Someone said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  When I hear a critique of the perfect preservation view, standard sacred text view, or verbal plenary preservation view, it almost always focuses on ‘which text is the perfect text of the New Testament.”  In the White/Van Kleeck debate, White asked this kind of gotcha question, which Textus Receptus edition is identical to the autographs?   A person then waits for the answer.

In the Van Kleeck/White debate, White asked Van Kleeck whether Scrivener’s TR is the perfect Greek text.  He said, “Yes.”  I’m not saying it’s a good argument, but it works well with a certain audience.

I watched a critical analysis of Van Kleeck in the debate, and the podcast started with the moment White asked Van Kleeck that question.  The critical analysis is essentially ridicule of the most inane variety.  The young man in the podcast with three other men simply repeated Van Kleeck’s answer and then summarized it with a mocking voice.  They didn’t explain why Van Kleeck’s answer was wrong.  It just was.  Why?  Because it is so, so strange and ridiculous.

The critical text side does not have a settled text.  If the question were reversed, that side would say it doesn’t know, unlike it’s proponents might say about knowing the 66 books of the Bible.  They would say that’s knowable, even though the oldest extant complete twenty-seven book manuscript of the New Testament dates to the fourth century.  Books are knowable.  The words are not.  Why?  No biblical reason, only naturalistic ones.  The same reasons could be used to debunk any doctrine of the Bible.

I believe Van Kleeck said that Scrivener’s or the blue Trinitarian Bible Society Greek New Testament is identical to the autographs of the New Testament because that corresponds to His bibliological position.  If someone says he believes the biblical and historical doctrine of scripture, his saying there is a perfect text conforms to that belief.  If he did not know what the text was, he would also admit that he doesn’t believe what the Bible says about itself or what churches have believed about what the Bible says about itself.  An alternative is to change the historic and scriptural doctrine of bibliology to fit naturalistic presuppositions.

A biblical methodology that proceeds from a biblical bibliology must fit what the Bible says about itself.  Because of this, it believes that the agreement of the church is evidence.  This is the unity of the spirit.  I’m not going to continue through every aspect of a biblical bibliology but all of those components combined lead to an agreement on one text.  Van Kleeck had the audacity to utter it with confidence.  I’m assuming that his confidence and assertiveness comes from faith that comes by hearing the Word of God.

Van Kleeck attacked the presuppositions of White in the White/Van Kleeck debate.  He wanted to expose the naturalism.  White wouldn’t answer the questions and the moderator would not require an answer.  White also took the offensive by saying that the audience also was offended by the questions.  It’s a common tactic of the left, when they “channel” everyone in the United States by speaking for “the American people.”  Van Kleeck asked if there was even a single verse of the New Testament that was settled, guaranteed never to change with a future find of older manuscript evidence.  White would not answer.

A vast majority of the opponents of the biblical and historical view on the preservation of scripture say the Bible doesn’t say how God would preserve scripture.  I like to say that the whole Bible describes how God would do it.  The Bible is very clear about how God said He would preserve what He said.  If He told us how, that castigates all the means other than how He said, which includes modern textual criticism.

Very often, even among the standard sacred text proponents, they will not say what the perfect edition is.  They anticipate the reaction.  They ready for the ridicule.  If it isn’t that blue Trinitarian Bible Society textus receptus, then what is it?