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God’s Perfect Preservation of the Old Testament Hebrew Text and the King James Version (Part Two)
Most talk about the text of the Bible focuses on the New Testament. The Old Testament is much larger and yet there is less variation in extant copies of the Old Testament than the New. As well, more Christian scholars know the Greek than the Hebrew, and when they know the Hebrew, they also know the Greek better.
Scripture teaches the preservation of all of scripture in the original languages, the languages in which scripture was written. Even if the conversation mainly centers on the New Testament, God preserved the Old Testament perfectly too. In recent days, some are talking more about the Old Testament again. Our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them, addressed the preservation of the Old Testament and the variation of a Hebrew critical text.
No Translation Above Preserved Hebrew Text
I think you would be right to detect hypocrisy in many of those who wish to alter the preserved Hebrew text of the Old Testament with a Greek, Latin, or Syriac translation. Not necessarily in this order, but, first, it flies in the face of “manuscript evidence.” It’s not because there isn’t evidence — around three hundred extant ancient handwritten copies of the Hebrew Masoretic text exist. Second, critical text advocates savagely attack those who identify preservation in a translation. I don’t believe God preserved His words in a translation, but they actually do in their underlying Old Testament text for the modern versions.
In a related issue, the same critical text supporters most often say that Jesus quoted from a Greek translation of the Old Testament, “the Septuagint.” As someone reads the references or mentions of the Old Testament by Jesus in the Gospels, he will notice that there are not exact quotations of the Hebrew Masoretic text. Even when you compare the English translation of the Hebrew in the Old Testament passage and compare it with the English translation of the Greek in the New Testament, they won’t match exactly most of the time. What was happening in these passages? Is this evidence that we don’t have an identical text to them?
View of the Septuagint
It is a popular and false notion that Christians in the first century used a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, called the Septuagint, as their scriptures, so they quoted from it. All the New Testament “quotations” of the Old Testament have at least minor variants from the various editions of the Septuagint in all but one place: a quote in Matthew 21:16 is identical to a part of Psalm 8:3 in Ralf’s edition of the Septuagint.
When you read the New Testament and find the 320 or so usages or allusions to the Old Testament in it, you will see that they are not identical. Some might explain that as a translation of a translation, that is, the Old Testament, Hebrew to English, and the New Testament, Hebrew to Greek to English, differences will occur by a sheer dissipation of a third language. Online and in other locations you can compare an English translation of the New Testament quotations of the Old Testament with an English translation of one edition of the Septuagint and one of the Hebrew Masoretic to compare the latter two with the first.
I see value in the Septuagint, whichever edition, since there are several. Those various editions give larger sample sizes of Greek usage for meaning and syntax for understanding the Greek biblical language of the New Testament. They can help with the study of both the Old and New Testaments. As an example, Jewish translators translated the Old Testament Hebrew word almah in Isaiah 7:14 parthenos, which is the specific Greek word for “virgin,” not “young woman.” All of this answers the question, “How would people have understood the word, phrase, or sentence who heard it in that day?”
What Did New Testament Authors Do?
The mentions of the Old Testament in the New are most often not verbatim quotations of the Hebrew. That’s not what the New Testament authors were doing. They were serious about the preservation of the Old Testament as seen in the regular use of the words, “it is written.” This is a perfect passive verb that says passage continues written. The writing of the passage was complete with the results of that writing ongoing. This communicates the preservation of scripture.
The New Testament authors knew the Old Testament well, so they didn’t need a Greek translation of it. The New Testament writers could do their own translation of a Hebrew text. They most often, however, did a “targum,” some quoting and some paraphrasing from memory and also deliberately using the words of the text to make their theological or practical point from the Bible. Preachers continue to do this today, sometimes quoting directly from a translation and other times making an allusion or reference to the passage.
Reliance on the Septuagint?
What I’m explaining about “targumming” is the explanation of John Owen and others through history as to the variation between the Old Testament Hebrew and the Greek or English translation. Some references to the Old Testament are closer to an edition of the Septuagint than the Hebrew Masoretic text, sometimes almost identical. Were the scriptural authors relying on a Septuagint, which predated the New Testament?
If New Testament authors relied on what we know of the Greek Septuagint today, then they depended on a corrupt edition or version of scripture. Some give this as an argument for the validation of a corrupt text. They say that God doesn’t care about the very words of the Bible, just its message. Instead, God kept the message very intact, but not the exact words. In addition, they often say that the Septuagint is evidence for the acceptance of something short of a perfect text. These approaches to the Septuagint are mere theories founded on faulty presuppositions.
John Owen also referred to this similarity between the usages of the New Testament authors with a translation of the Greek Old Testament, such as the Septuagint. He said that the likely explanation was that Christians adapted the text of the Septuagint to the New Testament quotations out of respect of Jesus and the New Testament authors. Others have echoed that down through history. Owen wasn’t alone. It is a possibility.
John Owen
In Owen’s first volume in his three thousand page Hebrews commentary, he spends a few pages speaking on the Septuagint and the concept of quotations from it. Owen writes (pp. 67-68):
Concerning these, and some other places, many confidently affirm, that the apostle waved the original, and reported the words from the translation of the LXX. . . . [T]his boldness in correcting the text, and fancying without proof, testimony, or probability, of other ancient copies of the Scripture of the Old Testament, differing in many things from them which alone remain, and which indeed were ever in the world, may quickly prove pernicious to the church of God. . . .
[I]t is highly probable, that the apostle, according to his wonted manner, which appears in almost all the citations used by him in this epistle, reporting the sense and import of the places, in words of his own, the Christian transcribers of the Greek Bible inserted his expressions into the text, either as judging them a more proper version of the original, (whereof they were ignorant) than that of the LXX., or out of a preposterous zeal to take away the appearance of a diversity between the text and the apostle’s citation of it.
And thus in those testimonies where there is a real variation from the Hebrew original, the apostle took not his words from the translation of the LXX. but his words were afterwards inserted into that translation.
Theories of Men Versus the Promises of God
Theories of men should not upend or variate the promises of God. God’s promises stand. He promised to preserve the original language text. We should believe it. No one should believe that Jesus or one of the apostles quoted from a corrupted Greek translation. That contradicts the biblical doctrine of the preservation of scripture. Other answers exist.
Whatever position someone takes on the Septuagint, it should not contradict what God already said He would do. There is no authority to historical theories based on no or tenuous evidence at best. The best explanation is one that continues a high view of scripture. One should not rely on one of the editions of the Greek Septuagint for deciding what scripture is. It should not correct the received Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Instead, everyone should believe what God said He would do and acknowledge its fulfillment in history.
Answering Mark Ward’s Last Attack on Preservation of Scripture
Mark Ward summarized almost all of his views on the issue of the preservation of scripture towards the end of his most recent video (here next is a transcript):
Stories?
King James Onlyists in my experience tend to tell themselves one of two neat and tidy stories: a Masoretic Text/TR story or a Ruckmanite story. The MT/TR story goes like this. Once upon a time God inspired the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament and He promised in Psalm 12 and Matthew 5 to preserve them perfectly down to the jot and tittle. Satan came along and produced counterfeits of the Greek New Testament, but thankfully the King James Version translators perfectly translated the perfect Hebrew and Greek texts once and for all. And it’s easy to spot the terrible Satanic corruptions in other Bibles.
When difficulties and inconsistencies are pointed out, however, in this MT/TR story, as I’ve done in this video, it tends to turn into the Ruckmanite story, which goes like this. Once upon a time God gave special blessings to the King James Translators so that all of their textual choices and all of their translation choices were perfect. If there are a few places in the King James that have no textual support in the Greek or the Hebrew manuscripts, that’s okay because God inspired the King James Translators to choose the right reading. If there are a few places in the King James Version where the translators actually followed readings taken from Erasmus that were translated from the Vulgate, that’s okay because God inspired the King James translators to recover the right reading.
The Ward Viewpoint
Now I told the pastor who sent me some of these examples that I don’t enjoy having to point out these difficulties and complexities. But let me build another bridge of trust, the one that I myself use all the time in my Bible study travels. Who gave us the situation in which we have incredible well preserved copies of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament, but there are numerous minor uncertainties and difficulties? Who gave us a world in which perfect translation between languages is impossible?
Who inspired the New Testament apostles to quote a Greek translation of the Old Testament rather than make new and doubtless perfect translations of the Hebrew? (And by the way I draw that last question directly from the King James Translators and their preface.) Who chose not to give us inspired translators, yeah, even a pope to give the best translation in each language his official imprimatur, the seal of divine approval?
Who gave us a Bible that comes in two very different languages, Hebrew and Greek, and actually Aramaic, three, and would therefore require translation in the first place? Who gave us a Bible over the course of 1500 years instead of all at once? Who chose to commit His precious Word to fragile papyrus and sheepskin?
Who gave us the excellent but not perfect situation we’re in? But who told us that one day the perfect would come that we would know even as also we are known? I think you know the answer to my not so rhetorical questions. God did all of these things, and He is good. He is my refuge even when I don’t understand His choices.
Overall Observations and Criticisms of Ward’s Statements
Ward’s little speech makes it easier to deal with what he thinks and says. First, I have some overall observations or criticisms. One, Ward caricatures and misrepresents especially the MT/TR position, and even gets wrong how Ruckmanism arose. He’s not telling the truth. Why do his followers give him a pass on this?
Two, Ward lumps the MT/TR people together with the Ruckmanites. I don’t know if he thinks this, or just conveniently tells it as a story. Either way, it is false. The MT/TR position arises from scripture like he says (albeit in a mocking way), but it also mirrors historic Christian doctrine as seen in creeds, confessions, and many other writings. His view did not exist among professing believers until the 19th century. This has been established, but Mark Ward and others like him just ignore it for a lie of a story. I will return to this point later.
Three, do consider that Mark Ward uses the word “story” to describe MT/TR people. Ward knows what words mean and he knows that the popular usage of “story” today is fiction. Notice then when he starts talking about his view, he calls it a “bridge of trust” and a “situation.” He doesn’t call that another story, a third story as the first two are stories.
Ward on Truth Serum
It seems to me that Ward has “lost it.” His primary target essentially rejects what he says, and he’s lost it, perhaps because of that. And then because he’s lost it, he did something I have not seen him do. I’m not saying he’s never done it, but I’ve never seen it myself. Mark Ward takes truth serum. He plainly states his viewpoint as I’ve never heard him. Ward acknowledges a lack of perfection of the Bible, based not on scriptural doctrine but on his experience. His stark confession reminds me of two examples.
In the last year, I saw a clip of Bill Maher in which he says that all pro-choice people know abortion is murder. He said he knows abortion is murder and he is fine with that. Maher’s two guest sat with jaws dropping at the sheer admission. In one sense, I can respect Maher because at least he tells the truth about his position on abortion. Another popular figure, Bernie Sanders, just comes out and in an obvious way supports socialism. He states his leftist positions without hiding them. Mark Ward does the same in this latest video like no other time.
I think it is important that someone hear what Ward says and understands what’s wrong with it. This is a teaching moment for a true bibliology. Ward admits what a big chunk of his side thinks. It is akin to neo-orthodoxy, not a biblical position. When Bart Ehrman came to this realization, it turned him apostate, which is a danger. I’m going to go through the above paragraphs by Ward and give a scriptural, truthful analysis to it. He’s wrong in so many ways.
First, what’s wrong with Ward’s MT/TR story?
“Neat and Tidy”
Mark Ward mocks the idea of a “neat and tidy” position. Don’t miss that. He would have his audience believe that the truth is not so neat and tidy. To him this is worth mocking with his articulation. The neatness and tidiness of the MT/TR position is that, one, God said He would preserve every Word He inspired and, two, He did it. That is neat and tidy. Modern version onlyists, critical text supporters are in a never-ending quest to improve the text of scripture. God didn’t preserve it perfectly — it’s really disorderly and messy. If you won’t embrace that, Ward will mock you for it.
“Tells Themselves”
Ward says that MT/TR people tell themselves a story. It’s as if they are repeating this story as a mantra, abracadabra and suddenly it will be true, because they keep telling it to themselves. It’s like spinning a talisman in one’s pocket or a lucky rabbit’s foot. “Just keep telling yourself.” He’s the nice guy regularly using this type of derogatory style. Yet, he won’t allow his opposition to comment on his constant youtube presentations on the subject. It gives the impression that everyone agrees. Just because someone tells himself something doesn’t make it true. When God says it, it is true.
“Once Upon a Time”
“Once upon a time” again is a reference to make believe or fantasy. It’s like opening up Cinderella as an actual book of history. He equates the truth with something that is a fable. Ward treats historical and scriptural doctrine like it is a fable.
It is difficult to separate some of what Mark Ward says from other of what he says. He bunches inspiration of scripture into his storybook mode. Is that a story too? I don’t think he means to do that, but it is the net result of this style of criticism he employs. Inspiration is supernatural. Our reason for believing inspiration is the inspired Bible itself. I believe Ward accepts this, but the attacks on inspiration from the neo-orthodox are the same as those on preservation. They question the veracity of inspiration based on so-called external evidence and reject the biblical teaching on inspiration.
Scriptural Presuppositions
Ward is correct that MT/TR folk presuppose perfect preservation based upon preservation passages in scripture. This wasn’t odd through Christian history and yet it is now, because of the attack on the doctrine mainly in the last thirty or so years. Ward is part of this attack. I’m using him here as a representative. He cherry picks two chapters for the simplicity of his storybook, Psalm 12 and Matthew 5. There are numbers of passages that teach preservation, as many or more than teach inspiration. This is presuppositionalism. We presuppose God fulfilled what He said. What’s wrong with that?
Is the teaching of preservation a story as in a storybook? True Christians have long believed it. The doctrine of the perfect preservation of scripture comes from the Bible. I and others didn’t invent this. Many people in the pews of churches believe this too. They see it in the Bible and it is not buttressed only by Psalm 12 and Matthew 5. There are many others (some of which we exposed in our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them).
Ward himself recently started taking on scripture to support his doctrine of “edification requires intelligibility,” teaching it on a level unprecedented in the history of biblical doctrine. People like myself and others support his notion, even if we question his reliance on 1 Corinthians 14, a passage on using the known language of the congregation rather than gibberish. In other words, it’s a stretch to make so much of that principle due to even fifty to one hundred of his “false friends.”
Satan Counterfeiting
Next Ward says that MT/TR people assert that Satan took on the strategy of counterfeiting the MT/TR. Nope. Not true. Satan attacks scripture, yes. You see that in classic passages like Genesis 3 and Matthew 4. It’s also something seen in 2 Peter 3, where false teachers wrest the scripture. Also, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2, that false teachers spread a false epistle with teaching contradictory to his, feigning as though it was from him.
MT/TR people like myself would agree that the attack by Satan starts by attacking the doctrine of preservation. Satan also wants people to be unsure, have doubt, about the perfection of scripture. This takes away from authority. Rather than a settled text, it is a disorderly and messy one that is uncertain. Mark Ward calls this confidence. It is a relative term, meaning something like 95% to 98%, what I like to say is less pure than tide detergent.
More to Come
A Movement Back to the Scriptural and Historical Belief of the Means of the Preservation of Scripture and God’s Sovereignty over His Written Words
In 2003 our church published, Thou Shalt Keep Them, a Biblical Theology of the Perfect Preservation of Scripture (if you prefer Amazon, then here). When you might read the reviews, it reflects the good reviews. The bad ones are because of someone who hates the position or got the kindle edition, which is not a great format of the book. The book focuses on the crux of the issue on versions, that is, what does the Bible teach about its own preservation?
If God says He will preserve His Word, then believers will expect that to come true. They believe what God said He would do. God always does what He says He will do. That issue starts and ends there. Being a believer means believing scripture about scripture.
Our church planned to write a second book that would flesh out the practical ramifications of what God said. It would probably add some further teaching on preservation not found in the first book. The first one did not cover every single preservation passage, especially leaving out Isaiah 59:21 and Revelation 22:18-19. Those two need covering too. Also the second would likely include a chapter on the testimony of the Holy Spirit to Scripture.
To start, someone should ask, “What does the Bible teach about preservation of scripture?” Then, “what does God promise that He will preserve?” After that, “how does God say that He will preserve His Word? Put in another way, “What is the means by which God said He would preserve His Word?”
Most evangelicals and fundamentalists say the Bible is silent on how it is preserved. This matters. It is major. Our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them, explains the means of preservation. God says how. No one answered this point in Thou Shalt Keep Them. I understand. No critical text or multiple version person has an answer.
Our blog here gives you an index with all the articles written on the preservation of scripture and associated doctrines up until about two years ago, when I finished that index. Besides the book we wrote, it is a one stop shop on many different facets of the issue.
Thomas Ross includes a section at faithsaves.net on the preservation of scripture. He wrote many posts here on that doctrine too (see those with “T” next to them). He also produced a video course on the the doctrine of preservation and related doctrines.
I did not start a received text movement. Jesus did that. However, I have been at the forefront of a recent one. You will see Thomas Ross and I with our own heading in a Wikipedia article, titled, “Verbal Plenary Preservation.” Websites with our view mention our book (here, here). Men quote the book on the subject (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Oxford Handbook of the Bible quotes Thou Shalt Keep Them.
The received text movement continues to grow under the following names or titles: Traditional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Standard Sacred Text, and Confessional Bibliology. I agree with these positions and the men who propagate them. You can now find sites with reading and materials from these, such as Confessional Bibliology, Standard Sacred Text, Text and Translation, and Trinitarian Bible Society. Jeff Riddle writes regularly on this doctrine at Stylos and makes video presentations or podcasts at his Word Magazine youtube site. You can find articles at YoungTextlessandReformed and its podcast. Also see textusreceptus.com.
The biblical and historical position moves forward in various evangelical denominations, including the Unaffiliated and Independent Baptists, certain Southern Baptists, Bible Churches, Free, Orthodox, and Bible Presbyterians, Reformed Baptists, and Free Churches. I’m sure there are more. Feel free to inform me. England has many defenders of the scriptural and historical position on preservation, many in the fellowship of Peter Masters and Metropolitan Tabernacle.
I write, “God’s Sovereignty Over His Words,” because this represents Protestant and Baptist Confessions of Faith. If God keeps believers in salvation, He surely can and will keep His Words. The former proceeds from the latter.
Some new books have been written in the last few years. I would hope to read some or all of these as soon as possible. I’ve read the following book by Milne on kindle. Peter Van Kleeck writes at the Standard Sacred Text website above. I hope these men will think themselves free to refer to Thomas Ross and I by name. We should strengthen one another on this doctrine.
2017
Has the Bible been kept pure? The Westminster Confession of Faith and the providential preservation of Scripture, by Garnet Howard Milne
2021
A Philosophical Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text: Leveraging Reformed Epistemology in the Quest for a Standard English Version of the Bible, by Peter Van Kleeck, Jr.
An Exegetical Grounding For A Standard Sacred Text: Toward the Formulation of a Systematic Theology of Providential Preservation, by Peter Van Kleeck, Sr.
2022
A Theological Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text: An Apologetic Bibliology in Favor of the Authorized Version, by Peter Van Kleeck, Sr. and Jr.
Why I Preach from the Received Text: An Anthology of Essays by Reformed Ministers
You have much to read and think about. These resources will provide much to understand and take the biblical and historical position on the preservation of scripture against the attack by modern textual criticism. Let us keep the momentum going for the glory of the Lord.
Means to Personal Growth: How I Grow as a Person
We’re all going to die and personal growth will then end. At what point does personal growth stop? The older you get, the less years you have left, and maybe it doesn’t matter any more. I don’t know how much time I have left. It could be twenty years. It could be twenty seconds.
Cooperation with God’s Working
Bible Reading
Prayer
Fellowship
Practice
Writing
Reading
An Orthodox View of Our English Bibles? Considering Fred Butler’s KJVO Book and the Doctrine of Preservation
Whenever I read the word, “Bibles,” I get a bit of a chill down my spine. Which Bible is the right Bible if there are plural Bibles, not singular Bible? Isn’t there just one? Why are we still producing more and different Bibles? How many are there? What I’m describing is the biggest issue today with translations, not the King James Version, but now it gets little to no coverage compared to other so-called problems.
Many anti-KJVO books have been written, most often, and this continues to be the case with Butler’s book, calling KJVO (King James Version Onlyism) “dangerous.” It’s true that many KJV Onlyists do not believe a scriptural bibliology. I would contend that most are sound, but it’s true also that many are not. That would be a worthwhile criticism of KJVO, confronting those who do not believe in the preservation of scripture, who do not believe God preserved His Words in the original languages, apparently necessitating God’s correction of them in an English translation. This happens to be the same doctrinal position as Fred Butler. He just deals with the consequences of that belief in a different way.
I don’t know how “dangerous” it is to believe in a single Bible of which translation for English speaking people is the King James Version. How will that get someone in trouble? What’s the danger? Even though Butler calls the position dangerous, he doesn’t explain why anywhere in his book, which I find is most often the case with books of this kind. In general, KJVO take the general position that there is only one Bible, which there is. That is a biblical, logical, and historical position: one Bible. Several Bibles is not.
In his preface, recounting his own personal journey away from the King James Version, Butler says,
I found myself helping them [speaking of others also departing] think critically through KJVO argumentation, as well as develop an orthodox view of our English Bibles.
Why and how is it orthodox to refer to the Bible in the plural, “Bibles”? Again, there is only one Bible, and historically Christians have believed in only one. Some type of multiple-versionism, I believe, creates far more confusion and danger. Usually orthodoxy refers to doctrine. Is the doctrine behind multiple versions and textual criticism orthodox? It’s popular today, but not orthodox.
I’m not going to debunk most of the arguments of Butler’s book. His book is exploring zero new territory others cover much more than he. He mainly addresses KJVO advocates of either double inspiration or English preservationism, very low hanging fruit. He barely to if-at-all distinguishes one view from another. He lumps Peter Ruckman and Gail Riplinger with Edward Hills, D. A. Waite, and David Cloud. He uses a very broad brush. I would not anticipate his persuading one person to his position.
One unique argument I had never read was that KJVO are not Calvinist. The idea here is that if you’re not a Calvinist, then you must be wrong in this position on the Bible. The biggest movement of those who exclusively use the KJV as an English translation are Calvinists. The Westminster Confession and London Baptist Confession, as well as many of these Calvinist confessions, hold to the perfect preservation of scripture, which is a one Bible position.
An orthodox view should be a scriptural view. Butler doesn’t establish any kind of biblical and historical view of the preservation of scripture. Butler writes this:
It is true God calls us to have faith, but our faith is grounded upon objective truth.
What is objective truth? Is textual criticism objective truth? No way, and he doesn’t make that connection. It can’t be made. Scripture is the truth on which bibliological positions stand. Butler takes the view agreed by modern evangelicalism, not based upon scripture. He has not faced a bit of criticism from the evangelicals who interview him. He should sit down for a talk with someone who does not take his position to see how his arguments will stand up.
Most people who use the King James believe that it is an accurate translation of a preserved original language text. Obviously, the King James Version itself has changed since 1611. KJV supporters know that. This indicates that they believe that the preservation of scripture occurs in the Hebrew and Greek text. Butler writes:
The Bible never claims God’s Word is only found in one translation. KJV onlyism is unsupported by the Bible itself.
Maybe that confronts Ruckmanism, but I’ve never heard a single person attempt to defend single-translationism from the Bible. The French, Spanish, Russian, etc. can all have a translation from the same text as the King James Version. Butler knows this, but he makes this claim anyway, and it’s a strawman. It doesn’t help anyone. More than anything it gives fresh meat to evangelical friends in an evangelical bubble. On the other hand, he never lays out what the Bible does claim.
There are varied views on preservation among evangelicals. I don’t know of one modern version supporter, who believes in perfect preservation of scripture. Daniel Wallace doesn’t believe scripture teaches the preservation of scripture and he has many supporters. That is now a very common view. He believes in the preservation of the Word, but not the Words. Butler takes a view that might be the most common for evangelicals. Most evangelicals in the pew don’t know this position, but perhaps the majority of conservative evangelical leaders take the position Butler describes:
Yes, I believe God preserves His Word, but I believe it is in the totality of all the available manuscript evidence, variants and copyist errors included.
Try to find that in historical bibliological literature. You won’t find it. It really is a reactionary position to textual criticism among evangelicals. It isn’t a biblical position. Nowhere does the Bible teach it. It’s very much like what you might read on creation today. Confronted with science, professing Christians invent a day age theory for old earth creationism.
Almost all of what Butler finds are theologians, often unbelieving ones, willing to admit that there are copyist errors, which produce textual variants. He and others act like KJVO don’t know that or don’t believe it happened. The history of God’s preservation of scripture is not the same parchment and ink making its way down through time in a pristine condition. God preserved His Words. This physical copy view is not taught in the Bible and it’s only made up as a straw man to create a faux argument.
When you read Butler’s view in his above quote, look carefully at what he says. First, he says God preserves His Word, not God preserved, completed action, like Jesus said, “It is written,” in the perfect tense. He doesn’t say “Words,” because He would never say that. It’s God’s Word in a very ambiguous sense. Jesus said, my words shall not pass away (Matthew 24:35). Where does the Bible or even history present this “totality of available manuscript evidence” position?
For Butler the text isn’t settled, like the Bible speaks about itself. He doesn’t know what the Words are. He doesn’t know all of the ones by which He is to live by. I would contend he doesn’t even believe the position he espouses. How would he account for new evidence, which is still coming? What does he do with a passage like 1 Samuel 13:1? I’ve never read an evangelical, who takes his position, who believes that we possess a manuscript with the very words of that verse.
What motivated me to write this post was one aspect of Butler’s book and that is his attack on the teaching of preservation in scripture. Among everything that he writes, I want to deal only with Psalm 12:6-7, mainly to show how men like him deal with these preservation texts. He writes:
The one passage that nearly all KJVO advocates use for establishing the promise argument is Psalm 12:6,7. . . . The immediate antecedent for the plural pronoun them is the plural pronoun, words. Thus, it would seem to make sense that we can conclude God has promised to preserve His words in a physical text.
The Hebrew language, however, is sharply different from English in that it has grammatical gender, something not common to English. In Hebrew, the pronouns will match the antecedent nouns in both number and gender. Here in Psalm 12:6, 7, the two thems of verse 7 are masculine in gender and with the second them being singular.
The closest antecedents in our English translation, the two nouns words found in verse 6, are feminine, so they do not match the masculine thems.
Butler goes on to say that “them” refers to the poor and needy back in verse 5 because they’re feminine. Butler’s argument here has been thoroughly debunked. He’s wrong. First, however, there are many verses in the Bible that teach the perfect preservation of every Word of God. Psalm 12:6, 7 are two of many. There is a great chapter on these verses by Thomas Strouse in Thou Shalt Keep Them, our book on the preservation of scripture. I’ve also written a lot on it (here, here, and here).
Here’s the short of it. Repeatedly in the Old Testament, and as a part of Hebrew grammar, a masculine pronoun refers to a feminine Word of God. You see it again and again in Psalm 119, the psalm entirely about the Word of God (verses 111, 129, 152, 167). There are many other examples. You can find this very rule in Gesenius’s Hebrew grammar, which I used in second year Hebrew in graduate school.
The number argument doesn’t work either, which is why the KJV translators translated the pronoun, “them,” the second time. That’s also Hebrew grammar. It is very common after a plural pronoun for a singular to follow in order to particularize every individual in the group. A collective plural is suggested by the singular. This is also why the NKJV translators, who are not KJVO, translated it “them.”
The Hebrew grammar says just the opposite of what Butler writes. Critical text and modern version men continue to trot out this argument, when they should well know that it’s been answered many times. I’ve never had one of them attempt to deal with it, because it is irrefutable. It’s why many, many preachers and theologians through the centuries, including Jewish scholars, have said that “them” in verse seven refers to God’s “words” in verse six. The gender disagreement argument is a moot point. Without gender, the rule reverts back to proximity, and “words” is the closest antecedent to “them.”
Either Butler didn’t know the gender disagreement argument or he assumed that his readers wouldn’t know any better. Knowing the Hebrew grammar and reading what he wrote, it reads like he was just borrowing from the writings of other people. I’ve read this argument from Douglas Kutilek online. He’s been confronted with the Hebrew grammar and he’s never answered me or anyone else on it. He does not know what he’s talking about.
So much more could be said in review of Fred Butler’s book, but rest assured that God has preserved every one of His Words in the language in which He inspired them, and made them available for every generation of believers. The King James Version is an accurate translation of those Words.
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