The Hypocrisy and Deceitfulness of the Chief Critical Text Attack on the Received Text of Scripture
The Ross-White Debate produced at least one major and helpful revelation. It showed the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of the chief modern critical text attack on the received text of scripture. I want you to understand this. White called the USB/NA textually superior because the Roman Catholic humanist Erasmus in 1516 had one extant manuscript for one variant in Ephesians 3:9. He said that variant opposed nearly the entire manuscript tradition.
Erasmus, Humanism, and Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic?
Before I dig into White’s assertion, let’s consider the information about Erasmus, a major part of his and other’s contention. In 1516 Erasmus published a printed edition of the Greek New Testament, essentially the same text used for every translation of the New Testament for any language for hundreds of years. True believers called this their Bible. They broke from and stood against Roman Catholicism because of it, which advocated a Latin text, not an original language one. It also opposed in general the Bible in the hands of the populace.
Erasmus was Roman Catholic in 1516. Who wasn’t Roman Catholic in 1516? Martin Luther still was. John Calvin, albeit a boy, still was. Ulrich Zwingli was. William Tyndale was. No one was Protestant. Erasmus at least conflicted with the Roman Catholic Church when that was rare. The English Reformation didn’t start until 1534. This point should be a laughable one. Almost every historian considers Erasmus a key forerunner of the Reformation.
Humanist?
Erasmus was a humanist, but that is not by a modern definition, where man is the measure of all things. Secular humanists don’t believe in God. Erasmus believed in God. His humanism was a defense of the humanities. This advocated for the study of the classical languages, literature, grammar, rhetoric, and history. Regarding scripture, he promoted the study of the biblical languages, Hebrew and Greek. Part of Erasmus’s humanism was Philosophia Christi, a simple, ethical Christianity without the rituals and superstitions of then Roman Catholicism.
The trajectory of the text of Erasmus moved through then to Stephanus and Beza, becoming the basis of the translations into the common languages: English, German, Spanish, French, and Dutch. Churches received this text and translated from it into their languages. This did not become anything acceptable to Roman Catholicism. They continued embracing the Latin. The Roman Catholic Inquisitions ordered the destruction of Bibles in the vernacular.
What is White doing with his use of humanist and Roman Catholic? I believe he is doing at least two things. One, he is attempting to mute the reality that the titans of the critical text, they’re unbelieving. Modern textual criticism proceeds without theological presuppositions and with solely naturalistic ones. He wants to frame Erasmus into the same category.
Two, White wants to paint an unsavory association of the received text with humanism and Roman Catholicism. He doesn’t want his audience to think of the humanities, but of secular humanism. He doesn’t care that this isn’t the kind of humanist Erasmus was. He’s hoping for the chaos or confusion of the deception. White doesn’t care if Erasmus was Roman Catholic. That doesn’t bother him about Athanasius or Augustine. He knows too about the reality of Erasmus. This is a mere rhetorical tactic.
Extant Manuscript Support for the Received Text or the Critical Text
Majority Text
On many other occasions and in the Ross-White Debate, James White said the received text (TR) was inferior because of lacking textual support. Until Zane Hodges and Arthur Farstad published their “Majority Text” in 1985, many, if not most TR advocates and others, called the TR, the majority text. Men stopped referring to the TR as the majority text because people would think they referred to the Hodges-Farstad publication. Why did men call the TR the majority text and the critical text, the minority text?
The TR is based on the majority of the manuscripts. It is a Byzantine text. A majority of the extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament come from the area of the Byzantine Empire. The TR agrees 99 percent with a majority of the manuscripts.
Hypocrisy and Deceit
White pointed to one word in Revelation 16:5 having no extant manuscript support. This is his favorite argument against the TR. He says that it is a conjectural emendation of Beza. He points to one word in Ephesians 3:9 having the support of one extant manuscript.
Ross exposed the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of White’s chief argument against the TR and in favor of the USB/NA (critical text). He showed how that in over a hundred places a line of reading in the USB/NA has no (zero) manuscript evidence. White has one example. Ross had over a hundred.
In addition, the entire critical text relies on a minority of the manuscripts, which is why men called that text, the minority text. How could the TR be worse because one percent of it has support in the minority and the critical text does that for its entire text? The USB/NA relies on very few manuscripts. If that’s worse, as seen in White’s attack on the TR, how could he support the USB/NA over the TR?
In every place the USB/NA has no extant manuscript support for its lines of readings (again, over 100), the TR has manuscript support. This should end White’s manuscript argument. Ross pointed this out in the debate in a very clear fashion. White would not recant of his position.
Ad Hominem
Instead, as he almost always does, White used ad hominem argument, attacking Ross personally, and then he tried to confuse the audience about what Ross said. With no evidence, he told the audience this just wasn’t happening. In essence, he said, “Don’t believe Ross, he doesn’t know what he’s doing and what he says really isn’t the truth,” followed by zero proof of that.
By writing this post, I could be associating with someone who is ignorant and a liar. I should be careful. This is what White wants his followers to believe about Ross. Joining me in an association with Ross’s arguments is Jeff Riddle. He and I do not know each other, but he too supported what Ross said.
I didn’t hear or see one person on White’s side, which would be in the thousands, debunk with any proof at all what Ross showed in the debate. Since the debate, I read more of the White technique of slandering his opponent. They focused on how many slides he had and how fast he talked. They said the KJVO position was awful, not understanding that Ross showed in the debate how that according to White, the KJVO position fits a wide spectrum of possible positions.
A Choice
White and others have a choice. They can concede to Ross and those who believe like him, including myself. Or, they can go back to the drawing board to try to get better arguments. I would say, get arguments period. The Ephesians 3:9 and Revelation 16:5 examples do not qualify as an argument from someone who supports readings with zero manuscript support.
The future bodes tough for White and his associates. The situation is not going to change. They have what they have. Nothing new is arriving for them. Personal attack, hypocrisy, and deceit are the best they have.
Changes in Personal Belief and the Effects on Relationships (part one)
Growth and Change
No one comes into this world knowing every doctrine of scripture. For someone to grow in grace and knowledge, he will change in his personal belief. He could go either way, better or worse. A person won’t remain static. Growth requires making good changes and avoiding bad ones.
Like anyone else, I have a story of change in personal belief. I have often told people that I changed on eight to ten biblical doctrines or issues of various significance through the years. No one should change from something right to something wrong. I always believed I was moving from wrong to right, but not everyone agreed with that.
Adding and Subtracting
God says, don’t take away from or add to scripture. Both directions are bad, subtracting and adding. Furthermore, someone doesn’t do better if he takes every doctrine or issue to the most strict or extreme place that he could.
In the Garden of Eden, Eve said the following in Genesis 3:2-3 to the serpent:
We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
God had said the following in Genesis 2:17:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
When you read the two statements, you can see that Eve added to what God said. God said nothing about touching the fruit of the tree. Yet, Eve did. She took an even more extreme position than God, which was wrong.
Almost every change I ever made in belief or practice, I moved in a stronger, more strict or conservative direction. Certain other Christians opposed some of those changes. In a most recent change, that developed over a number of years, I loosened in my belief or practice. I see liberty on something where I once saw regulation. Those accustomed to my rightward movement saw this as inconsistent.
Precipitating Change
In every instance I changed, some event precipitated the change. Very often I changed while preaching or teaching a series through a particular book. Sometimes I was faced with a situation that I had never encountered. I had to make a decision.
In all my years of pastoring, that I know, I have never believed and practiced in an identical way with any other church. I know of no Baptist church that is identical to another in its belief and practice. Beliefs and practices might be close to the same, but with slight variation.
Here at this blog, Thomas Ross and I don’t believe or practice exactly the same. We have differences. We’re very close, but not the same. Some of you readers have read our debates here and elsewhere. Nonetheless, we still partner on this blog.
Through the years, our church still fellowshipped with other churches even with the differences we had. It’s usually not easy to clash with another church on doctrinal and practical differences. Even interpretational differences might bring conflict between believers or churches. Almost everyone thinks they’re right.
Reasons for Change and Differences
When I change, why believe or practice different than before? Why do Bible believing and practicing churches still have some differences with each other in doctrine and practice?
Direct Statements, Plain Inferences
Differences in belief and practice start with variated understanding of either direct statements of scripture or of the plain inferences from direct statements in the Bible. Not every teaching of the Bible comes from a direct statement. Some comes from a combination of direct statements and plain inferences. In general I haven’t changed in my adult life on anything in a category of direct statements or plain inferences from scripture.
When I say direct statements and plain inferences, I also say that these proceed from only a grammatical, historical interpretation of scripture. Direct statements and plain inferences come from the actual meaning of the words of scripture in their context. I also consider the laws for the usage of those words, their syntax, and their meaning in their textual and historical context.
I take a stronger position on repentance and Lordship than I did forty years ago. In the past, I never denied that teaching. However, like every other doctrine and practice proceeding from direct statement and plain inference from direct statements, I grew in my grasp and conviction.
A Series of Overlapping Statements and Inferences
Some doctrines and practices proceed from a series of overlapping statements and inferences in the Bible. When you read all of the passages combined, you will come to certain conclusions that are also your beliefs and practices. The nation Israel, one third of its total number of people according to Zechariah, will receive Christ as the Messiah during the seven year tribulation period. Nations will surround her and at this juncture, Israel will repent with a confession such as Isaiah 53. God will save Israel.
I get my belief about the event of the salvation of Israel from conclusions arising from a series of overlapping statements and inferences in scripture. Furthermore, almost every belief and practice, comes from both the interpretation and the application of scripture. Application almost always depends on the reality of certain self-evident truths, assumed by God. God expects us to apply what He said. Man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Separating Differences
Many professing believers take what I call, unscriptural positions. Differences occur between believers and churches when one or more veer away from the teaching of the Bible. They might do that for many reasons. Some of them are just personal. An individual believer or a church leader may have a personal issue with someone. People might not like the way someone treated them or others with whom they fellowship.
Differences between churches may not be doctrinal or practical, but personal or political. They fellowship with others with different doctrine or practice, even with the same differences as someone with whom they won’t. Their decisions about relationship relate to hurt feelings or bruised egos. They won’t reconcile, forgive, or seek mediation because of pride. They wait for the other party to initiate reconciliation, and even if it does, they reject reconciliation or mediation. True churches separate, but scripture teaches constructive reasons, not personal or political ones.
More to Come
Biblical Languages Summer / Christian School Teacher Course
Do you have more time in the summer? A Christian school teacher (and other school teachers, support staff, and others who work in school settings) may often have more time during the summer. Interest has been expressed in having classes in both the Biblical languages, and it has also been asked if there is a way that a faster pace could be pursued during the summer with a slower pace during the Fall and Spring school semesters. I am exploring this as an option, and knowing how much interest there is, and what the specific needs are of prospective students are, would be a significant fact in evaluating how to move forward for the glory of God.
If this is something that you or a Christian school teacher, or other people at your church would be interested in, please contact me, either reaching out to me on my website or contacting my church. Also, please read the study Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew on my website here. (There is a seven part summary of that work on the blog here, starting with part 1 here, and then with part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, and part 7 here.) That study may also prove edifying to you even if you do not intend to learn the languages yourself, as it provides a balanced view from a perfect-preservationist, pro-KJV perspective on both the wonderful value of vernacular translation and the enduring importance of the Biblical languages, especially for Christian leaders or prospective leaders.
As I believe is demonstrated in Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical languages are very valuable for understanding, obeying, preaching, and teaching God’s infallible Word, and they are also accessible and learnable. If you are fluent in English, you have already achieved a level of linguistic achievement that is significantly harder than learning the Greek of the New Testament or the Hebrew of the Old Testament. That is not to say that one can learn the languages without work and dedication, but learning them is a reasonable and attainable for a very high percentage of the people of God if they, by grace, have the Spirit-produced diligence at learning them.
We would intend to follow the curriculum set forth here for Greek, one that has worked, not just for lingusitic geniuses, but for people who have families and full-time jobs. I am in the process of redoing the Hebrew curriculum before the next time, God willing, I get to teach that language, as I am adjusting the methodology towards one that recognizes the insights of second language acquisition theory and therefore teaches Biblical Hebrew more like (although not completely like) the way one would learn Spanish or French or German. This should both help students with learning the language and with retaining it once classroom work is over. With both languages the goal is to help students reach the point where they can read the inspired Old or New Testament text on their own and develop their sermons and other teaching messages directly from the text revealed to the apostles and prophets and preserved by God for our instruction and delight today.
Tuition should be $190 / credit hour for a 4 credit hour course. Auditors can audit for $100 / credit hour, but for most people actually taking the class for credit is better. Churches with numbers of interested students can reach out to me as well. Students who genuinely cannot afford the class, especially those in countries outside of the United States with a much higher poverty rate, can also have their pastors reach out and explain their situation and we can evaluate what options are available.
–TDR
What In a Salvation Presentation Is the Chief Factor Toward Someone’s Conversion?
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his Complete Letters (1868-1871) wrote:
If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.
Just know that if you remain with Christ, you also remain with the truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). That quote though makes it sound like something other than the truth is the main factor leading to saving faith. Others might echo the sentiment of Dostoyevsky, especially when one considers their methodology.
Three Categories
I will divide into three categories of argument or evidence for or vindication of the gospel message unto salvation. This answers, why should I believe the gospel?
Listening to professing conversion testimonies through my whole life, I heard different reasons for someone receiving the gospel. When I listen to apologists talk alone or in conversations with skeptics, I have heard them give varied reasons people will receive the gospel. People state epistemic, moral, and aesthetic arguments, evidence, or vindication. Thought leaders express these three, ranking them for their impact. People include them in their testimonies or salvation stories.
Epistemic
An epistemic presentation or epistemic preaching gives knowledge or information, makes intellectual arguments, trying to persuade the mind of a skeptic or lost person. This would include exegesis of scripture, using the Bible for elucidation of and authority for truth. It connects everything to history and will even show the compatibility of the scriptural account with history, science, archaeology, everything in the real world.
Moral
A moral presentation or preaching relies on the goodness of someone in the life of the skeptic or lost person. The moral quality of a friend, acquaintance, co-worker, or family member impacts him or her to the degree that they acquiesce to that influence. A person with a wrecked life sees this as the only way out. Maybe he sees it as the path away from drugs, obesity, alcohol or other harmful addictions. Perhaps he witnesses the quality and diligence of the efforts of a co-worker, making a moral impression upon him.
Aesthetic
An aesthetic presentation or preaching relies on the beauty or emotional effects of a personal testimony, a moving story, a fearful threat or warning, or just well-told, expressive anecdotes. It also may be the feeling of community or comradery of a group of individuals, how they get along, show friendship and solidarity, and experience satisfaction in all that.
Compelling Argument
Skeptics
Many skeptics would say that Christianity or the Bible doesn’t present compelling epistemic argument to persuade them. It does not provide enough knowledge to give up their present life to follow Jesus Christ. It is harder to believe that a man rose from the dead than to believe that men lied and said he rose from the dead, when he really didn’t. Even if they don’t possess great reasons for not believing the gospel account, they don’t have enough good ones either.
I heard one skeptic, still a skeptic though, report a frightening dream. He was on an airplane. The plane was crashing and in a semi-conscious state, he prayed to God for deliverance. When he woke up, it shook him. In his heart of hearts, despite his skepticism, he acknowledged the innate instinct or impulse to look to God for salvation.
Dostoyevsky
The profession of Dostoyevsky relates to either a moral or aesthetic urge or compulsion. Online Britannica gives some context to his quote that began this article:
In 1847 Dostoyevsky began to participate in the Petrashevsky Circle, a group of intellectuals who discussed utopian socialism. He eventually joined a related, secret group devoted to revolution and illegal propaganda. It appears that Dostoyevsky did not sympathize (as others did) with egalitarian communism and terrorism but was motivated by his strong disapproval of serfdom. On April 23, 1849, he and the other members of the Petrashevsky Circle were arrested.
Dostoyevsky spent eight months in prison until, on December 22, the prisoners were led without warning to the Semyonovsky Square. There a sentence of death by firing squad was pronounced, last rites were offered, and three prisoners were led out to be shot first. At the last possible moment, the guns were lowered and a messenger arrived with the information that the tsar had deigned to spare their lives. The mock-execution ceremony was in fact part of the punishment. One of the prisoners went permanently insane on the spot; another went on to write Crime and Punishment.
Dostoyevsky passed several minutes in the full conviction that he was about to die, and in his novels characters repeatedly imagine the state of mind of a man approaching execution. The hero of The Idiot, Prince Myshkin, offers several extended descriptions of this sort, which readers knew carried special authority because the author of the novel had gone through the terrible experience. The mock execution led Dostoyevsky to appreciate the very process of life as an incomparable gift and, in contrast to the prevailing determinist and materialist thinking of the intelligentsia, to value freedom, integrity, and individual responsibility all the more strongly.
1 Corinthians 1: Greek External Evidence and Jewish Experiences
I expressed here in other articles that men offer their reasons for not believing for which Paul accounts in 1 Corinthians 1. He says, Greeks seek after wisdom, Jews seek after signs. You could say that Greeks want intellectual arguments, something akin to their arguments in the Greek city states. They want external evidence.
Jews seek after signs. They tended in that day toward wanting further experiential proof. Something needed to move them in a personal way to prove reality. Even after the ten plagues in Egypt, most of the Jews still balked at listening to Moses and following what He said, that God told him to say. Scripture indicates that experience is not a basis of faith.
Faith Comes By Hearing the Word of God
The Bible provides the authority for what men need for salvation. In a simple way, it’s Romans 10:17: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” God will use the testimony of others, what they say and do. He might use a bad dream, smiting someone in his inner consciousness. God moves people with overwhelming beauty.
Hebrews 11:6 says that a person requires believing that God is a rewarder. Along these lines, Romans 2:4 says the goodness of God leads someone to repentance. Someone won’t receive Christ unless he thinks he’s better off with Christ as the Captain of his life.
Scripture does more than an epistemic presentation or preaching. It targets the mind, no doubt, but it reaches further than that. It affects the rebellion of a person in His will. Romans 1 says men know God (Rom 1:19). They suppress the truth though (1:18, hold the truth in unrighteousness). Their perverse natures rebel.
I believe scripture indicates in many places that the rebellion relates to human will or pride. People want their own way. They will choose their own way against their own self-interest. Men make choices that doom them, which they make so that they can stay in charge.
The Reach of Scripture
Jesus starts the sermon on the mount with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). A person must understand his own spiritual poverty, that he is not the master of his own fate. He can’t even get what he really wants on his own. He doesn’t have anything to get there. That humility doesn’t just occur. God works in a person through His Word.
When Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God is powerful to divide soul and spirit, that goes further than the mind. The soul includes emotion and will. God works in an epistemic, moral, and aesthetic way, all three. However, it must start with the mind. Someone must believe the gospel is true. God sanctifies through the truth.
Even with the moving of personal testimony and some stirring of emotions, everyone must receive the truth, which starts with the mind. For a person to believe, he must understand the gospel. More occurs through the gospel than just the intellectual, but that must occur.
Today I see the emotional or experiential calls for salvation as the biggest problem in evangelicalism. Evangelicals think more about what people will like or how they feel. They do not want to tell the whole truth, because people won’t like it. God saves people through the truth, not by leaving out the hard parts. Jesus never did that. Let’s do what Jesus did and then all of His apostles.
Cohesion
Agreement
The moral and the aesthetic must agree with the epistemic, but salvation centers on the epistemic. All the events of the gospel happened. Jesus is Savior. He is Lord. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it.
Moral and aesthetic presentation must cohere with the truth. You cannot separate truth from goodness and beauty. People get their view of God very often if not the most often from the aesthetic. If the aesthetic contradicts the epistemic, someone will get the wrong God. He will imagine a different God than presented by scripture. This keeps him from salvation. Even if he receives this god, it isn’t God.
Effect
A good moral example alone doesn’t save someone, but a bad one can hinder or repel salvation though. This includes a lascivious lifestyle presented as a product of the grace of God. Furthermore, regarding aesthetics, someone gets a wrong understanding of God from false worship music. He associates God with lust and worldliness. The right music doesn’t save, but wrong music, false worship, hinders or repels salvation.
The moral and aesthetic are important, but we must focus on the epistemic. Give the whole plan of salvation. Target the understanding. Don’t attempt to persuade with emotions and experiences. Use your stories to illuminate the truth to persuade in the mind. Scripture and the Holy Spirit will take care of the rest.
Textual Criticism Related to the Bible Bows to Modernity
Christianity is old. There is no new and improved version of it. It is what it started to be. Changing it isn’t a good thing. Let me expand.
Modern and Modernity
Right now as I implement the term “modern” I am using it in the way it is in the word “modernity” or “modernism.” I think modernism is a perversion of something good that occurred, which is the advancement proceeding from the printing and vastly greater distribution of the Bible after 1440. It fulfilled a cultural mandate lost with the domination of Roman Catholicism, “subdue and have dominion.” Feudalism went by the wayside. Quality of life improved.
In Judges in the Old Testament, Israel turned away from God, which resulted in bad consequences both indirect and direct from God. Israel cried out to God. God delivered and Israel then prospered again. Prosperity led back to turning away again, the bad consequences, and the cycle begins again.
The prosperity brought by the printing, distribution, and reading of the Bible brought the modern life. With all the massive new amounts of published material to read, people saw themselves as smarter than they were. They thought they could take that to God, the church, worship, and to the Bible. In essence, “let’s take our superior knowledge and apply it now to the Bible.”
Evidentialism
Modernism included evidentialism. Something isn’t true without exposure to man’s reason and evidence. No, the Bible stands on its own. It is self-evident truth, higher than reason and evidence, at the same time not contradicting reason or evidence.
Modern textual criticism arose out of modernism. The prosperity from the fulfillment of the cultural mandate proceeding from publication and distribution of scripture brought this proud intellectualism. Like in the days of the Judges, it isn’t even true. It isn’t better.
People have cell phones today, but who right now thinks that we are superior to when men believed the transcendentals? Objective truth, objective goodness, and objective beauty? We have a 60 inch television with a thousand channels, but we lost the greater transcendence. Modernists put the Bible under their scrutiny, undermining its objective nature.
Sincere Milk
The Apostle Peter called the Word of God “the sincere milk,” which is “the pure mother’s milk.” Like James wrote and identical to God, the Word of God is pure with neither “variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). This is why true believers of the gospel message of scripture are begotten “with the word of truth” (James 1:18). God inspired His Words and He preserves His Words using His means, His churches.
Modernists came to the Bible to improve it with their humanistic theories. They would say, textual variants prove its corruption. They would restore it to near purity using modernistic means of the modern academy.
The text of true churches, they believed “God . . . by his singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages.” They received that text. The modernist academy came along saying, that text is not the oldest, so not the best. The better text is shorter for ideological reasons. Therefore, everyone has a basis only for relative and proportional confidence, not absolute certainty in the Words of God. Scripture became subject to modern intellectual tinkering.
Proud Intellectualism
Even in an evidential way, the critical text, a product of critical theories, is not superior. It allured the proud intellect of modern academics. It shifted scripture into the laboratory of the university and outside of the God-ordained institution of preservation.
Textual critics cherry pick words and phrases, attacking the text received by the churches, saying, this is found in only one late manuscript. Meanwhile, 99% of their text comes from two manuscripts. A hundred lines of text have no manuscript evidence. They admit themselves educated guessing. They elevate the date of extant manuscripts above all criteria, including scriptural presuppositions.
Call to Consider Former Things
I ask that we reconsider the spoiled or poison fruit of modernity, arising from a corruption of the prosperity of the printing and wide distribution of the Bible. God through Isaiah in 41:21-22 says:
21 Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. 22 Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.
“Former things” relate to the present and to the future, “the latter end of them.” To understand the present and the future, we need to look to the past. When did we go off the rails into modernism and now postmodernism? I call on churches to turn back the clock to former things in a former time. See the cycle of the Judges, repent and cry out to God. Like James wrote later in chapter one (verse 21):
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review Videos
There have been a number of debate reviews of the James White vs. Thomas Ross debate on the topic:
“The Legacy Standard Bible, as a representative of modern English translations based upon the UBS/NA text, is superior to the KJV, as a representative of TR-based Bible translations.”
You can watch the debate itself here on the What is Truth? blog, on my website, on Rumble, or on YouTube. If you did watch it, you can also examine some of the review videos. I intend to produce, Lord willing, a series of videos that carefully examine the entire debate. To this point, I have two debate review videos live (one made before the debate was live, and a second one, just produced, that begins to examine James White’s opening presentation).
Thomas Ross: Debate Review and Analysis part #1:
Pre-debate Review Video of James White & His Claims
Watch the debate review part #1 on Rumble
Watch the debate review part #1 on YouTube
In this initial debate review, I provide my thoughts on how the debate went and respond to James White’s claims about the debate in his Dividing Line program of February 21, 2023, c. minutes 5-18, entitled “Road Trip Dividing Line: Gay Mirage, Mass, Biblicism.”
Debate Review and Analysis part #2: James White & His Opening Presentation, part 1: Would the King James Version Translators have Preferred the Legacy Standard Bible and the Nestle-Aland Greek Text to the KJV and the Textus Receptus?
Watch the debate review part #2 on Rumble
Watch the debate review part #2 on YouTube
I now have twelve of these debate review videos. You can watch them all at faithsaves.net, on YouTube, or on Rumble. At least at this point I have not added the ten after the first two to this post to prevent the post from getting overwhelming. Please think about subscribing to my YouTube and Rumble channels to find out when new video reviews come out, as I intend to record some more debate review videos, Lord willing.
James White (Apologia Church): His Own Debate Comments in the Dividing Line
If you would like to hear what James White said about the debate afterwards, watch minutes 5-18 of his February 21, 2023 Dividing Line program.
Jeff Riddle: Reformed Baptist and Confessional Bibliology Advocate’s Debate Review
Dr. Jeff Riddle has produced some helpful post-debate reviews. You can watch part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 on YouTube, or watch them on the embedded links below. I appreciate what Dr. Riddle has written on what he calls Confessional Bibliology. Dr. Riddle rightly wants to distance himself (as do most people who are happy to call themselves King James Only) from extremists like Peter Ruckman and Gail Riplinger while recognizing the difference between the way the original language text is inspired as to its words and translations are God’s Word as to their substance (what he calls the principle of Authoritas Divina Duplex, if you want a little Latin). Whatever you wish to call it, I appreciate his perspective on this issue of Bibliology, although Scripture does not teach TULIP Calvinism (and it also certainly does not teach Arminianism).
Jeff Riddle Debate Review Part 1:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 2:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 3:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 4:
There is a written debate review here on What is Truth? by Dr. Kent Brandenburg: “The White-Ross Debate: Who Won?” as well as some follow-up posts by Dr. Brandenburg (follow-up part 1; part 2; part 3).
There are also some debate reviews by a gentleman named Nick Sayers, who has a website called Textus Receptus. I know less about his doctrinal position than I do about Dr. Riddle. Mr. Sayers belongs to a religious organization called “Revolution Church.” He made seven extremely long debate review videos (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7). A large percentage of what he points out is useful, although I would disagree with him at a minority of points. Everyone should repent and believe the gospel, and then be immersed into a Baptist Church, not a Revolution church.
I am not aware of any of the disciples of James White making any review videos dealing in detail with the substance of the debate. The best I could locate was a five-minute review by one of James White’s disciples named “Polite Leader.” Polite Leader completely ignored the fact that the Nestle-Aland text is a patchwork and many of the other extreme problems with the text White is defending, but I suppose one can only say so much in a video that short, and so putting in what he believed were James’ best points would be important, from his viewpoint.
Thanks again for your prayers for God’s truth and for me during the debate. To Him alone be the glory for the good for His kingdom that was accomplished by it, and to me alone be the blame for what I should have done better.
–TDR
What About the Accusation of So-Called “Mystical Explanation” or “Omniscience” Against a Perfect Original Language Preservation of Scripture? (Part Two)
The Providence of God
As the church passed down the original language text of the New Testament, men made copyist errors. Preservation occurs through copying and then correcting the errors if they’re made. It didn’t occur through textual criticism, critical literary theories about older and shorter readings.
God insured the perfect preservation of scripture. He promised it. Opponents of this belief mock it as mysticism and requiring human omniscience. No one who believes God’s perfect preservation explains it this way. In part one, I asserted that they depend on Divine providence as biblically and historically understood. Providence isn’t mysticism. I don’t hear providence from the critical text side, but that’s what believers assert.
Internal Testimony of the Holy Spirit
In addition to Divine Providence, true churches or genuine believers point to the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. This isn’t double inspiration. This is the internal guidance of the Holy Spirit using the various means He does according to scripture. This is an almost identical argument as for canonicity (see chapter 19 in Thou Shalt Keep Them). This isn’t mysticism.
Ephesians 5:18 commands, “Be filled with the Spirit.” A parallel text says (Col 3:16), “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Spirit-filling isn’t mysticism. How does it occur that the Holy Spirit controls someone and that shows up as love, joy, peace, etc., the fruit of the Spirit? True churches or genuine believers have never referred to Spirit filling as mystical.
James 1:5 says, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” Does God give wisdom? Yes. Is this mystical? Is wisdom imparting omniscience to someone? No and no.
The Apostle Paul says that the things of the Spirit of God are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). God gives something to believers through the indwelling Holy Spirit to discern spiritual things. This is not mysticism. How does it show up? They understand the Word of God. Then they know how to apply scripture in given situations, the Holy Spirit providing insight.
Agreement of the Saints or Unity of the Spirit
Saints of the first century knew the books the Holy Spirit inspired and the ones He didn’t. They copied the ones He inspired. They received those as the Word of God. The saints agreed on what the books and the words were. They copied and distributed them.
The agreement of the saints or of true churches resulted in a multitude of almost identical copies. As history passed the printing press era, they agreed or settled on the text of the Bible. One could and should call the agreement, “the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). What is that?
Every true believers possesses the Holy Spirit in him. He guides, leads, reproves, teaches, etc. The Holy Spirit will not on the inside of a believer lead, guide, or teach in a different way. He won’t contradict Himself. He is One.
The same Holy Spirit, Who inspired the Words of God, knows those Words still. He does not need to reinspire Words. Instead, He can direct His people to the correct one, when a copyist errs. The churches for hundreds of years did not agree on the critical text. That text did not make its way to God’s people. They received the, well, received text. They thought that the work of the Holy Spirit.
What I just wrote above is not mysticism. It is what we read in scripture. It is how we see the Holy Spirit work. Providence and the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit fulfilled God’s promise of preservation.
What About the Accusation of So-Called “Mystical Explanation” or “Omniscience” Against a Perfect Original Language Preservation of Scripture?
A New Attack on Verbal Plenary Preservation of Scripture
Ross-White Debate
After the Ross-White debate, I saw one particular regular attack on the biblical and historical doctrine of the preservation of scripture. This is the perfect or verbal plenary preservation of the original language text of the Bible. Critical text advocates, who deny that doctrine, call the opposing position a “mystical explanation,” “omniscience,” the “Urim and Thummim,” or “Ruckmanism for all intents and purposes.” The part about Ruckman hints at double inspiration thinking. You say you believe the church possesses a perfect text of scripture in the original languages. They say that requires a work of God like inspiration or a mystical gift on the level of omniscience.
The historical doctrine of preservation says God preserved His Word. That is a supernatural explanation. God did it. Something supernatural occurred. Any claim of supernaturalism could be prey to the attack of mysticism, omniscience, saints possessing the Urim and Thummim, or the Ruckman charge. If copyists make errors and manuscripts have variants, how do believers know what the words are? Do they flop back into a trance-like state and their body moves like a puppet to the correct word?
The Imagery, a Mockery
The imagery painted by critical text advocates accuses men testing a variation between texts with a seer stone or divining rod. Someone printing a New Testament edition swoons into a condition where his body becomes taken over by God in the decision of a correct word in a text. It really is just a form of mockery, because none of their targets for this ridicule come close to this description.
The critical text advocates leave out a supernatural explanation. They don’t like that criticism. They don’t want theological presuppositions to guide, only the so-called science. Someone might claim perfection, if it’s God working. They rather defer to human reason as a tool. That allows for the error they favor as an outcome. They won’t say it’s God. At most, a few might say that God designed human reason like He did for the invention of a new vaccination.
The Providence of God
Used for Preservation of Scripture
The language used in the supernatural intervention in God’s method of preservation with and through His church is the “providence of God.” The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) reads:
The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical.
You can read the language there, “God . . . by His singular care and providence.” In 1680 preacher of the gospel, John Alexander wrote: “seeing the Scriptures by the Providence of God kept pure . . . . seeing the Scriptures as they now are were transmitted to us by the Church, unto whom the Oracles of God were committed, and against whom the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.” In 1721 Edward Synge wrote: “Still it pleased God, by his overruling Providence, to preserve his Written Word, and keep it pure and uncorrupted . . . . by which means the Fountain, I mean the Text of the Holy Scripture, was kept pure and undefiled.”
Its Meaning
John Piper in 2020 wrote a very large book, entitled, Providence. In the first chapter, he gives a lengthy explanation of the word, concluding that it means concerning God, “He sees to it that things happen in a certain way.” He points to Genesis 22 as a classic description of providence, when in verse 8, Abraham says, “God will provide himself a lamb,” using “provide.” Later, verse 14 uses the root meaning of that word “provide”:
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.
In the word “providence” is the Latin vide (think video), which means, “see.” Notice in verse 14, “it shall be seen.” The idea is that God sees, but even further, “He sees to.” He saw the ram in place of Isaac and He saw to the ram for Isaac.
Heidelberg Catechism
As providence relates to scripture, God sees to it that every word is preserved and available to His people, just like the ram was provided and available to Abraham and Isaac. The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) defines the providence of God:
The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.
Providence is not by chance. If God is keeping the original text of scripture pure by His singular care and providence, He is not leaving that to chance. Since He will judge men by every word, which He says He will (Matthew 4:4, John 12:48), He will provide every Word. He will “see to it.” I know the question then arises, “How did God see to it?”
Providential Preservation
Spurgeon
Men who believe in providential preservation do not believe that God requires a trance-like state to accomplish perfect preservation of scripture. If you asked, “How did the ram appear in the thicket to Abraham?”, you might find the answer difficult. “He just did.” He said He would provide, so He did.
C. H. Spurgeon in a sermon on the Providence of God says this: “If anything would go wrong, God puts it right and if there is anything that would move awry, He puts forth His hand and alters it.” This is how I read the description men who believed in providential preservation.
Capel
Richard Capel represents the position well (Capel’s Remains, London, 1658, pp. 19-43):
[W]e have the Copies in both languages [Hebrew and Greek], which Copies vary not from Primitive writings in any matter which may stumble any. This concernes onely the learned, and they know that by consent of all parties, the most learned on all sides among Christians do shake hands in this, that God by his providence hath preserved them uncorrupt. . . .
. . . . As God committed the Hebrew text of the Old Testament to the Jewes, and did and doth move their hearts to keep it untainted to this day: So I dare lay it on the same God, that he in his providence is so with the Church of the Gentiles, that they have and do preserve the Greek Text uncorrupt, and clear: As for some scrapes by Transcribers, that comes to no more, than to censure a book to be corrupt, because of some scrapes in the printing, and tis certain, that what mistake is in one print, is corrected in another.
You should notice that Capel uses the word, “providence.” This doesn’t sound like the exaggerated, deceitful attacks of the critical text proponents. I love the last sentence of that paragraph as an understanding. I ask that you read it again: “As for some scrapes by Transcribers, that comes to no more, than to censure a book to be corrupt, because of some scrapes in the printing, and tis certain, that what mistake is in one print, is corrected in another.” These are not words you will hear from critical text, modern version men.
God Keeps His Words
I say God keeps His Words. He uses His institutions to do it. I also say God keeps the souls of the saints. He uses many various means to do that. It is difficult to explain how that He does it, but He does. That too is supernatural. Do the opponents of perfect preservation believe that God sees to that? They do and they base that on presuppositions without resorting to words like “mystical explanation.”
The method God uses to preserve is a true one. It is true like innermost machinery and function of a cell. It occurs. The DNA strands of a human being, designed by God, result in a fully grown, healthy person. God did that. He keeps working in His world as He sees fit. His doing that with His words is also science. It is supernatural and it is science.
More to Come
James White / Thomas Ross Debate Transcript: Can You Help?
Can you help with a debate transcript? Some of my previous debates, such as my first one with Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, have been transcrbed so people can read them or reference certain arguments in them. Having this material available was very helpful to me in my making of a review of the Barker Ross debates.
I would like to make available a transcript of my recent debate with James White on the preserved Word in the Textus Receptus and KJV versus the lost and supposedly partially restored Word in the Nestle-Aland Greek text and modern versions such as the Legacy Standard Bible (which, sadly, is neither a legacy, nor standard, nor 100% a Bible). If someone is able to help me with this I would greatly appreciate it. I have been able to get a computer-generated audio text of the debate. All one would need to do is listen to the debate, compare it to the audio generated by the computer, and make sure that the two are the same (and correct the computer-generated audio when it is incorrect) as well as doing some other rather simple improvements. Then the debate will be available in a written format that can help readers and advance the cause of Biblical, faith-based, perfect preservation. It also would be helpful to me as I seek to produce some review videos on the debate. I am thankful for the written review of the debate here on What is Truth? as well.
I do not believe this would be an overly difficult project. If you are able to help with this project and so contribute to God’s kingdom and glory by helping spread the truth of perfect preservation, please either contact me via my website or by my church. Thank you.
–TDR
James White and His Troublesome Deterministic View of God
One of the features of the White and Ross debate was an attack afterwards on Thomas Ross by White followers, because he would not “answer” questions of White. I disagree. Ross answered all of White’s questions. He just didn’t like Ross’s answers. When I watched the White and Van Kleeck debate, White wouldn’t answer Van Kleeck’s questions, really not answer them.
A recent episode of Soteriology 101 with Leighton Flowers popped up on my phone. I’m not a subscriber. The title was “Popular Calvinist Makes a Stunning Admission,” and I could see the Calvinist was James White on the cover. So, as click bait, that worked for me. I had to see what the “stunning admission” from White was.
The Determination by God of All Moral Evil?
The main theme of Flowers’s podcast was the determination by God of all moral evil. Flowers doesn’t believe it, but he quoted Calvin as believing it. He explained the effect of this belief. If this is God, people reject Him because they don’t think He’s good. The Calvinist answers that God is right, these things are just beyond our full comprehension. Here’s the quote by Calvin that says this exact thing:
But how it was ordained by the foreknowledge and decree of God what man’s future was without God being the author and approver of transgression, is clearly a secret so much excelling the insight of the human mind, that I am not ashamed to confess ignorance.
Flowers says that Calvin is saying, “I don’t know how God is good with my view of determinism, just that I know that He is.” Something like that. He’s accepting God decrees moral evil, yet He’s still good, because God is good.
People like myself say, “God does not decree or determine moral evil.” If someone says that God does that, we say, “No, He doesn’t.” We might quote James 1:13:
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.
Guillaume Bignon
White has endorsed the book by French Calvinist, Guillaume Bignon, Excusing Sinners and Blaming God: A Calvinist Assessment of Determinism, Moral Responsibility, and Divine Involvement in Evil. In a recent interview, Bignon says:
Determinism is not the thesis that some things are determined. It’s the view that all things are determined.
Bignon is asked, Did God determine then for other theologians, like Muller, to disagree with you? He answers, “Yes,” because God determined everything. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 3), Calvin said:
Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he knowingly and willingly decreed.
Did God Decree a Rape?
Calvin taught that God destined the will of every man to do whatever man did and does. In his debate with George Bryson, Bryson asks White this:
When a child is raped, is God responsible? Did he decree that rape?
Based on the understanding White and his fans hold for answering a question, White would not answer Bryson’s question. He did answer it, but he would not say, yes or no, until pinned down by the moderator. When White asks a “yes or no” question, he and his followers expect a yes or a no. They don’t hold that standard for White, as seen in the Van Kleeck debate, but also in his answer to Bryson. White answered:
If he didn’t, then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose.
Hank Hanegraaff is the moderator and he asks White, “So what is your answer then?” In other words, White wouldn’t answer the question. No problem for White fans. This is James White. Whatever he says will count as an answer.
White then says to Hanegraaff, “I’m trying to go to scripture,” to which Hanegraaff replies, “What is the answer to the question that he just asked?” And so finally White does answer the question. To the question of, “When a child is raped, is God responsible? Did he decree that rape?” James White answers:
Yes, because, if not, then it is meaningless and purposeless. And though God knew it was going to happen, he created without a purpose. That means God brought the evil into existence, knowing it was going to exist, but for no purpose, no redemption, nothing positive, nothing good.
God Does Not Decree or Determine Moral Evil or the Rape of a Child
White, Hanegraaff, and Bryson say much more in this debate (which was in 2003), but White point blank says that God determined evil, even the determination of a rape of a child. This was the stunning admission by the Calvinist, James White.
Is this true about God? No. It perverts a scriptural view of the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign, but sovereignty means He is also sovereign over His sovereignty. The word sovereignty isn’t in the Bible, but the doctrine is there. However, we should allow God to define what His sovereignty is. God allows or causes everything that happens. I don’t agree with Calvin’s, Bignon’s, or White’s view of God’s sovereignty. It doesn’t match up with what God says about Himself in scripture.
Someone asked Flowers, if God determines all moral evil, can God still be a good God? I don’t want to answer that question. I think, it isn’t God though. This is just a hypothetical that could quote me as saying that God isn’t a good God. God is a good God though. If that was God, which it isn’t, then He would not be good. I don’t see a God, who would determine or decree moral evil, as being good. God allows evil. He doesn’t determine or decree it.
If you say, like White, that God determines or decrees everything, then you also, like White does, must say that God determines or decrees evil, including the rape of a child. Scripture does not teach this kind of determinism. God determines things, it’s true, but not moral evil.
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