Defending the WORDS of God
By Dr. J.
D. Watson
From the back cover of the printed
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. Two 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.
