Bible believing pastors who have accepted the critical approach to the text live with a cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, there is the Bible’s own self-witness to its PRESENT infallibility and immutability. On the other, there is the endless regress of textual criticism.
Unable to reconcile the two, most ministers accept BOTH and practically treat the dissonance in the same way we treat genuine mysteries of the faith such as the hypostatic union. They see no need to bother themselves with reconciling the problem. This apathy presents a bigger problem than the initial problem. The problem I refer to is the ultimate loss of Biblical authority itself.
When speaking of the subject of identifying the text of Scripture, we are not dealing with a divine mystery too great to be reconciled within the finite mind of man. Rather, we are dealing with the very text wherein God condescended to make Himself known to us by way of covenant. The Scriptures are a product of God’s condescension to make Himself known to us.
If we say the content of Scripture is ultimately a thing of divine mystery unknown to us, we commit a teleological error. For revelation is the very purpose of Scripture. The end of the endless regress of textual criticism is the loss of the very idea of Scripture.
This is one of the many reasons I receive the Received Text of the Protestant Reformation as canonical. Those who sit under my preaching need not concern themselves with the question of what text it is that I will be preaching as theópneustos (God-breathed). I believe in the Received Text because it is received. In this, I share the same approach to text as did Christ and the apostles in their day.
But aren’t all texts taken from multiple witnesses? The article is written as if there is one “received text”. What manuscript would that be?
What’s at question is not the existence of variation among the manuscripts, but how we address them.
There is the current, contemporary approach of textual criticism that is an infinite regress of editions, and then there is the dogmatic approach that sees the move to print at the time of the Reformation as the transition from manuscripts with their variants to an established, received text. An advent that would require the move from hand copying to the printed page.
This printed edition was virtually identical to the text as we find it in the Byzantine manuscripts that were preserved in use through the history of the church but God, by His special providence, has moved us out of the manuscript era of the text over 400 years ago.
What we are talking about are two radically different paradigms from which we view the subject of the text of the sacred Scriptures. The most pressing question for the believer is, which of these is in conformity to the Bible’s own self-witness regarding its own text? The second you acknowledge the question, contemporary textual criticism is undone for it denies the relevancy of the question from the very outset.
I’m just a novice but when it boils down I fail to really see the difference. My understanding is that you’re drawing a line choosing the point when we stopped comparing manuscripts. It was OK for Erasmus to do it. But he compiled the perfect edition of the Word of God, so it’s no longer necessary?
I guess the argument is that this was an act of providence as like you say we moved to the printer text. Just not sure why the TR, how do we know? Soley because the church accepted it as such ask those years?
In your view is the TR identical to the autographs?
I love the idea of a received text. I just can’t get behind the arguments for it.
The difference is that Erasmus — and those others who later compiled the received text — already knew what the New Testament (NT) said. Remember, they already had a NT. But it was in Latin. So, when Erasmus began comparing original language manuscripts, he already knew what the finished product was supposed to look like: it was supposed to look like the NT he already had, which the church had used for centuries, with some new minor corrections made by him that had been taken from the original language manuscripts, which were those that had been in use by the Greek church for centuries. The results of Erasmus’, and those others who complied the received text, was to give us the autographs. They recognized the autographs because 1) they already had a Latin NT and 2) by using original Greek manuscripts they were now able to make minor necessary corrections to what they already knew to be the NT (along with a few important variant reading, which they included in the margins). They treated variants as just that: variants from the received text, but still important enough to keep in the margins (variants always belong in the margin and not in the text). Modern text critics act as though all ‘variants’ are equal, as though every reading is valid, so they throw them all in a box, shake the box, and then concoct made-up theories in order to compile the autographic text out of the jumble of readings and variants in the box…. as if we’ve never had any idea about what the NT says. The modern text is a scholars’ text. Text critics of all kinds, not just NT critics, will pick two manuscripts as their guide, which is why the modern text is based upon two manuscripts (Aleph and B). The religious text of the Reformation was complied in a totally different manner, as I described above.
Brett,
There is no other viable candidate for a received text other than the TR.
When you ask, “Why the TR?”, I’d ask you why the 27 books of the New Testament?
The church’s role in receiving the text of the canon is very similar to the church’s role in receiving the proper books of the canon. Ultimately, we look to the authentication the Holy Spirit has provided the church in BOTH.
The problem with the critical text is it is a provisional text and always will be. There are almost no text critics left in the field who believe the autographs can be recovered with this methodology.
A text that is, and must needs be, always in a state of flux simply does not conform to the Bible’s own self witness.
The historic, Protestant position on the text of Scripture was primarily a dogmatic one. The books I linked at the bottom of the article are helpful in exploring the subject.
The shift in thinking away from dogmatics to the rationalistic enterprise of contemporary textual criticism is a direct product of The Enlightenment.
The foundational question you have to ask yourself is—Is the matter of the text of Scripture first a dogmatic/doctrinal one, or is it first and foremost a question of human reason?
Put another way, do we seek the text first from the Bible’s own self witness about the text OR do we seek the text first from the standpoint of human reason treating the text like any other book?
How you answer that question will pretty much determine your conclusion.
Nobody has the original autographs so the text will always be in a state of flux. It’s reductionistic to think that one text is the correct one. What we need is a discounting of Westcott&Hort’s methodolgy in which the Critical Text always gets favored.
I certainly understand there are different, more viable IMO critical positions (such as Byzantine-Priority…and I welcome that development!), but to call the received text “reductionistic” is precisely what the liberals say about our selection of the 27 books of the New Testament canon (and for many of the same reasons).
As long as you approach the subject critically while dismissing or ignoring the arguments from dogmatics, the position in favor of the Received Text will not make much sense.
Finally, the Received Text position is the ONLY option where the state of the text is not in a state of flux because it is not foremost a critical position.