Preservation / Ecclesiastical text
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PreDustined
Puritan Board Freshman
perhaps the preface of Robinson's byzantine/ majority text I find it to be helpful.
The obverse answer can be read in Muller's Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 2. There is no consensus in the Reformed Church of any time that there is an "Ecclesiastical text" and if you read this volume you'll think you're reading debates on the PB.
Ah well, one time a Puritan Board member purchased a book because I said it was like the Puritan Board of the Evangelical Awakening.
Yes, I've read that one. My interest is mainly in finding a clear, capable, and concise presentation of the position, rather than searching for epistemic rest on my own account.
Logan
Puritan Board Graduate
Theodore Letis' "The Ecclesiastical Text" is probably the closest thing to a scholarly treatment I've seen on the subject, but I have some serious problems with Letis' scholarship, and ultimately his position is not Reformed.
A problem with looking for a clear explanation of the position is that it seems every person holding the position has a slightly different flavor. There doesn't seem to be an official position, particularly not an a priori position (they usually start with where they want to be and reason backwards). I wouldn't really call either Burgon or Hills "Ecclesiastical Text" people, but they were the most prominent writers for about a century. I suppose Jeff Riddle is the most prominent now and he's certainly written/recorded a lot on the topic so something there is probably going to be the best you'll find. That said, the lack of good, scholarly, Reformed material defending it is actually one of my concerns with the position: it seems to be held almost exclusively by Youtubers and bloggers whose primary loyalty is to the KJV.
But in a nutshell, I would say that the Ecclesiastical Text position, if there is one, would argue that by God's nature, he preserved his word pure for his church as a standard. And the best candidate for that standard would be the Masoretic/TR which ultimately finds its best expression (as a standard) in the KJV. That certainly sounds good in theory but the details get messy very quickly. The hypothesis falls apart under testing unless you frame the hypothesis so that it can never be falsified.
Brevard Childs (and it seems Letis, in the work referenced above) had a slightly different take: for them it didn't seem to matter what was original, what mattered is what the Church accepted as their standard. Thus, in their view you could have a long ending of Mark that wasn't original and yet was canonical. That's certainly not Reformed.
Sorry, I'm at a loss to provide what you're looking for.
A problem with looking for a clear explanation of the position is that it seems every person holding the position has a slightly different flavor. There doesn't seem to be an official position, particularly not an a priori position (they usually start with where they want to be and reason backwards). I wouldn't really call either Burgon or Hills "Ecclesiastical Text" people, but they were the most prominent writers for about a century. I suppose Jeff Riddle is the most prominent now and he's certainly written/recorded a lot on the topic so something there is probably going to be the best you'll find. That said, the lack of good, scholarly, Reformed material defending it is actually one of my concerns with the position: it seems to be held almost exclusively by Youtubers and bloggers whose primary loyalty is to the KJV.
But in a nutshell, I would say that the Ecclesiastical Text position, if there is one, would argue that by God's nature, he preserved his word pure for his church as a standard. And the best candidate for that standard would be the Masoretic/TR which ultimately finds its best expression (as a standard) in the KJV. That certainly sounds good in theory but the details get messy very quickly. The hypothesis falls apart under testing unless you frame the hypothesis so that it can never be falsified.
Brevard Childs (and it seems Letis, in the work referenced above) had a slightly different take: for them it didn't seem to matter what was original, what mattered is what the Church accepted as their standard. Thus, in their view you could have a long ending of Mark that wasn't original and yet was canonical. That's certainly not Reformed.
Sorry, I'm at a loss to provide what you're looking for.
Ed Walsh
Puritan Board Senior
I started writing this am but deleted what I was writing.
I will say this: The whole subject of preservation is confusing to me. And I know nothing as yet about the "Ecclesiastical text," guarded by the Church. We may say we believe in the divine providential preservation of the Scriptures, but we talk as if we think we still need to dig it up out of the ground. To me, it is almost like teaching the RP to a Sunday school class and then going into the service for an Advent reading––read by a Woman, followed by a candlelight service.
Knight
Puritan Board Freshman
No article in mind, and this may not be what you had in mind, but one might ask who it was that proliferated the copies of early manuscripts if not the early church.
Ed Walsh
Puritan Board Senior
Good morning @PreDustined
We don't know each other. At least not yet. But I noticed your handle predUstined? That is pretty cool. Like In dust we are, and into dust we shall return?
Have a great day.
Ed
PS -- How about adding a signature?
Knight
Puritan Board Freshman
I agree. If I may follow up on my first post, an apologetic lacuna highlighted by the White-Horn debate is when sola scriptura became functionable (which begs the question, of course, but is a useful point of departure).
In turn, this requires a clarification: what is Scripture? Is it the revelation communicated (regardless of mode, e.g. auditory vs. visual)? Does the mode of communication matter (holy "writ")? Are there varying contexts in which the symbols or code (physical writ) and that which is symbolized or encoded (immaterial truths) might be differently distinguished and/or related?
Answers to these sorts of questions would facilitate engagement with RCs and EOs as well as in answering your question.
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Ruben, I would say that a few sources or concepts considered together rather than one article would best suffice.
For the usage of the church I would bring in Wilbur Pickering’s history of the NT text (in his volume, The Identity of the New Testament Text II, a crucial excerpt of it here, where he shows the autographs of the NT Scriptures were distributed in the Aegean area and not in Egypt. The defenses of the Majority or Byzantine text advocates that it was in the Greek churches these autographs were sent to and proliferated have far more credence than other views. Also from Pickering’s work is the following visual chart of the textual transmission, along with 2+ pages of comment, taken from his book.
Given this background of the transmission of the NT text, I want to make some comments. First, I am aware that Pickering has evolved and now holds that what he calls “F 35” (F = Family) has the true text of the NT in its Greek form, which I am studying and pondering. Second, this does not cancel his earlier work that eventually led to this conclusion of his. Third, although I have not mentioned Dr. Maurice Robinson and his work on the Greek Byz text thus far (this is the Introduction to Robinson’s earlier edition of his Byz Text), nor Dr. Jakob van Bruggen in his work, The Ancient Text of the New Testament; these men have laid a solid foundation for the Byzantine or Majority Text, used in the Greek church for centuries. The critical text theory cannot stand before these.
In light of these men’s invaluable work on the very foundation of retrieving the preserved NT text in the Greek church, I have a few comments.
It was also preserved in the main in the other differing NT texts (the drastically small number of them), but not in the minutiae. For preservation in the minutiae we must look to the Greek church and its "Byzantine text".
Whether one takes the absolute preservation stand (which has abundant merit in the world of faith), or the 99% preservation stand of EF Hills and others, we have the warrant to say, “Yes, this Bible I hold in my hands is the sure word of God.”
To keep this pithy, I will refrain from elaborating on my view, save to say this:
In my holding to – and promoting – the TR view (and its faithful translations), I will not be subject to “the tyranny of experts” (to use Machen’s memorable phrase) if I do not concur entirely with the methods they use; I may use their work as I see fit, but am not bound by it. The Majority & Byzantine Text labors are immense and of precious value; we stand on their shoulders – or to perfect the metaphor, we leap from their shoulders to a high rock, upon which we take our stand.
So, yes – the view that Greek Orthodox churches kept their Scriptures intact up through the centuries, save for the destruction it suffered during the earlier persecution of Diocletian, and the sorry Alexandrian replacements Eusebius gave to Emperor Constantine at his commission; it may well be that the mss Vaticanus and Sinaiticus came from these (as text critic Count Tischendorf, the discoverer of Codex Sinaiticus, surmised). Relief from persecution now prevailing, those early mss successfully hidden from Diocletian came back into view and flourished. But the Sabellian and Arian controversies raged in the 3rd and 4th centuries, and certain crucial passages suffered from them, particularly those pertaining to the Trinity and the deity of Christ.
We can look back to the Roman Empire during the 4th century and see how the Arians (the equivalent in that day to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Unitarians of ours) ruled both the Empire and the Church in the Greek-speaking world and beyond for a period of almost 50 years, enforcing their Christ-denying “theology” with brutal force and coercion. It was during this time that the famous “three heavenly witnesses” of 1 John 5:7, 8 disappeared from very many of the Greek manuscripts, although it remained in almost all the Old Latin manuscripts, as the Western Church was not ravaged by Arianism and Sabellianism as the East was.
As Athaliah (2 Kings 11:1, 3), the wicked daughter of Jezebel and Ahab, murdered her grandchildren so she could be queen and rule, and the Lord preserved one child, Joash, to eventually thwart her, even so did the Lord keep this verse from the wicked hands of those who hated the Royal Throne. It was preserved elsewhere!
The matter of discerning the true word of God has always been in the realm of faith, not science or evidence (though evidences we have aplenty, to confirm our faith). There are a few readings that are not attested in the Byz, which, as noted, did not altogether escape the ravages of the doctrinal wars of the early centuries, that were preserved in other mss, some in the Old Latin. The Lord saw to it not a word of His would be diminished from His book, even as He commanded His prophets of old to conduct themselves (Deut 4:2KJV; Jer 26:1KJV; Jer 26:2KJV).
Thus 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 upon and mutilations on the Greek – were 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
We are grateful to Drs. Robinson, and Pickering, and Bruggen, and the others who have gone before us, but we believe God who promised we would have His word intact – in the minutiae – when we needed it. And that need is now, at the end of the age.
For the usage of the church I would bring in Wilbur Pickering’s history of the NT text (in his volume, The Identity of the New Testament Text II, a crucial excerpt of it here, where he shows the autographs of the NT Scriptures were distributed in the Aegean area and not in Egypt. The defenses of the Majority or Byzantine text advocates that it was in the Greek churches these autographs were sent to and proliferated have far more credence than other views. Also from Pickering’s work is the following visual chart of the textual transmission, along with 2+ pages of comment, taken from his book.
Given this background of the transmission of the NT text, I want to make some comments. First, I am aware that Pickering has evolved and now holds that what he calls “F 35” (F = Family) has the true text of the NT in its Greek form, which I am studying and pondering. Second, this does not cancel his earlier work that eventually led to this conclusion of his. Third, although I have not mentioned Dr. Maurice Robinson and his work on the Greek Byz text thus far (this is the Introduction to Robinson’s earlier edition of his Byz Text), nor Dr. Jakob van Bruggen in his work, The Ancient Text of the New Testament; these men have laid a solid foundation for the Byzantine or Majority Text, used in the Greek church for centuries. The critical text theory cannot stand before these.
In light of these men’s invaluable work on the very foundation of retrieving the preserved NT text in the Greek church, I have a few comments.
It was also preserved in the main in the other differing NT texts (the drastically small number of them), but not in the minutiae. For preservation in the minutiae we must look to the Greek church and its "Byzantine text".
Whether one takes the absolute preservation stand (which has abundant merit in the world of faith), or the 99% preservation stand of EF Hills and others, we have the warrant to say, “Yes, this Bible I hold in my hands is the sure word of God.”
To keep this pithy, I will refrain from elaborating on my view, save to say this:
In my holding to – and promoting – the TR view (and its faithful translations), I will not be subject to “the tyranny of experts” (to use Machen’s memorable phrase) if I do not concur entirely with the methods they use; I may use their work as I see fit, but am not bound by it. The Majority & Byzantine Text labors are immense and of precious value; we stand on their shoulders – or to perfect the metaphor, we leap from their shoulders to a high rock, upon which we take our stand.
So, yes – the view that Greek Orthodox churches kept their Scriptures intact up through the centuries, save for the destruction it suffered during the earlier persecution of Diocletian, and the sorry Alexandrian replacements Eusebius gave to Emperor Constantine at his commission; it may well be that the mss Vaticanus and Sinaiticus came from these (as text critic Count Tischendorf, the discoverer of Codex Sinaiticus, surmised). Relief from persecution now prevailing, those early mss successfully hidden from Diocletian came back into view and flourished. But the Sabellian and Arian controversies raged in the 3rd and 4th centuries, and certain crucial passages suffered from them, particularly those pertaining to the Trinity and the deity of Christ.
We can look back to the Roman Empire during the 4th century and see how the Arians (the equivalent in that day to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Unitarians of ours) ruled both the Empire and the Church in the Greek-speaking world and beyond for a period of almost 50 years, enforcing their Christ-denying “theology” with brutal force and coercion. It was during this time that the famous “three heavenly witnesses” of 1 John 5:7, 8 disappeared from very many of the Greek manuscripts, although it remained in almost all the Old Latin manuscripts, as the Western Church was not ravaged by Arianism and Sabellianism as the East was.
As Athaliah (2 Kings 11:1, 3), the wicked daughter of Jezebel and Ahab, murdered her grandchildren so she could be queen and rule, and the Lord preserved one child, Joash, to eventually thwart her, even so did the Lord keep this verse from the wicked hands of those who hated the Royal Throne. It was preserved elsewhere!
The matter of discerning the true word of God has always been in the realm of faith, not science or evidence (though evidences we have aplenty, to confirm our faith). There are a few readings that are not attested in the Byz, which, as noted, did not altogether escape the ravages of the doctrinal wars of the early centuries, that were preserved in other mss, some in the Old Latin. The Lord saw to it not a word of His would be diminished from His book, even as He commanded His prophets of old to conduct themselves (Deut 4:2KJV; Jer 26:1KJV; Jer 26:2KJV).
Thus 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 upon and mutilations on the Greek – were 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
We are grateful to Drs. Robinson, and Pickering, and Bruggen, and the others who have gone before us, but we believe God who promised we would have His word intact – in the minutiae – when we needed it. And that need is now, at the end of the age.
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Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
I had to edit and slightly expand the above post as last night I did not do the topic justice. My aging body and mind are not what they used to be!
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
Ruben,
It seems to me that any treatment of preservation needs to deal adequately with the text of the OT as well as the NT. All too often the former gets completely overlooked in the discussion.
It seems to me that any treatment of preservation needs to deal adequately with the text of the OT as well as the NT. All too often the former gets completely overlooked in the discussion.
Logan
Puritan Board Graduate
I like Van Bruggen's article but I wouldn't describe it as being about the "Ecclesiastical Text". He is defending the Byzantine text form as an independent witness to the text, particularly contrasting that with how it was disparaged as being of little value (a common criticism or stereotype was that it was late and more uniform and so it wasn't as significant a witness as the number of manuscripts indicated). That has changed in the last few decades though as more value is being placed on the Byzantine text. He notes that the Byzantine text was largely the text in use by the Greek-speaking church.
But Van Bruggen criticizes the Textus Receptus and says it should be corrected where it departs from the Byzantine texts (among others). This has largely been accomplished in the Pierpont-Robinson text, which I'm a big proponent of.
I agree with Van Bruggen (and Maurice Robinson's "Case for the Byzantine Priority", which I recommend often), but it's definitely not a Textus Receptus defense, nor what I understand to be the "Ecclesiastical Text" argument (although admittedly it seems that isn't well-defined).
But Van Bruggen criticizes the Textus Receptus and says it should be corrected where it departs from the Byzantine texts (among others). This has largely been accomplished in the Pierpont-Robinson text, which I'm a big proponent of.
I agree with Van Bruggen (and Maurice Robinson's "Case for the Byzantine Priority", which I recommend often), but it's definitely not a Textus Receptus defense, nor what I understand to be the "Ecclesiastical Text" argument (although admittedly it seems that isn't well-defined).
I agree, but that seems only to multiply my difficulty of finding one piece that sets the table for discussion!
Van Bruggen speaks of rehabilitating "the Church text again." I would understand that defenders of the TR and defenders of the Ecclesiastical Text would see some distinction between their positions, and hence there are different names. There is some fuzziness around some of the conceptions, as you say, but "the Church text" and "the ecclesiastical text" seem like compatible labels.
Logan
Puritan Board Graduate
Van Bruggen speaks of restoring the "church text" to a higher place within textual criticism as opposed to dismissing it as unimportant: "This leads to a positively orientated textual criticism, which focuses its attention on all the material handed down, without discrimination."
But what Van Bruggen means by "church text" is essentially the Byzantine manuscripts, which for a while were largely dismissed by textual critics as late and too uniform to be of value, so he wants to see this "church text" be considered more fairly alongside the other manuscripts. There may be some good material in his article for people trying to defend an Ecclesiastical Text position, but as far as I can tell, he isn't himself strictly a proponent of it.
I'm curious what you (or others) understand by "Ecclesiastical Text", as it's entirely possible my understanding is different. I wouldn't equate "Ecclesiastical" with "Majority" or "Byzantine" but those all seem subjective depending on who you're talking to.
So does any treatment of reconstructing the text. The method used for the NT dosen't work with the OT because there is a larger time gap and less manuscripts
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Hi Logan,
The Byzantine was the "ecclesiastical text" in the Greek church for over a millennia. This Byzantine then became the foundation of the "ecclesiastical text" (primary church text, if you will) of the Reformation – with some very few readings that did not escape the ravages of the doctrinal wars of the early centuries, but were preserved in other mss, some in the Old Latin, and thus kept in that text.
It is true that this TR and its translations into English are no longer "the primary church text", at least in the eyes of many. In these days of the deterioration of the visible church, and of sound doctrine, and of no confidence in a providentially preserved text in the minutiae, many folks see the older standard – the traditional – TR that to be retained.
When Isaiah 59:19KJV says, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him", some of us say yes, we have that standard, even though it is not as easy reading (I greatly appreciate the slightly flawed modern versions' help in this). Isaiah 59:21KJV also speaks of that standard's longevity.
True, the truth I speak of is so diminished in the eyes of some that one could say this is a subjective matter, and not empirical. That's the bone of contention. Like an old bulldog, I won't give up that bone.
The Byzantine was the "ecclesiastical text" in the Greek church for over a millennia. This Byzantine then became the foundation of the "ecclesiastical text" (primary church text, if you will) of the Reformation – with some very few readings that did not escape the ravages of the doctrinal wars of the early centuries, but were preserved in other mss, some in the Old Latin, and thus kept in that text.
It is true that this TR and its translations into English are no longer "the primary church text", at least in the eyes of many. In these days of the deterioration of the visible church, and of sound doctrine, and of no confidence in a providentially preserved text in the minutiae, many folks see the older standard – the traditional – TR that to be retained.
When Isaiah 59:19KJV says, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him", some of us say yes, we have that standard, even though it is not as easy reading (I greatly appreciate the slightly flawed modern versions' help in this). Isaiah 59:21KJV also speaks of that standard's longevity.
True, the truth I speak of is so diminished in the eyes of some that one could say this is a subjective matter, and not empirical. That's the bone of contention. Like an old bulldog, I won't give up that bone.
Van Bruggen addresses that himself:
My present interest is descriptive, rather than polemical.
