Having listened to Dr. Riddle’s comments in passing and reading the follow-up exchange by Elder Stahl and Dr. Gordon, I thought I’d share a few thoughts while reading Dr. Gordon’s original piece and perhaps stir up some profitable discussion:
Quotation 1: “I wonder what is provoking a renewed interest in the once-boring field of text criticism.”
Comment 1: I share Dr. Riddle’s sentiments below in finding Dr. Gordon’s remarks to be somewhat out of touch. This will reappear in his discussion of text families. Dr. Riddle comment: “The statement in Gordon's article I found most surprising was this one: "I have not witnessed any new paradigms in biblical text criticism, and few new tools have demonstrated significant promise." Ehrman's Orthodox Corruption? Parker's Living Text? CBGM? Ausgangstext? ECM?”
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Quotation 2: “The range and complexity of textual data are so great that no neatly arranged or mechanically contrived set of rules can be applied with mathematical precision. Each and every variant reading needs to be considered in itself, and not judged merely according to a rule of thumb. . . . Since textual criticism is an art as well as a science, it is inevitable that in some cases different scholars will come to different evaluations of the significance of the evidence” (Metzger)
Comment 2: While Metzger’s words may make more sense in context of his writing, Dr. Gordon’s use of them, in my mind, reflects a great omission in much of what has passed for textual criticism: the treatment of the scripture texts in the same way we might treat any other uninspired text. That is not to say there is not complexity in the treatment of certain variants. Nevertheless, there is a wariness on the part of many (me included), of leaving the determination of texts to societies, groups, individuals, who do not take into account the implications of dealing with an inspired, inerrant, and infallible text when determining text-critical questions. Dr. Gordon, to my recollection, does not address this.
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Quotation 3: “In my judgment, little is at stake in resolving the text-critical issues.”
Comment 3: I disagree. Dr. Gordon (and others) will say that we should not worry because no doctrine or duty is tampered with. Let me provide two personal examples which I believe suggest otherwise.
Example A – Should ministers in the administration of the sacrament say, “"This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." or “this is my body, which is
broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” I sat under a professor in one seminary who taught his students that ministers administering the sacrament with “
broken for you” was not only theologically wrong but textually incorrect.
Example B – One Sunday, a minister had reached John 8 in his preaching through the Gospel of John. He prefaced his sermon with an explanation why he was not going to teach from the woman caught in adultery (in case any had it in their bibles). He did not think it was original and gave his reasons for such in a succinct manner, and proceeded with his sermon on the text which followed. After the service, one member had this look of surprise on their face wondering if anyone had heard the same things and understood its implications. This member told me he had never heard this before and was concerned of where holding such a position logically leads. He said something to the effect, ‘If that is true [what the minister presented in his preface] . . . what else is not supposed to be in the Bible?’
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Quotation 4: “There is widespread agreement among students of the Greek New Testament that there are three (possibly four) different “families” of textual variations. Within these families (Byzantine, Western, Alexandrian, and some recognize a Caesarean),”
Comment 4: I believe Dr. Riddle addresses this in his review of Dr. Gordon’s article, showing Dr. Gordon to be a little out of touch with where textual criticism stands today.
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Quotation 5: “For the book of Revelation he [Erasmus] had but one manuscript, dating from the twelfth century, which he had borrowed from his friend Reuchlin. As it happened, this copy lacked the final leaf, which had contained the last six verses of the book. For these verses Erasmus depended upon Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, translating this version into Greek.” (Metzger)
Comment 5: All I will note is that there is some debate surrounding what Erasmus had and did.
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Quotation 6: “Stephanus used fourteen other Greek Byzantine manuscripts along with the Complutensian Polyglot in his 1550 edition, and even two other Alexandrian Codices, which were given/loaned to him by Italian friends. These Byzantine manuscripts, not surprisingly, concurred with the edition of Erasmus, and the Stephanus edition is nearly identical to that of Erasmus.”
Comment 6: There’s probably some discussion that can occur around this as well, what Stephanus had and did.
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Quotation 7: “Not too much later, The Elziver brothers (Leiden, 1633) printed their second edition of a Greek text, nearly identical to the texts of Erasmus and Stephanus.”
Comment 7: The implication seems to be that all these texts were “nearly identical” because of the limited texts they had available to them. In other words, if they had access to the material we have today, they would have produced much more disparate texts. I remain unconvinced.
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Quotation 8: “Eclectic/Critical text consults any text it can find (as I put it: I consult any manuscript God’s providence makes available).”
Comment 8: To consult any text in study should not be an issue. The question becomes, to what purpose or what value and use is placed upon each existing text (or even new texts that are yet to be found)?
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Quotation 9: “The [Westminster] Assembly would not have known of how great the discrepancy was between manuscript evidence for the Bible compared to other ancient works, but they correctly knew God had a special/singular interest in the Scriptures, an interest so “singular” that we now know that the Assembly underestimated how “singular” God’s providence for the Scriptures was.”
Comment 9: The Westminster Assembly “underestimated how ‘singular’ God’s providence for the Scripture was”? I think Dr. Gordon does not understand the Assembly on this point of preservation. His comment a little after offering what he thinks the Assembly “probably meant” is similarly painful to read. In this regard, I think
G. H. Milne’s work on WCF 1.8 provides helpful historical context as to what the Assembly had in mind.
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Quotation 10: “First, since I believe God’s providence orders “all things,” said providence somehow includes the variety we find in different manuscripts (or in different manuscript traditions).”
Comment 10: Agreed, but this does not say anything concerning their varied valuation and use.
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Quotation 11: “As another example, Westminster questionably cited John 5:39 on two occasions. [etc]”
Comment 11: Dr. Gordon again shows himself as seemingly ignorant of the Assembly’s approach to this passage. Here is
William Gouge on John 5:39 as an example:
“Though in the Original and Latin translation, the word [ἐραυνᾶτε] be ambiguous, and may be taken in the Indicative mood, and the Imperative also; yet I rather take it in the Imperative, as most translations do, for a precept and duty, th[a]n in the Indicative, for a commendation of them; noting what they did: as if he had said [ye search the Scripture,] &c. yet both ways [Indicative or Imperative] the Doctrine is sound.”
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Quotation 12: “Westminster understands the passage to teach that the “people,”
individually understood, are required to read the Scriptures privately and in their families, which would have been impossible prior to the invention of the printing press and is impossible still today among the many smaller indigenous groups who are not literate or have no Bible in their language.”
Comment 12: This comment is quite grievous. Dr. Gordon seems to think (and reiterates in his second article) that the reading of the Scriptures and the duty thereof was limited to the wealthy, learned, and Sunday church services prior to the printing press. The others were to be “very “faithful” to what they heard each week [from the lectionaries on Sundays.]” Not only does he disregard any other passage that sheds light on the duty of reading and searching the scriptures (in OT or NT), but offers somewhat of an incomplete picture of the church for 1500 years. One place to look for a slightly different conception (I think), is John Chrysostom’s
preface ("the argument") to his homilies on Romans [or
here (p 58-60) where he praises the frequent reading of the Scriptures].
opc.org
