"The Bible is not a dogmatic handbook but a historical book full of dramatic interest." ~ Geerhardus Vos
It remains to say something about the practical uses of the study of Biblical Theology. These may be enumerated as follows:
a) It exhibits the organic growth of the truths of Special Revelation. By doing this it enables one properly to distribute the emphasis among the several aspects of teaching and preaching. A leaf is not of the same importance as a twig, nor a twig as a branch, nor a branch as the trunk of the tree. Further through exhibiting the organic structure of revelation Biblical Theology furnishes a special argument from design for the reality of Supernaturalism.
b) It supplies us with a useful antidote against the teachings of rationalistic criticism. This it does in the following way: The Bible exhibits an organism of its own. This organism, inborn in the Bible itself, the critical hypothesis destroys, and that not only on our view, but as freely acknowledged by the critics themselves, on the ground of its being an artificial organism in later times foisted upon the Bible, and for which a newly discovered better organism should be substituted. Now by making ourselves in the study of Biblical Theology thoroughly conversant with the Biblical consciousness of its own revelation structure, we shall be able to perceive how radically criticism destroys this, and that, so far from being a mere question of dates and composition of books, it involves a choice between two widely divergent, nay, antagonistic conceptions of the Scriptures and of religion. To have correctly diagnosed criticism in its true purpose is to possess the best prophylaxis against it.
c) Biblical Theology imparts new life and freshness to the truth by showing it to us in its original historic setting. The Bible is not a dogmatic handbook but a historical book full of dramatic interest. Familiarity with the history of revelation will enable us to utilize all this dramatic interest.
d) Biblical Theology can counteract the anti-doctrinal tendency of the present time. Too much stress proportionately is being laid on the voluntary and emotional sides of religion. Biblical Theology bears witness to the indispensableness of the doctrinal groundwork of our religious fabric. It shows what great care God has taken to supply his people with a new world of ideas. In view of this it becomes impious to declare belief of subordinate importance.
e) Biblical Theology relieves to some extent the unfortunate situation that even the fundamental doctrines of the faith should seem to depend mainly on the testimony of isolated proof-texts. There exists a higher ground on which conflicting religious views can measure themselves as to their Scriptural legitimacy. In the long run that system will hold the field which can be proven to have grown organically from the main stem of revelation, and to be interwoven with the very fiber of Biblical religion.
f) The highest practical usefulness of the study of Biblical Theology is one belonging to it altogether apart from its usefulness for the student. Like unto all theology it finds its supreme end in the glory of God. This end it attains through giving us a new view of God as displaying a particular aspect of his nature in connection with his historical approach to and intercourse with man. The beautiful statement of Thomas Aquinas is here in point: "Theologia a Deo docetur, Deum docet, ad Deum duci” [“Theology teaches of God, is taught by God, and leads to God”].
Good News Publishers, owner of Crossway Books, publisher of the English Standard Version of the Bible (ESV), in cooperation with the Institute for New Testament Textual Research at the University of Münster, Westphalia, Germany (INTF), has announced it will soon be releasing an app that will be updating the text of the ESV New Testament in real time.
Crossway liaison officer Otto Nobetter said, "With the incredible reliance upon smart phones and tablets by Christians today, along with the endless radical changes being made to the Greek text of the New Testament at INTF, due especially to use of the new Coherence-Based Genealogical Method, we thought the time had come for an app that will provide Christians with the latest changes being made to the text of the New Testament as soon as possible. Thanks to a special agreement between Crossway and the INTF, Crossway will be notified every time a change is made to the Greek text of the New Testament. Once we've been notified, we will immediately provide the appropriate English translation and update the text of the ESV accordingly via the app."
Apologist James White was pleased with the announcement saying, on his popular Dividing Line program, "What this means is that, thanks to modern technology and scholarship, the ESV Bible you have on your phone today won't be the same ESV Bible you have on your phone tomorrow, because the text of the New Testament is always changing. As things stand now, because of the new Coherence-Based Genealogical Method, I have to wait for the INTF to publish hard copies of the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) in order to know what the latest accepted readings are. But, thanks to this new app from Crossway, we'll be able to know what the accepted readings are in real time, as soon as they're released from the INTF in Münster."
At the time this article was published, Crossway hadn't yet set a release date for the app, saying it was still in the development stage. It will likely be released sometime before 2020.
“For the message of television as metaphor is not only that all the world is a stage but that the stage is located in Las Vegas, Nevada.” ~ Neil Postman
“I had a chance to give a talk to some newspaper publishers last May. They wanted me to say something sensible about the future of newspapers. I suggested to them that instead of organizing their paper according to international news, national news, regional news and so on, they should use the seven deadly sins and have lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, and so on, and then categorize the stories in those ways.” ~ Neil Postman
“If you have not read Neil Postman’s, Amusing Ourselves to Death, it’s not too late, but don’t put it off. If you love TV, you must read it now before you’re completely brain-dead. If you still watch TV, but it irritates you to no end, then you probably have foresight into Postman’s argument. If you abandoned TV years ago, then Postman will bolster your sagacity with a host of historical, philosophical, anthropological, and sociological insights. Whichever category you fit in to, the time has come to read Postman...” Continue reading: Neil Postman's Description of Reading http://kuyperian.com/neil-postmans-description-of-reading/
The Disappearance of Childhood
“The telegraph created an audience and a market not only for news but for fragmented, discontinuous, and essentially irrelevant news, which to this day is the main commodity of the news industry.”
Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (71)
“Civilization cannot exist without the control of impulses, particularly the impulse toward aggression and immediate gratification. We are in constant danger of being overrun by violence, promiscuity, instinct, egoism. Shame is the mechanism by which barbarism is held at bay, and much of its power comes... from the mystery and awe that surround various acts”
Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (85-86)
“Television, to put it simply, does not call one’s attention to ideas, which are abstract, distant, complex, and sequential, but to personalities, which are concrete, vivid, and holistic. What this means is that the symbolic form of political information has been radically changed. In the television age, political judgement is transformed from an intellectual assessment of propositions to an intuitive and emotional response to the totality of an image. In the television age, people do not so much agree or disagree with politicians as like or dislike them.”
Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (101)
Amusing Ourselves To Death
“Is there any audience of Americans today who could endure seven hours of talk? Or five? Or three? Especially without pictures of any kind? . . . These audiences must have had an equally extraordinary capacity to comprehend length and complex sentences aurally. In Douglas’ Ottawa speech he included in his one-hour address three long, legally phrased resolutions of the Abolition platform. Lincoln, in his reply, read even longer passages from a published speech he had delivered on a previous occasion. For all of Lincoln’s celebrated economy of style, his sentence structure in the debates was intricate and subtle, as was Douglas’. In the second debate, in Freeport, Illinois, Lincoln rose to answer Douglas in the following words:
‘It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in half an hour, notice all the things that so able a man as Judge Douglas can say in an hour and a half; and I hope, therefore, if there be anything that he has said upon which you would like to hear something from me, but which I omit to comment upon, you will bear in mind that it would be expecting an impossibility for me to cover his whole ground.’
“It is hard to imagine the present occupant of the White House being capable of constructing such clauses in similar circumstances. And if he were, he would surely do so at the risk of burdening the comprehension or concentration of his audience. People of a television culture need “plain language” both aurally and visually, and will even go so far as to require it in some circumstances by law.”
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death (45-46)
Literacy Lost
“When a culture disdains literacy for the important functions of public discourse and replaces that with a medium that focuses on format and style -- and therefore entertainment -- then you begin to get... you have a situation comparable to what Huxley meant by the drug soma... that everyone is kept sort of pacified, amused, entertained. President Regan is entertaining... Dan Rather is entertaining... even the nightly news, for all of its gory stories, is entertaining, because the film footage is exciting. The religion on television is amusing. Commercials are very amusing and entertaining. So that, as we move into this imagistic culture of short duration, dynamic, and amusing images, we have a population that becomes pacified... that no longer is capable of the kind of sustained reflection and analytical thought that I think is usually characteristic of literate cultures where typography is vital to every day’s functioning.” ~ Neil Postman (PBS Currents Literacy Lost)
Neil Postman - PBS Currents (Literacy Lost) https://youtu.be/VWNHLKW7n5c
Technopoly
Neil Postman’s Seven Questions For New Technologies
1. “What is the problem to which a technology claims to be the solution?”
2. “Whose problem is it?”
3. “What new problems will be created because of solving an old one?”
4. “Which people and institutions will be most harmed?”
5. “What changes in language are being promoted?”
6. “What shifts in economic and political power are likely to result?”
7. “What alternative media might be made from a technology?”
WM 100 offers a review and critique of the article and closes with a suggestion of three ways to respond to those who suggest Christians should only use modern translations. Here are my notes for those three suggestions:
First: If they are willing to listen and understand, help them to understand the difference between a truly heretical KJV-Onlyist position and a KJV preferentialist position. Help them also to understand those who are Majority Text advocates and Confessional Text advocates. Help them to understand that it is not helpful or charitable to confuse these categories into a mishmash.
Second: Talk about a confessional view of text criticism. Walk them through WCF/2LBCF 1:8. Explain the historical roots of modern text criticism in the Enlightenment. Explain the difference between a reconstructionist view of the text and a preservationist view of the text. Explain how post-modern text criticism is no longer even interested in finding the original text and no one really knows what future editions of the modern critical text (and thus modern translations) will even look like.
Third: Talk about how important the KJV is as a treasure not only for the Protestant Christian English-speaking world, but for all of Western civilization. Suggest that rather than dumbing down the liturgical language of the church we should be lifting it up. Ask them why the KJV is loved in the English department but villainized in the religion department. Suggest they read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death or T. S. Eliot’s review of the New English Bible (listen here). Explain that using the KJV might just be one small way in which we might swim against the tide of this world.
“It is strange that in the realm of modern textual criticism all types of searchers and sceptics are given a place, but that those who revert to a former certainty are disqualified as renegades.” ~ Jakob van Bruggen
Among all uncertainties of this 20th century, we, however, can point to one great, lasting certainty in the modern textual criticism - a certainty that serves as starting point and keeps stimulating much conscientious work and constant research. One can even say that the modern textual criticism of the New Testament is based on the one fundamental conviction that the true text of the New Testament is at least not found in the great majority of the manuscripts. The text which the Greek church has read for more than 1000 years, and which the churches of the Reformation have followed for centuries in their Bible translations, is now with certainty regarded as defective and deficient: a text to be rejected... This rejection of the traditional text, that is the text preserved and handed down in the churches, is hardly written or thought about any more in the 20th century: it is a fait accompli...
It is striking how emotionally people often speak about this one certainty. The textus receptus, which stands very close to the Byzantine text, is considered a "tyrant" that finally "died a slow death". Sometimes it seems as though a certain frustration about the continual absence of certainty concerning the right text of the New Testament leads to aggressive statements about the old certainty of the textus receptus. It is striking how Epp in his earlier mentioned retrospection leaves room for many questions and uncertainties, yet suddenly speaks very denigratingly about some people who in the 20th century have dared to make positive statements concerning the textus receptus. It is strange that in the realm of modern textual criticism all types of searchers and sceptics are given a place, but that those who revert to a former certainty are disqualified as renegades.
Jakob van Bruggen, The Ancient Text of the New Testament (11; 13)
Those who First Advanced the Heresy of Artemon; their Manner of Life, and How they Dared to Corrupt the Sacred Scriptures
But that those who use the arts of unbelievers for their heretical opinions and adulterate the simple faith of the Divine Scriptures by the craft of the godless, are far from the faith, what need is there to say? Therefore they have laid their hands boldly upon the Divine Scriptures, alleging that they have corrected them.
That I am not speaking falsely of them in this matter, whoever wishes may learn. For if any one will collect their respective copies, and compare them one with another, he will find that they differ greatly.
Those of Asclepiades, for example, do not agree with those of Theodotus. And many of these can be obtained, because their disciples have assiduously written the corrections, as they call them, that is the corruptions, of each of them. Again, those of Hermophilus do not agree with these, and those of Apollonides are not consistent with themselves. For you can compare those prepared by them at an earlier date with those which they corrupted later, and you will find them widely different.
But how daring this offense is, it is not likely that they themselves are ignorant. For either they do not believe that the Divine Scriptures were spoken by the Holy Spirit, and thus are unbelievers, or else they think themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and in that case what else are they than demoniacs? For they cannot deny the commission of the crime, since the copies have been written by their own hands. For they did not receive such Scriptures from their instructors, nor can they produce any copies from which they were transcribed.
But some of them have not thought it worth while to corrupt them, but simply deny the law and the prophets, and thus through their lawless and impious teaching under pretense of grace, have sunk to the lowest depths of perdition."
Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, Book V Chapter XXVIII)
There’s nothing innocent or innocuous about trying to find the historical text, because there’s a presupposition in the enterprise of questing for the historical text that is identical with the higher critical presupposition, and namely it is this: that the church has fabricated the data and the evidence about who Jesus was, what he said, and what he did. And in order to find out the truth and the reality of the Christ experience and event of the first century AD we have to go behind what is called the ecclesiastical text and rummage through the fragmentary sources that exist behind it from the second and third centuries, and speculate on into the third century, in order to find out what really happened, because the church [via the received text] told us a colossal lie.
Theodore P. Letis, The Quest for the Historical Text
[Jospeh] Hussey gave three basic reasons for rejecting the usual Reformed and Puritan view of the free offer of Christ to men in the preaching of the Gospel:
1) To preach Christ is thus Scriptural, whilst to offer him is not.
2) To offer grace and salvation to sinners will not help them to become Christians, since it is the irresistible grace of God alone that makes Christians.
3) To offer the gifts of God’s grace to everybody in preaching is wrong for they are only intended for the elect (p.80).
In view of these arguments we may well ask, ‘How then is the Gospel to be preached if the grace of Christ is not to be offered to all, and all are not to be invited to receive Christ as their Lord and Saviour?’ Hussey anticipated this question and gave a detailed reply. He believed that the doctrines of the Gospel were to be preached to all, but the grace of God was not to be offered to all.... This doctrine of no offers of Christ developed quite naturally out of his extreme supralapsarianism. Indeed it was simply a logical deduction from it (p. 82).
To Hussey, any minister who claimed to believe in the sovereign grace of God but yet offered Christ to all was a ‘half- hearted Calvinist’ (p.82).
The doctrines of eternal and virtual justification and the concept of assurance as the voice of the Spirit whispering ‘you are elect’ were for Hussey the necessary corollaries of supralapsarian predestination and irresistible grace in conversion (p.82).
Through his doctrine of God’s operations of grace but no offers of grace; resting firmly on eternal, absolute predestination, he believed that he saved the Gospel from the prevalent Arminianism of his age (p.83).
Thus we see that Hussey’s theology was a system of belief into which the spirit and temper of his age entered. Turning away from the various errors and heresies of his day, he adopted an extreme Reformed position, so extreme that it merits the title of ‘Hyper-Calvinism’, since with its doctrine of no offers of grace and its supralapsarianism it rose well above (or sunk beneath) the theology of Calvin and of the orthodox Reformed Puritan divines (p.83).
[John] Skepp displayed the same frame of mind as Hussey had expressed. He made sure that he completely avoided Arminian tendencies and, in doing so, lost sight of the fact that the Bible provides many examples of prophets and preachers who call men to turn to God without first giving long explanations as to the necessary work of the Spirit in the heart, mind and will (p.87).
Whilst the orthodox Puritans of the seventeenth century would have agreed with most of what Skepp had to say they would have pointed out that as surely as the Bible teaches the sovereignty of God’s grace in conversion it also teaches that the preacher must call his hearers to faith in Christ and that he must not try to reconcile two Biblical doctrines which are portrayed as being ‘in tension’ in the Bible (p.88)
Skepp stands, as it were, in the history of dogma, as the connecting link between Hussey’s theology and the Hyper-Calvinism of many Particular Baptists throughout the eighteenth century (p.89).
We must now turn to the consideration of two doctrines taught by the Hyper-Calvinists, the teaching of which distinguished them from those of their contemporaries who shared their zeal for the doctrines of High Calvinism. The first of these was the doctrine that they learned from Joseph Hussey that no purpose is served in offering the grace of Christ to all in the preaching of the Gospel. The second was the belief that it is not the duty of sinners who hear the Gospel to repent of their sins and believe on Christ for the forgiveness of sins (pp. 128-129).
The Hyper-Calvinists denied the free offer of the Gospel because they did not make a distinction between the eternal, secret will of God and the revealed will of God. (The former is known only to God, whilst the latter is revealed in the Bible.) They deduced the duty of the preacher from their knowledge of God’s decrees rather than from his commands and invitations in Scripture. Calvin and the majority of Reformed divines had refused to take this logical, yet unscriptural, step (p.130).
Excessive emphasis was also placed on the doctrine of irresistible grace with the tendency to state that an elect man is not only passive in regeneration but also in conversion as well. The absorbing interest in the eternal, immanent acts of God and in irresistible grace led to the notion that grace must only be offered to those for whom it was intended (p.145).
Source: Peter Toon, “The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism is English Nonconformity 1689–1765”
Beginning on page 18 at ‘Three Modification of High Calvinism’
That the conversion which God accepts is an interested one is self-evident. Every conversion is interested. Who can dare to say that his own life and death are of no concern to him? What ridiculous idealism would make us so pure, so spiritual, so objective that we could be converted for any other reason than because we are in danger of death and dangers of all kinds? To claim for oneself an abstract and idealistic conversion of this kind is to pretend to bring to God a valuable sacrifice, a perfect man. It is to want to replace Christ. It is to reach the summit of arrogance. The cry which God hears comes from the depths of the abyss, from sickness and suffering, from the heart which is humbled, bruised, and despairing. This is the cry which produces conversion because things cannot stay as they are, and conversion is a change of route for man. The moment a man decides to change his style of life in this way, the moment he remembers God again, his way which was plunging more and more deeply into the dark is suddenly directed to the light in a dizzy reascent. The truth is that God responds, not to our better feelings, but to the desperate cry of the man who has no other help but God. God responds just because man is in trouble and has nowhere to turn.
Obviously, when man has somewhere to turn he does not pray to God and God does not come to him. As long as man can invent hopes and methods, he naturally suffers from the pretension that he can solve his own problems. He invents technical instruments, the state, society, money, and science. He also invents idols, magic, philosophy, spiritualism, and all these things give him hope in himself that he can direct his own life and control his destiny. They all cause him to turn his back on God. As long as there is a glimmer of confidence in these means man prefers to stake his life on them rather than handing it over to God. When the sailors tried to save the ship by their nautical skill, Jonah slept. All these aids had to be shattered, all solutions blocked, and man’s possibilities hopelessly outclassed by the power of the challenge, to cause Jonah to return to God. Only when man has lost the vast apparatus of civilization, in personal response, does man remember God.
In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.
In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.
There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.
No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.
When your opinion of the Bible resembles that of Jim Jones you might be going down the wrong path…
In 1978 I was 18 years old and serving in the US Army. In early December of that year I boarded a US Air Force C-141 at Andrews AFB near Washington, DC bound for Travis AFB in Northern California, near San Francisco, on my way to my new duty station: Fort Ord, near Monterey, California.
I had in my hand the recent special edition of Newsweek magazine dedicated to the Jonestown tragedy, which had occurred a few weeks earlier on November 18, 1978.
When I boarded the aircraft it became immediately evident to me that I was going to be the only living passenger on this particular flight. The C-141 was a four engine jet cargo plane, which could be used for passengers when fabric bench seats were installed, and there were a few rows of these on this particular aircraft, which faced the rear of the plane.
The remaining cargo area of the aircraft was filled with pallets of aluminum containers, which are used by the US military for the transportation of dead bodies and, in this instance, a hundred or so dead bodies that were being transported from Mortuary Affairs located at Dover AFB in Delaware, having been flown there from Guyana. The bodies were now being returned to their home, most victims of Jonestown having been from the greater San Francisco area. Why the flight had stopped over at Andrews AFB I do not know, but it allowed me to board the long five hour flight to California.
As we flew west, I read the Newsweek special edition about Jonestown, occasionally glancing up to see the aluminum coffins, which were covered with cargo nets, gently rocking, with each coffin having a victim ID number written on it with magic marker. Having seen the photos of the dead, bloated, rotting victims in the magazine, I imagined what those pallets of coffins looked like without the aluminum containers: stacks of dead, rotting bodies… the bodies of those who had been followers of Jim Jones.
This experience has made the danger of false teaching very real to me. Although most false teachers don’t lead their followers to physical death, as Jones did, they always lead their followers to spiritual death, which Jones also did. And as horrible as the physical deaths of Jones’ followers was, the spiritual deaths of his followers, although invisible to us, was much worse.
There is great danger in following a teacher who has walked away from the Bible, and there are many such false teachers in the world today. These false teachers may not seem to be as bad as Jim Jones was, but they have the same opinions of the Bible. And they, like Jones, are leading their followers toward the same spiritual death as Jones’ followers.
Jim Jones’ beliefs about the Bible…
The Bible is inconsistent and erroneous.
The Bible is a document of propaganda that kept a certain political ideology in power and validated the repression of minority groups.
The Bible provides a defense of slavery and arguments in favor of the oppression of women.
“The Bible was retained in Jones’ preaching because, within its apparent husk of inconsistencies and interpretive abuses, it retained a kernel of usefulness in his message of economic and racial equality…” Continue reading: Excavating Usefulness and Truth: Jim Jones’ Treatment of the Bible and the News http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=34280
In the video linked above (after 4:47) White says:
The canon is a theological thing first and foremost. If we start from a historical perspective we can only go so far… we’re never going to get to what we believe the canon actually is if we start from that perspective.
Yet he will not say the same thing about the text of Scripture, which is also "a theological thing first and foremost."
Simply replace CANON (in the quote from White above) with TEXT and we have a consistent theological approach to Scripture.
White and Kruger, however, refuse to do this, and demand we adopt a scientific, historical-critical approach to the TEXT of Scripture. My question is Why?
Especially since, during their talk, they explained (correctly) how wrongheaded the naturalistic historical-critical approach is when dealing with Scripture, which is supernatural.
A biblical canon or canon of scripture is a set of texts (or ‘books’) which a particular religious community regards as authoritative scripture. The English word “canon” comes from the Greek κανών, meaning ‘rule’ or ‘measuring stick’. (source)
A recent video presentation with James White and Michael Kruger has brought to light a sharp distinction they make between canon and text regarding Scripture.
White and Kruger say the books of the canon and the texts of those books are two, different things, and we shouldn’t conflate them.
White and Kruger believe the canon to be a theological issue, but not the text.
They believe the text is a historical-critical issue.
Confessional text advocates believe both the canon and the text are theological issues.
These two approaches to the issue of text — one theological and other historical-critical — are where the confessional text advocates part ways from modern critical text advocates.
Confessional text advocates are consistent: they believe the canon is a confessional, believing, theological issue, and so also is the text.
Modern critical text advocates are inconsistent: they believe the canon is a confessional, believing, theological issue, but they believe the text is a naturalistic, historical-critical issue.
Confessional text advocates are criticized for believing the text is a theological issue.
“Moreover, the development of an authoritative text is a natural corollary to an authoritative list of books.” (Carl E. Amerding, The Old Testament and Criticism (p. 101)
Jeff Riddle mentions the quote above from Amerding in his audio response to White and Kruger. Riddle believes text and canon are necessary corollaries, and he further elaborates on why the text, and just not the canon, is a theological issue…
Since I believe all books are texts, I would say the books/texts of the canon are the canonical text.
The Bible is a book. The Bible is a text. The Protestant Bible is a canonical text. A canonical text is a fixed, unchanging text.
The Protestant canonical text was determined during the Reformation. This canonical text was — and is — the Masoretic text of the Old Testament (OT) and the Textus Receptus text of the New Testament (NT).
A good translation of this canonical text into English is the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).
In 1881, a new Greek text of the New Testament (NT), and a new English translation based upon it, was published as the Revised Version (RV).
This was a new text.
Not the canonical text.
This was a different text.
This was a different book.
This was a different collection of books/texts.
This was not the canonical Greek text of the NT historically recognized by Protestants.
A low point in the White-Kruger video (linked above) was when Kruger said (after 49:12):
“What’s interesting is that the early church seemed to make a distinction between those two things [i.e., canon and text] and what I mean by that is, certainly we believe the canonical books hold the text that God has delivered but if you had a book of John without the pericope of the adulterous woman, and you had one with it, it’s not as if the early church was saying… well… you know… they just said John’s canonical… they weren’t necessarily telling you which text was the right text. So I think it’s important to distinguish between the two things because if you don’t you end up trying to say there has to be an authoritative church approved text.”
Here we see Kruger mistakenly believing a book and a text are two different things that must be kept separate.
But a book is a text.
A book/text of John with the pericope of the adulterous woman is not the same thing as a book/text of John without this pericope.
Kruger is conflating two, different, books/texts: one with the pericope of the adulterous woman, and one without. The two are not the same book/text.
The book/text of John recognized and accepted as canonical by Protestants during the Reformation included this pericope.
A manuscript of the book/text of John without this pericope is considered a corrupt copy.
According to Augustine, this pericope is a part of the text/book of John that some people didn’t like, so they removed it from their manuscripts…
“Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin.” (Augustine, De Adulterinis Conjugiis, 2:6–7)
Canon, by definition, means: rule, or unchanging standard.
The canonical text recognized and accepted during the Protestant Reformation is not the same text used today for the translations of modern English Bibles, such as the English Standard Version (ESV).
Those who use the ESV have accepted the new critical editions of the original language texts of the Old and New Testaments.
Those who use the KJV have accepted the Reformation era original language texts of the Old and New Testaments.
These two groups have different canonical texts of Scripture.
Those who use the ESV and those who use the KJV form two, distinctly different, religious communities.
Why?
Because they use two, distinctly different, canonical texts.
“We may look at sacred texts as being those which contain a power and authority and are given certain status within a given community. Such communities and traditions are held together most typically through liturgical acts, which help to focus life upon that which is ultimate and to which the sacred texts give testimony. The status of the sacred text is canonical: as well as being normative for a community or tradition, it is also that community or tradition’s canon or canonical text. The term ‘canon’ has a variety of meanings, but in the context of sacred texts it means the defined groups of texts for the community or tradition . . one does not add to or subtract from them.” (Ninian Smart and Richard D. Hecht, edd. Sacred Texts of the World: A Universal Anthology (p. xiii-xiv)
The Protestant Bible is a canonical text.
The Protestant Bible is an unchanging rule, or standard, for faith and life.
The Protestant Bible consists of sixty-six books/texts that make up one text/book: the Bible.
Change one letter, one word, one phrase… add or remove one letter, one word, one phrase… and a canonical text is changed: it is no longer the text once recognized as canonical.
One does not add to, nor subtract from, a canonical text.
When one does add to and subtract from the canonical text, as has happened since 1881, that text is not longer the text once received as canonical. A new text requires re-evaluation by the community regarding its canonicity.
A canonical text must be a fixed text. A text that will never change.
How could one say whether or not a text was canonical when and if that text were undergoing a process of revision? We must wait until the revision process is complete before we’re able to recognize this text’s canonicity.
But today, for example, those who use the modern critical Greek text of the NT are using a text that is undergoing a process of revision that won’t be completed until some time after 2030.
How can anyone say this text is canonical? Since it’s not a final, settled, fixed text?
I should think the term canonical can only be applied to a final, settled, fixed text.
To accept the modern critical Greek text as canonical, and the ESV as a faithful English translation of that text, is similar to signing a contract that is undergoing a process of revision. You sign the contract today, but the contract you’re signing is subject to change. Letters, words, and phrases may be added to or removed from the contract, and you’re obligated to abide by it, because you signed it.
The Protestants who recognized the canonical text of the Reformation signed a contract, so to speak. And that contract was a final, settled, fixed, canonical text. Nothing could be added to it or subtracted from it.
When the critics began changing letters, words, and phrases in the recognized, received, canonical text, they created a new text, which Protestants had never recognized or accepted as canonical.
“Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament . . . All which are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life.” (Westminster Confession of Faith, 1:2)
Confessional statements, like the one above, regarding the books of the canon, were written for the old canonical text, not for a new one.
A new canonical text would require a new confessional acceptance of that text, which is something that has never occurred.
Instead, what’s happened is that the husk of the old confessional list of canonical books/texts has been stuffed with the new, naturalistic, historical-critical, ever-changing, never-settled, always-open-for-revision scholars’ text.
“I am intrigued by the question of the response of the community whose text has been ‘critically edited.’ Of course when this is done, it no longer is a sacred text, because it is no longer the text which the community has always regarded as sacred; it is a scholars’ text.” ~ Paul Ricoeur (source)
As I said above, for a text to be canonical it has to be fixed. It cannot be open for revision.
Any revision of an original language book/text of the Protestant Bible should necessitate a reevaluation of that book/text’s canonical status. Little foxes spoil the vine.
People who use the ESV and accept the modern critical text of the Greek NT that underlies it really don’t have a canonical text, because their text will be undergoing revision until sometime after 2030. No one knows what changes will be made — both to the Greek text and to the English translation.
There was an incident last year that exposed this unpopular truth.
The publisher of the ESV announced that they were issuing a final, fixed edition of the ESV. The ESV was to become like the KJV: dependable. However, the publisher back-tracked on this, and decided not to create a final, fixed edition.
The ESV will be continue to be what it’s always been: a never-ending work in progress.
A text always in flux.
A Bible that will always change over time.
I’m sticking with the canonical confessional text.
30 years ago Mark Noll identified as 'Mainline Protestantism' that which, today, we identify as 'broad Evangelicalism.' The 'Evangelical' position Noll described 30 years ago is, today, a very small minority of Protestants who are ridiculed by the broad Evangelicals because we reject biblical criticism. In the quote from Noll (below) we can see that today's broad Evangelicals (Noll's 'Mainline Protestants') recognize 'the importance of popular leaders as mediators of the technical expertise', which is why they need someone like self-proclaimed apologist James White. The small minority of Protestants who reject biblical criticism (Noll's 'Evangelicals') recognize the need for someone like Jeff Riddle, who is considered a leader that is able to 'communicate the results of research in a style that is both understandable and supports treasured beliefs.' Sadly, very few Protestants today actually defend Scripture, sola Scriptura, or Protestantism.
“If Catholic interpretation gives a preeminent place to religious authority, and if mainline Protestantism does the same for technical expertise, evangelical interpretation assigns first place to popular approval. Another way of putting these differences is to say that the magisterium for Catholics has been, at least officially, the church’s teaching officers who, it is true, regularly solicit the counsel of scholars and acknowledge the sentiments of the people. Mainline Protestantism, on the other hand, has given magisterial authority to ‘scientific’ study proceeding from university-level research, while attempting to adapt such learning to the needs of the pew and while recognizing the importance of popular leaders as mediators of the technical expertise. Evangelicals, by contrast, regularly speak of ‘the church’ in its entirety as the magisterium. The most popular and influential leaders among evangelicals are those who have mastered the ability to sway mass audiences. And while the evangelical community respects its scholars, it also expects them to communicate the results of research in a style that is both understandable and supports treasured beliefs. The root of this evangelical bent toward democratic interpretation is the Reformation teaching on the priesthood of all believers.”
Mark A. Noll, “Between Criticism and Faith: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America” (New York: Harper and Row, 1986) pp. 150-151
Critical Anti-Critics & Three Types of Believing Critics
“The major division lies between those who tie the belief in biblical inspiration tightly to traditional interpretations and those for whom this bond is somewhat less secure. For the first, more traditionalist scholars, research is primarily useful as a way of protecting Scripture. It is necessary to carry on academic work because erroneous critical opinions must be rebutted and correct view of Scripture reinforced. This stance may be called ‘critical anti-criticism.’ It only superficially resembles what could be called ‘popular anti-criticism,’ or the anti-intellectual rejection of scholarship as inherently corrupting. Critical anti-critics make a commitment to scholarship, they sometimes achieve widespread recognition for linguistic or historical competence, and they are concerned about academic certification.
“Critical anti-criticism as practiced by evangelicals depends upon the belief that the infallibility, or inerrancy, of the Bible is the epistemological keystone of Christianity itself. Should one aspect of Scripture come under suspicion, the whole Bible, along with its message of salvation, would be irreparably compromised. This belief in Scripture as the infallible Word of God, moreover, is considered the basis for traditional evangelical convictions about authorship, dating, literary transmission, and other critical questions. It is, in principle, conceivable that the results of sound research might overturn these convictions, but such research would have to be massively persuasive, and such a reversal would grievously damage the credibility of the Bible as a whole...
“Critical anti-critics divide among themselves not so much in principle as in practice. Some find their convictions a goad to active participation in the broader world of biblical scholarship. The inappropriate or prejudicial use of scholarship needs to be refuted, and so it is necessary to engage wholeheartedly in professional biblical work where so many false conclusions have been drawn on the basis of insubstantial or tainted evidence. Other critical anti-critics find the conventions of professional biblical scholarship too hostile. They turn instead to friendlier audiences. If prodigious labors and argumentation of recondite complexity are required to overturn even the smallest errors of the academic community, then it is better to point one’s efforts toward evangelicals. The later turn, therefore, to the journals of their own seminaries or denominations and to publishers who provide books for these constituencies. If the work which appears in such outlets does not sweep the academic world by storm, at least it provides evangelicals with secure and edifying conclusions. Nonevangelicals, as well as evangelicals, sometimes underestimate the quality of sturdy scholarship which appears as critical anti-criticism. It is often learned, careful, and forcefully logical within the boundaries set by conservative views of the Bible. Few, even evangelicals, would deny, however, that such work can also be parochial, selective, and question-begging. The best of this scholarship, as indeed much scholarship from before the rise of criticism, deserves a recognition it rarely receives.
“The second major division of evangelical scholarship may be called ‘believing criticism.‘ Individuals holding this position affirm that historical, textual, literary, and other forms of research (if they are not predicated on the denial of the supernatural) may legitimately produce conclusions that overturn traditional evangelical beliefs about the Bible. Moreover, such reversals need not necessarily undermine beliefs in the inspired or inerrant character of Scripture’s revelatory truthfulness. It should be noted that evangelicals who practice this kind of ‘believing criticism‘ often engage in critical anti-criticism. Like critical anti-critics they regularly put scholarship to use in defending traditional evangelical beliefs and in attacking the nontraditional conclusions of other scholars. But unlike critical anti-critics, believing critics find insight as well as error in the larger world of biblical scholarship. They have benefitted in numerous ways---not merely in textual or ancillary studies----from the scholarship of those who are not evangelicals. As a result they conclude that evangelical interpretations are, in principle, reformable. For these scholars the possibility exists that biblical inspiration is compatible with reinterpretations of venerable positions.
“It is important to recognize that believing criticism also appears in several varieties, ranging from expressions resembling critical anti-criticism to those resembling views of Christians who are not evangelicals. In the first instance, a believing critic may affirm that reversals of traditional views are possible, but in fact find that evidence does not require them. Several of the widely used evangelical Introductions adopt this stance, and it is a position argued cogently in many other places. This style of academic work differs from critical anti-criticism mostly by the sense that ultimate matters are not at stake in any particular question of research.
“A second kind of believing criticism accepts the possibility of reversing traditional views and indeed argues that such reversals are justified by evidence from research... Academic proposals of this sort are often confusing to the evangelical community, especially for critical anti-critics, as the bare conclusions may not be different from the sort of reversal proposed by a non-evangelical. Believing critics of this second sort, however, regularly take pains to point out that the innovation is not intended as a detraction from high views of biblical infallibility, but rather as a better understanding of biblical intent.
“A third type of believing critic concedes that reversals are possible, that they have indeed occurred, and that they may reveal minor mistakes in the biblical materials. Alternatively, such critics may defend critical conventions of academic community that contradict evangelical traditions, but suggest that such matters are irrelevant to considerations of biblical interpretation... Evangelicals accept this or that critical conclusion and suggest that traditional evangelical reasons for rejecting that conclusion were inappropriate. Evangelical critics of this type regularly reflect some influence from neo-orthodox theologians or biblical scholars, and they may call certain evangelical formulations of inerrancy into question. They may ever contest the whole evangelical concern for the question of error in the Bible. But on other important matters---belief in the truth-telling character of Scripture, its realistic interpretation, its substantial history, its ultimate authority---these critics align themselves with the evangelicals who are more conservative on critical matters...
Mark A. Noll, “Between Criticism and Faith: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America” (New York: Harper and Row, 1986) pp. 156-160
As E. F. Hills has said: “The defense of the Textus Receptus, therefore, is a necessary part of the defense of Protestantism” (The King James Version Defended, p. 193).
Traditional students of the Bible, like Jeff Riddle, “tie the belief in biblical inspiration tightly to traditional interpretations.”
For people like James White, “this bond is somewhat less secure.”
Believing Bible students, or 'traditionalist critical anti-critics,' like Jeff Riddle, protect and defend Scripture.
James White is one of the three versions of critics Noll calls “believing critics.”
E. F. Hills more accurately describes such critics as “unbelieving Bible students.”
James White typifies what Noll describes as “a second kind of believing criticism” . . .
“A second kind of believing criticism accepts the possibility of reversing traditional views and indeed argues that such reversals are justified by evidence from research... Academic proposals of this sort are often confusing to the evangelical community, especially for critical anti-critics, as the bare conclusions may not be different from the sort of reversal proposed by a non-evangelical. Believing critics of this second sort, however, regularly take pains to point out that the innovation is not intended as a detraction from high views of biblical infallibility, but rather as a better understanding of biblical intent...”
Conclusion
Self-proclaimed apologist James White is not defending Scripture, nor is he defending Protestantism.
Confessional text scholar and pastor Jeff Riddle is defending both Scripture and Protestantism.
