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.
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.
