Debunking of Nine Marks Dual Church View: Both Universal and Local Churches, Part Two
The word “church” in the English translation of the New Testament, like Nine Marks wrote in its online article by Jonathan Leeman, means “assembly.” “Universal assembly” is an oxymoron, yet still firmly held by Catholics, Protestants, evangelicals, and fundamentalists against its incoherence and contradiction. Why? How?
Neoplatonism is a philosophical and religious system, beginning with the work of Plotinus in c. 245 AD, that analyzes and teaches interpretations of the philosophy and theology of Plato, and which extended the interpretations of Plato that middle Platonists developed from 80 BC to 220 AD.
Neoplatonism is a non-theistic philosophical spirituality. It became, however, part of institutional Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and then came out the other end in the Protestant Reformation. The universal church is not scriptural. It’s obviously a neoplatonic concept.
With Plotinus, individual souls, the temporal, resided within the soul, the eternal one. The insecurity of the individual souls give undo attention to bodily concerns. Love becomes a lower love, appetite, out of which proceeds moral evil. The individual soul loses unity and goodness. A tension exists in the soul between what is above and is eternal and that below and temporal. Purity relates to the hierarchy from eternal to temporal, the eternal being one and the temporal being individual and particular. Good is a return to the One, which is defined in mystical terms. [Understanding of Neoplatonism taken from a course on Philosophy by Arthur Holmes, video 19]
Augustine thought that scripture was divinely inspired but being part of the temporal, finite world, it was susceptible to corruption. Augustine took this neoplatonism as his explanation of a Catholic church, when challenged by the Donatists. The Donatists claimed the true church was local by which it kept itself separate from communion with the world. For Augustine the true church was spread throughout the world.
The Donatists asked Augustine how that the church could be Catholic or universal if there were unbelievers in it. He answered in neoplatonic fashion that there were two churches, the visible and the invisible. The invisible, the one, was pure, and the visible or particular had corruption. Augustine’s neoplatonic church was spread throughout time and rooted in eternity. This reflects his neoplatonism with purity in the One and the mystical, a kind of ontological church. It is not a church though. A church is visible and local, and as an assembly, it assembles.
According to Peter Brown in his biography of Augustine, Augustine brought to the masses “the esoteric truth of Plato” (p. 221). Augustine was impressed by Ambrose’s rhetorical technique when he delivered sermons, which were carefully modeled on Cicero and influenced by the contemporary exponents of Plato, the Neoplatonists (p. 61). In his writings, Augustine borrowed freely from Plato and Plotinus (p. 486). When Augustine argued (The Works of St. Augustine) for the universal church to the Donatist, he relied on kingdom predictions of the Old Testament, such as Psalm 2:7-8, and a catholic church as the fulfillment, where the Messiah ruled over the world in a mystical manner (Letter 49:2, Sermon 47:17, Sermon 129:5-6). This invented amillennialism as a teaching. From the New Testament, he contended that the seven churches of the letters in Revelation 2-3 are universal due to the symbolism of the number 7 (Sermon 229J:5).
You do not see a universal church in the Bible. This mystical interpretation of scripture corresponds to the allegorical interpretation of Origen beset and popularized in Roman Catholicism through neoplatonic theologians, such as Ambrose and Augustine. They could explain the Roman Catholic Church as the true church, which is also the spiritualized fulfillment of the kingdom prophecies in the Old Testament. This view of the kingdom became called, ammillennialism, which was later systematized into covenant theology.
Reading Plato into the Bible is also eisegesis. Universal church can’t be read out of the Bible, so it is read into it. Instead of taking a singular noun as a generic usage, it imagines a mystical or platonic usage. You can see that neoplatonism affected every doctrine in Roman Catholicism and then Eastern Orthodoxy. It is now borrowed in the teaching of Jordan Peterson among others, who do not present a biblical view of Christianity. It allows for someone to read almost anything he wants into the BIble.
At salvation, God did raise us up and seat us in heaven spiritually, as Leeman asserts, but that is not membership in a universal church. It is adoption into the family of God. A person spiritually becomes a brother or sister in Christ. This family relationship does not depend on geographical boundaries or locality like an assembly does. Someone can have a father, who lives a thousand miles away, and he’s still his father.
Leeman says that the “universal church is in heaven.” If the entire “universal church” is in heaven, then it isn’t universal. It is in a location, whether someone believes that is a church or not. It can’t be universal, if it is in one location.
Leeman also writes that this heavenly church is the one Jesus promises to build in Matthew 16:18. A wrong understanding of “build” contributes to a wrong understanding of the nature of church. The Greek word translated “will build” in Matthew 16:18 is oikodomeo, which is mainly translated “to edify” through the New Testament, so the understanding is “I will edify my church” or “I will build up my church.” The sense of “build” that Leeman gives is adding to the numbers in this heavenly city or church. When Jesus said He would edify or build up His church, He’s saying more than that. He is going to add the offices of the pastor and deacons. He will add the Lord’s Table and church discipline. The Lord Jesus will provide the book of Acts, the epistles, and the book of Revelation. He will give to the church what it needs to prevail against the gates of hell.
At the time Jesus said, I will build my church, there was one church. It wasn’t in heaven. It was in Jerusalem. He would build up that church in Jerusalem, but His church as an institution, which is always on earth. I’m not saying there won’t be an assembly in heaven. It’s just that Jesus was talking about His assembly that functions on earth. The Jerusalem church would reproduce other churches, other assemblies, by fulfilling the Great Commission, which Jesus also added to the church in Matthew 28:18-20 and the version of that in the other Gospels. Each of those churches is still His church.
Leeman must assume that when Jesus says “church” in Matthew 16:18 and means something mystical and heavenly spread out over a large expanse of space and time that His disciples thought that’s what “assembly” (ekklesia) meant. It doesn’t register to him with his presuppositions that they wouldn’t think like Plato, like Augustine and then Jonathan Leeman would. When Jesus a very short while later talks about bringing evidence for discipline of someone to the church in Matthew 18:15-17, that His disciple audience could make that jump from Platonic to Aristotelian in that moment, from the universal to the particular. Were they bringing a church member to a universal church? They were so tuned into Greek philosophy, that when Jesus meant church in Matthew 18 in a totally different way than in Matthew 16, they automatically knew that? Amazing, huh?
To Be Continued
Debunking of Nine Marks Dual Church View: Both Universal and Local Churches, Part One
On 8/25/2022, the organization Nine Marks, started by Pastor Mark Dever of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, published on its website an article written by Jonathan Leeman, the editorial director of Nine Marks, entitled, “The Church: Universal and Local” (Click on the article to compare this analysis with the post). Nine Marks, I believe, wants to defend “local” because that is the main emphasis of Nine Marks. In the articles I have read by Nine Marks, they want to emphasize the meaning of “assembly” for ekklesia. That is enough to get major push back from the rest of evangelicalism.
Despite its doctrine of the church, local, Nine Marks teaches a universal church in the above article also as its position on the church, so a dual church view. Is there both a universal church and a local church? This post will begin an assessment of Leeman’s article as to its ecclesiological veracity.
In his first paragraph, the introduction, Leeman provides his definition for a universal church, a contradiction in terms, and for a local church. He calls the “universal church” “a heavenly and eschatological assembly.” You have to admire the point of consistency from Leeman with the meaning of ekklesia in his definition. He sticks with “assembly” through the essay. However, if it is an assembly, how could it be “universal”? Something universal does not and can not assemble. Leeman forces the definition to fit a catholic presupposition.
In Leeman’s summary, the second paragraph, he says the “New Testament envisions two kinds of assemblies.” I can’t argue against an assembly in heaven. Saints will assemble in heaven (cf. Hebrew 12:23). The church is not just any assembly though. The New Testament uses ekklesia to refer to something other than the church, and the King James translates it “assembly,” referring to a group of people gathered together, not a church (Acts 19:32, 39, 41). An assembly in heaven, the King James also calls “an assembly,” because it isn’t a church.
I’ve heard the heavenly assembly called a “church in prospect.” Leeman doesn’t use that terminology, but he takes the essence of that and stretches it into something mystical and for today. He calls salvation the membership for the universal church. All the saints will not be in “heaven,” actually the new heaven and the new earth, until the eternal state. The Bible has terminology for all saved people: the family of God and the kingdom of God. What occurs in heaven is not an ecclesiological gathering. The heavenly assembly does not function as a New Testament assembly.
The practical ramification of a “universal church,” Leeman explains, is “a local church that partners with other churches.” Leeman knows that nowhere does an English translation call the church a “local church.” Every church is local. Assemblies are always local. Churches should partner with other churches, but that isn’t a universal church. Those are still assemblies partnering with other assemblies of like faith and practice.
In his section, “Two Uses of the Word ‘Church’,” Leeman utilizes Matthew 16:18 and Matthew 18:17, the only two usages of ekklesia in the Gospels and both by Jesus. He says the first is universal and the second is local. Since no assembly is universal, he’s wrong on Matthew 16:18. An analysis of every usage of ekklesia by Jesus, most in Revelation 2 and 3, and over twenty times, every one is obviously local. Good hermeneutics or exegesis understands Matthew 16:18 like all the other times Jesus used ekklesia, where Jesus said, “my church.”
Jesus’ ekklesia is still an ekklesia, not something scattered all over the world, but still an assembly. When He calls it “my ekklesia,” Jesus distinguishes it from other governing assemblies. People in that day already understood the concept of a town meeting, a governing assembly. Jesus rules through His assembly and gives it His authority. Ekklesia was also the Greek word translated for the Hebrew congregation of Israel, the assembly in the Old Testament.
Leeman attempts to illustrate his dual church doctrine with two examples from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:18 and 1 Corinthians 12:28.
For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. (11:18)
And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. (12:28)
Leeman says that 11:18 must be local and 12:28 must be universal. Leeman fails to mention a syntactical structure in Greek and English, either the particular or generical singular noun. Singular nouns have either a particular or generic usage. Singular nouns must be one or the other. 11:18 is an example of a particular singular noun. 12:28 is an example of a generic singular noun. The latter speaks of the church as an institution, representing all churches.
Ephesians 5:25 is a good example of the generic use of the singular noun.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
If there is a universal church, then there must be a universal husband and a universal wife. All of these singular nouns are examples of the generic singular noun. “The husband” is still a husband in one particular place or location. There is no mystical or platonic husband. This is how Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 12:28. If the church in 12:28 is universal, then Paul excluded himself from salvation in 1 Corinthians 12:27, the previous verse, when he writes:
Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.
He says concerning the church at Corinth, “ye are the body of Christ,” excluding himself. When Paul uses the body analogy, he means something local. All bodies are local. All body parts belong to one particular body, not spread out all over the planet.
Leeman assumes without proving. He does not prove a universal church. He assumes it and then he sees it places in the New Testament where it isn’t. His conclusions do not follow from his premises. In his section on “Universal Church,” being “God’s people” in 1 Peter 2:10 and adopted into God’s family in Romans 8:15 are not allusions to a church or “the” church.” These are salvation terms, not ecclesiological ones.
All 118 usages of ekklesia in the New Testament are an assembly either used as a particular singular noun or a generic singular noun. An ekklesia is always local. In a few instances, the assembly is something other than a church, but when it is used for the church, it is always local. That’s what ekklesia means.
To Be Continued
Baptists and Presbyterians, False Worship, and Separation
Some of what I write here relates to something I got on my phone from a notification. It was Derek Thomas, the Presbyterian, representing the Master’s Seminary on a podcast. He did about fifteen minutes on preaching and the problem of evil, focusing on sermons through Job. I don’t know that an evangelical Presbyterian might differ with a Baptist interpretation of Job. Thomas said he disagreed with Calvin, whom he said took the Elihu position, essentially seeing Elihu arriving at the end of Job and mopping up the whole discussion.
The appearance of Thomas for Master’s Seminary drew my attention to the doctrine of Presbyterians and fellowship with them. Presbyterians sprinkle infants, which they consider baptizing babies. Should this bring separation from Presbyterians?
Presbyterians in the ordinance of baptism sprinkle infants. A Book of Public Prayer for the Presbyterian Church of America, 1857, reads (p. 147):
Baptism is an holy Sacrament instituted by Christ: in which a person professing the Christian Faith, or the infant of such, is baptized with water into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: in signification and solemnization of the holy covenant in which as a believer, or the seed of believers, he giveth up himself, or is by the parent given up, to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost: to believe in, love, and fear this blessed Trinity, against the flesh, the devil, and the world. Thus he is solemnly entered a visible member of Christ and His Church, a child of God, and an heir of heaven.
This is considered and called “a prescribed form of worship” (p. xv), so under the category of worship. Is baptism worship of God? The thought here is that the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, these two rites, are acts of worship in the New Testament temple of God. To worship God, God must accept the baptism.
Through the Bible, a primary criterion for worship is that God accepts it. For God to accept it, it must accord with scripture. God accepts worship in truth. In the Old Testament, God punishes false worship by death, such as the case of Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire to the Lord. Infant sprinkling is not truth.
C. H. Spurgeon preached and the transcript reads:
When we reflect that it is rendered into some thing worse than superstition by being accompanied with falsehood, when children are taught that in their baptism they are made the children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, which is as base a lie as ever was forged in hell, or uttered beneath the copes of heaven, our spirit sinks at the fearful errors which have crept into the Church, through the one little door of infant sprinkling.
Preaching at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861, Hugh Brown said:
We cannot but regard infant baptism as the main root of the superstitious and destructive dogma of baptismal regeneration, to which as Protestants we are opposed; we cannot but regard infant baptism as the chief corner-stone of State Churchism, to which as Dissenters we are opposed; we cannot but regard infant baptism as unscriptural, and to everything that is unscriptural we, as disciples of Jesus Christ, must be opposed; and we do trust that all who differ from us, and however widely they may differ, will still admit that we are only doing what is right in maintaining what we believe to be the truth of God with reference to this matter.
I’ve read many who say that infant sprinkling has sent more people to hell than any other false doctrine. I can’t disagree. Recently someone compared this to 1-2-3-pray-with-me or easy prayerism. They both send many people to Hell, the latter catching up today with infant sprinkling in its damnatory qualities.
I’m happy when I hear any Presbyterian believes right, preaches scripturally, about anything. Love rejoices in the truth. Infant sprinkling is false worship and as a doctrine sends people to Hell. God killed Nadab and Abihu for changing the recipe at the altar of incense. How much more serious is the false worship and perverting message of infant sprinkling? Baptists should separate from Presbyterians, not remain in unity with them. They should not yoke together in common ministry. They should do what God does with false worship.
The Biblical Presuppositions for the Critical Text that Underlie the Modern Versions, Pt. 3
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
I have never heard a critical text proponent care about the biblical and historical doctrine of preservation. Most just ignore it. It doesn’t matter to them. Others attempt to explain it away, as if guilt exists over denying the obvious. Professing theologians, pastors, and teachers deal with this doctrine differently than any other and in many varied ways. Circumstances and experience should not engineer the interpretation of scripture.
Serious About Words of God, Plural
Many years ago, I listened to a sermon by John MacArthur, titled, “The Doctrine of Inspiration Explained.” At one point, he took off against “thought inspiration” of scripture by saying:
This is a denial of verbal inspiration. If this is true, we’re really wasting our time doing exegesis of the text because the words aren’t the issue. Like the gentleman said to me on the Larry King Show the other night, which I mentioned, “You’re so caught up in the words you’re missing the message of the Bible.” That’s a convenient view. The idea that there’s some idea, concept, religious notion there that may or may not be connected to the words, but the Bible claims to be the very words of God.
First Corinthians 2:13, “We speak not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches.” Paul says when I give the revelation of God, when I write down that which God inspires in me, it is not words coming from man’s wisdom, but which the Spirit teaches.
In John 17:8 Jesus said, “I have given unto them the words which You gave Me and they have received them.” The message was in the words, there is no message apart from the words, there is no inspiration apart from the words. More than 3800 times in the Old Testament we have expressions like “Thus says the Lord,” “The Word of the Lord came,” “God said,” it’s about the words. There are no such things as wordless concepts anyway.
When Moses would excuse himself from serving the Lord, he said, “I need to do something else because I’m not eloquent.” God didn’t say, “I’ll give you a lot of great ideas, you’ll figure out how to communicate them.” God didn’t say, “I’ll be with your mind.” God said to him this, “I will be with your mouth and I will teach you what you shall say.” And that explains why 40 years later, according to Deuteronomy 4:2, Moses said to Israel, “You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish ought from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Don’t touch anything I command you because this is from God.
He continued later:
In fact, the opposite is true. Bible writers wrote down words they didn’t understand. In 1 Peter chapter 1 we are told there that the prophets wrote down the words and didn’t understand what they meant. The prophets, verse 10 of 1 Peter 1, who prophesied of the grace that would come made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. Here they are writing about the sufferings of the coming Messiah, writing about the glory to follow the suffering of the Messiah, and then they’re searching what they wrote. They’re inquiring in the very words which they were inspired to write, to figure out what person and what time is in view. They couldn’t even interpret fully the meaning of the words they were actually writing. God did not give ideas without words but in some cases He gave words without complete ideas.
Taking Matthew 24:35 honestly, he says:
In Matthew 24:35 the Scripture is very clear, “Heaven and earth shall pass away but My words…My words shall not pass away.” When God speaks, He speaks with words and the Bible are the…is the representation in writing of the words that came from God…the words that God spoke.
In the same sermon, he later preaches:
It was Jesus who emphasized the importance of every word…every word and every letter when He said, “Not a jot or tittle will ever fail.” He said in Luke 18:31, “All the things that are written through the prophets shall be accomplished.” He even based His interpretation of the Old Testament on a single word…a single word. The words do matter.
Jesus was answering the Sadducees in Matthew 22 and He said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the scriptures, or the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry…talking about the angels…nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying, ’I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?’” He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And His proof is that God said, “I am…I am the eternal living one.” And furthermore, He is not only the eternal living one but all will live eternally as well. They didn’t believe in a resurrection and He proved His point or certainly to our satisfaction proved His point by talking about the eternality of God in the verb to be in the present tense.
MacArthur teaches like the very words are important, because they come from God. As part of the emphasis, he stresses the vitality of the words to faith and obedience to God, down to the very letters. He’s just taking these passages at face value, not thinking of how he might devalue or diminish them to smuggle in a critical text view that speaks of generic preservation of the singular Word of God and not the Words, plural.
History of Preservation of Words
The doctrine of inspiration comes entirely from scripture. The doctrine of preservation should too. We walk by faith, not by sight. In his volume 2 of Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology, Richard Muller writes concerning John Owen and Francis Turretin:
He (Owen) had not, it is true, predicated his doctrine of Scripture as Word on his ability to prove the perfection of the text. Rather, like Turretin and the other orthodox, he had done precisely the opposite: he assumed the authority, infallibility, and integrity of the text on doctrinal grounds.
This is the historic approach to the Bible, relying on scriptural presuppositions, and in contrast to modern textual criticism. Later Muller writes:
The case for Scripture as an infallible rule of faith and practice . . . . rests on an examination of the apographa and does not seek the infinite regress of the lost autographa as a prop for textual infallibility.
He continued:
A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the views of Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. . . . Those who claim an errant text, against the orthodox consensus to the contrary, must prove their case. To claim errors in the scribal copies, the apographa, is hardly a proof. The claim must be proven true of the autographa. The point made by Hodge and Warfield is a logical leap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critics—who can only prove their case for genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.
The ease at making an honest interpretation of preservation passages, as relating them to the autographa, represents a new and faithless position. Honesty should be shown all of the bibliological texts. Instead of taking the logical leap, rhetorical flourish, to confound critics, like every evangelical modern textual critic, believers should believe what God says.
In the third of seven videos in The Textual Confidence Collective series, Mark Ward criticizes E. F. Hills and Theodore Letis for their attack on inerrancy. He either assumes his audience is ignorant or he himself is ignorant. Warfield and Hodge did what Muller says they did. They invented inerrancy as a term to characterize an errant text. This conformed to their naturalistic presuppositions on the doctrine of preservation against the doctrine passed to and from Owen and Turretin. It is a careless smear on the part of Ward to discredit men believing the historical and scriptural doctrine of preservation.
Matthew 24:35
In Thou Shalt Keep Them, I wrote the chapter on Matthew 24:35. Get the book and read it. I cover the verse in the context of Matthew and the Olivet Discourse in which it appears. It reads:
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
The Textual Confidence Collective said that Jesus here guaranteed the fulfillment of the promises He made in His discourse. They also explained that Jesus isn’t talking about perfect textual transmission, when He said, “My words shall not pass away.” You read earlier that John MacArthur preached concerning this text: “When God speaks, He speaks with words and the Bible is the representation in writing of the words that came from God, the words that God spoke.” How MacArthur explained Matthew 24:35 is how the believers in the churches have taken the verse too.
“Perfect textual transmission” is loaded language that serves as a kind of strawman argument. The doctrine of preservation does not argue for perfect textual transmission. It argues for the divine preservation of God’s words, like Jesus promised.
The plain reading of Matthew 24:35 compares the survival of heaven and earth to that of the words of God. The former, which exude permanency from a human standpoint, will pass away, but His Words will not. Words are not tangible and they’re relatively small, so they seem less enduring than heaven and earth with their sheer immensity. However, God’s Words last. This is what Jesus said. The durability of them mean something.
At the end of 1 Corinthians 13 Paul elevates love above faith and hope because of its permanency. This isn’t unusual in scripture. This is also similar to Matthew 4:4. Men survive not with bread, but with the Words of God.
Biblical eschatology foretells the destruction of heaven and earth. Someone investing in heaven and earth will end with nothing. Those trusting in God’s Words, which include what Jesus said in His Olivet discourse, invest in something eternal. The eternality of God’s Words tethers them to the nature of God. They are eternal because God is eternal, making the Words then as well different in nature than just any words. One can count on their fulfillment.
Scripture teaches the perfect preservation of God’s Words. Matthew 24:35 is another one of the verses that do so. The existent of textual variants do not annul Christ’s teaching on the preservation of God’s Words. We should trust what Christ promised. It is more trustworthy than a group of men devoted to naturalistic textual criticism.
Changing Meaning to Conform to Naturalistic Observation or Experience
God’s Word is truth. Whatever God says is true. If He says His Words will not pass away, they will not pass away. Someone responds, “But evidence shows His Words passed away.”
Hebrews 11:1 in God’s Word says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” There is that word, “evidence.” Mark Ward may say, “Evidence is a false friend.” The way we understand “evidence” today still fits what the King James Version says about faith. What God says gives us the assurance to say His Words do not pass away. In other words, they’re available to every generation of believer. This is a principle from scripture for the preservation of God’s Words.
One of the worst actions for anyone is to change the Word of God based on circumstances or experience. This accords greater with the beginning of cults than work to respect as believers. Through centuries doctrines change based upon men conforming to conventional wisdom or popular norms. Scripture doesn’t change, but doctrines to be derived from scripture can change when men adapt them to their own experience or circumstances.
Would men change the interpretation of scripture and the derived doctrines to fit a personal preference? Men start new religions by doing this. The proponents of modern versions have a lot at stake. When men twist scripture to fit a presupposition, it corresponds to a motive. They defy plain meaning. They have a reason.
No Monday or Wednesday Post This Week
Thanks for reading here at What Is Truth. More content comes every Friday from Thomas Ross. I didn’t write Monday or today (Wednesday) this week. Please enjoy the immense amount of other content by using the index in the sidebar and search function. God bless. Since I wrote this short announcement, I decided I would be writing for August 29, 2022 after all.
It Won’t Do You Any Good to Apologize for Trump
Very often conservative support for President Donald Trump starts with an apology. It goes something like the following.
I know he writes mean tweets and makes nasty insults, calls people names like a jr. higher. He is badly flawed, foul, immoral, a lawbreaker, braggadocios, self-centered, divisive, petty, a liar, a con man, a flip flopper, a criminal, authoritarian, and banal. But, I still voted for him because, you know, I look at performance.
People who start with an apology, I believe, think they’re warding off the expected angry reaction. Or, they won’t be associated with the worst character traits of Trump, readying themselves to hear them. I’m writing to say that it won’t do you any good to apologize for Trump. Embrace him. Accept his 2016 victory and his presidency.
None of the other 16 candidates would have defeated Hillary Clinton. Trump did almost everything he said he would do. He stuck his thumb in the eye of the corrupt media. He battled and fought for conservatives against the greatest political opposition in my lifetime and maybe all of American history.
In 1836, Sir Henry Taylor wrote the classic book, The Statesman, the first modern book devoted to that subject. He wrote:
[A] statesman has already, in the commonwealth of his own nature, given to the nobler functions the higher place; and as a minister; therefore, he is one whom his country may be satisfied to trust, and its best men be glad to serve. He, on the other hand, who sees in the party he forms only the pedestal of his own statue, or the plinth of a column to be erected to his honour, may, by inferior means and lower service, accomplish his purposes, such as they are; but he must be content with vulgar admiration, and lay out of account the respect of those who will reserve that tribute from what is merely powerful, and render it only to what is great. “He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men,” says Lord Bacon, “hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.”
Professor at Notre Dame, Michael Zuckert, wrote in 2020, Lincoln and Democratic Statesmanship:
Our ideas of statesmanship are fraught with seeming contradictions: The democratic statesman is true to the peoples (sic) wishes and views—but also capable of standing against popular opinion when necessary. The statesman rises above conflicts and seeks compromise between parties—but also stands firmly for what is right.
And I quote all that material about statesmen and statesmanship to get to my subject of President Donald Trump. I’m not going to say whether I think he is one or not. As you scan through the annals of the history of government, who was a statesman and did it matter? Was Julius Caesar one? What about William the Conqueror? Was King George III? What kind of statesmen presided over the Roman Coliseum?
If you go to scripture, you can look at all the various leaders of nations in order to surmise the statesman. Old Testament Israel looks like a recent Marine Corps slogan, “A Few Good Men.” Very few. A statue of General George Patton sits outside the library at West Point some say because he didn’t spend much time in there. Even Patton wouldn’t survive the present environment of the United States.
Today some propose settling for nothing short of Burkean conservativism in the trajectory of Russell Kirk. They yearn for William F. Buckley at the National Review. Jonah Goldberg just today, as I write this post, attacked Trump again. These conservatives, including many professing Christians, now take on the chief identification of Anti-Trump. In his piece, Goldberg insulted Trump voters, showing again, as he and others have again and again, got Trump wrong. This is seen all over his post in the LA Times, which doesn’t publish true conservatives, where he wrote:
One of the paradoxes of charismatic leadership is that the leader’s illegitimacy — in legal, rational or traditional terms — can have the effect of strengthening their hold on their followers. This dynamic has been at the heart of Trump’s distortion of the right. If the man cannot measure up to the traditional, moral, rational or legal yardsticks that conservatives once ascribed to leadership, then it is the yardstick’s fault for not measuring up to the man.
That’s right. Through his charisma, Trump has a cult-like, worshipful loyalty on his voters, who are called followers. All of these 74 million voters, which was more than any presidential candidate had ever received in any presidential election, could not see the fraud that Trump was like the enlightened Goldbergian human being. Goldberg said concerning the Founder of Turning Point USA, “Charlie Kirk, a pliant priest in Trump’s personality cult.” On the other hand, the public intellectuals (if that is possible), who voted for and defend Trump, call Goldberg the subject of Trump derangement syndrome. Douglas Wilson wrote last week:
Whatever I might think, the brains behind the progressive left have decided to take a header into the maelstrom of “doing whatever they can to advance the narrative and person and prospects of Donald J. Trump.” This is what a derangement syndrome can do to you. It turns the quivering brains of high-powered political operatives into a soupy kind of jelly, with green mold on the surface.
I see the jelly with the green mold coming out of Goldberg’s ears.
To speak of Trump without apology, consider why you voted for him, support him, and would vote for him again as president, even though you’re a Christian. You don’t have to use the Russia hoax, even the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade with all the conservative justices Trump appointed. Trump believes that something in the United States is of higher value than other nations worth protecting by securing the borders. Borders conserve something on the inside that is better than what is on the outside. That simple, basic conservative idea separated Trump from his competitors like the wall he aspired to build.
A long time ago the United States left the possibility of a Russell Kirk conservative. We are in much more desperate times. We have to look to principles much more basic than those outlined by Edmund Burke and Benjamin Disraeli. The Brexit vote in England recognized this too. What I’m describing, Jonah Goldberg calls “instrumentalism.” He wrote in another essay:
The least objectionable of them justified their decision in the name of instrumentalism—“Trump’s flawed, but we can use him.”
This isn’t using Trump until we can get somebody better. That’s still an argument for 2024. No, Trump is where we’re at. Maybe we will get somebody better, but that’s also the reasoning behind what led to Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump isn’t an instrument. He espouses necessary, rudimentary principles. His don’t go far enough. They don’t do as much as I would do. But they go further than what we would get from anyone else, such as names like Dole, McCain, and Romney. Even throw in George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Gerald Ford. Trump truly raised the bar over these men.
I want to argue just a little. You say, Trump is authoritarian. He’s a fascist. By far. By far, the greatest threat of fascism is the progressive left, like Ronald Reagan said:
America stands on four main values: Faith in God, Freedom of Speech, Family and Economic Freedom. If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism.
Trump in his presidency practiced the separation of powers. He picked federalist Supreme Court justices, who did more to decentralize the federal government than in decades. Trump supported that. You’re just swallowing a lie when you say he’s a fascist or an authoritarian. He gave freedom to become energy independent, turning loose the American people.
Maybe you say he’s a want-to-be dictator because of January 6, 2020. Nothing like that came close to happening on January 6, nothing even nearly as bad as what did occur in Seattle, Portland, and the Twin Cities of Minnesota in the previous summer. The Russia hoax disenfranchised Trump voters. Illegal ballot harvesting did too. The perpetrators walk free. Does anyone think that we live under a fair justice system today? Where is the abuse of power? Who has attempted to criminalize parents who speak up in school board meetings?
I don’t apologize for President Donald Trump any more than I do for the minutemen on the Lexington Green.
James White, Michael Kruger, and the Canonicity Argument for Preservation of Scripture
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
In historical Christian writings, when using the term canonicity, men applied that to books. For a book to be canonical means that it has a true, right, and authoritative place in the collection of inspired writings. To put it simply, if it is canonical then it is God’s Word, or it’s Bible. However, the Bible itself does not speak of the canonicity of books, such as “this book is inspired” or “this book belongs in the Bible as part of God’s Word.” The Bible treats words as canonical, such as words inspired or every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The Bible speaks of inspired writings or scripture. A book belongs in the canon because all of its writings belong in the canon.
All the principles or doctrine from scripture that apply to the canonicity of books first apply to the canonicity of words. One cannot argue books from scripture without starting with words. Books are inspired because words are inspired.
In the book, Thou Shalt Keep Them, published by our church in California, which is also Pillar and Ground Publisher, in 2001 (second edition, 2003), I wrote an important chapter, Chapter 19, entitled, “Test of Canonicity as Applied to Words.” This came over 10 years before Michael Kruger wrote, Canon Revisited, a theological dealing with the canon of scripture. In light of my test of canonicity argument, I listened to James White and Michael Kruger discuss canon at the 2018 G3 conference.
The principles I elucidated in my chapter do reflect how true believers or churches thought and believed about both the doctrine of canonicity and the doctrine of the preservation of scripture. Before I wrote that chapter, I had not read anything saying what I wrote, but since then, many have written on canon as related to the doctrine of preservation. Perhaps they read my chapter or articles on the blog here (also here and here). I hear identical language being expressed in the following video with James White and Michael Kruger.
Starting at about 5:30, James White says:
The issue of the canon is a theological for us first and foremost because of the nature of scripture.
That statement ought to get your attention on every bibliological doctrine, including preservation. The nature of scripture makes every issue with the Bible a theological one. He continued:
If you just put canon into Amazon, what’s going to come back are going to be books that are going to direct you to, well, this early church father had this list, this early church father had that list, and then you have this development here, and you have that development there, why does there need to be a different approach? I mean you’re taking a different approach.
Kruger answered:
I take a quite a different approach actually than the standard models. . . . I’m teaching a class on the New Testament canon years ago, and we’re talking about the question of “how you know,” and I realized no one ever answered the question. Uh, ya know, I’m assigning Metzger. I’m assigning some of the other classic sort of texts on canon, and they’re what I sort of call ‘data books’ and they do a great job collecting together, sweeping together, a bunch of factoids about when, aaah, books began to be used as scripture and how long it took . . . and they’re basically just history books. . . . and my students kept asking . . . but that doesn’t answer my question. . . . why should we think the results of all that mean anything?. Ummmm, And so you have to back up and say, oh, wait a second, you can’t just look at the data. You have to have a worldview. You have to have a theological system in which you can absorb that data and interpret it and understand what it means. If you do that, then you need a theology of canon.
White responded:
So when you speak of a theological view of scripture. Ummm, certainly if you, if you have the modern view in the academy of scripture, you’re going the wrong direction. But you’re talking about from a confessional, believing, scriptural perspective. If you start with what scripture is that’s going to impact how you look at how God made sure his people had what He had given supernaturally in inspiration. So flesh that out, how does that differ from most normal approaches?
James White does have the modern view in the academy of scripture on the doctrine of preservation, and he is going the wrong direction. He should be talking about preservation from a confessional, believing, scriptural perspective and he does not. He contradicts himself here, really puts his foot in his mouth and he doesn’t even know it.
Kruger answered that the other approaches say they’re taking a neutral point of view. He says this isn’t a Christian worldview. Kruger is asserting that no one is neutral, just letting the evidence lead them to the truth. Everyone functions according to presuppositions. Kruger and White are saying that the determination of the canon is not naturalistic from some false neutrality, but divine. Again, both of them put their feet in their mouths because they treat textual criticism, which is naturalistic, like it is neutral. They say this presupposition is not a Christian worldview. They are saying that their bibliology is naturalistic and not Christian.
Kruger said:
Let me back up and follow up on one of the things that you (James White) said there, I think is very important, and that is, uh, this idea of seeing canon from a divine perspective. That’s another way to say what you’ve articulated. If you look at it from a purely historical perspective, it looks like a manmade thing, something that the church constructed, but what if we ask the question about, not so much what books Christians recognized, but what books did God give. And when you ask it that way, now you’re asking more of a theological question, and theoretically the books that belong in the canon are the books God gave the church. They may take awhile to recognize those books, but we can still talk about canon as a theological idea in the mind of God.
Kruger continues by talking about defining canon from the divine perspective or from a theological perspective, which he calls an “ontological canon,” which then James White calls canon with a subscript 1, which is the canon as it is known to God. White says:
We need to talk about God’s purpose in leading people to understand these things. . . . . If God extends His divine power to inspire scripture, does He have a purpose? And is there a consistency between what His purpose is in inspiring scripture and leading His people to know what that is? And obviously there are a number of texts of scripture that address that. But this is all theological.
And it drives me insane when I read, uh, people attacking this subject, and they, they want to deny that these documents are theopneustos, they are God-breathed, they are inspired, which is a theological concept, but they will only allow you to use historical, naturalistic, uh, methodology and information to defend the spiritual nature of these books. And people fall into it. We fall into the trap. It’s happening this very day in university classrooms all across America. Our young people are sitting there, and they’re getting slapped upside the head by a naturalistic professor who is demanding that they give naturalistic evidence for what is in fact a supernatural reality.
Kruger agrees. He says, “Right.” I want you to read all of what these men said. I transcribed it. Especially, however, read that last paragraph of White and compare it to what White does on the doctrine of preservation, which is in essence a doctrine of canonicity of words. Preservation is the canonicity of the writings of the words, which is what theopneustos is. All scripture, which is graphe, writings, are God breathed. It isn’t, “All books are God breathed.” Kruger then says:
No surprise. If you start with a naturalistic assumption, you end up with naturalistic conclusions.
Later he says: “Your worldview, your theological grid, ends up affecting your historical conclusions.”
Bingo.
White answers:
And the naturalistic professor, who is slapping our students upside the head has presuppositions. They just don’t allow them to be expressed or examined, uh, fairly in any meaningful fashion.
White asks:
What would you call the churches recognition of the canon over time? How would you des, what terminology would you use to describe that?
Kruger answers:
That’s what I call the exclusive definition, which is you, you, you don’t, well, it depends on what part you mean. So the final sort of settling of the canon is what I call the exclusive definition, which is if the church finally reaches a consensus around these books.
Read those words: a “settling of the canon” and “the church finally reaches a consensus.” Why would it be the canon based upon settling and consensus? There are biblical principles around these related to the witness or testimony of the Holy Spirit. The unity of the Spirit is the guiding of the Holy Spirit. This comes by faith. In scripture this all relates to words.
I’m going to stop here for now, and you can hear more from White or Kruger, but you need to see that White believes and practices completely inconsistent on the text of scripture from the canon. This is not because of what the Bible says. This is because of naturalistic presuppositions, where White thinks of himself as neutral as he looks at the evidence and discovers what has been lost. These men would be lying to you if they said something different on the text. It is exactly the same. Every believer needs to be consistent on the text and on the books. We know what they are in an identical way.
The Who-Is-Nicer or Who-Is-Meaner Argument for the Text of Scripture
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
I am calling this post a part of my discussion on critical text versus textus receptus. So much air time, so much ink is spilt for style and tone in debate, that it becomes an argument to be addressed.
You want to determine the preservation of scripture. You weigh textus receptus versus critical text. What is your criteria? Just by sheer mention from notable critical text supporters, such as James White and Mark Ward, the following is a major argument. You want to come to the right decision about the text, have the correct thinking? Ask this question. Which advocates are either nicer or meaner? From the sheer volume of talk about who-is-nicer or who-is-meaner, it must be the critical text is right. In almost every presentation, at some point James White or Mark Ward will talk about how mean the other side is, implying that James White and Mark Ward are nice, so the critical text position must be right.
I wonder of ecclesiastical text, standard sacred text, confessional text, or traditional text men, who thinks that James White and Mark Ward are nice? Perhaps you’ve seen a child come running to his mother, saying, “He wasn’t nice to me.” Or, “She wasn’t nice to me.” If you are a dad, and your little boy does that, you really, really don’t want to hear it. Maybe you just ignore him or you say, “Just go back and play.” Maybe when the little girl says it, you weigh it, and maybe you say, not really believing it, “Children, be nice.” I wouldn’t be convinced that the one protesting is the nice one.
We live in an era, where “he wasn’t nice” is an argument. It isn’t, but you would think it is by the sheer number of times critical text proponents mention it. I say, “Stop already. Both sides say mean things.” James White and Mark Ward are at least as mean or at least as not nice. Fun, isn’t it?
Condescension, eye rolling, sarcasm, and a certain kind of smarmy tone someone might consider to be mean or not nice. Even the constant mention of “you’re-not-nice” isn’t nice. When two men are having a discussion, they might get a little rough. Neither side should call the “whaaaambulance” and claim injury, as if they are a strip mall defense lawyer. “You’ve been injured in a biblical text discussion, call Mark Ward or James White, and they’ll represent you.”
When you were a child and you played games with friends, did you think it was nice when someone just rose, walked off, and stopped playing, because he didn’t like how it was going? Or did you think that was in itself, a mean or not nice act? Adults do this pulling the game board, taking the toys and going home.
A hard discussion, where the other side isn’t as nice as we want or doesn’t follow our preferred rules of decorum, will often occur. Very often both sides, when in disagreement, don’t like how the other side disagrees. That isn’t persecution though. Entering a boisterous give and take with someone, where we feel the other side hurt our feelings, is not persecution. We don’t deserve sympathy for a rugged debate.
Maybe 35-40 years ago, I remember reading letters written to one of my professors, Thomas Strouse, from Peter Ruckman. No one said things as harsh as Peter Ruckman. Dr. Strouse never said anything about the Ruckman style in the argument. Ruckman would straight out insult and call derogatory names. Ruckman was so nasty, that he was funny. No one had hurt feelings. They just laughed. I think this was just a different generation of men. They were less touchy feely. I wonder if you agree.
White and Ward both imply some spiritual problem or lack of sanctification in their opponents. They are the judge, jury, and executioner. They are nasty and harsh too. They weaponize the criticism though.
I think I could have better style or tone. I could speak to my opponents in a more sensitive way. When I argue, I could take more consideration of the opposition’s feelings. When two people disagree, it’s better if they try to get along too. I agree with that assessment.
What I wish is that the two sides could also take the meanness or niceness criteria out of the debate, especially the one side that nearly always brings it up. I don’t think Jeff Riddle wants to be mean. He’s nicer than me. And yet Mark Ward says he’s not nice either. He’s nicer than others, but he’s also too mean. Mark Ward might pull the game board on him. We’ll see.
What really happened is that Riddle exposed Ward and Ward didn’t like it, so Ward pulled from a contributor for Riddle’s most recent book, “Satan’s Bible,” or something like that, speaking of the critical text (see comment section). This is the meanness or niceness argument being utilized. Riddle had already taken a preemptive strike with “toxic review,” speaking of Ward’s use of toxic to describe the book.
Can we just debate and stop bringing up who is nice and who is mean? Both sides will say things the other does not like. In my recent writing, I mentioned that Ward made a mocking argument, using tone and facial expressions and giggling type glee. He did. It’s easy to see in the video. He won’t admit it, because he can’t cede that high ground he believes he has based on his own judgment of himself. Then I came out and called him on that and I said he put his foot in his mouth. I said it was a dumb argument for a PhD. I am debating on an equal rhetorical plane as Mark Ward. James White and Mark Ward won’t admit it, but it’s just true.
Ward often mentions how gracious he is. He does that at least as much as he says how mean the other side is. People on our side have not talked about this (that I know of), but Ward uses straw men. He misrepresents positions. He employs ad hominem. When his position is answered, he talks his way out of admitting it. He very often won’t concede when he gets it wrong or the other side is right. When he does concede, it’s difficult to tell. It doesn’t sound like he conceded on important points.
At one point, Ward said that the NKJV came from an identical text as the text behind the KJV. I showed him five places. He tried to explain them away. I gave him five more. He did the same. I gave him five more. He did the same. He finally conceded, but not to the point that he made originally. When I gave the first five, that should have ended the discussion, and for sure after the second five. Why didn’t it? I think he thought I would shortly run out of examples and he could explain it away. However, he just couldn’t concede. He changed the rules right in the middle of the discussion. This is Mark Ward, ladies and gentleman, the very, very nice man by his own admission. If I told him he wasn’t nice, I know we would have started a not-niceathon, trying to top the other in who was less or more nice. You could picture two jr. high girls.
Living in Utah right now, a normal, every occasion argument from LDS is the sameness between historical, biblical Christians and LDS. They try to take that posture right away. They will treat me like we’re the same. Half of them get offended by refuting the sameness. I find critical text the same. Critical text men want the other side to say that they too believe in the preservation of scripture. They too hold an orthodox position. Both sides should agree to disagree. Can we instead say that we don’t agree and that both positions are not the same? We really do believe they are attacking a true doctrine of scripture that is important. That doesn’t mean we don’t like them. We just disagree with them and believe that for God we need to oppose what they’re saying.
When I bring up the style and tone of Ward, I don’t do it for the same reason as White and Ward do. I do it, because I wish they would stop bringing it up. We both use tone and style in disagreement that the other side doesn’t like. I wish there was a moratorium on mentioning it. Just leave it alone and continue the debate. I don’t expect it though. It works well to their audience. Maybe it’s a replacement for real persecution for men who don’t face actual persecution.
I have an opinion about the criticism of meanness or lack of niceness. It is in the realm of ‘gird up your loins, like a man,’ something God said to Job twice. This is a battle and both sides just should put on their big boy pads and expect contact.
Further Details in Psalm 12:6-7 Elucidating the Preservation of God’s Words
In recent days, speaking of the last twenty years, men have used much ink and spoken many words to debunk a doctrine of the perfect preservation of Words of God in Psalm 12:6-7. Commentators through history have interpreted Psalm 12:6-7 as a promise of the preservation of the poor and needy, mentioned in Psalm 12:5. Modern critical text advocates strive to back or ensure that interpretation against a teaching of preservation of words. With this conversation occurring or continuing, more evidence arises for the preservation of words viewpoint.
I haven’t heard anything new to contribute to the preservation of the poor and needy, except for possibly one new point. Critical text proponents like Mark Ward say the same old, same old. Some of his audience didn’t know his arguments, but they aren’t new. With that being said, this is an argument from Ward I have never heard. I didn’t know about it until recently reading him in the comment section at youtube.
Not Perfect Preservation?
Ward says that the present application of perfect preservation from Psalm 12:6-7 arose out of the King James Only movement of the twentieth century. He knows that men taught preservation of words from Psalm 12:6-7, such as Matthew Poole, just that none of them, including Poole, he is saying, took that as perfect preservation. I had not heard anyone ever make that particular point. It seems like a raising of the bar on expectations in the language of the commentators. Is Ward implying that when men wrote that Psalm 12:6-7 promises the preservation of the Words of God, that they were saying that God was promising less than perfect preservation? And is that even preservation?
I’ve used this illustration before, but let’s say that you had a jar with 100 marbles in it. Twenty years later, you still have the jar, and someone wants to purchase it. You guarantee that you preserved the marbles in the jar. The customer counts them and there are 98, not 100. Did you preserve the marbles in the jar? Is that the plain meaning of preservation of marbles?
Ward is implying that 93 to 98 marbles is still the preservation of the marbles. Preservation of the marbles doesn’t mean 100 out of 100, because 93 to 98 is still preservation. Is that what you think? I don’t think of losing marbles as preserving them. That is not preserving them. You’ve preserved some of them, so preservation occurred, but you can’t say you preserved them, speaking of the marbles in the original jar.
When Jesus said that no man shall pluck “them” out of his hand (John 10:28), with similar understanding of preservation, you could take that as no man shall pluck 93 to 98 percent of them out of his hand. He didn’t say “all of them” after all. If God promised to keep or preserve the poor and needy, to be consistent, when Ward says Psalm 12:7 promises to keep the poor and needy, that means not all of the poor and needy, just some of them. It’s not perfect preservation of the poor and needy. Myself and others might call that betraying plain meaning of language.
Hebrew Singular Masculine Pronominal Suffix in Psalm 12:7
Besides that above argument, a new one that rose out of a challenge to Ward about his representation of the history of Psalm 12:6-7 commentary, I have read none. I have heard the argument Ward makes from the King James translators notation about the second “them” in Psalm 12:7. It translates the singular masculine suffix. Ward says that necessitates poor and needy, because “words” aren’t a “him.” “Words” aren’t a “she” either, even though the gender of “words” is feminine.
Every Hebrew word is masculine or feminine, because there is no neuter in the Hebrew. Someone might call this a dumb argument, that a masculine suffix must refer to people. What do we do with all the things or objects in the Old Testament? What kind of pronominal suffix are we going to use for all those non-neuter words?
This pronoun point revolves around this comment in the margins of the original King James translation by the translators: “Heb. Him, i.e., every one of them.” They are correct. They are noting that a masculine singular suffix in the Hebrew is “him” in the English. Then they explain with the comment why they translated this “them”: “every one of them.” The singular meant, they are saying, “every one of them,” speaking of whatever antecedent “him,” “everyone of them,” or “them” refers to.
Psalm 12:7 reads: “Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” The verse is not saying twice, “Thou shalt keep them” and “Thou shalt keep them,” or, “Thou shalt preserve them” and “Thou shalt preserve them.” No, it is making two statements with a nuance of difference: “Thou shalt keep them” and “thou shalt preserve every one of them.” They are not saying the English should be, “him,” but that the English should be, “every one of them.” On Part 4 of The Textual Confidence Collective series (starting at about 5:48), Mark Ward begins speaking with a kind of glee in his voice and says these exact words:
And it’s really interesting here, one of the tip offs to sort of the interpretive question here comes in the note that is actually in the margin of the King James, even in this TBS edition. For that second “them,” “thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them” (and I’m convinced this is where the word preservation starts to get used by the King James only or textual absolutist movements), it says in the margins, the Hebrew is actually, “him,” that is, “every one of them.” And if the Hebrew is actually “him,” that is, every one of them,” every one of them must not be “the words,” because words are not him and her. Words are things. Words are it. Therefore, it must be in the view of the King James translators, that second pronoun, must be pointing back to the antecedent we find in verse 5: “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.” So the words of the Lord here are not the Bible. They are these immediate words, “I’m going to protect the poor, uh, who are oppressed.”
This is coming from a PhD from Bob Jones University, and other PhDs or PhD candidates sit there and say nothing, when he makes these foot-in-the-mouth statements with a kind of giggling glee. Why? They don’t even look like they disagree. Zero pronominal suffixes in the entire Old Testament are an “it,” because there is no neuter pronominal suffix. There are no neuter Hebrew nouns to which to refer. The King James translators would have been laughing on Ward’s interpretation of them.
Timothy Berg writes about this at his blog (and Ward has concurred many times):
Understand what has taken place here with these two lines. The translators had to either choose, “them” and so maintain the number of the original, but lose the gender, or choose “him” and maintain the gender of the original but lose the number. The meaning in both cases is a plural group of multiple “hims,” employing first the plural then the singular in keeping with the psalmist’s pattern. But there is no form “hims” in English, so every translator must lose something of the original text in translating it into English. The point to note here though is that they clearly understood the referent of the singular suffix as being back to the alternating singular and plural in verses one and five, being a reference to the people. This is surely self-evident to anyone reading the passage in its context, and abundantly evident to anyone who reads the original translators notes (and even more so when they realize the origin of this particular note in the Bishop’s base text). If we had only continued to print these notes, and listened to the KJV translators themselves, so much bad interpretation could have been avoided. Maintaining today that the phrase is a promise to preserve God’s words in the KJV is to utterly disagree with what the translators themselves intended to convey, which, in a text now being adduced as support for their infallibility, seems odd at best.
These men say this proves that “them” by the King James translators could never refer to “words” in verse 6. That very much misunderstands gender in the Hebrew. Berg is saying that “him” must mean people, because a “him” must be people in the Hebrew. Remember, this is a masculine suffix with “preserve,” that the translators translated “preserve them.”
How would you go about proving the point that Berg and Ward are making in their assessment of a comment by the KJV translators? I would look at similar examples with gender through the Old Testament to see if that’s true. They are saying that a masculine suffix must always refer to a person, because a masculine is a person. This is their representation of original languages. Again, they don’t take that from anything the KJV translators wrote. This is their own personal call.
Berg or Ward do not reference one Hebrew grammar or syntax to make that point. They do not show you several examples to evince the truth of this argument. They speak as those having authority on the Hebrew language. As Johnny Cochran famously called the prosecution of the OJ Simpson trial, it is a “rush to judgment.” These are men eager to have something mean something that doesn’t mean something. They don’t even know it means something. I think they could assume that they have an audience of their own tribe ready to accept their own bias. This is today called “confirmation bias,” where they rush to confirm their own bias.
Let’s open our Bibles to the first chapter of the Bible, the book of Genesis, and Genesis 1:16-17:
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.
God made lights. God “set them.” “Them” refers to the lights, wouldn’t you agree? A masculine refers to “lights.” This does not correspond exactly to Psalm 12:6-7, but it does in the argument that Ward and Berg are making. A masculine must refer to a person.
Turning to Psalms, Psalm 18:14 says:
Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.
“Arrows” is masculine too, but it is plural. He scattered the masculine arrows.
A better example is Job 39:14-15:
14 Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust, 15 And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them.
“Eggs” is plural. “Them” in “crush them” is a third person feminine suffix. In other words, “crush her,” but it is “crush every one of them.” “Eggs” and “them” are both feminine.
Just as a gender sample, the same kind of construction in Psalm 12:6-7 and in Psalm 119 is found elsewhere, such as Leviticus 20:8:
And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you.
“Statutes” is feminine and “them” is masculine. Again, a masculine pronoun refers to a thing, which is also feminine. The same is in Leviticus 22:31:
Therefore shall ye keep my commandments, and do them: I am the LORD.
Commandments is feminine and them is masculine.
The same is in Numbers 15:39. Also, Nehemiah 1:9:
But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them.
Commandments is feminine and them is masculine. In Ezekiel 37:24, “statutes” is feminine and “them” is masculine.
I’m not going to keep going with this argument, but you can see that Berg and Ward are wrong on the Hebrew of this. I’ve already written many times that gender is nullified by Hebrew grammar as an argument for the “poor and needy.” Because of that, we should go to the nearest antecedent rule, which is “words.” Ward himself said the examples were clear in Psalm 119 of purposeful gender discord, so he relents there. He says it isn’t in Psalm 12:6-7, but that’s only because he chooses to ignore the nearest antecedent, which is clear.
This Generation
Psalm 12:7 says, “Lord. . . . shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” The two different viewpoints also take the last part of the verse in two ways. The preserve-the-poor-and-needy position says that “from this generation” is a physical separation from the attacks of the wicked. The preserve-the-words position says that “from this generation” is a linear chronological separation from the present moment and on into eternity.
The Hebrew preposition translated “from” in the English has a root meaning of separation. Preserve-the-words takes the normal, plain meaning of the Hebrew dur, generation, which is a period, speaking of this present time. This language of time is echoed in the Old (Isaiah 59:21) and the New Testaments (Mt 5:18, 24:35) in other preservation passages. This is the regular usage of this Hebrew construction, translated, “from this generation for ever.”
Preserve-the-poor-and-needy takes an exceptional usage. I see generation used of the wicked, but it is always accompanied by “evil” as in “evil generation” (Dt 1:35), “generation that had done evil” (Num 32:13), or “crooked generation” (Dt 32:5). When meaning “evil generation,” it is accompanied by these types of descriptors.
Every time you read the words, “from generation” (eleven times), it is a linear chronological separation from this present moment into the future. If it was something other than that in Psalm 12:7, then it is the only time in the entire Old Testament, or an entirely exceptional usage. Normally we call this eisegesis of scripture, because it doesn’t consider all the usages of this construction contradicting it. Timothy Berg does this in his Psalm 12 article.
Synonymous Parallelism
The poetry in Psalm 12:7 is parallelism and in particular “synonymous parallelism.” The second part of the parallelism repeats a variation of what the first part expresses. If this is synonymous parallelism, which is how it reads in Psalm 12:7, then both parts must refer to the same antecedent. It expresses the same truth in two different ways. “Thou shalt keep them . . . . thou shalt preserve them.”
I talked about this parallelism in the last post, that it teaches plenary and then verbal preservation of the Words of God. I want to give a heads up to the mention of “synonymous parallelism” to Jeff Riddle in his Word Magazine podcast on youtube. He talked about this and may have also given credit to Peter Van Kleeck, Sr. at the Standard Sacred Text blog.
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Hi everyone. I’m in Indiana for my Dad’s funeral. I couldn’t finish my post for today. I’ll just post it next Monday. Thanks for the kind words.
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