# Constitutional history of the critical text in Presbyterianism



## NaphtaliPress (Sep 7, 2014)

I’m interested in the TR v. CT theory from the standpoint of how it has been treated constitutionally in the Presbyterian church. I’m completely ignorant on the topic. Is there a paper trail that shows it discussed and actions taken pro or contra in various Presbyterian churches, presbyteries, etc.? Primary sources, i.e. minutes, histories, etc.


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## Pilgrim (Sep 7, 2014)

A very interesting question indeed. 

I think that by the time the RV and ASV were published, the larger Presbyterian churches (at least in North America) seem to have moved away from strict confessionalism. And many strict subscriptionists now would say that, at best, it is straining at a gnat to argue that the ESV or NASB is contra-confessional. So I'd be surprised to find much discussion of the issue on an official level, at least in the "mainline" churches back then. (That's not to say that somebody, somewhere didn't say something about it as there have probably always been some strict confessionalists. If I recall correctly Dabney preferred the TR and the KJV although he said both traditions were doctrinally sound.) I would be interested to see if there was any discussion in the British Isles, Oz, etc. I am also much less aware of how this may have played out in churches like the RPCNA which never were part of the PCUSA. 

In addition to some esteemed brethren here, I've usually heard the "CT is unconfessional" argument from those like Letis who favor the "Ecclesiastical Text." Although I haven't read that literature exhaustively, I don't think I've ever seen an appeal to a Reformed leader of the past who argued that the CT is not the Bible in Greek as the Westminster Assembly would have understood it.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Sep 7, 2014)

Good question, Chris C. I know the Protestant Reformed Church has stuck with the TR, and written on it, but not officially. Homer C. Hoeksema wrote, _The Doctrine of Scripture_, but, again, this is Reformed and not Presbyterian.

I had heard from a pastor recently, when I questioned how come the words of institution for the Lord's Table were changed from "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you..." (1 Cor 11:24 AV) to "This is my body which is for you..." (CT reading), and he said – if my memory serves me right – that at the PCA GA in 2012, in some committee meeting, a gentleman gave an impassioned plea to have the CT reading used among us instead of the TR as the latter was not in the best texts, and it carried. And so it came to be in a church I know of. I've been wanting to track this down.

I'll be interested to see more info posted on your question.


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## NaphtaliPress (Sep 7, 2014)

Wayne has the history on the change; I didn't know the PCA had constitutionally adopted this; so imposing one view is okay as long as it is the CT over the TR? Was there any dispute or registered objection? I guess in this instance it is good no one takes the directory very seriously. 
Historical Development of the PCA Book of Church Order : Chapter 58, Paragraph 5


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## MW (Sep 7, 2014)

I have only looked at Free Church history in any depth. I do recall coming across some discussion in the American assemblies, north and south, concerning the need for a stricter edition of the AV to guard against publishers introducing their own changes. There are some passionate recommendations for the AV included there, but nothing about the original text underlying it, so far as I can remember. A. A. Hodge's commentary on the Confession reflected the traditional text. The liberal controversy led to a divorce of higher (canonical) and lower (textual) criticism, and lower criticism was able to fly under the radar, so to speak. It became an academic subject, which meant ministers were left to themselves.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Sep 7, 2014)

Thanks for that, Chris! Slow increments for the worse.


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## Pilgrim (Sep 7, 2014)

I recall worshipping with an OPC congregation several years that, to my recollection, recited the Lord's Prayer out of the ESV. (I've visited a lot of churches in several states over the last decade, but I'm pretty sure it was OPC.) That's a similar case to the words of institution of the Lord's Table. If, as the CT advocates claim, "For thine is the kingdom..." is indeed no part of Scripture, then what business does a church have with reciting it? If it is no part of Scripture, then saying those words would seem to be adding to what "He taught us to pray."


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## NaphtaliPress (Sep 10, 2014)

http://www.puritanboard.com/f31/dr-clarks-7-point-summary-republication-84410/#post1057574
Rich, I'll venture to say that I think in this post in another thread and context, you have put quite well what I have started to conclude has been a much longer standing problem as far as handling apparently new ideas and a church's standards. We'd like to think things are dealt with constitutionally and on the up and up but unless the question is posed, "is this contra confessional," the church's positions change without amendment of the standards, and later perhaps in other descendent denominations, the change gets covered without legitimacy under the banner of adopting intent or what have you. Folks are going to demure depending upon if it is their ox getting gored but this may explain the acceptance without apparent controversy of things like divergent views of creation, church calendar, and critical text theory, a hundred years and more ago in the PCUSA. In a church with strong regard for their constitution, the question should be asked when changes start coming out of the schools or whatever source, does this fit with the meaning and intent (original and founding/adopting) of the doctrinal standards? If it does not, then determine if it is hostile to those standards, or if it even requires any exception of substance. That theory may or may not have holes; but it is where some recent questions have drawn my thinking.


Semper Fidelis said:


> What's happening, then, is that the system of doctrine is not really being recast by the courts of the Church but in the writings of seminary professors. They're teaching certain views of the Covenant and, in some cases, new systems of doctrine for how the law then relates Covenantally to the Gospel, and these men are then going to Churches to be ordained. If the Church is willing to accept that the man has no exceptions then some of the ministers may actually be in conflict with the system of doctrine but the Church is not really ruling one way or another but letting ministers teach very different things within the same Church. Take the "controversies" over sanctification and one can see the divergence that results. I think many are content to permit certain things and probably even assume that the system of doctrine permits both views or (worse) some really do not care whether the system is fully coherent.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Sep 10, 2014)

Well on that point Chris one only needs to look at the way in which the 1789 revisions of the WCF on the Magistrate left untouched the catechism questions that deal with the same issue thereby creating some "tension" between the American WCF and the LC especially.


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## NaphtaliPress (Sep 10, 2014)

Indeed. That's the problem of trying to edit by way of exception in a relatively short period of time a set of standards developed to form a cohesive system which took several years to put together.


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## Edward (Sep 10, 2014)

NaphtaliPress said:


> Wayne has the history on the change; I didn't know the PCA had constitutionally adopted this; so imposing one view is okay as long as it is the CT over the TR? Was there any dispute or registered objection? I guess in this instance it is good no one takes the directory very seriously.






Jerusalem Blade said:


> I had heard from a pastor recently, when I questioned how come the words of institution for the Lord's Table were changed from "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you..." (1 Cor 11:24 AV) to "This is my body which is for you..." (CT reading), and he said – if my memory serves me right – that at the PCA GA in 2012, in some committee meeting, a gentleman gave an impassioned plea to have the CT reading used among us instead of the TR as the latter was not in the best texts, and it carried. And so it came to be in a church I know of. I've been wanting to track this down.



I am not sure that you all are dealing fairly with the material. 

In the BCO, 58-5, right after the language in question " "Take, eat; this is My body which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." ", we find the following: "(Some other biblical account of the institution of this part of the Supper may be substituted here.)" This language seems broad enough to permit usage of the KJV or another translation, without being accused of not taking the Constitutional documents of the church seriously.


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## NaphtaliPress (Sep 10, 2014)

Yet from one minister's insistence the language was changed when his text could have been the "some other account." The GA folded for one brother's position in the face of historic texts and practice. Color me not impressed.


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## MW (Sep 10, 2014)

It is a somewhat extreme response. Even if the variant reading is accepted, it is accepted on the basis that there is an ellipsis and that "broken" would still be a viable possibility to complete the sense.


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## DMcFadden (Sep 10, 2014)

Rich may have nailed it. Seminary professors are not necessarily the most exemplary upholders of confessional standards. A streak of "biblicism" leads some biblical scholars to see their loyalty as to their own guild more than to confessional standards. I have heard profs in the exegetical departments belittle "systematic" theology as twisting the meaning of the Bible to satisfy what they deem to be biblically suspect and errant confessional commitments "imposed" on the text.


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## Logan (Sep 11, 2014)

In the RPCNA, (Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter) minutes and article from the 1880s I find that the general consensus of the denomination seems to be looking forward to the Revised Version (there seems to be lots of people wanting something in more modern language), and also believing that with all the variants found over the years in the Greek manuscripts since Erasmus' text, that some sort of revision should be done on the Greek. There seems to have been almost universal belief that Textus Receptus was deficient, based on many years of "the best manuscripts have" and "many manuscripts read". There was also a bit of disappointment in the Revised Version (it obscured some passages and was overall very un-aesthetic), but it gained popularity.


The only real synodical act I can find was in 1882, when a paper was submitted to Synod. Thereafter it never seems to have been addressed again.


> Report of the Committee on the New Version.
> Your committee, owing to pressure of other engagements, have not been able to give so close and careful examination to the New Version as they could have desired. The following are the conclusions to which, with general unanimity, they have arrived:
> 
> 1. That we regard with admiration and respect the laborious, varied and profound scholarship which has been brought to bear upon this work, and readily grant that the revisers have laid the entire Christian and learned world under a debt of obligation which they can never repay.
> ...



The minutes say


> The Committee on the Revised New Testament presented a report which, as containing a few suggestions respecting its use and not in any way claiming to decide authoritatively as to its merits, will give general satisfaction. An ex-cathedra deliverance by any ecclesiastical court would carry very little weight. The article by one of our contributors on this subject ... we heard highly commended by members, both on account of the position taken and the ability with which it was maintained.






Some additional findings (I hesitate to list these lest I derail the thread but they may be of interest).

In 1881 there a lecture given commending the RV and the texts behind it, saying that the most excellent features is the plethora of manuscripts available to the group which were not available to the translators of the AV. He says "Since the time of Griesbach, there has been a variety in the published Greek texts. These were so multiplied that the Textus Receptus had been put aside, as a thing of the past. Now we have a new Textus Receptus, for no such body of men as the British Company ever sat to fix the text, so far as possible, from ancient documents...this Revisers' text will stand, it may be, till an international body of biblical critics can prepare a text." Nevertheless, on the RV he concludes that it is not a great replacement for the AV, it has too many flaws (namely in wooden rendering), despite its excellencies.

In 1882 there is an article that asks whether it will supplant the KJV. It comments that the Greek text is received with great favor everywhere, he uses words like "best" and "most accurate". The author compares the opposition to the RV to the opposition that the KJV translators encountered, and says that though the opposition is not as strong, it "to an extent at least, has its origin in the same cause: a spirit of conservatism, a desire to keep things as they are, etc." He also comments "If the new be found to be decidedly a clearer expression of the will of God, better suited to their necessities, no power on earth can prevent its ultimate adoption. If this be not the case, no power on earth can make it permanently popular... In the case of the Bible, the spiritual insight of God's people will not go very far astray. There is a letter to the editor saying popular isn't always better, and Aaron's calf was received with great favor.

This same issue has another article disputing the RV's not containing 1 John 5:7, however, his argument essentially boils down to "it's undecided unless we can prove the autographs didn't have it". There is another article defending the critical text's "restoration" of 1 Tim 3:16, and one saying the AV's rendering is correct.

In 1886 there is an article that is optimistic about the Revised Version, and says the access to Greek manuscripts being so much greater, the resulting text should be much better. The summary is a warning that it is just as bad to leave something in that is not Scripture, as to take away something that is, and time would tell whether it was actually better or not. Many of the Scripture quotations are from the Revised Version and always in a good light.

In 1890 there was a report submitted to Synod by one of the professors in the seminary (DB Willson) who went through Warfield's "Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament". He comments "We have fount it an excellent introduction to this subject. Since it accepts the conclusions of Professors Westcott and Hort, I have presented the opposing views of those who depart less from the text formerly received."

So the denomination was aware of the issues, but since the denominational publication frequently refers to the RV, and the almost overwhelming consensus is in favor of the updated Greek text, it does not appear to have been an issue of debate in synod. They were far more concerned with the revision to the psalter going on during this period.


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## Logan (Sep 11, 2014)

Regarding the RPCNA constitution and the Lord's Supper, I find the current constitution says "using these or similar words...'After the Lord Jesus had blessed the bread He broke it. Following His command and example, and ministering in His name, I break this bread...and give it to you His disciples, saying as He said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me."'"

However, I don't know if this ever changed or if it is at all related to CT/TR. This could easily be from the gospel accounts (specifically Luke) none of which mention "broken for you" even in the TR. The 1Co 11 account is the place that mentions "broken for you" in the TR.

Was the PCA document changed specifically because of the CT or was it simply referring back to the gospel account of the Lord's Supper?


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## NaphtaliPress (Sep 11, 2014)

According to what Steve was told; so anecdotal and I suppose we should not presume. Maybe someone who was there can confirm. I'm not sure why it would even come up otherwise. 
http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/con...tical-text-presbyterianism-84548/#post1057294


Logan said:


> Was the PCA document changed specifically because of the CT or was it simply referring back to the gospel account of the Lord's Supper?


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## NaphtaliPress (Sep 11, 2014)

That's interesting and frustrating about the RPCNA. The PCUS did not address it far as I can tell from the digest other than to refuse to condemn the use of other versions besides the AV in 1882. _A Digest of the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States 1861-1965,_ p. 5. Accepting the CT would require a different understanding of preservation which is affirmed at least by both sides of the textual question. It would seem to me that at least the question should have been asked. But, granted, it was not a conserving time and it may be the comments above explain matters. 
http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/con...tical-text-presbyterianism-84548/#post1057285


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## Logan (Sep 11, 2014)

I agree, it seems odd that the issue was never really discussed, but I think Pilgrim has some good points. This seems to be a period where there was a lot of interest in revisiting the Greek manuscripts, in revisiting English versions (updating the language), and in revisiting psalters (a huge boom in revising or moving away from the SMV, from many different denominations).

I can't help but think that in America at least, this followed the Civil War with its changes to people's thinking regarding state's relation to federal government, and the first US constitutional amendments (three of them) that had been made in over 60 years. It seems like a focused effort in every area to re-evaluate traditions.


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 11, 2014)

Wasn't the 1901 American Standard something of a reaction to the last 19th cent. English Revised?

Dabney writes in his review of the RSV, _Discussions_ Vol.1, p392, of the general slight given by the English revisers to the American consultants. Which then, the sentiments both cultural and theological led to the American project, or so I have thought.

In any case, I believe at least two of Dabney's articles, pp350-398 might have some relevance.


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## MW (Sep 11, 2014)

Logan said:


> The only real synodical act I can find was in 1882, when a paper was submitted to Synod.



Is there an "Act" relative to the Paper? 

The advice given under point 4 seems to express a similar perception to that which I found in the records of the Free Church at the time. There was openness to receiving further light and an appreciation for the labours of men in biblical literature, but there was also reluctance to adopt anything in the place of what was considered to be tried and true.


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## Logan (Sep 11, 2014)

armourbearer said:


> Is there an "Act" relative to the Paper?



Other than commissioning the original committee, no, not that I have found. It does not appear to have been revisited, and throughout this period their revision of the Psalter (and joint effort with the United Presbyterians) consumed most of their attention it seems.


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