Aaron Blumer has continued his series over at SharperIron on the how and why of preservation. I’m going to answer his essay paragraph by paragraph, but first a few introductory comments. I thank Aaron for considering the doctrine of preservation and not acting like the doctrine or issue doesn’t exist, it doesn’t matter, it’s a “non-essential,” or is a laughing-stock. Uncertainty about the Words of God yields uncertainty about the Bible’s authority and then tends toward an uncertainty about meaning. Much more could be said about that in some future post. I want a fair and thoughtful conversation about this without the typical name-calling and pejorative, standard fare on most forums. Those are not serious attempts to know the truth. As well, to come to the right position, we need to be willing to change positions. We are not likely to come to the right view if we find ourselves conforming biblical teaching to a view we already hold. I’m hopeful this could be the case with Aaron.
With no disrespect to Aaron and despite what he writes in his very first line, many fundamentalists and evangelicals don’t believe God has preserved His Word, that is, unless “Word” is some generalized concept referring to the Word as a whole, not the very “Words.” That is a new development in bibliology. When we talk about what God inspired, it is verbal plenary. If God preserved that, then He preserved all the Words in the order in which He gave them. If not, then I believe we are giving a whole new understanding of “keep” or “preserve.” If there is some point to God’s Word being individual words, then preservation of God’s Word would refer to the preservation of the very Words.
Aaron’s second paragraph presents a straw man as it regards the position presented by Thou Shalt Keep Them (TSKT). The book does not assert that the Bible teaches preservation of a “particular manuscript or text.” In other words, we don’t believe that God’s Word teaches that some one single copy, not the original manuscript, wove its way through all of history untainted. We haven’t argued for a promise of that. TSKT says that God’s Word promises the perfect preservation of every Word and all the Words, that is, what God inspired. That’s what God promises in His Word. I would welcome Aaron to show us the passage(s) that teach this “potentially discoverable” form of perfect preservation. Based upon what scripture promises about the preservation of His Word, that wouldn’t even be preservation.
Let me illustrate. Let’s say that I gave you 100 marbles and I promised to keep or to preserve every one of them for the rest of your life. Twenty years later, you ask for the 100 marbles back. And I say, “Here they are,” and hand you a bag with 93 of them. I inform you, “I preserved your marbles.” You wouldn’t think that I did. You wouldn’t call that preservation. No one would. Or let’s say that I said, “Here are 93 of the 100 and the other 7 are ‘potentially discoverable.'” No one would think that is preservation or even some legitimate form of preservation. For someone to believe that this represents what God promises in the way of preservation strains credulity.
Aaron mentioned that Moritz and others have examined the preservation passages and come to very similar conclusions as the authors of TSKT did. I don’t think so. We may both use the word “preservation” or both say “God has preserved His Word,” but we mean something very different when we say that. Aaron says that our side “obscure[s] the real issues in the debate and attempt[s] to frame it in a way that heavily favors [our] view.” Wow. I thought we were just exposing what scripture said about preservation, what I would hope that Aaron and other believers would think is a good thing. I would want to know how we obscure the real issues. And I would wonder what he thinks “the real issues” are. I never got any specifics from his article, just the accusation.
If someone takes a position that differs from Scripture or that contradicts what God’s Word teaches, from where should we say that he has received his view? If it not biblical teaching, isn’t it concocted by men. Aren’t those men influenced by something extra-scriptural? If God’s Word teaches something and we refuse to believe it, are we believing or unbelieving in that instance? I think we know the answer. From where does unscriptural teaching originate? It has to come from somewhere and I think it isn’t hard to demonstrate that it comes from rationalism or humanism. We have orthodox doctrine in the Bible and then in history. If some new doctrine originates, it isn’t unusual to investigate what caused the new doctrine. Since it isn’t the Bible, we could show how that rationalism or humanism were involved. That’s easy to do with the modern “science” of textual criticism.
Aaron professes that the scriptural doctrine of man’s fallibility somehow guarantees that man will fail at preserving His Words. Based on that assertion, he should also conclude that we have no guarantee of perfection in the original manuscripts either, since man wrote those. Of course, he says that inspiration is different in that God guarantees perfection for inspiration, that God superintended inspiration in a way that would give us every Word and all of them. But not in preservation. Why not? The Bible says enough for us to conclude supernatural intervention in both inspiration and preservation.
TSKT didn’t say that there wouldn’t be errors made in copying. It did say that supernatural, divine intervention would result in the preservation and availability of every Word for every generation of believers. This is another straw-man in Aaron’s arguments.
For several paragraphs, Aaron uses man’s fallibility and the scripture that teaches it as a basis for saying that we don’t have every Word. I agree with the doctrine Aaron fleshes out from the verses he uses (he especially illustrates it by misspelling my name throughout the presentation—”Brandenberg” instead of “Brandenburg”). I disagree with his application to preservation. God promised perfect preservation and accessibility. God’s Word, God’s promises, and God’s power can always overcome man’s fallibility.
What is ironic about this section is that this is the very basis for a presuppositional apologetic that buttresses the point of TSKT. We’ve got to trust that God would do what He said He would do. We assume He would. We look to see How He did. Because of our sin, we need supernatural interceding. God’s Word tells us what to believe, not external evidence, which we should assume is spoiled and that man cannot interpret because of His sinfulness. This blows away the critical text and its rejection of theological presuppositions, saying that sinful man must allow external evidence to lead him to “the truth.” Man doesn’t discover revelation because of his sinfulness. Discovery and revelation are by nature mutually exclusive.
An unsustainable leap in Aaron’s presentation occurs in this statement: “Our understanding of inspiration and preservation must account for what Scripture reveals about believers’ propensity to err and sin.” We all agree that man sins, but this does not change what God says He will do through the church, because God is sustaining that effort in a supernatural way. That’s why we have promises of preservation and inspiration. What Aaron chooses to believe on this is something I’ve never read in anything—it is brand new doctrine—not found anywhere else in history, an occurrence that didn’t seem to matter at all to the SharperIron audience, as long as what he wrote fit their previous thinking.
Aaron then takes this same point of fallibility and applies it to what all of Israel or an entire church does, regardless of what God said He would do. A good parallel here is that we are working out our salvation (Philippians 2:12) because God is working in us (Philippians 2:13). We’re not saved or preserved or kept because of our power, but because of the power of God (1 Peter 1:5). No man can pluck us out of His hand (John 10:28-29). In the same way, God will reveal “all” of His truth to His own (John 16:13). The church is working out preservation, but God is guaranteeing it by His power. Because God commands a church to “hold fast,” does that mean that a church could possibly not hold fast, even though they are regenerate? That’s an assumption that Aaron seems to be making in his attempt to buttress this novel point that he makes. He says the church was capable of slipping and failing, when Scripture tells that Christ is able to keep us from falling. Are we to hold fast? Yes. But is He holding fast to us? Yes.
Aaron writes this, conceding a major point made in TSKT:
That they were given the responsibility of keeping and declaring the words of God (Brandenberg, [sic] 100) is not in dispute. But they were given many other responsibilities as well, and ultimately failed to execute any of them perfectly.
A major point of Aaron’s whole first offering on preservation was that the “how” was sharply disputed. Here he says that the “how” is not in dispute. Despite the fact that Aaron did not admit that he had been persuaded on this point, I accept the admission that the “how” of preservation is no longer in dispute with him. He has accepted Scripture as to the “how” of preservation. God used His church. I congratulate Aaron for this concession. Perhaps others will follow in conceding that the church is the means of preservation, the “how” that is so often denied.
Aaron uses the oft cited example of the single copy left preserved and surviving in the temple in the Old Testament as a basis of a failure of preservation. I have never been able to wrap my brain around how that proves a point for the other side. It doesn’t disagree with anything else in Scripture about preservation. The copy was still in Israel’s temple both preserved by Israel and by God. If there was one copy remaining, that indicates preservation like only one possible heir in the line of Christ proves the continuation of the line of Christ. Someone may need to help me to understand how this doesn’t only hurt those who are attempting to say that there was a failure in preservation, and that this proves that.
Concerning inspiration, Aaron says that God acted directly on the writers of Scripture as they spoke and wrote. I agree with that. Doesn’t John 16:13 say that God would guide His own into all truth? The church has believed this, counted on this teaching, and used it as a basis for believing in a sixty-six book canon. God would make manifest to His own what His Words were. The very Holy Spirit who moved upon men in inspiration also could and did guide them in canonicity and preservation. We must believe in this principle as a basis for a certain, sixty-six book canon. That too is a miracle of God’s providence.
We have a strong scriptural basis for believing in a word perfect Bible in the promise of not one jot or one tittle passing from God’s law in Matthew 5:18. Jesus in Matthew 24:35 said that His Words would never pass away. The standard for Scripture is perfection (Psalm 12:6). John gave the standard of not one word being added to or taken away from the settled text (Revelation 22:18-19). You can’t take away or add to a text that isn’t settled. We should assume that God would testify to the very Words that He inspired so that those would always be available for His people (Isaiah 59:21; Matthew 4:4).
The reason why there are no preservation statements that parallel inspiration statements is because inspiration and preservation are two different activities of God. Men were not “moved” by the Holy Spirit in preservation of the already inspired text, but they would be guided by the Holy Spirit to it. God also promised that every Word would be available. We should assume that it would be.
Aaron ended by saying that future articles would explore whether God has “enabled fallible human beings to make error-free copies of His Word.” Again, this is a straw-man. God promises every Word and all Words. There is no promise of a man making an error free copy. That should not hold anyone back from believing what the passages do teach, which still lead us to believe in a perfect, preserved text of scripture.
What we have here is a matter of faith. Abraham did not see and yet believed. He did not stagger in unbelief despite the lack of evidence. He believed God’s Words. We should believe the promises of God for preservation like we believe the even fewer passages that teach inspiration. Here’s the catch though. A Bart Ehrman knows what Scripture says about preservation. He believes it. When he begins seeing the textual variants, he staggers in unbelief and ejects from Christianity. He couldn’t believe in a miracle of providence. Others know of textual variants and they just change what Scripture teaches and what the church had believed. Do you see what has happened? Men are reacting to sight and not living by faith. One rejects Scripture altogether and the other changes its meaning. Both are faithless moves. Let us gird up our loins as men and be strong.
"Aaron's second paragraph presents a straw man as it regards the position presented by Thou Shalt Keep Them (TSKT). The book does not assert that the Bible teaches preservation of a "particular manuscript or text."
When I said "single manuscript or text," I definitely did not say "the same single manuscript down through the ages." I presumed that in your view, there would always have to be at least one MS (as in copy) that is perfectly preserved. Am I incorrect on that? If not, why wouldn't there be?
"I would want to know how we obscure the real issues. And I would wonder what he thinks "the real issues" are. I never got any specifics from his article, just the accusation."
I assumed readers would figure that part out by reading the article. The real issues include What does the Bible teach about the nature of believers' efforts, but that's a subset of the really big issue: what did God say He would do with respect to preservation? The former is important for understanding the latter.
"If someone takes a position that differs from Scripture or that contradicts what God's Word teaches, from where should we say that he has received his view?"
Precisely my point. We need to correctly understand the Scriptures, which is where my focus has been exclusively.
My gripe is that you have taken the position a priori that disagreeing with you is disagreeing with Scripture rather than proving it to be so.
"…he says that inspiration is different in that God guarantees perfection for inspiration, that God superintended inspiration in a way that would give us every Word and all of them. But not in preservation. Why not? The Bible says enough for us to conclude supernatural intervention in both inspiration and preservation."
I am quite clear in the article that the biblical evidence for verbal plenary pres. differs from that for inspiration in that it is less direct and explicit. But I am also clear that I'll be looking at that evidence in the future to see if the less-direct case is still clear. So I believe that the Bible can teach something clearly without teaching it directly in a couple of crystal clear passages. The question is whether we have that in this case. Part 3.
"TSKT didn't say that there wouldn't be errors made in copying. It did say that supernatural, divine intervention would result in the preservation and availability of every Word for every generation of believers. This is another straw-man in Aaron's arguments."
TKST clearly asserts that God's chosen institutions have preserved every one of His words in a form they know to be perfect. So if the institution involved doesn't make perfect copies, is it your view that it makes them perfect afterwords by correcting them?
Wouldn't that me "textual criticism"?
If God promised continuously accessible, certainly-identifiable word-perfect preservation, why would He not see that His instruments make perfect copies?
"What is ironic about this section is that this is the very basis for a presuppositional apologetic that buttresses the point of TSKT. We've got to trust that God would do what He said He would do. We assume He would. We look to see How He did." It's a big disingenuous at this point to act like you don't know what the debate is really about: which is whether God said He would do what you are claiming He said He would do. I absolutely believe He does what He says.
"God's Word tells us what to believe, not external evidence, which we should assume is spoiled and that man cannot interpret because of His sinfulness."
I have used precisely zero external evidence.
"Aaron then takes this same point of fallibility and applies it to what all of Israel or an entire church does, regardless of what God said He would do."
What I've written does not question that God keeps His promises. Anyone can see that. The question is what has He promised?
"Aaron writes this, conceding a major point made in TSKT:
'That they were given the responsibility of keeping and declaring the words of God (Brandenberg, [sic] 100) is not in dispute. But they were given many other responsibilities as well, and ultimately failed to execute any of them perfectly.'
A major point of Aaron's whole first offering on preservation was that the "how" was sharply disputed. Here he says that the "how" is not in dispute. Despite the fact that Aaron did not admit that he had been persuaded on this point, I accept the admission that the "how" of preservation is no longer in dispute with him. He has accepted Scripture as to the "how" of preservation. God used His church. I congratulate Aaron for this concession."
That's classic, Kent.
Even the part you quoted, I said they failed to execute. Conceding that a responsibility has been assigned is not conceding that a responsibility has been carried out. Again, anybody can see what I'm saying there. By all means disagree, but this is a conspicuous attempt to put words in my mouth.
Of the Book of the Law found in Josiah's day…
"If there was one copy remaining, that indicates preservation"
Now this is an actual concession. There can be preservation without access? Nobody had access to the copy until it was found. The idea that the words can be preserved without being in hand is actually my view, not the view of TKST.
"Aaron ended by saying that future articles would explore whether God has "enabled fallible human beings to make error-free copies of His Word." Again, this is a straw-man. God promises every Word and all Words. There is no promise of a man making an error free copy."
Again, the book is pretty clear that God's chosen institutions perfectly preserve very word. How could they do that without making perfect copies? Are you saying they would make imperfect ones, then perfectly identify the errors? Why not make them perfect in the first place?
I fail to see how this is any kind of straw man. What you're apparently suggesting happened is harder to prove than the "perfect copies" scenario.
"What we have here is a matter of faith. Abraham did not see and yet believed"
Abraham believed what God said, as do I, as best I can discern that. You are again trying to reframe the debate into an "our view or unbelief" false choice. The real options here include several ways of understanding what God has said.
I'll fix the misspellings of your name in the article. I'm actually not sure how that happened!
If I somehow didn't publish all of Aaron's comments, he has published them at SharperIron here:
http://www.sharperiron.org/article/preservation-how-and-what-part-2#comment-11218
Very interesting, Kent. And Aaron.
I am a little surprised at this line of yours, Kent:
In other words, we don't believe that God's Word teaches that some one single copy, not the original manuscript, wove its way through all of history untainted. We haven't argued for a promise of that. TSKT says that God's Word promises the perfect preservation of every Word and all the Words, that is, what God inspired. That's what God promises in His Word.
So… a couple of questions:
1. How is that statement any different from my view of preservation? I believe God preserved all the Words. I don't think we have lost any.
2. How do you tell which words are the ones that are the original words if you don't follow a particular manuscript chain that flows through history with zero variations? Or is that what you are saying?
See, when you make the statement I am quoting, I think you are saying exactly what I say. But we are in disagreement at points on this issue, so your statement is confusing to me.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Kent, correct me if I'm wrong, but you kind of believe in both a "disperse" and "discrete" preservation. I base this (if memory serves) on statements you supplied in your debate with Frank Turk (conveniently linked in the sidebar).
Don't you believe that Erasmus essentiall reconstructed the sum total of the very Words through colation/compilation of different manuscripts, the final product of which was received by the Church(es)? This appears to me to be a variation of disperse preservation
I would guess that you also believe that somewhere there was a manuscript that was 100% accurate.
Please feel free to correct my understanding of your position, or fill in gaps that may mislead.
David
Dear Aaron,
I appreciate that you are actually trying to look at what Scripture says about the question of preservation. That is a blessing. While Pastor Brandenburg can correct me, of course, if he disagrees, I believe that he would be in agreement with what I am writing below.
You (Aaron) wrote:
When I said "single manuscript or text," I definitely did not say "the same single manuscript down through the ages." I presumed that in your view, there would always have to be at least one MS (as in copy) that is perfectly preserved. Am I incorrect on that? If not, why wouldn't there be?
My response:
Scripture does not say that a single perfect copy would be around (although that was the case for long periods of time in the OT period, and for, it seems, a very long time after the composition of the NT—for the NT evidence, please read my essay on the longevity of the NT autographs at my website, http://thross7.googlepages.com). Scripture teaches that God’s people would be able to have certainty about where all the Words of God are, as He worked by the Spirit through His institution (Israel, OT/church NT). The promises are not of perfect preservation of manuscripts, but of words. Today, if the words are not in the OT Masoretic text and NT Textus Receptus underneath the KJV (ed. Scrivener), nobody can have certainty about the location of the Words of God. I do not know how an Israelite named Mordecai ben Judah living in the 7th century B. C. had certainty. I do not know how a Waldensian trying to avoid getting burned alive and hiding in mountains in the 12th century had certainty. However, based upon Scripture, they could have known where every Word of God was. Distinguishing certainty about Words, by the way, from having perfect manuscripts, is not requiring believers to perform textual criticism in the sense that modern textual critics do so. If a believer in the 10th century made, say, three copies of, say, the gospel of John, and he discovered that he made a slip of the pen in one verse in one copy, and in a different chapter in the second copy, and in a third place in the third copy, and then he fixed the copies by comparing them with what he used to make the copy, or someone else came along later and discovered the copyist error and fixed it, such an action is very different from a textual critic today assuming that the available Scriptures are corrupt and need to be restored, the pure(er) words having been lost when the so-called Alexandrian text was rejected.
God requires believers today to live by every one of His Words, and not add/take away even one of them:
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
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. (Proverbs 30:5-6)
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2)
God pronounces a horrible curse upon those who add/take away anything (at LEAST from the book of Revelation, though why that book would be different from other books, I do not know):
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19).
Based on verses such as these, God’s people can have certainty about where the words of the book of Revelation are today, and they could also do so at all points in the past. However, God never says that believers today must be able to tell how believers in the 6th century knew—He tells us that we can know for ourselves. (It is hard enough to find out anything at all in history in the 6th century.)
Perhaps Aaron can tell us how he has certainty about the words of the book of Revelation, or, if he does not have certainty, how Revelation 22:18-19 does not really teach that he commits a horrific sin when he preaches/teaches, etc. a variant in Revelation that is not given by inspiration but is a human corruption.
Let me give a few notes on the OT teaching on preservation before dealing with the question of the book of the Law in Josiah’s day.
Deut 31:10-11; the whole nation would hear the Law read every seven years. (And would not many copy it down as it was read)?
After Moses:
Joshua had a copy of the full Pentateuch—otherwise he couldn’t obey it, and they couldn’t take over the land! Also notice this preservation was in use—that perfectly preserved text: Joshua 1:8-9. Also Josh 23:6.
Joshua made a copy of the entire law available for the entire nation, Josh 8:30-35, and they read it to the whole nation. It was also available for anyone to copy out who wanted to. This would be available to everyone. Doubtless, many perfect copies of the autographa were distributed throughout the land at this time. (NOTE: Israel would have taught their children to read, etc. so they could learn the Law. Even the unconverted Jews have this as a big emphasis today; medieval Anabaptists did as well; God’s people have always been into reading so they could read the Bible.)
Joshua 24:26; the book of Joshua added to the Pentateuch; the developing canon is unified. We can conclude that subsequent books of Scripture were added in the same way as they were written and recognized (immediately) as canonical.
1 Sam 10:25; probably the earlier portions of 1+2nd Samuel here put in with the ark. 1 Samuel 1-24 are traditionally assigned to the pen of Samuel, 1 Sam 25-2 Sam 24 to Nathan and Gad (1 Chron 29:29). Note also that Samuel “laid it up before the LORD.” (1 Sam 10:25). The autographical copies were stored in/with/around the ark of the covenant (this is why it is called the ark “of the covenant” or “of the testimony,” because that was stored inside of it). Note book of the “covenant” means all the law, not just portions of Deuteronomy, 2 Ki 23:21. So the autographa was perpetually available and preserved for a very long time—and one may take note of the location, namely, the spiritual heart of God’s institution for keeping the truth in the OT, Israel. We can conclude that this procedure would have been followed for the other books which are not specifically recorded of in this manner, such as Judges, the rest of 1+2nd Samuel, 1+2nd Kings, Psalms, etc.
1 Kings 11:11; the Law was available in David’s day, and certainly to the other kings as well, for they were held accountable for NOT keeping the Law, which requires that it was kept around for them to be condemned by.
So, what happened in Josiah’s day?
In Josiah’s day, the big event was not that every single copy of the Law had perished, but that the autograph was rediscovered in the ark. The MS in 2 Kings 22:8ff. is called “the” book of the law (sepher hatorah), which would, it seems, have been lost/hidden in the days of Manasseh (the previous, wicked king—so the autograph was only not immediately accessible for a very short period, not for hundreds of years; Hezekiah could still obey all God’s commandments, so he could know what they were, 2 Kings 18:6, 12, “all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded” was still around, etc—note that “all the words” is the “covenant” commanded—cf. the Hebrew, b§rˆît◊o® }eœt◊ kol-}∞sûer sΩiwwa® moœsûeh). The statement in Josiah’s time is not that every copy of the Law in the whole land of Israel was gone until they found this one again, but that “the” book of the Law was recovered. (BTW, note that even in David’s day, hundreds of years after Moses, the tabernacle was still around, 1 Ch 21:29; why not the autographs then, too?)
In fact, the 2 Kings 22 passage shows perfect preservation and availability, as the autographa, and therefore a perfect Bible (not just a “decent” one “restored” by the “fruits of textual criticism” was available for century after century). The conclusion that every copy of the Law was gone is unreasonable—after it was available to them all for copying in Joshua’s day; all the Levites, priests, godly normal Israelites, etc. would have given up the Law and disobeyed Deut 6:4-9? Definitely not! It was the rediscovery of the autographa here that was so important.
Furthermore, consider the significance of texts in 2 Kings 22 for preservation. 2 Kings 23:25 shows that “all the law of Moses” was still around in Josiah’s day—not one word had been lost, and Josiah knew what they were, because he “turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses.” Note Josiah’s statement:
Go ye, enquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. (2 Kings 22:13).
This verse demonstrates that all the words of the copy Josiah found were the words given to Moses, for wrath was upon Israel for not doing “all that which is written,” and God would not be angry with them for not following textual corruptions, but only for not following the Law given to Moses, disobedience to even one command of which brought a curse, Deut 27-30 (cf. Galatians 3:10). God was also angry with their fathers for not doing “all the words” in the copy Josiah had with him, so Josiah’s ancestors also had a perfect Bible available. God also promised to judge Israel according to “all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read” (2 Kings 22:16), namely, “all the words of the law” (23:24), so the copy found in Josiah’s day contained all the inspired words still preserved.
Furthermore, we recognize that sound hermeneutics requires that examples be interpreted in the light of doctrine, not the other way around. The doctrine of availability is clearly taught in Scripture, so the example of what happened in Josiah’s day is interpreted in light of the doctrine. We reverse things if we try to overthrow doctrinal affirmations with an example.
In conclusion, I would hate to be an Israelite and read Deuteronomy 28:58-59 (and the curses which follow afterwards):
58 If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; 59 Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance. . . .
What terror if I could not have known where “all the words of this law that are written in this book” actually were! Imagine if the words had been made uncertain, say, 100 years earlier—even a godly Israelite, striving to obey God, would inevitably fall, without any even potential possibility of obedience, under this curse!
How I rejoice that when I read Revelation 1:3, and 22:18-19, I can get the blessing, instead of the curse, because I have a certain Bible, my Textus Receptus, in my hands!
“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand . . . For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
By the way, the only reason I made my comment into all those parts was that the posting thing did not let me put it all in at once, for some reason.
Thomas Ross represents the scriptural position, the historic position, well. Everywhere scripture teaches on preservation agrees with every other place scripture teaches on preservation. This "fallible-man-therefore-God-didn't-keep-His-promises-of-preservation" doesn't fit with what what the Bible teaches on this.
I'm going to come back and answer things too, although Thomas Ross helped out a lot here. My son is home for a brief amount of time and we had an academic-fine arts meet in our school this week, in addition to my normal preaching, etc.
Guys, I'm planning to write a part 3 shortly, but I'm still not clear on what your view is on one point:
"The promises are not of perfect preservation of manuscripts, but of words. Today, if the words are not in the OT Masoretic text and NT Textus Receptus underneath the KJV (ed. Scrivener), nobody can have certainty about the location of the Words of God."
So, you hold that the words are all preserved in a single identifiable text or not?
If not, you believe that the preserved words are identified by God's institutions by comparing manuscripts in some way?
Kent wrote:
"This 'fallible-man-therefore-God-didn't-keep-His-promises-of-preservation' doesn't fit with what what the Bible teaches on this."
Indeed it does not.
Fortunately, this is not what I'm saying.
You continue to strawman my view while accusing me of strawmanning yours.
I'm trying to get your view right because I'm not interested in strawmanning anything.
Aaron,
We believe that the church has agreed upon the OT Hebrew Masoretic and NT TR. The church was settled on this based on its own writings. No other text has been accepted as perfect by the churches. We have continued now for centuries to accept that as Scripture. Men came along later and bereft of theological presuppositions altered that belief and then text. They themselves did not believe in the preservation of the very Words of Scripture. I have to use "very" to distinguish particular words from a buffet table of words offering anyone the choice of words he my want to canonize on the spot. Look at my chapter on canonicity for this.
As far as strawmanning each other (strawman, verb), your writings have not been around as long to understand, and what I take as being what you wrote is what it seemed to me. Ironically, perhaps that is a sin-cursed fault of my own or it has to do with your writing. Here though I have been consistent in lots of writing to represent my position.
God does not guarantee that every hand copy of Scripture would be perfect, but that He would preserve every Word so that in every generation of believers, His people would know what the Words are. This is the exact belief that has been applied to the Books of Scripture and what we call canonicity, even though canonicity of books is not in Scripture—the canonicity of Words is. So whatever faith you have in 66 books being agreed upon by the church, you should be able to believe that the church would know what the Words were. We can believe that men knew what the Words are when they wrote them, and the same Holy Spirit inhabits His churches, continuing to guide them.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I don't know what to ask about your depravity of man argument, because I thought what you were saying was that the church is what God used to preserve His Word, but since men are fallible, it didn't happen. Could you correct that understanding of what you wrote to what it is supposed to be?
Kent,
The historical and canoncity arguments are not of interest to me yet since the teaching of the Bible itself regarding its preservation is primary.
Much of TSKT seems to be devoted to making the case that statements in the Bible itself indicate God will preserve every one of His inspired words in a way that the faithful will know are the perfectly preserved words, and that He has chosen faithful among His people to do bring about this perfect preservation.
Since the simplest way to do this would be for Him to ensure that those He had chosen would copy them perfectly, I assumed that your view was that this is what occurred.
(Not that *every* MS would be perfect but that at least one would be perfect in each generation and that God's people would know which one was correct.)
So, I stand corrected. It seems your view is that God chose to allow His chosen instruments to incorrectly copy some of the words some of the time, then later discern the correct readings all of the time?
(…by comparing MSS?)
As for my depravity argument, I have repeatedly explained here as well as in the article itself, that the question is not whether God can overcome man's sinfulness to produce perfect results, but whether He has said He would do so. The focus of the most recent article was on showing that the Bible teaches that His people err, so if we are going to believe they didn't/don't in this case, we need clear teaching in Scripture to that effect.
If He assigned the job of preservation to Israel/His church, what we need to know next is whether they did it. If He said in Scripture that he would cause imperfect men to perfectly preserve, that ends the debate. If He did not, then the Bible's teaching that God's people normally err should lead us to believe they erred in this respect as well.
My question has always been, and continues to be, what did God say He would do?
Since I was under the false impression that the perfect preservation would take the form of producing perfect copies, I assumed in my article that the error prone nature of God's people would take the form of errors on copying. This, it now seems, you would accept? They made errors in copying, but are able to identify the correct readings among the errors? If I've got your view right now, that moves the problem down the ladder a notch, but nothing more.
The question remains whether the Bible teaches that God would overcome His people's tendency toward error in identifying His words among imperfect copies. If that teaching is truly in the Bible, the debate is over. If it is not, we should believe that in putting together texts like MT and TR, God's people are also subject to error. The Bible teaches that this is their nature. It certainly teaches that God can overcome that nature. Does it teach that He would/does overcome it so that they perform this task perfectly?
This is the question I am seeking to answer.
Aaron,
I have no doubt that perfect copies were produced, but I am binding myself along with others to what Scripture actually says. There is no promise that all copies made would be perfect or that there would always be one particular copy made directly from the originals that would be passed down intact without being copied. Just the opposite, we would anticipate Satanic attack and, therefore, errors. However, God would be involved the preservation using the church.
What does Scripture promise? Preservation of the Words. And that they would be available to every generation of believers. We would assume too that the church would settle on Words, since you can't take away or add to something that is in flux, unsettled, not known. We would believe that God would lead His people through the same Spirit Who inspired the Words to those very Words, into all truth. The truth of all truth is Words. And what I am espousing is something that the church has historically believed.
Scripture says men are fallible, but Scripture itself, because of the promises of preservation, we should assume that God would keep infallible. He would use the church to do that.
This has seemed simple to me, but this is where history comes in. People can't believe many miracles took place to ensure that we still had every Word available. That's not a leap of faith for me, but to others it is. I won't get into why I think it is a leap to many because that is what you're not interested in.
So to review once again. I've never said anything about copies. I talk about Words. Just like I would talk about Books. Are there copies with more than 66 books? Yes. How do we know what the 66 are, Aaron? We don't have the originals, so we base that upon what?
As far as overcoming man's fallibility to get perfection, He did that at inspiration. Why would He not do that with preservation when He did promise to do that? Shouldn't we assume that He will keep His promise? I have to take a much greater faith, in a sense, to believe that God is taking care of every one of my sins, post justification especially. Why would I believe that?
"we would anticipate Satanic attack and, therefore, errors. However, God would be involved the preservation using the church."
In TSKT, the argument is that the Satanic attacks came from those outside God's chosen preserving institutions. In the book this is a major reason for rejecting "textual criticism" –it is not performed by believers.
So, why would God's chosen institutions ever make errors? To use your own question, if He overcame fallibility in inspiration why wouldn't He in making copies?
"I've never said anything about copies. I talk about Words."
I'm afraid I can't see how this distinction matters. How would words be preserved without people copying them? Again, the argument in TSKT is that God used His chosen institutions to preserve the words. If they did not do this by copying them perfectly, how did they do it?
I'd love to see a direct answer to this question: did they/do they do it by comparing manuscripts?
"I have to take a much greater faith, in a sense, to believe that God is taking care of every one of my sins, post justification especially. Why would I believe that?"
Because He said so. No other reason.
Aaron,
I had to go back to my chapter in TSKT to see if what you said about what we said was true. I have a scriptural grid on this, and when you said that we said that it was "outside of the church" that all the attack comes, that didn't ring true to me. You should understand that I don't believe in an invisible church, so when you read "the church" from me, I'm always referring to something visible. I believe unsaved people creep into the church unawares. Should they be in the church? No. But they will be because they creep in. Sure, some of the error will come from the outside, but I don't make that exclusive point in TSKT, unless you could refer me to a statement in TSKT, I don't think I did.
The following quote comes from the last sentence of the 2nd from last paragraph of the intro and then into the last paragraph. I didn't read that chapter all the way through, but here's a paragraph you might reread to get some perspective on that first point you're making:
"This process resulted in numerous copies of Scripture being made by the churches that existed in the early centuries after Christ ascended into heaven. What did the believers do with corrupted manuscripts? Churches did not characteristically receive the contamination of Scripture. Pure manuscripts and readings were embraced and others were rejected. . . . New Testament local churches were . . . to receive and carefully preserve the Words that were genuinely from God."
I believe God did overcome fallibility in making copies, but not all copies would be perfect and Scripture shows that. So that isn't an impediment to preservation, since God preserved them anyway. This is where the canonicity argument comes in. Maybe I should have put chapter 19 in Section Three and that would have helped you. Making it separate from section three may have made it seem different than the "how" of preservation. The churches received the true words and rejected the false Words. They were led by the Holy Spirit. They also received the true books and rejected the false ones.
I do believe that God's people copies Scripture perfectly, but when they didn't, that did not stop preservation. They had to keep receiving the true Words and rejecting the false ones. This position I'm espousing is one represented in history, and stated like I'm stating it. Where an error was made in one copy, it was corrected by another. And there is a difference between preserving Words and preserving copies. Copies wore out through usage, so more copies were made. So copies were made from the originals and copies were made from copies. This is how the Word of God got all over. We see this at the end of Colossians. The Words were preserved. The difference between Words and copies is mainly in that Scripture says "Words." And that's what we're concerned about, aren't we? That's what I'm hearing you say. And if I start straying from what Scripture says, I'll hear about it, in addition to the fact that I don't think it is best to stray.
"Compare manuscripts" is not Scriptural language, and there is a tendency to read back textual criticism that wasn't happening, nor was it something that existed in the modern sense. But yes, they compared manuscripts, copies, and received what was true and rejected what was false. How do we know they succeeded? Because of the promises of preservation.
At the end there, you say, "Because He said so." That is the whole issue here regarding preservation. As you said, "No other reason."
You didn't answer my questions in my comment previous to this in my next to last paragraphs.
This paragraph wouldn't have made it in with the word count barrier, but I wanted to thank you Aaron for talking about this. We are talking to each other, which means that we are both trying not to strawman each other. This is the best way for it to happen. It could even be better if we talked on the phone, but people wouldn't be able to read that, so there is a value in this.
I believe I understand your view better now. But I'm not *entirely* sure. Would it be fair to say that you believe God's chosen institutions for preserving His word introduced errors in the copies but also corrected the errors, discarding errant MSS?
If "church" includes unbelievers as you use the term, and the church is the chosen institution then it is both the corruptor (at times) *and* the means of preservation?
Questions I didn't answer…You mean the ones about canonicity? I'm not getting into the external arguments yet (I might never get around to getting into them)
Scriptural doctrine says to men don't make errors, but when they do, to correct those errors. God's promise of preservation says they would. God ensures it.
So you think canonicity is completely an external argument, there is no scriptural basis for it? I'm asking because that's what it sounds like your saying, but I'm not sure.
Canonicity… well, I'll have to dig into it again. Since the structure of the argument is basically analogical ("The church has identified the right books, similarly it identifies the right words"), it's definitely a different kind of argument than "We believe in verbal, plenary preservation because these passages teach that God will preserve His word in this way."
So if I get to the canonicity argument (likely I will not be able to resist forever!), it will be separately from the exegetical arguments.
Aaron,
I don't think it is analogical only. We have John 16:13: "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth." John 17:8 can also be applied: "For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them."
The former verse has been used historically for canonicity and for preservation both by Christians in doctrinal statements.