Hypothetical Manuscript Finds

In his last video, Mark Ward again clarifies his viewpoint of a doctrine of preservation of scripture.  He makes up this position out of sheer cloth.   As a case study, he imagines an ancient New Testament manuscript discovered at Pompeii that helps swing textual critics’ opinion toward one word in one verse over another.  It’s the reality, he says, of willingness to still alter any verse in the New Testament based upon a further archaeological find.

Ward illuminates an important aspect of his view of preservation:  every verse of the biblical text is yet to be settled.  Any word could still change in the worldview of Mark Ward and others.  They reject the biblical and historical doctrine of preservation.

The Argument

How does Ward argue for his position?  He doesn’t rely on scripture at all.  Ward claims a doctrine of preservation (which he explained in a recent video) and then rests on his experience and circumstances to formulate it.   Then when he goes to explain our position, he twists it on purpose.   He perverts and misrepresents it.  I’m sure this is why he won’t discuss it with any legitimate critics, because it would expose him for his total strawman.

It’s very easy for Mark Ward to sit and eviscerate the biblical and historical position on preservation, when he sits unchallenged.  He can much easier caricature it.  He takes an utterly moron representation of what we teach, hopeful his adherents will succumb to the deceit. The resulting opposition to his ungodly practice, he labels unchristian and feigns persecution for righteousness.  Whatever suffering he experiences is in fact for his own unrighteousness.

Ward speaks into his own bubble of misinformation.  It bounces around that echo chamber, returning back to him as true.  He can’t allow legitimate challenges because the other guys are too mean, unlike him.  He’s fuzzy kind while his constant targets are harsh and injurious in their tone.  Ward poses as a teddy bear and they a hard tonka truck making his cute bear into road kill.

“The Text” According to Ward

According to Ward, what is causing changes to the text?  Ward says, “the text,” those words.  He says, something causes changes to “the text.”  What text?  “The text.”  Is there a “the text” in the universe of Mark Ward.  He calls it “the text,” but what is it?  He says that the Editio Critico Major, the coherence based genealogical method, the CBGM, causes changes to “the text.”

In the view of Ward on the text of scripture, only a Pope figure could possess the real authority to intervene and stop changes to “the text.”  I couldn’t tell what “the text” was, but only a Pope could impede it from continuing to change.  On the other hand, besides this fictional Pope person, science is totally free to change “the text,” that is, except for Ward’s one chosen exception:  conjectural emendation.  He won’t accept CBGM to cause changes to “the text” based on conjectural emendation.  He won’t allow for sheer guessing the words, a bridge too far for him, but that’s it.

A Mysterious Pope-Like Figure

Ward mockingly says the following verbatim, which mirrors what he said in the video I last reviewed:

The only real alternative is for some pope-like figure to come to us with Christ’s authority and tell us to stop.  A great fiery angel might come and tell Dirk Jongkind:  “Your work is at an end.  The current edition of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament now perfectly matches the originals — or is close enough.”  Then we’d be done.  No verses would be permitted to change for any reason at that point.

These statements do not represent what God says He would do with His Words according to scripture.  Canonicity did not occur from a pope-like figure uttering the names of the sixty-six books in a state of trance, the channel of God’s revelation.  That’s not the story.  Ward should get the position right, but he continues to make these kind of representations that straw man the biblical and historical position.  He won’t engage anyone in public who can state the actual position.

Ward then continues:

The real difference between me and some of the smartest defenders of the Textus Receptus is that they’ve limited the changes by deciding by fiat, that without God’s authority only printed editions of the Textus Receptus are allowed to be considered.  I just have a bigger pool of Greek New Testament readings to draw from than they do, because I want to be aware of all the readings God has preserved for us.

Changes by Fiat?

Ward above flat out again annihilates the biblical and historical position on preservation.  What God preserved would be available to every generation of believer.  New finds are rejected, because they do not fit that presupposition.  Ward will continue accepting new discoveries ad infinitum, because he both doesn’t believe in the perfection of the preservation of the text, nor in a settled text.  It’s an ongoing and never ending process for him and others.  That is not preservation.

The received manuscripts of the church were printed into editions of the Textus Receptus.  This is the settlement or canonicity of the text.  The church accepted this.  Upon the end of that period in the 16th and early 17th century, they ended their continued updating.  The words were available in those printed editions, one facet of the doctrine of preservation.

Inward Testimony of the Holy Spirit and Agreement of Churches

Like the church settled on the Books, evidence of the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, confirming the Books, the church did the same with the text of scripture.  This reflected a belief in preservation.  It was not a never ending process.  It was over and settled, not dependent on naturalism, but on the providence of God and the witness of the Spirit.

Believers did not look for a Pope figure.  Ward purposefully spins the biblical and historical position into this transmogrification.  Only one Holy Spirit works through all the true believers.  Their agreement, they saw as the testimony of the Spirit.  They also trusted that God would do what He said He would do.  The model is there in the canonicity of the Books.

You will never hear Mark Ward represent the biblical and historical position as written by myself and others.  Never.  He does not represent it properly.  I and others have not only written this position, but we have documented from church history, a multiplicity of statements from the historic doctrine of preservation.  Churches embracing scripture as final authority believed and wrote this doctrine.  This is why the Textus Receptus reigned as the text for the church for centuries.

Ward intimates in a very ambiguous way that supporters of the Textus Receptus should respect the testimony of contemporary believers in the same way they do for those in the past.  I hear that from him and consider the veracity of it.  Is this a matter of church vote or churches voting?  The church already received what the text was.  If the vote changes, a greater number support a critical apparatus rather than a settled text, should people consider the updated text as the actual text, the original one?

Problems with a Theory

There are a lot of problems with Ward’s theory concerning the most recent acceptance of professing believers.  First, it doesn’t fit biblical presuppositions.  It rejects availability and a perfect and settled text.  The Holy Spirit won’t suddenly change His testimony.  His witness is true.  The change would mean it wasn’t.

Second, the recent professing believers, who choose something different than the received text, don’t believe in perfect preservation.  They don’t themselves embrace the underlying text in the same manner as those in their historical and biblical doctrinal presentations for centuries.

Third, the embrace of a perfect text means continued tweaking and changing is over.  The presuppositions won’t change either.  An already confirmed settled text eliminates a future new or different text.

Perhaps Mark Ward finds himself toward the end of this period of his life where a primary emphasis is pushing people toward modern versions of the Bible.  His focus shifts from his intelligibility argument to a textual one, explaining what he really thinks about the doctrine of preservation of scripture.  Perfect preservation doesn’t require a Pope figure to declare ex cathedra the settled text of scripture.  God already through the inward testimony of His Spirit led His church to those Words.  I call on Ward and others to receive them by faith.