From One We Can Judge The Rest

Anybody who reads my blog should have ascertained by this point that my regard for natural, unaided human reason as it relates to theological knowledge is not very high. So, indulge me in a little thought experiment to show you why.

1. Eternality
2. Immutability
3. Incomprehensibility
4. Omnipotence
5. Omniscience
6. Omnipresence
7. Transcendence
8. Self-existence
9. Self-sufficiency
10. Sovereignty
11. All-just
12. All-loving
13. etc....

1. Immortal, yet Earthly finite
2. Comprehensible, yet not entirely comprehensible
3. Potent, yet under authority
4. Knowledgeable, yet ignorant without limit
5. Fixed in space-time
6. Subsistently-existent
7. Subsistently-dependent
8. Ruled by greater power
9. Largely unjust
10. Mostly self-loving
11. etc....

...Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

But when Jesus saw it [i.e. his disciples withholding children from Christ's presence], he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

I was going to write something on why I personally prefer what is known and referred to as the "Ecclesiastical Text", "and which is also known as the Byzantine Text, the Majority Text, or the Textus Receptus" and its relationship to the plethora of translations of God's Word, and what those translations depend upon as their source text.

The argument for the Ecclesiastical Text is rather simple: God had felt it fit to provide His Church with this text after the first 3 centuries of the early church up until approximately the last 200 yrs. If this is what the Church has depended on since very early in Church history; what it has depended on to fight against endless heretical attacks, then why for Heaven's sake did we need to start tinkering with it and causing mass chaos in the process?

I believe this article; written by: Pr. William P. Terjesen, pastor of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer in Peekskill, NY to be a perfect summation of this argument. Please read and consider for yourself whether the translation of Scripture you trust really has the best text for it's source.

THE NEW TESTAMENT: WHICH TEXT!

By Pr. William P. Terjesen

(Written in the late 1990s)

If you have made any extensive use of the variety of Bible translations available today, you may have noticed that the King James Version and the New King James Version include words, phrases, verses, and even whole paragraphs of text that are missing from other modern translations. You may have also noticed that many modern translations have marginal comments regarding ancient manuscript evidence for certaininclusions or deletions that sound, well, rather snippy.

What’s going on?You probably know that whatever English Bible you use is a translation from the original languages in which the Bible was written. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew (except for a few Aramaic chapters), and the New Testament was written in Greek. You probably also know that until the invention of movable type and the printing press in the 1400’s, publishing and preserving documents and books meant hand copying; a very difficult and expensive endeavor. So, from the days of the Biblical authors on until just prior to the Reformation, the Bible was published and preserved by being hand copied by scribes.

There are thousands of these hand copied manuscripts of the Bible in existance. There are also ancient translations of the Bible into Aramaic, Latin, Egyptian, etc., preserved in manuscript form, as well as hand copied church lectionaries (appointed readings for each day and each holiday of the church year), and quotations of Scripture in the writings of the ancient Church Fathers such as Augustine, Athanasius, Jerome, etc. So the evidence for the text of the Bible is very extensive and compelling. In the secular realm the text of an ancient book is accepted with confidence on far less than ten percent of the textual evidence that exists for the Bible.

Now, just about the time that Dr. Martin Luther was beginning to study and teach the Biblical truths that led to the Reformation, a humanist scholar by the name of Erasmus published the first printed and mass produced edition of the Greek New Testament. His printed text was based on the relatively small number of late manuscript witnesses that were available to him at the time. What has been discovered since his day dwarfs what he had available to him. Yet, we should not for this reason undervalue the manuscripts he worked with, or the text of his Greek New Testament. The manuscripts he used were late, but they were faithful exemplars of the vast majority of New Testament manuscripts used throughout the church since the apostolic era. Therefore Erasmus placed in the hands of the Reformers a printed Greek New Testament with genuine catholicity, which presented what had been preserved as sacred text in the church throughout its history.

It is important to realize, lest anyone deceive you in this regard, that the vast majority of ancient witnesses to the text of the New Testament favors this Ecclesiastical Text, Traditional Text, Majority Text, Received Text, or whatever else you want to call it. With Erasmus’ Greek New Testament, and with other editions of that basic text by editors who followed Erasmus, scholars had at their disposal a printed edition of the consensus of ancient witnesses to the preserved, catholic, sacred text of the New Testament. In time, these printed editions became known as the Textus Receptus, or, Received Text. When Luther and the Reformers urged us "Back to the Sources", it was to these extant texts, not to some hypothetically reconstructed original autograph. It was the texts in hand that the Reformers and confessors called inspired and infallible. Unlike the Anabaptists, who believed that we must reject everything in the western church and go back to the first century (primitive restorationism), Luther and the Reformers corrected only the errors that had crept into the church. Luther was a "catholic preservationist". Hence, all of the Bible translations produced during the Reformation and post-Reformation eras, were translations of the received Hebrew text of the Old Testament, and the received Greek text of the New Testament, not some hypothetical reconstruction of lost original autographs.

So, Luther’s 1545 edition, the Authorized (King James) Version (AV or KJV), and all of the updates of the Authorized Version such as the New King James Version, are based on the Ecclesiastical Text of the New Testament. Other modern translations of the Bible such as the New International Version, the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Version, and others, are based on a somewhat different edition of the Greek New Testament, based on a minority of witnesses. This text is called by some the critical text. The most common publised edition of this critical text is the 27th edition of the Nestle Aland Greek New Testament.

In the 1700’s and 1800’s, as more and more ancient manuscripts and sources became available, it was discovered that some few of these witnesses differed substantially from the Ecclesiastical Text in numerous places. These variant readings were siezed upon by rationalistic, sceptical scholars in order to attack the church’s doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. Many conservative scholars responded to this threat by maintaining that the Ecclesiastical Text was the sacred text that God had preserved through the church throughout the centuries, and regarded the variant readings in the minority texts as either intentional or inadvertent corruptions. They were not overly intimidated by the variant readings.

However, some conservative scholars bought into the rationalistic argument that the Ecclesiastical Text was an ecclesiastical corruption of the text of the NT in the interests of orthodoxy. Conservatives began saying that the church had corrupted the NT by smoothing it out and taking out the rough edges. They began to assert that the inspiration and infallibility of the NT resided only with the original autographs, and that it was the task of conservative textual critics to use the "earliest and best" manuscripts and witnesses in order to reconstruct, as closely as possible, the text of the autographs. Thus conservatives turned against the Ecclesiastical Text and minimized the doctrine of divine preservation which had always gone hand in hand with the doctrine of inspiration. They felt safe in locating inspiration and infallibility in the (as far as we know non-existant) autographs, and they confidently began the quest for the original text.

It didn’t seem to bother them that behind their quest lay the idea that for 1900 years labored with a "weak" text while the "purer" manuscripts lay mouldering in forgotten corners, only to be brought to light in an era noted more for its apostasy than for its faithfulness. Is it an accident that the Reformation had the Ecclesiastical Text as its sacred text?

The nineteenth century culmination of the new approach to the text of the New Testament came with the publication of the English Revised Version of 1881. This granddaddy of all modern Bible translations reflects the text critical outlook of two famous English scholars, Messrs. Westcott and Hort. They and the translation committee that worked with them were charged by the Anglican Church to revise the Authorized version as gently and sparingly as possible, making only patently necessary changes. So what did they do?

Well, first they edited an altogether new edition of the Greek New Testament which reflected their preference for a small minority of ancient manuscripts that differ sometimes sharply from the Byzantine/Majority text. Then they translated their new text into English rather than following the text used by the Authorized Version translators. They made unnecessary changes to the wording of the AV, even when this made their version more obtuse and stilted, and unleashed it on the world.

How did the world react? First, the scholars. By and large they liked Westcott and Hort’s new Greek Text, but were mixed about the quality of the English translation. The nineteenth century was a time when people snapped hungrily at any novel new idea. And just as they had done with Darwin and evolution, so they did now with an amazing fascination for discarded old manuscripts dug out of monastery wastebaskets and cellars. In the scholarly world Westcott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, and the multitudinous revised editions of it throughout the 20th century, have become the almost universally recognized New Textus Receptus.

But among ordinary folk things were different. This newfangled revision was stiff and stilted, retaining little of the beauty of the AV. And many words, phrases, verses and even parts of chapters were missing or altered. Where disputed passages were retained, there were crabby little comments in the margins to aggravate the reader’s doubt. By and large, the laity would have none of it and continued to use the AV as if the Revised Version didn’t exist, and for the most part, forced the clergy to do likewise. The RV was dead at the starting gate.

It wasn’t until the Bible translation mania of the post World War II era that the AV slowly began to make room for various modern versions. The Revised Standard Version, the New English Bible, the New American Standard Bible, An American Translation, etc. all had their small niches in the Bible reading world. But it wasn’t until the publication of the long awaited New International Version that the AV was given a run for its money. Not that the NIV was so good; it wasn’t. It was dull and two-dimensional, wordy and unmemorable. But it was marketed like no other Bible in history. It became the Big Mac of the Bible publishing world. The Rupert Murdock owned Zondervan Publishing Co., which is the main publisher of NIV Bibles, claims that sales of their baby have outstripped the old AV. This is probably hype, but despite continued strong sales of the old AV, it looks as though we are entering a post-King James Version era. With the exception of the recent New King James Version, nearly all modern translations of the Bible are in the Westcott and Hort tradition of New Testament textual criticism.

But not everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. Back in the nineteenth century a small number of scholars contended vigorously for the Traditional Text; among them, John William Burgon and F. H. A. Scrivner, two massively gifted textual critics. Now, while their work has been largely ignored by the majority, there has always been a small but ardent group of scholars who have kept the home fires burning for the Traditional Text of the New Testament. Outstanding modern exponents of this outlook are Dr. Edward F. Hills (now deceased) and Dr. Theodore Letis (very much alive). Hills’ book, The King James Version Defended: A Christian View of the New Testament Manuscripts, and Letis' book, The Ecclesiastical Text are notable for their defense of the Traditional Text from an ecclesiological and theological perspective.

The work of Hills and Letis must be contrasted with other groups of scholars who support the Traditional Text for different reasons. One group has become known as the "King James Only" group. They believe that the AV is the perfect, preserved Word of God for the English speaking world. For them, the AV is equal in authority to the original Hebrew and Greek of the Old and New Testaments. The "King James Only" group generally consists of a small group of fundamentalist Baptists who have little positive impact on the world of scholarship with the exception that some among them have managed to keep the works of Burgon and Scrivner in print, despite the fact that Burgon and Scrivner would never subscribe to their views.

A second group of scholars that must be distinguished from the work of Hills and Letis is the Majority Text school. This school, again, mostly fundamentalist Baptist, have produced two recent notable editions of the Greek New Testament. Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont have edited The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Byzantine/Majority Textform (1991). This is the Byzantine Greek Text found in many Bible Software programs such as BibleWorks, Logos, and the Online Bible. Zane Hodges and Arthur Farstad have edited The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (1985). It is important to note that the Majority Text school is in no way made up of "King James Only" advocates. The fact is that the KJ-Only people consider the Majority Text people to be in league with the devil! Be that as it may, what the Majority Text school is up to is attempting to purge the Traditional Text of it’s slight "corruptions" in the interest of making it conform more closely to the hypothetical original autographs.

They, like the critical school of textual criticism, are primitive restorationists, with the exception that they hold that the Byzantine manuscripts and witnesses better reflect the originals than do the Alexandrian texts.

But like the critical school, they are attempting to get behind the church’s preserved texts to the posited originals. Both groups assume that the church, to some degree, corrupted the originals. Hills and Letis, like Burgon, are not primitive restorationists. They are, to use a term borrowed from Letis, "catholic preservationists". This means that they believe that God, who inspired the infallible Scriptures, has, through His church, preserved what he gave for the church’s use and benefit. The inspired, infallible sacred text is not some minority text hidden in a corner for 1900 years and only lately rediscovered. Rather, the inspired, infallible sacred text is the text everywhere preserved and used in the church throughout its history. The best text of the New Testament reflects the consensus of this catholicity of witnesses. Therefore the text of Erasmus and his successors, the text that formed the basis of all Reformation era Protestant Bible translations, which reflects this preserved catholic consensus; the text which Letis calls The Ecclesiastical Text, but which is also known as the Byzantine Text, the Majority Text, or the Textus Receptus, is rightly to be regarded and received as the sacred text of the churches of the Reformation.

As I said above, when Luther and the theologians of Lutheran Orthodoxy urged, "Back to the sources!" it was to the extant Hebrew and Greek texts in hand to which they were pointing, and not to some repristinated original autographs. When they spoke of the Scriptures as inspired and infallible, it was the texts in hand and in use to which they were referring. What God gave, He has preserved, not in a dark corner, but in the use of the church catholic.

Lutherans, both pastors and laity, should carefully read the section on "Holy Scripture" in Francis Pieper’s, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. 1, pp. 193-370. At a time when primitive restoration was being urged by such notables as B. B. Warfield, Francis Pieper wouldn’t bite. While he is neither threatened nor opposed to the use of modern critical editions of the New Testament, his comments on textual matters, and on divine inspiration, show that he was solidly in line with the catholic preservationism of our Lutheran forebears. This shows itself in his defense of the Traditional Text. His words, especially in our day, are judicious and wise.

Now in all that I’ve said above, it is not my intention to impugn the scriptural commitment of those who prefer the modern critical texts and the translations based on them, but to urge a reconsideration of a view that has a long and distinguished place in the churches of the Reformation. Nor am I urging the exclusive use of the AV. It would be nice to see some modern translations of the Bible based on the Ecclesiastical Text. The New King James Version is a good start. Indeed, the movement in this direction is encouraging. The number of Lutheran pastors who are rediscovering the Traditional Text is growing every day. In this day, when so many are gaining a new appreciation of catholicity on the one hand, and the failure of modernism on the other, it is a wonder that more scholars aren’t adopting catholic preservationism. Well, all in good time.

Finally, any discussion of these issues runs the risk of creating the impression that the differences between the various editions of the Greek New Testament are more numerous than they are. Therefore, we should keep in mind that the textual differences between any given edition of the Ecclesiastical Text amounts to no more than about two percent. And the textual differences between the Ecclesiastical Text and the modern critical texts amounts to no more than about fifteen percent. Therefore, over 85% of the text in all manuscripts and witnesses is identical. It should be obvious then, that we are not talking about two entirely different kinds of New Testament. The layman should keep this in mind while studying these matters. This amazing textual agreement, even between the divergent Ecclesiastical and critical texts, makes the New Testament by far the best attested ancient text ever.

But we must not be sanguine. While we do not want to be hysterical or to get caught up in wild conspiracy theories after the manner of our fundamentalist counterparts, neither do we want to minimize the fact that the modern critical texts, at certain strategic places in the text make omissions, or alterations that are far from innocuous. For approximately twenty five years the Revised Standard Version was published with the last half of Mark 16 relegated to a footnote in accordance with the then current edition of the Nestle Greek Text. Other translations, less bold, included the text but added marginal comments which cast doubt on it. This is not harmless. Neither should it be a matter of indifference when Paul’s words concerning Christ: "God was manifest in the flesh…" are changed to the more ambiguous: "He was manifest in the flesh" on the basis of a few paltry textual witnesses against the overwhelming majority (1 Tim. 3:16). Nor should we merely shrug our shoulders when the overwhelmingly well attested and orthodox rendering: "…the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father…" is replaced with the poorly attested and arguably Gnostic: "…the only begotten God, which is in the bosom of the Father…" (John 1:18). But enough.

We can be thankful that even in the most critically reduced New Testament text the doctrines of the Law and Gospel are still set forth clearly and accurately for the benefit of the church. But this does not mitigate the fact that in the 19th century the discipline of textual criticism went in the wrong direction; a direction that has had serious consequences with regard to faith in the authority of Scripture, even down to our day. Nor does it absolve us of the responsibility to study these matters carefully and return the discipline of textual criticism to the service of the church and its divinely inspired, infallible, and preserved sacred text.

The following is a list of Bible versions currently in print that are based on the Ecclesiastical Text:

• The Authorized (or King James) Version (Cambridge University Press, etc.)
• T he New King James Version (Thomas Nelson Publishers)
• T he 21 s t Century King James Version (Deuel Publishing)
• T he Third Millenium Bible (Deuel Publishing)
• T he Modern King James Version (Sovereign Grace Publishers)

If you are interested in doing further reading on this subject, I recommend the following books:

• T he King James Version Defended, Edward F. Hills
• T he Ecclesiastical Text, Theodore Letis
• T he Traditional Text, John William Burgon
• T he Last Twelve Verse of Mark, John William Burgon
• T he Revision Revised, John William Burgon

...Pr. Stuart Wood's insightful articles based on Seigbert W. Becker's, The Foolishness of God? This book along with these seven articles give a great introduction into the Lutheran understanding of reasons rightful place. Read and enjoy!

Christian Faith versus Human Reason

by: Pr. Stuart Wood

(This article is republished with the authors consent)

The Priority of Faith

It is a privilege for me to share with you some things that I have learned while on my Christian pilgrimage. What follows is partly testimony, partly instruction, and partly warning. As far as I am aware, the ELCR is one of the last remnants of the visible, orthodox, historical Church here on earth. Not that there are not other Christians elsewhere, but you have the high honor of still holding to the Word of God in all of its truth and purity. May God preserve this unique and valuable heritage in these last days of Satanic assault.

One of the things that led me to recognize Martin Luther as a true teacher of the orthodox Church was his constant and correct emphasis on the priority of faith over reason. Dr. Luther understood that faith was that God-given ability to confidently affirm the truth of God's Word wherever it might go. There is no such thing as faith without the external, objective Word of God. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom. 10:17). "Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God" (Heb. 11:3). Abraham, the Father of Faith, was commended because he was "fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to perform" (Rom. 4:21).

Dr. Luther did not oppose reason in and of itself. Rather, he insisted that reason must operate within its own proper domain. Faith must lead reason, and not vice versa. Luther called reason, "Madame Reason". She must be subject to her husband, Faith. She must behave herself modestly, and call him "Lord". She must not usurp his God-given authority to lead. She must remain silent in the Church, and keep herself covered in worship for the sake of the angels. In the Assembly, we must hear only the oracles of God, with the voice of Faith ever saying, "Amen and Amen".

Click here to continue reading...

...This excellent article by Pr. Stuart Wood called:

Taking the Mask off Calvinism

The Danger of Human Reason

by: Pr. Stuart Wood

(This article is republished with the author's consent)

Dear brethren of the ELCR, we live in a dangerous time. Today, more than ever before, Satan is trying to wipe true Christianity off the face of the map. We know that he cannot ultimately accomplish that, but we also know that he will not cease his efforts until the Lord comes. Jesus said, “No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.” (Mark 3:27). This binding of the strong man took place at the cross of Calvary. There our Lord rendered Satan powerless (Heb. 2:14). For the last two thousand years, He has been plundering his house, that is, rescuing poor lost souls who were formerly under his power. He has done this through the proclamation of the Gospel, how that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3). When a person hears this Word and receives it in true faith, he “hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). He is “delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son” (Col. 1:13). But the Scriptures also tell us that this blessed time will come to an end. Revelation 20 speaks of a “little season” shortly before the Lord’s return when Satan will be loosed of his bonds and will make one last all-out assault on the Christian church. Since he is loosed, his house will no longer be plundered nor his goods spoiled. Rather, he will once again “keep his goods in peace”, that is, keep the lost in their deluded lost estate. From this we see that Satan will silence the Gospel during this “little season”.

Revelation 20 also tells us how he will silence the Gospel. He will do this by assembling together a vast horde of spiritual enemies from the four corners of the world to oppose and overwhelm “the camp of the saints”, “the beloved city”, that is, the true invisible church of Christ. The Scriptures call this horde “Gog” and “Magog”. According to St. Augustine, the word “Gog” means “a roof” and “Magog” means “from a roof”, and so the two terms have reference to “a house”. God is telling us that in the last days Satan will assemble his whole unbelieving house against the true Christian church. In every sphere of earthly power true Christianity will be marginalized, maligned, hated, and persecuted. Whether in the educational sphere, the scientific sphere, the vocational sphere, the economic sphere, the social sphere, the media sphere, the political sphere, the religious sphere, or any other earthly sphere of power, Satan will rise up as a multi-headed beast with a crown on every head. He will so vilify and malign the church, so thoroughly delude and prejudice the minds of the unbelieving, that few will dare or think to take her message seriously. The anti-Christian spirit will rule all earthly powers and will dominate and control the entire world.

Brethren, do we not see this anti-Christian spirit already in place? No matter where you turn today, the Word of God and those who truly stand with it are ridiculed and silenced. The world will tolerate anything and everything except the truth of God’s Word. And since God’s Word contains both His law and Gospel, those who rightly divide the Word are the special objects of this opposition and hatred. The world does not want to hear that they are lost sinners and it does not want to hear that Jesus Christ is the one and only Saviour from sin and death. The world seeks to kill the “two witnesses”, the law and the Gospel, who have tormented them for so long. Ultimately, due to Satan’s influence, it is the Gospel that they are most against, because Satan knows that the Gospel is the only truth by which a human soul may be saved. Satan hates souls because he hates God, the Creator and Lover of souls. He will gladly promote any religion, including all false representations of Christianity, if it is devoid of the Gospel because that does him no harm. All, except the true invisible church, will enjoy his nefarious smile and the earthly honors and treasures that go with it so long as they reject the Gospel.

One such religion that rejects and destroys the Gospel is Calvinism. Throughout this paper, I am speaking of that Calvinism that denies the universal atonement of Christ. For this reason Satan has raised it up and established it in its many forms. Its errors are subtle, reflecting the deep guile and great might of our old evil foe. The Scriptures describe the serpent as “more subtil than any beast of the field” (Gen. 3:1). The deadly danger of Calvinism is that it looks so much like true Christianity. It is a counterfeit that can easily pass as public tender. In fact, I would never have known or even have suspected the poisonous nature of this devilish lie if not for the writings of Martin Luther which taught me faith and delivered me from its terrible snare. You see, Calvinism is really a false religion, despite its appearance as an advocate for Biblical truth. It is a religion led of depraved human reason and not that true religion which belongs to the Word of God and child-like faith....Click here to continue reading this article...

In Romans 2:14,15; it states:

Exodus 4:24-26 ~ circumcision of the son

Even after many readings, some Bible verses and passages are obscure and seem to stand isolated from the larger narrative, like an unexpected intruder. One such text is from the Old Testament -- Exodus 4:24-26.

(v.24) And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.

(v.25) Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

(v.26) So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.

Abrupt and unsettling, it is hard to deny that this passage appears to lie unconnected to everything surrounding it. As Christians, we are certain it has something to teach us. As Lutherans, we believe that, like the rest of Scripture, it in some way points to the Messiah, the “author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). Below, we will be examining commentary that illumines and which is in accord with the entire Scriptures...Click here to continue the rest...