There is another significant element in the canonical model being proposed for New Testament textual criticism. The enterprise remains a continuing process. Although one cannot fault the preparation of critical editions of the Greek New Testament as a useful and necessary tool, the publication of such critical editions can result in seriously confusing the purpose of the enterprise by substituting a modern reconstructed text as a new form of textus receptus. Rather, the canonical model of textual criticism proposes a continuing search in discerning the best received text which moves from the outer parameters of the common church tradition found in the textus receptus to the inner judgement respecting its purity.
The emphasis of this model on the activity of text criticism as a continuing process derives from several important reasons which are constitutive to the nature of the canonical enterprise. First, the search for the best canonical text within the circle established by the church’s tradition takes place within the context of the multiple textual options which have actually been used in the church. These various traditions of interpretation provide the earliest commentary on the New Testament text and illustrate both the promise of understanding and also the threat of misunderstanding.
Secondly, the process of seeking to discern the truest witness to the gospel from within the church’s multiple traditions functions to remind the interpreter of the canonical corpus that the element of theological interpretation is not only constitutive of the church’s scriptures in general, but has also entered into the textual dimension of the tradition as well. This observation is not a defence of irrational subjectivity, but a further confirmation that the discipline of text criticism is not a strictly objective, or non-theological activity, but is an integral part of the same interpretive enterprise which comprises the church’s life with its scriptures.
“THE textual diversity among the manuscripts of the New Testament is well known, presenting, as they do, several characteristic types of text, chief of which are the Alexandrian, the Western, and the Byzantine or Ecclesiastical text-types.' The question arises what attitude with respect to the canon should be taken toward these several types of text of the New Testament books. Is one type of text to be regarded as the canonical text, and if so, what authority should be accorded variant readings which differ from that text?” (p. 267).
The Text-Canon and The Long Ending of Mark
“Today we know that the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to Mark (xvi. 9-20) are absent from the oldest Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian manuscripts, and that in other manuscripts asterisks or obeli mark the verses as doubtful or spurious. Eusebius and Jerome, well aware of such variation in the witnesses, discussed which form of text was to be preferred. It is noteworthy, however, that neither Father suggested that one form was canonical and the other was not. Furthermore, the perception that the canon was basically closed did not lead to a slavish fixing of the text of the canonical books. Thus, the category of 'canonical' appears to have been broad enough to include all variant readings (as well as variant renderings in early versions) that emerged during the course of the transmission of the New Testament documents while apostolic tradition was still a living entity, with an intermingling of written and oral forms of that tradition. Already in the second century, for example, the so-called long ending of Mark was known to Justin Martyr and to Tatian, who incorporated it into his Diatesseron. There seems to be good reason, therefore, to conclude that, though external and internal evidence is conclusive against the authenticity of the last twelve verses as coming from the same pen as the rest of the Gospel, the passage ought to be accepted as part of the canonical text of Mark” (pp. 269-270).
“In short, it appears that the question of canonicity pertains to the document qua document, and not to one particular form or version of that document. Translated into modern terms, Churches today accept a wide variety of contemporary versions as the canonical New Testament, though the versions differ not only as to rendering but also with respect to the presence or absence of certain verses in several of the books (besides the ending of Mark's Gospel, other significant variations include Luke xxii. 43-4, John vii. 53-viii. u , 8 and Acts viii. 37)” (p. 270).
The Ecclesiastical Text-Canon: Theoretically Open; Practically Closed
“[I]t appears that, though from a theoretical point of view the way is open for the possible addition of another book or epistle to the New Testament canon, it is problematic that any would, so to say, meet the standards, whether ancient or modern, of accreditation” (p. 273).
The Historical Ecclesiastical Text-Canon
“To remove one or more books from the New Testament canon as hitherto defined would sever bonds that have united groups of believers, and thus would almost certainly result in still greater fragmentation of the Church. Furthermore, at this late date in the history of the Christian Church, to delete one or more books from the canon, even if such a proposal could find general approval, would result in cutting off important historical roots of the Church” (p. 274).
The Received Ecclesiastical Text-Canon
“True enough, occasionally the suggestion is made that, for example, the Ignatian epistles should be added to the New Testament canon, and 2 Peter and/or Jude should be dropped. But, on the whole, there is no significant body of opinion within the churches that wishes to see the New Testament canon altered, either by enlargement or by reduction. One may predict that individual views and proposals will die a natural death. It may be concluded, therefore, that, while the New Testament canon should, from a theoretical point of view, be regarded as open in principle for either the addition or the deletion of one or more books, from a practical point of view such a modification can scarcely be contemplated as either possible or desirable. To say that the canon may be revised is not the same as saying it must be revised. The canon by which the Church has lived over the centuries emerged in history, the result of a slow and gradual process. To be sure, in this canon there are documents less firmly attested by external criteria than others. But the several parts have all been cemented together by usage and by general acceptance in the Church, which has recognized, and recognizes, that God has spoken and is speaking to her in and through this body of early Christian literature. As regards this social fact, nothing can be changed; the Church has received the canon of the New Testament as it is today, in the same way as the Synagogue has had bequeathed to it the Hebrew canon. In short, the canon cannot be remade—for the simple reason that history cannot be remade” (pp. 274-275).
The Ecclesiastical Text-Canon
“The word κανών has an active sense, referring to those books that serve to mark out the norm for Christian faith and life; it has also a passive sense, referring to the list of books that have been marked out by the Church as normative” (p. 283).
“The self-authenticating witness of the word testified to the divine origin of the gospel that had brought the Church into being; such is the implication of Paul's words to the Thessalonians: 'We thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of any human being but as what it really is, the word of God which is at work in you believers' (1 Thess. ii. 13). During the second and succeeding centuries, this authoritative word was found, not in the utterances of contemporary leaders and teachers, but in the apostolic testimony contained within certain early Christian writings. From this point of view the Church did not create the canon, but came to recognize, accept, affirm, and confirm the self-authenticating quality of certain documents that imposed themselves as such upon the Church. If this fact is obscured, one comes into serious conflict not with dogma but with history” (pp. 286-287).
A Theologically Diverse and Limited Ecclesiastical Text-Canon
“In short, the canon recognizes the validity of diversity of theological expression, and marks the limits of acceptable diversity within the Church” (281-282).
An Unalterable Ecclesiastical Text-Canon
“A 'canon' that alters is scarcely worthy of the name” (p. 282).
The Critical Scholars’ Duty to the Church
“New Testament scholars have the responsibility as servants of the Church to investigate, understand, and elucidate, for the development of the Christian life of believers, the full meaning of every book within the canon and not only of those which may be most popular in certain circles and at certain times. Only in such a way will the Church be able to hear the Word of God in all of its breadth and depth” (p. 282).
Once again, the effort to take seriously the confession of a canon offers another alternative in respect to the inspiration of Scripture. The doctrine of inspiration is an attempt to deal adequately with the medium of revelation. The mistake of employing such a concept as inerrancy, among other things, was in its defining of the medium apart from its canonical context. In our opinion, the claim for the inspiration of Scripture is the claim for the uniqueness of the canonical context of the church through which the Holy Spirit works. Although there are innumerable other contexts in which to place the Bible—this is part of the humanity of the witness—divine inspiration is a way of claiming a special prerogative for this one context. The Bible, when understood as the Scriptures of the church, functions as the vehicle for God’s special communicating of himself to his church and the world. This understanding of the Scripture’s uniqueness remains a statement of faith. It neither requires a hidden apologetic nor must it be reformulated to accommodate itself to every new phase of the scholarly debate.
Although many critical commentators have correctly seen both the elements of similarity and differences in respect to the undisputed Pauline letters, the canonical implications for understanding the function of Colossians within the Pauline corpus have seldom been addressed. Simply to focus on ideological differences between so-called ‘genuine’ and ‘deutero-Pauline’ letters is to overlook the effect of the New Testament canon. Rather, the shape of the letter to the Colossians provides a Pauline warrant for translating his theology into a different idiom which is faithful to the gospel. The letter establishes the parameters within which the continuing theological task is carried on. The fact that the corpus of Pauline letters contain material whose shape shows evidence of a process of expanding and adapting Paul’s thought to a new and different situation indicates that Paul’s letters were not regarded as a static deposit of unchanging doctrine, but as a living voice of apostolic instruction, supported by the authority of the exalted Christ, which was given to guide the church continually toward the obedient life. The final instruction of the epistle to have the letter read in other churches (4.16) already indicates the beginning of the canonical process at work. The letter functions as authority for Christians who do not share in the original historical situation of those at Colossae, but whose context within the community of faith is nevertheless addressed with a continuing word from God through his apostle.
“Today we know that the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to Mark (xvi. 9-20) are absent from the oldest Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian manuscripts, and that in other manuscripts asterisks or obeli mark the verses as doubtful or spurious. Eusebius and Jerome, well aware of such variation in the witnesses, discussed which form of text was to be preferred. It is noteworthy, however, that neither Father suggested that one form was canonical and the other was not. Furthermore, the perception that the canon was basically closed did not lead to a slavish fixing of the text of the canonical books. Thus, the category of 'canonical' appears to have been broad enough to include all variant readings (as well as variant renderings in early versions) that emerged during the course of the transmission of the New Testament documents while apostolic tradition was still a living entity, with an intermingling of written and oral forms of that tradition. Already in the second century, for example, the so-called long ending of Mark was known to Justin Martyr and to Tatian, who incorporated it into his Diatesseron. There seems to be good reason, therefore, to conclude that, though external and internal evidence is conclusive against the authenticity of the last twelve verses as coming from the same pen as the rest of the Gospel, the passage ought to be accepted as part of the canonical text of Mark.”
There is one concluding problem of canonical shaping to address. The original ending of the Gospel of Mark—whether originally by intent or by design is now irrelevant—has been expanded. At least by the middle of the second century two additional endings were attached to the end of 16.8. First, a shorter ending which in the major textual traditions always preceded the longer ending. Secondly, a longer ending which displaced the shorter ending to become the accepted reading of the Byzantine (koine) text.
The significance of the expanded ending has usually been disregarded by modern critical scholarship, but it is wide-ranging in effect. Mark’s Gospel received its canonical shape by the addition of an ending which clearly does not stem from the original author. Yet the addition is not simply a pious gloss attached to one late textual tradition, but rather an early expansion which helped form the dominant canonical tradition. Moreover, the longer ending consists of a catena of passages taken from the other three canonical Gospels in addition to other sources. This evidence supports the conclusion that the expanded ending to Mark entered the text during the process of forming a fourfold Gospel collection. If from an historical perspective Mark’s Gospel provided the primary source for Matthew and Luke, there is at least one highly important example within the canonical process of the reverse influence at work.
What is the canonical effect of the longer ending on the reading of Mark’s Gospel? First, the addressee of the Gospel has not been altered. The message is still directed primarily to those within the Christian church. However, for this next generation of post-resurrection Christians, knowledge of the resurrection appearances by means of oral tradition can no longer be assumed. The grounds for Christian belief must now be set forth in written form. Moreover, the vehicle for the resurrection tradition has now become the other written Gospels. For Mark to function within the fourfold collection his gospel has been brought into conformity with the other three. That is to say, the oral tradition which undergirded Mark’s final chapter has now been spelled out and shaped in accordance with the tradition provided by the larger collection. The canonical Mark has thus been fashioned in such a way as to harmonize with the other three. The hermeneutical implications of this canonical shape would provide a strong warrant for resisting theories of interpretation which would read Mark as an idiosyncratic witness in open conflict with the other three.
Secondly, the same theological point made by the original ending of Mark (16.8) has been retained, but extended. The emphasis of the longer ending falls fully on the disciples’ unbelief even in the face of the resurrection (vv. 11, 12, 14, 16). The longer ending, in addition, functions as a commentary on the first eight verses and plainly rules out interpreting the astonishment and awe of the women in a positive fashion. Their unbelief is upbraided by the resurrected Christ, who equates belief and unbelief with salvation and judgement (v. 16).
Finally, the function of the Gospel of Mark in its larger canonical shape has now been expanded beyond the role of calling the disciples to remember the nature of their discipleship to the crucified and rejected Messiah. The disciples are now commissioned to evangelize the world, much in the style of Matthew’s commission. Mark’s original “anamnetic” focus has been made to serve a new role, in conformity with the other Gospels, which addresses those both inside and outside the fellowship of believers.
Brevard Childs, The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (pp. 94-5)
We should now like to attempt some theological reflections that go beyond the descriptive task of Biblical Theology, and use as the context the witness of the whole Christian canon. It is interesting to recall the other recent theological attempts to develop an understanding of God from a different context. One thinks especially of Tillich’s ontological approach from "the ground of being," of Bultmann’s existential stance that cannot talk of God except through the medium of anthropology, of Altizer and the "death of God" theologians who speak of the God of the Old Testament dying with Jesus to signal a freeing of man from superstition, and of the "new left" who identify God with service toward one’s fellows and the humanizing of the structures of society. Perhaps the only things held in common among these various contemporary alternatives is their failure to take the Biblical canon seriously.
What does it mean to interpret the New Testament in the light of the Old? First, the Old Testament witness to the God of Israel provides the matrix in which the Christological statements of the New Testament are made. We cannot understand Jesus Christ apart from what God was doing as creator of the world, convenanting with Israel, guiding and directing the nations in judgment and mercy. The faith of the Christian church is not built upon Jesus of Nazareth who had a Jewish background, but its faith is directed to God, the God of Israel, Creator of the world, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament testimony to God serves the church, not as interesting background to the New Testament, nor as historical preparation for Christ’s arrival, but as the living vehicle of the Spirit through which it continues to confront God.
Secondly, the Old Testament witness to God as the context from which to understand the New Testament guards the Christian against any truncated interpretation of God’s work in Christ that would separate the physical world from the spiritual, the objective action from the internal motivation, the people of God from the individual believer, and commitment to a covenant from authentic existence. Most of the heresies of the Christian church stem from a distorted emphasis of the New Testament that has been cut adrift from its Old Testament moorings.
Thirdly, the Old Testament witness to God continues to provide the primary witness to dimensions of God’s nature and purpose which, far from being corrected, are sustained and reiterated in the New. The righteousness of God is not bypassed but fulfilled in the cross. The holiness of God is not reduced by the incarnation but radicalized. The unity of God is not endangered by the Son but confirmed. The mystery of God is not made obvious but projected to new dimensions of wonder and praise.
Conversely, what does it mean to interpret the Old Testament in the light of the New? First, the New Testament testifies to the failure of Israel in its response to the covenant will of God. The Old Testament does not present a history of growing obedience or increasing illumination, but ends in dissidence and uncertainty. The easy continuity expressed in the phrase "the Judeo-Christian heritage" is opposed by the New Testament’s witness to Jesus Christ, which testifies to his suffering, rejection, and death at the hands of the chosen people. The New Testament remains an offense because it lays claim to the Scriptures of Israel and hears in them the testimony to the rejected Messiah of God.
Secondly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ as the context for understanding the Old Testament points to the fact that there is no aspect of the old covenant’s testimony which is unaffected by the Lord of the church. The New Testament confesses Christ as Creator, Eternal Wisdom, Redeemer of Israel, and Judge. There is no body of Old Testament teaching that stands by itself and is untouched by the revelation of the Son. This means that frequent appeal to the term "Christomonism" raises a false issue, which has failed to understand the dynamics of Trinitarian theology.
Thirdly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ provides the context from which to understand the tensions within the Old Testament’s witness to God. His justice and his mercy find a unity in the death of Jesus, his transcendence and immanence in the incarnation, and his Kingship over heaven and earth in the reign of his Christ. The claim for a unity within the Old Testament is a theological confession that views the promise from the perspective of its fulfillment.
Fourthly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ guards the Old Testament from distortions to which it is vulnerable when isolated from its whole context. The God of the Old Testament is not the God of Israel alone, but of all the nations. The physical blessings of this world -- life, land, the people -- are an inheritance that points to the ultimate reward which is God himself. Man’s worship, his deeds of charity, and search for God are vain and worthless strivings without the Spirit of God who breathes life into dead forms.
Lastly, what does it mean to interpret the Biblical witnesses to God in the light of God’s reality, and his reality m the light of the witnesses? First, the Scriptures are pointers to God himself. To know about God is not the same as knowing God. "Let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me." (Jer. 9:24.) The God of the Bible is not a theological system, but a living and acting Lord, the one with whom we have to do -- now. We are confronted, not just with ancient witnesses, but with our God who is the Eternal Present. Prayer is an integral part in the study of Scripture because it anticipates the Spirit’s carrying its reader through the written page to God himself. Again, obedience is the source of the right knowledge of God. Peter said to Jesus: "Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said: "What’s that to you? Follow me." The Christian is led from faith to faith, but in the context of faithful response to God and his people. Finally, the Christian interpreter strives to learn to use the language of faith that he reads in the Bible. The ancient medium becomes a living vehicle into the presence of God only insofar as it becomes the witness of each new generation. He cannot ape the past, but he can be instructed by the prophets and apostles toward the end that he learns himself to speak the language of faith for his age.
Pastor Jeff Riddle recently did a Word Magazine episode (WM 109) discussing an article Peter Gurry wrote about the quiet Renaissance in New Testament (NT) text criticism:
After 27:00, Pastor Riddle makes some important points,
“There was a consensus on the Textus Receptus, on the received text, and that consensus held among Protestants [i.e., the Protestant church] from the 16th on through to the 19 century… and I believe we had a consensus during the early church about the proper text of the Bible”
Pastor Riddle points out that the situation we have today regarding the Greek New Testament (GNT) is something similar to Build-A-Bear stores at the mall. But instead of building stuffed toy bears people are building their own New Testaments…
“You create the New Testament you like. You look at the different variants and the readings and you adjudicate which one you think is best. If you think the traditional ending of Mark is original you keep it in there, if you don’t like it you take that out, or you substitute the shorter ending. Or if you don’t like the woman taken in adultery just put it down in the footnotes and take it out of the text. Again, I don’t see that as an improvement I see that as creating a lot of chaos, a lot of anarchy, with the text of the Christian Scriptures and undermining the authority of Christian theology, Christian teaching, confessionalism… but other people see this as a Renaissance, as something wonderful that’s taking place.”
I would go further and say such people are undermining the authority of the church.
Until recently, there has been something of a standard GNT (various editions of the Nestle Aland and United Bible Societies (NA/UBS GNTs), but this is changing. As Peter Gurry points out, we have arrived at the end of the NA27/UBS4 era,
"Having these new editions of the Greek text [i.e., Tyndale House GNT] may well require exegetes and teachers to pay closer attention to textual criticism than in the past. Not only will we hear “but my translation says ...” in the classroom, but we are increasingly going to hear “but my Greek edition says ...” Although there has never been a consensus on the Greek text, the end of the NA27/UBS4 era (if we may call it that) requires a renewed level of engagement from those of us who teach." (Peter Gurry, The Quiet Renaissance in Textual Criticism (click here)
As I said above, I’m thinking about the authority of the church.
I’m not surprised when Protestants like Pastor Riddle speak hesitantly about the church and the authority of the church. Protestants have an aversion to speaking about the authority of the church, especially when it concerns the church being an authority on the text of Scripture.
This aversion is, I think, an overreaction against Catholicism.
The Protestant church does have the authority—and the responsibility—to recognize, receive, and delineate the canonical text of Scripture.
It is the church—not the individual—who says: “These writings are canonical and no others.”
As Bruce Metzger put it,
“The Church did not create the canon, but came to recognize, accept, affirm, and confirm the self-authenticating quality of certain documents that imposed themselves as such upon the Church.” (Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (p. 287)
When Protestantism came into being, what was the Protestant canonical text of Scripture?
The Protestant canonical text of Scripture was that text which the Protestant religious community—the church—regarded as authoritative.
“A biblical canon or canon of scripture is a set of texts (or ‘books’) which a particular religious community regards as authoritative scripture.” (Wikipedia)
“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.)
What was the canonical New Testament (NT) text of this Protestant church?
“Finally it is undisputed that from the 16th to the 18th century orthodoxy’s doctrine of verbal inspiration assumed this Textus Receptus. It was the only Greek text they knew, and they regarded it as the original text.” (Kurt Aland, The Text of The Church (click here)
What is the canonical text of the Protestant church today?
This is the question.
But first we must ask, “What is the Protestant church today?” The answer to this question is not as clear cut as it was from the 16th through the 19th centuries. There were minor difference in doctrine in those days, but none regarding the canonical NT text (i.e., Textus Receptus).
Today many Protestants don’t agree on major doctrines, and most Protestants have rejected the Textus Receptus as the canonical NT text.
There are a variety of Protestant religious communities today, ranging from those who completely reject Christianity to those who hold traditional 16th and 17th century Protestant doctrines.
In short, the Protestant church (or Protestantism) today is in a state of confusion and chaos. Questions like “What is doctrine?” and “What is the Bible?” receive various answers, depending upon which Protestant and which Protestant community we ask.
Likewise, the question “What is the Protestant church” also receives various answers, depending upon which Protestant and which Protestant community we ask.
The following are some concise truths about these issues and how they relate to the authority of the church vis-à-vis the individual:
We cannot divorce canon from text.
We cannot divorce the canonical text from the church.
It’s not up to the individual to decide what the canonical text is.
We cannot divorce doctrine from the canonical text.
We cannot divorce doctrine from the church.
It’s not up to the individual to decide what doctrine is.
Until we realize these are the issues we are facing we won’t be able to organize our thinking on this important subject (i.e., the canonical text).
As I see it, skirting the issue of the authority of the church (as I believe Pastor Riddle did in his recent audio) by referring to it as “Christian theology”, “Christian teaching”, or “confessionalism” isn’t moving us forward. It’s avoiding an important—albeit uncomfortable—subject: the authority of the church.
There's a reason for why Theodore Letis referred to the canonical text as the ecclesiastic text, and for why Jeff Riddle refers to the canonical text as the traditional or confessional text.
Letis knew that the answer to the question “What is Scripture?” is, in the final analysis, answered by the church. Not by a church hierarchy, nor by church councils, but by a consensus of believers led by the Holy Spirit who form the Protestant church. It is this church that recognizes Scripture as Scripture, defines and delimits the Protestant canonical text, and formulates its doctrines based upon that canonical text (sola Scriptura).
Pastor Riddle carefully avoids speaking about the church (I think) because he believes that by mentioning the authority of the church he will come too close to the error of the Catholics (i.e., church authority over and above Scripture) and perhaps fall into it.
Notice how carefully he speaks of theology, tradition, and confessionalism instead of speaking about the church… I can almost hear him thinking to himself, “Don’t make the mistake of saying ‘church’ while you’re explaining this!”…
“Again, I don’t see that as an improvement I see that as creating a lot of chaos, a lot of anarchy, with the text of the Christian Scriptures and undermining the authority of Christian theology, Christian teaching, confessionalism…”
Who but the church gives us authoritative Christian theology?
Who but the church gives us authoritative Christian teaching?
Who but the church gives us authoritative confessions?
All of these have Scripture as their foundation (sola Scriptura) but Protestant theology, teaching, and confessions have been brought into being by the Protestant church.
The authority of these—theology, teaching, confessions—rests first upon Scripture and second upon the church.
Those who are joined to Christ by the Holy Ghost are united to his church; are under the authority of his church; and his church is under the authority of Scripture (and ultimately Christ).
New believers are taught by his church: 1) what Scripture is; and 2) what Scripture teaches.
I’m sure when a new Christian joins Pastor Riddle’s church she’s told 1) what the Bible is, and 2) what the Bible teaches.
And herein lies the authority of the church regarding both Scripture and doctrine.
The 16th century Protestant church has handed down to us both its Bible and its doctrine.
We can call this Christian theology, tradition, confessionalism, or whatever else we want to call it but, in the final analysis, what we are saying is: the church.
This is why Letis speaks of the ecclesiastical text. The text we use today is the canonical text the church has used and has handed down to us.
The traditional canonical text we use today is not the modern critical text the academy uses.
The ecclesiastical text is the confessional text; it is the traditional text; it is the text the Protestant church handed down to us, just as the Protestant church handed down to us its doctrines.
I believe we need to stop shying away from speaking about the authority of the church because, at the end of the day, only the church can answer the questions: “What is Scripture?” and "What is doctrine?"
Is Scripture self attesting? Yes, it is. Is the Holy Sprit guiding us to recognize Scripture? Yes, he is. Who should we join ourselves to when we join a church? We should join to those whom the Holy Ghost has led to formulate similar doctrines and to recognize similar canonical texts (and translations thereof).
Is this always possible? No, it’s not. But, in a sense, those of us who recognize the authority of the traditional Protestant canonical text do form a particular religious community, even if we can't always occupy the same physical space.
There are as many religious communities—churches—as there are canonical texts.
Those religious communities that use the modern critical academic text and the translations based upon them form particular religious communities. Why? Because their canonical text is particular to them.
By definition, a church that uses the English Standard Version of the Bible and adopts the criticism of the academy is not the same church as one that uses the King James Version and rejects the criticism of the academy.
These churches may have many similarities but they are not on the same page regarding the questions: “What is the canonical text?” and “What is doctrine?”
Protestants have a choice: embrace the historic and traditional Protestant canonical text and doctrine, or reject it.
It seems most Protestants today have chosen to reject this canonical text. And those who have chosen to do so have also rejected at least some of the traditional Protestant doctrines by doing so (e.g., providential preservation; verbal, plenary inspiration).
Many more Protestants are rejecting even more doctrines (e.g., eternal punishment, vicarious atonement). And this is no surprise. In so doing they are, in fact, creating new religious communities… new churches… while still claiming to be Protestant.
This is all the more reason to cling—not only to traditional Protestant doctrine but—to the Protestant, confessional, traditional, ecclesiastical, canonical text.
“Unto this catholic visible Church Christ has given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God…” (Westminster Confession of Faith (25:3)
The “oracles” the confession speaks of here are the holy Scriptures, which are the church’s “infallible oracle and rule of faith and practice.” (A.A. Hodge, A Commentary on the Confession (p. 408).
The Protestant canonical text doesn’t belong to Bible publishers, academic critics, Christian theology, tradition, or confessionalism.
The Protestant canonical text of Scripture belongs to the Protestant church.
“The defense of the Textus Receptus, therefore, is a necessary part of the defense of Protestantism.” (E. F. Hills, The King James Version Defended (p. 193)
“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… 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 (pp. 150-151)
“The dangers of the Bible slipping from the ecclesiastical life in which it gives its life’s blood, namely the church, however you conceive that... the Bible slipping out of the hands of the church and into the hands of Bible societies and profit making Bible and book publishers so that now the church, if we can speak in broad terms of that, and those confessional and conservative Christians throughout the world who still find the Bible authoritative are now in bondage to profit making publishers who reconfigure the canon of Scripture to make it marketable so that the actual content and parameters, the borders and the boundaries of the text of Scripture itself is no longer determined within the believing community, it’s being determined by extraneous corporate entities. I call them the Bible landlords. They now control the Scriptures and dictate to believers and the institutional church what they will accept as Scripture. This is a deplorable state of being and is, perhaps, the last gasps of the life of Protestantism as we know it. It’s an indication of the disarray of worldwide Protestantism.” (Theodore P. Letis, Lecture on The Woman Taken in Adultery (audio here)
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.
