Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
Yes I still lean towards the ESV as preferred. However my love and respect for the KJV is on the rise.
1 John 5:7-8
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Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
As to your last sentance, yes I'm sure some CT advocates would give a hardy amen to WCF 1.8. However, a good amount of those same men probably have not studied this issue in-depth nor thought of the ramifications of the meaning of 1.8. I'd even encourage you to look into the men who are behind NA27 and the Critical texts like that. Look at their background.
As to what CT acknowledges, the foremost CT advocates do believe the manuscripts are corrupt. Here are some quotes,
"The books of the New Testament have had to share the fate of other ancient writings in being copied again and again during more than fourteen centuries down to the invention of printing." —FJA Hort
"All trustworthy restoration of corrupted Texts is founded on the study of their history...The principle here laid down has long been acted upon in all the more important restorations of classical texts." —FJA Hort
"We do not know the original form of the Gospels, and it is quite likely that we never shall.” —Kirsopp Lake
"The biblical doctrine of preservation In light of the occasional necessity of conjectural emendation for the OT text, it is our contention that not only is the majority text argument for preservation entirely wrong-headed, but so is any doctrine of preservation which requires that the exact wording of the text be preserved at all. In spite of the fact that even opponents of the MT/TR view embrace such a doctrine, it simply does not square with the evidence. Only three brief points will be made here, in hopes of stimulating a dialogue on this issue. First, the doctrine of preservation was not a doctrine of the ancient church. In fact, it was not stated in any creed until the seventeenth century (in the Westminster Confession of 1646)...Second, the major scriptural texts alleged to support the doctrine of preservation need to be reexamined in a new light...Third, if the doctrine of the preservation of scripture has neither ancient historical roots, nor any direct biblical basis, what can we legitimately say about the text of the New Testament? " —Daniel Wallace
Bruce Metzger has a book title, "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration"
Here are a bunch of books based upon the idea that the manuscripts are corrupt - http://confessionalbibliology.com/the-library/restorationist-textual-criticism/
Parakaleo
Puritan Board Sophomore
I wanted to circle back to this for a second, because your answer on this really needs more thought, and I think it is indicative of the larger issue at stake here. Either John 11:25 (or 1 John 5:7) is the word of God, and we can know it is by faith, and it's absolutely unimpeachable, or else we really have no sure word of prophecy, and all of Scripture is open to revision.
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Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
Indeed And I plan to give it more thought. It seems daunting the more I think about it because either side you fall it seems one may be guilty of either “adding to” or “taking-away” from God’s Word. Thanks for your questions they are challenging me.
My ESV places John 8:1-11 in brackets and adds a Footnote about it lacking support from the earliest manuscripts (not looking to debate that here) however it does make we wonder why my ESV Bible does NOT add a footnote for 1 John 5:7, especially since that verse seems to weigh in on a heavier doctrine (the Trinity). My HCS Bible does at least include a footnote.
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Logan
Puritan Board Graduate
I'm sure the same could be said of TR men.
Please note that I have great sympathy for the TR position, yet at the same time try to be willing to recognize its faults. I also certainly have misgivings about the CT philosophy.
But as it is typically expressed, the TR position suffers from a lack of universality and a lack of timelessness.
For the latter, imagine being in AD 1400 and trying to use the same arguments. Unless we have lost all the manuscript evidence, you couldn't because the Comma didn't exist in the Greek. It was at that point in time only "preserved" in the Latin. Someone anachronistically defending a "Confessional View" such as yours in 1400 would not have done so with the Comma in mind and yet could make all the same arguments: we have the providentially preserved word of God with no words missing or added. (If the rebuttal is that it was there and all the manuscript evidence is lost, then just state that manuscript evidence in actuality carries little or no weight.) If the same argument cannot be used in all ages, then I don't see how it is a sound doctrinal argument.
It also suffers from a lack of universality. When Luther translated his Bible, which is still regarded by some German churches with the equivalent respect of the King James, he did not have Erasmus' third edition. So the old German Bible does not have the Comma. One can imagine a group of TR German Christians saying that they have the real TR, the same one they have received even longer than the English-speaking peoples, and everything else is a perversion. Or how about the last few verses of Revelation, which Erasmus noted he had "supplied from the Latin what was lacking"? These verses read like no Greek manuscript ever discovered. Are we to assume that they were lost in the Greek and were preserved in the Latin? Then the true reading must have been lost for ages only to be recovered, and if then, why not now? If the same argument cannot be used universally over all ages and peoples, then it must be questioned whether it is a sound doctrinal argument.
I find that almost every argument on these boards eventually supports whatever found its way into the KJV (especially true of Scrivener's TR), and is almost always English-centric, yet there are believers around the world that had the Scriptures as well. To say it was only fully purified after 1600 seems presumptuous to say the least.
I believe to speak about TR as against the CT to be a false dichotomy. No one (particularly Letis) has dealt effectively with Warfield's citations of primary sources regarding WCF 1.8 that show that the Puritans and Reformers didn't pit one reading against another or have any concept of a perfect TR. They knew of various readings and yet weren't concerned about trying to discover which was the original or true. Commentators from that period frequently say "some readings say this, some manuscripts that" and apply truth and life from both.
I have great respect for Maurice Robinson (not a TR guy by the way) and that carefulness he uses. Same with Charles Scrivener.
Are those the only two decisions which can be made? Are there any commentators who never make mention of an alternate reading? I know what you're getting at but think you're approaching it too simplistically.
Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
Logan,
Thanks for taking the time to type this out. This was very helpful for me and I think a fair and charitable response from another perspective.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
Logan,
Lack of universality and timelessness is not at all a characteristic of the TR. As Burgon summarized, our view is supported by manuscripts, versions, and fathers rather than to just 2 or 3 manuscripts from the same time period and same geographic location (like the CT is!):
"Whenever I would judge of the authenticity of any particular reading, I insist on bringing it, wherever found,—whether in Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, on the one hand; or in Stephens and Elzevir, on the other;—to the test of Catholic Antiquity. If that witness is consentient, or very nearly so, whether for or against any given reading, I hold it to be decisive. To no other system of arbitration will I submit myself. I decline to recognise any other criterion of Truth." (John Burgon, Revision Revised, p. xxv).
"It is utterly out of the question to rely on any single set or group of authorities, much less on any single document, for the determination of the Text of Scripture. Happily, our *Manuscripts* are numerous: most of them are in the main trustworthy: all of them represent far older documents than themselves. Our *Versions* (two of which are more ancient by a couple of centuries than any sacred codex extant) severally correct and check one another. Lastly, in the writings of a host of *Fathers*,—the principal being Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, Didymus, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, the Cyrils, Theodoret,—we are provided with contemporaneous evidence which, whenever it can be had, becomes an effectual safeguard against the unsupported decrees of our oldest codices, a, b, [aleph], c, d, as well as the occasional vagaries of the Versions. In the writings of Irenaeus, Clemens Alex., Origen, Dionysius Alex., Hippolytus, we meet with older evidence still. No more precarious foundation for a reading, in fact, can be named, than the unsupported advocacy of a single Manuscript, or Version, or Father; or even of two or three of these combined." (John Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 19).
Regarding Erasmus and the end of Revelation:
Back translating from Latin is not what happened at all with the ending of Revelation. Erasmus sent a back translation of a few lines to the printer so he could begin to typeset the text. He told his associates to use the Greek Aldine edition that was also being prepared for publication to correct those specific lines.
This is why we find that both Stephanus and Beza’s edition are practically identical to Erasmus in Rev. 22, even though they both had access to manuscripts with the ending of Revelation.
Erasmus himself stated:
“At the end of the Apocalypse, the manuscript I used (I had only one, for the book is rarely found in Greek) was lacking one or two lines. I added them, following the Latin codices. They were of the kind that could be restored out of the preceding text. Thus, when I sent the revised copy to Basel, I wrote to my friends to restore the place out of the Aldine edition; for I had not yet bought that work. They did as I instructed them. What, I ask you, do I owe to Lee in this case? Did he himself restore what was missing? But he had no text except mine. Ah, but he warned me! As if I had not stated in the annotations of the first edition what I had done and what was missing.”
Source: Apolog. resp. inuect. Ed. Lei(Apologia qua respondet duabis inuectiuis Eduardi Lei), ASD IX-4, pp.54-55 ll. 894-914. Translation Erika Rummel in CWE 72, p. 44.
This info is so clear it’s almost as if scholars who purvey the myth that those verses in the TR are back translated are being intentionally deceptive. See http://confessionalbibliology.com/category/erasmus/erasmus-myths/
No one denies that there are variants so your lasts paragraphs are arguing against a straw man. If you want interaction with Warfield, you can go here: http://confessionalbibliology.com/2017/10/12/providentially-preserved/
and
https://www.amazon.com/Westminster-Confession-providential-preservation-Scripture/dp/1522039155/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509421249&sr=8-1&keywords=garnet howard milne&dpID=51XIVBHADvL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
This work in its introduction deals solely with Warfield, and addresses him as well as the Westminster Divines view when they wrote 1.8. More on 'kept pure in all ages' you can read John Owen: http://confessionalbibliology.com/2017/09/10/john-owen-on-providential-preservation/
As for the Johannine Comma, I encourage you to go read about the historicity of it here: http://confessionalbibliology.com/the-textual-issues/the-comma-johanneum/ It is easy to go back and research that it is found in the early church fathers, even before the Vulgate. Turretin also on the comma: http://confessionalbibliology.com/2017/09/10/francis-turretin-and-the-comma-johanneum/
It’s deceiving to say that the reading was not found in Greek manuscripts until the (whatever) century. What that sounds like is that the reading didn’t appear in any manuscripts before then, so it was obviously added. What the facts are is only concerning EXTANT manuscripts, meaning what we have right now. Some manuscripts may have been lost, stolen, or destroyed (which clearly did happen).
Furthermore, it’s deceptive to say that the reading is totally foreign to the Greek church, as if only the Latin Fathers cite the reading because only they had it (in the Vulgate). But lectionaries from the Greek church mostly contain the reading, so even if the majority of manuscripts we have today lack it, the Greek church has always had and used it as scripture regardless of the number count.
The TR is the most widespread text historically and geographically and in terms of being the basis for the most translations through history. This is far from the CT which is based on 2-3 manuscripts from one geographical location. The underlying manuscripts for the CT were abandoned by Orthodox Christians around the 4th and 5th century. If they should replace the TR, then the Holy Spirit has deceived God’s people. Herman C. Hoskier has demonstrated that Aleph & B were made to reflect the Coptic Text of heretics. Which means the CT also reflects their heresies as it is based primarily upon Aleph & B. The Critical Text position arose at the end of the 17th century as an attack upon Sola Scriptura and the Reformers. Richard Simon was the instigator of this. You can read about him and his work here: http://confessionalbibliology.com/b...cal-history-of-the-text-of-the-new-testament/ and http://confessionalbibliology.com/book/a-critical-history-of-the-old-testament/ and http://www.academia.edu/583291/Pere_Richard_Simon_and_English_Biblical_Criticism_1680-1700
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Logan
Puritan Board Graduate
I'm not sure how to take that given the examples I provided above. I already stated that I do not argue for the CT and that I have misgivings about its philosophy, but nevertheless, don't you think it's more than a bit inaccurate to say it is "just 2 or 3 manuscripts from the same time period and same geographic location"? It may give undue weight to a few but the CT takes in all manuscript evidence, including the Byzantine or Majority.
I may very well be missing something but I'm not seeing what you seem to. Does this not indicate that Erasmus supplied the lacking one or two lines? What is the Aldine edition? This source seems to indicate that it was actually another printing of Erasmus' text, whether this is accurate or not I do not know, I'm not familiar with it. I had traced the source myself a while back and as your source has, Erasmus' own annotation is "quanquam in calae hujus libri nonnulla verba reperi apud nostros quae aberant in graecis exemplaribus ea tamen ex latinis adjecimus." Which roughly translates to "Although in the writings of this book, you have yet discovered, we have added only from the Latin (the) several words being absent from us in our Greek copies." I don't think quoting this is intentionally deceitful and it seems quite understandable to me that people would believe he did what he said he did, but maybe this Aldine edition shows differently. That's not proven by your source though.
Regardless, the old German Bible doesn't have the Comma, is this pure or not? That's my point. For better or worse, the TR view tends to naturally gravitate toward defending whatever made it into the KJV.
Looking specifically at what I responded to, I don't think so but I'm willing to be corrected. What is the limits of variants that you will accept? Byzantine/Majority? Everything but the Uncials?
I will check that out. I have read the entirety of Owens work on the subject multiple times and don't find it inconsistent with what I have stated previously. Warfield would call him more dogmatic but he was addressing a specific concern. I have also read Turretin's sections on this many times and studied them closely. I've read Hill and Burgon and Letis. I don't feel like I'm ignorant on this subject but certainly am not infallible.
I actually did address that in my post.
This is genuinely new to me, do you have any sources for this?
I don't really want to debate this but I do want to make it clear to whoever reads this that I don't believe this is nearly so cut and dry and there will likely be excellent counterarguments to every argument from every side. I'm content with accepting the purity of both the CT as it stands today and the TR and see nothing inconsistent or unreformed or unconfessional with this view that couldn't be brought against the TR itself if one begins to dig deep (as long as one considers evidence that exists and not evidence that might have existed).
Since there are some here who were actually involved in the translation work of versions that did indeed use the CT as their textual basis, I would not go so far as to label the CT as being all bad, as one can be TR perferred, but that would not mean the Majority/Critical Greek texts and the translations derived from that are all bad.
David, I appreciate your desire to be irenic, but slow down and think through what you are saying.
Your argument essentially says: "we should not express negative opinions on the CT because of people on this board."
I grant there are many reasons to support the use of the CT for translations, and I respect the well-reasoned opinions of those who support it. Certainly, respect for scholars on this board is due and proper, but that doesn't preclude constructive criticism.
Thanks for your reply, and I would like to point out that I am not saying that the CT is above reproach and not able to be criticized here, but am saying that it should not be demonized either as a corrupted and inferior source text either.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
David,
I provided links of CT advocates (the fathers of CT and those well known today from which we have the CT's every changing text). They show their view that they believe the text is corrupt. Now you might disagree with them, but what I have shown is that the CT view is that it is corrupted. It's not the TR's view that the text is corrupt.
I do not think the scholars involved with using the CT for versions such as NASB/Esv/Csb though would view them as being corrupted and inferior.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
Like I said, way earlier in this thread. The foundation of this question is not about translations but about textual criticism. I would agree that those who use NASB, ESV, etc would not view them as corrupt or inferior. However, those who produce the Greek Texts like NA27 and GNT do.
The scholars that I have read on this issue, such as Dr Daniel Wallace, would not see the NA27/28 as inferior though, but as being closer reconstructions towards what the Originals were then the TR. Same for the scholars favoring the Majority text. The good news is that the TR/MT/CT all are accurate copies of the Originals, as we do not have a 100 % copy to them in any Greek text, but very very close, and any translation done off any of them would be considered to be word of God to us in English language.
Timotheos
Puritan Board Freshman
Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
David,
Thanks for posting this as I tend to agree(broadly speaking). However, what are your thoughts of my specific questions in the OP?
Prefer the Esv rendering on this passage.
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Hello @Grant Jones . . . in this post I will be answering your OP question also.
Hello @Logan,
Good to see you’re well and kickin’! Although when you say, “I'm content with accepting the purity of both the CT as it stands today and the TR and see nothing inconsistent or unreformed or unconfessional with this view. . .”, I’m puzzled in light of the Greek CT reading in Matt 1:7, 9 (and actually translated into the English in the ESV, and the Rom. Catholic New American Bible, 1970) having Asaph instead of Asa in v 7, and Amos in v 10 instead of Amon. That’s not pure, but rather rank error in what the CT asserts of the original.
It was the Committee which put together both the UBS 4 and NA 27 (now up to 28) editions (Drs. Aland; J. Karavidopolous; Carlo Martini, and Bruce Metzger) that spoke on the matter of Asaph and Amos, through Dr. Metzger in his, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition:
In other words, because of the Committee’s assumption “that the name ‘Asaph’ is the earliest form of text preserved in the manuscripts” (Ibid.) they decided that Matthew had to have made an error, and this error is recorded in the “earliest and most reliable” MSS, and they weren’t going to tamper with “corrections” made by later scribes. “Like Duh, Matthew! Couldn’t you have found a reliable source!?”
But wait a minute! Although Matthew was the human writer of the first Gospel account, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God….[and] no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:20)
A note to you, @Dachaser: Bruce Metzger and company did think the original of Matthew from his pen was corrupt. More on this if you want to follow it up, here.
________
Logan, we’re really talking here about 1 John 5:7, and the Comma Johanneum is perhaps the vanguard of the assault on the TR and its English expression in the King James Bible. I don’t think we want to revisit and repeat all the PB threads on this verse, at least I don’t. But to some general points . . .
When you say, arguing from the lesser to the greater, “the TR position suffers from a lack of universality and a lack of timelessness”, because, regarding the latter, “imagine being in AD 1400 and trying to use the same arguments…[concerning] manuscript evidence” about the Comma. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that statement, as from what vantage point would such a defender of the Comma be speaking?
In north Africa, where the Diocletian (and Galerian) persecutions did not bring their rage to destroy the saints and their holy book, but left them and it mostly intact, the Comma remained, but in the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire they wrought havoc. The Bible was greatly done away with, and later replaced by Constantine’s edict to Eusebius to produce 50 new official copies from the Caesarian library, in the days of both the Sabellian and the Arian heresies, and played a part in choices of the text. Were I to time-travel back to 1400 the ravages of the bloodletting ten centuries earlier would still have remained. In Carthage the New Testament of the Latin-speaking West would still speak the words of 1 John 5:7. In the Greek Byzantine world of the East it went missing. I have spoken to this situation here before at some length and depth.
The Arians just mentioned were the equivalent of today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses or Unitarian-Universalists; they denied the Godhood of Jesus Christ – made Him to have the status of a creature, an exalted one to be sure, but a creature nonetheless, and not the Creator – and they denied the doctrine of eternal Hell, and the punishment of the wicked therein. In his book, A History of Heresy, David Christie-Murray gives us a sense of those times:
If the anti-Nicenes with their hatred of the doctrine of Christ being God would go so far as to torture the body of a one-hundred-year-old man to further their cause, what would they not do to a parchment?
This terrible state of affairs for the believing Church ended around 380, when the new Emperor, Theodosius, “a convinced and energetic Nicene Christian,” imposed catholic orthodoxy throughout his empire, and replaced the Arian Bishop of Constantinople by the more orthodox Gregory Nazianzus. In 383 and 384 Theodosius issued imperial edicts which furthered the Nicene cause. (Ibid., pages 53, 54.)
Imagine what would happen if the Jehovah’s Witnesses came into both ecclesiastical and governmental power in a small country and ruled over both the churches and the government for a period of 50 years. (Now the JWs forbid the holding of political office, so suppose a fervent JW sympathizer, yet not an official member of them.) Imagine what would happen to the Bibles of that land, and the decrees that could be issued against all those churches whose doctrines of God and the Lord Jesus Christ were orthodox. When the state controls the church, or the church the state, trouble always ensues; as the Lord Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36.)
The Greek Bibles that came from Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea likely supported the Arian views, and the anti-Sabellian orthodox reluctant to keep the “oneness” verse the Sabellians would use. It should be factored into our view of textual matters these doctrinal wars, where heresy is promoted and even enforced!
So if I took a stand in 1400 AD, where would I stand? (For Rome still ruled throughout Europe, save in the battered enclaves of the Waldenses) — Okay, in the mountains of Italy in some small hamlet among the Waldensian believers (whose Bibles retained 1 John 5:7-8); if I considered the “arguments…[concerning] manuscript evidence”, I would side with what was written in the unmolested Vadois (Waldensian) Bible: [translated into English] “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”
Logan, you said, “It also suffers from a lack of universality . . . To say it was only fully purified after 1600 seems presumptuous to say the least.” (Just to address the general idea, not your particulars.)
To restate the WCF (and 1689) at 1.8:
So how, and what was “kept pure in all ages”? — 1) an entire and intact Greek NT? And that throughout the church age till printing came to be? I don’t think so. 2) Or the pure READINGS of the autographs kept in various Greek mss, and then compiled in an authoritative edition, and then printed? Which edition would that be? I know of none. 3) Or the pure READINGS of the Greek autographs kept in various mss—mostly the Traditional (Byzantine) Greek, but a very few kept in other versions due to attacks and mutilations on the Greek—and then put into print in the Greek Textus Receptus editions (known to and used by the Westminster divines), having also been put into the English, Dutch, and other translations? I hold to the third option. No reconstruction of the text here, but keeping.
This way the WCF / 1689 are not made to bear the burden of asserting there was an entire and intact NT extant throughout the church age before the Reformation, but rather the authentic readings of the entire Greek NT were “by [God’s] singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages” — not a one of them, not even a word, ultimately was corrupted, or lost, and “fell to the ground”, but instead kept intact and pure — despite attacks on certain passages, and words. This was actually done in God’s providential preservation at the time of the Reformation, when He also re-established Biblical doctrine at the commencement of the Protestant era.
It may be asked: “What about before the Reformation if all the words were not in one place, wouldn’t there be uncertainty and doubt? No sureness which was the original in the manuscripts? Therefore isn’t the TR position of uncertainty similar to the CT for all the saints before 1500?”
My understanding is this: the sort of textual scrutiny we focus upon the manuscripts in the present century – and increasingly have in the centuries since 1500 – was not typical prior to 1500. Various locales had their Bibles based on mss in their respective possession; they were for the most part content with what they had. True, Rome persecuted the Waldenses (Vadois) and Albigenses with their Antiochian versions of the Bible and theological dissenting; while in the East the Greeks had their settled Byzantine manuscripts and a fairly settled Bible – as far as the Greek Orthodox Church was concerned; Rome was content with its Latin version. All were pretty much satisfied with their status quo. The Renaissance, however, changed that; Ad fontes (a Latin expression which means “to the sources” – literally “to the fountains”) was the cry of Valla and Erasmus, and they began examining the various manuscripts, mostly Greek, and comparing them with the Latin, as regards the New Testament. At this point scrutiny did become focused on the various textual versions.
It has been similarly asked by some, “If only the Greek Byzantine was the providentially preserved text, what about the other locations in the world that had a different text-type – did they not have a preserved and adequate Bible?” And I would answer:
There is a preserving of the text, and there is a preserving of the text — the latter where its integrity is held even to minute readings not granted the nonetheless adequate former. That the former was genuinely efficacious is analogous to the Bibles based upon the CT being efficacious to save and edify God’s people today, as witnessed by the multitudes regenerated and brought to maturity through those who use the NIV, NASB, ESV etc.
The minute preservation occurred in the primary edition (the Masoretic Hebrew and the Greek TR and the derived King James and other faithful translations) which was to serve the English-speaking people and the translations created for the vast missionary work they undertook, which impacted the entire world. There was a progression in the purifying of the text, so as to almost (and some say completely) reconstitute copies (the "apographs") faithful to the original manuscripts of the apostles by God's providential preservation, even as there has been, in the area of theology, a restoration of apostolic doctrine, which also went through phases of deterioration and eventual renewal.
Thus, even those areas of the church which were non-Greek-speaking also had a “preserved text”—as do multitudes in this present day—though their texts were not “minutely preserved.” The texts they had were efficacious unto the salvation of souls and the sustaining of the churches. The distinction is between an adequate preservation as distinguished from preservation in the minutiae. The minutiae pertain to the true as opposed to the variant readings.
As regarding the Lord’s promise to preserve His Scripture (Matt 5:18; 24:35; Isaiah 59:21; etc), many times the people of God have not understood how a prophecy was to be fulfilled until it was a done thing, and then they looked backward to see how He had worked. It is thus in observing how He fulfilled His promise to preserve His word. When the Lord prophesies, does it have to come about instantly? Is there not sometimes progression, as in the development seen in the Olivet discourse of events from the time Jerusalem fell till the time of the end?
Please bear in mind, those who read, I am King James Bible priority, not KJV Only, for I hold that the other Bibles are God’s word to His people and are of crucial value to those who have them, the difference between us being the variant readings and poor translations.
Hello @Logan,
Good to see you’re well and kickin’! Although when you say, “I'm content with accepting the purity of both the CT as it stands today and the TR and see nothing inconsistent or unreformed or unconfessional with this view. . .”, I’m puzzled in light of the Greek CT reading in Matt 1:7, 9 (and actually translated into the English in the ESV, and the Rom. Catholic New American Bible, 1970) having Asaph instead of Asa in v 7, and Amos in v 10 instead of Amon. That’s not pure, but rather rank error in what the CT asserts of the original.
It was the Committee which put together both the UBS 4 and NA 27 (now up to 28) editions (Drs. Aland; J. Karavidopolous; Carlo Martini, and Bruce Metzger) that spoke on the matter of Asaph and Amos, through Dr. Metzger in his, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition:
Since, however, the evangelist may have derived material for the genealogy, not from the Old Testament directly, but from subsequent genealogical lists, in which the erroneous spelling occurred, the Committee saw no reason to adopt what appears to be a scribal emendation in the text of Matthew. (p.1)
In other words, because of the Committee’s assumption “that the name ‘Asaph’ is the earliest form of text preserved in the manuscripts” (Ibid.) they decided that Matthew had to have made an error, and this error is recorded in the “earliest and most reliable” MSS, and they weren’t going to tamper with “corrections” made by later scribes. “Like Duh, Matthew! Couldn’t you have found a reliable source!?”
But wait a minute! Although Matthew was the human writer of the first Gospel account, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God….[and] no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:20)
A note to you, @Dachaser: Bruce Metzger and company did think the original of Matthew from his pen was corrupt. More on this if you want to follow it up, here.
________
Logan, we’re really talking here about 1 John 5:7, and the Comma Johanneum is perhaps the vanguard of the assault on the TR and its English expression in the King James Bible. I don’t think we want to revisit and repeat all the PB threads on this verse, at least I don’t. But to some general points . . .
When you say, arguing from the lesser to the greater, “the TR position suffers from a lack of universality and a lack of timelessness”, because, regarding the latter, “imagine being in AD 1400 and trying to use the same arguments…[concerning] manuscript evidence” about the Comma. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that statement, as from what vantage point would such a defender of the Comma be speaking?
In north Africa, where the Diocletian (and Galerian) persecutions did not bring their rage to destroy the saints and their holy book, but left them and it mostly intact, the Comma remained, but in the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire they wrought havoc. The Bible was greatly done away with, and later replaced by Constantine’s edict to Eusebius to produce 50 new official copies from the Caesarian library, in the days of both the Sabellian and the Arian heresies, and played a part in choices of the text. Were I to time-travel back to 1400 the ravages of the bloodletting ten centuries earlier would still have remained. In Carthage the New Testament of the Latin-speaking West would still speak the words of 1 John 5:7. In the Greek Byzantine world of the East it went missing. I have spoken to this situation here before at some length and depth.
The Arians just mentioned were the equivalent of today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses or Unitarian-Universalists; they denied the Godhood of Jesus Christ – made Him to have the status of a creature, an exalted one to be sure, but a creature nonetheless, and not the Creator – and they denied the doctrine of eternal Hell, and the punishment of the wicked therein. In his book, A History of Heresy, David Christie-Murray gives us a sense of those times:
The following year [328] Eusebius of Nicomedia [a leader of the Arians] was not only recalled from exile but became Constantine’s trusted advisor. The Emperor completely reversed his position [and supported the Arians]…From 326 onwards a regular campaign against the [Biblically orthodox] Nicene bishops was conducted, some dozen being deposed. The culmination came in 335 when Athanasius of Alexandria and Marcellus of Ancyra were removed from office and driven from their sees…In 339 the Arian cause was strengthened by the accession of Eusebius of Nicomedia to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople…[So fervent and violent were the anti-Nicenes], in 357 a council at Sirium…forced Hosius, now a centenarian [a hundred years or more of age], to attend against his will and to sign [an Arian formula] after being beaten and tortured…
…Constans (the orthodox son of Constantine) continued as Emperor of the Nicene west and Constantius [the Arian son] of the anti-Nicene east…Constantius became sole ruler of the Empire in 353…[and] anti-Nicene views were imposed on all his domains…
Hope for the Nicenes seemed to die when Constantius at last made up his mind and on New Year’s Day, 360, decided for the [Arian] Homoeism of Acacius as the official faith of the Empire, thus supporting historic Arianism against Catholic [i.e. universal, not “Roman”] orthodoxy and the Nicaean Creed. (A History of Heresy, by David Christie-Murray, Oxford; Oxford University Press 1991, pages 49, 50, 51.)
…Constans (the orthodox son of Constantine) continued as Emperor of the Nicene west and Constantius [the Arian son] of the anti-Nicene east…Constantius became sole ruler of the Empire in 353…[and] anti-Nicene views were imposed on all his domains…
Hope for the Nicenes seemed to die when Constantius at last made up his mind and on New Year’s Day, 360, decided for the [Arian] Homoeism of Acacius as the official faith of the Empire, thus supporting historic Arianism against Catholic [i.e. universal, not “Roman”] orthodoxy and the Nicaean Creed. (A History of Heresy, by David Christie-Murray, Oxford; Oxford University Press 1991, pages 49, 50, 51.)
If the anti-Nicenes with their hatred of the doctrine of Christ being God would go so far as to torture the body of a one-hundred-year-old man to further their cause, what would they not do to a parchment?
This terrible state of affairs for the believing Church ended around 380, when the new Emperor, Theodosius, “a convinced and energetic Nicene Christian,” imposed catholic orthodoxy throughout his empire, and replaced the Arian Bishop of Constantinople by the more orthodox Gregory Nazianzus. In 383 and 384 Theodosius issued imperial edicts which furthered the Nicene cause. (Ibid., pages 53, 54.)
Imagine what would happen if the Jehovah’s Witnesses came into both ecclesiastical and governmental power in a small country and ruled over both the churches and the government for a period of 50 years. (Now the JWs forbid the holding of political office, so suppose a fervent JW sympathizer, yet not an official member of them.) Imagine what would happen to the Bibles of that land, and the decrees that could be issued against all those churches whose doctrines of God and the Lord Jesus Christ were orthodox. When the state controls the church, or the church the state, trouble always ensues; as the Lord Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36.)
The Greek Bibles that came from Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea likely supported the Arian views, and the anti-Sabellian orthodox reluctant to keep the “oneness” verse the Sabellians would use. It should be factored into our view of textual matters these doctrinal wars, where heresy is promoted and even enforced!
So if I took a stand in 1400 AD, where would I stand? (For Rome still ruled throughout Europe, save in the battered enclaves of the Waldenses) — Okay, in the mountains of Italy in some small hamlet among the Waldensian believers (whose Bibles retained 1 John 5:7-8); if I considered the “arguments…[concerning] manuscript evidence”, I would side with what was written in the unmolested Vadois (Waldensian) Bible: [translated into English] “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”
Logan, you said, “It also suffers from a lack of universality . . . To say it was only fully purified after 1600 seems presumptuous to say the least.” (Just to address the general idea, not your particulars.)
To restate the WCF (and 1689) at 1.8:
The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by his singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages…
So how, and what was “kept pure in all ages”? — 1) an entire and intact Greek NT? And that throughout the church age till printing came to be? I don’t think so. 2) Or the pure READINGS of the autographs kept in various Greek mss, and then compiled in an authoritative edition, and then printed? Which edition would that be? I know of none. 3) Or the pure READINGS of the Greek autographs kept in various mss—mostly the Traditional (Byzantine) Greek, but a very few kept in other versions due to attacks and mutilations on the Greek—and then put into print in the Greek Textus Receptus editions (known to and used by the Westminster divines), having also been put into the English, Dutch, and other translations? I hold to the third option. No reconstruction of the text here, but keeping.
This way the WCF / 1689 are not made to bear the burden of asserting there was an entire and intact NT extant throughout the church age before the Reformation, but rather the authentic readings of the entire Greek NT were “by [God’s] singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages” — not a one of them, not even a word, ultimately was corrupted, or lost, and “fell to the ground”, but instead kept intact and pure — despite attacks on certain passages, and words. This was actually done in God’s providential preservation at the time of the Reformation, when He also re-established Biblical doctrine at the commencement of the Protestant era.
It may be asked: “What about before the Reformation if all the words were not in one place, wouldn’t there be uncertainty and doubt? No sureness which was the original in the manuscripts? Therefore isn’t the TR position of uncertainty similar to the CT for all the saints before 1500?”
My understanding is this: the sort of textual scrutiny we focus upon the manuscripts in the present century – and increasingly have in the centuries since 1500 – was not typical prior to 1500. Various locales had their Bibles based on mss in their respective possession; they were for the most part content with what they had. True, Rome persecuted the Waldenses (Vadois) and Albigenses with their Antiochian versions of the Bible and theological dissenting; while in the East the Greeks had their settled Byzantine manuscripts and a fairly settled Bible – as far as the Greek Orthodox Church was concerned; Rome was content with its Latin version. All were pretty much satisfied with their status quo. The Renaissance, however, changed that; Ad fontes (a Latin expression which means “to the sources” – literally “to the fountains”) was the cry of Valla and Erasmus, and they began examining the various manuscripts, mostly Greek, and comparing them with the Latin, as regards the New Testament. At this point scrutiny did become focused on the various textual versions.
It has been similarly asked by some, “If only the Greek Byzantine was the providentially preserved text, what about the other locations in the world that had a different text-type – did they not have a preserved and adequate Bible?” And I would answer:
There is a preserving of the text, and there is a preserving of the text — the latter where its integrity is held even to minute readings not granted the nonetheless adequate former. That the former was genuinely efficacious is analogous to the Bibles based upon the CT being efficacious to save and edify God’s people today, as witnessed by the multitudes regenerated and brought to maturity through those who use the NIV, NASB, ESV etc.
The minute preservation occurred in the primary edition (the Masoretic Hebrew and the Greek TR and the derived King James and other faithful translations) which was to serve the English-speaking people and the translations created for the vast missionary work they undertook, which impacted the entire world. There was a progression in the purifying of the text, so as to almost (and some say completely) reconstitute copies (the "apographs") faithful to the original manuscripts of the apostles by God's providential preservation, even as there has been, in the area of theology, a restoration of apostolic doctrine, which also went through phases of deterioration and eventual renewal.
Thus, even those areas of the church which were non-Greek-speaking also had a “preserved text”—as do multitudes in this present day—though their texts were not “minutely preserved.” The texts they had were efficacious unto the salvation of souls and the sustaining of the churches. The distinction is between an adequate preservation as distinguished from preservation in the minutiae. The minutiae pertain to the true as opposed to the variant readings.
As regarding the Lord’s promise to preserve His Scripture (Matt 5:18; 24:35; Isaiah 59:21; etc), many times the people of God have not understood how a prophecy was to be fulfilled until it was a done thing, and then they looked backward to see how He had worked. It is thus in observing how He fulfilled His promise to preserve His word. When the Lord prophesies, does it have to come about instantly? Is there not sometimes progression, as in the development seen in the Olivet discourse of events from the time Jerusalem fell till the time of the end?
Please bear in mind, those who read, I am King James Bible priority, not KJV Only, for I hold that the other Bibles are God’s word to His people and are of crucial value to those who have them, the difference between us being the variant readings and poor translations.
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Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
Steve,
Thanks for replying. Your post was very informative and also felt like a late night “cram” session... haha. I did enjoy reading it.
So would you not also agree that God Providentially preserved the manuscripts used in the CT as well (specifically the ones not used in the TR)?
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
I think the matter is a little more complex than this, and actually has parallels with people's views of Bible translation.
There are really two TR views that it is helpful to distinguish:
1) TR only (similar to KJV only): What we have in the TR is the perfect, inerrant copy of the original manuscripts. No further textual criticism is necessary since the Holy Spirit has done the work for us in his preservation of the text.
2) TR preference (similar to KJV preference): the TR represents the best available manuscript evidence. Other manuscripts may be older but they are generally inferior. But there may be places where the TR may be questioned and further text criticism is at least in principle permissible. in theory at least, other manuscripts might preserve a genuine reading.
3) What you describe as the modern position is really anachronistic, because it assumes that modern critics (and contemporary Bible translators) are "NA 27 only" (actually there is a NA28 now, as Jerusalem Blade notes). In fact, they might best be described as eclectic, if perhaps with a NA28 preference (but simply because it represents the current state of scholarship). They have no bias particularly against the TR, though in general they do have a preference toward older manuscripts (not just a couple of complete manuscripts but papyri as well). It is simply one witness to be evaluated among many. That's why many modern versions such as the CSB, stick with Asa in Matt 1:7, while footnoting the alternative. The ESV, while putting Asaph in the text takes a third option in its footnote: "Asaph is probably an alternative spelling of Asa". Whether that is justifiable or not, it is clear that the translators are not charging Matthew with error.
This position is well summed up by this quote from the Lockwood Foundation facebook about the forthcoming NASB revision:
As our base texts are the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) and Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ) for the books available and the NA28 for the NT. We don’t always agree with the editors of those texts and choose alternate or variant readings when we feel they are more accurate.
It should be noted that 2) and (the evangelical version of) 3) are in basic agreement about method, simply differing in the weight they assign to different manuscripts. Position 1), however, is in reality as opposed to 2) as it is to 3).
Finally, Steve, this discussion always gets pushed in the direction of the NT manuscripts for understandable reasons. I'd love to hear you weigh in on the OT. May we ever correct the medieval consensus Hebrew text with the Leningrad codex? With the Septuagint? Septuagint + Qumran? Is it ever possible that something has fallen out of our present Hebrew text? How does that feed into discussions of preservation?
I honestly do not see how one can be position 1, if they are honest with the known manuscripts and textual data available to us today.
Would the same reasoning hold if if one held to the majority text being the best available greek source text for translation?
So the tranlators even with the Nas/esv/csb who prefer the CT do also consult and at times decide to go away from the CT and use something the TR or majority text supports?
And isn't it true that the differences between the 2 main OT hebrew texts are less than 10 actual words?
Would the same reasoning hold if if one held to the majority text being the best available greek source text for translation?
So the tranlators even with the Nas/esv/csb who prefer the CT do also consult and at times decide to go away from the CT and use something the TR or majority text supports?
And isn't it true that the differences between the 2 main OT hebrew texts are less than 10 actual words?
Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
What is Position 1?
The position that the TR Greek text is really an exact copy of the Original NT Books, so no errors/mistakes within it, no need to ever amend or update it.
From that view, one goes into the Kings James version Only, as being transalted off the exact copy of the Originals, the KJV would be the same as having the Greek Originals to us now into English.
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Hello Iain,
Thanks for your thoughts. I’m not in your league so as to get into the fine points of the various OT mss and versions; our member alhembd (Albert Hembd) is the one most conversant on Confessional matters and the Hebrew text; he’s presently in Jerusalem doing (at this point, I believe) doctoral work on the C. D. Ginsburg edition of the Masoretic for the TBS.
For myself, I would simply say I understand the WCF at 1.8 to affirm the Second Great Rabbinic Bible / 2nd Bomberg text edited by Jacob ben Hayyim in 1524-25 as the OT referred to as providentially preserved.
I do think that the “alternative spelling” note of the ESV (and Metzger) re Asaph and Amos is rather lame.
Thanks for your thoughts. I’m not in your league so as to get into the fine points of the various OT mss and versions; our member alhembd (Albert Hembd) is the one most conversant on Confessional matters and the Hebrew text; he’s presently in Jerusalem doing (at this point, I believe) doctoral work on the C. D. Ginsburg edition of the Masoretic for the TBS.
For myself, I would simply say I understand the WCF at 1.8 to affirm the Second Great Rabbinic Bible / 2nd Bomberg text edited by Jacob ben Hayyim in 1524-25 as the OT referred to as providentially preserved.
I do think that the “alternative spelling” note of the ESV (and Metzger) re Asaph and Amos is rather lame.
I thought the majority of textual scholars hold for the Masoretic Hebrew text though?
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
David, there are different editions of the Masoretic text.
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
Agreed on Asa/Asaph and Amon/Amos; those seem most probably copyists errors. That's why most "CT" translations have stuck with the TR on this point. My point was simply that even if you adopt the alternatives, as the ESV does, there are alternatives to charging Matthew with error.
So you would never under any circumstances even consider emending the Bomberg edition on the basis of Leningradensis, Septuagint and/or Qumran? Or would you simply regard Bomberg/Leningrad as the primary text, but be open to consider occasional emendations on the basis of other textual witnesses? To me that is the difference between position 1) and 2) described above. In Ot studies of course, the MT, which Leningrad and Bomberg both represent, have had something of a renaissance, especially in light of the discoveries at Qumran. I remember Ray Dillard telling me that the NIV translation was heavily MT oriented, in contrast to the RSV, which is much more Septuagint oriented. I suspect that the ESV has swung back toward the MT too. But there are still places where I think the LXX represents a better text. And even one place where neither I nor anyone else that I know of can make coherent sense out of the Hebrew as it stands: Ezek 40:14. English translations are either nonsense, emended or completely fabricated. I wish I had a solution that didn't involve a corrupted text, but I don't, which is why the CSB omits the second half of the verse (after emending the first half). It's hard to hold to a doctrine of perfect text preservation when you have to wrestle with the realities of some of these passages. Which is why I think the discussions focusing on the NT, important though they are, often sidestep some of the real issues.
Logan
Puritan Board Graduate
Hey Steve, good to see you kickin' too! As always, I appreciate your more balanced approach even though our conclusions are different.
I wholeheartedly agree with your first "providential preservation". But you weren't who I was responding to so I feel like your replies to my replies to Mr Barnes are slightly apples and oranges. You're welcome to respond but I would interact with you differently because you have different views, one obvious one being that the Comma reading was preserved in the Latin even if lost in the Greek for centuries.
Your view in several points is rather unique among TR proponents and I don't think Mr Barnes holds the same views, nor Mr Truelove, nor Mr Winzer, nor Letis, or even Burgon! I must admit that makes it difficult to respond to the "TR view" when everyone seems to hold different positions on various points.
I do have a question for you: do you think Mr Barnes has been accurate in all his points?
I wholeheartedly agree with your first "providential preservation". But you weren't who I was responding to so I feel like your replies to my replies to Mr Barnes are slightly apples and oranges. You're welcome to respond but I would interact with you differently because you have different views, one obvious one being that the Comma reading was preserved in the Latin even if lost in the Greek for centuries.
Your view in several points is rather unique among TR proponents and I don't think Mr Barnes holds the same views, nor Mr Truelove, nor Mr Winzer, nor Letis, or even Burgon! I must admit that makes it difficult to respond to the "TR view" when everyone seems to hold different positions on various points.
I do have a question for you: do you think Mr Barnes has been accurate in all his points?
psycheives
Puritan Board Freshman
LOVE THIS. Exactly. Thank you for taking the time to write it, Blake. Also, Elder Andrew Barnes' same point is important.
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