Problems with the modern text-critical approach and the ESV

[Hebrew Student]

armourbearer,

No, it is dealing, first, with the integrity of God's inspired word through the process of divine preservation, and secondly, with the legitimacy of translation. Even a general acquaintance with the doctrine of Scripture in post reformation dogmatics reveals that these are two different sub-topics.

It has everything to do with textual variation because the terms used by the Confession arose out of controversy with Romanists concerning their advocacy for the authenticity of the Greek version of the OT.

Again, I am still waiting for you to quote any record of the assembly to show that this is, indeed, what was discussed during the writing of this section of the confession. The context seems to be translation versus the original, as is clearly indicated when you read on.

There was no explicit discussion of textual criticism because there was already a consensus on the integrity of the Protestant Bible. Again, I refer to the previous three arguments which establish the main point in contention: "First, we have the plain statement of the Confession. Secondly, we have the traditional text which is reflected in their Scripture proofs. Thirdly, we have writings of the divines containing textual questions, which are decided on the side of the traditional text."

The point is that you have to establish that the divines were discussing this in the context of writing this section of the confession. If they did not explicitly do this, or did not do that in this context, then your entire interpretation seems to have very little foundation.

I thought we were discussing the integrity of the MT.

At any rate, the very fact that you mention E. F. Hills should alert you to the consistency of departing from some individual readings while holding the MT or the TR in principle. If Hills himself had never departed from the TR your quotation would mean something; as it stands, you have only managed to discover how little you know about the position you are opposing.

No, we were discussing whether Calvin held your position. I was quoting Hills' work on Calvin in order to show that even he admits that Calvin had a "humanistic tendency." Calvin clearly believed that there were errors in the TR, and, in the case of John 8:59, he actually agrees with modern critical texts against the TR. That's the point. In fact, that is not the only place. In eighteen other places he rejects TR readings in favor of critical text readings. Not only that, he, apparently, also made two conjectual emmendations: at James 4:2, and a deletion of John 2:14. Why would he need to make conjectual emendations if the word of God has been providentially preserved in the sense you are talking about?

Using the Greek version as a guide to translation is a wise and prudent thing to do; using it as the basis of textual emendation is an altogether different issue. I stand by my original statement. Look at the text which they translated. Appealing to their guides in translation is neither here nor there to settling the issue under debate.

I totally disagree that this is their context. They are dealing with the entire work of translation itself. Also, it should be mentioned that the KJV in many places leans on the Latin. Again, they are hardly following your principle.

Also, to say, "Just go back to what they used" is an absurd argument to begin with. The main problem is that we don't know what they would do if they had the other evidence. Right now, we don't have any Hebrew manuscripts of the Pentateuch from 750 BC. Let us say that, after I die, we do find them, and we learn some better insights into the transmission of the Pentateuch. Would it be acceptable for someone to look at my writings, and say that I believed in the preservation of the text, and therefore, we are to limit ourselves to what I had, and not consider the manuscripts of the Pentateuch that we have just found? No, such would be foolish.

In the same way, "use what they had" is making the assumption that they had access to all of the materials we have today, and were chosing the Masoretic Text over and against the Qumran Scrolls. Such is absurd.

The one "ecclesiastical text" represents a specific conviction as to the text which has been preserved; accompanying this conviction is the open acknowledgment that some work still needs to be done to clarify the variants within this accepted text.

Could I not, then, use the same arguments against you that you use against me? Where is your certainty, then, that the textual choices you choose are really the providentially preserved word of God? How will you know when you come upon those readings? Doesn't that make your knowledge of the "infallible word of God" likewise dependent upon man? How then does an appeal to the church even help you here?

And, as I have said, such a position is impossible to hold. The reason is because of the proto-masoretic material. An urtext of the Masoretic text is an oxymoron, because we know, from the Qumranic material, that the Masoretic text is one point along the line in transmission. Hence, the further you go back, the more the tradition is going to mix with other traditions, proving that, in reality, there is no "Masoretic text." The MT tradition is one rescention of the transmission of text.

Because, as you have so eloquently taught, this fallible church is the pillar and ground of the truth according to God's own appointment. I choose the fallible means of God's appointment over the fallible means which God has not appointed.

Either way, it is still fallible. God appointed the church to up hold the truth. There is no guarantee that the church will obey its calling. How do you know that the church is obeying its calling when it comes to text criticism?

If you want to revert to moral charges you should take your complaint to a moderator and undertake to prove it by clear evidence. Otherwise, retract your unsubstantiated accusation.

I simply don't need to. I have learned, as you deal on internet forums, that the best way to deal with people who say things that aren't true, is to just point people back to the truth. I have extensive discussion of the relationship between the LXX, MT, and NT on my post. If you choose to simply say that I am restating my position without ever demonstrating it, then you do so at your own peril, as anyone can read my discussion.

You have been provided with an alternate theory which equally accounts for variations from the MT in NT "citations." That alternate theory removes your ability to simply cite these variations as proof that the MT is not the preserved word of God. You could write thousands of pages documenting the variations and it would still fail to provide the proof which substantiates your claim. Thousands of witnesses attesting that a dark man with a scar on his right cheek and fair hair shot a police-officer does not prove that one particular dark man with a scar on his right cheek and fair hair shot a police-officer, especially when it can be shown that this particular man was somewhere else at the time. You would do well to go back and consider the variety of evidence and ensure that you have ruled out all other theories which might account for the evidence. It is not dishonest of any person to call another person to deal impartially and fully with the facts he is presenting.

Of course, if the man is being charged with not being there at the time, and his DNA is found at the scene of the crime, then it sorta destroys any hope of saying they weren't there, right? You have alleged that the LXX readings came about because of the NT citations. However, you can't have the effect of a cause be before the cause. It is a contradiction. The DNA of the man is in the house, Armourbearer. The LXX readings exist where, according to your theory, they should not.

Also, I think it is important to note that theories must have some basis in reality. Anyone can argue from silence. Also, at a certain point in time, one begins to see a element of desparation, where one has to take highly unlikely explainations in order to explain the data.

For example, we could find that, not only does the man's DNA appear at the scene of the crime, but, also, there was a note written in his diary saying that he was going to kill this person, and the murder weapon was found at his house. Now, let us say that the defense attourney argues that he was at a party several days before, and cut himself badly, so that blood was on the floor. He then argues that someone must have picked that blood up, and sealed it away in a vial. Then, he argues that this same man shot the individual, and planted his DNA on this person. He then broke into his client's house, forced him to write that note in his diary, planted the murder weapon in his house, and then left. Now, that does explain all of the evidence. However, do you not think that it is far fetched? And, of course, the question we must ask at this point is, "Where is the proof?" Also, don't you think it would look suspicious if the defense attourney only got this crazy story after he found out all of the evidence against his client?

That is the point. Not only are your explainations far fetched, [and, in the case of the explaination you gave, downright impossible] but they also seem to be made up just for the occasion of having to deal with the evidence presented against you. This is why I say, theories are fine, but they must have some basis in reality. As Van Til taught, we show the truth of presuppositions by showing the impossibility of the contrary. That is why we bring up specific data, to show that your views cannot comport with it. If a theory cannot deal with the reality of the situation, then what good is the theory?

God Bless,
Adam

 

[Willem van Oranje]

The ESV translators are making it really hard for the church to turn down their translation, due to the accuracy and skill of their translation work in certain places. Case in point:

John 1:16-17 ESV 16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Great! This rendering makes it plain (as it is in the Greek) that John is not contrasting Moses and Christ. Rather there is a progression of grace from Moses to Christ. "grace upon grace (ESV)" The KJV and NKJV unfelicitously insert the word But in verse 17, making it seem like a contrast between Moses and Christ. (But was a translation decision. It is not supported by any of the major Greek texts.)

I like their translation (ESV). I only wish they had used a better textual basis. The KJV needs updating, and the NKJV seems inadequate to me in many places (as a translation, mainly.) Alas!

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Adam,

I find it highly offensive you would charge an officer in the church with being “disingenuous” and “dishonest” because you do not appreciate their method of argumentation. I thought to expect better from you. Were this a military unit you would be court-martialed; it matters not that the one you accused is of a different church; a U.S. Marine reviling an Air Force officer would still be subject to military law. The church – and the government of God – has its laws which bear on this, and we are held to higher standards than the world’s armies.

You have demonstrated a lawless and insubordinate reviling spirit which disqualifies you from godly discourse. This is not a bar or a late-night duke-it-out session with other students. I would hope you have a change of heart.

I repeat what you said,

Well, I guess the question needs to be whether to pursue truth, or certainty.

You seem to think that it’s an either / or: If we pursue truth as regards the better texts and correct readings of Scripture we shall have to forsake certainty as to having an intact and preserved edition of the Bible.

You and I have been around this bush before. The Scriptures I give for my understanding of the Lord’s promises to preserve His word, you disallow and give a differing exegesis of them, both OT and NT, to try to invalidate the doctrine of preservation I hold forth.

You say,

I think the simple answer is, given your view, the church established two different preserved words of God for Habakkuk 1:5. The NT following the Rescention [sic] of the LXX, differs from the other preserved word of God, the Masoretic Text

It doesn’t follow. That the NT reading is close the LXX and one Hebrew mss varying from the standard Masoretic reading does not at all prove the NT reading came from the LXX.

I submit a comparison of the KJV, the LXX, Scrivener’s Greek, and the Masoretic Hebrew, taken from Dr. K.D. DiVietro’s, Did Jesus & the Apostles Quote the Septuagint (LXX), p. 49:

It is not a direct quote.

If anyone would “radically change or alter the text” you say? They would “stick out like a sore thumb” you say? Well, that’s what all this is about. Some have – or propose to – radically change or alter the text, and you’re among them. And it sticks out like a sore thumb! But you say that what you and other scholars propose “do not change any major Christian doctrines”. Now its just “major” doctrines! As though we can let “minor” doctrine slip away with the changes proposed. A major doctrine is God’s providential preservation of His word, both of the OT and the New. You seek to change that. We have been pretty outspoken concerning of what our doctrine consists. What about yours? What is your doctrine of preservation, if I might ask?

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[NaphtaliPress]

Calling a time out.

 

[MW]

If you want to revert to moral charges you should take your complaint to a moderator and undertake to prove it by clear evidence. Otherwise, retract your unsubstantiated accusation.

I simply don't need to. I have learned, as you deal on internet forums, that the best way to deal with people who say things that aren't true, is to just point people back to the truth.

I will return to the rest of your post on Monday, DV. For the present, please note, you didn't point me back to the truth, you charged me with dishonesty. That is a moral accusation which speaks against character; it says nothing about the facts in evidence. As a moderator I am calling on you to substantiate the charge or retract it. However experienced and wise your internet discussions may have made you, you don't make the rules of the board.

 

[MW]

This thread is now reopened.

 

[MW]

The point is that you have to establish that the divines were discussing this in the context of writing this section of the confession. If they did not explicitly do this, or did not do that in this context, then your entire interpretation seems to have very little foundation.

I have already pointed to the fact that these two sub-topics -- integrity of the text and legitimacy of translation -- are two different sub-topics in post reformation reformed dogmatics. One must be willing to look at the confession historically in order to have any hope of coming to a proper understanding of its contents. David Dickson, a 17th century reformed commentator, makes them two distinct questions in "Truth's Victory Over Error." He states that the Confession confutes two distinct errors of the Papists. Under question 12 he claims the Confession speaks of "the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, which are the fountains." He asserts the Papists err in saying they are corrupted. Under question 13 he draws attention to the Papist error of denying the necessity of "translating the original tongues into the vulgar language." Thus the text as the fountain of translation and the original tongues to be translated are seen as two very distinct issues addressed by the Confession of Faith. Your understanding that WCF 1.8 only addresses the issue of translation is an ahistorical reading of an historical document.

Again, it is not possible to point to the Minutes in the Assembly because the subject never came under debate. The person who would allege there was a difference of opinion on this subject is the one who is bound to provide evidence for it. I maintain there was a consensus.

In order to show the kind of thinking which was characteristic of the divines, I quote from John Lightfoot, perhaps the most distinguished of the divines for his attainments in biblical and oriental literature. He claims the vowels of the Masoretic text were original and appeals to "one jot and one tittle" to substantiate his claim -- the same text which is appended to the confessional statement as to the preservation of the Hebrew and Greek:

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

No, we were discussing whether Calvin held your position. I was quoting Hills' work on Calvin in order to show that even he admits that Calvin had a "humanistic tendency." Calvin clearly believed that there were errors in the TR, and, in the case of John 8:59, he actually agrees with modern critical texts against the TR. That's the point. In fact, that is not the only place. In eighteen other places he rejects TR readings in favor of critical text readings. Not only that, he, apparently, also made two conjectual emmendations: at James 4:2, and a deletion of John 2:14. Why would he need to make conjectual emendations if the word of God has been providentially preserved in the sense you are talking about?

All that is claimed for Calvin is not denied, but where does Calvin fit in the historical scheme of things? Debate with Romanists was still in process of formulation, as the diversity of Calvin's comments will reveal; but he certainly was not of a mind to concede to the Papists that the fountains are corrupt. Any textual position takes time to formulate and there is always scope for individual disagreement where the principles of preservation are maintained. The fact that Edward Hills is quoted as an authority for the TR position should be indicative that the TR position does not negate the need for textual criticism.

I totally disagree that this is their context. They are dealing with the entire work of translation itself. Also, it should be mentioned that the KJV in many places leans on the Latin. Again, they are hardly following your principle.

Yes, they are dealing with translation itself, not the thing to be translated.

Could I not, then, use the same arguments against you that you use against me? Where is your certainty, then, that the textual choices you choose are really the providentially preserved word of God? How will you know when you come upon those readings? Doesn't that make your knowledge of the "infallible word of God" likewise dependent upon man? How then does an appeal to the church even help you here?

We are going in circles. You have already advocated the church is God's appointed means for holding the truth up to the world. Your reference to Hills as a trustworthy witness for the TR position should indicate that there is no claim by TR advocates for infallibility of the human means. It is simply a matter of trusting oneself to the testimony God has established in His church. Nobody thinks for a moment that we can do without the testuimony of the church for discerning the canon of Scripture; then why should anyone think it can be dispensed with for discerning the text of Scripture?

 

[ThomasCartwright]

I agree with much of Rev Winzer's approach here - it is biblical and consistent. I would go a stage further than him in regarding the final TR under the KJV as the one the Church received, settled, and preached from (Jerusalem Blade and myself share the same conviction on this).

The issue of what the Reformers and the Westminster Divines has been dealt with at length. I personally did a huge amount of research in compiling their views on papers I submitted. Perhaps Adam would read those carefully and interact with the extended citations from our forefathers e.g. on areas such as why they used the term "authentical" in opposition to the "authentical Vulgate text"

http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/historic-reformed-position-preservation-48332/

http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/re-transmission-text-paper-51867/

 

[TimV]

I agree with much of Rev Winzer's approach here - it is biblical and consistent. I would go a stage further than him in regarding the final TR under the KJV as the one the Church received, settled, and preached from (Jerusalem Blade and myself share the same conviction on this).

If you've done a huge amount of research, that would be helpful to the discussion. We should make a list up of Reformed thinkers who have discussed the subject and put them into categories. Those who at times said the TR isn't word for word infallible and those who at times have said the TR is wrong.

I'll start, beginning with Reformed thinkers who have felt the TR is corrupted in places:
John Calvin
Theodore Beza
John Trapp
John Gill
Francis Turretin
Matthew Henry
Matthew Poole

and a guy named George Smeaton, whom I'd never heard of until you brought him up here claiming he was a fellow traveller (until Rev. Winzer showed he also makes the list)
http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/george-smeaton-tr-60831/

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

First, Tim, I want to apologize for my knee-jerk and unwarranted remarks to you in my post #93 (which the admin kindly deleted for me) re the IFBs (and for which I asked your forgiveness privately). Actually, you were quite even-handed in what you said. I’m sorry for that!

Tim, EF Hills' view falls between the absolute and the almost absolute (3 errors in the NT) fidelity of the TR and the AV to the original autographs. Will Kinney, a Reformed brother and no IFB, holds to the absolute fidelity of the AV, and he is no slouch.

Nor is there any fault in this! As though there were anything shameful or wrong with asserting that the Lord will preserve His every word, seeing as man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (cf. Matt 4:4). As though the Almighty cannot preserve His word – which he has magnified above all His name (Ps 138:2 AV) – when He has preserved our lives and selves down to the very atoms that would comprise us these many millennia since He conceived us in His mind before the foundation of the world!

It is thought by some such a big deal for the Lord to have inspired and then preserved through His providence every word of His Bible. Consider though: He knew us and loved us with an eternal love, and chose us to be in Christ from before the creation of the world, that is, way before we existed in the material world. He thus preserved the specific genetic information in our DNA and the raw molecular material needed for the formation and manifestation of our beings all through the violent and ravaged history of the human race down to our day, so that we would be the very beings He had conceived in “eternity past”. That kind of preservation of keeping the genetic information intact – along with other manifold conditions – so that you would manifest as He knew you in ages past is even more remarkable than keeping His words through the prophets, the Lord Christ, and the apostolic writers intact down through the ages.

If you exist, why should not a providentially preserved Bible?

As though it were a shameful thing to trust that God could and did preserve His word intact in the texts underlying the faithfully translated English AV, and gave us in the English a Bible that has extreme fidelity to the providentially preserved apographs. In this day, I suppose, disapproval comes from “the wise and the prudent” and upon His “babes” – His trusting children (Matt 11:25).

I will continue to honor and use the work of some IFBs. For they hold forth with good research and scholarship as they defend the Bible of the Reformation. The godly Independent Fundamental Baptists are choice saints in God’s eyes, and to be honored and loved, even though we may strongly differ with some of their views.


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Adam (Hebrew Student),

I think it wiser for me to follow your trail here in this thread, and stick with you. You start in post 35 by saying “it is an argument from silence” to note that the Majority Text (the Byz) has not been fully examined and classified, and thus we cannot be certain of what the majority of Byz readings really are.

I’ve examined this elsewhere (see here) (scroll down a bit). A brief excerpt from this link:

On this topic, I quote from Kevin James’, The Corruption of the Word: The Failure of Modern New Testament Scholarship (distributed by Micro-Load Press, 1990, ISBN: 0962442003):

Some examples of places where a King James wording seemingly has little support are given in the following chapters. Seemingly, because, while most existing New Testament copies have been roughly categorized into “majority” or “non-majority” groupings, the exact text of thousands of existing manuscripts is unknown except in a handful of places. [Emphasis mine –SMR]

It should be understood that it is impossible to prove which of two or more competing wording variations is the original since the originals have long since disappeared. But it is the height of folly to throw the settled received text of three and one-half centuries into the dustbin to make a revision when the exact contents of thousands of existing copies of mainstream tradition manuscripts is unknown [this last emphasis mine –SMR]. A clear picture of New Testament manuscript transmission history is also lacking. Finally, unless the vigilance of a living God is recognized, attempts at revision of the King James can easily stray from a stated target of supplying God’s people with a “better” New Testament.

Paul said: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21.) This should be the guiding principle for the Christian church when dealing with the intricacies of the wording of the original text. (pp. viii, ix)​

For those interested in reading this now out-of-print work (perhaps you can get it through Inter-library Loan), he collates and studies a number of Greek manuscripts in the following chapters.

To continue examining this phenomenon of thousands of majority text manuscripts deliberately unexamined and their testimony thus consigned to silence by the prejudice of the establishment CT critics, we turn to Frederik Wisse, in his, The Profile Method for the Classification and Evaluation of Manuscript Evidence (Eerdmans, 1982).

The late Kurt Aland, director of the manuscript centre at Muster, Germany – where about 80% of all Greek manuscripts are available on microfilm – admitted,

…the main problem in N.T. textual criticism lies in the fact that little more than their actual existence is known of most of the manuscripts…(The Significance of the Papyrii pp. 330,1, quoted in Pickering’s The Identity of the New Testament Text)​

Jack Moorman points out (quoting from Hodges/Farstad 'Majority' Text Refuted By Evidence (also titled When the King James Departs from the “Majority Text”)), “However, Aland’s interest in the vast repository of MS evidence which he oversees is not what we would expect…Wisse explains:”

Yet Aland’s interest in the minuscules is not for their own sake. He is no longer satisfied with Hort’s judgment that the discovery of important cursives is most improbable. He wants to find the few hypothetical nuggets which Hort did not think were worth the effort. Aland wants to be able to say that he has searched the minuscules exhaustively for anything of value. This search of course, presupposed that the minuscules as such are of little value…Minuscules have to pass a test before they are worthy of inclusion in a textual apparatus. All MSS which are generally Byzantine will fail (Profile Method, p. 4)​

It is far from an argument of silence, but rather a quiet scandal among text critics.

Your statement (still in post 35),

“Even worse, majority does not rule. There are many reasons for a manuscript being in the majority that have nothing whatsoever to do with it being the original reading.”

while true, does not do justice to the phenomenon of the majority of cursive NT mss. I won’t enter into a discussion of this here (but I will if necessary) as I have bigger fish to fry. You merely give a sound bite for the Westcott/Hort theory which has been pretty much debunked by the critics (although they have found nothing to replace that theory), and the entire discipline is in trouble and in disarray, despite die-hard workers like Dr. Wallace who labor to photograph and classify all the mss, whom you gotta respect even if in disagreement with him.

Still in post 35, you say,

“Also, just a general statement here. I am very concerned about the fact that many of these arguments are starting to sound Roman Catholic. "We must accept a certain text because the church says so" is, in essence, what is being said. While I agree that the church has authority that authority is not infallible! Scripture is the only authority that is infallible. Remember that it was this same logic [the infallibility of the church] that gave us Sixtus V's "infallible" Latin Vulgate.

While this topic of the church is discussed later in the thread, I want to remark here that what it seems you are suggesting is tantamount to, “It will be the text critics who finally decide what text we accept.” More on that as we go on.

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In post #39 you say

I agree that the Hebrew and Greek are the final authority. However, the Greek Septuagint is very important in the reconstruction of the Hebrew text because its vorlage is very old; in some cases, at least as old as the DSS. We have to take into account that it is a translation, but, as we study the translation methodology of the translators of the LXX, we are able to discern their techniques, and understand how that relates to the vorlage. That also goes for the Peshitta and the Vulgate. They are all extremely important even though they are not written in Hebrew. Compare this with the DSS, the Wadi Murabba'at manuscripts, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Masoretic Manuscripts, the Cairo Geneza fragments, etc., and you have plenty of material for reconstruction [sic] the text of the Hebrew Bible.

In Karen Jobes and Moisés Silva’s (K&J), Invitation To The Septuagint (pp. 157, 158), they discuss this:

[The] example of 2 Samuel 14:30 [previously discussed by them –SMR] shows how frustratingly difficult it is to reach a firm conclusion about the Hebrew vorlage [a German word used of the parent text from which a translation is made –SMR] of the Greek. Recovery of the parent text of the LXX remains a hypothetical ideal, even with possession of the Qumran scrolls, and therefore the value of the LXX for the textual criticism of the Hebrew text remains indirect. Anneli Aejmelaeus prefaces her article “What Can We Know about the Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint?” with this reminder:

The use of the Septuagint in textual criticism of the OT is essentially concerned with tracing the Hebrew text underlying the translation, i.e., the Vorlage of the translators, and comparing it with the MT. The Vorlage is thus presupposed to be somehow within our reach. Nevertheless, it is a text that is lost to us for good and all. The rich discoveries of the past decades have not brought to light any text that could be identified as the Vorlage, nor can this be expected to happen in the future. All we know about the Vorlage is thus in fact secondhand knowledge, and that is the problem. (Aejmelaeus, Trail of the Septuagint Translators, 77 [emphasis added by K&J].​

I think you overstate your case, Adam, and posit a certainty for your assertions which is not recognized by authorities in the field.

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In your post #43, Adam, you respond to JM:

JM: Dr. Daniel Wallace is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and is considered an expert inn ancient biblical Greek and New Testament criticism. In a blog post about the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature he wrote,

"As remarkable as it may sound, most biblical scholars are not Christians. I don’t know the exact numbers, but my guess is that between 60% and 80% of the members of SBL do not believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, or that he was bodily raised from the dead."​

Adam: And yet, isn't it amazing that Dr. Wallace is one of those Christians out there fighting on the front lines against the attacks on the faith that these folks bring. The difference is that Dr. Wallace does so on the basis of looking at the facts with a mind to the lordship of Christ.

You just glossed right over the pertinent quote JM offered from Wallace. Yes, Wallace is (as noted above) on the front lines, but the prevalence of unbelievers “working on the church’s Bible” (both OT and N) is shocking. Small wonder many in the church distrust the “Bible industry” and its “scholars”!

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In post #46 you interact with JM again:

JM: We cannot declare the originals only, exchanging "King James Onlyism" for "Original Text Onlyism," our very idea of sola scriptura does not allow for it. Without a foundational set of manuscripts Protestantism is reduced to just one of many traditions with sola scriptura a late development and no less of a tradition then that found in Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism. This tradition is reduced to a Magisterium of scholars instead of Popes, Cardinals and Bishops. We have replaced the Roman Magisterium with a Magisterium of Textual Critics, the latter acts as the final authority, and the former tells us what the final authority might be.

Adam: Well, I guess the question needs to be whether to pursue truth, or certainty. It is not a matter of a "magisterium" of textual critics. I have my Biblia Hebrica Stuttgartensia, a copy of the LXX, the Peshitta, and the Vulgate, as well as access to the text of the Samaritan Pentatuch, the DSS, the Wadi Murabba'at material, and the Masoretic manuscripts. It is not a matter of believing whatever scholars say; I can go out an check it on my own. It is *you* who is bound to the decisions of the Masorites, who were not even Christians. You must say that their text is infallible [even though there are differences between Masoretic Manuscripts, a fact which really means that there is no "Masoretic Text."]

As far as Sola Scriptura being a late development, that is simply absurd. While the specific terms were not used, Sola Scriptura is one idea that has a very good historical pedigree. I do believe you are giving *way* too much credit to Roman Catholics.

Well, here we have again your infamous “pursue truth or certainty” quote! It sure appears to me you are pitting “a foundational set of manuscripts” against pursuing “truth” discerned by textual critics. And you punctuate your meaning with this remark: “there are differences between Masoretic Manuscripts, a fact which really means that there is no ‘Masoretic Text’ ”.

You say you have all those materials to “check on your own” while we poor slobs are bound to the decisions of the Masoretes. The problem is, first, you approach the field – quite unlike the Hebrew scholar Robert Dick Wilson – with the presupposition that God’s preservation of the text did not reside with any particular edition, but that preservation could be ascertained by you and your colleagues “checking on your own” among all the mss, variants, and editions, and you would come to some sort of conclusions about what the Bible really is. (Info on R.D. Wilson, an unusual Hebraic scholar here.)

You will pardon me if I am skeptical in the extreme. Your champion (in the NT arena), Dr. Wallace, has gone on record as saying God did not preserve the Bible, but that the critics can figure it out anyway.

We, on the other hand, say that God did indeed preserve His words, both in the OT and the New, according to His promises. He preserved it in the Ben Chayyim Masoretic edition, and in the Greek Textus Receptus underlying the New Testament. You of course will seek to marshal tons of evidences to refute this, and we will deal with that. If the Lord has not preserved His word in the MT and TR, and given us a faithful translation in the KJV, then He hasn’t done it, or done it yet. Which latter option means that the great missionary outreaches of the English-speaking nations were done using corrupt and false-reading Bibles, the Reformation was erected on a false foundation and Rome was right all along with her critiques of our Scripture and doctrine built on it, and we await some miraculous event wherein God will finally give us His preserved word (although multitudes gave their lives for the printing and disseminating the false-reading AV), even though it does appear that we are nearing the end – the little season when that wicked shall be released from those chains to gather the whole earth to war on the camp of the saints. Or maybe the Lord will give us a present in the New Earth and Heaven: His word which is (at least) settled in Heaven (Ps 119:89).

You folks will, I trust, bear with my sarcasm. It is certain that the text-critics will vote down any suggestion that a preserved version shall arise out the Critical or Eclectic textforms!

Despite the hordes of detractors scrambling like Will Smith’s nightwalkers to overwhelm the citadel wherein God’s intact word is kept, it shall stand. For He did indeed, by His great power and wisdom, so design and purpose that the true readings, by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, were given in a final perfect form to the church come of age and purified in doctrine, that she might cast off the chains of harlot Babylon, and thwart the fatal thrusts of the antichrist (the manifestation thereof in that day).

In our own day, harlot Babylon has spread her tentacles way beyond the precincts of the Roman “church”, enlisting the 2nd beast, the false prophet, to re-wage the Romish assault, her formidable weapons polished and honed by the phalanxes of scholars schooled and hired by the Bible Industrial Complex to crank up the presses and make big bucks through their infamous Bible-of-the-week club.

Consider: As I said to Tim, cannot the Almighty preserve His word – which he has magnified above all His name (Ps 138:2 AV) – when He has preserved our lives and selves down to the very atoms that would comprise us these many millennia since He conceived us in His mind before the foundation of the world! He thus preserved the specific genetic information in our DNA and the raw molecular material needed for the formation and manifestation of our beings all through the violent and ravaged history of the human race down to our day, so that we would be the very beings He had conceived in “eternity past”.

If He preserved our respective information in the DNA (how many of us are there?), cannot He preserve His words, despite the violence and ravages of the ages?

He is quite able to see to it that that His choice of information is kept intact in the Ben Chayyim ms that made its way into the AV translators’ hands, despite the howls of rage and protest without the citadel.

---------

Adam, you have said (in post #53),

I think the point is, if the NT authors were willing to depart from the MT in their citations, then why do you have a problem with modern versions departing from the MT, when the very book you call scripture does it! If the MT is the preserved word of God, why would the NT authors be quoting the LXX?

Well, they don’t, despite your claims. The NT authors may well depart from the MT, but not in citing the LXX, rather rephrasing the Hebrew according as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance. I reintroduce an example of that here:

This was not the TR in Acts 13:41 citing the LXX in Hab 1:5, but Luke diverging from the MT to rephrase what the prophet has said, which sort of thing the Holy Spirit has done a number of times.

For the NT rendering to qualify as a citation it would have to be a direct quote, which it clearly is not. Whatever it is, it is not an LXX quote, despite the similarity of expression. Similarity does not qualify to be classified as a citation.

Still in 53, you say,

In issues of ultimate authority, it is a terrible idea to just go back to the church. We need to be those who seek truth, and that means knowing the history and transmission of our text, and how we got it since, after all, it is the final authority.

My point is that those teachings, no matter what variants you accept, give us the standard and foundation upon which the church must stand.

We go to the Scriptures, which the church uses to form its confessions and creeds. The question is, whose exegesis – whose understanding – do we look to as we seek to know what the ultimate authority of Scripture says, and to judge the confessions accordingly?

Do we go to such as yourself, or your colleagues, in the Text-critical Industry? Speaking for myself and a multitude of others, NO. We do not trust you or your method in these matters.

-----------

In post #68, you said to Armourbearer,

The issue is not the preservation, but the means and mode of that preservation. We both agree that God has preserved his word. That is not the issue. The issue is the means and mode. I would argue that this mode that has been presented so far on this board can be found nowhere in scripture, and you have to appeal to the church in order to make this work. That has been the pattern so far on this board.

I have asked you elsewhere, what exactly is your view of how “God has preserved his word”.

You say of us (and you say it a lot) we “have to appeal to the church” to support our view of preservation. If we appeal to the WCF it is because it reflects the Scripture, the ultimate authority.

For example, the Lord Jesus said,

It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matt 4:4).​

And Peter said that God, by His

divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that called us to glory and virtue (2 Pet 1:3).​

The “words” in Matt 4:4 may refer to commands, sayings, and individual words; I would say it refers to them all, though I know you don’t like to hear about “individual words” as this doesn’t fit in with your exegetical theory. Nevertheless it stands, just as it does in Jeremiah 26:2, when Jeremiah is told to speak “all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word”. Even so, “every word” in Matt 4:4 may, without a stretch, mean every single word. And if He has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness – and we must live by every word He has spoken – then it follows He would provide that which we need to live. We have gone around this bush before here.

So if I ever appeal to the Westminster Confession (at 1:8), it is because the Confession itself appeals to those Scriptures which support it, and it reflects the clear teaching of Scripture, despite the denials of those who oppose our exegesis and our understanding.

You made an assertion (still in post #68) in an exchange with Armourbearer,

Armourbearer: there is no proof that the NT authors departed from the MT in their "citations." It must first be proved that the NT authors "cited" OT texts in accord with empirical rules of citation before these citations can be used empirically to certify evidence.

Adam: Of course, the problem with this is that we have actual Hebrew manuscripts that read at Habakkuk 1:5 exactly as Acts 13:41 cites this passage, such as 4QpHab.

According to the comparison I provided above examining these two texts, you appear to have fudged the truth with your word “exactly”. For the TR and the LXX are not exact in their wording, and your example fails of the criteria required to warrant calling it a citation. You seem to overstate your cases fairly regularly.

Some information from Dr. Thomas Holland on the proto-masoretic text here (scroll down a little), to give another perspective on it.

I’ve written quite a bit already, so I’ll close this post, and may write further in another.

 

[ThomasCartwright]

If you've done a huge amount of research, that would be helpful to the discussion. We should make a list up of Reformed thinkers who have discussed the subject and put them into categories. Those who at times said the TR isn't word for word infallible and those who at times have said the TR is wrong.

I'll start, beginning with Reformed thinkers who have felt the TR is corrupted in places:
John Calvin
Theodore Beza
John Trapp
John Gill
Francis Turretin
Matthew Henry
Matthew Poole

and a guy named George Smeaton, whom I'd never heard of until you brought him up here claiming he was a fellow traveller (until Rev. Winzer showed he also makes the list)
http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/george-smeaton-tr-60831/

Perhaps you could Tim, as you claim to accept no one's view but cannot as yet articulate any doctrine of preservation for yourself. I have read countless objections from you and never ONCE a biblical model for determining the Words of God. I am assuming you actually believe in the Sufficiency of Scripture doctrine so go ahead and prove it.

We all accept that there were minor errors in the editions of the TR as that is why they are around 250 differences!! The only debate between those in the TR camp is which ones they are and how to determine a conclusion. In my mind there is only one consistent solution that leads us to a settled objective test for this.

Many of those who you cite above as accepting some errors in some of the editions of the TR do not reject the position I hold to. They may do but we can never know for sure. For one, they were dead before the final edition of the TR was recognised, received, and settled by the Church. Secondly, they do not have the benefit of hindsight in seeing what God has stamped His providential seal of approval on through the Church for the last 400 years. However, what they and people like George Smeaton, Rev Winzer etc. see is that the TR textual basis must be linked to the true Church's recognition and reception as led by a Providential God. They also reject the stream of manuscripts leading to the "authentical text" under the Vulgate. That is why the Divines accepted 1 John 5:7 and the long ending of the Lord's Prayer in their Confessional documents. You may not like it, but those of us in the TR camp here are being consistent with the broad paradigms they articulated for judging the textual question.

---------- Post added at 03:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 PM ----------

Yes, the confession demands the vulgar tongue. The KJV isn't vulgar. I've seen every argument under the sun that claims the KJV is vulgar and it's all nonsense. Pull a guy off the street and he won't understand it. So the KJV is NOT confessional. No way. Those arguments saying that we have to "teach" KJV language to the masses are ridiculous.

I came across this response by a writer, who is no friend of the KJV, but answers this type of "seeker-sensitive" logic:

It will not do to say that language has changed so readers accustomed to the new order must be accommodated for evangelical reasons, as though these changes were not imposed by an anti-Christian ideology enforced by political and economic sanctions. Even if the language were undergoing natural evolution to a more egalitarian form quite apart from these artificial and all too frequently mandatory constraints, the Scriptures themselves provide a theological-grammatical contradiction that requires, for those who regard them as authoritative, the reformation not of biblical, but of vernacular language. If, for example, our native speech had only a gender-neutral word to describe the human race, our conversion to the Christian faith and its theology would necessitate the addition of “man” to our vocabulary as its proper name.

It is more than dismaying to hear educated people who present themselves as orthodox, resting their own teaching authority on an infallible Bible, insist that our standard for its translation includes conformance to the mind and vocabulary of people whose discourse and understanding their Bibles tell them is pervaded by sin and error. The proponents of these new versions have got it exactly backwards: It is the Word of God that is to rule the word of man, not the other way around. The first question to be asked is not whether language has changed, but how God has taught us to speak. Where the ancestral tongue serves Scripture, altering it so it can serve no longer must be identified by Christians not as change to accept, but as corruption to resist.

Admittedly, part of the reason for the eclipse of the issue in our minds may be that few of us still belong to, or will regularly attend, churches where these Bibles are used or where teaching on these matters is foggy or the subject of lively debate. Speaking for my wife and myself, we will not attend a church, however orthodox or Evangelical it claims to be, where the teaching authority sees no problem in the use of egalitarian Bibles or in singing hymns that have been revised in accordance with feminist sensibilities. We will not have our children’s minds formed in this consciousness as though it were Christian, nor will we allow our own sensibilities to become dulled, having seen so many friends drift into heterodoxy by constant, unresisted exposure to error.

The churches must stand against what is heard everywhere else, even though the whole world be against them, actively teach where the error in such matters lies, and present a clear example of what is right in their own discourse. What good, after all, is a church whose main object is professedly to “win people to Christ,” when the Christ they are winning them to is a Christ whose maleness, like all maleness, has no deep significance—that is, a Christ who does not exist? Such churches, though they multiply converts, are, but for an intervening grace, winning them to an idol. Our alienation from them does not mean we won’t publish any more on the topic, but we do think the basic issue has been firmly and frequently addressed in these pages.

 

[TimV]

If you exist, why should not a providentially preserved Bible?

Steve, I'll not deny there are many compelling arguments for both the largely Fundamental Baptist school of though that you and Ferguson champion as are there for the largely Reformed school that Rev. Winzer represents, but I thought it would be valuable to make a list up. I admit to a great deal of curiosity as to how many Reformed thinkers from, say, 1550 to 1750 held to the position that the TR is without error.

Perhaps you could Tim, as you claim to accept no one's view

Untrue!! I've said several times Pastor B. Buchanan of this forum and my denomination expressed my views (more clearly than me).

Many of those who you cite above as accepting some errors in some of the editions of the TR do not reject the position I hold to. They may do but we can never know for sure.

Yes, they all reject your position since every single one of them differs at points from every single edition of the TR that's every been published!
Edit: Smeaton shouldn't be on that list. He would be on an anti Fundamental Baptist school of thought list, but not on an anti Reformed school of thought list.

 

[Willem van Oranje]

If you've done a huge amount of research, that would be helpful to the discussion. We should make a list up of Reformed thinkers who have discussed the subject and put them into categories. Those who at times said the TR isn't word for word infallible and those who at times have said the TR is wrong.

I'll start, beginning with Reformed thinkers who have felt the TR is corrupted in places:
Kohn Calvin
Theodore Beza
John Trapp
John Gill
Francis Turretin
Matthew Henry
Matthew Poole

and a guy named George Smeaton, whom I'd never heard of until you brought him up here claiming he was a fellow traveller (until Rev. Winzer showed he also makes the list)
http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/geor...aton-tr-60831/

This is a red herring. The OP is not about the Textus Receptus being an infallible text, it's about the place of continuity with the historic textual testimony of the church when doing textual criticism. This is a critical criterion which is rejected out of hand by modern text critics because they presuppose that the text has been corrupted.

 

[TimV]

This is a critical criterion which is rejected out of hand by modern text critics because they presuppose that the text has been corrupted.

That's the purpose of the list. People who think the text has been corrupted. Now, since preservation is so central a teaching it shouldn't be hard to find to find a large number of Reformed thinkers who say the text

a) has been corrupted but can be fixed by working only within the Byzantine tradition (Reformed KJVO school)
b) was corrupted until the present form of the TR was published and no longer is (Fundamental Baptist KJVO school)

 

[Willem van Oranje]

This is a critical criterion which is rejected out of hand by modern text critics because they presuppose that the text has been corrupted.

That's the purpose of the list. People who think the text has been corrupted. Now, since preservation is so central a teaching it shouldn't be hard to find to find a large number of Reformed thinkers who say the text

a) has been corrupted but can be fixed by working only within the Byzantine tradition (Reformed KJVO school)
b) was corrupted until the present form of the TR was published and no longer is (Fundamental Baptist KJVO school)

Not sure where the "KJV only" stuff came into this discussion. We are discussing Hebrew and Greek texts, not English translations.

I think that anyone who holds that the text has been corrupted is going to have a hard time affirming that, "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, [was] by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages..." WCF 1.8

My assumption is that the Masoretic Text and the Textus Receptus are essentially pure. This would not preclude the need or admissability of minor corrections, which would only become effective by common consent of the church based on irrefutable evidence. This is the position of the WCF as I read it. The theologians you cited are in agreement that these texts are pure. Their expressed doubts or deviations from it are very minor.

Now, as everything else asserted in the WCF, its doctrine of preservation is open to debate and refutation by those who disagree or do not subscribe. There are those whom you note, who think that the text has been corrupted. The burden of proof rests on them to prove their case based on the available evidence, if they can. As yet I am not convinced. I see too much subjectivity in their methodology, and the fruit of their assumption that the text has been corrupted. The premise leads the conclusion. This premise must be proven, (the premise that the Masoretic Text and TR have been corrupted.) It cannot merely be assumed. Otherwise their argument is simply not convincing.

 

[MW]

That's the purpose of the list. People who think the text has been corrupted.

There is a huge theological problem with that claim. It is one thing to weigh evidence for different readings and perhaps arrive at a different conclusion regarding an individual reading; it is quite another thing to claim the text has been corrupted. The Reformation stands on belief in an infallible Bible against the claims of an infallible magisterium. The basic contention of the Reformation is that the fountains have not been corrupted. The basic contention of Rome is that they have been corrupted.

Now, I know it might sound somewhat contradictory to say that the text is preserved and yet there might be differences as to the weight afforded to individual readings, but they really are different issues. The issue of preservation is bound to the question of an infallbile Bible. The issue of differences is bound to the question of a fallible Church.

Let's be clear as to the state of the question. The question has nothing to do with justifying the text underlying the AV translation. I think it can be shown without too much difficulty that the AV uses a slightly different "TR" to that which was later adopted. The question has everything to do with demonstrating the validity of our Reformation claim to stand on the principle of sola scriptura.

Let's be clear as to the state of the evidence. As matters stand there is not one word in all the mss. which have come down to us that can be proven by an empirical process to be the word of an inspired prophet or apostle. Not one word! In every text-critical theory, just as in every canonical theory, one must believe in a ministerial tradition (note, ministerial, not magisterial) which has been used by Providence to preserve the words of inspiration for the church. Most text critical theories make no account of this fact. The modern eclectic theory is outrightly antagonistic to it. To date, the only text critical school which has made any attempt to give this ministerial tradition the weight it deserves is the school to which men like Burgon, Scrivener, Hills, and Letis have given their name.

Let's be clear as to the state of the enquiry. It is conducted by fallible men. We are simply bound to accept that fact. If we do not accept that fact then we find ourselves chained again to a magisterium. But there is an infallible as well as a fallible presupposition upon which the enquiry might be conducted. A person who holds to preservation begins with a presupposition based on divine testimony and proceeds to weigh the evidence accordingly. A person who holds to corruption begins with a presupposition based on human observation and proceeds to weigh the evidence accordingly. It is the presupposition which is the decisive factor because it determines what the "critic" is open or closed to receive.

Where does that leave matters? It leaves the subject in a state of decision. The person who studies the subject must choose from the outset the principles by which he will conduct his study.

 

[jayce475]

This is a critical criterion which is rejected out of hand by modern text critics because they presuppose that the text has been corrupted.

That's the purpose of the list. People who think the text has been corrupted. Now, since preservation is so central a teaching it shouldn't be hard to find to find a large number of Reformed thinkers who say the text

a) has been corrupted but can be fixed by working only within the Byzantine tradition (Reformed KJVO school)
b) was corrupted until the present form of the TR was published and no longer is (Fundamental Baptist KJVO school)

Tim,

I might only have a fairly basic understanding of textual preservation, but if I'm reading you right, you are essentially saying that those of us who hold onto the TR position without claiming the underlying AV text to be the correct reading among variants believe that our bibles are corrupted? I don't have a corrupted bible, because God's Word promises it to be perfect. When you hold your bible in your hands, with your disdain towards what we call preservation, do you believe that you have an uncorrupted bible? Or are you quite comfortable with the thought that "bible in hand, give or take a few mistakes, corrupted through the centuries, is still quite sufficient for my faith"?

 

[TimV]

I might only have a fairly basic understanding of textual preservation, but if I'm reading you right, you are essentially saying that those of us who hold onto the TR position without claiming the underlying AV text to be the correct reading among variants believe that our bibles are corrupted? I don't have a corrupted bible, because God's Word promises it to be perfect.

You've just contradicted yourself. On this thread JB and TM claim they hold in their hands a perfect Bible totally without faults. Rev. Winzer accepts that certain words may be wrongly included in the Bible. If I remember correctly some months ago he used the word corrupted when talking about the word Lord as opposed to Holy One in Rev. 16:5.

If you say that the underlying text of the KJV doesn't always have the correct reading among variants you can't say the Bible in your hands is perfect.

 

[Willem van Oranje]

I might only have a fairly basic understanding of textual preservation, but if I'm reading you right, you are essentially saying that those of us who hold onto the TR position without claiming the underlying AV text to be the correct reading among variants believe that our bibles are corrupted? I don't have a corrupted bible, because God's Word promises it to be perfect.

You've just contradicted yourself. On this thread JB and TM claim they hold in their hands a perfect Bible totally without faults. Rev. Winzer accepts that certain words may be wrongly included in the Bible. If I remember correctly some months ago he used the word corrupted when talking about the word Lord as opposed to Holy One in Rev. 16:5.

If you say that the underlying text of the KJV doesn't always have the correct reading among variants you can't say the Bible in your hands is perfect.

"X. Have the original texts of the Old and New Testaments come down to us pure and uncorrupted? We affirm against the papists." --Francis Turretin, heading of chapter X in the Institutes of Elenctic Theology.

Turretin acknowledges that minor errors have crept in to individual manuscripts, but affirms that the entire original text was preserved within the body handed down, and that those Hebrew and Greek texts which had been preserved in the church and handed down through the centuries are sufficiently true to the original to be the standard of faith and practice, and that they are to be used to correct "versions" such as the Vulgate and Septuagint, and not vice-versa. This is substantially my position, and it is the way in which I believe the Westminster divines were using the word, "pure." What evidence can you present to disprove this essential purity?

 

[jayce475]

I might only have a fairly basic understanding of textual preservation, but if I'm reading you right, you are essentially saying that those of us who hold onto the TR position without claiming the underlying AV text to be the correct reading among variants believe that our bibles are corrupted? I don't have a corrupted bible, because God's Word promises it to be perfect.

You've just contradicted yourself. On this thread JB and TM claim they hold in their hands a perfect Bible totally without faults. Rev. Winzer accepts that certain words may be wrongly included in the Bible. If I remember correctly some months ago he used the word corrupted when talking about the word Lord as opposed to Holy One in Rev. 16:5.

If you say that the underlying text of the KJV doesn't always have the correct reading among variants you can't say the Bible in your hands is perfect.

Riley and Rev Winzer have explained at length why we do not believe our bibles to be corrupted. Why is TM by the way? You mean Dr Ferguson?

 

[Grimmson]

This is a critical criterion which is rejected out of hand by modern text critics because they presuppose that the text has been corrupted.

That's the purpose of the list. People who think the text has been corrupted. Now, since preservation is so central a teaching it shouldn't be hard to find to find a large number of Reformed thinkers who say the text

a) has been corrupted but can be fixed by working only within the Byzantine tradition (Reformed KJVO school)
b) was corrupted until the present form of the TR was published and no longer is (Fundamental Baptist KJVO school)

Tim,

I might only have a fairly basic understanding of textual preservation, but if I'm reading you right, you are essentially saying that those of us who hold onto the TR position without claiming the underlying AV text to be the correct reading among variants believe that our bibles are corrupted? I don't have a corrupted bible, because God's Word promises it to be perfect. When you hold your bible in your hands, with your disdain towards what we call preservation, do you believe that you have an uncorrupted bible? Or are you quite comfortable with the thought that "bible in hand, give or take a few mistakes, corrupted through the centuries, is still quite sufficient for my faith"?

I think it is fair to say that the Bible is God’s preserved Word. Now with that said, in the versions of the Bible and manuscripts that we have we can see there are differences in readings applied when comparing to earlier attempts of textual criticism (TR for example) to early and later manuscript traditions (4th century and onwards). To deny this fact would be intellectually dishonest and a claim that those found manuscripts is not the Word of God. A category needs to be set up where by scripture has been preserved as the Word of God, and at the same time recognize alterations (and additions) in the wording and the subjection of human traditions applied to the text for further commentary or explanatory purposes. The category is called the tenacity of scripture; which I am sure many of the ESV translators presuppositionly consider if they are in the faith. If they are not in the faith then it is not to much of an issue if there approach is carefully looked upon, because even heretics and schematics under common grace can do good work. Sometimes better and more honest work then many that professes the Christian faith.

Comparing the older scripture ( from the fourth century and earlier) with the later copies of that same scripture ( later fourth through seventh and then with eighth through twelve) is a decent approach to bring back the manuscripts that the authors of Holy Write wrote. There should be a concern if we look at a text and see difference in what was read in their church and what is read in ours, regardless of the centuries applied. We should not be subject to our traditions, but instead of the Word of God in truth. The reason why the King James Only folks comes up time and time again in this dissuasion is because of the criticisms of such a approach with a tradition that says that the TR and/or AV is the only inspired text of the Church. Looking to the TR and the AV only throws out the majority of textual manuscripts and work that could possibly be done in the fear of removing words that are subjected to their own tradition. In this case it is the tradition that is dictating the Word of God and not the Word of God by the comparison of the varying readings, older or not.

I been teaching a bible study on the Gospel of John and I gave a brief explanation of textual criticism because we were going to cover chapter five that week (5:3b-4 being a major variant). It was indeed an interesting conversation, because there was one person who though that the Bible was corrupted and was not recovered until the AV. This is a person in her 70s, lived her whole life attending church, that held to this. I dealt with that issue with a brief history of the Bible and its transmission, affirming that the Word of God has always existed. Affirming the LXX is the Word of God, Codex Sinaiticus is the Word of God, the TR is the Word of God, the NA27 is the Word of God, and the NASB is the Word of God (and am not denying any other major translations of such either, like the NKJV, NIV, and ESV). My goal was for them to have confidence in their Bible. Now, I didn’t push it in the study but if you were to ask me if 5:4 belongs in John then I would tell you no; and I would implement Chrysostom pattern of scripture quotation in his homilies on John and Tertullian’s application as it relates to the text. I do not see how denying that passage as scripture( under the category of the Word of God) makes one incompetent, not able to be equipped by God to do good work, also to hurt their training in righteousness, teaching, reproof, and correction. I also do not see the individual words as inspired, but instead the meaning of the reading of the text that is inspired; which is why I can turn to varying translations and early manuscripts and affirm them as God’s revealed infallible preserved Word concerning everything perfectly alone sufficient regarding salvation and instruction in righteousness.

If such a view makes me a heretic on the standards of some here then so be it. It is not based on myself as individual, or if it may or may not convict me. But it is instead by the reading of Scripture, Scripture coming from earlier manuscripts of the same text that I see as scripture.

 

[jayce475]

This is a critical criterion which is rejected out of hand by modern text critics because they presuppose that the text has been corrupted.

That's the purpose of the list. People who think the text has been corrupted. Now, since preservation is so central a teaching it shouldn't be hard to find to find a large number of Reformed thinkers who say the text

a) has been corrupted but can be fixed by working only within the Byzantine tradition (Reformed KJVO school)
b) was corrupted until the present form of the TR was published and no longer is (Fundamental Baptist KJVO school)

Tim,

I might only have a fairly basic understanding of textual preservation, but if I'm reading you right, you are essentially saying that those of us who hold onto the TR position without claiming the underlying AV text to be the correct reading among variants believe that our bibles are corrupted? I don't have a corrupted bible, because God's Word promises it to be perfect. When you hold your bible in your hands, with your disdain towards what we call preservation, do you believe that you have an uncorrupted bible? Or are you quite comfortable with the thought that "bible in hand, give or take a few mistakes, corrupted through the centuries, is still quite sufficient for my faith"?

I think it is fair to say that the Bible is God’s preserved Word. Now with that said, in the versions of the Bible and manuscripts that we have we can see there are differences in readings applied when comparing to earlier attempts of textual criticism (TR for example) to early and later manuscript traditions (4th century and onwards). To deny this fact would be intellectually dishonest and a claim that those found manuscripts is not the Word of God. A category needs to be set up where by scripture has been preserved as the Word of God, and at the same time recognize alterations (and additions) in the wording and the subjection of human traditions applied to the text for further commentary or explanatory purposes. The category is called the tenacity of scripture; which I am sure many of the ESV translators presuppositionly consider if they are in the faith. If they are not in the faith then it is not to much of an issue if there approach is carefully looked upon, because even heretics and schematics under common grace can do good work. Sometimes better and more honest work then many that professes the Christian faith.

Comparing the older scripture ( from the fourth century and earlier) with the later copies of that same scripture ( later fourth through seventh and then with eighth through twelve) is a decent approach to bring back the manuscripts that the authors of Holy Write wrote. There should be a concern if we look at a text and see difference in what was read in their church and what is read in ours, regardless of the centuries applied. We should not be subject to our traditions, but instead of the Word of God in truth. The reason why the King James Only folks comes up time and time again in this dissuasion is because of the criticisms of such a approach with a tradition that says that the TR and/or AV is the only inspired text of the Church. Looking to the TR and the AV only throws out the majority of textual manuscripts and work that could possibly be done in the fear of removing words that are subjected to their own tradition. In this case it is the tradition that is dictating the Word of God and not the Word of God by the comparison of the varying readings, older or not.

I been teaching a bible study on the Gospel of John and I gave a brief explanation of textual criticism because we were going to cover chapter five that week (5:3b-4 being a major variant). It was indeed an interesting conversation, because there was one person who though that the Bible was corrupted and was not recovered until the AV. This is a person in her 70s, lived her whole life attending church, that held to this. I dealt with that issue with a brief history of the Bible and its transmission, affirming that the Word of God has always existed. Affirming the LXX is the Word of God, Codex Sinaiticus is the Word of God, the TR is the Word of God, the NA27 is the Word of God, and the NASB is the Word of God (and am not denying any other major translations of such either, like the NKJV, NIV, and ESV). My goal was for them to have confidence in their Bible. Now, I didn’t push it in the study but if you were to ask me if 5:4 belongs in John then I would tell you no; and I would implement Chrysostom pattern of scripture quotation in his homilies on John and Tertullian’s application as it relates to the text. I do not see how denying that passage as scripture( under the category of the Word of God) makes one incompetent, not able to be equipped by God to do good work, also to hurt their training in righteousness, teaching, reproof, and correction. I also do not see the individual words as inspired, but instead the meaning of the reading of the text that is inspired; which is why I can turn to varying translations and early manuscripts and affirm them as God’s revealed infallible preserved Word concerning everything perfectly alone sufficient regarding salvation and instruction in righteousness.

If such a view makes me a heretic on the standards of some here then so be it. It is not based on myself as individual, or if it may or may not convict me. But it is instead by the reading of Scripture, Scripture coming from earlier manuscripts of the same text that I see as scripture.

So is the bible inerrant on all matters of science and history as well? You are not only against preservation, but also the verbal plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as well. The battle from the past century is apparently not over.

 

[Grimmson]

So is the bible inerrant on all matters of science and history as well? You are not only against preservation, but also the verbal plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as well. The battle from the past century is apparently not over.

In science, no. It is not written as a science book. We need to remember the genre and purpose in which scripture is written in. History is a different story. I think the history is inerrant as it was recorded by the standards of genre and time it was written in. And I want to clarify something that was just applied to me. I am not against preservation.I think the text has been preserved throughout time by the Holy Spirit, and in some cases added to by the traditions of man. I think John 5:4 is a perfect example of that, along with John 7:53-8:11. What needs to be done is to shave off these man-made traditions in scripture. But what John actually wrote in John/ his epistles are still there and communicated in the overall manuscript traditions. And I do accept verbal plenary inspiration from the Holy Spirit by the original authors of the original autographs of scripture, which is one reason why I have a high respect for the LXX. I do believe that the Holy Sprit guided the words that the authors were using by their own use of style to communicate what the Holy Spirit wanted to communicate; this does not mean that each word should be seen in some sacred sense outside of the desired purpose of communication of truth. It also does not mean that the Holy Spirit took over the faculties of the writers, whereby their style became void and taken over like some type of demonic mechanicalistic possession. Scripture is a union of authorship with God (being primary) with those men (secondary) he choose to write it. It is not by a bird singing in the ear of the author telling the human author what to write, but instead the Holy Spirit moved/guided the author to communicate what he wanted by his own power as the means of the writing of scripture. The goal of textual criticism should be to try to bring what we have as our text back to that in which the writers themselves wrote, because of a respect for the truthfulness of the Word of God. And I see all of scripture as inspired by “God profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-7 NKJV)

 

[jayce475]

So is the bible inerrant on all matters of science and history as well? You are not only against preservation, but also the verbal plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as well. The battle from the past century is apparently not over.

In science, no. It is not written as a science book. We need to remember the genre and purpose in which scripture is written in. History is a different story. I think the history is inerrant as it was recorded by the standards of genre and time it was written in. And I want to clarify something that was just applied to me. I am not against preservation.I think the text has been preserved throughout time by the Holy Spirit, and in some cases added to by the traditions of man. I think John 5:4 is a perfect example of that, along with John 7:53-8:11. What needs to be done is to shave off these man-made traditions in scripture. But what John actually wrote in John/ his epistles are still there and communicated in the overall manuscript traditions. And I do accept verbal plenary inspiration from the Holy Spirit by the original authors of the original autographs of scripture, which is one reason why I have a high respect for the LXX. I do believe that the Holy Sprit guided the words that the authors were using by their own use of style to communicate what the Holy Spirit wanted to communicate; this does not mean that each word should be seen in some sacred sense outside of the desired purpose of communication of truth. It also does not mean that the Holy Spirit took over the faculties of the writers, whereby their style became void and taken over like some type of demonic mechanicalistic possession. Scripture is a union of authorship with God (being primary) with those men (secondary) he choose to write it. It is not by a bird singing in the ear of the author telling the human author what to write, but instead the Holy Spirit moved/guided the author to communicate what he wanted by his own power as the means of the writing of scripture. The goal of textual criticism should be to try to bring what we have as our text back to that in which the writers themselves wrote, because of a respect for the truthfulness of the Word of God. And I see all of scripture as inspired by “God profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-7 NKJV)

Let's try to be a bit clearer. In saying "I also do not see the individual words as inspired, but instead the meaning of the reading of the text that is inspired; which is why I can turn to varying translations and early manuscripts and affirm them as God’s revealed infallible preserved Word concerning everything perfectly alone sufficient regarding salvation and instruction in righteousness.", are you now saying that you don't believe in verbal plenary preservation or verbal plenary inspiration? On one hand you're claiming that the bible comprises of ideas, then in the next breath you claim to believe in verbal plenary preservation. No one here ever posited that the authors of the NT or OT wrote down scriptures via dictation, so please don't pose it as a strawman. Verbal plenary inspiration by definition means the inspiration of words, not ideas, and I'm surprised to find one who rejects this tenet on a Reformed forum. This thread was meant not meant to be about inspiration and I figure that all the debate about preservation and critical text theories were based upon the presupposition that we did have words which were inspired and not just ideas. You have now challenged that and thrown a different question into the equation.

"In science, no. It is not written as a science book." This is a very low view of scripture. Yes it is not a science book in the sense that we generally understand science books to be, but you're now claiming that God's absolute truth is not scientific.

 

[ThomasCartwright]

Untrue!! I've said several times Pastor B. Buchanan of this forum and my denomination expressed my views (more clearly than me).

Odd that no one else seems aware of your position here. I have no idea who this Pastor is or what your denomination believes. I would doubt if they have a uniform position judging by the diversity of viewpoints on this board. So let me ask you again:

(1) In light of 2 Timothy 3:16-17, what biblical framework do you hold to that objectively leads us to all the Words of God today?
(2) Do you believe the Confessional position in respect of 1 John 5:7, long ending of the Lord's Prayer and the purity of all the words in original language manuscripts?
(3) How do we objectively and definitively come to a solution on Rev 16:5?

 

[Grimmson]

are you now saying that you don't believe in verbal plenary preservation or verbal plenary inspiration?

I noticed a now there, as if I been changing what I’ve been saying and that not the case at all. The purpose of words is to communicate ideas. Why cannot scripture be allowed to do that and then be passed on the next generations in the copying of a text and in the translation of the text? The fact I allow for the reading of a text to be inspired and preserved actually shows a high view of scripture and God’s ability to preserve it beyond the Hebrew and Greek. I do think that all of the words that the authors of the Old and New Testament are there as it stands overall in the varying traditions. Here proof of me saying just that:

what John actually wrote in John/ his epistles are still there and communicated in the overall manuscript traditions. And I do accept verbal plenary inspiration from the Holy Spirit by the original authors of the original autographs of scripture, which is one reason why I have a high respect for the LXX. I do believe that the Holy Sprit guided the words that the authors were using by their own use of style to communicate what the Holy Spirit wanted to communicate

Looks to me like I hold to Verbal Plenary Inspiration. It matches your definition.

Verbal plenary inspiration by definition means the inspiration of words.

Remember also that the purpose of those words were to also communicate ideas, which is why I connect the two and relate it in such as way that translated codex can still be the Word of God. To deny such would be to deny your own scriptures, because your strictly tied to the Hebrew and Greek.

Now do I hold to Verbal Plenary Preservation? Depends on what you mean? Typically it is used as an argument in support that the TR as a divinely inspired and preserved in all ages, without any kind of error what so ever. I do not hold to that. I do believe that God has divinely inspired and preserved his Word in all ages, but not in the sense that there have been no errors in a text or that the TR is the end all of all manuscripts. I am not TR only as I have said before. This does not mean however that the errors are major or damning. Sometimes their copying errors. Some of the errors in scripture are silly to really die over. Two examples that come to my mind are from Hebrews 1:8 and 2 Peter 3:9.

The majority of the texts say:
τῆς βασιλείας σου- your kingdom
Yet the older, and fewer manuscripts say:
τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ - his kingdom.

I personally prefer the older manuscript reading here, but it not as big of an issue because in both cases the same thing is being communicated with the “his” and the “your” in this verse.

Next 2 Peter 3:9
The Majority tradition, emerging in popularity after the end of the 8th century, and the TR says:
μακροθυμεῖ εἰς ἡμᾶς- “He is long suffering towards us”

Wescott and Hort using the following P72(4th century), Vaticanus (4th century), Ephraemi Rescriptus (5th century), Porphyrianus (9th century), 1739 (10th century) says:

μακροθυμεῖ εἰς ὑμᾶς –“he long suffering towards you”

NOW using the third variant with is in Sinaiticus (4th century) Alexandrinus (5th century), 044(9th century), 33(9th century) and syraic (starting in the 4th century), Sahidic(4th-5th centuries):
μακροθυμεῖ δἰ ὑμᾶς –“he is longsuffering because of us”

Which one right, does it change what being communicated in the text? No , it is not; particularly in the ancient world. The proper reading/interpretation of the text is still there regardless of the exact reading. I think a good case can be made for the last two, and I side more with Westcott and Hort here based on the early manuscript evidence that prefers ὑμᾶς over ἡμᾶς. And εἰς seems to be popular, but I wouldnt make a big fuss if scholars went with δἰ because of the strong early evidence.

"In science, no. It is not written as a science book." This is a very low view of scripture. Yes it is not a science book in the sense that we generally understand science books to be, but you're now claiming that God's absolute truth is not scientific.

I think it is important to reading scripture in its given context, otherwise we do a disservice to God and the text he has given us. So we read poetry as poetry, history as history, and so on. I think I have a high view of scripture because I believe God has communicated to us all that we need to know for faith and practice to glorify him. We need to be careful not to propose something to a text that would have been interpreted differently by the original readers and writers of the text; instead of forcing a western minded standard to the text. What is the focus of scripture? It not to communicate science, but instead Christ; our need for Jesus and how we are to live and worship him. I don’t try to interpret scripture in a scientific mindset, but instead try to in light of how it would have been interpreted originally; which is my goal. I do not read Genesis 7 through Nine as a scientist, but instead see it as history; which I would make the claim that is what it is meant to be read as. Now I have seen 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, and Joshua 10, 12-13 used to historically to teach a geo-centeredness. I am not going to say if the authors knew or did not know that Earth orbited aroud the Sun. I have not studied that; however if they did then here would be a case I would disagree with their science. And that is not to communicate any idea that I think that they were dumb in any way, because I think as thinkers that were more intellengent then us on this posting board.

You have to be careful how you apply God’s absolute truth and consider wisdom in applying the text. (For some reason Proverbs and Ecclesiastes just came to my mind)This does not mean to say that you cannot glean science from the bible, it just not the focus of what being communicated in the Bible. And if it seems were getting off topic then I will end my post there, because I do not want us to go to much off track here. Hopefully these posts help to explain my position and why I accept the ESV and some of the modern textual work that has been done.

 

[TimV]

What evidence can you present to disprove this essential purity?

I tire of belaboring the point. So I'll just do it one more time. The largely Fundy Baptist school of KJVOlism differs from the Reformed view of KJVOnlism on that point. So while JB and TC say they have a Bible that is totally perfect, without the possibility of any errors of any kind, the Reformed school says there may be places where an individual reading is wrong in the TR. I don't see what is so difficult to understand about the difference, but that may just be me.

Odd that no one else seems aware of your position here. I have no idea who this Pastor is or what your denomination believes.

You are making your problem mine. B. Buchanan has participated for years on this forum in threads that you have participated in. You may have forgotten, or tuned out, or something else, but that's not my problem. And "us" is not synonymous with "you". And my denomination is the OPC. Here is our website:
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
I have asked for a link to your denominational website, but you have totally ignored me as you do so often, but still insist that I answer (repeatedly) your questions. Does that bother you at all?

(3) How do we objectively and definitively come to a solution on Rev 16:5?

You take a liberal Dutch Catholic's reading above every single preserved manuscript that the church has available today, and say they don't matter, since there may be some manuscripts that nobody has ever seen with the TR reading, and it fits better in with the Fundy Baptist school of KJVOnlism that you champion.

 

[Willem van Oranje]

So is the bible inerrant on all matters of science and history as well? You are not only against preservation, but also the verbal plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as well. The battle from the past century is apparently not over.

In science, no. It is not written as a science book. We need to remember the genre and purpose in which scripture is written in. History is a different story. I think the history is inerrant as it was recorded by the standards of genre and time it was written in. And I want to clarify something that was just applied to me. I am not against preservation.I think the text has been preserved throughout time by the Holy Spirit, and in some cases added to by the traditions of man. I think John 5:4 is a perfect example of that, along with John 7:53-8:11. What needs to be done is to shave off these man-made traditions in scripture. But what John actually wrote in John/ his epistles are still there and communicated in the overall manuscript traditions. And I do accept verbal plenary inspiration from the Holy Spirit by the original authors of the original autographs of scripture, which is one reason why I have a high respect for the LXX. I do believe that the Holy Sprit guided the words that the authors were using by their own use of style to communicate what the Holy Spirit wanted to communicate; this does not mean that each word should be seen in some sacred sense outside of the desired purpose of communication of truth. It also does not mean that the Holy Spirit took over the faculties of the writers, whereby their style became void and taken over like some type of demonic mechanicalistic possession. Scripture is a union of authorship with God (being primary) with those men (secondary) he choose to write it. It is not by a bird singing in the ear of the author telling the human author what to write, but instead the Holy Spirit moved/guided the author to communicate what he wanted by his own power as the means of the writing of scripture. The goal of textual criticism should be to try to bring what we have as our text back to that in which the writers themselves wrote, because of a respect for the truthfulness of the Word of God. And I see all of scripture as inspired by “God profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-7 NKJV)

Case in point, John 5.4 has the testimony of the Syriac Peshitta, which dates it to the 2nd century, so the date test weighs in its favor. It has the testimony of Tertullian, of Jerome's critical work, and of the entire Byzantine tradition, and of Codex A. The diversity of geographical origin of its witnesses is impressive. (It is unlikely that it would have made its way into all those diverse regions if it had been spurious.) It has continuously been a part of the Greek New Testament in every age which it has been handed down, until the present day.

Therefore, I don't see any good reason to throw it out, particularly since the main codices that omit it (Aleph, B) seem to have been quite scissor-happy with the text of the NT in general. (In other words they are not as reliable as the Byzantine tradition.)

 

[Grimmson]

Case in point, John 5.4 has the testimony of the Syriac Peshitta, which dates it to the 2nd century, so the date test weighs in its favor.

First, Syriac Peshitta is not from the second century, but instead fourth to fifth century. See New Testament Text and Translation Commentary, by Philip W. Comfort (p. xxxiii) and The Reference Charts of New Testament Criticism, by Roy M. Clampa (p. 21-makes the calm it is from the 5th century). Also to be found at (WAM) Reference Charts for New Teastament Textual Criticism - Roy M Clampa .

It has the testimony of Tertullian, of Jerome's critical work, and of the entire Byzantine tradition, and of Codex A.

Now I made the claim earlier against Tertullian’s application of the text. The following comes from John 5:4:

for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.


This is what Tertullian said (in the surrounding context), to be found in On Baptism chapter 5:

“Well, but the nations, who are strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their idols the imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy.” (So they do) but they cheat themselves with waters which are widowed. washing is the channel through which they are initiated into some sacred rites—of some notorious Isis or Mithras. The gods themselves likewise they honour by washings. Moreover, by carrying water around, and sprinkling it, they everywhere expiate country-seats, houses, temples, and whole cities: at all events, at the Apollinarian and Eleusinian games they are baptized; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is their regeneration and the remission of the penalties due to their perjuries. Among the ancients, again, whoever had defiled himself with murder, was wont to go in quest of purifying waters. Therefore, if the mere nature of water, in that it is the appropriate material for washing away, leads men to flatter themselves with a belief in omens of purification, how much more truly will waters render that service through the authority of God, by whom all their nature has been constituted! If men think that water is endued with a medicinal virtue by religion, what religion is more effectual than that of the living God? Which fact being acknowledged, we recognise here also the zeal of the devil rivalling the things of God, while we find him, too, practising baptism in his subjects. What similarity is there? The unclean cleanses! the ruiner sets free! the damned absolves! He will, forsooth, destroy his own work, by washing away the sins which himself inspires! These (remarks) have been set down by way of testimony against such as reject the faith; if they put no trust in the things of God, the spurious imitations of which, in the case of God’s rival, they do trust in. Are there not other cases too, in which, without any sacrament, unclean spirits brood on waters, in spurious imitation of that brooding of the Divine Spirit in the very beginning? Witness all shady founts, and all unfrequented brooks, and the ponds in the baths, and the conduits in private houses, or the cisterns and wells which are said to have the property of “spiriting away,” through the power, that is, of a hurtful spirit. Men whom waters have drowned or affected with madness or with fear, they call nymph-caught, or “lymphatic,” or “hydro-phobic.” Why have we adduced these instances? Lest any think it too hard for belief that a holy angel of God should grant his presence to waters, to temper them to man’s salvation; while the evil angel holds frequent profane commerce with the selfsame element to man’s ruin. If it seems a novelty for an angel to be present in waters, an example of what was to come to pass has forerun. An angel, by his intervention, was wont to stir the pool at Bethsaida. They who were complaining of ill-health used to watch for him; for whoever had been the first to descend into them, after his washing, ceased to complain. This figure of corporeal healing sang of a spiritual healing, according to the rule by which things carnal are always antecedent as figurative of things spiritual. And thus, when the grace of God advanced to higher degrees among men, an accession of efficacy was granted to the waters and to the angel. They who were wont to remedy bodily defects, now heal the spirit; they who used to work temporal salvation now renew eternal; they who did set free but once in the year, now save peoples in a body daily, death being done away through ablution of sins. The guilt being removed, of course the penalty is removed too. Thus man will be restored for God to His “likeness,” who in days bygone had been conformed to “the image” of God; (the “image” is counted (to be) in his form: the “likeness” in his eternity for he receives again that Spirit of God which he had then first received from His afflatus, but had afterward lost through sin.

As you can see it is not a direct scriptural quotation, but instead the earliest known source for this tradition in the patristic writings. It is not dealing with the exergesis of John 5, instead is concerned with reinforcing his mystical view of salvation in contrast to unclean sprits and Mystery Cult baptisms.

I do not have time to track down Jerome, but Chysostom who is earlier then Jerome does not quote from it directly as well in regards to his homily of John 5. If you don’t believe me then look it up.

Because I do not see the text in scripture in the second century, but instead the tradition of the angel at the pool of Bethesda in the third leaves me to believe an infection of the manuscripts by the end of the fourth and fifth centuries starting to emerge. I would use Chrysostom and Syriac Peshitta as part of my evidence for such.

It has continuously been a part of the Greek New Testament in every age which it has been handed down, until the present day.

There no clear evidence of that in the textual traditions. Nor is it clear that in the fourth century Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were scissor happy in my study of the documents thus far. Therefore I still hold to my position. By the way, Codex A is fifth century.

 

[ThomasCartwright]

You are making your problem mine. B. Buchanan has participated for years on this forum in threads that you have participated in. You may have forgotten, or tuned out, or something else, but that's not my problem. And "us" is not synonymous with "you". And my denomination is the OPC. Here is our website:
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
I have asked for a link to your denominational website, but you have totally ignored me as you do so often, but still insist that I answer (repeatedly) your questions. Does that bother you at all?

Again, you dodge the questions. Just point me to the threads here that you or this Rev Buchanan state these objective tests and I will withdraw. I did check your OPC link out which claims they believe this statement, "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, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal unto them" - do you believe that the Church must always appeal to the authentical Hebrew text to determine any Hebrew reading? Where is the authentical text? How do we objectively determine it?

It is your problem - you mock JB and my consistent and objective position on this issue by trying to infer that it is a "Fundy Baptist KJVO" position. You imply we are outside the traditional Reformed position without setting forth that or even if you disagree with it. I did not know that Edward F Hills was a Baptist but I guess you have done your research extensively!

Whilst this is irrelevant, I am not a member of a "denomination" as the Bible Presbyterian Synod was dissolved since 1988 so what is your point?

You take a liberal Dutch Catholic's reading above every single preserved manuscript that the church has available today, and say they don't matter, since there may be some manuscripts that nobody has ever seen with the TR reading, and it fits better in with the Fundy Baptist school of KJVOnlism that you champion.

Sigh...try debating the issue. It would be easy for me to say you represent the BJU Fundy Baptist school of Multi-Version Onlism but I will desist. The Rev 16:5 point has been debated at length and you know my answer and JB. However, what you never do is give answers to our questions. Why?

---------- Post added at 01:21 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:12 AM ----------

The reason the "Church" added Cainan according to the most orthodox, TR supporting Reformed and most orthodox, TR supporting Baptist scholars that ever lived is because it was an error that didn't get caught.

I little humility should be in order before rashly making such bold statements. You seem to have a unbiblical attitude towards Independent Baptists and anyone who supports the TR position. A good lesson for you to learn is to study other possible explanations before declaring this an error.

Consistent preservationists reject the argument against the inclusion of Cainan in Luke 3:36 by the Textus Receptus on the flimsy basis that it is omitted in Genesis 10:24, 11:12 and in 1 Chronicles 1:18, 24. The various genealogies throughout Scripture do sometimes contain gaps, which those who are presuppositionally committed to inerrancy, inspiration, and preservation must recognise as intentional and legitimate. There are biblical precedents for additional information about the specific names of individuals revealed by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament which are not found in the Old Testament narrative such as Jannes and Jambres in 2 Timothy 3:8. The same arguments you marshal against the inclusion of Cainan in Luke 3:36 could be used to claim 2 Timothy 3:8 is a scribal interpolation.