Defending the WORDS of God
By J. D.
("Doc") Watson, D.R.E.
From the back cover of the booklet: We are today in a battle over
words—a battle for the very words of God. We hear many people, including
evangelicals and even fundamentalists say, “Oh, we most certainly believe in
the Bible as God’s word.” But is this enough? Is this really the issue? The
real issue is this: do we believe in the
WORDS of God as being the Word of God? In other words, do words matter? Are the actual words of
the original Hebrew and Greek really important? Or is it okay to just get
across the main thought of the writer as we translate the words from the
original languages into English?
What we see today is the replacing of a word-for-word translation of God’s word with a thought-for-thought translation. In other words, as long as we get
across the thought of the author, then the exact words aren’t really important.
In this booklet—which is an excerpt from the author’s book, The King
James Version Debate: A Plea for Authority—the real issue of this
controversy is faced head-on. In a kind and scholarly manner, the author
submits what he believes to be the real key to this issue.
[Editor and Founder of SSM: This article is taken from Chapter 1 of the
book The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Authority by the founder
of Sola Scriptura Ministries. To introduce this article, I would like to
ask for the reader's patience. There is far too much unkindness on this issue
and an equal amount of misinformation, and it is our concern that we not be
guilty of either. We are not of the mind of so many of the typical
"King James Only" adherents. Our ministry is to defend the authority
and sufficiency of Scripture and to defend the very words of God. This
aspect of the textual debate, however, is totally ignored by many. This article
sets the stage for our seminar and book on this important issue.]
Before we get to
manuscripts, Bible versions, and all those more technical issues, there is
something far more important. We need to look first at the real heart of this
issue: the words of Scripture and how they are being undermined. As
we’ll see, this goes way beyond the so-called KJV issue. I’d like to share three
emphases with you:
1. The
Disfiguring of the Words of God
2. The
Destruction of the Words of God
3. The
Defense of the Words of God
I. The Disfiguring of the Words of God
Dynamic Equivalence: "It’s the thought
that counts."
My dear Christian friends,
we are today in a battle over words. It’s a battle for the very words of God.
We hear many people, including evangelicals and even fundamentalists say,
"Oh, we most certainly believe in the Bible as God’s word." But is
this enough? Is this really the issue? The real issue is this: do we believe
in the WORDS of God as being the Word of God? In other words, do words
matter? Are the actual words of the original Hebrew and Greek really important?
Or is it okay to just get across the main thought of the writer as we translate
the words from the original languages into English?
What we see today is the
replacing of a word-for-word translation of God’s word with a thought-for-thought
translation. In other words, as long as we get across the thought of the author,
then the exact words aren’t really important. This concept is what is known as
"Dynamic Equivalence."
BUT WAIT! Isn’t there a
problem with this approach? How can we know what the thought or meaning is
unless we know what God said. Does this not disfigure and deface the Word
of God?
Let me offer an illustration . How many of
you recognize this statement?
Eighty-four
years ago the founders of America established a new country on this land. They
founded it on the principle of liberty and dedicated it to the idea that all
men were made the same.
Of course, this is the beginning of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
(Nov. 19, 1863). Or is it? This is what it might look like if someone
used Dynamic Equivalence to make it more "readable" for our day. But
is it the same as what Lincoln said?
Fourscore
and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal.
Let’s look at several points:
1. 35
words vs. 29 words. – Common practice of paraphrasing (adding words to make the
meaning "clearer").
2. 2
sentences instead of one. – Another common practice of paraphrasing.
3. Words
are used that don’t mean the same. EX: "land" doesn’t mean
"continent;" "made" doesn’t mean "created;"
"same" doesn’t men "equal."
4. The
beauty of the original words and tone of the author are lost because it’s no
longer literal.
This is exactly what we
see with many of the modern translations on the market today. Actually there is
an excellent example of this that took place even before the term "Dynamic
Equivalence" was even used. J. B. Phillips’ The New Testament in Modern
English was one of the first modern translations after the RSV. The
Epistles (under the title Letters to Young Churches) were published in
1947, and the rest of the NT was published over the next ten years. It greatly
helped to soften the world to the idea of a thought-for-thought approach to
translation. What was Phillips’ approach? He wrote:
After
reading a large number of commentaries I have a feeling that some scholars, at
least, have lived so close to the Greek Text that they have lost their sense of
proportion. I doubt very much whether the New Testament writers were as subtle
or as self-conscious as some commentators would have them appear.
Here’s the seed planted in the reader’s mind. There’s a deemphasis of the
words and their meanings. He then offers an example that should appall those
who believe in inspiration:
Paul,
for instance, writing in haste and urgency to some of his wayward and difficult
Christians, was not tremendously concerned about dotting the "i’s"
and crossing the "t’s" of his message. I doubt very much whether he
was even concerned about being completely consistent with what he had already
written.
Is it just my imagination, or does this subtly (or not so subtly) deny
verbal inspiration? How could we possibly trust a version that was based on
such a nonchalant approach to the Word of God? This certainly was not Paul’s
attitude toward his inspired writings:
Which
things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth. (I Cor. 2:13).
Is Phillips’ comment not also incredibly arrogant? While Paul wrote
"in haste," evidently Phillips had more time so did a much better
job. And if this is not enough evidence, consider Phillips’ translation of and
notation on I Cor. 14:22a. The KJV accurately translates the Greek:
Wherefore
tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.
Of this verse, however, Phillips writes in a note:
[I]
felt bound to conclude, from the sense of the next three verses, that we have
here either a slip of the pen on the part of Paul, or, more probably, a
copyist’s error.
Based on that opinion, Phillips translates the verse this way:
That
means that tongues are a sign of God’s power, not for those who are
unbelievers but for those who already believe. [emphasis mine]
In direct contradiction of the Greek, he totally reverses the meaning
based solely on his own authority. In his opinion, either Paul or a copyist
made an error, so he felt compelled to fix it. I do not wish to be unkind, but
I must ask, Who is J. B. Phillips to think he has the authority to change a
Greek text that has stood for almost 2,000 years?
By far the number one
example of "Dynamic Equivalence" is the NIV. We’ll deal with the NIV
in much more detail in Parts 4 & 5, but we need to take a very brief look
at it here. Again, In their publication The Story of the New International
Version, the NIV translators not only admit to using Dynamic Equivalence,
but they boast in it . They explain by writing that they "have striven for
more than a word-for-word translation," and that they have chosen to use
"a minimum of literalism, paraphrase, or outright dynamic
equivalence" (which they explain as the translator seeking to
"express the meaning as the biblical writers would if they were writing in
English today"). (1) This should set off alarms in the minds of God’s
people. Look at 4 main points of this statement:
1. "Striven
for more than a word-for-word translation." –- MORE? –- Why do we
need more than a word-for-word translation? –- And exactly who is going
to add the more? –- And on whose authority are they going to add it? –- Frankly,
I would rather you just tell me what God said, and no more than that.
2. "A
minimum of literalism, paraphrase, or outright dynamic equivalence." –-
They purposely avoid being literal. Webster defines "literal" as,
"In accordance with the strict meaning of a word or text; following the
words of the original very closely." –- And this is what they are trying
to avoid?
3. "Paraphrase"
-– A "paraphrase" is the putting into your own words what someone
else has said. –- The danger of this is so obvious that it doesn’t need
explaining.
4. "Outright
dynamic equivalence . . . [to] express the meaning as the biblical writers
would if they were writing in English today." –- In other words, we’ll
just express the thoughts that the Scriptures writer were trying to convey. –
But again, how can we know their thoughts if we don’t know their words?
In stark contrast, the translators of the KJV adopted a "verbal
equivalence" or "formal equivalence" approach to translation,
which renders the Greek and Hebrew words as closely as possible into English,
even to the use of verb for verb, noun for noun, and so forth. Formal
Equivalence is the only method of translation that is consistent with verbal
inspiration, which focuses on the words of Scripture. The NIV routinely,
on the other hand, changes nouns into verbs, adjectives into nouns, singulars
into plurals, and so forth. Let’s compare, for example, II Cor. 4:2 :
KJV: But have renounced the hidden things of
dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God
deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every
man’s conscience in the sight of God.
NIV: Rather, we have renounced secret and
shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On
the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every
man’s conscience in the sight of God.
The KJV reads "dishonesty" (or "shame") which is a
noun and is correct for the Gr. aischune; while the NIV reads
"shameful," which is an adjective. The KJV also reads
"manifestation," which is a noun and is correct for the Gr. phanerosis;
while the NIV reads "setting forth," which is a verb. We should add
to this that the words "nor do we distort the word of God" is not the
same as "nor handling the word of God deceitfully." The NIV doesn’t
even translate the Gr. word for "deceitfully" (doloo), and
therefore misses the idea that men purposely distort the Word of God.
It’s possible to distort something unintentionally, so Paul makes it plain that
some men do it deliberately.
So, the danger of
"Dynamic Equivalence" is so obvious that it defies logic that anyone
concerned with Biblical accuracy and authority would choose to use it.
Without a word-for-word, literal approach, in which the Hebrew and Greek words
are rendered as closely as possible into English, how on earth can we expect
accuracy? And if we don’t have accuracy, how can we have authority? As the
title of this point indicates, this is a disfiguring or a defacing of the Words
of God. It reminds me of graffiti on the side of a building. Yes, it’s still a
building, but it’s been defaced so badly that you can no longer see the beauty
of the building.
Again, we’ll examine the
NIV in more detail, but for now let’s look at a couple of examples.
1. I Cor. 7:4: – An important principle of
marriage:
KJV: The wife hath not power of her own body,
but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body,
but the wife.
NIV: The wife’s body does not [belong to her
alone] but [also to her] husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not
[belong to him alone] but [also to his] wife.
1. 27
words in the KJV vs. 32 words in the NIV. Words in brackets are added with no
Greek support. Nothing but a paraphrase. – Also, 4 out of 22 Gr. words aren’t
translated. – The translator does what he wants.
2. 2
sentences instead of one. – Break the continuity of the one unified thought.
3. Words
are used that don’t mean the same. EX: "power" (or authority) doesn’t
mean "ownership." Gr. exousiazo means to have power or
authority over someone, but not necessarily to own someone. The point of the
verse is not what "belongs" to the husband and wife, rather the
rights they have.
4. The
beauty of the original words and tone of the author are lost because it’s no
longer literal.
2. I Tim. 3:4 – One qualification of a
pastor:
KJV: One that ruleth well his own house, having
his children in subjection with all gravity.
NIV: [He must manage] his own [family] well [and
see that his] children [obey him] with [proper] respect.
1. 12
words in the KJV vs. 17 words in the NIV. Words in brackets are added with no
Greek support. Again, nothing but a paraphrase. – Also, 6 out of 12 Gr. words
aren’t even translated. – The translator does what he wants.
2. Words
are used that don’t mean the same. EX: "ruleth" doesn’t mean
"manage." Gr. proistemi means primarily "to rule, preside
over, superintend," and is stronger than what we today mean when we say
"manage."
3. And
again, the beauty of the original words and tone of the author are lost because
it’s no longer literal.
The main point here is: if you jettison the WORDS you forfeit the
MEANING.
James White (p. 24)
addresses the debate between these two approaches by pointing out that even a
formal translation (the KJV) sometimes utilizes dynamic equivalence. The formal
statement, "Morning hours have gold in their mouths," for example,
could dynamically translate to, "The early bird catches the worm." In
other words, formal translation from one language to another will at times not
make the meaning clear. Now, with this we have no quarrel. But there is a vast
difference between using dynamic equivalence as an exception and using
it as a rule. The times it must be used simply illustrate the
imperfection of human language.
I simply cannot
understand how any evangelical can defend the use of Dynamic Equivalence as a
rule of translation. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not accusing such
folks of not being evangelicals. On the contrary, as a fellow evangelical, I’m
encouraging them to reject a practice that undermines the very Bible they claim
to love and embrace.
II. The Destruction of the Words of God
But this disfiguring of
the Words of God is only the tip of the iceberg. Dear Christian friends, there
are some very disturbinh things that have been going on for the last few
decades.
In 1963 Robert M. Grant,
a well-known Biblical Scholar, wrote in his A Historical Introduction to the
New Testament: (2)
The
primary goal of New Testament textual study remains the recovery of what the
New Testament writers wrote. We have already suggested that to achieve this
goal is well-nigh impossible. Therefore we must be content with what [many
scholars call] an "impossible possibility."
If the double-talk
("impossible possibility") were not bad enough, here is a statement
that destroys any possiblity of an authoritative Bible. If we don’t know what
the NT writers wrote, how can we know what God said? And if we don’t know what
God said, what does that leave us with? ABSOLTUELY NOTHING!
Even before that (1947) the same
man wrote,
It
is generally recognized that the original text of the Bible cannot be
recovered.(3)
Is this true? Granted, we can’t recover the autographs, but does that
mean that we can’t recover the text? Again we are left thinking,
"Then how can we ever know what God really said?" We are left to
merely guess at what Scripture says.
In 1966, another
well-known textual scholar, Kenneth W. Clark, restated what Grant said:
.
. . We may be pursuing the retreating mirage of the original text.(4)
In other words, not only aren’t we getting any closer to
"discovering" the text of God’s Word, but no matter how much evidence
we might acquire, it is in reality only an illusion.
Even as far back as 1913
we see this trend. James Moffatt has been lauded by many for his contribution
to Christianity. He was one of the first to offer a modern translation. But
consider what he wrote in the Preface to that work:
Once
the translation of the New Testament is freed from the influence of the theory
of verbal inspiration . . . difficulties cease to be formidable.
As we’ll see in more detail later, "verbal" inspiration deals
with the words of Scripture. And this is precisely what was jettisoned
from the translation process years ago. Without question, modern translations
of the Bible abandon the concept of Verbal Inspiration.
These are frightening
statements! If we don’t have the original, preserved text of the Bible, then
what do we have? What are we using in our churches? What are we living by? Even
more basic, where are we getting the message of the Gospel? How do we know it’s
correct?
Ah, but this is not all.
It gets worse. Consider now what is being said today. In Feb. of 1996 there was
a meeting at the professedly evangelical Calvary Baptist Seminary in Landsdale,
PA. Several sermons were preaching on the issue of language and Bible
translation. I also acquired an article from the Spring/Fall 1996 issue of the Calvary
Baptist Theological Seminary Journal. In that article, a professor of Old
Testament wrote :
Is
communication achieved by the words that are spoke (or written) or by
the meaning that words convey? . . . The message is in the meaning.
[emphasis in the original] (5)
What bothers me the most about this statement, and the whole article, is
the basic premise that words are separate from the meaning. His premise
is that "communication is dependent on conveying meaning and not simply
using familiar words." While that’s certainly true, it’s also clearly
obvious. What’s his point? The author’s agenda is to minimize the words and
concentrate on the meaning. But this is utterly ridiculous. Words and meaning
are inseparable. Without one you do not have the other.
This sounds very much
like the neo-orthodox doctrine of "Concept Inspiration," which
basically teaches that only the concept the author is writing about is
inspired, not the actual words he is writing. The obvious fallacy here is how
is a concept communicated? Words. Change the words and you’ve change the
concept.
Along the same line of
thinking another speaker at this conference said this :
The
presence of manuscript variations leads us to analyze more carefully the
considerations of preservation into two categories: 1) the preservation of the
authoritative message of God, or 2) the preservation of the precise wording of
that message.
In other words, because of all the variations in the Greek texts (which
as we’ll see is a very misleading statement), God has, therefore chosen to
preserve only one of these, either the message or the words, but not both. He
continues:
However,
such promises of preservation in view of the wording variations can apply only
to the message of God’s word, not to its precise wording.
Did you get it? We can’t be sure of the words, but we can be sure
of the message. And how pray tell can we do that? How can we be sure of
what God means if we don’t know what God said? Or to put it
theologically, how can we have an inspired message if we don’t have inspired
words?
If these two speakers
were not bad enough, another was positively heretical:
There
is no question that the 66 autographs, which comprise the totality of the
Bible, are the inspired Word from God. They are given without error and they
did not suffer from any omission . . .
With this we totally agree, but he goes on to undo it all:
However
the same cannot be said for any extant Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek manuscript
today since no two manuscripts agree exactly with each other. [emphasis
mine]
Then what in the world do we have today? As does the former speaker, this
one also serious misleads his listeners by implying that there is such
variation in the manuscripts that we can’t really be sure of what reading is
correct. This is just plain wrong. As we’ll see, and as every textual scholar
knows, 80-95 of manuscripts do agree. He then continues to make the most
shocking statement of all:
No
English text, including the KJV is perfect and none can be called
"inspired." This is also true of all extant Hebrew manuscripts
and all Greek manuscripts. [emphasis mine]
Did you hear that? There is today no inspired Word of God either in
English or the original languages. I submit that this goes way beyond the KJV
debate. This is a direct attack on the inspiration and preservation of
Scripture. If this is not heresy, what is it?
One other speaker jars
us again:
Can
we speak of our Bibles today as inspired? In the technical sense we cannot
. . . The preservation of the Word of God is perfectly accomplished by God in
heaven. The preservation of God’s Word on earth has been committed to
people. [emphasis mine]
Excuse me? We have to die and go the heaven before we can know what God
said? And God has left men in charge of preserving God’s Word? Well, men
are sure doing a lousy job of it.
This now leads us to our
third emphasis.
III. The Defense of the Words of God
This disfiguring and
destruction of the Words of God is, of course, just a symptom of the underlying
problem. The root of the problem is our basic attitude toward Scripture. Is it
inspired or not? And if it is inspired, is it preserved?
What do those marvelous
words, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," in II Tim.
3:16 really mean? Of what importance are they? The Greek word used here for
"inspiration" is theopneustos. This word is derived from two
Greek words, the first being theos, "God," and the second
being pnein, which means "to breath out, or to blow."
The best way to
understand these Greek words is to contrast them with two other words. One is
the Greek psuchin, "to breath gently." In contrast, pnein
speaks of a forceful expiration of air. Another word is the Hebrew ah-ayrh,
"to breath unconsciously," but to contrast again, pnein speaks
of a conscious breathing. All of this provides a clear definition of
Inspiration: "Inspiration is the forceful and conscious exhaling of God
into the Scripture writers."
Once we understand that,
we can go on to explain verbal inspiration. This key doctrine means that
the Holy Spirit gave the very words of Scripture; that is, the Scripture
writers were not left to themselves to write what they wanted to write. This
does not imply mechanical dictation, as some suggest, since we see different
styles of writing in each writer. Rather what we see is that God allowed the
writers to write in their own style but still controlled the words they used.
What’s the importance of
verbal inspiration? Simply that without it there is no true inspiration.
Commenting on verbal inspiration, Herbert Lockyer writes this excellent
statement :
Some
say, "The thoughts, not the words, are inspired," but we think in
words. Words give precision, definiteness of form and color to thought. We are
not sure of the thought until it is spoken or put into exact written words.(6)
God did not promise to inspire doctrines, messages, or concepts. He
promised to inspire and preserve His words. Doctrines, messages, and concepts
flow from words.
One of the most
important passages dealing with verbal inspiration is I Cor. 2:9-13.
Verses 9 begins:
But
as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Our faith is both rational and experiential, but it doesn’t rest on
these. Then in vs. 10-12:
But
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man,
save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no
man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world,
but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God.
God does, indeed, reveal things to us, but how does He do so? Today we
hear all kinds of answers to that, but v. 13 declares how:
Which
things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but [the
words] which the Holy Ghost teacheth...
It’s the words that matter.
Consider another
well-known and equally important passage, Matt. 5:17-18:
Think
not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to
destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled.
The word "jot"
is the Greet iota, which refers to the Hebrew letter yod, the
smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. So, our Lord is saying that not even
the smallest letter of God’s Word will pass away until all of It is fulfilled.
But He goes even further to use the word "tittle," which is the Greek
keraia. This word comes from keras, which was used to refer to
the horn of an animal and to the projections on altars. This word was,
therefore, used to refer to the small lines or projections on Hebrew letters
that would change the entire meaning of words. So, it would seem our Lord is
not only concerned about every word and every letter, but even every
stroke of the pen.
May we also add, it is
our Lord Himself speaking here, the Word Who became flesh (Jn. 1:14).
The real issue here, then, is that preservation does not depend upon copyists
but on Christ. If the words of God have passed away, Jesus was in error.
Ponder something else a
moment. Have you ever thought about who was the first textual critic? Here’s a
clue:
Now
the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had
made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every
tree of the garden? . . . And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not
surely die (Gen. 3:1, 4).
First Satan cast a doubt about the words God said, and then flatly
denied them. We might add that Eve also was a critic. She said that God
said they shouldn’t touch the tree but He never said that. Just like
critics today, Satan and Eve did what they wanted to do with God’s words. Some
would call my next statement "fanatical," but I’ll say it anyway:
When I read notes in Study Bibles today that say, "The older manuscripts
don’t contain this verse," I’m reminded of Satan casting a doubt on and
then denying God’s Word.
In dramatic contrast,
how did our Lord deal with that first textual critic? At His temptation (Matt.
4:4) He declared:
It
is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Quoting Deut. 8:3, He clearly emphasizes that it’s God’s words
that we are to live by. And speaking of Deut., that great book of the
restatement of God’s law, we read in 6:6-7:
And
these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou
sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest
down, and when thou risest up.
It’s the words of God we are to teach our children. Today, however, we
are more concerned with just the so-called meaning than we are the words. We’re
too busy "dumbing it down" for our children instead of raising them
up to it.
And what does Prov.
30:5-6 reveal about the textual criticism of our day?
Every
word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add
thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Every single word of God is important. We are not to add to them or
subtract from them.
But again it is argued
that all this refers only to the original autographs, that we don’t have the
inspired words of God preserved for us today. But what about the words of the
Psalmist (Ps. 12:6-7)?
The
words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth,
purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them
from this generation for ever.
God no more commits the preservation of His word to men than He
did inspiration. Yes, He uses men, but He does the work of both
inspiration and preservation.
Let’s ponder something a
moment. Have you ever considered some of the men God used to write the
Scriptures? David was an adulterer and murderer. Solomon was a hedonist and
polygamist. Peter was a Christ denier. Paul was a killer of Christians. But did
not God overcome their problems and still inspire His word? Can he not,
therefore, preserve it through the ages? Frankly, if we can believe in
Inspiration, believing in Preservation is easy.
So, do words matter? We
could go for hours answering that.
And
Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the
LORD your God. (Josh. 3:9)
I
have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. (Job 23:12)
.
. . Being bound in affliction and iron; Because they rebelled against the words
of God . . .(Ps. 107:10-11)
The
entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.
(Ps. 119:130)
For
he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit
by measure unto him. (Jn. 3:34)
For
God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will . . . until the words of God
shall be fulfilled. (Rev. 17:17)
And that’s only a few.
Before closing this
first part of our study, there is one other area that demands our defense,
namely, the underlying Gr. text of our Bible, which is what most of this
seminar is about. Specifically, did God preserve the Greek text of His Word
through the ages or did He leave the choosing of the text up to men? As we will
see in detail, He most certainly did preserve the text itself.
Further, as we continue,
we will see that the text that He preserved was what is called the
"Traditional Text." This was the text used by the early Christians,
the text that eventually became the basis of the Textus Receptus, and the text
that underlies the KJV.
In his book, The King
James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism, which I mentioned in the
Introduction, D. A. Carson makes an interesting statement. He first cites the
famous "Ligonier Statement" on verbal inspiration and the great
theologians who signed it: John Frame, John Gerstner, Peter Jones, John Warwick
Montgomery, J. I. Packer, Clark Pinnock, and R.C. Sproul. He then comments:
As
far as I know, none of the subscribers to this statement accepts the
preeminence of the Byzanine text. In fact, I cannot think of a single great
theological writer who has given his energies to defend a high view of
Scripture and who gas adopted the TR, since the discovery of the [older
MSS].(7)
He also goes on to mention others such as B. B. Warfield and John Wenham
who "defend inspiration in the classic sense but who do not follow the TR
as a result." Now, to most readers this sounds knowledgeable,
authoritative, and conclusive. After all, how many Christians, even many
pastors, have thoroughly read the works of these theologians? So most folks
just accept what Carson says as being right and as a result throw away the TR
and their KJV and go out buy an NIV.
Therefore, to give my brother
the benefit of the doubt, I will just assume that he has never heard of Robert
L. Dabney. Dabney was an outstanding theologian on the level of Charles Hodge,
his son A. A. Hodge, Augustus Strong, and others. A. A. Hodge, in fact, wrote
of him, "The best teacher of Theology in the United States if not the
world." Dabney’s Systematic Theology (1871) is a classic. Well, in
Vol. 1 of his three volume work Discussions: Evangelical And Theological
(1891), he clearly defends the TR against the then new Critical Text Theory of
Wescott and Hort. I’ll quote him at other times in this book, but I’ll cite one
statement for now. After outlining the basic "few old MSS" vs.
"the many recent MSS" issue I briefly mentioned earlier, Dabney
writes:
Now,
shall these few, which are claimed to be old, discredit the many more recent?
We reply, No. (8)
And what about Charles
Spurgeon, who also lived in that day? While some would not class him as one of
the so-called "great theologians," I would certainly put him up
against most today. And Spurgeon did indeed comment on the English Revised
Version (1881), the first English translation to be based on the Critical Text.
He wrote:
For
that Revised Version I have but little care as a general rule, holding it to be
by no means an improvement upon our common Authorized Version. It is a useful
thing to have for private reference, but I trust it will never be regarded as
the standard English translation for the New Testament. (9)
On the same page where we find this quotation, we also read that while
Spurgeon considered the RV’s Old Testament to be so good that it might come
into general use, he also felt "the result would be a decided loss."
We could cite several other quotations where Spurgeon thought the RV
contained bad translation. The main point, however, is that while he believed
that the RV certainly had some value, he ultimately rejected it over the AV and
recommended his people do the same. (10)
What then can we say of
the other theologians that Carson listed? Where do they stand on the issue of
inspiration? The answer to that lies in the writings of one of them: B. B.
Warfield. While I greatly appreciate and admire Warfield, he unknowingly did
something in his day that ultimately undermined the very doctrine of
inspiration he so fiercely defended. Few people today, including preachers,
know this, but the evidence is clear.
Contemporary textual
scholar Dr. Ted Letis thoroughly researched Warfield on this issue. (11) What he
found explains a lot of what has happened in the area of textual criticism.
From the post-apostolic Church, through the Reformation, and right up to the
end of the 19th Century, anyone who defended the authority of
Scripture always defended an extant edition of the Bible as a
sacred infallible text. In fact, as Letis points out, up to the time of
Warfield, the term "inerrancy" was never used in reference to
the Bible, rather the term "infallible" was invariably used.
When I first heard that statement,
I was totally taken aback. I’d never heard such an assertion, much less
been taught it in Bible college or seminary. So I began to do my own
research to see if it was true. I went back to the days before the Critical
Theory and Warfield.
For example, John Owen (1616-1683) was without doubt the greatest of the
Puritan theologians and one of the greatest theologians in the history of the
Church. Did he look down on the extant MSS of his day? Indeed not. He not only
defended the "autographs," that is, the MSS penned by the original
authors, but he also defended what was called the "apographs." As the
prefix "apo" indicates, an apograph is a copy that is related to or
derived from the autographs. Of these Owen wrote:
Of
all the inventions of Satan to draw off the minds of men from the Word of God,
this decrying the authority of the originals [i.e., apographa] seems to me the
most pernicious . . . The purity of the present original copies of the
Scripture, or rather copies [apographa] in the original languages, which the
Church of God doth now and hath for many ages enjoyed as her chiefest treasure.
(12)
This is an extremely important statement. What we see today is what Owen
fought some 350 years ago, namely, the deriding of the existing MSS.
It was also a blessing to read the theology of the 17th
Century Francis Turretin, another of the greatest theologians in the Church’s
history. Two other great theologians from the 19th Century, Charles
Hodge and R. L. Dabney, who I mentioned earlier, thought his work so important
that they assigned the reading of his Institutes to their students.
Turretin likened versions to streams and the original autographs as the
fountain from which they flow. He strongly maintained that while versions
"may be exposed to errors and admit of corrections [they] nevertheless are
authentic as to the doctrine they contain (which is divine and
infallible)."(13) In other words, scribal errors will inevitably creep in
during copying, since men are imperfect, but what they are transmitting remains
infallible. Elsewhere he makes an even stronger case for extant MSS:
By
the original texts we do not mean the autographs written by the hand of Moses,
of the prophets, and the apostles, which certainly do not now exist. We mean
their apographs [copies] which are so called because they set forth to us the
Word of God in the very words of those who wrote under the immediate
inspiration of the Holy Spirit . . . The autographs and also the accurate and
faithful copies may be the standard of all other copies of the same writing and
of its translations. (14)
So, it was infallibility that Turretin defended (against the Roman
Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, I might add). Never in his writings
do we find the word "inerrant."
Neither in the Westminster
Confession of Faith (1646) do we read of an "inerrant" Bible,
rather an infallible Bible.
The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the
native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek
(which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the
nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and
providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical (Matt. 5:18). (15)
The word "authentical" is extremely important. It clearly
demonstrates that the Westminster divines considered that the copies handed
down through the ages were preserved as genuine, pure, and uncorrupted Word of
God. Based on that belief, they could then write:
The
infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself. (16)
Even earlier in the Confession, the divines wrote:
We
may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent
esteem of the Holy Scripture . . . our full persuasion and assurance of the
infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the
Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts. (17)
Do these words seem to imply that men who deny the infallibility of
extant MSS have an irreverent esteem for the Scriptures and that they are
resisting the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word Itself in their hearts?
May we also observe that
all the above quotations appear almost verbatim in The London Baptist
Confession of Faith of 1689.(18) This serves to prove the high regard in which
the Scriptures used to be held.
Likewise, in the mid 19th
Century, Princeton theologian Charles Hodge clearly implied that infallibility
extends to extant copies, but nowhere does he use the word
"inerrant."(19) Hodge also addressed what can be called "small
errors" in Scripture, such as scribal errors. In a wonderful passage in
his Systematic Theology, Hodge writes:
The
errors in matters of fact which skeptics search out bear no proportion to the
whole. No sane man would deny that the Parthenon was built of marble, even if
here and there a speck of sandstone should be detected in its structure. Not
less unreasonable is it to deny the inspiration of such a book as the Bible,
because one sacred writer says that on a given occasion twenty-four thousand,
and another says that twenty-three thousand, men were slain. Surely a Christian
may be allowed to tread such objections under his feet. Admitting that the
Scriptures do contain, in a few instances, discrepancies which with our present
means of knowledge, we are unable satisfactorily to explain, they furnish no
rational ground for denying their infallibility.(20)
Hodge understood the Providence of God and had no part of the Rationalism
that was growing in his day. It is this Rationalism and arrogance that has
caused the decay of the doctrine of Preservation and therefore the doctrine of
Biblical authority in general.
So, when did the term
"inerrant" come into use? As Letis outlines, at the turn of the
century Warfield felt threatened by liberal textual criticism. The critics
argued that because of textual variations, there was no longer an
"infallible" Bible. Warfield looked at the MSS and agreed that they
had variations, so he wondered what he should do. While he still held to verbal
inspiration, he felt he needed to make an adjustment to his teaching. The
adjustment ended up being that he would no longer defend any extant edition as
being infallible. Instead he would contend that the original autographs were
perfect, better than any copies that had ever been found. In a paper coauthored
by A. A. Hodge, he wrote:
We do not assert that the common text [extant
manuscripts], but only that original autographic text was inspired. No
"error" can be asserted, therefore, which cannot be proved to have
been aboriginal in the text.
In formulating his new position, Warfield used a brand new term,
"inerrancy." He actually borrowed the term from astronomy, a term
that refers to the planets as they orbit "inerrantly," that is,
without deviation. He sincerely believed this would silence the critics. If
they pointed out some discrepancy or variant reading, he would merely say,
"Oh, but we’re not defending this copy; we’re defending the original
autographs as inerrant."
The problems with this
should be obvious. For one thing, he was defending something that no longer
existed. For another, in the final analysis, he denied the very thing he was
trying to defend. The result was that nothing that now exists is either
inerrant or infallible. He traded something that does exist for
something that doesn’t, which is a lousy trade no matter how you look at
it. And it is because of this that virtually every evangelical and
fundamentalist today talks about "the inerrant autographs" instead of
"the infallible Bible that exists in extant MSS."
As I researched this. I
found a classic example. The term "Fundamentalism" actually developed
from the habit of referring to the basic doctrines of the Word of God as
"The Fundamentals," a practice that goes back as far as 1909. In that
year the first of twelve marvelous volumes, entitled The Fundamentals,
appeared and was devoted to the exposition and defense of Evangelicalism.
Completed in 1915, the set contained articles defending the inerrancy,
inspiration, and authority of Scripture, as well as crucial doctrines
concerning Christ. Contributors included: James Gray, G. Campbell Morgan, A. T.
Pierson, J. C. Ryle, Thomas Spurgeon (Charles Spurgeon's son), and B. B.
Warfield. In his article on Inspiration, James Gray writes:
Nor
is that original parchment so remote a thing as some suppose. Do not the number
and variety of manuscripts and versions extant render it comparatively easy to
arrive at a knowledge of its text, and does not competent scholarship today
affirm that, as to the New Testament at least, we have in 999 cases out of
every thousand the very word of that original text? Let candid consideration be
given to these things, and it will be seen that we are not pursuing a phantom
in contending for an inspired autograph of the Bible.(21)
This statement clearly demonstrates how defenders contend only for
"an inspired autograph." But may I submit that if we do not contend
for the inspiration of what we have, then a phantom is all we will ever
possess.
A more contemporary
evangelical theologian, Charles Ryrie, a Dispensationalist, also states today’s
commonly accepted view of inspiration:
Inspiration
can only be predicated of the original writings, not to copies or translations,
however accurate they may be.(22)
Before him the renowned Dallas Seminary founder Louis Sperry Chafer
stated the same view:
The
claim for verbal, plenary inspiration is made only for the original writings
and does not extend to any transcriptions or translations.(23)
James Boice, a contemporary reformed theological, concurs:
Inerrancy
is claimed only for the original autographs, not the copies that have been made
from them on which our contemporary translations are based . . . However, due
to the extraordinary number and variety of the Biblical manuscripts, there is
no reason to doubt that today’s text is identical to the original text in all
but a few places.(24)
But how can this be? If what we have is not inerrant, how can we possibly
know that it is identical to the original? Further, to say that "today’s
text is identical to the original text in all but a few places" is very
misleading, for it doesn’t clarify which text is being referred to, the
Traditional Text or the Critical Text. As we’ll see, there are literally
thousands of differences between the two, which most certainly effect the
teaching of Scripture.
One more quotation is in
order. The beloved Herbert Lockyer, like most all evangelicals and
fundamentalists, also fell into the camouflaged pit Warfield dug. He writes
these troubling words:
Of
course, it must be understood that we mean by "the inspiration of the
whole Bible," the original documents as they came from the hands of the
various authors, no longer extant. Some mistakes may have been made by those
who copied or transcribed the Scriptures, and it is the work of reverent
criticism to seek, by careful examination and comparison of all existing
documents, any errors of the fallible translators and restore, as far as
possible, the Scriptures in their original purity.(25)
The inescapable implication of this statement is that we presently don’t
have "the Scriptures in their original purity." Is this not
troubling? When, then, shall we ever have the Scriptures? When the critics
finally tell us that we do? And how pray tell will they know?
Something else that
James Gray does several times in his aforementioned article, and what virtually
every evangelical and fundamentalist does, is use the two terms
"inerrant" and "infallible" interchangeably. As we’ve seen,
this is historically inaccurate. To put it succinctly:
- "Inerrancy"
always refers to the original autographs, that is, non-existing MSS.
- In stark contrast,
"Infallibility" was always used to refer to an existing MS,
even as far back as the Reformation.
Another way to put this is: (26)
- Inerrant refers to
a hypothetical concept.
- Infallible refers
to an actual reality.
I would like to make one
other observation before we finish this first part of our study. As mentioned
earlier, Warfield was much concerned about all the "variant readings"
in the manuscripts, which was what prompted him to no longer teach the
infallibility of extant MSS. But this term "variant reading" should
trouble us. We hear it constantly from the Critical Text advocates. I would
submit, however, that the headlong pursuit of these so-called variant readings
has done serious damage.
I am not alone in this concern. Puritan theologian John Owen, whom I
mentioned earlier, was also troubled. In 1655-1657 Brian Walton edited the London
Polyglot, which contained the Gr. NT in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic,
Arabic, and Persian. The footnotes contained so many variant readings from
every known MS of the time, however, that they took up as many pages as the NT
text itself. Owen strongly objected to Walton’s work. He feared that this mass
of variant readings, most of which could be discounted entirely, would do more
harm than good for the average Christian. He feared that the ordinary
Christian’s confidence in the text of his Bible would be shaken.(27)
This is exactly what we
see today in the critical editions of the Hebrew and Greek texts and modern
translations of the Bible. There are so many "variant readings" and
so many notes that read "the older and better manuscripts say thus and
so," that God’s people can have no assurance of what God’s words really
are.
So, may we reiterate.
Before the appearance of the Critical Theory of W-H and the compromise of B. B.
Warfield in the late 19th Century, anyone who defended the authority of
Scripture always defended an extant edition of the Bible as a sacred infallible
text. It was at this time, however, that this position was jettisoned. To
Warfield, and virtually every evangelical and fundamentalist who followed, only
the "original autographs" were inspired, not any of the MSS that
exist today. The result of this position, which is neither historical nor
Biblical, is the gutting of the doctrines of Inspiration and Preservation.
What, then, are we
defending in this Seminar? We are defending the words of God. We are
defending the position that maintains that God not only inspired the original
Gr. MSS but preserved that inspiration through the majority of MSS. Through His
providence God controlled the production of the TR from this Traditional Text
and further controlled the production of the KJV, on which He placed His stamp
of approval by way of its continued use for almost 400 years.
As John Owen did, I too approach this issue from a pastoral concern.(28)
As a pastor, that is, a shepherd, I am responsible for protecting the sheep
under my care. This seminar is an expansion of that. My desire is to educate
and help protect God’s people.
NOTES
1. The Story of the New International Version (East Brunswick, NJ:
International Bible Society, 1978), pp. 12-13.
2. Robert M. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament
(New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 51. Cited in Wilbur Pickering, The
Identity of the New Testament Text (originally published by Thomas Nelson,
but now being reprinted by The Bible for Today).
3. Robert M. Grant, "The Bible of Theophilus of Antioch," Journal
of Biblical Literature (LXVI, 1947), p. 173. Cited in Pickering.
4. K. W. Clark, "The Theological Relevance of Textual Variation in
Current Criticism of the Greek New Testament," Journal of Biblical
Literature (LXXXV, 1966), p. 15. Cited in Pickering.
5. Charles McLain, Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary Journal,
Spring/Fall 1996, pp 22, 24, (emphasis in the original).
6. Herbert Lockyer, All the Doctrines of the Bible (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1964), p. 9.
7. Carson, p. 71.
8. Robert L. Dabney, Discussions: Evangelical And Theological
(Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969, first published in 1891), Vol. 1,
p. 365.
9. The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 32, 1886, p. 1.
10. See Pastor Dennis Gibson’s pamphlet, "Spurgeon on the Revised
Version," BFT #1626 Collingswood, NJ: The Bible for Today Press, n.d.).
11. Dr. Theodore Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text (Philadelphia: The
Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies, 1997).
12. "Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek of the
Scriptures," 1659. Cited in Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text, p. 41,
43.
13. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 Vols.
(Phillipsburg: PA, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992), Vol 1., pp.
125-126.
14. Ibid, pp. 106, 113.
15. Chapter 1, Section VII.
16. Chapter 1, Section IX.
17. Chapter 1, Section V.
18. Chapter 1, Section 8, 9, 5.
19. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 Vols. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans Publishing, 1989 reprint), Vol. 1, pp. 151-188.
20. Ibid, Vol. 1, p. 170.
21. Charles L. Feinberg (Editor), The Fundamentals for Today
(Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1961), p. 128.
22. Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books,
1986), p. 72.
23. Louis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas: Dallas
Seminary Press, 1947-48), Vol 1, p. 87.
24. James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith,
Revised Edition (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), pp.75-76.
25. Herbert Lockyer, All the Doctrines of the Bible (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1964), p. 8.
26. My thanks to Dr. James Bearss for this contrast, which paraphrases
Dr. Ted Letis.
27. Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, revised
edition (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), p. 453; Theodore Letis, The
Ecclesiastical Text (Philadelphia: The Institute for Renaissance and
Reformation biblical Studies, 1997); Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the
Christian Life (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), pp. 190-191.
28. Ibid, Ferguson, p. 192.