a subject before even becoming familiar with the specifics of it gives the appearance of being agenda-driven. Or something.

It took me some time to obtain Letis’ books (I was out of the country then – in the Middle East), and so I kept quiet on topics I was not thoroughly conversant with; and weighed in only when I was.

Would you demonstrated patience along with doggedness! Without the former the latter could lead one into trouble.

It’s taking time to scan, but I’ll post a link here when the article is up.


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## Logan

Steve, I look forward to reading the paper but it was not my original intention to interact with it but rather Letis' statements made elsewhere. I attempted to deal with these statements in particular and not the subject as a whole. If I was wrong in this I certainly apologize.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Dr. Theodore Letis' essay, "B.B. Warfield, Common-Sense Philosophy and Biblical Criticism"


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## yeutter

Thanks for linking to Letis' essay. It should be helpful in clearing up some questions I have.


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## Logan

I've read through most of the essay so far and had compiled a list of items where the evidence contradicts his conclusions. It is starting to grow and become tedious so I will just share a few specifics later.

But I believe the main issue is that Letis mistakenly believes Warfield placed _all_ authority in the autographa, and he also mistakenly believes the Westminster Confession and those defending it (like Alexander, Hodge, etc) placed _all_ authority in the received text. I think it can be easily shown that both Warfield and men like Alexander, Hodge, etc. believed in the authority of both, yet would distinguish between them and say that the apographs derive their authority from the autographs.

Letis also seems to think that the Reformed view of "verbal inspiration" refers to apographa and particularly opposes Warfield for holding to the verbal inspiration of the autographa. Turretin specifically says the scribes were not inspired and I confess I cannot see how "verbal inspiration" can apply to any but the originals, though certainly we have authoritative copies of those inspired autographs.


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## NaphtaliPress

I'm sorry to be the copyright police but the moderators have been tightening up on this sort of thing. Steve, if you don't have permission to post the full article I am not sure fair use means 100 percent of an essay. It's perhaps iffy; but getting permission would sure be appropriate if you have not (I would guess Mrs. Letis owns the copyrights).


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## NaphtaliPress

I don't know in the specific case when chapters are whole essays but this link says a single chapter is generally considered fair use though there are lots of grey lines.
Copyright and Fair Use - UMUC Library


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## Jerusalem Blade

Chris, I just emailed the publisher to get his view of the matter. He usually gets back to me quickly. I told him it was a matter of protecting both Letis and the book against derogatory and unwarranted remarks, initially made by a member here who didn't even have full knowledge of the matter, but only a handful of info gleaned from the internet. I'll go with what he says. He is in contact with Mrs. Letis.


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## NaphtaliPress

That's good enough for me; thanks Steve.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Chris, I know that one criteria of acceptability as "fair use" is the reason or motive for publishing portions of copyrighted work. If it for strictly educational purposes, and if no money is to be gained from publishing it, this tends to it being allowable.


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## NaphtaliPress

Potential income lost to the holder is the flip side of that question. In this case I don't see it as an issue.


Jerusalem Blade said:


> Chris, I know that one criteria of acceptability as "fair use" is the reason or motive for publishing portions of copyrighted work. If it for strictly educational purposes, and if no money is to be gained from publishing it, this tends to it being allowable.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Chris,

I have actually been pressing the publisher to get Mrs. Letis to authorize printing and selling the book (along with his other two books, _The Majority Text_ and _Edward Freer Hills's Contribution to the Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text_) in digital format, as they would probably go like hotcakes. He said it would take some expertise and time to do that, but the idea interests him.

He told me he just facilitated the recent publication of a work of Letis’, the lead essay, “Erasmus and the Birth of Historical Consciousness” – in the book, _The Rise of Historical Consciousness Among the Christian Churches_, by Kenneth Parker and Erick Moser. This later essay of Letis’ (I haven’t finished it) seems to me a key to understanding his lengthy doctoral thesis on Erasmus and the secularization of the sacred text of Scripture.


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## Logan

Jerusalem Blade said:


> derogatory and unwarranted remarks, initially made by a member here who didn't even have full knowledge of the matter



Have I been derogatory and unwarranted? A quote from Letis is a quote from Letis, something he has to answer for, no matter where he wrote it. And if I respond to some of his statements without reading everything he's written, does it then become unwarranted? In that case, I might say Letis was very unwarranted in responding to Warfield, especially since he misrepresented his views so badly.

I have now read through the entire essay and I have satisfied myself that I did not misrepresent Letis earlier when replying to various quotations by him, particularly regarding Warfield. In fact, it has only strengthened my belief that his entire view of Warfield is false, particularly in the points I outlined in my last post. Here are some specific assertions from Letis (all are taken from the essay on Warfield Steve provided), and primary source quotes I pose in opposition to them.

Note that Letis essay is full of emotive language, which I find off-putting, but I won't list examples.



Letis pp 3 said:


> Nevertheless, in contrast to Charles Hodge's view, which we shall treat below, Warfield began by deprecating the established text (what was called the textus receptus---the "received text") which had hitherto been the locus of the verbal view of inspiration. For Warfield, the scholastics had stumbled when their reverence for the word of God, perversely but not unnaturally exercised, erected the standard or received text into the norm of a true text.



By "perversely" Warfield meant "obstinately", as I think can be seen in the original quotation of Warfield's. That it was the "locus" (and not the manuscripts underlying TR) remains to be seen, as does the statement that Warfield's view was in contrast to Hodge's.



Letis p 4 said:


> In order to save, therefore, his [Warfield's] verbal view of inspiration---the last vestige of Francis Turretin's influence---he was forced to now relegate inspiration to the inscrutable autographs of the biblical records.



Does not inspiration properly refer to the original authors? God-breathed? Or do we believe that every scribe was also inspired? I believe the proper Reformed view is that the originals were inspired, and we have faithful copies of those inspired originals. There was no relegation.



Letis p 4 said:


> These [reconstructed copies], he [Warfield] now also argued, when once reconstructed, would be inerrant in a way which far surpassed the text thought to be inspired by the Westminster Divines.



I would like to be shown where Warfield argued the reconstructed copies would be basically "more inerrant" (whatever that means). The only footnote for this section is a citation from Donald McKim who said essentially that some scholars have argued that this emphasis on the inerrancy of the original autographs originates from Reformed Orthodoxy, especially the writings of Turretin. Letis then continues the footnote by saying this is wrong and it is actually post-Enlightenment thinking that Warfield got his ideas from. I wish it would be shown why it is wrong.



Letis p. 5 said:


> The true test for determining if one is an heir of the Reformed scholastics is found in the role the Westminster Confession plays in locating final Scriptural authority. Archibald Alexander, Charles Hodge, and the Southern Presbyterian, Robert Dabney were genuine heirs of Turretin. They focused authority in present, extant copies of the biblical texts (apographa), with all the accompanying textual phenomena, as the "providentially preserved" and sanctioned edition (Westminster Confession of Faith, 1:8).



Letis assumes a lot here. Remember that this is the same Archibald Alexander who in his inaugural address in 1812 said



Archibald Alexander said:


> For though the serious mind is at first astonished and confounded, upon being informed of the multitude of various readings, ...yet it is relieved, when on careful examination it appears that not more than one of a hundred of these, makes the slightest variation in the sense, and that the whole of them do not materially affect one important fact or doctrine. It is true, a few important texts, in our received copies, have by this critical process, been rendered suspicious; but this has been more than compensated by the certainty which has been stamped on the great body of Scripture, by having been subjected to this severe scrutiny.



Remember also that this is the same Hodge who in his Romans commentary preferred in some places the "uncial MSS" readings ("omitted by the great body of modern critics", "the best manuscripts", the "oldest and best manuscripts") even against the "common text" (Rom 3:28, 8:1, 8:11), though certainly often making the case for retaining the common text reading in other passages. I don't know much about Dabney but regardless I think Letis wrongly equates believing in the authority of the autographa with an inability to believe in the authority of the apographa. Certainly Hodge and Alexander had no problems placing authority in the apographa, but neither did Warfield, as is evidenced by the following quote from him:



Warfield said:


> The affirmation of the Confession includes the two facts, therefore, first that the Scriptures in the originals were immediately inspired by God; and secondly that this inspired text has not been lost to the Church, but through God's good providence has been kept pure, amidst all the crowding errors of scribes and printers, and that therefore the Church still has the inspired Word of God in the originals [apographs is meant here], and is to appeal to it, and to it alone, as the *final authority* in all controversies of religion. [my emphasis]



Letis is mistaken in that he assumed Warfield placed all authority in the autographa, and he is also mistaken in thinking the Westminster Confession and those defending it (like Alexander, Hodge, etc) placed all authority in the received or "ecclesiastical" text. 



Letis p 9 said:


> Because the standard text of the day was suitable for Hodge, he felt no need to plea for an inerrant autograph.



Since the inerrant autographs were unavailable to Hodge (or to us), it makes no sense to plead for them..._unless_ (like Warfield) you are responding to liberal criticism that the Bible, when originally penned, contained errors. 

The section on Alexander's views is put forward without any citational support, but are apparently Letis' own interpretations. Whether they are true or not I cannot tell.



Letis p 15 said:


> [Warfield] avoided altogether, however, any mention of the threat textual variants posed to verbal inspiration...



It makes me wonder how could textual variants pose a threat to verbal inspiration? Unless one believes in continuing inspiration, the term "inspired" only refers to the originals, even while faithful copies are to be considered likewise authoritative. Is this not always how the term "verbal inspiration" has been used?

In his treatment of Warfield's view of the ending of Mark, he confuses correlation with causation. Just because Warfield's position that it was not originally part of the canon was also the position of the higher critics does not mean it was Warfield's reasoning.



Letis p 18 said:


> In Enlightenment fashion, therefore, Warfield said that in text critical matters, the faithful follow the same method as the Germans, treating Scripture like any other piece of literature, without reference to either inspiration, or the uniqueness of the Bible



This is given without citation, but a read-through of Warfield's handbook on Textual Criticism gave me this statement:



Warfield said:


> Some critics have seemed ready to cast the whole text into "pie," and set it up again to suit their own (and no one else's) conceits. Others have even savagely guarded each fragment of the transmitted text as if the scribes had wrought under Divine inspiration. The whole matter is nevertheless simply a matter of fact, and is to be determined solely by the evidence, investigated under the guidance of reverential and candid good sense. The nature of the New Testament as a Divine book, every word of which is precious, bids us be peculiarly and even painfully careful here: careful not to obtrude our crude guesses into the text, and careful not to leave any of the guesses or slips of the scribes in it.



Undoubtedly Warfield did treat Scripture as Divine, and not "In Enlightenment fashion...like any other piece of literature" as Letis claims.



Letis p 23 said:


> Briggs, on the other hand, while also employing the new criticism at Union, such as he saw Warfield now advocating, nevertheless, chose not to shift the *historical understanding of the Westminster Confession*, in the way Warfield did. As a result, he suffered severe recriminations. Briggs had history on his side, however, when he simply argued that "The Westminster divines did not teach the inerrancy of the original autographs." [my emphasis]



Keep in mind that this is the same Briggs who wrote things like "the dogma of verbal inspiration", "There is nothing Divine in the text---in its letters, words, or clauses", "The theory that [errors] were not in the original text is sheer assumption, upon which no mind can rest with certainty", “we are obliged to admit that there are scientific errors in the Bible, errors of astronomy, of geology, of zoology, of botany, and of anthropology.” in short, the very Briggs that Warfield defended the Scriptures against. Briggs was tried and convicted for heresy, specifically:


> * that he had taught that reason and the Church are each a fountain of divine authority which apart from Holy Scripture may and does savingly enlighten men
> * that errors may have existed in the original text of the Holy Scripture
> * that many of the Old Testament predictions have been reversed by history and that the great body of Messianic prediction has not and cannot be fulfilled
> * that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch, and that Isaiah is not the author of half of the book which bears his name
> * that the processes of redemption extend to the world to come



Though Letis would say that merely citing someone for historical relevance is not necessarily agreeing with them.

This keyed me in to something about Letis that I am still unwilling to admit, that Letis' idea of an "ecclesiastical text" is one which the church accepts or "canonizes". He gives this impression when he apparently agrees with Bart Erhman (whom he cited as authoritatively on a radio program I have a copy of) that the Scripture we have today are not the Scripture the apostles wrote (what we have is apparently an orthodox corruption). Likewise in some of his responses to people reading his book. Nevertheless, this isn't a problem for him because the church's canonization, like he views the canonization of the books of Scripture, is what determines what we we accept as "infallible." (and thus it now makes sense why he repeatedly hammers Warfield for saying that "verbal inspiration" applies only to the autographs). I will supply quotes regarding this later but I am not absolutely certain this is his position. If it is, it certainly explains a lot about his views.



Letis p 24 said:


> Furthermore, like the Westminster Divines, they all believed that only the original autographs were *given* by inspiration [Letis' emphasis]. But unlike Warfield, we have shown that important early Princetonians admitted error in the autographs. Moreover, we never discover them making an appeal to original autographs as the sole repository of inspiration, because this was not the position of the Reformed scholastics, from whom they derived their theology. Furthermore, like the Protestant dogmaticians before them, because of their naive, underdeveloped knowledge of, or adoption of text criticism, they never believed there to be a radical discontinuity between the original text and copies. Warfield, however, certainly did.



Just because Warfield made a distinction (as Turretin cited earlier) does not mean that he saw a radical discontinuity. He continued to maintain the authority of the apographa. Once again, the early Princetonians never (or seldom) appealed to original autographs presumably because there was no need to: they didn't have them and the present copies were authoritative. But it was necessary for Warfield to defend them against those who said the _autographs were errant_. I also do not believe Letis showed they admitted error in the autographs. I read the passage in Hodge and the quote from Alexander and didn't see the allowed "errors" in the original Letis mentions. 

Overall, I was disappointed that Letis never dealt with the primary-source quotations Warfield gave that his view was indeed that of the Westminster Divines, and indeed of the Reformed Community as a whole. Indeed, Letis never dealt with Warfields own defense of himself. One would think those citations especially would have to be explained away before the accusation is made that Warfield's ideas were a post-enlightenment innovation.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Logan, would you kindly edit and give page numbers for your Letis quotes?


----------



## Logan

One last post and then I hope to be done with this as I feel like I've spent too much time on it.

It is difficult to pin down Letis on his views of the "ecclesiastical text". He himself states.



Letis said:


> In my endeavor to clarify what I have said in my oral [presentations] and in what I have written, I shall refer nearly exclusively to my own book, the Ecclesiastical Text ... for the material that I believe will serve me well in setting the record straight regarding my views. Because my book is made up of a collection of separate essays, all of which appeared previously in various academic journals and magazines, one really must work rather hard, I must confess, to arrive at the synthesis within the book which I am certain does exist.



It appears to me that Letis believed that just as the books of the Old and New Testament had been "canonized" at the council of Nicea, so the text itself was also "canonized" against all the corruptions that had been introduced to it at that time, or in his own words "the text of Scripture, the canonical form of each book was ratified at this time." He also accepts that textual criticism of the New Testament is valid for academics. 



Letis said:


> My position is that the enterprise to reconstruct the most primitive form of the Greek N.T. is in and of itself not only a vital and important enterprise, but that it is perfectly necessary for those interested in classical studies, the historical method, and therefore, the academic discipline of text criticism proper.



However, he apparently disagrees that it should be used in the church, choosing rather the "ecclesiastical text" (which he says Erasmus held himself to), which is canonical. He is very clear to make the distinction that it does not derive its authority _from_ the church (a Roman Catholic view) but compares it to the canonization of the books of Scripture. So specifically, it was the "Eastern Church" that canonized the current form, and he suggests we should follow that.



Letis said:


> In conclusion, may I say that the current climate certainly allows for individual communities to choose to abide by the Ecclesiastical Text, rather than exchange this for an ever-emerging critical text. Again, I say this without in any way taking away from the specialists' need to further the discipline as a perfectly legitimate enterprise, but it must be the faith communities that make the final judgment on such theological matters as canon/text, with all the insight the discipline can afford. I suggest that one of the largest historic orthodox traditions, the ancient Eastern Church, more or less made such a decision years ago (see my chapter "The Ecclesiastical Text Redivivus?"). Why not smaller communities that desire to be organically (not institutionally, of course) connected to the large stream of historic orthodox Christianity and the textual standards that served this community since at least the fourth century?



So once again, Letis says that trying to get back to the "primitive texts" is vital and important, but it is not this reconstructed text that the church should rely upon, but rather the "ecclesiastical text" that the church has received as canonical.

I have found at least two others who understand Letis this way. Note that they don't refer to any sources, but if I've misunderstood Letis' position then it is at least one I am not alone in.



> However, if I understood our conversation correctly—and he seemed to enjoy mystifying—he basically accepted a fairly standard history of the text during the first four centuries, but believed that what the text that the church had come to receive was the locus of authority. For instance, he thought that Mark 16:9-20 was secondary *and* inspired.



And a commenter adds


> You hit the nail on the head, Pete, with your description of his position in your example about the long ending of Mark. His view of the historical transmission of the text is basically Hortian. However, the text was improved over time via "orthodox corruption," which was a work of God, in part to remove the errors that Letis frankly confessed were in the autographa. Letis heavily applauded Ehrman's book, Orthodox Corruption. He viewed the received text as the canonical form of God's Word, hence his association with the views of Childs.



If I understand Letis' approach to Scripture correctly (basically that we probably don't have the originals that the apostles wrote but it doesn't matter since our ecclesiastical text is received as canonical or infallible, presumably through God's providence, though he doesn't state so that I could tell), then I sharply disagree with him and also disagree it was the Reformed position.

This sheds a lot of light on the various accusations Letis made toward Warfield. If he really did believe this, then no wonder he criticized Warfield's talk of the autographs alone being "verbally inspired", or that authority lies in the autographs (though like Turretin, Warfield believed we had authentic copies that were also authoritative. Did Letis interpret the 16th and 17th centuries through this lens? It appears so, which is also why I believe he got it wrong.


----------



## Logan

Jerusalem Blade said:


> Logan, would you kindly edit and give page numbers for your Letis quotes?


Certainly, I apologize for not doing that in the first place. I went sequentially yet did not deal with every single thing Letis said (fact-checking all of it would be too tedious). I am blessed to have in my library (and to have read) many of the sources he refers to: Warfield's works, Owen's works, Turretin's Institutes, Hodge's Systematic Theology, Life of Hodge, A.A. Hodge's Commentary on the Confessions, Calhoun's history of Princeton, etc. so I was able to spend a lot of time today with my books.


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## Logan

I would additionally contend that even if the very words "inerrancy of the autographs" do not appear in writings before Warfield, it was certainly assumed. Turretin, when he admits of "errors" that have crept in, assumes an inerrant autograph. Or at the very least when variants are mentioned, there is an assumed standard underlying it, which all assumed was originally inerrant. The King James Translators in their preface to the reader, likewise make the following statement:



KJV Translators said:


> For what ever was perfect under the Sunne, where Apostles or Apostolike men, that is, men indued with an extraordinary measure of Gods spirit, and priviledged with the privilege of infallibilitie, had not their hand?



Here they assert that what the apostles or apostolic men wrote, was "perfect". Other writers such terms as "without error", or that the writers "could not err", such as Charles Hodge  when he said 



Hodge said:


> They were ignorant of many things, and were as liable to error or ignorance, beyond the limits of their official teaching, as other men. An inspired man could not, indeed, err in his instruction on any subject.



Or when Hodge refers to the sacred writers being "preserved from all mistakes." Or on page 682 of the linked article where he equates infallibility of the original authors with "freedom from error". 

In so saying, men like Hodge, spoke about the inerrancy of the autographs while still maintaining that we have faithful and authoritative copies of these contained in our apographs. I hope it is clear that the same is true of Warfield, and there is not some mutually exclusive view that one accepts either the authority of the apographs or autographs. Just because Warfield more clearly _defined_ that view, does not mean that it was _different_ from previous views. 

It appears to me that the vast majority of Christians of every age believed in the inerrancy of the originally inspired autographs, but likewise accepted the authority of faithfully transmitted apographs. Letis makes the mistake of thinking Warfield thought of the autographs _only_ as authoritative. This is absolutely untrue, Warfield believed the apographs were faithful representations and that they too were to be received as authoritative. 

Letis also makes the mistake of thinking that past Christians _only_ held to the apographs as authoritative. They believed in the authority of the apographs, that is certain, but they did not hold to it _against_ the autographs, as Letis seems to assume. Rather, they saw the authority of the apographs as deriving from the autographs, and since they believed they had faithful copies of the autographs, the apographs were indeed authoritative. 

I am convinced that Letis misrepresented Warfield grossly, and impugned him when he wrote his essay. And I am all the more disheartened by this when I see Letis being cited continually on many different websites in an effort to malign Warfield.


----------



## Logan

Likewise, Walton's Prolegomena: says the only copy that can plead the privilege of being with "no mistake in the least" is the autographa. Apparently he was a victim of post-enlightenment thinking long before Warfield.



Walton said:


> I do not only say, that all saving fundamental truth is contained in the Originall Copies, but that all revealed truth is still remaining entire; or, if any error or mistake have crept in, it is in matters of no concernment, so that not only no matter of faith, but no considerable point of Historicall truth, Prophesies or other things, is thereby prejudiced, and that there are means left for rectifying any such mistakes where they are discovered. To make one Copy a standard for all others, in which no mistake in the least can be found, he cannot, no Copy can plead this privilege since the first autographa were in being.



So too Westminster Divine Richard Capel (Remains, 1658) says:



Capel said:


> Now by Scripture is meant the Word of God written. Written then, Printed now; … It is consented unto by all parties, that the translators and transcribers might erre, being not Prophets, nor indued with that infallible Spirit in translating or transcribing, as Moses and the Prophets were in their Original Writings … The tentation lies on this side, … Sith there are no Prophets, no Apostles, no nor any infallible Spirits in the Church, how can we build on the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles now, sith the Scriptures in their translated Copies are not free from all possible corruptions, in the Copies we have either by transcribers or translators… For the Originals, though we have not the Primitive Copies written by the finger of God in the Tables, or by Moses and the Prophets in the Hebrew, or by the Apostles and the rest in the Greek for the New Testament, yet we have Copies in both languages, which Copies vary not from the Primitive writings in any matter that may stumble any.


He affirms the autographs were free from "all possible corruptions", yet at the same time affirms that those who transmit copies might err. This sounds like "inerrancy of the autographs" to me, yet Capel firmly believes that our copies do not vary significantly from the autographs and are therefore authoritative.


----------



## MW

Logan said:


> Turretin, when he admits of "errors" that have crept in, assumes an inerrant autograph. Or at the very least when variants are mentioned, there is an assumed standard underlying it, which all assumed was originally inerrant.



This is beside the point. One can only say the autographs are without error because one has access to the autographs in the apographs. Whatever may be assumed from the writings of older divines can only be assumed because they affirmed an infallible Word in their possession. To speak of a non-existent thing as being infallible is meaningless.


----------



## Logan

I would like to stop posting on this topic but feel compelled to make (hopefully) one last one regarding Letis' views.

It appears, from all the evidence that I can glean, that Letis' personal views were similar to Bart Ehrman's in that he sees the New Testament as having arisen out of oral tradition and not being originally penned as inerrant. However, for Letis this is not a problem because the Church received those texts as canon in the 4th century, and later the Reformed church received Textus Receptus as canon in the 4th century. It seems more important for him to know what the church received, than what was originally written, though he concedes that what was originally written is useful for academic purposes. He argues that the church always receives the _current_ texts as infallible.

What evidence do I have for that?

1. My own impressions as I read Letis' essay on Warfield. It was not immediately clear and that's why I hesitated to say that was his view, but once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains...

2. A radio program on Southwest Radio, in which Letis quotes Ehrman's book "Orthodox Corruption" as the most important work on textual criticism of the 20th century, and without any sort of disclaimer, uses it against James White's book. Ehrman, as I understand it, believes the New Testament text was "modified" during the second and third century, so that what we have is what the second and third century re-wrote, not what was originally written. An "evolving text" so to speak.

3. Independent conclusions that this was his view by two men on a blog post, one of whom had talked to him on this issue in person.

4. Another recorded lecture by Letis, in which he talks about Jerome "canonizing" the text when collating and doing his Vulgate translation, but more specifically at the end, during the question and answer session, when Letis conjectures that perhaps the apostles didn't even agree on whether to include the account of the Adulterous woman in John 8, but that since it was recognized from the early days as Scripture by the church, that it should be accepted.

5. An open letter from Bob Jones University that contained a critique of Letis' views. Including the surprise that Letis would allow that the originals (autographs) contained errors, concluding that "This is an incredible concession! Is this the price Dr. Letis would have us pay in order to gain an ecclesiastically approved Bible?" Letis responded in-depth  but remained silent on this accusation. An argument from silence is not concrete proof, certainly, but it does seem telling.

6. A review by James Price  in which Price likewise responded to Letis' work and gave this remark near the end:


Price speaking of Letis said:


> He rejects the idea of inerrant autographs because he evidently thinks they never existed, and, therefore, a textual critical search for those texts is a vain enterprise. He must be satisfied with a text that grew out of multiple redactions of traditions and that was ultimately canonized by an ecclesiastical authority.


Note again that Letis responded (in very strong disapproval) to Price and corrected him on even minute issues, but he never corrected him on this. 

If this is true, then it makes complete sense why, when James White asked him if he believed in the inerrancy of the autographs, he responded by saying "this is the wrong question. Have you stopped beating your wife?" For Letis, the question about the autographs was a logical error because it assumed the existence of the autographs, something Letis apparently did not.

If I have misrepresented Letis, please correct me.


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## MW

Logan said:


> So too Westminster Divine Richard Capel (Remains, 1658) says:



Capel did not attend the Assembly.


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## MW

Logan said:


> If I have misrepresented Letis, please correct me.



You are arguing from silence. The main point is that modern textual criticism is seeking a text which does not exist -- a phantom. It begins with a presupposition that is unreformed, adopts evidential methods that are unscientific, and ends in a quest that is unrealistic.


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## Logan

armourbearer said:


> This is beside the point. One can only say the autographs are without error because one has access to the autographs in the apographs. Whatever may be assumed from the writings of older divines can only be assumed because they affirmed an infallible Word in their possession. To speak of a non-existent thing as being infallible is meaningless.



It is meaningless unless you are responding to people who either did not believe the original authors were inspired, or that God did not preserve them from error. This is the issue that Warfield had to deal with. It has no bearing, of itself, on whether you accept the apographs as authoritative.



armourbearer said:


> Capel did not attend the Assembly.


Whether he did or not has no bearing on why I quoted him, which was to point out that Warfield's view was no innovation.



armourbearer said:


> You are arguing from silence.



Would you mind dealing with the entirety of the evidence before making that claim? It is not entirely from silence, there are a number of statements I've linked to. Including four independent sources that came to the same conclusion I did, and two interviews of Letis and two responses Letis made that allude to his views.

Do you intend to keep picking out points like this or would you like to respond to the main arguments in my posts?


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## NaphtaliPress

This is correct; he was appointed a member for Gloucestershire but did not attend the assembly. Cf. Chad Van Dixhoorn, Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly 1643-1652, vol. 1, p. 112. Source is old DNB.


armourbearer said:


> Logan said:
> 
> 
> 
> So too Westminster Divine Richard Capel (Remains, 1658) says:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Capel did not attend the Assembly.
Click to expand...


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## Stephen L Smith

armourbearer said:


> You are arguing from silence. The main point is that modern textual criticism is seeking a text which does not exist -- a phantom. It begins with a presupposition that is unreformed and ends in a quest that is unrealistic.



You have given a very fine definition of the Received Text


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## MW

Logan said:


> It is meaningless unless you are responding to people who either did not believe the original authors were inspired, or that God did not preserve them from error.



You are completely missing the point. Letis was dealing with textual criticism as an empirical science. As a science it claims to be based one hundred percent on "evidence." It is impossible to say, on the basis of empirical evidence, that the autographs are free from error. The autographs do not exist.



Logan said:


> Whether he did or not has no bearing on why I quoted him, which was to point out that Warfield's view was no innovation.



Be that as it may, your haphazard way of dealing with sources does nothing to accredit your research.



Logan said:


> Would you mind dealing with the entirety of the evidence before making that claim? It is not entirely from silence, there are a number of statements I've linked to. Including four independent sources that came to the same conclusion I did, and two interviews of Letis and two responses Letis made that allude to his views.



You haven't quoted anything from the man himself to substantiate your claim. That is an argument from silence.



Logan said:


> Do you intend to keep picking out points like this or would you like to respond to the main arguments in my posts?



I did respond to the main points. I also showed the inaccuracies in your presentation. You are not exempt from the normal standards of critical appraisal.


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## MW

Stephen L Smith said:


> You have given a very fine definition of the Received Text



Textual critics have been able to identify it and have consciously departed from it. It is not a phantom.


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## Logan

armourbearer said:


> You are completely missing the point. Letis was dealing with textual criticism as an empirical science.


If you will read my posts, you will see a quote from Letis that he believed textual criticism was a valid and necessary science, and the goal of getting back to the "primitive form" was necessary, but purely for academic purposes. 



armourbearer said:


> It is impossible to say, on the basis of empirical evidence, that the autographs are free from error. The autographs do not exist.


Is anyone saying that? Warfield (and I would say, reformed theologians from the 16th and 17th) believed as a matter of doctrine that they were free from error, there is no need for empirical evidence to support that just as there is no need for empirical evidence to support that they were inspired.



armourbearer said:


> You haven't quoted anything from the man himself to substantiate your claim.


Perhaps you have not read my previous quotes from him, or looked at the linked audio files and letters.



armourbearer said:


> I did respond to the main points. I also showed the inaccuracies in your presentation. You are not exempt from the normal standards of critical appraisal.


Respectfully, you did not. I posted extensively in defense that Warfield's view was no innovation. You have not addressed that at all.


Rev Winzer:
Do you believe that there were original autographs, penned by the apostles and directly inspired by the Holy Spirit. If so, do you believe these originals were without error?


----------



## MW

Logan said:


> If you will read my posts, you will see a quote from Letis that he believed textual criticism was a valid and necessary science, and the goal of getting back to the "primitive form" was necessary, but purely for academic purposes.



The church and the academy are two different things. One is an institution of grace, and the other an institution of nature. It is not surprising that the two should function differently though dealing with the same field.

Every science develops its own prolegomena. Letis was meeting the science on its own territory. You are trying to make Letis say something in the area of "theological dogma" when his criticisms are aimed only at the dogma of a certain school of textual criticism.



Logan said:


> Warfield (and I would say, reformed theologians from the 16th and 17th) believed as a matter of doctrine that they were free from error, there is no need for empirical evidence to support that just as there is no need for empirical evidence to support that they were inspired.



Precisely, "as a matter of doctrine." Theirs was a presuppositional approach, not an evidential one. If you follow through on this point you will be in a better position to appraise Letis' work.



Logan said:


> Perhaps you have not read my previous quotes from him, or looked at the linked audio files and letters.



I read your material. Because he did not say the autographs are inerrant you conclude that he believed they are not. That is an argument from silence.



Logan said:


> Respectfully, you did not. I posted extensively in defense that Warfield's view was no innovation. You have not addressed that at all.



I have addressed your statements on Letis as I believe you are doing truth a disservice by your misrepresentations. The sections related to Warfield do not pertain to this misrepresentation.



Logan said:


> Do you believe that there were original autographs, penned by the apostles and directly inspired by the Holy Spirit. If so, do you believe these originals were without error?



Yes; but I am a presuppositionalist. I certainly would not attempt to prove this on the basis of empirical evidence.


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## Logan

armourbearer said:


> Because he did not say the autographs are inerrant you conclude that he believed they are not.



No, he cites Hodge and Alexander (alleging they believed in errors in the originals) to support the case that no one taught inerrancy in the autographs before Warfield. He did not just refrain from saying it, he argued for the opposite.

Here is my own transcription of the lengthy audio file I referenced earlier, from the question and answer session, about 1:03 in the recording. Note that one should really get the context by listening to the entire thing but here he is talking about the inclusion of the Pericope Adulterae



Letis said:


> When the apostles had to make decisions about which acts and events and speeches that Christ gave that they were to include, John tells us at the end of his gospel that the world couldn't be filled with all of the material, but they were nevertheless selective in what they chose. But they nevertheless were selective in what they chose. If Peter (this might be controversial, I don't know) but if Peter and Paul could have a falling out, a public falling out, and it is actually recorded in Scripture that they had a public falling out, it seems to me there may well have been a great deal of debate as to whether they should include this story or not. Maybe this was a story just for us, maybe it's not for the whole church, and I think that questioning might well have been present in the first century, I'm willing to grant that, because it doesn't make any difference to me because it was ultimately recognized as canon, and that canonical recognition process, was just that, it was a process, and it was the end result of the canonical process that's important, not just the antecedents.



Does this sound like a man who believed in the direct inspiration of the originals (note that he had a problem with "verbal inspiration" only being applied to the autographs)? Or that they were inerrant? Or rather one who believed the texts evolved to their present form during the first few centuries?


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## MW

Logan said:


> Does this sound like a man who believed in the direct inspiration of the originals (note that he had a problem with "verbal inspiration" only being applied to the autographs)? Or that they were inerrant? Or rather one who believed the texts evolved to their present form during the first few centuries?



It sounds orthodox to me. Not everything an apostle said or wrote is canonical and authoritative but only what is inspired by God and written for our instruction in faith and life.

Again, it seems to me that you are failing to appreciate Letis' presuppositional approach and his meeting of the critics on their own ground. It should be observed that many of the critics, in seeking for an Ur-text, are not looking for a first century text, but believe the text evolved through communities. Hence, even though some pericopes are regarded as second century additions, they can still be accepted as original. This is where higher and lower criticism intermingle. Letis' contribution was to show how evangelicals cannot really separate the higher and lower criticism but are bound by the canonical principle, and how presuppositions are integral to the science.


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## Logan

armourbearer said:


> It sounds orthodox to me. Not everything an apostle said or wrote is canonical and authoritative but only what is inspired by God and written for our instruction in faith and life.



It sounds orthodox to believe the pericope adulterae may not have belonged to the first century text but was added later and received as canon?

Also, if you are completely certain this was not Letis' view, can you tell me what his view actually was? From his writings?

Also, please carefully read through the criticisms made in the BJU letter and the James Price letter, and then carefully read Letis' responses. He responds to many criticisms (taking offense at many) but when it comes to responding to the accusation that he does not believe the originals were without error when originally penned (note here that others besides me interpreted Letis' views that way), that he did not deny it. I would not like to argue only from this silence, but it confirms all the other evidence I've seen.

Again, if I have misrepresented him, I beg to be shown, but so far you've done nothing but simply tell me I'm wrong, and that frankly has not been helpful. I have prayerfully and humbly decided to ask you to refrain from posting any more in this thread unless you have something better to offer.


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## MW

Logan said:


> Again, if I have misrepresented him, I beg to be shown, but so far you've done nothing but simply tell me I'm wrong, and that frankly has not been helpful. I have prayerfully and humbly decided to ask you to refrain from posting any more in this thread unless you have something better to offer.



I have shown you the point at which you have misunderstood Letis, which is more than merely telling you that you are wrong. I will reiterate. Letis was dealing with textual criticism, not dogmatic theology. He was meeting the critics on the basis of their own claims of "empirical science," and showing how the phantom of infallible autographs cannot be proved on the basis of empirical evidence which does not presuppose the integrity of God's word in possession.

I don't doubt the opponents had much to say in seeking to discredit the position of Letis. As they are fundamentally non-reformed criticisms I see nothing in this opposition that is worthy of credit from a confessionally reformed perspective.


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## Logan

armourbearer said:


> I don't doubt the opponents had much to say in seeking to discredit the position of Letis.


In this case two of his supporters also came to his view, and the two opponents had direct written responses from Letis. 



armourbearer said:


> Letis was dealing with textual criticism, not dogmatic theology. He was meeting the critics on the basis of their own claims of "empirical science," and showing how the phantom of infallible autographs cannot be proved on the basis of empirical evidence which does not presuppose the integrity of God's word in possession.



Feel free to share some evidence some time. So far all I've seen is completely unsubstantiated claims, nary a single quote. If I'm incorrect, show me what he really believed from his writings.


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## MW

Logan said:


> Feel free to share some evidence some time. So far all I've seen is completely unsubstantiated claims, nary a single quote. If I'm incorrect, show me what he really believed from his writings.



You are the one making a case against Letis. You bear the burden of proof. Your argument from silence is the problem. I freely admit he was silent on the issue. The absence of evidence is all I need to prove silence.


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## Logan

armourbearer said:


> I freely admit he was silent on the issue.



I'm afraid Letis disagreed with you.



Letis said:


> one really must work rather hard, I must confess, to arrive at the synthesis [of my views] within the book which I am certain does exist.



Note once again that I gleaned an idea of his views from reading his essay (the evidences and views he thought relevant especially). Not wanting to believe it, I started to look at his other writings, nothing contradicted my impression but rather reinforced it. To gain more insight, I listened to two of his lectures and an interview, these were especially relevant and I think the entire context is needed. I then found two individuals (who sympathized with Letis) who had both read his entire book and both agreed this was his position. Lastly, I found the critiques of Letis book which were valuable mainly because he responded to each. Both claimed this was Letis' view. I have since found another review by Ron Minton who likewise says this is Letis' view. 

I have read every article and listened to every recording I can find by Letis in an effort to _disprove_ my initial impression, but was unable to do so. I did not come to this gleefully but with trembling. However, everything seemed to reinforce it, including re-reading his essay. I would gladly hear any *evidence* to the contrary.


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## Dearly Bought

_


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## MW

Logan said:


> I have read every article and listened to every recording I can find by Letis in an effort to _disprove_ my initial impression, but was unable to do so. I did not come to this gleefully but with trembling. However, everything seemed to reinforce it, including re-reading his essay. I would gladly hear any *evidence* to the contrary.



I can't provide evidence to contradict your "impression." Maybe your "impression" was the result of a spicy meal. I don't know. I don't really care. What I have before me is something which purports to represent a person's view but lacks any evidence to substantiate it.


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## Alan D. Strange

This subject prompts some rather strong reactions, obviously, and I've been involved with such discussions many times before; thus I do not wish to engage the heart of this matter, but only to note two things.

Firstly, as a student of Hodge, I can affirm that Logan's point is essentially correct: Hodge has a proto-doctrine of inerrancy that his son A.A. and successor B.B. Warfield develop. They are not out of line with the Princeton tradition at all on this matter, but simply develop what has been there in seed form. 

Secondly, I am confused as to why it is thought that Letis should be accorded courtesy that Warfield is not. The former is not Reformed and the latter is universally regarded as one of the great Reformed scholars of modern times. It is an odd, parochial view that pays respect to Letis but permits one not simply to differ with Warfield, which is one thing, but to disparage him, which is another. Letis disparages Warfield. If one studies Warfield carefully, one can see rather quickly that none of us are his scholarly equal. Differ with him as you will but treat him with respect. 

That we've come to a place where a man like Letis can disparage a Reformed giant like Warfield and be lauded for it on a Reformed board is indeed curious. 

Peace,
Alan

Reactions: Amen 1


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## Phil D.

Regardless of the actual personalities involved, the way this thread has been conducted seems unfortunate and a bit surreal to me. One party has bent over backward to become informed and share his observations in a useful way - including providing extensive first-hand quotations - but is nonetheless disparaged as one arguing from silence. Others, meanwhile, refuse to engage substantively in the quotations that have been provided - or to offer any first-hand counter-evidence - and simply give abrupt and sometimes even rather snide retorts. Maybe I'm just dense, but I really don't get it. This is supposed to be a "discussion" board, right? Dr. Strange's points are very salient too.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Before I commence my response to Logan, I want to address your recent remarks, Alan. As I speak to the issue of Hodge below (to Logan), I will only speak to the disparaging of Benjamin Warfield.

I agree with you in this – that such a great man who has done the church great good – should not be treated with disrespect, though I am not sure Letis does this, at least not in the three essays of his I posted (what Logan may have gleaned form the internet I am not sure of). Myself, in previous (as in some years earlier here at PB) discussions regarding Prof. Warfield I always sought to keep this balance: BBW was a truly great man, and – save only in the matter of the Bible – he was a mighty defender of the faith in difficult times. But as in the case of Luther, who was a man raised up of God for a mighty work, he did well, save only in the matter of the Jews toward the end of his life. Likewise with King David, who “did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite” (1 Kings 15:5). As with these men, so with Warfield, and this matter of the Bible is no small thing. That we are even having this contention over the Scriptures is a result, in great measure at least, of Warfield’s activity in that field. Now those who are CT or ET (Eclectic Text) adherents will dismiss my view out-of-hand; nonetheless, it is my view – and it is by Letis I have come to see it – that from those prominent in godly academia, starting with Prof. Warfield, the breaking of the unity of the churches around a common Bible started. True, the work of Griesbach and other of the German critics had already impacted those at Princeton before Warfield and Westcott and Hort – I speak to this below.

With David and Uriah, and Luther and the Jews, many have come to blaspheme the LORD thereby; with Warfield and the Bible, the shattering of the commonly-held authority of the Bible was effected. This is a major event, a watershed in the weakening of the church in perilous times.

Letis did no wrong in decrying this; was he balanced in all he did and said? I have already said he was not, particularly in regard to the Baptists, and possibly with regard to BBW (though I would have to see particular instances to agree). Great men are not exempt from scrutiny and critique, in fact it is more important in their cases because of their greater influence, both for good and for ill.

While he is not to be exculpated for his destructive impact, still we acknowledge the providence of God in it – this “destructive impact” – though we cannot see the good in it. Perhaps it is that we should exercise ourselves to keener discernment, and not take the state of the Scriptures for granted.

Anyway, thanks for your caution to stay balanced.

Edit: I also want to add that even in matters pertaining to the Bible, such as the forming of the canon, as well as other areas, I have found Warfield of great value in defending the faith.

*------------*


Hello Logan,

Now that I have more time freed up I shall be going down your posts from the top.

Looking at your post #1. You say, “Letis asserts over and over that this distinction between the autographs and the apographs is a post-enlightenment idea, and that to believe only the originals were ‘inerrant’ is distinctly Warfieldian.”

This and related thoughts of yours are what I referred to in an earlier post of mine re your presumption (“unwarranted”) in commenting on the ideas of Dr. Theodore Letis (TPL) without even consulting his seminal essay on the topic.

To sum it up in my own words, Letis’ problem with Warfield’s view is not that he objected to anyone ascribing inerrancy to the autographs per se (though he notes that some of the Reformed did not think the apostles – or rather their amanuenses – did not make mistakes in the original writings), but that he shifted the locus of infallible / inerrant Scripture *to the autographs alone*, and divested the apographa of infallibility so as to remove the texts-in-hand which the Westminster divines had held from the onslaught of destructive lower criticism, which wielded the variants as their primary weapon.

You may dance around this with various quotes (it is amazing how some of these writers – which both Warfield and Letis quote – utter vague or even contradictory statements), but it remains that my summation above is the gist of TPL’s gripe, along with the redefining of the Westminster men’s written assertion (cf WCF 1:8) that they had in hand the infallible apographa. Warfield’s novelty was this divesting the apographa of the quality of infallibility. I will demonstrate this in a moment, notwithstanding anything Warfield says that might appear to the contrary. 

To be sure, BBW’s textual strategy in this warfare against the attack on the Bible was born of noble motives but, for all his brilliance and godliness, he misjudged the matter. This can easily be seen in his championing _and_ heralding of the Westcott and Hort (W&H) critical Greek text and their English translation; and upon whose shoulders did W&H stand but the German rationalist critic, Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745-1812), who is named “a foe of orthodox Christianity” by D.A. Thompson. Griesbach was the student of Johann Semler, who said the book of Revelation “ ‘is the production of an extravagant dreamer’ and argued that it was not inspired or canonical.” BBW thought the “scientific” approach of the German rationalists would bring a neutral discipline to the study of the texts and would eventually result in the genuine text of the NT being restored, which anticipation failed miserably, as seen in 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century text critics' skepticism and doubt of ever discovering the true NT text! To wit:

The views of a good number of 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century critics are far less positive:
“The ultimate text, if ever there was one that deserves to be so called, is for ever irrecoverable” (F.C. Conybeare, _History of New Testament Criticism_, 1910, p. 129)

“In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort and of van Soden, we do not know the original form of the gospels, and it is quite likely that we never shall” (Kirsopp Lake, _Family 13, The Ferrar Group_, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1941, p. vii).

“…it is generally recognized that the original text of the Bible cannot be recovered” (R.M. Grant. “The Bible of Theophilus of Antioch,” _Journal of Biblical Literature_, vol. 66, 1947, p. 173).

“The textual history that the Westcott-Hort text represents is no longer tenable in the light of newer discoveries and fuller textual analysis. In the effort to construct a congruent history, our failure suggests that we have lost the way, that we have reached a dead end, and that only a new and different insight will enable us to break through (Kenneth Clark, “Today’s Problems,” _New Testament Manuscript Studies_, edited by Parvis and Wikgren, 1950, p. 161).

“…the optimism of the earlier editors has given way to that skepticisim which inclines towards regarding ‘the original text’ as an unattainable mirage” (G. Zuntz, _The Text of the Epistles_, 1953, p. 9).

“In general, the whole thing is limited to probability judgments; the original text of the New Testament, according to its nature, must remain a hypothesis” (H Greeven, _Der Urtext des Neuen Testaments_, 1960, p. 20, cited in Edward Hills, _The King James Version Defended_, p. 67.

“... so far, the twentieth century has been a period characterized by general pessimism about the possibility of recovering the original text by objective criteria” (H.H. Oliver, 1962, p. 308; cited in Eldon Epp, “Decision Points in New Testament Textual Criticism,” _Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism_, 1993, p. 25).

“The primary goal of New Testament textual study remains the recovery of what the New Testament writers wrote. We have already suggested that to achieve this goal is well nigh impossible. Therefore, we must be content with what Reinhold Niebuhr and others have called, in other contexts, an ‘impossible possibility’ ” (R.M. Grant, _A Historical Introduction to the New Testament_, 1963, p. 51).

“…every textual critic knows that this similarity of text indicates, rather, that we have made little progress in textual theory since Westcott-Hort; that we simply do not know how to make a definitive determination as to what the best text is; that we do not have a clear picture of the transmission and alternation of the text in the first few centuries; and accordingly, that the Westcott-Hort kind of text has maintained its dominant position largely by default” (Eldon J. Epp, “The Twentieth Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,” _Journal of Biblical Literature_, Vol. 43, 1974, pp. 390-391).

“We face a crisis over methodology in NT textual criticism. ... Von Soden and B.H. Streeter and a host of others announced and defended their theories of the NT text, but none has stood the tests of criticism or of time. ... [F]ollowing Westcott-Hort but beginning particularly with C.H. Turner (1923ff.), M.-J. Langrange (1935), G.D. Kilpatrick (1943ff.), A.F.J. Klijn (1949), and J.K. Elliot (1972ff.), a new crisis of the criteria became prominent and is very much with us today: a duel between external and internal criteria and the widespread uncertainty as to precisely what kind of compromise ought to or can be worked out between them. The temporary ‘cease-fire’ that most—but certainly not all—textual critics have agreed upon is called a ‘moderate’ or ‘reasoned’ eclecticism ... the literature of the past two or three decades is replete with controversy over the eclectic method, or at least is abundant with evidence of the frustration that accompanies its use...” (Eldon Epp, “Decision Points in New Testament Textual Criticism,” _Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism_, 1993, pp. 39-41).

“…we no longer think of Westcott-Hort’s ‘Neutral’ text as neutral; we no longer think of their ‘Western’ text as Western or as uniting the textual elements they selected; and, of course, we no longer think so simplistically or so confidently about recovering ‘the New Testament in the Original Greek.’…We remain largely in the dark as to how we might reconstruct the textual history that has left in its wake—in the form of MSS and fragments—numerous pieces of a puzzle that we seem incapable of fitting together. Westcott-Hort, von Soden, and others had sweeping theories (which we have largely rejected) to undergird their critical texts, but we seem now to have no such theories and no plausible sketches of the early history of the text that are widely accepted. What progress, then, have we made? Are we more advanced than our predecessors when, after showing their theories to be unacceptable, we offer no such theories at all to vindicate our accepted text?” (Eldon J. Epp, “A Continuing Interlude in NT Textual Criticism,” _Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism_, (Eerdman’s, 1993), pp. 114, 115).​ 
Jakob Van Bruggen’s, _The Ancient Text of the New Testament_, is an analysis of this sorry state of affairs. Prof. Warfield had a strong hand in these developments.

----------

You note Turretin’s view contra the authenticity of the “second Cainan” in Luke 3:36, and accept it, yet you assert Turretin erred “in his claims for support from the Greek” for 1 John 5:7 (this despite John Gill’s also stating that “out of sixteen ancient copies of Robert Stephen's, nine of them had it”) – how 21[SUP]st[/SUP] century of you, assuming superior knowledge ages after the fact! But with respect to Cainan, here is a brief defense of his rightful place in Luke 3:36:

Concerning Luke 3:36, which places Cainan in the lineage between Arphaxad and Salah (Sala), where the Genesis genealogy omits mention of Cainan, some remarks:
First, the absence of a person in the lineage does not annul the tightly interlocking numeric values between the patriarchs and their offspring. As Floyd Nolan Jones, in his _Chronology of the Old Testament_ puts it,​
For regardless of the number of names or descendants that might be missing between Arphaxad and Salah (or any other two patriarchs) their lives are mathematically interlocked and a fixed relationship exists; when Salah was born, Arphaxad was thirty-five years old and so on across the entire span in question. Consequently, no time can possibly be missing even though names may so be. Strange as it may seem at first, in this instance the two concepts are mutually exclusive. (p. 34)​
Dr. Jones is firm that both the Genesis genealogy and the one in Luke 3 are correct and both the infallible word of God. While admitting there is no explanation for the omission given in Scripture, Jones gives a number of scenarios to show how it may have come to be. Here is one of them:​
In this scenario both Arphaxad and Cainan (Arphaxad’s son) married young. Cainan dies after conceiving Salah but before his birth. At age 35, Arphaxad then adopts his grandson, Salah (like Jacob adopted his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh) (Mat. 1:1; Heb. 7:9-10). [Footnote: Compare Ruth 4:17 which declares that “there is a son born to Naomi”, whereas technically she is his step mother-in-law. . .] (Ibid., p. 35)​
At any rate, the Cainan spoken of in Luke 3:36 poses no threat to the timeline of Genesis 11, only a mystery. The LXX versions of Genesis 11 which posit a Cainan in them are spurious, patently contriving to construct an order which fails.​ 
---------

While I am looking at Turretin’s view of things, please note that he fully supports the genuineness of the reading “book of life” in Revelation 22:19 in two places: Volume 1, pp 137 and 371.

---------

In your post #2, your quoting of Turretin, Vol 1, p 113, on the authenticity of Scripture in two senses, the original, and then the “faithful and accurate copies” of these. It would fall to reason that if the originals (we are talking autographs) were “inspired”, insofar as copies of them were truly “faithful and accurate” the inspiration of the former would be attributed to the latter. In this sense copies may be said to be inspired.

A simple case-in-point of BBW’s variance from both Turretin’s and the WCF’s views, was that BBW had no confidence in the _faithfulness *or* accuracy_ of the common text of Scripture; note in the case of the “long ending of Mark”, he declares that this resurrection account is “no part of the word of God” and thus we are not “to ascribe to these verses the authority due to the word of God”. Ditto with *numerous* other egregious omissions which characterize Codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, for this is the text – what we now call the Critical Text – BBW refers to as the superior text, all on the basis of his trust in W&H’s German rationalist methodology. It was a bold move, in the context of defending against a vicious assault on the Christian church’s Bible by both the higher and lower criticisms in the hands of modernists, German rationalists, deists, and Unitarians; yet as a strategy of war it failed, and that miserably.

-------------

Going into your post #19, Logan.

Some of your earlier remarks really have been derogatory and unwarranted, as you opined on his views of Warfield before becoming thoroughly familiar with the details of his view, as I showed above. It is apparent that you unjustly judged his views on the basis of incomplete knowledge.

You don’t like Letis’ “emotive language”? I wonder what you would think then of Burgon’s, who said with regard to W&H’s Critical Text,
“If, therefore, any do complain that I have sometimes hit my opponents rather hard, I take leave to point out that ‘to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun’; ‘a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing’; a time for speaking smoothly, and a time for speaking sharply. And that when the Words of Inspiration are seriously imperiled, as now they are, it is scarcely possible for one who is determined effectually to preserve the Deposit in its integrity, to hit either too straight or too hard.” [Dean John W. Burgon, _The Revision Revised_, pp. vii-viii].​ 
As I noted above, accurate and faithful copies of the inspired autographs themselves have the attribute of “inspired” insofar as they reflect the originals.

You quoted from the article, “These [reconstructed copies], he [Warfield] now also argued, when once reconstructed, would be inerrant in a way which far surpassed the text thought to be inspired by the Westminster Divines.” I would agree with you, it is too bad he does not cite a source for this, yet is it not unmistakably obvious it is the case? For why would BBW abandon the common text in lieu of a different method of determining the true readings of the autographic NT documents? And we see the result of his new method: the adoption of the very Roman Catholic weapon the Counter-Reformation used against the Reformers’ _Sola Scriptura_! And with it the evisceration of numerous original readings – in short, whatever is the case with the Westcott-Hort production, a rival text to that which was the universal text among the Reformed communities.

This from the essay, “THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION AND THE ORIGINAL AUTOGRAPHS” (Pp 588-594, _Selected Shorter Writings Of Benjamin B. Warfield – II_, 1973, P&R),
And so they [the Westminster Assembly] proclaimed the perfect preservation of Scripture, in its absolute purity, through all ages, in entire consistency with the recognition that many copies might come from the press filled with corruptions, and that no copy would ever be made by men, wholly free from error . . . they looked for the pure text of Scripture, not in one copy, but in all copies. (p 592)​ 
This pure text would be obtained, Warfield asserted, in “the safe preservation of the Bible as God gave it, so as to be accessible to all men, *in the use of the ordinary means of securing a trustworthy text*” (Ibid, p 594). And what would these “ordinary means of securing a trustworthy text” look like? Would it not certainly be – in Professor Warfield’s view – those labors and fruits of Johann Griesbach and his disciples, Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort?

Would the Westminster divines concur with what BBW was asserting, both as to the doing away with the common Bible and its distinctive readings, and the adoption of the secular (“scientific”) German rationalist approach to determining the truth of texts? And that from men whose godliness and appreciation for Biblical truth were null?

The brilliant scholar and theologian – a noted *expert* – led the church into a disarray from which it shall not recover fully, but shall go into the end times with, limping from the grievous wound.

All this, Logan, is not to say that some of the divines were not in agreement with a text critical approach, and having looked over your notes re Chas. Hodge and his Romans Commentary, on verses 3:28, 8:1, and 8:11 (and I shall add 7:6 to your list), I will have to concede you are right that he was willing to defect from the common text in places in lieu of other than TR variants.

-----------

You quote Letis as saying, “[Warfield] avoided altogether, however, any mention of the threat textual variants posed to verbal inspiration...”

And then you commented,
“It makes me wonder how could textual variants pose a threat to verbal inspiration? Unless one believes in continuing inspiration, the term ‘inspired’ only refers to the originals, even while faithful copies are to be considered likewise authoritative. Is this not always how the term ‘verbal inspiration’ has been used?​ 
It has been noted above that faithful and accurate copies of inspired Scripture have the attribute of (albeit derivative) inspiration insofar as they reflect the original. Are you aware that Bart Ehrman’s primary thrust against the Christian Scriptures is that if God didn’t care enough for His word to definitively preserve it (he refers to the chaos among the versions, the variants, the apparent contradictions, the unsettled state of the NT text), then why would one think He would care enough to preserve it in the first place? Ehrman uses the variants as a weapon against the concept of inspiration.

I’m not sure what you mean here:
“In his [Letis’] treatment of Warfield's view of the ending of Mark, he confuses correlation with causation. Just because Warfield's position that it was not originally part of the canon was also the position of the higher critics does not mean it was Warfield's reasoning.”​ 
BBW was convinced re the last 12 verses of Mark by what? There is no evidence save that of the higher and lower (for they have merged) critics.

Because Warfield treated the text according to the “scientific” method of the faithless Germans (and then the Brits in W&H), which is that any literature – even that considered Divine (which Warfield did indeed consider it) – “is to be determined solely by the evidence” and not by a faith-based approach, this is the Enlightenment method and not the believing Christian method.

Logan, you do not think Warfield saw a radical discontinuity between the pure and inspired autographs and the “corruption-ridden” Textus Receptus so loathed by his mentors, Griesbach, Hort, and Westcott? You do not think there is a radical discontinuity between the Bible of Roman Catholicism and that of the Reformation? Between Vaticanus / Sinaiticus and the Textus Receptus of Stephanus and Beza?

Please note that I don’t want to be defending everything Dr. Letis asserts, but I have covered in the main those things where he is on target. I think you are right in discerning Hodge and Alexander were open to occasionally receiving variants from the German critical texts (Letis accepts this also); these men also were of the opinion that due to amanuenses’ errors even the apostolic manuscripts could possibly have mistakes in them, but this BBW would not agree with (nor would I).

I have more to say, but it shall have to wait till I have more time.


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## Steve Curtis

Phil D. said:


> the way this thread has been conducted seems unfortunate and a bit surreal


Amen.
I am not conversant with the particulars of the issue at hand to have joined in the discussion, but the tone (from the dissenting side) has seemed, well, unseemly.


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## Jerusalem Blade

This historical understanding Dr. Letis brings up makes the whole field of text critical studies appear like a battleground of disparate views upon which the dust has not yet settled. And Logan, your comments, some of which are quite on target, contribute to this sense of so much textual contention throughout the believing community. To my mind (and many others) the common text of the church, particularly the Reformation church, seems the most stable and faithful view, in line with God’s promises.

This essay, THE NEW TESTAMENT: WHICH TEXT! By Pr. William P. Terjesen, which I found a link to in something Logan linked to, gives a good view of the conceptual terrain, text-orientation-wise, including all camps, although his view of the KJO IFBs seems limited to such as Ruckman and Riplinger (GR), and not the genuinely scholarly ones. (Not that GR can’t be scholarly at times, but while checking out some of her statements, cross-checking them with the sources she cited, I found that too frequently she either did not cite them accurately or it was out of context, making her unreliable, that on top of her rabid anti-Calvinist views.)

So what is one to do? I would ask you, Logan, what Bible do you use, and are you confident it is the word of God intact and entire? That really is an important question.

Given the disparity of views, even among the Reformation dogmaticians, and those divines of the early Princeton school, along with the Majority / Byzantine Text camp, the Critical Text camp (with whom I would include the Eclectic Text), the full preservation AV camp, and the near full preservation camp of Hills and Letis (Hills allowed there were possibly 3 minor errors in the King James / Textus Receptus), I ask again, what is one to do? 

To take a brief look at Hills’ view: Dr. Hills (who got his doctorate in text criticism at Harvard) writes concerning the matter of providential preservation (in _Believing Bible Study_, pp. 217, 218),
*The Logic of Faith – Maximum Certainty*

God's preservation of the New Testament text was not miraculous but providential. The scribes and printers who produced the copies of the New Testament Scriptures and the true believers who read and cherished them were not inspired but God-guided. Hence there are some New Testament passages in which the true reading cannot be determined with absolute certainty. There are some readings, for example, on which the manuscripts are almost equally divided, making it difficult to determine which reading belongs to the Traditional Text. Also in some of the cases in which the Textus Receptus disagrees with the Traditional Text it is hard to decide which text to follow. Also, as we have seen, sometimes the several editions of the Textus Receptus differ from each other and from the King James Version.

In other words, God does not reveal every truth with equal clearness. Hence in New Testament textual criticism, as in every other department of knowledge, there are some details in regard to which we must be content to remain uncertain. But this circumstance does not in the least affect the fundamental certainty which we obtain from our confidence in God’s special, providential preservation of the holy Scriptures. Through this believing approach to the New Testament text we gain _maximum certainty_, all the certainty that any mere man can obtain, all the certainty that we need. Embracing the common faith, we take our stand upon the Traditional Text, the Textus Receptus, and the King James Version and acknowledge these texts to be trustworthy reproductions of the infallibly inspired original text. Admittedly there are some readings which remain undecided, but these are very few. For the special providential preservation of the Scriptures has kept this element of uncertainty down to a minimum.​ 
Throughout Hills’ books he does take this stance, that in _a very few_ instances there are small errors, or variants about which we do not have certainty. There are other KJVO defenders who will not allow even this minimal uncertainty. In this case Romans 7:6 is more of an issue (to me, at any rate) than 1 John 5:7 (which I hold as genuine). Concerning Romans 7:6 (one of the three instances he admits) Hills says concerning the readings,
_that being dead wherein we were held_, opposed to, _being dead to that wherein we were held_​ 
that the latter phrase is the correct one, and this error was due to “Conjectural emendation by Beza; correct reading given by KJV translators in margin.” I am still considering this.

Let’s look at this matter of certainty versus uncertainty for a moment. To do some numerical comparing: the three phrases Hills says are errors (BBS, p. 83) comprise nine Greek words. In the Greek of the Textus Receptus (1894 edition) there are 140,521 words. Hills’ words then are .0064% or *sixty-four one thousandths of one percent*. The questionable portions of the Critical Text are immensely greater, and of the Byzantine / Majority not at all that large but still significantly so. (And this Byz admittedly is but a provisional text, not at all settled.)

This is what Hills means when he says we opt for maximum certainty instead of maximum uncertainty. 

As for those with the audacity to hold that the Lord is able to preserve His word to the minutiae – perfectly – is this really to be considered a fanatical and over-the-top view? How precisely should we take the Lord’s words? Remember, it was on the basis of one word of Scripture – “am” in Matt 22:32 – the Lord overthrew the arguments of the Sadducees, and in Galatians 3:16 Paul hinged his argument on one word, “seed” instead of “seeds”. Are individual words to be considered unimportant or negligible? 

In light of the Lord’s saying that man should live by *every word* that proceeds from the mouth of God, for one to say it is unreasonable to hold to a “minutely preserved” text is a bit risky. And when He assures us that “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3) this may easily include that _by which we must live_, that being His “every word”. So those who make the claim for a perfectly preserved text have warrant for their presupposition that He would fulfill His promises to do so. It is neither far-fetched nor fanatical, although it must indeed take into account the providential – the _supernatural_ – working of the Almighty.

In any event, we must come to some kind of understanding as to the state of the text of the Bible. Seeing as the history of the text and its transmission is sketchy in places, and that men waver and err, that “evidences” wax and wane, why should I not consider that, though every man be a liar, God is true, and His word certain to be fulfilled. Whether it be in the manner of Hills, or Holland and Kinney, I know the Bible I hold in my hand is trustworthy, and I can say I have God’s word intact and entire.

---------

This is something I noticed in your link to an exchange between Letis and Dr. James Price, regarding Letis’ view of Bart Ehrman (the comment is by Letis):
Ehrman is also a well armed authority, one who has blasted such a hole in the fortress of Westcott and Hort’s dogmatic assertion that no textual variants ever affects doctrine – a key tenet within the system of Warfieldian neo-orthodoxy – that those who have been duped into following W&H and Warfield would naturally find Ehrman’s evidence disturbing in the extreme. (From Letter to James Price)​


----------



## Logan

Jerusalem Blade said:


> You note Turretin’s view contra the authenticity of the “second Cainan” in Luke 3:36, and accept it, yet you assert Turretin erred “in his claims for support from the Greek” for 1 John 5:7 (this despite John Gill’s also stating that “out of sixteen ancient copies of Robert Stephen's, nine of them had it”) – how 21st century of you, assuming superior knowledge ages after the fact!



I do not accept Turretin's view, I have not studied it. I merely maintain that Turretin was wrong to say that "all the Greek copies have it". But this is beside the point, the main point being that Turretin accepted it based on the authority of the Greek, not simply because it was in the TR and not on some "ecclesiastical text" that had been received by the church.




Jerusalem Blade said:


> In your post #2, your quoting of Turretin, Vol 1, p 113, on the authenticity of Scripture in two senses, the original, and then the “faithful and accurate copies” of these. It would fall to reason that if the originals (we are talking autographs) were “inspired”, insofar as copies of them were truly “faithful and accurate” the inspiration of the former would be attributed to the latter. In this sense copies may be said to be inspired.



Absolutely. This is my position. Letis maintains this was not Warfield's position but that Warfield relegated all authority to the autographs. This is false, and I have quoted from Warfield to show it.



Jerusalem Blade said:


> As I noted above, accurate and faithful copies of the inspired autographs themselves have the attribute of “inspired” insofar as they reflect the originals.



I completely agree. So did Warfield. Letis, apparently does not. Can you point to any place where Letis talks about faithful copies of the inspired autographs? Why would he say this at all? “[Warfield] avoided altogether, however, any mention of the threat textual variants posed to verbal inspiration...”



Jerusalem Blade said:


> Are you aware that Bart Ehrman’s primary thrust against the Christian Scriptures is that if God didn’t care enough for His word to definitively preserve it (he refers to the chaos among the versions, the variants, the apparent contradictions, the unsettled state of the NT text), then why would one think He would care enough to preserve it in the first place? Ehrman uses the variants as a weapon against the concept of inspiration.



I am aware of this, I am also aware that Letis quoted Ehrman definitively on this very point:


Letis said:


> But the most damning indictment of White’s book is the fact that because he is not, properly speaking, part of the text critical guild, he shows no knowledge whatsoever of the most important book written in text critical studies in the past fifty years, that is, Professor Bart Ehrman’s “The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament” (Oxford University Press, 1993). This, it should be added, was published the same year as Riplinger’s. Riplinger’s he knows; this book he does not know.
> 
> This, the most important book ever written on the very subject of the doctrinal influence of text critical practice---which White raises with such certainty---by the world’s leading authority on the subject, comes to just the opposite conclusion to which White himself arrives! Professor Ehrman would remind White that
> 
> 
> Ehrman said:
> 
> 
> 
> The textual problems we have examined affect the interpretation of the familiar and historically significant passages of the New Testament: the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke, the prologue of the Fourth Gospel, the baptismal accounts of the Synoptics, the passion narratives, and other familiar passages in Acts, Paul, Hebrews, and the Catholic epistles. In some instances, the interpretations of these passages were understood by *scribes who “read” their interpretations not only out of the text but actually into it, as they modified the words* in accordance with what they were taken to mean…Naturally, the same data relate to the basic doctrinal concerns of early Christians---theologians and, presumably, laypersons alike: Was Jesus the Messiah, predicted in the Old Testament? Was Joseph his father? Was Jesus born as a human? Was he tempted? Was he able to sin? Was he adopted to be the Son of God at his baptism? At his resurrection? Or was he himself God? Was Jesus one person or two persons? Did he have a physical body after his resurrection? And many others. *The ways scribes answered these questions affected the way they transcribed their texts.*
> 
> 
> 
> [my emphasis]
Click to expand...

Now while it might be alleged that Letis only quoted from Ehrman to show White was wrong to say doctrine is affected, it is incredible that he would quote the "most important book ever written on the very subject of doctrinal influence of text critical practice" by the "world's leading authority on the subject" and never offer any kind of a disclaimer. Was Letis so anxious to win against White that he would quote someone's heretical views? Without even a "I disagree on this point, however"? Note that he also went on a Christian Radio station and used the same quote without so much as a disclaimer to his audiences as to what Bart Ehrman believed.

Also *CAREFULLY*Read Letis' quote from a lecture he gave in Ireland, speaking about the Pericope Adulterae


Letis said:


> When the apostles had to make decisions about which acts and events and speeches that Christ gave that they were to include, John tells us at the end of his gospel that the world couldn't be filled with all of the material. But they nevertheless were selective in what they chose. If Peter (this might be controversial, I don't know) but if Peter and Paul could have a falling out, a public falling out, and it is actually recorded in Scripture that they had a public falling out, it seems to me there may well have been a great deal of debate as to whether they should include this story or not. Maybe this was a story just for us, maybe it's not for the whole church, and I think that questioning might well have been present in the first century, I'm willing to grant that, because it doesn't make any difference to me because it was ultimately recognized as canon, and that canonical recognition process, was just that, it was a process, and it was the end result of the canonical process that's important, not just the antecedents.


As my wife said he doesn't seem to believe there was originally an inspiration process and that the Pericope Adulterae possibly wasn't even part of the Scriptures of the early church ("maybe this was a story just for us, maybe it's not for the whole church"). It appears his view is that it doesn't really matter what the apostles actually wrote, what matters is the "canonical process", else, why would he say that this "might be controversial"? Note also that it appears that Letis held the ending of Mark both as secondary, and as canonical. It seems to me that in his opposition to the uncertainty of the critical text, he overstepped in the opposite direction.

Steve, I ask you to carefully consider whether or not you are reading your own views as Letis'. He supported the TR, much as you do, but his reasons for doing so appear to be vastly different, thus his completely misunderstanding Warfield.


----------



## Logan

Steve,

Since I don't have access to "The Ecclesiastical Text" in its entirety, perhaps you can tell me what Letis' views of Brevard Childs were. Letis, in his own synopsis of his book, indicates he received his views favorably in chapters 4 and 5.

Childs seems to have espoused this view of "orthodox corruption" that eventually is received as canon, but that it is the canon we should focus our textual criticism on, not older documents. Was Childs' view (which he himself said was completely new) the orthodoxy of the 16th and 17th centuries?


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## PuritanCovenanter

Stand in my shoes. I was given Warfield 25 years ago by my Mentor. Then I was given Burgon by J. P. Green Sr. I have to admit that Warfield was above my understanding at the time but to know where his influences came from was not. The apple from the tree of the German's was poisoned. And Warfield ate from that apple.


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## Logan

Some other resources for Letis' views.

First, I mentioned this source before, in which the author said of Letis


> However, if I understood our conversation correctly—*and he seemed to enjoy mystifying*—he basically accepted a fairly standard history of the text during the first four centuries, but believed that what the text that the church had come to receive was the locus of authority. For instance, *he thought that Mark 16:9-20 was secondary and inspired.* *He was aware that some of his conservative constituency did not realize that his position involved this.* [my emphasis]



That's someone claiming to have discussed this with him. But I wouldn't accept that alone as evidence. In addition to the quotes I gave earlier, here are some additional ones.
First


Letis said:


> While Barth's own dogmatics were intended to replace that of the seventeenth century, we find they have not fully satisfied the modern sense of having lost a mother, that is, the mother Church-catholic tradition. It is my conviction that it is this catholic view of inspiration which must be reappropriated, in a post-critical, post-modern way, leaving behind the decidedly modern neo-orthodox paradigms of both Warfieldianism, as well as Barthianism.


A good question is, what does this "catholic view of inspiration" entail?



Letis said:


> The struggle between the Church and the Academy continues. What Childs provides is an opportunity not to have to take sides. The canonical approach takes seriously all aspects of Biblical criticism-something neither the Warfield nor the Packer model will allow for-and yet permits the Bible to retain its sacred text status at the canonical level, something Barth disparaged. The implications of this are varied and promising. It means that the Academy retains her right of full autonomy, doing authentic Biblical criticism with integrity, not bound by any individual community's model of a 'believing criticism,' (which amounts to doing Biblical criticism with one hand tied behind one's back). Furthermore-and as a Lutheran, I speak in terms of a Protestant catholicism-the Church has an opportunity to rediscover, in a creative and discerning way, the rich, theological corpus of the Protestant dogmatic traditions, which operated with Scripture at the same level as does the canonical approach. This time, however, it can be in a fully informed and post-critical way.



So if I'm taking him correctly, he offers a compromise, one in which the textual critics can operate without a "believing criticism" and one in which the church gets her Bible, which was received as canon. Note here that he does not equate his "canonical approach" to that of the 17th century "dogmaticians", but it's apparently in his eyes equivalent for all practical purposes.

Secondly, about 58 minutes in,


Letis said:


> The traditional text is the only form of the text that has ever served as Holy Scripture. Even the argument that the original autographs alone are authoritative isn’t valid because it isn’t the autographs that were canonized in the 4th century, or that were at least recognized authoritatively as canonical. The autographs were gone by then, it was an *extant traditional edition* of the Bible that the church made the decision about under the Holy Spirit’s guidance and said “This is the canonical New Testament”. It wasn’t the autographs that were canonized, it was an extant edition and it was the edition that continued to be copied and read and used in the liturgy and copied by monks in monasteries, that what was the identifying localized edition of that canonized text. And that’s the traditional text as it’s been known, the Byzantine text, the Koine text, the Majority text, what our institution calls the Ecclesiastical text, that is the only text that has served historically as Holy Scripture within believing communities.



While I am grateful that he mentions it was the work of the Spirit here, I would also note that he never seems to argue ANYWHERE (not just here), that these, by God's providence, accurately represented the autographs. That apparently isn't important to him. What is important is that the church received it as canon. The above linked PDF where Letis endorses Childs' views is especially telling in my opinion, if you know anything of Childs'.


----------



## Jerusalem Blade

Hello again Logan – I will be responding to your post #50 here.

In my post #47 I said,
“In your post #2, your quoting of Turretin, Vol 1, p 113, on the authenticity of Scripture in two senses, the original, and then the ‘faithful and accurate copies’ of these. It would fall to reason that if the originals (we are talking autographs) were ‘inspired’, insofar as copies of them were truly ‘faithful and accurate’ the inspiration of the former would be attributed to the latter. In this sense copies may be said to be inspired.”​ 
And you responded,
“Absolutely. This is my position. Letis maintains this was not Warfield's position but that Warfield relegated all authority to the autographs. This is false, and I have quoted from Warfield to show it.”​ 
BBW quote from your post #1:
“*Warfield: *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 that of Westcott and Hort. But whether they were good critics or bad is not the point. It admits of no denial that they explicitly recognized the fact that the text of the Scriptures had suffered corruption in process of transmission and affirmed that the ‘pure’ text lies therefore not in one copy, but in all, and is to be attained not by simply reading the text in whatever copy may chance to fall into our hands, but by a process of comparison, i.e. by criticism. The affirmation of the Confession includes the two facts, therefore, first that the Scriptures in the originals were immediately inspired by God; and secondly that this inspired text has not been lost to the Church, but through God's good providence has been kept pure, amidst all the crowding errors of scribes and printers, and that therefore the Church still has the inspired Word of God in the originals, and is to appeal to it, and to it alone, as the final authority in all controversies of religion.”​ 
I gather this is the quote you referred to above. Besides being a bit dense, I do not have the context it was in, but I do believe that when BBW (toward the end of it) speaks, saying, “this inspired text has not been lost to the Church, but through God's good providence has been kept pure, amidst all the crowding errors of scribes and printers, and that therefore the Church still has the inspired Word of God in the originals, and is to appeal to it, and to it alone, as the final authority in all controversies of religion”, what he means is not what the Confession means.

My post #47, quoting Warfield:
“And so they [the Westminster Assembly] proclaimed the perfect preservation of Scripture, in its absolute purity, through all ages, in entire consistency with the recognition that many copies might come from the press filled with corruptions, and that no copy would ever be made by men, wholly free from error . . . they looked for the pure text of Scripture, not in one copy, but in all copies. (p 592)”​ 
Not just in the Byzantine mss or the editions of Stephanus and Beza, but evidently in Walton’s Polyglott, and that by men like Bishop Lightfoot (of the Revision Committee in the Jerusalem Chamber) “engaged in the most advanced work”. This sentence alone (from your quote) betrays the context of BBW’s view: “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.”

Do you honestly think that such thoughts would be in line with the framers of the Confession? But then they were relative rubes to the business of advanced textual criticism and reconstruction of the New Testament text!

No, the idea Prof. Warfield had with regard to the secondary inspiration (i.e., derived from the autographs) of the apographa was not that of the texts they had in hand, but rather that which was latent in the vast number of mss available and which would come to light through the labors of textual criticism. To his credit, he really believed this would be the highest boon to the church, and the demolishing of the destructive criticisms of the Bible . . . . but he misjudged, with catastrophic results.

Now let me say this, Logan – I appreciate all the work you have put into this discussion, and I have been influenced by it. One result is that I have distanced from Letis in some respects, at least until I investigate further his views on the autographs, and on the process of canonization, etc.

I will look over the chapter on Childs (I had distanced from Childs earlier as I did not appreciate his views as helpful). I will also look further into his views on Ehrman. Keep in mind that it may have been a couple of decades ago he appreciated Ehrman, before the latter became notorious as an adversary of the Faith and its Bible.

I am planning a paper against Ehrman from a TR / AV position, and have been collecting key works of his to interact with.

Is the “Ecclesiastical Text” you refer to Letis’ doctoral dissertation? I have it but have not read it save a little.

It is possible I have been reading some of my views into Letis’; I will look at this; still, I am clear that his take on Warfield vis-à-vis the WCF is sound.

I will look to get to your other questions shortly.

-----------

*Chris Coldwell*: Letis’ publisher sent me this note: “This essay was presented at a public lecture in Scotland and published in a journal. I believe you have every right to post it.”


----------



## Logan

Jerusalem Blade said:


> Now let me say this, Logan – I appreciate all the work you have put into this discussion, and I have been influenced by it. One result is that I have distanced from Letis in some respects, at least until I investigate further his views on the autographs, and on the process of canonization, etc.
> 
> I will look over the chapter on Childs (I had distanced from Childs earlier as I did not appreciate his views as helpful). I will also look further into his views on Ehrman. Keep in mind that it may have been a couple of decades ago he appreciated Ehrman, before the latter became notorious as an adversary of the Faith and its Bible.



Steve, I *very* much appreciate you saying something like that. I really did spend a lot of time on this (as my wife will surely attest!). Thank you!

His comments on Ehrman were in the Pensacola video lecture in 1997, in the Southwest Radio Church program in 2000, and in the second edition (2000) of his book "The Ecclesiastical Text" (the appendix, which is a response to James White, is reproduced on the Theodore Letis site). The book he cited on all three occasions was "Orthodox Corruption", originally printed in 1996. I also linked to the Letis on Childs essay in my last post.

The "Ecclesiastical Text" I have been referring to appears to have been a collection of essays by Letis, 1st ed 1997, second edition 2000. This appears to be different from his book on the "Majority Text". Whether it was a similar collection or just renamed I do not know.

You may agree with Letis in the end result in lamenting Warfield's views and what they led to, that's not really my concern here. What was my concern is the method used to arrive at that lamentation, and I thought Letis misrepresented Warfield's quite unfairly. 

Warfield almost undoubtedly took textual criticism further than anyone before and I don't know that I agree with him there. I have not yet formed my own views on textual criticism. However, I think it was the attitude of pious caution that caused men of old to retain readings that had even uncertain Greek, undoubtedly thinking that it is far better to include what may not be Scripture (yet does not contradict it and is something we can benefit by), than to excise what may actually be Scripture. I do think that the textual critic should pray long, hard, and carefully before daring to venture to say that this or that part is not truly Scripture, and I can definitely sympathize with those who want to be in the "safe" arms of the TR, which served the church well for so long.


----------



## MW

kainos01 said:


> I find it odd when people do not care to become acquainted with the issues under discussion but nevertheless offer their comments as to what is or is not appropriate in response. I find such comments to be inappropriate and unfortunate.



How does one read tone without reading it into what the person has said?

I find it inappropriate when people do not care to become acquainted with the issues under discussion but nevertheless offer their comments as to what is or is not appropriate in response.


----------



## MW

Alan D. Strange said:


> That we've come to a place where a man like Letis can disparage a Reformed giant like Warfield and be lauded for it on a Reformed board is indeed curious.



We have not come to this place. No person has lauded Letis on this board for disparaging Warfield. But even if it had taken place, it would not justify misrepresenting Letis' position. Two wrongs would not make a right.


----------



## MW

The desire is to know whether Warfield accurately represented the reformed tradition or introduced an innovation. This is not relevant as to whether or not Letis taught the doctrine of "fallible autographs." Nevertheless, it is important in its own right. Warfield has been quoted earlier and Logan has agreed with his statement. Here is the quotation:



Warfield said:


> 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 that of Westcott and Hort. But whether they were good critics or bad is not the point. It admits of no denial that they explicitly recognized the fact that the text of the Scriptures had suffered corruption in process of transmission and affirmed that the "pure" text lies therefore not in one copy, but in all, and is to be attained not by simply reading the text in whatever copy may chance to fall into our hands, but by a process of comparison, i.e. by criticism. The affirmation of the Confession includes the two facts, therefore, first that the Scriptures in the originals were immediately inspired by God; and secondly that this inspired text has not been lost to the Church, but through God's good providence has been kept pure, amidst all the crowding errors of scribes and printers, and that therefore the Church still has the inspired Word of God in the originals, and is to appeal to it, and to it alone, as the final authority in all controversies of religion.



I have quoted part of this statement on previous threads in order to show that Warfield himself accepted there was a more conservative bent in the Westminster divines when it comes to textual criticism. He says, "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." This is important since it comes from one who criticised the approach of Scrivener and Burgon. Simply let it be noted as such.

How does Warfield deal with the Confessional statement on preservation? He subtracts one important qualifier and adds one of his own. He leaves out "in all ages" and he puts in "amidst all the crowding errors of scribes and printers." In other words, he has custom made the statement of the Confession to suit his own methodology. The text to which the Confession ascribes "authenticity" is not the original autographs, nor is it an undefined text swimming in the sea of mss., some of which are yet to be discovered, but it is the text which is available to the church as the final court of appeal. For these divines of the 17th century it was the text available to them at that time, and to which they appealed in support of the propositional truth which they have set forth in this Confession; and this is nothing other than what has come to be known as the received text. It is the text which Warfield rejected in favour of a reconstructed text based on a different view of preservation and a novel view of criticism.


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## MW

I quote from a thread a few years back the words of Thomas Ford's Logos Autopistos. Ford was a member of the Westminster Assembly. He states uneqivocally that the providence of God has entirely preserved that which was committed unto writing:



> As for the Originals, we are assured that they are entire, and not defective, as any can be sure of any thing that is of so long standing. And therefore we are bold to think, that they who question us, as they do in this kind, might rather have questioned God himself, for representing his mind and will in writing, when he could not but foresee that such manner of questions might be put in after-ages, as are made now-a-days. None dare say, that God never ordered his will to be written. And seeing it is so ordered by him, why should we question the wise and gracious hand of his providence, in contriving the preservation of these ancient Records unto all posterity, for whom he intended them? Methinks it were a more direct course for our Adversaries to take, if they would say downright, that God never committed his mind and will to writing, than now to say (as they do) that no man can be sure that these writings are the same which were at first. For this seems to cast an aspersion upon God, for taking such a way of representing his mind unto the sons of men, as must leave those of these latter ages of the world, under invincible doubtings about his will, that respects their greatest and only concernments.


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## MW

To return now to the position of Letis, I ask the reader to let him speak for himself. He wrote for Christianity and Society a piece intended to explain what he meant by calling the question of inerrant autographs a loaded question. It may be found here:

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...57b88ef66c49/1480081690585/Volume+14+No+4.pdf

The sum of it is encapsulated in the final paragraph:



> In short, the question “Do you believe in the inerrancy of the original autographs?” is both a loaded question and a question-begging question. Hence it is fallacious, as well as a defection from the standards of historic orthodoxy, because it restricts the theological notion of inspiration to the lost original autographs alone, thus leaving believing communities without a present infallible Bible. As such the phrase is in contradiction to the expressions of the historic orthodoxy of the past, which spoke in terms of initial inspiration and concomitant preservation and expressed this in the language of the infallibility of the apographs, rather than in the modernist phrase “inerrancy of the autographs,” as clearly outlined above. Furthermore, the phrase “inerrant autographs” demands the use of naturalistic textual criticism to give it reality, which the discipline has never been able to produce in two hundred years of diligent searching, whereas the historic orthodox doctrine of providential preservation demands that we believe in the infallibility of the existing texts of the Bible and the present reality of its absolute authority. These two phrases cannot “peacefully co-exist” because they represent two different paradigms, from two different ages, that are mutually exclusive and which actually cancel out each other. Hence one is forced to choose between the neo-orthodoxy of Warfieldism and the historic orthodoxy of the Reformation, by way of these theological terms, not unlike how fourth century Christians were defined by choosing between Homoousion (Nicene orthodoxy) and Homoiousion (Arianism). In that noble age believers gave up their very lives for the sake of one iota.



No doubt this explanation will disappoint those who do not accept Letis' position, but as an explanation it serves to show that Letis' refusal to subscribe to the statement should not be construed into a positive belief that the autographs are in error. The brother who has attempted to pin this positive belief on Letis has only succeeded in creating a straw man.


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## MW

One last point. Richard Muller, a well-respected authority on such matters, states that there was a clear difference between the high orthodox and Warfield on this subject. 



> Turretin and other high and late orthodox writers argued that the authenticity and infallibility of Scripture must be identified in and of the apographa, not in and of lost autographa... The orthodox do, of course, assume that the text is free of substantive error and, typically, view textual problems as of scribal origin, but they mount their argument for authenticity and infallibility without recourse to a logical device like that employed by Hodge and Warfield.



PRRD, 2:415.


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## Logan

armourbearer said:


> No doubt this explanation will disappoint those who do not accept Letis' position, but as an explanation it serves to show that Letis' refusal to subscribe to the statement should not be construed into a positive belief that the autographs are in error. The brother who has attempted to pin this positive belief on Letis has only succeeded in creating a straw man.



Interesting, I can see why he thinks the term embodies a paradigm, but what do you make of this statement earlier in the article: 



Letis said:


> Surely with this response I felt he [James White] would see my point regarding the question of the inerrancy of the original autographs. But this was not the case as evidenced by how he followed-up his reply: “There were inerrant autographs . . .” he asserted. At no point did he oﬀer any *proof* for this and so he continued his fallacy of begging the question. Nor did our little exercise help him to see his need to provide such proof before putting the question, particularly since he was addressing it to an historian. [Letis' emphasis]


Is he just being finicky? From a theological standpoint, does one need to "prove" that there "were inerrant autographs" when speaking to a fellow Christian? 

I don't think the quote you provided answers his association (positively) with both Ehrman and Childs, so I'm not at all convinced it's a straw man I've created.

Also, included in the quote you provided is this statement:


Letis said:


> it [inerrancy] restricts the theological notion of inspiration to the lost original autographs alone, thus leaving believing communities without a present infallible Bible.


Does not "inspiration" refer to the "lost original autographs" by definition? What does he mean by "present infallible Bible"? Infallible in doctrine? Truth? If so then Warfield would have agreed we have a present infallible Bible. Does he mean something else?

Thank you very much for sharing the number of quotes in your last few posts. I don't know if I'll reply, I'm rather spent on this subject and would like to pursue some more profitable ones.


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## Edward

armourbearer said:


> You bare the burden of proof.



In the American usage, at least, it would be 'bear' as in bearing a burden, not bare. Is this from an historical usage?


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## Jerusalem Blade

A brief note: in Prof. Warfield’s mouth the term “inerrancy” refers to the lost original autographs alone, and not to infallible present apographs, that is, not in the sense of the Westminster Confession. Warfield would *say* it does apply to the present texts, although what he *means* is latently in the mass of mss, and is to be dug out of them by critical experts, and that is not the WCF’s meaning.

Logan, there are interesting investigations that may be made into Letis’ views and beliefs, but the “main argument” (as you put it) is whether he was accurate in ascribing to Prof. Warfield a departure from the Confession in his view of the status of the New Testament in Greek as per section 1:8, and this has been established clearly and beyond doubt.

Rev Winzer remarks on this wise are correct and to the point.

Anything further by way of discussion on this particular point would be redundant and obfuscatory.


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## MW

Edward said:


> armourbearer said:
> 
> 
> 
> You bare the burden of proof.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In the American usage, at least, it would be 'bear' as in bearing a burden, not bare. Is this from an historical usage?
Click to expand...


No, just a failure on my part to use the correct spelling. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I have corrected it in the post.


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## MW

Logan said:


> Is he just being finicky? From a theological standpoint, does one need to "prove" that there "were inerrant autographs" when speaking to a fellow Christian?



This is a discussion about textual criticism, and much of the impetus for "restoration" of the text derives from the idea that inerrancy is to be found in the autographs alone. From a "presevationist" viewpoint too much is being made concerning autographs which cannot be consulted. If one insists on empirical evidence one should be ready to prove autographic inerrancy on that basis. If it cannot be proved (which is a given) it should be readily admitted and textual theory adapted accordingly.



Logan said:


> I don't think the quote you provided answers his association (positively) with both Ehrman and Childs, so I'm not at all convinced it's a straw man I've created.



As far as I know there was no "association." Ehrman and Childs have contributed in their fields. Letis has utilised their research. That is how academia works.

Ehrman has challenged the idea that variants do not result in doctrinal changes. Anyone who looks into scholarly works on textual criticism will find that this is actually a working hypothesis in the field and that the idea of "orthodox corruptions" has been a part of the science for about two centuries. Childs' Canonical Process Approach is well accepted in even conservative seminaries as it provides a means of looking at the text post-critically.



Logan said:


> Does not "inspiration" refer to the "lost original autographs" by definition? What does he mean by "present infallible Bible"? Infallible in doctrine? Truth? If so then Warfield would have agreed we have a present infallible Bible. Does he mean something else?



For those who confine "inspiration" to the process by which Scripture is written it is obvious that only the autographs can be inspired. In 2 Tim 3:15, 16, however, the copies of the Scriptures with which Timothy was acquainted were to be regarded as profitable because they were "theopneustos." In Heb. 3:7, an original Hebrew text is quoted in Greek with the affirmation that the words were to be regarded as the saying of the Holy Ghost in the present. According to biblical testimony, therefore, "inspiration" does not wear out in transmission or wash out in translation.

Warfield's divergent views on preservation and criticism have been articulated. As the issue under discussion pertains to textual criticism I don't think there is any need to go into other areas.


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## Logan

Jerusalem Blade said:


> although what he means is latently in the mass of mss, and is to be dug out of them by critical experts, and that is not the WCF’s meaning.


Didn't the Westminster Divines likewise refer to certain readings in the "mass of manuscripts"? I just don't understand why they could do it on a small scale, but Warfield is said to depart when he does it on a broader scale.

Rev Winzer:
So that I'm clear on your views, you believe that "inspiration" does not refer only to the immediately inspired autographs themselves. Does it refer to all apographs as well, or only faithful ones? That faithful copies can properly be called "inspired" (because they accurately represent the original) I agree, but I've always understood "inspiration" as a process that occurred only once: when the autograph was set down.

Likewise, I don't think it follows that someone (like Warfield, or White) _must_ be ready to prove that the autographs were without error based on empirical evidence. Christians of every age have intuitively believed this and there has never been a need for empirical evidence. Neither did Warfield seek empirical evidence for this. He argued for it presuppositionally based on God's nature. I have yet to see that as inconsistent.


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## Logan

By the way, I urge anyone interested in seeing what Warfield's views actually are, and why he formulated "inerrancy" in the way he did, to read his own paper entitled "The Doctrine of Inspiration of the Westminster Divines". It is quite a scholarly and well-written work and I think clears up many misconceptions.

Edit: I'll add to this Bahsen's most excellent paper The Inerrancy of the Autographa

As well as this interesting statement from Warfield.


Warfield said:


> This [that inerrancy of the autographs is a modern doctrine] is a rather serious arraignment of the common sense of the whole series of preceding generations. What! Are we to believe that no man until our wonderful nineteenth century, ever had acumen enough to detect a printer’s error or to realize the liability of hand-copies manuscripts to occasional corruption? Are we really to believe that the happy possessors of “the Wicked Bible” held “thou shalt commit adultery” to be as divinely “inerrant” as the genuine text of the seventh commandment – *on the ground that the “inerrancy of the original autographs of the Holy Scriptures” must not be asserted “as distinguished from the Holy Scriptures which we now posses”?* . . . Of course, every man of common sense from the beginning of the world has recognized the difference between the genuine text and the errors of transmission, and has attached his confidence to the former in rejection of the latter. [my emphasis]




Edit 2: and one more quote from Warfield:


Warfield “Westminster Confession and the Original Autographs said:


> The defenders of the trustworthiness of the Scriptures have constantly asserted, together, that God gave the Bible as the errorless record of his will to men, and that he has, in his superabounding grace, preserved it for them to this hour – yea, and will preserve it for them to the end of time . . .. *Not only was the inspired Word, as it came from God, without error, but . . . it remains so . . .. It is as truly heresy to affirm that the inerrant Bible has been lost to men* as it is to declare that there never was an inerrant Bible.



Edit 3:
Disagree about Warfield about which copies to look at for the "providential preservation" of the text, or various readings, but I think we'd agree that this statement is correct and not a reinterpretation of the Confession.



Warfield said:


> [The Westminster Divines] meant to assert that the various readings in the several copies did not prevent the preservation of the text absolutely pure in the multiplicity of copies.


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## PuritanCovenanter

Logan, 

Just to be honest with you it doesn't sound like you are listening. 



armourbearer said:


> How does Warfield deal with the Confessional statement on preservation? He subtracts one important qualifier and adds one of his own. He leaves out "in all ages" and he puts in "amidst all the crowding errors of scribes and printers." In other words, he has custom made the statement of the Confession to suit his own methodology. The text to which the Confession ascribes "authenticity" is not the original autographs, nor is it an undefined text swimming in the sea of mss., some of which are yet to be discovered, but it is the text which is available to the church as the final court of appeal. For these divines of the 17th century it was the text available to them at that time, and to which they appealed in support of the propositional truth which they have set forth in this Confession; and this is nothing other than what has come to be known as the received text. It is the text which Warfield rejected in favour of a reconstructed text based on a different view of preservation and a novel view of criticism.



Also in the first quote above, Warfield's example of the Wicked Bible is a very feeble way to set up an argument and to divert attention away from the more complex areas of discussion which he argues against. There are bigger issues at hand concerning passages with the deity of Christ and whole sections of scripture that have been on the critical list that are totally omitted in the supposed oldest and most reliable mss. It isn't a mere word that is being left out by mistake as in the Wicked Bible and it isn't a mere mistake that omitted the whole sections of scripture.

Also Reverend Winzer has tried to convey the ground rules of what we are dealing with between the two authors and scholarly debate. You seem to be neglecting what he is trying to get you to see. I don't think you are doing it intentionally. I admit that I have had to sit back and listen a bit more intently to what Rev. Winzer has communicated to me a quite a few times. Sometimes in our discussions I didn't think he was answering me when in fact I found out he was taking me to a place where I needed to go first in order for him to clearly articulate what I needed to hear. My questions or propositions weren't the problem necessarily as much as the foundation for my reasoning and understanding. Reverend Winzer has needed to get me to back up a few steps before so that I could understand and ask the right questions. I think you would do well to listen to Rev. Winzer a bit more slowly here. JMO. I know how to be a Bull in a China Store also. 

So to just reinforce things here. I believe that Steve is correct in this statement. 


> Logan, there are interesting investigations that may be made into Letis’ views and beliefs, but the “main argument” (as you put it) is whether he was accurate in ascribing to Prof. Warfield a departure from the Confession in his view of the status of the New Testament in Greek as per section 1:8, and this has been established clearly and beyond doubt.
> 
> Rev Winzer remarks on this wise are correct and to the point.
> 
> Anything further by way of discussion on this particular point would be redundant and obfuscatory.


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## Logan

PuritanCovenanter said:


> Just to be honest with you it doesn't sound like you are listening.



Thank you for this and if that is the case then I apologize. Perhaps I've just got my nose buried too deeply in Warfield's writing and cannot see the forest for the trees, but I still have not been convinced that Warfield's views departed from the Confession, especially in the historical context in which Warfield was battling.


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## Peairtach

Thanks for this thread, Logan and others, including Steve and Matthew. I'm beginning to understand the textual debate a bit better, something I haven't had the inclination to look at in great detail, or found difficult to understand, possibly partly because people often repeat that the differences between all the MSS aren't quite so big, so what's the fuss?

I think the problem with Warfield and his ilk, from what I'm starting to understand, was that the "Received Text" was, through God's providential preserving of the text of the NT, publically well known and accepted in the Church, but Warfield et al, were willing to give a place for a different family or families of MSS, with significant differences, some of MSS which had, for instance, been recently recovered from a waste-paper basket on St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai. 

By doing this Warfield wasn't treating the Received Text in a biblical way, as his approach and that of modern textual criticism, theoretically means that the settled text of the Bible which God has supposed to have preserved among us - as we learn from Scripture's view of itself, which view we must start and end with in textual studies - can be opened up at any time by new discoveries, thus undermining our confidence in what we have.

Theoretically, according to modernist textual criticism, there might be a Bible out there in the sands, very different to our own, which may yet be much more representative of the autographs. But that wouldn't be God preseving the text among us, bit allowing important textual material to languish in a place where few or none of God's people had access to it - which is incompatible with its preservation and perseverance among us.

Please correct me, Steve et al., since I'm a complete novice in this area of the text of the Bible, for whom the penny may be starting to drop. 

Maybe a very basic book would help.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2


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## MW

Logan said:


> So that I'm clear on your views, you believe that "inspiration" does not refer only to the immediately inspired autographs themselves. Does it refer to all apographs as well, or only faithful ones? That faithful copies can properly be called "inspired" (because they accurately represent the original) I agree, but I've always understood "inspiration" as a process that occurred only once: when the autograph was set down.



The Confession speaks of "immediate" inspiration in relation to what was initially written. That which is transmitted or translated is "mediate," i.e., accomplished by ordinary means being ruled (and overruled) by a special providence for the good of the church. Warfield's "superintendent" view of inspiration contrasts with the traditional "dictation" view, and his espousal of a mere general providence in relation to the copies of Scripture likewise contrasts with the traditional view that a singular care and providence was active in this business.

The question as to the mediate inspiration of "apographs" requires a clear definition of the term "apograph." It assumes the idea that what is copied is an accurate duplicate of the original. "Apographs" and "manuscripts" should not be regarded as synonymous. A selection process has already taken place and the apographs reflect that process.



Logan said:


> Likewise, I don't think it follows that someone (like Warfield, or White) _must_ be ready to prove that the autographs were without error based on empirical evidence. Christians of every age have intuitively believed this and there has never been a need for empirical evidence. Neither did Warfield seek empirical evidence for this. He argued for it presuppositionally based on God's nature. I have yet to see that as inconsistent.



One cannot have his cake and eat it too. If the presuppositionalism supporting the TR is to be devoured by the teeth of evidential criticism the only basis which remains for establishing the inerrancy of the autographs is evidentialism. Apart from belief in the special providence of God there is no basis for saying one word which exists in a manuscript is to be regarded as "the word of God." If one accepts special providence then the special object of that providence -- the church -- must factor into the rationale for canonising a certain text and rejecting others.


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## MW

Logan said:


> Edit: I'll add to this Bahsen's most excellent paper The Inerrancy of the Autographa



Bahnsen also acknowledged that his view, which follows Warfield, is different from the view of Turretin, Owen, et al. See particularly p. 155 of "Inerrancy" ed. Norman L. Geisler.


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## Logan

Peairtach:
You probably would prefer someone besides me to answer, so I'll refrain unless you ask me specifically.



armourbearer said:


> One cannot have his cake and eat it too. If the presuppositionalism supporting the TR is to be devoured by the teeth of evidential criticism the only basis which remains for establishing the inerrancy of the autographs is evidentialism.



I understand your position, but once again, I don't think it follows that one must empirically prove inerrancy, as neither did those men need to who were empirically comparing manuscripts for the TR. I'm at the very least encouraged that someone like Bahnsen who surely knew something about epistemology and presuppositions, believed the same. He mentioned something along those lines to Sandlin:



Bahnsen said:


> I should also humbly observe in passing, as someone with a bit of background in epistemology, that Sandlin has simply wandered into left field when he tries to make the issue "a rationalist standard of supposed scientific accuracy" to which we are allegedly trying to conform. To think that is the issue is to betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what the debate is about in the first place.





armourbearer said:


> Bahnsen also acknowledged that his view, which follows Warfield, is different from the view of Turretin, Owen, et al.



I am aware that Warfield acknowledged differing from Turretin and Owen in at least several areas. Letis calls both "dogmaticians" of the 17th century, especially for their belief in the inspiration of the Hebrew points. That Warfield or Bahnsen differed from them in many areas isn't surprising, since not many even of their own day agreed with all their assertions.



armourbearer said:


> Warfield's "superintendent" view of inspiration contrasts with the traditional "dictation" view


How so? I am not familiar with the terms, but found Warfield's extensive writings (and extensive citations of 17th century theologians in agreement) to be satisfactory.


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## MW

Logan said:


> I am not familiar with the terms, but found Warfield's extensive writings (and extensive citations of 17th century theologians in agreement) to be satisfactory.



"Superintendence" is generally regarded as a basic construct of Warfield's extensive writings on inspiration. It might be worth your while to familiarise yourself with the concept. He consciously distanced his own view from the view of the 17th century.


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## Peairtach

*Logan*


> Peairtach:
> You probably would prefer someone besides me to answer, so I'll refrain unless you ask me specifically.



No. You can go ahead.


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## MW

Logan said:


> That Warfield or Bahnsen differed from them in many areas isn't surprising, since not many even of their own day agreed with all their assertions.



Significantly the "not many" included the confessionally reformed, so an admission that Warfield and Bahnsen differed from them is a significant concession in favour of Letis' thesis.

To give one example, John Lightfoot, a Westminster divine, and one fully conversant with all of the critical issues related to the text of the Old Testament, wrote:



> Some there be, that think the vowels of the Hebrew were not invented for many years after Christ. Which to me seemeth to be all one, as to deny sinews to a body: or to keep an infant unswaddled, and to suffer him to turn and bend any way, till he grow out of fashion. For mine own satisfaction I am fully resolved, that the letters and vowels of the Hebrew were,—as the soul and body of a child,—knit together at their conception and beginning; and that they had both one author.... Our Saviour, in his words of one 'Iota' and one small keraia (tittle) not perishing from the law, seems to allude to the least of the letters, Jod, and the least vowel and accent." -- (Works, 4:50.)


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## Jerusalem Blade

Richard, I think your remarks are a succinct summation of the general principles of the matter.

---------

Steve: “although what he [Warfield] means is [the true text is] latently in the mass of mss, and is to be dug out of them by critical experts, and that is not the WCF’s meaning.”

Logan: “Didn't the Westminster Divines likewise refer to certain readings in the ‘mass of manuscripts’? I just don't understand why they could do it on a small scale, but Warfield is said to depart when he does it on a broader scale.”​ 
Two men went fishing, one in the polluted Hudson River, full of heavy metals and sewage, though there were a lot of big fish in it, and the other man went to a small stream in the mountains that had a clear and unsullied pool, and fished there; there were far less fish in it, but they were all healthy and clean.

The manuscripts and editions the Textus Receptus was / is comprised of are not of such a number as to be termed a “mass of manuscripts”*, neither do they have a vast variety of significant variant readings, but _very_ few; the manuscript pool that Johann Griesbach and FJA Hort and BF Westcott used, however, has manuscripts that are not so numerous, but have significant variant readings that go into the many thousands, and they are – given the discrepancies between these mss – prima facie corrupted.

* From another point of view, the TR in its lineage does come from a vast pool of manuscripts, but they are extremely similar and the variants exceedingly minor.

To compare the pool Warfield and his colleagues – Messrs. Hort and Westcott – fished out of, to the Westminsterians, is of such disparity of degree one would really have to call it difference in kind.


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## Logan

I'll try to be extremely fair so as not to mischaracterize any position, undoubtedly I will be corrected.



Peairtach said:


> possibly partly because people often repeat that the differences between all the MSS aren't quite so big, so what's the fuss?



That has largely been my attitude as well. I've used the ESV in a NKJV congregation for a long while and have never even noticed the difference. My wife used a KJV in a different congregation (she doesn't remember their translation) and said she didn't notice a difference. However, I think it comes down to a question of whether it is the very word of God, or only 99% the word of God. God's word is precious and should be treated as such. I think both sides have a high view of Scripture but differ as to where that Scripture is contained and how God preserved it.

The Hebrew was transcribed incredibly meticulously, so there are relatively few readings, so textual criticism usually is about the Greek. The Greek was transcribed by many different people, presumably some for private use, some for public use and there are many more variations, but even unbelieving textual scholars are astounded by how few they are and how little they affect the text. The most critical has to concede that what we have today is extremely close to any ancient copy ever discovered, contrary to the claim of many unbelievers that it has become so corrupt as to be unrecognizable.

As a side note, it seems to me that there are several camps one could choose:
A perspective that God preserved his word in _all_ the extant copies.
A perspective that God preserved his word in the Greek churches especially, perhaps called the Byzantine Priority and derived from this mainly, the Majority text (a hypothetical text created by taking the readings that have the most manuscripts, regardless of antiquity).
A perspective that God preserved his word within certain Byzantine texts, used for the Reformation.

Note that all groups must perform some kind of textual criticism simply because no two manuscripts are exactly alike. Most of the variations are extremely minor and non-translatable. Many are slips of the pen, obviously a typo. 



Peairtach said:


> I think the problem with Warfield and his ilk, from what I'm starting to understand, was that the "Received Text" was, through God's providential preserving of the text of the NT, publically well known and accepted in the Church, but Warfield et al, were willing to give a place for a different family or families of MSS, with significant differences, some of MSS which had, for instance, been recently recovered from a waste-paper basket on St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai.


It's a little more nuanced than that but I think that is mostly a fair assessment from the "Received Text" (TR) side. TR advocates would say that God doesn't leave his church without his entire word, therefore, what the church had during the time of the reformation must have been what was providentially preserved. It is a little more nuanced because for years, though the TR was certainly the standard text, nearly every commentator or student would talk about "older manuscripts" or "the oldest and best". So though they believed what they had accurately represented the word of God, they also apparently believed there could still be mistakes in it, though it is certainly arguable they wouldn't have assumed that there were as many variants as Warfield did.

Though at this point it's a bit difficult to compare, because textual criticism was really in its infancy. Many truly seemed to have no idea how many variants they were until things like Walton's Polyglot (which collated all the known variants) appeared. Bahnsen said it is like judging 17th century doctor's knowledge of medicine using 21st century standards.

As a side note about the "trash can" story, note that Tischendorf's account says that he found some monks cleaning out some old manuscripts, among them some leaves from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament). Tischendorf became very excited and asked for more and the monks clammed up. Several years later he came back and after presenting one of the monks with some of his work, the monk showed him, in a closet, wrapped in red cloth, the Codex Sinaiticus (some say that's an indication of honor). It could be said that the monks realized it's value and put it back to be stored safely, but it's not clear from Tischendorf's account that this was actually the case. This was in the early 1800s so not sure how "recent" you'd consider that. 



Peairtach said:


> By doing this Warfield wasn't treating the Received Text in a biblical way, as his approach and that of modern textual criticism, theoretically means that the settled text of the Bible which God has supposed to have preserved among us - as we learn from Scripture's view of itself, which view we must start and end with in textual studies - can be opened up at any time by new discoveries, thus undermining our confidence in what we have.


That seems to be the TR position, though I wonder if earlier generations, using a particular form of Scripture would have felt the same: that God had preserved his word in their current Greek texts and these TR folks had no right to mess with it using other data. Also note that (at least from my perspective) it is a little more nuanced than that because not all families of Greek texts were the same. Christians in different parts of the world had different Greek texts, which line was the preserved line? TR advocates would probably say the one in the Greek speaking church, where they were used the most and copied the most. That is probably reasonable if you assume one line of preservation. It's also a little bit tricky because the main place the Greek manuscripts were copied would have been in Greek-speaking churches, most others copied the Latin as far as I know, so naturally there are more copies in the Byzantine family. One could reasonably assume (from a TR preservationist standpoint) that they would also be the most accurate.



Peairtach said:


> Theoretically, according to modernist textual criticism, there might be a Bible out there in the sands, very different to our own, which may yet be much more representative of the autographs. But that wouldn't be God preseving the text among us, bit allowing important textual material to languish in a place where few or none of God's people had access to it - which is incompatible with its preservation and perseverance among us.



I don't know if that's the case. Note that I'm not really a Critical Text (CT) advocate but I don't know that anyone would accept a different reading based on one manuscript. I do have some concerns that some readings are alleged to have been based off of one or two manuscripts in the CT, I have not studied these myself though. But comparing manuscripts can be a very tricky subject. Age alone isn't enough because you might have an old manuscript that has been copied a dozen times by incompetent transcribers, while another relatively recent copy (say, 11th century) was copied directly from an older copy that was copied directly from the autograph. So sometimes textual critics seem to think in terms of "generations", a "third generation" manuscript, even if copied much later, is of more importance than a twelfth generation manuscript, even if much older. So age, family, level of care, all can play a role in assigning a "reliability" to the copy. But note once again that Erasmus had to do something similar when he was working on the original edition of the TR. 

But yes, I think that is a valid concern: that God's people would not have had the real words for most of their history. 

Things become a little more tricky because there is not just one edition of the TR. Erasmus produced several (the one Luther used differed slightly from later editions), Stephanus produced slightly improved copies of Erasmus, and Beza likewise worked from them. Between these three there are some 200+ variations, aside from marginal notes that mentioned alternate readings. The KJV Bible seems to have used all three, plus other sources, and produced their translation. Scrivener, in 1894 produced a new Greek text that essentially compiled the supposed Greek underlying the KJV (sort of a back-translation). It is this TR that many accept today. Did God providentially preserve his word in this or the others? Perhaps, though the Reformers and Puritans didn't have any problem "correcting" at least some readings from other Greek manuscripts. I also am concerned that certain readings have little Greek support, especially Revelation 22:19 where the term "book" of life can't be found in any but two Greek manuscripts, and both of those possibly made as a copy of Erasmus' edition. Most TR advocates don't seem to see this as a problem however, because they believe it to be preserved: that is primary and evidence is secondary.

I think it was partially this that made Edward Hills' view attractive: Yes, the TR has variants, we can't be _absolutely_ certain which are the correct but it is this edition that gives us _maximum_ certainty. It has the fewest variants and was counted reliable for a huge portion of the Christian Church. 

So to kinda sum up. The TR position (if one can call it a solitary position, since everyone seems to have slightly different reasons), is that God promised to preserve his word. We have his word, we believe his promises, therefore what we have is it. This certainly I could see as the "safe" route.

One of the problems I see with that position is that it seems that any Christian community before could have claimed the same thing before the TR, the Waldenses for example, other Greek-speaking communities, for whom the TR represented closely, but not perfectly what they had. 

On the other hand, the CT position places a lot of weight on more ancient texts more recently discovered, and it is quite easy to introduce human bias. Part of me is excited at the effort to "purify" the text as much and get as close to the originals as possible, the other part is uneasy in that human knowledge is fallible. It is certainly an area where one should tread with caution.

I would be fine if Christians still only used the TR. I very much enjoy my KJV and have also used a NKJV for many years. For the last 10 years or so I have used the ESV with great profit. If the ESV was based off of the TR I'd still use it. For all practical purposes, they have been the same for me. Let me put it this way: from my perspective there are far more differences in the _way_ it was translated into English that affect meaning, than in which Greek text underlies it. 

And above all, we can be thankful that God has preserved his word with so much certainty! Whether it is just 200 variants (as with the TR) or 3000 variants (with the CT), we can be absolutely certain that the truths contained in it have not changed. Someone said that if all a Christian had were the worst copies of the Greek, he would still believe the same things as one who had the best copies. That is truly marvelous in my eyes.


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## Jerusalem Blade

The reason these textual threads attract so much attention – even by readers not members of PB – is that we who belong to Christ live by His word, even as He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). And if it is cast into doubt, even just parts of it, that’s a big deal.

Possibly we who are KJ or TR priority (that would include NKJ & MKJ, and Geneva) are a thorn in the side of those who prefer the CT / modern versions, as we cast doubt on their Scriptures. This is why I labor whole-heartedly to affirm their Bibles in the main even while objecting to particular readings. I do not want to weaken the faith of any brother or sister in the word of their God. My wife uses the NIV 1984, and we get along fine. She has heard me preach and teach many times – as well as in our own private conversations – talking of various readings that should be in one’s Bible. But I appreciate her heartfelt love for God’s word and her amazing knowledge of it. I don’t lord it over her in this.

I said earlier in this thread, “the whole field of text critical studies appears like a battleground of disparate views upon which the dust has not yet settled”, and I’m sure it is unsettling to many Christians that this is so. Okay, I think we can still function if all that is between us is difference of views regarding readings while we honor one another’s Bibles in the main, and still care for one another. Take heed friends, there are days coming when it shall be crucial that we “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3), for only thus will the strengthening presence of our Saviour enable us to endure hardship and affliction “with all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness . . . Giving thanks unto the Father” (Col 1:11-12).

When I finish participating in this thread I want to get back to writing on Eschatology, for that is equally pressing to me. I know not everyone will agree with my avant-gard Amil teaching, but it will be good to have it in mind as a point of reference as the days unfold and events take place. I say “avant-gard” because I posit some historical referents to the visions of Revelation not usually made (but not unheard-of either), that will give an appreciation of John’s Apocalypse that may be lacking in some. Like a storm below the horizon there are days coming upon us that truly will “try men’s souls”.

For example, I was reading in a book of James K.A. Smith, “the point of apocalyptic literature is not prediction but _unmasking_—unveiling the realities around us for what they really are” [italics his]. Well, there is some prediction in Revelation, but his point is very well taken nonetheless. To see what is is to be forewarned – and as the saying goes, “Forewarned is forearmed.”

At any rate, I want to get back to this vein of the whole counsel of God.


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## Peairtach

Thanks for that, Steve and Logan.

So, reverent and presuppositional textual criticism involves recognising that the Bible is not a book like any other, whose preservation and extant copies must be viewed in the light of what the Bible says about itself and its preservation; that we know that the original autographs were without error because the Bible tell us so, not because we can prove it empirically; and that textual criticism involves the believing interpretation of God's providence regarding the MSS. 

If you want to correct or add anything, feel free.


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## Logan

I'd say that's an excellent summary. Thanks!


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## One Little Nail

Peairtach said:


> Thanks for that, Steve and Logan.
> 
> So, reverent and presuppositional textual criticism involves recognising that the Bible is not a book like any other, whose preservation and extant copies must be viewed in the light of what the Bible says about itself and its preservation;
> that we know that the original autographs were without error because the Bible tell us so, not because we can prove it empirically; and that textual criticism involves the believing interpretation of God's providence regarding the MSS.
> 
> If you want to correct or add anything, feel free.






Logan said:


> I'd say that's an excellent summary. Thanks!



Hello Logan, could I ask you what you believe when you use the term Inerrant 1 & how it may differ from the Classical usage of the term Infallibility in regards to the original autographs 2 and todays preserved and extant copies 3,
as you've agreed to Richards point on this matter and also precisely which do you hold to be God's providentially preserved manuscripts in this day 4. 

I hope that in no way am I suggesting that you beat your wife


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## Logan

One Little Nail said:


> Hello Logan, could I ask you what you believe when you use the term Inerrant 1 & how it may differ from the Classical usage of the term Infallibility in regards to the original autographs 2 and todays preserved and extant copies 3,
> as you've agreed to Richards point on this matter and also precisely which do you hold to be God's providentially preserved manuscripts in this day 4.



I'd be happy to explain my views.

As I understand it, the term "inerrant" or "without error" or "without mistake or deviation", is historically applied to the autographs alone, believing that when God inspired men, he also preserved them from making any errors in matters of faith, history, facts, etc. This was in direct opposition to those who restricted the Bible's "infallibility" to doctrine only, and that the inspired men could and did err when talking of science or history. It was a term used to directly counter those who said the autographs contained many errors. So the autographs could be called either infallible (even in a strict sense) or inerrant (Warfield used the terms almost interchangeably).

Infallibility means the property of not being capable of erring. The autographs certainly were infallible in the strictest sense, the apographs cannot be said to be infallible in the strictest sense as they contain many scribal errors. But because we believe the autographic text is preserved in the apographs, the apographs may be said to be infallible because they inherit that trait of being the infallible word of God. Because of this, are comfortable ascribing "infallibility" to translations into other languages, even though of course a translation could never be "inerrant".

Historically there does seem to have been a distinction, but not very well made because it wasn't necessary. Nearly everyone assumed that the Bible had been inspired and because God inspired it, it would have been without error. It wasn't until later that the church was attacked on this point (that the biblical authors had been inspired or had written without error), which elicited the response we see in Warfield and Hodge. Nevertheless, Warfield could still say the current Bible was infallible and authoritative because it inherited this from the autographs.

I don't know if it's a question of "which manuscripts" were providentially preserved, but "what words" were providentially preserved. It makes sense to me to compare all apographs, or what Christians from all over the world received as God's word. I would see God's preserving all these apographs for a reason and to neglect any one as slighting him. Is this elevating man's intellect? I don't think anyone gets away from that. A TR-advocate would prefer mainly the Byzantine apographs, and even more narrowly from there, only certain Byzantine manuscripts. He's made decisions based on evidence (perhaps that these were the most widely used). Erasmus had to make decisions where his manuscripts didn't agree, and did a remarkable (though I wouldn't say perfect) job. You can accept that what he produced is the end of the matter because God worked through him to preserve exactly what he wanted, though there I would point out that when the Reformers and Puritans compared and preferred certain readings from older manuscripts, it is evident that they didn't think it was a perfect work.

I would say that both groups believe God preserved his word. Both believed it was originally without error and both believe that we have the autographic text available in our copies. It is where one looks that becomes the differing factor. Note once again that I don't believe the CT does anything perfectly either, and they may indeed place too much stress on a few older copies.


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## py3ak

armourbearer said:


> The question as to the mediate inspiration of "apographs" requires a clear definition of the term "apograph." It assumes the idea that what is copied is an accurate duplicate of the original. "Apographs" and "manuscripts" should not be regarded as synonymous. A selection process has already taken place and the apographs reflect that process.



Matthew, I think it might prove very helpful if you were able to give an explanation of on what basis certain manuscripts are recognized as apographs, or how the selection process takes place.


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## MW

py3ak said:


> Matthew, I think it might prove very helpful if you were able to give an explanation of on what basis certain manuscripts are recognized as apographs, or how the selection process takes place.



In brief, I maintain we are bound to follow the very same process by which the canon of Scripture is received by us. The church which witnesses to the books of Scripture has also witnessed to the text which makes up those books. But this will take the thread in a very different direction, and, to be quite frank, I seriously doubt the canon itself has been studied in sufficient depth for folk to appreciate the issues. Most "reformed" people simply accept the books of Scripture without identifying the basis on which they are received as canonical.


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## py3ak

Thank you, Matthew. With how interconnected these issues are, it is good to at least have a summary statement.


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## One Little Nail

Logan I'd like to thank you for your response, as a Textus Receptus & King James Bible man I was concerned with some of your posts in the Not KJVO,KJVP Thread and some in this thread also, I was fearfull that you 
were undermining Confidence & belief in The Reformed & Verbal Plenary Preserved Text of The T.R. & KJB, though you seem genuine & honest in your beliefs & posts in these threads, though I still fear that you have an 
aversion to The T.R. Text & don't fully understand the role of Faith in preservation of the Bible nor in God's Providential role in using The KJB (that is to say His endorsement of The KJB), & I thought that if the Letis post 
continued you would continue to sow seeds of doubt which could prove to be detrimental to a defence of The T.R. & KJB for some. 

As you understand it, the term "inerrant" or "without error" or "without mistake or deviation", is historically applied to the autographs alone, believing that when God inspired men, he also preserved them from making any errors in matters
of faith, history, facts, etc. This has merit, though I would apply it to the faithfully preserved copies or apographs myself on that issue you say these "cannot be said to be infallible in the strictest sense as they contain many scribal errors"
is this not because the Alexandrian family, particularly Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, Sinaiticus has been fond recently to contain 23,000+ corrections, while According to Herman C. Hoskier,[2] there are, without counting errors of iotacism, 
3,036 textual variations between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in the text of the Gospels alone Comparison of codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
or if a Translation were an accurate & faithful rendition of The Original Languages would it not be Inerrant in your understanding of it, I would also say it has Integrity, Infallibility & have a Derived Inspiration.

I would say the Old understanding of Infallibility('infallible' means there can be no errors) has the sense of the modern Inerrancy, that it both in Rule of Doctrine,Faith & Practice as well as containing no errors in matters of history, facts, etc 
this as well as a Belief that its Textual Integrity is Preserved, so Both the Corporal & Spiritual, the Temporal & Eternal aspects are kept in all ages pure.


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## Logan

One Little Nail said:


> I still fear that you have an
> aversion to The T.R. Text & don't fully understand the role of Faith in preservation of the Bible nor in God's Providential role in using The KJB (that is to say His endorsement of The KJB), & I thought that if the Letis post
> continued you would continue to sow seeds of doubt which could prove to be detrimental to a defence of The T.R. & KJB for some.


I've said before that I very much enjoy the KJV and am happy people still use it. The same with the TR, I just don't think it should be a matter of binding consciences to say one "must" use it. I am largely reacting to what seems to be the same three or four people appearing whenever someone makes a post about the ESV or NIV or NASB or NKJV, and telling them they should be using the KJV. 

Steve's example in these areas is very commendable. He's willing to defend his position, but not attack others or cause them to lose faith in the Bible they use.



One Little Nail said:


> This [inerrancy only applying to the autographs] has merit, though I would apply it to the faithfully preserved copies or apographs myself on that issue you say these "cannot be said to be infallible in the strictest sense as they contain many scribal errors"
> is this not because the Alexandrian family, particularly Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, Sinaiticus has been fond recently to contain 23,000+ corrections,


No, even if no other texts had ever been discovered since the time of Erasmus, I still wouldn't say the TR is infallible in the strictest sense of being without human-introduced or scribal error, and that is because there are variant readings. These may only amount to a few hundred but which readings are correct in order to give you your 100% preserved text? They can't all be. So are they the ones found in Erasmus' edition, Stephanus' edition, Beza's edition? That's not even counting the various readings in the margins of these editions, are some of those the correct ones? The KJV didn't use any one of them but apparently used all of them, so was it at this point that the "perfectly" preserved text came onto the scene, meaning that the Reformers didn't have it? Or was it in 1894 when Scrivener re-engineered the Greek texts underlying the KJV and came up with a TR? In which case God amazingly chose to preserve his word perfectly in English instead of Greek! So which one of these, or which of these readings is the "perfect" text? 

So you see, even within the TR camp, preservation is talked about in broader terms than one perfect text. It usually encompasses the variants in the various editions as well. But as Steve says, the difference is not that both camps "fish" for variants, but that they fish out of different lakes. In his view, the TR camp fishes out of a small clear lake, while the CT camp fishes from the broader ocean, which contains pollutions.



One Little Nail said:


> According to Herman C. Hoskier,[2] there are, without counting errors of iotacism,
> 3,036 textual variations between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in the text of the Gospels alone or if a Translation were an accurate & faithful rendition of The Original Languages would it not be Inerrant in your understanding of it, I would also say it has Integrity, Infallibility & have a Derived Inspiration.


I don't know much about Sinaiticus or Vaticanus, but my understanding is that a huge number of the "corrections" were done to the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) so the "corrections" really have no meaning there. As for the "corrections" done in the New Testament, how many of them were original? The scribes made some mistakes (accidentally left out a line) and inserted their own corrections of their work. Later "corrections" were also made, for what purpose? Are they marginal notes? Variant readings? Comparisons from later copies? Because they believed the manuscript had mistakes? Are the people using Sinaticus and Vaticanus using the "corrections" or the original text? I'm sure the manuscripts used in the TR had "corrections" too, but one can't outright reject them.



One Little Nail said:


> I would say the Old understanding of Infallibility('infallible' means there can be no errors) has the sense of the modern Inerrancy, that it both in Rule of Doctrine,Faith & Practice as well as containing no errors in matters of history, facts, etc
> this as well as a Belief that its Textual Integrity is Preserved, so Both the Corporal & Spiritual, the Temporal & Eternal aspects are kept in all ages pure.


"Inerrancy" is more of a specialized or technical term referring to the original product and is closely tied with one's doctrine of inspiration. I would not apply "inerrant" to any copies today. "Infallible" is much more of a theological or practical term and could be applied to the autographs (in a strict sense) or the apographs, or even translations. Though we know translations can never be without error of translation, yet they may be said to be infallible because they present God's infallible word in a language we can understand.


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## Cymro

Having not studied the subject in hand, and also unqualified to enter into the debate,
nevertheless I must record my absorption with the debate and the benefit received.
It may have become a bit heated at times but that added interest and convictions.
Thanks to the participants for their learning and tenacity.
Amazingly and providentially during the discussion I had cause to go to one of our 
wardrobes, and noticing a box on its floor, I opened it. Lo and behold, it contained
a 10 volume set of Warfield that had never been opened. Given many years ago,
I had forgotten all about them! For a purpose!
Steve, waiting eagerly for your A-Millennialist treatment.


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## One Little Nail

After reading some of the offsite Letis quotes He mentions that The Traditional Text & the Traditional Reformed views of Scripture Infallibility & Preservation, were discarded for a new 
Alexandrian Text base (chiefly consisting of Vaticanus & Sinaiticus) & a new theological Theory called The Inerrancy of the Autographa or Originals, which Letis refers to as “Warfeldianism”

also would like to post these Links to a video series called The Text is the Issue from Penascola Christian College featuring Theodore Letis

The Word of God kept or Lost?The Text is the Issue The Word of God Kept or Lost by Dr J Michael Bates - YouTube
Critical Questions on the Translation Debate The Text is the Issue Critical Questions on the Translation Debate Dr Dell Johnson and Dr Theodore Letis - YouTube
The Text is the Issue Part 2 The Text is the Issue Why I Changed My Position on the Text Dr Dell Johnson and Dr Theodore Letis - YouTube
The Text is the Issue A Response to James White s The King James Only Controversy Dr Theodore Letis The Text is the Issue A Response to James White s The King James Only Controversy Dr Theodore Letis - YouTube

and also this from E.F Hills as it touches upon Warfield...http://www.febc.edu.sg/VPP12.htm

The historic views of the Church concerning Preservation http://www.puritanboard.com/attachments/f63/3681d1383823563-KJV-vs-NKJV-historic-views-church-concerning-preservation-Paul-f.doc.att


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## Logan

I had watched through the videos but frankly thought them to be something of an embarrassment and not very helpful unless you are KJVO in the strong sense of the term. Surprisingly, Letis did not correct any of the fallacies presented in some of the statements by the other speaker. Though Letis is not KJVO (and has criticized them in the past), it really seems like these other folks are. Letis seems to mainly have been brought in to do some James White descrediting.

There is a letter response from BJU I believe.


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