SUBTITLE:  Missing the Issue of the English Version, the Biblical and Historical Doctrine of the Preservation of Scripture, pt. 2

Part One

One common theme within independent Baptist fundamentalism around the English version issue is that no one should divide over it.  The concept here is that anyone or any church should be able to use whatever version they want without another person or church dividing over that.  Many want it in some official capacity not to be worthy of separation.  The edict comes from above that no one shall separate.  The problem then is separating.  That’s causing division or as it is often put, heresy.  People who divide over the version issue are heretics.  You’ve got to allow the difference as though it is almost nothing.

For a long time, one would only hear the “don’t divide” mantra from the modern version side.  Its proponents were concerned over what they called “heresy.”  “Don’t divide” was a kind of argument that would give them more freedom to use the modern version and yet keep fundamentalism together for whatever reason, maybe some kind of faux ecclesiological issue.  Only King James Version advocates would divide over the translation someone used, making them with this chief guideline, the boogeymen.

The “no divide” side has looked to me as the “biding our time” side.  They have assumed that support for the King James Version would erode and they wouldn’t have to keep putting up with it anymore.  Some KJV men went along with this perspective.  I saw this mainly from Bob Jones University graduates, which included Ambassador Baptist College and Ron Comfort, and then Wayne Van Gelderen and Baptist College of Ministry.  A major component of these representations of fundamentalism was be gracious and don’t divide over this subject or doctrine.  This continues to be a component of independent Baptist fundamentalism.

Now I’m reading that it’s time to divide.  Mark Ward has given a reason — readability.  He found 1 Corinthians 14 and announced it was not a Christian liberty issue anymore.  It hasn’t been picked up yet by the “no divide” side of things, because they would have to come up with a new edict, that says division is now the right position.

I’ve already said that this issue is worth division.  It doesn’t mean I’m not thankful for all of the good conservative qualities to independent Baptist fundamentalism.  Our church divides over the doctrine of preservation.  First, the doctrine of preservation needs itself to be preserved and separation is the means of preservation.  Second, the destruction of the doctrine of preservation will result in the destruction of scripture itself.  Third, the destruction of the doctrine of preservation takes away from the authority of scripture.  Fourth, the destruction of the doctrine of preservation relates to the integrity or veracity of God.  He said He would preserve every Word, so it reflects on Him.  He isn’t a liar.  Those are why our church separates.  In order to preserve scripture and preserve the truth itself, we have to separate to do that.

The FBFI has followed its first article at Proclaim and Defend with another one, perhaps in reaction to criticism, tracking the resolutions the fundamentalist organization has made in its history against KJV Onlyism, entitled, “The FBFI and the Text and Translation Debate,” by David Shumate.  It’s a handy summary of what the leaders of the FBFI concluded on the subject from 1979 to 2008 at various junctures.

Independent Baptist fundamentalism has had camps, divided mainly between those proceeding from Bob Jones University and its orbiting institutions and the Sword of the Lord types and its related offshoots.  Those two branches have held different positions on the King James Version.  From early on BJU was influenced by graduates of evangelical seminaries who embraced modern textual criticism.  Dominant revivalist preachers, big personalities, charismatic figures kept many large churches and the several colleges they spawned into the King James Version, mainly with what I call an English preservation position.  At the root of the latter, however, has always been a desire to believe in the preservation of scripture, even if it isn’t a biblical sustainable edition of the doctrine.

I attended a fundamentalist college and seminary, Maranatha, in Watertown, Wisconsin, that took a presuppositional position on the preservation of scripture in the original languages, and the graduates used the King James Version.  Maranatha didn’t follow the path of Bob Jones or take the traditionalistic explanation of Southern revivalism, but it was concerned with the original languages.  It focused first on the teaching of scripture, historic doctrine, and the writings of such men as Dean Burgon and Edward Hills.  The founder and president, B. Myron Cedarholm, led in this, which continued at Maranatha until he retired and Arno Q. Weniger took his place.  The textus receptus was replaced with Nestles-Aland in Greek class.  Weniger never believed the same as Maranatha and took it a different course, one celebrated by the BJU faction of independent Baptist fundamentalism.

When I was England earlier this summer, I witnessed a rich history of defense of the historic doctrine of the preservation of scripture.  These were men in the trajectory of the London Baptist Confession and its bibliological teaching. The Trinitarian Bible Society still stands in the U.K. for the historic and biblical doctrine of preservation, quite separate from whatever has been happening across the ocean in the United States.  It prints and sells many copies of the textus receptus.

What I’m describing above is the division in independent Baptist fundamentalism that David Shumate addresses.  Bob Jones University has been more of an outlier among independent Baptists.  BJU and its graduates have been highly influential in Baptist fundamentalism.  Thomas Overmiller, whom I referenced in part one, and will again in this post, graduated from Baptist College of Ministry, which has been led by the Van Gelderen family, who are Bob Jones graduates.  Wayne Van Gelderen Jr. is also on the FBFI board.  They haven’t been strong against eclecticism and modern versions, but have viewed this issue as merely preferential, nothing to divide over, as I addressed earlier.

As a bit of a side note, but worth noting, has been an internal influence of preservation of words, and, therefore, King James Version, around Bob Jones University, mainly through the connection with Ian Paisley.  Back in the day, Paisley came to BJU and he was different on this issue than Bob Jones, and yet he was a favorite there.  That translated to other influential leaders, like Rod Bell, longtime president of the FBF, now FBFI.  Bell believed like Paisley.  That faction existed in the Bob Jones crowd.

What is more important, keeping all of the various factions together and for what purpose?  Or is it doing our part in the preservation of scripture and also preserving the doctrine of preservation?  The two different bibliologies cannot both be true.  They shouldn’t coexist.

I come back to Overmiller’s instruction on preservation passages.  He’s got a lot of work to do to explain away multiple preservation passages.

Matthew 5:17-18

Overmiller categorizes Matthew 5:17-18 as teaching preservation of scripture directly.  Then he contradicts that in his short paragraph about these two verses.  He says they may or may not even be about preservation, but about “the unchanging authority of the Old Testament in every detail.”  It’s hard to understand what Overmiller is saying, especially in light of what the actual verses say.

There is a simple, plain understanding of Matthew 5:17-18.  I agree that the “jot” is the smallest consonant, the yodh.  The “tittle,” keraia, through history was understood then as a vowel point.  A newer position is that it is just a part of a letter, so jot is the smallest letter and tittle is a part of a letter that differentiates it from other letters.

Heaven and earth are going to pass.  That is not symbolic.  However, until they pass, not even the parts of words will pass away.  Nothing in the law, which is shorthand for the Old Testament, as is the law and the prophets, will pass away until everything in it is fulfilled.  This is not metaphorical language.  Heaven and earth are heaven and earth and jots and tittles are jots and tittles.

This teaching from Jesus goes right along with all the other passages on preservation.  The words of the original language will be preserved, right down to the letter.

Isaiah 40:8

Overmiller says that Isaiah 40:8 doesn’t teach preservation of scripture.  It’s very much like Matthew 5:17-18, comparing the temporal existence of something to the eternal existence of something else.  Grass and flowers wither and fade, but not the words of God.  He says it can’t mean preservation, because there are unwritten words that God did not say that He did not preserve.  Who in the history of Christianity has believed that preservation of scripture refers to anything, but God’s written word, not all of the words that He ever spake that are not recorded in scripture?  This is nothing but a straw man.

God’s covenant with man is always written, the Old and the New.  They should not be separated from one another like the Marcionites.  They are the same message, progressively revealed in time, albeit forever settled in heaven.  Grass and flowers are tangible.  Heavens and earth are tangible.  Written words are tangible.  The former passes away, the latter continues.  To make the latter intangible, spoken words that would not be preserved like these tangible things, doesn’t fit the parallelism.

Matthew 24:35

Again, Overmiller defies the plain meaning of the text.  He says it can’t mean preservation, because spoken words of Jesus were never preserved.  That is reading something into the text that isn’t there.  Jesus’ words “shall not pass away” is very straightforward.  The whole eschatological section in Matthew 24 indicates the temporality of heaven and earth as God’s judgment comes, but His words will survive all of that.  Yes, you can always count on His words, because they will always be there, unlike heaven and earth.  We should prioritize His words, because they will last.

John 10:35

Overmiller writes that this verse is not about preservation.  When you read it in its context, it is even more convincingly about preservation.  How is scripture broken?  A prophecy was made in the Old Testament about Jesus based upon just a few letters, a singular instead of a plural.  That argument could be made because the line of the very writings of the Old Testament found in even letters could not be broken.  The singulars or plurals of words would continue unbroken.

1 Peter 1:24-25

Overmiller muddles the teaching of preservation here too.  In this section, Peter uses the word for particular portions of scripture, rhema, and the one that would refer to all of the Word, logos.  They would endure, both of them, the portions and the whole Word, forever.  Corruptible seed is seed that rots and disappears.  Incorruptible seed remains.  Fleshly physical things will not continue, but God’s Word will.

There are more passages Overmiller mentions,  and I’ll be coming back to them, perhaps early next week.  However, there are quite a few other passages that teach the doctrine of preservation that he left out.  We can and should know that scripture teaches its own preservation, down to the smallest letter in the original language, that is, what it was written in.

If you asked the typical people in the pew whether God preserved all of His Words, saved people, they’ll say, yes.  A major reason is because the doctrine of preservation is all over the Bible and they also know that is the nature of the one true God.  It is preachers who start with textual criticism, who also cast doubt and uncertainty on God’s Word that leaves people in doubt.  Just normal, average Christian, no scholar, can see that the Bible teaches its own preservation.

More to Come