That’s a good question, Brice.
This that follows is excerpted from post #10 of the
http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/responding-james-white-aomin-44382/#post557693 thread:
My main concern with the Majority Text position
as a final outcome of the Lord’s preservation of His word is that it remains but provisional, unsettled.
Hodges and Farstad’s,
The Greek New Testament According To The Majority Text (Nelson, 1982), has on its jacket (of the second edition):
Scholarly discipline permeates the editor’s logic and conclusions; yet Hodges and Farstad make no claims that this text in all its particulars is the exact form of the originals.
and on page x of the book we are told:
The editors do not imagine that the text of this edition represents in all particulars the exact form of the originals…it should therefore be kept in mind that the present work…is both preliminary and provisional.
If, as stated, this MT work isn’t a final and settled Bible, and (others say) the AV-Received Text isn’t, and the CT / Alexandrian isn’t either, are we left in the awkward position (to put it unreasonably mildly!) of having only a tentative, provisional Bible? When I asked a similar question of someone recently, I was answered, “No, I do not have a Bible I can hold in my hand and say, ‘This is the Word of God.’ ”
Professor Robinson’s work may well be better than the aforementioned MT text, but the same applies – as demonstrated by
Wisse's research: all the heads haven’t been counted in the Byzantine MS camp. Must we wait another 50 years or more for that count to be tallied? And even then that would not alter the providential preservation of the Reformation's Bible. I realize that Professor R. will disown me as an illegitimate offspring of his and his colleagues in the Byz camp, for he does not acknowledge as valid my leap of faith to the TR / AV position. I admit, it
is a leap of faith, but if it is based soundly – that is, if my exegesis of the texts is sound – who is to dispute it on the basis of a scientific methodology? I take the same faith / exegetical stand as regards the record of God’s creation and man’s fall in Genesis over against the evolutionary “science” that tells me to stick with what can be scientifically proven (not that evolution can be proven, though they allege it can!).
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”.... and by “his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness”.... “no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Matt 4:4; 2 Pet 1:3; Ps 84:11)
Whether one takes the
absolute preservation stand (which has abundant merit in the realm of faith), or the 99.99% preservation stand of Owen and Hills, we have the ability to say, “Yes, this Bible I hold is the sure word of God.”
I will not be subject to “the tyranny of experts” (to use Machen’s memorable phrase) if I do not concur entirely with the methods they use; I may use their work as I see fit, but am not bound by it. The MT labors are immense and of precious value; we stand on their shoulders – or to perfect the metaphor, we leap from their shoulders to a high rock, upon which we take our stand.
I know many generations have said, “We are in the time of the end”; nonetheless, there are signs that lead me to say we are very close – the Gospel having gone out into
most of the world, and a coming (so I see) persecution of Christians even in the once-Christian Western world – and can it be that we don’t have a Bible
yet we can say is the sure word of our God? I believe He gave us one almost 400 years ago, just prior to the great missionary work of Britain, and at the commencement of modern English, the trusty sword of our Reformation fathers against the bloodthirsty and persecuting harlot.
End excerpt
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[IMPORTANT NOTE: I HAD ATTRIBUTED THESE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING QUOTES TO DR. MAURICE ROBINSON, BUT HE SENT A MESSAGE TO ME SAYING THEY WERE NOT HIS, AND WOULD I PLEASE CORRECT THIS ERRONEOUS ATTRIBUTION. I CHECKED THE SOURCE DOCUMENTS AND HE IS RIGHT. I APOLOGIZED TO HIM AND ASKED HIS FORGIVENESS FOR MISREPRESENTING HIM. SO THESE QUOTES ARE NOT FROM DR. ROBINSON.]
I posit these quotes to demonstrate an attitude among some textual scholars that disdains faith being brought into the precincts of textual criticism, such as E.F. Hills and many of the Reformation divines and scholars brought to the endeavor. I will comment on them afterwards.
#1) One group of textual workers (I hesitate to call them scholars) base their whole method on theology. These are the Providential Preservationists. So, for instance, Wilbur N. Pickering, "I believe that God has providentially preserved the original wording of the text down to our day... I see in the Traditional Text ('Byzantine') both the result and the proof of that preservation"
(The Identity of the New Testament Text]/i], First Edition, 1977, pp. 143-144.)....
Since I cannot understand the viewpoint of the theological critics, I will not attempt to take this point further. I will simply make the observation that a scientific criticism must necessarily reject any theological approach.
#2) One must be careful in assessing people who prefer the Byzantine text. Most such are not textual critics, and do not engage in textual criticism. Anyone who favours the King James Version or the Textus Receptus, or who claims providential preservation or some kind of divine sanction for a particular text, is not and cannot be a textual critic. It is unfortunate that these non-critics have infected the arguments about the Byzantine text, as their irrational, unreasonable, and uncritical arguments serve only to muddy what should be a reasonable and fruitful debate. It is even more unfortunate that some legitimate critics who support the Byzantine text have accepted their rhetoric. This argument, like all critical arguments, must be decided based on evidence and logic, not faith or claims of what "must" be so. The typical argument is "providential preservation" -- the claim that God must have preserved the original text in all its purity. But as Harry A. Sturz (who is about as sympathetic to the Byzantine text as anyone can be while not being a pure Byzantine-prioritist) notes, "Hills [the leading exponent of this sort of preservation] fails to show why the sovereign God must act in a particular way." [Harry A. Sturz, The Byzantine Text-Type & New Testament Textual Criticism (1984), p. 42. Italics added.] (For more on this subject, see the article on Theology and Textual Criticism: http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/Theology.html) (from, The Byzantine Priority Hypothesis: http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/ByzPrior.html )
I have respect for those scholars who labor to discern the Byzantine text – these labors are very valuable. I am not a textual critic; rather, a student of God’s Word and the history of its transmission. I do not have to be a mechanic to understand the principles of quality control in the production history of a Mercedes Benz, and be able to drive it well. What we have in some Byz scholars is the attitude that only mechanics are allowed to legitimately theorize on the process and end product of God’s vehicle of communication. Their presupposition is that only a “scientific criticism” is able to adequately sort through and assess the data and come up with an acceptable theoretical construct. In their view a theological presupposition is not scholarly, i.e., not scientific.
Science deals with evidences, with facts, with hard data. Things pertaining to faith, or theological factors, have no place in assessing matters pertaining to the product of God’s Word. So some Byz scholars say. But is this so? Science deals with things of the world, but not the things of Heaven. What in the spiritual realm can be apprehended by scientific method?
The Word of God was spoken by prophets as they were moved by the Holy Spirit; likewise with the apostles of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Himself had the Spirit without measure, and always spoke those things His Father gave Him to speak. Jesus told His apostles that the Holy Spirit would bring to their remembrance all things that He had said. The LORD said through David He would preserve His Word through all generations, and through Isaiah that the words He had put in the mouths of His people would not depart from them and their seed for ever. Jesus said that man must live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and that Heaven and earth would pass away but His words would not. Through Peter He said that through [Scriptural] knowledge of Him and by His divine power He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, those words we must live by one of these things.
So the Lord has said He would preserve His word for us. May we not factor in the promises of God as we seek to discern the production of that He preserved? What right – warrant – has science to say we may not do so? Is this not in fact the above-mentioned “tyranny of experts” seeking to bring us into bondage to their views? Can science discern the malign hand of Satan in its attempt to destroy the integrity of Scripture, or the providence of God in gathering and preserving it? Such things are beyond its purview.
“...the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God...” 1 Cor 2:11, 12.
It seems to me spiritual discernment – exercised through faith in His Word and by His Spirit – is an essential element in arriving at an understanding of how God worked in preserving His Word. What, science based on a secular methodology shall figure out how and where God did this? (I am certainly not saying that Byz scholars who disdain theological presuppositions in text criticism do not have any spiritual discernment, but they do say that textual criticism is not the place for exercising it!) What saith Scripture?
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
That no flesh should glory in his presence. 1 Cor 1:27-29
From some, however – though certainly not all Byz scholars – we get this:
WE are the scholars, WE are the wise, WE determine the truths of the Bible in this scientific discipline of text criticism, of which WE are the masters! You who proceed in this area by measly faith, we disdain and despise! Get you from this house!
Gentlemen, I must say your house is left unto you desolate.
The day is dying, sun low in the sky, night drawing on. It appears the governments even of the “civilized” West are slowly turning against the church of Christ, many seeking to enact legislation silencing and restricting the church by criminal law. The devil has come down to the earth, having great wrath, knowing his time is short. Nations rattle nuclear sabers against other nations, and those with eyes to see know that hearts moved by the devil know no restraint or sanity. And in days such as these we still do not have the settled Bible God promised to give us, His beloved children? Shall we have to wait till after the resurrection to get it? Or has He already given it to us? And if He has, which is it?
Our forebears of the Reformation asserted that God indeed had given us His settled Word, an intact Bible faithfully translated from original-language manuscripts, the readings of which originally “...being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical” (WCF 1:8).
As with other prophetic utterances, here we may look back and discern how God fulfilled His promises of preservation. I know it is replied, “But nowhere Scripture says how God will keep those (prophetic) promises of preservation.” We often discern the fulfillment of prophecy with hindsight. I believe the view of His fulfilling His promises in the Reformation texts has far greater merit and credence than all other alternate views.
It has been asked, “If only the Greek Byzantine and its Textus Receptus editions were the providentially preserved text, what about the other locations in the world that had neither a Byzantine nor a refined TR – did they not have a preserved and adequate Bible?” And I would answer:
There is a preserving of the text, and there is a preserving of the text — the latter where its integrity is held even to minute readings not granted the former. That the former was nonetheless efficacious is analogous to the Bibles based upon the CT and MT being efficacious to save and edify God’s people today, as witnessed by the multitudes regenerated and brought to maturity through those who use the NIV, NASB, ESV, NKJV etc. The minute preservation occurred in the primary edition (the Ben Chayyim Masoretic Hebrew and the Greek TR and their King James translation) which was to serve the English-speaking people and the translations created for the vast missionary work they undertook, which impacted the entire world. There was a progression in the purifying of the text, so as to almost (and some say completely) perfectly reconstitute the original manuscripts of the apostles, even as there has been, in the area of theology, a restoration of apostolic doctrine, which also went through phases of deterioration and eventual renewal.
Thus, even those areas of the church which were non-Greek-speaking also had a “preserved text”—as do multitudes in this present day—though their texts were not “minutely preserved.” The texts they had were efficacious unto the salvation of souls and the sustaining of the churches. The distinction is between an adequate preservation as distinguished from preservation in the minutiae.
As regarding the Lord’s promise to preserve His Scripture (Matt 24:35; Psalm 12:6, 7; Isaiah 59:21; etc), many times the people of God have not understood how a prophecy was to be fulfilled until it was a done thing, and then they looked backward to see how He had worked. It is thus in observing how He fulfilled His promise to preserve His word. When the Lord prophesies, does it have to come about instantly? Is there not sometimes progression, or delay? We see it is so in the events leading to the formation of the finished product of the editions of the TR from which the KJ translators produced their English masterpiece in God’s providence.
I see no other view of a preserved Bible that makes such sense. Of course others will not agree, but I can defend my view. My stand is by faith, confirmed by reason. It was the faith of the Reformation; we who believe as they did are in good company, despite the views of the moderns.
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Brice, I hope you don’t mind my bringing up excerpts instead of writing directly to your questions. It is sort of like not wanting to invent the wheel twice, seeing as I have already written on these things. The linked thread in my first post to you – the one to Alan Kurschner – dealt in-depth with the differences between the TR / AV versus the Byz / MT views, as that was the basis of his challenge.
Please feel free to comment or ask further questions.
Steve
) convinced me of the Textus Receptus position that I previously had held as the only undefendable text.
