Part One

Modern Textual Criticism

In a recent video, Mark Ward again attacked the biblical and historical position on the preservation of scripture.  He’ll surely have or find people who will support him.  They use modern versions and many of them don’t understand the issue.  He helps them stay in the dark on this.  Ward says that we, who he calls the advocates of his MT/TR story, cause division with true believers.  Division comes from a later, novel bibliology that contradicts the already established and believed position.  When someone changes a biblical position, the right way is showing how that the former position rests on wrong or no exegesis.  This isn’t what occurred.

What did occur was that modern textual criticism arose out of German rationalism.  Modern textual criticism in its roots traces back to German rationalism, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries.  A shift in theological thought characterized this period, where scholars began to apply rationalistic principles to biblical texts, leading to a more critical approach to scripture.

German Rationalism

German rationalism emerged as a philosophical movement that emphasized reason and empirical evidence over biblical exposition and theology. This intellectual climate encouraged scholars to scrutinize manuscripts of scripture with the same critical lens applied to other historical documents. The movement sought to understand the Bible not merely as a sacred text but as a collection of writings subject to human authorship and historical context.

The principles of German rationalism significantly influenced early textual critics such as Johann Griesbach, who is often regarded as one of the pioneers in this field. Griesbach’s work involved analyzing biblical manuscripts using methods that reflected rationalist thinking, which included questioning historical belief about divine inspiration and preservation of scripture. His approach laid the groundwork for subsequent textual critics like B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, who further developed these ideas in their own critical editions of the New Testament.

Continued Assessment of Mark Ward’s Attack

Perfect or Accurate Translation

Ward slants the MT/TR position to attempt to make it look like a joke and it’s advocates a bunch of clowns.  Then when he does it, he doesn’t allow anyone to come and correct his statements.  He next says that MT/TR supporters believe the King James Version (KJV) translators saved the Bible from Satanic counterfeits by making a “perfect translation” of “perfect Hebrew and Greek texts.”  I’ve never called the KJV a “perfect translation.”  The only time “perfect translation” occurs in my voluminous writings is when quoting and criticizing Peter Ruckman.  Besides that, I wrote this:

God doesn’t ever promise a perfect translation. Turretin, like me, believes that preservation occurs in the original languages because that is what Scripture teaches.

This is the only usage by me for “perfect translation.”  I use the language “accurate translation,” because I believe they could have translated the same Hebrew and Greek texts differently.  Most of the other MT/TR men would say the same as I.

Perfect Hebrew and Greek Texts

Ward also gets the “perfect Hebrew and Greek texts” wrong.  Mark Ward already knows this.  He caricatures our position to try to make it look silly.  That is mainly what he is doing.  The MT/TR position expresses the doctrine of perfect preservation of scripture, but doesn’t say that all the preserved words are either in one manuscript (text) or even printed edition.   The words are instead preserved and available to every generation of believer.  God did perfectly preserve the text of scripture and providentially provided a settled text by means of the same method of canonicity, the inward testimony or witness of the Holy Spirit through the church.

True churches received God’s Words.  They agreed on them.  This is a position taken from biblical presuppositions.  Just like churches agreed on Books, they agreed upon Words.  What I’m describing is the historical and biblical way of knowing what are the Words of God.  What I just described doesn’t sound as stupid as how Mark Ward characterized this part of his fabrication of a story.

Satanic Corruption

One thing Ward gets right is “spotting” the Satanic corruptions in other Bibles.  If you have a settled text based on God’s promises, then whatever differs from it is a corruption.  Two different words can’t both be right.  The text of scripture isn’t a multiple choice question.  If we are to live by every Word, then we must possess every Word.  It’s true that I believe that Satan wants to confuse through the offering of all these different “Bibles” and presenting hundreds of variations of text as possible.  This doesn’t fit scriptural presuppositions and it affects the authority of scripture.

Story of Ruckmanism

The second story Ward tells is his story of Ruckmanism.  Many times Mark Ward has called Ruckmanism more consistent than the MT/TR position.  Maybe he believes that, but it seems possible he says it to get under the skin of MT/TR people.  Ruckmanism doesn’t operate with scriptural presuppositions unless one considers an allegorical or very subjective interpretation of passages, which read into the Bible, to be scriptural.  Ward says that Ruckmanities originated their position as a reaction to lack of manuscript support in the MT/TR.

Peter Ruckman was born in 1921.  Ruckmanism came to and from him no earlier than then 1940s.  His view of the superiority of the King James Version arose from his presupposition that it was advanced revelation from God.  No one held that belief until Ruckman.  Peter Ruckman wrote in The Christian Handbook of Biblical Scholarship:

The King James Bible was ‘given by inspiration of God.’

Ruckman invented the position and then defended it by spiritualizing or allegorizing certain passages, reading into them his viewpoint on the King James Version.  Ruckmanism did not come from his view of the inferiority of the Textus Receptus Greek New Testament as a further iteration of that.

Ruckman’s Position

Since Ruckman believed God reinspired the King James Version, he rejected all other versions.  Even if they had the same textual basis as the King James Version, he would repudiate them.  To him, the English words were equal to the original manuscripts of scripture.  That view did not proceed from disagreement about underlying textual differences.  Ruckman denied the preservation of scripture through original language manuscripts and editions.

Several times, Ward says the Ruckman story is the inspiration of the translator “to recover the right reading.”  That’s false.  Ruckman did not believe, as Ward says in his Ruckman story, that the textual choices and translation choices of the King James Version were perfect.  To Ruckman and his followers, God didn’t inspire the right reading.  No, God inspired the English itself.  It wasn’t that Ruckman didn’t like the textual choices of Erasmus or that he relied on the Latin Vulgate.  Based on his presuppositions, he took a novel double inspiration position.

Support of the Majority of Manuscripts

Unlike the critical text, which has support of either a small minority of manuscripts or none at all, the majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts support almost the entirety of the Textus Receptus.  Only in very few places does the Textus Receptus have support of few extant Greek manuscripts, even though there is large extant Latin evidence in those few places.  In one place, one word has no extant manuscript evidence.  However, that does not mean no manuscript support.  TR editions are printed copies from sometimes a non extant manuscript.  It is preservation of scripture.

Not all the manuscripts relied upon by Theodore Beza survived the religious wars in Europe.  In one place where critical text advocates say he did conjectural emendation, he writes in Latin that he had the support of one Greek manuscript too.  I believe in preservation in the original languages.  However, people like Mark Ward are hypocritical in this, because they themselves support the best texts in many places rely on a translation.  His and their Septuagint view says that Jesus Himself quoted from the Septuagint.

More to Come