Mark Ward summarized almost all of his views on the issue of the preservation of scripture towards the end of his most recent video (here next is a transcript):
Stories?
King James Onlyists in my experience tend to tell themselves one of two neat and tidy stories: a Masoretic Text/TR story or a Ruckmanite story. The MT/TR story goes like this. Once upon a time God inspired the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament and He promised in Psalm 12 and Matthew 5 to preserve them perfectly down to the jot and tittle. Satan came along and produced counterfeits of the Greek New Testament, but thankfully the King James Version translators perfectly translated the perfect Hebrew and Greek texts once and for all. And it’s easy to spot the terrible Satanic corruptions in other Bibles.
When difficulties and inconsistencies are pointed out, however, in this MT/TR story, as I’ve done in this video, it tends to turn into the Ruckmanite story, which goes like this. Once upon a time God gave special blessings to the King James Translators so that all of their textual choices and all of their translation choices were perfect. If there are a few places in the King James that have no textual support in the Greek or the Hebrew manuscripts, that’s okay because God inspired the King James Translators to choose the right reading. If there are a few places in the King James Version where the translators actually followed readings taken from Erasmus that were translated from the Vulgate, that’s okay because God inspired the King James translators to recover the right reading.
The Ward Viewpoint
Now I told the pastor who sent me some of these examples that I don’t enjoy having to point out these difficulties and complexities. But let me build another bridge of trust, the one that I myself use all the time in my Bible study travels. Who gave us the situation in which we have incredible well preserved copies of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament, but there are numerous minor uncertainties and difficulties? Who gave us a world in which perfect translation between languages is impossible?
Who inspired the New Testament apostles to quote a Greek translation of the Old Testament rather than make new and doubtless perfect translations of the Hebrew? (And by the way I draw that last question directly from the King James Translators and their preface.) Who chose not to give us inspired translators, yeah, even a pope to give the best translation in each language his official imprimatur, the seal of divine approval?
Who gave us a Bible that comes in two very different languages, Hebrew and Greek, and actually Aramaic, three, and would therefore require translation in the first place? Who gave us a Bible over the course of 1500 years instead of all at once? Who chose to commit His precious Word to fragile papyrus and sheepskin?
Who gave us the excellent but not perfect situation we’re in? But who told us that one day the perfect would come that we would know even as also we are known? I think you know the answer to my not so rhetorical questions. God did all of these things, and He is good. He is my refuge even when I don’t understand His choices.
Overall Observations and Criticisms of Ward’s Statements
Ward’s little speech makes it easier to deal with what he thinks and says. First, I have some overall observations or criticisms. One, Ward caricatures and misrepresents especially the MT/TR position, and even gets wrong how Ruckmanism arose. He’s not telling the truth. Why do his followers give him a pass on this?
Two, Ward lumps the MT/TR people together with the Ruckmanites. I don’t know if he thinks this, or just conveniently tells it as a story. Either way, it is false. The MT/TR position arises from scripture like he says (albeit in a mocking way), but it also mirrors historic Christian doctrine as seen in creeds, confessions, and many other writings. His view did not exist among professing believers until the 19th century. This has been established, but Mark Ward and others like him just ignore it for a lie of a story. I will return to this point later.
Three, do consider that Mark Ward uses the word “story” to describe MT/TR people. Ward knows what words mean and he knows that the popular usage of “story” today is fiction. Notice then when he starts talking about his view, he calls it a “bridge of trust” and a “situation.” He doesn’t call that another story, a third story as the first two are stories.
Ward on Truth Serum
It seems to me that Ward has “lost it.” His primary target essentially rejects what he says, and he’s lost it, perhaps because of that. And then because he’s lost it, he did something I have not seen him do. I’m not saying he’s never done it, but I’ve never seen it myself. Mark Ward takes truth serum. He plainly states his viewpoint as I’ve never heard him. Ward acknowledges a lack of perfection of the Bible, based not on scriptural doctrine but on his experience. His stark confession reminds me of two examples.
In the last year, I saw a clip of Bill Maher in which he says that all pro-choice people know abortion is murder. He said he knows abortion is murder and he is fine with that. Maher’s two guest sat with jaws dropping at the sheer admission. In one sense, I can respect Maher because at least he tells the truth about his position on abortion. Another popular figure, Bernie Sanders, just comes out and in an obvious way supports socialism. He states his leftist positions without hiding them. Mark Ward does the same in this latest video like no other time.
I think it is important that someone hear what Ward says and understands what’s wrong with it. This is a teaching moment for a true bibliology. Ward admits what a big chunk of his side thinks. It is akin to neo-orthodoxy, not a biblical position. When Bart Ehrman came to this realization, it turned him apostate, which is a danger. I’m going to go through the above paragraphs by Ward and give a scriptural, truthful analysis to it. He’s wrong in so many ways.
First, what’s wrong with Ward’s MT/TR story?
“Neat and Tidy”
Mark Ward mocks the idea of a “neat and tidy” position. Don’t miss that. He would have his audience believe that the truth is not so neat and tidy. To him this is worth mocking with his articulation. The neatness and tidiness of the MT/TR position is that, one, God said He would preserve every Word He inspired and, two, He did it. That is neat and tidy. Modern version onlyists, critical text supporters are in a never-ending quest to improve the text of scripture. God didn’t preserve it perfectly — it’s really disorderly and messy. If you won’t embrace that, Ward will mock you for it.
“Tells Themselves”
Ward says that MT/TR people tell themselves a story. It’s as if they are repeating this story as a mantra, abracadabra and suddenly it will be true, because they keep telling it to themselves. It’s like spinning a talisman in one’s pocket or a lucky rabbit’s foot. “Just keep telling yourself.” He’s the nice guy regularly using this type of derogatory style. Yet, he won’t allow his opposition to comment on his constant youtube presentations on the subject. It gives the impression that everyone agrees. Just because someone tells himself something doesn’t make it true. When God says it, it is true.
“Once Upon a Time”
“Once upon a time” again is a reference to make believe or fantasy. It’s like opening up Cinderella as an actual book of history. He equates the truth with something that is a fable. Ward treats historical and scriptural doctrine like it is a fable.
It is difficult to separate some of what Mark Ward says from other of what he says. He bunches inspiration of scripture into his storybook mode. Is that a story too? I don’t think he means to do that, but it is the net result of this style of criticism he employs. Inspiration is supernatural. Our reason for believing inspiration is the inspired Bible itself. I believe Ward accepts this, but the attacks on inspiration from the neo-orthodox are the same as those on preservation. They question the veracity of inspiration based on so-called external evidence and reject the biblical teaching on inspiration.
Scriptural Presuppositions
Ward is correct that MT/TR folk presuppose perfect preservation based upon preservation passages in scripture. This wasn’t odd through Christian history and yet it is now, because of the attack on the doctrine mainly in the last thirty or so years. Ward is part of this attack. I’m using him here as a representative. He cherry picks two chapters for the simplicity of his storybook, Psalm 12 and Matthew 5. There are numbers of passages that teach preservation, as many or more than teach inspiration. This is presuppositionalism. We presuppose God fulfilled what He said. What’s wrong with that?
Is the teaching of preservation a story as in a storybook? True Christians have long believed it. The doctrine of the perfect preservation of scripture comes from the Bible. I and others didn’t invent this. Many people in the pews of churches believe this too. They see it in the Bible and it is not buttressed only by Psalm 12 and Matthew 5. There are many others (some of which we exposed in our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them).
Ward himself recently started taking on scripture to support his doctrine of “edification requires intelligibility,” teaching it on a level unprecedented in the history of biblical doctrine. People like myself and others support his notion, even if we question his reliance on 1 Corinthians 14, a passage on using the known language of the congregation rather than gibberish. In other words, it’s a stretch to make so much of that principle due to even fifty to one hundred of his “false friends.”
Satan Counterfeiting
Next Ward says that MT/TR people assert that Satan took on the strategy of counterfeiting the MT/TR. Nope. Not true. Satan attacks scripture, yes. You see that in classic passages like Genesis 3 and Matthew 4. It’s also something seen in 2 Peter 3, where false teachers wrest the scripture. Also, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2, that false teachers spread a false epistle with teaching contradictory to his, feigning as though it was from him.
MT/TR people like myself would agree that the attack by Satan starts by attacking the doctrine of preservation. Satan also wants people to be unsure, have doubt, about the perfection of scripture. This takes away from authority. Rather than a settled text, it is a disorderly and messy one that is uncertain. Mark Ward calls this confidence. It is a relative term, meaning something like 95% to 98%, what I like to say is less pure than tide detergent.
More to Come
Who gave us the situation in which we have incredible well preserved copies of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament, but there are numerous minor uncertainties and difficulties? Who gave us a world in which perfect translation between languages is impossible?
This whole section where Ward asks these types of questions is very telling. It is basically the “all truth is God’s truth” argument that is used to justify godless psychology and other humanistic “findings”. It is a blatant (though disguised) rejection of the sufficiency of scripture.
In my years in these circles where the ecclectic text theory was taught, I encountered this over and over again and after wrestling with it, I finally came to the same conclusion that you do here–it’s essentially neo-orthodoxy. Neo-orthodoxy says that God didn’t inspire the words but the concepts. Ecclectic text “Baptists” say that God didn’t preserve the words but the concepts. I could be as uncharitable as Ward and say that he must believe the same thing about inspiration (like he does to claim that we are Ruckmanites). It almost sounds like it here.
There is not a dime’s bit of difference between Ward’s position and the most common attack on the Bible I hear from unbelievers. You might be talking to somebody at their door and you say, “The Bible says…” And they say, “Ah, but the Bible has been changed. We can’t know what was originally written down, because of …” It’s really not much different.
I’ve challenged some of these people with his position to explain it to the lost the next time they ask why they should trust the Bible. They don’t. They sound a lot like us when they explain it to the lost (if they do it at all), because they know a Bible that is messy and uncertain is not going to convince somebody to turn his life over to the Lord.
“That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.” (Luke 1:4)
Mat D.
I think you’re right on with the comment, Mat.
I’m KJVO, but I agree with Ward’s observation that MT/TR people oversimplify what preservation is to a neat and tidy thing. One just needs to cross reference what “preserve” is in KJV scripture to know that the narrative given for how preservation actually happened is more complex. The first mention of preservation in the Bible is Lot’s daughters preserving their father’s seed, and that was not neat or tidy. (Why does this apply? Because the seed is the word of God analogically)
The article doesn’t even attempt to actually articulate how the charge of eventual Ruckmanism (which Ward means by the KJV translators had something special when handling the TR/MT that, say, the NKJV translators didn’t or another) doesn’t apply, unless that is meant to be in a later article. And since I’ve read previous articles where the author does not portray Ruckmanite view correctly enough, not much hope about that. Just saying that Ruckman’s views came later doesn’t mean that MT/TR people don’t hold something like it in practice, which is Ward’s point.
Sam,
The Hebrew word, hayah, is a common word in the Old Testament. It means “remain alive” in this case. It is not the word that is used for communicating “preserve” in the sense that you are using it. The two Hebrew words for “preserve” or “keep,” which are used for the preservation of scripture are shamar and yatsar. Your using the example of Lot’s daughters and their seed as having some exegetical significance for the preservation of scripture is very similar to the style or type of work that Ruckman did. It doesn’t apply at all to preservation of scripture. Even if it were the correct word, it is Lot’s daughters, not God doing this.
MT/TR people don’t hold to anything like Ruckmanism. Ruckman himself didn’t think that we did either. You do have more in common with Ward, both of you not believing in the perfect preservation of the very Words God inspired.