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Christians CAN learn Greek and Hebrew-they are not too hard! Part 5 of 7
The first four blog posts summarizing the argument in Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages explained the value of learning the Biblical languages. Clearly, knowing the languages is valuable. However, are they learnable? Aren’t Greek and Hebrew too hard to learn?
Actually, Greek and Hebrew are emphatically NOT too hard to learn. They are not too hard because of the following reasons, summarized from pages 40-51 of Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages:
1.) Christians have their Almighty Father to help them learn the languages.
2.) The self-discipline involved in learning the languages can contribute to their sanctification.
3.) Scripture is not God hiding Himself. The Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are God’s “revelation,” not God’s obscuring Himself.
4.) For century after century, Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek were the languages of the common man, not of the elite few.
5.) A very high percentage of Koine Greek speakers picked it up as a second language, while having a different native tongue. So can modern English speakers today.
6.) The Hebrew Old Testament was comprehensible to the simple rural folk that comprised the large majority of Israel.
7.) The Greek New Testament was comprehensible to the slaves and lower class people who constituted the large majority in the first century churches.
8.) It is harder to master modern English than it is to learn to read the Greek New Testament or Hebrew Old Testament.
9.) English speakers assume English is an easy language while Greek and Hebrew are allegedly difficult, but their assumption is invalid–because we have already mastered English, we do not think much about what was involved in learning the language. Someone starting from scratch would more easily learn to read Greek or Hebrew than he would learn to master modern English.
10.) The vocabulary of the average four-year-old child is larger than the number of words one must learn to gain a solid grasp of the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Old Testament.
11.) The inspiring examples of those who learned the languages as children, or without grammar books, or despite extremely pressing work commitments, or in the face of other hardships, show that learning the Biblical languages is eminently attainable.
12.) Numbers of countries world-wide are officially trilingual, while fifty-five nations are officially bilingual. There is no reason why people in these countries can master two or three languages in order to make money and efficiently function, but Christians cannot learn Greek and Hebrew in order to better know God and His Word.
The facts above are important, both to encourage people who are contemplating learning the languages and to refute Ruckmanite notions that Greek and Hebrew are impossibly difficult, so one must simply stick to English, not even use Greek or Hebrew lexica, and ignore the treasures God has laid up for His people in the Hebrew and Greek tongues.
–TDR
Learn Greek and Hebrew? Reasons Christians Should, part 4 of 7
Is it valuable for Christians learn the Biblical languages, Greek and Hebrew? Continuing to summarize Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages, Christians should learn Greek and Hebrew because:
1.) Greek and Hebrew help the believer to practice God’s Word and be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. The more closely one beholds Christ’s glory in the mirror of Scripture, the more conformed to His image the Christian becomes–and Greek and Hebrew help believers see that ineffable glory.
2.) Greek and Hebrew help the Christian teach God’s Word to others. Every one of the Greek and Hebrew words of Scripture is inerrant and infallible, and must be preached and taught to all of the Lord’s saints in true, Baptist churches.
3.) Greek and Hebrew help believers to compose quality Christian literature.
4.) Greek and Hebrew are essential for Baptists to make faithful translations of Scripture into the many world languages that still lack God’s holy Word. It may be tolerable for an evangelist / missionary to translate Scripture from English if he does not know Greek and Hebrew, but it is far, far better to translate from the original languages. The Ruckmanite / Riplingerite idea that one must translate foreign language Bibles from English rather than Greek and Hebrew is evil.
5.) Greek and Hebrew contribute to bold preaching.
6.) Greek and Hebrew powerfully aid in apologetics, evangelism, and in the refutation of error. Whether before crowds in a public debate or one-on-one at a door, knowing the Biblical languages helps in evangelism and in defending the faith.
7.) Greek and Hebrew help Christians defend the Authorized, King James Version. Attacks on the KJV by proponents of modern versions can be answered far more effectively if one knows Greek and Hebrew himself and so can respond much more effectively to allegations of mistranslation in the KJV.
Much greater detail appears in the first forty pages of Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages.
–TDR
Should Christians Learn the Biblical Languages? Part 3 of 7
Should Christians learn the Biblical languages, Greek and Hebrew? Continuing to summarize Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages, Christians should learn Greek and Hebrew because:
1.) Computer tools are insufficient substitutes for actually knowing the Biblical languages. There are many precious gems in Scripture that someone who knows the Biblical languages will see easily, while one who does not will likely miss entirely.
2.) Computer tools do not enable a student of Scripture to follow the syntax of the Biblical languages, or to catch markers punctuating a discourse.
3.) Computer tools are unlikely to enable a reader to grasp the exegetical significance of the Hebrew accent system.
4.) Sometimes computer tools are making exegetical, interpretive decisions, not simply identifying forms in the Biblical languages (compare the study of Matthew 6:13 in Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages).
5.) The student who does not know the Biblical languages will often find himself at the mercy of others as he studies the text fo Scripture. It is hard for him to accurately evaulate arguments made in scholarly commentaries, for example.
Romans 12:3; Ephesians 4:11; Deuteronomy 24:1-4; John 1:1; Genesis 1:1; Habakkuk 2:4, and other texts illustrate these truths. Questions such as whether all teachers are pastors; whether divorce can be justified; the exact affirmation of John 1:1 about Christ’s Deity; the emphasis in the first verse of the Old Testament; the theme of the entire book of Habakkuk and the entire book of Romans, and others are all greatly impacted by details of the Hebrew and Greek Biblical language text.
To understand these arguments, please read Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages up through page 23. I trust that the exegetical insight into the passages examined will be a blessing as well as illustrating the value of the Biblical languages.
–TDR
Should Christians Learn Hebrew and Greek? Part 1 of 7
I have composed a work explaining why Christians, and, specifically, Bible-believing, separatist King James Only Baptists should and can learn Hebrew and Greek, the Biblical languages. View the complete work here. While my first purpose in writing was to encourage my current crop of students, I believe that this work will be edifying to a broader readership, including those who never learn the Biblical languages. First, it exposits Biblical principles that relate to this topic, and, as an exposition and application of Scripture, has value. Second, it exposits a number of specific passages where controversy currently exists, enabling Christians to have Biblical answers in these inspired texts. Third, it explains the relationship between the original language text dictated by the Holy Spirit through holy men of old and translations. Can one call translations “inspired,” and if so, in what sense? Fourth, it answers the unbiblical extremism of Ruckman and Riplinger that is a stain to the advocates of the Textus Receptus and King James Bible. When peole want to find out what a Biblical word means, it is fine if they want to look at Webster’s English dictionary, but they should definitely be looking at a Hebrew or Greek lexicon, contrary to the advice of false teachers like Mrs. Gail Riplinger. Fifth, it can encourage Christians to see that learning the Biblical languages is not only desirable, but is an eminently attainable goal.
I am not planning to introduce the entire text of my study on these topics into the blog. I intend to summarize its arguments in several posts. Please read the actual work itself for more information. Learning Hebrew and Greek are desirable and attainable goals for Christians.
Please feel free to comment on this post or the rest of the posts in this series, but kindly read the work I am referencing first. Thank you.
–TDR
The Peter Van Kleeck/James White Debate on the Textus Receptus Being Equal to the New Testament Autographa
I’m happy to say that the biblical and historical position on the preservation of scripture is making headway across the world. Today people refer to this viewpoint or doctrine by different names, including providential preservation view, standard sacred text view, confessional bibliology view, verbal plenary preservation view, and the perfection preservation of scripture view. I think some even use a different label than those. Over twenty years ago now, our church published Thou Shalt Keep Them: A Biblical Theology of the Perfect Preservation of Scripture to provide an exposition of this position from scripture.
About a month or so ago, Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio contacted me to debate James White in Pennsylvania. I was glad he asked. This debate, I told him, I wanted to do, would probably do it, but I wasn’t sure if his date would work out for me. I asked him a follow-up about the costs of lodging and travel The next day he told me he needed to know right away so he asked Peter Van Kleeck, who agreed to the debate. I believe it was God’s will. I still want to debate White and wish I could have then, but I was happy that Van Kleeck would be the man to do it.
Along with his dad, Peter Van Kleeck Sr. (Brother Van Kleeck is Jr.), he helps the cause of this doctrine online and many various ways. Several men right now are writing excellent material to read along with what Thomas Ross and I write here and then in our book on preservation. I believe Van Kleeck easily won the debate against James White. I watched it all and have not been able to make the time to critique what occurred, but I don’t want to keep waiting to post the debate, which is right below here.
Every one of the primary defenders of this doctrine, who have contributed much to the defense of the biblical and historical doctrine, would probably do a little bit different in his approach, strategy, or tactics. James White did not answer Van Kleeck’s arguments. His arguments stood and since he took the affirmative, he won. I’m not going to say anymore except that I wish to include below this paragraph the takeaway of Jeff Riddle over the debate. What he said was so close to what I would have said or written about the debate that it could be identical. I don’t think I need to write more than what he said. I might say or write more in the future, but this is good for now.
After having completed this post, I began to listen to the Van Kleecks, dad and son, analyze the debate, starting and stopping and commenting. It is a very helpful exercise, so I’m going to include their videos so far here. They so far have spent two parts on Dr. Van Kleeck’s opening statement and then two parts on White’s opening. Here they are in order.
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.
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.
The Biblical Presuppositions for the Critical Text that Underlie the Modern Versions
Whatever people believe about the preservation of scripture, they operate according to presuppositions, either natural or supernatural. If they start with the Bible, they come to one view, and when they start outside of it, they come to a different one. Neither side is neutral. Their presuppositions direct their conclusions. They always do.
The Textual Confidence Collective just published part 3 at youtube, a part they called, “Its Theology.” They did not provide scriptural presuppositions of their own, but they attacked those of whom they call, “textual absolutists,” mixing together various factions of King James Version advocates. Their trajectory does not start from the Bible. As a result their position does not reflect the teaching of the Bible.
The four men of the collective attacked just four different preservation passages that underlie a biblical presupposition for the preservation of scripture. They attacked the preservation teaching of one in Psalms, 12:6-7, and three in Matthew, 5:18, 4:4, and 24:35, before they veered into personal anecdotes. I’ll come back Wednesday to write about the four passages they hit.
With an apparent desire for a supernatural presupposition for modern textual criticism, the collective used a basis I have never heard. These men called modern textual criticism, “general revelation.” Contemporary Christian psychology similarly says it relies on general revelation, equating it to human discovery. They elevate laboratory observations, clinical samples, to the level of revelation. In their definition, they say that revelation is general in is content, justifying the terminology. However, general revelation is general in its audience. God reveals it to everyone.
General revelation by its very nature is non-discoverable. By labeling God’s revelation, human discovery, they contradict its root meaning. If it is revelation, God reveals it. Man doesn’t discover it.
If modern textual criticism functions according to general revelation, everyone should see it. It wouldn’t narrow to a caste of experts operating on degrees of probability or speculation. The collective corrupts the meaning of general revelation to provide a supernatural presupposition. Presuppositions don’t wait for an outcome. They assume one before the outcome.
Listening to testimonies of the collective, at least two of the men said they gave up on the doctrine of preservation. They came back to a position of preservation that conformed bibliology to naturalistic presuppositions. They can provide a new definition, like they have with general revelation. This is akin to another historical example, the invention of a new doctrine of inerrancy by Benjamin Warfield in the late 19th century. No one had read that doctrine until Warfield invented it to conform to modern biblical criticism. He expressed an identical motive to the collective.
You can explore history for biblical or supernatural presuppositions for modern textual criticism. You won’t find any. They don’t start with a teaching of scripture. Just the opposite, they begin with a bias against a theological trajectory. Theology would skew their perspective. Rationalism, what the collective now calls “general revelation,” requires elimination of any theological bias when examining manuscripts.
The collective alters their expectations based on naturalistic presuppositions. One said something close to the following, “I have never preached the gospel in a perfect way, yet it is still the gospel. God still works through my imperfect communication to the salvation of souls. God can still work through an imperfect Bible in the same way. He doesn’t need a perfect text to do His work.” The collective anticipates the discovery of textual variation and to ward away unbelief, they capitulate to error in the Bible.
I couldn’t help but think of 1 Peter 1:23-25, where Peter ties the gospel to a perfect text of scripture:
23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: 25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
Actual physical elements, such as flesh and grass, corrupt, wither, and fall away. The “word of God” does not. Unlike those, the word of God endures. “This is the word by which the gospel is preached unto you.” Peter alternates between logos and rhema to indicate these are specific words, not word in general. Concrete words do not disappear like flesh, grass, and flowers do. His specific Words can be trusted. Their authority derives from this.
The Apostle Peter ties the gospel to perfection. The most common argument in evangelism against scripture is that it was only written by men. The idea of course is that men are not perfect, so scripture then cannot be trusted. I think I have preached the gospel in a perfect way. That confidence comes from the scripture from which that preaching comes. It is perfect. I’m an imperfect vessel, but I’m not preaching as a natural man, but a spiritual man. God uses me in a perfect way to the saving of men’s souls.
Some of what I heard from the collective some today call epistemological humility. I see it as a form of “voluntary humility” the Apostle Paul warned against in Colossians 2:18. John Gill writes:
True humility is an excellent grace; it is the clothing and ornament of a Christian; nor is there anything that makes a man more like Christ, than this grace; but in these men here respected, it was only the appearance of humility, it was not real; it was in things they devised and willed, not in things which God commanded, Christ required, or the Scriptures pointed at; they would have been thought to have been very lowly and humble, and to have a great consciousness of their own vileness and unworthiness to draw nigh to Christ the Mediator immediately, and by him to God; wherefore in pretence of great humility, they proposed to make use of angels as mediators with Christ; whereby Christ, the only Mediator between God and man, would be removed out of sight and use; and that humble boldness and holy confidence with God at the throne of grace, through Christ, which believers are allowed to use, would be discouraged and destroyed, and the saints be in danger as to the outward view of things, and in all human appearance of losing their reward.
This imperfect gospel presentation is only a pretense of great humility, as someone having a great consciousness of his own vileness and unworthiness. Humility should come in holy confidence, trusting that God would do what He said He would do.
Mark Ward said that he could not trust an interpretation of Psalm 12:7 he had never read from the entire history of the church. He referred to “thou shalt preserve them” (12:7b) as meaning the words of scripture. I can join Ward in doubting a brand new interpretation of one part of a verse. This does not debunk, “Thou shalt keep them.”
I have never read the doctrine of preservation proposed by contemporary evangelical textual criticism in the entire history of the church. They function in an entire doctrinal category against what true believers have taught on preservation. Can he and the rest of the collective join me by taking the theological presuppositions of God’s people for its entire history?
To Be Continued
If the Perfectly Preserved Greek New Testament Is the Textus Receptus, Which TR Edition Is It? Pt. 2
Many who looked at part one probably did not read it, but scrolled through the post to see if I answered the question, just to locate the particular Textus Receptus (TR) edition. They generally don’t care what the Bible says about this issue. They’ve made up their minds. Even if they hear a verse on the preservation of scripture, they will assume it conforms to textual criticism in some way. I’m sure they were not satisfied with the answer that the Words of God were perfectly preserved in the TR. That is what I believe, have taught, and explained in that first post. However, I wasn’t done. I’m going to give more clarity for which I didn’t have time or space.
In part one I said that I believe that scripture teaches that God preserved Words, not paper, ink, or a perfect single copy that made its way down through history. God made sure His people would have His Words available to live by. It is akin to canonicity, a doctrine that almost every knowing believer would say he holds. Some believers don’t know enough to say what they think on canonicity. I’ve written a lot about it on this blog, but normally professing Christians relate canonicity to the sixty-six books of the Bible, a canonicity of books. Scripture doesn’t teach a canonicity of books. It is an application of a canonicity of Words.
Along with the thoughts about the perfect preservation of scripture, perhaps you wondered if at any one time, someone would or could know that he held a perfect book in his hands. From what we read in history, that is how Christians have thought about the Bible. I remember first hearing the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture and thinking that it related to the Bible I used. Any other belief would not have occurred to me.
The condition of all of God’s Words perfectly in one printed text has been given the bibliological title of a settled text. Scripture also teaches a settled text to the extent that it was possible someone could add or take away from the Words (Rev 22:18-19; Dt 12:32), that is, they could corrupt them. You cannot add or take away a word from a text that isn’t settled. The Bible assumes a settled text. This is scripture teaching its doctrine of canonicity.
When we get to a period after the invention of the moveable type printing press, believers then expressed a belief in a perfect Bible in the copies (the apographa) that they held. They continued printing editions of the TR that were nearly identical, especially next to a standard of variation acceptable to modern critical text proponents. I’m not saying they were identical. I own a Scrivener’s Annotated Greek New Testament. However, all the Words were available to believers.
Editions of the Textus Receptus were published by various men in 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1534, 1535, 1546, 1549, 1550, 1551, 1565, 1567, 1580, 1582, 1589, 1590, 1598, 1604, 1624, 1633, 1641, and 1679. I’m not going to get into the details of these, but several of these editions are nearly identical. The generations of believers between 1516 and 1679 possessed the Words of God of the New Testament. They stopped publishing the Greek New Testament essentially after the King James Version became the standard for the English speaking people. Not another edition of the TR was published again until the Oxford Edition in 1825, which was a Greek text with the Words that underlie the King James Version, similar to Scrivener’s in 1894. Believers had settled on the Words of the New Testament.
I believe the underlying Hebrew and Greek Words behind the King James Version represent the settled text, God’s perfectly preserved Words. I like to say, “They had to translate from something.” Commentators during those centuries had a Hebrew and Greek text. Pastors studied an available original language text to feed their churches. This is seen in a myriad of sermon volumes and commentaries in the 16th to 19th centuries.
Scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit would lead the saints to receive the Words the Father gave the Son to give to them (Jn 16:13; 17:8). Because believers are to live by every one of them, then they can know with certainty where the canonical Words of God are (Mt 4:4; Rev 22:18-19) and are going to be judged by them at the last day (Jn 12:48). This contradicts a modern critical text view, a lost text in continuous need of restoration.
True believers received the TR itself and the translations from which it came. They received the TR and its translations exclusively. Through God’s people, the Holy Spirit directed to this one text and none other.
The Uncertainty of the “Textual Confidence” View of Preservation of Scripture
For those reading, next week either Monday or Wednesday, I will provide as concise an answer as possible to the question, “Which TR?” I’ve answered this question before several times, but it’s usually just ignored, never answered. I’ve never had it answered. It’s asked as a gotcha question, then I give the answer, followed by silence. I’m going to try to do the best I’ve ever done at the answer.
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A group of four men calling themselves The Textual Confidence Collective recorded seven podcasts for youtube. These men posted their first on Monday, July 11, 2022. The purpose of their gathering in Texas for these recordings was to persuade people of a new position on preservation of scripture. They call it “textual confidence.” They’ve given their own new position an enticing or attractive label, but it is still new.
Confidence sounds very good. Confidence in Collective parlance is akin to the word “trust.” I believe that’s what they mean by “confidence.” Placing confidence in someone or something is trusting it or trusting in it. In the scriptural use of the word “trust,” God does not call for confidence or trust in the uncertain. Uncertainty also does not bring biblical trust. Confidence relates to God, Who is always certain.
As a label, “Textual Confidence” definitely sounds superior to “Textual Doubt.” The four men testify they want to help Christians have confidence in the underlying text of their English translation of the Bible. They say it’s not a sure, settled text, and unlike their opponents, they’re honest. This admission of less than one hundred percent surety, they argue, engenders confidence. The text of scripture is something pure like Tide detergent, not 100%, but still good.
The Collective Confidence falls short of certainty. Three of the men replaced certainty with what they call confidence. The discovery of textual variants, that is, variations in hand copies, destroyed their certainty. This shows they do not stand on biblical presuppositions. They also listened to men who contradicted certainty. Now they are confident in the text without certainty about the words. They reject certainty and also want to push their uncertainty on others, bringing every church in the world to the same position, what they call “unity.”
The Collective also says they’re just telling the truth in contrast to people with differing positions, deceived or lying. Those who take their view — according to them — are very nice, super balanced, great with their rhetorical tone compared to the others. Part of this, they say about themselves, is their focus on Jesus and the gospel rather than on the text of scripture. This implies that supporters of other positions than theirs elevate the Bible above Jesus in an unbalanced and perverted way. The latter is an example of their tone.
Jesus said, “Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17). Delivering the teaching of scripture is truth. What the Bible says about itself is true. The existence of textual variants does not change the biblical doctrine of the preservation of scripture.
Many people have suffered for believing something different than they once did, including from family. No one will invite me to the same functions as Mark Ward. Certain doors close depending on what you believe. If you believe an error, the same thing will occur. I don’t condone a kind of mean or vicious form of separation that just cuts people off. I don’t practice that kind of separation either. Many evangelicals practice like this, even though they don’t even believe in biblical separation. Facing exclusion though doesn’t make a position right.
Two of the Collective testified to suffering from parents and siblings for changing positions on the Bible. I don’t think someone should hang on to a false position because they don’t want to lose their family. The Collective, however, treats this suffering as proof their new position is true and right. It doesn’t prove either position. No one should come to a conclusion for what’s right by comparing who suffers the most. This is common, however, among modern version proponents.
The Collective distinguishes their view from what they present as two false extremes, “textual skepticism” and “textual absolutism.” The men used Bart Ehrman as an example of the former. They weren’t clear who was the former, but I’m confident they’re talking about a wide range of King James Version and textus receptus advocates, anyone who is certain about the text of scripture.
A strong statement of the first podcast is that skepticism and absolutism come from the same place or are closer than what the audience may expect. The Collective says that an absolutist perspective turns people into skeptics more than skeptics do because of their defense of “every iota across the board.” I’m skeptical about this point, because the certainty that brings trust in scripture comes from what the Bible says about itself. Jesus defended every iota across the board.
Should people belief in the words of scripture as absolute, what someone might say is without variableness or shadow of turning? In other words, does the Word of God reflect the nature of God and its immutability? That is what scripture says about itself and it is what our spiritual forefathers passed down to us.
Modern textual criticism does not and has not increased trust in the inerrancy and authority of the Word of God. Since I’ve been alive, as the prominence of textual criticism grows, trust in scripture diminishes. Scriptural presuppositions on the other hand provide increasing spiritual strength through believing what God said, trusting in the Word of God as absolute authority. Greater faith proceeds from certainty, not uncertainty.
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