I am responding to James A. Price’s online article,
“The King James Only View of Edward F. Hills”, which Maestroh Bill referred me to, and which seems to provide not a little fodder for his sometimes accurate cannon.
Dr. Price says in his fourth paragraph (¶), regarding a comment of Hills on zeal in the preceding paragraph,
In fact, zeal has been kindled by the thought Hills expressed. But zeal, when not grounded in and controlled by truth, only produces conflict and confusion. From such a position the questions of textual debate are cast in terms of black and white, of God against Satan, of good against evil. Since Hills and those who follow him see themselves as the providential agents of God, there is no room for discussion and no room for the possibility that they might be wrong.
Ultimately, it
will be the case that error is from Satan and truth from God, though, seeing that we apprehend truth from — or within — the vantage of being “earthen vessels”, it behooves us to walk humbly, for our apprehensions may be flawed.
I think discussion of the issues — even if we think ourselves “the providential agents of God” (though I have not thought of myself in those terms) — is both warranted and valuable, as “providential” does equal “infallible”. This is evident to me as, despite my certainty of my basic view, Bill has challenged me and shown me to be wrong in
particulars of my view, which I have had to take into account and change.
In ¶ 5, Price says,
Hills proclaimed concerning the KJV that “in it the true text of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament has been restored” (Hills, ibid., p. 82). This left little room to doubt what the final authority in textual matters was to Hills. It was the text of the KJV.
More accurately, it was the
Hebrew and Greek texts underlying the KJV.
Where Hills said (see ¶ 8), “it is only among the readers of the KJV that due love and reverence for God’s word may be found”, I balk at that statement. Price has a good point here. Jerry Bridge’s book,
The Pursuit Of Holiness, uses the NIV and the Lord used that book — and the Scriptures therein — powerfully during a crisis in my life in 1991. My pastor (and most of the church) in NYC used the NIV (with the ESV gaining favor nowadays), and I have no doubt of
his “love and reverence” for the word of our God. And my wife is another example of one who loves and reveres Jesus Christ’s word — in the NIV. I will not concur with the assessment of those who call the users of versions other than the KJV “apostates”, though Dr. Hills never did say this.
With respect to ¶ 9, I myself cannot defend any other Bible than the KJV, for I am aware of the flaws in their underlying manuscripts. Yet I admit that they contain the true word of God, and as Maurice Robinson says,
Christians who use a translation based upon the Alexandrian (or even the Western) texttype are only somewhat disadvantaged from a Byzantine-priority perspective, specifically in the study of details. The best-selling NIV, the NASV, and most other modern translations are themselves based upon a generally-Alexandrian text, and Christians seem to suffer no devastating effects from their use (one must remember that, regardless of texttype, over 85% of the text found in all manuscripts is identical). (Introduction, The New Testament In The Original Greek…etc, p.xlii)
In Price’s section, “The Logic of Faith”, he zeros in on what he sees as a major flaw in Hills’ reasoning, and reveals what some of the disparity between the two of them consists of.
In ¶s 10-12 Price talks about Hills’ view of two differing “doctrinal systems” being taught in seminaries, the one rationalistic and the other grounded in faith. I add to Price’s quote from Hills’
Belieiving Bible Study (BBS), page 218:
Two entirely different doctrinal systems were taught side by side, namely, a dogmatic system in which Christianity was regarded as true and an apologetic system in which Christianity was regarded as merely probable. When you studied systemic theology or practiced your preaching, you were guided by faith, but when you attended your classes in apologetics or biblical introduction or New Testament textual criticism, you shifted your gears and were guided by reason. There are still some seminaries like this today, but most of them have eliminated the inconsistency by going over completely to modernism.
Price then comments,
Hills’ reference to an apologetic system that regards Christianity as only probably true relates to a controversy over whether apologetics should be conducted on an evidential or presuppositional basis. Hills seemed to feel that the acceptance of the modern textual approach has been the result of seminaries having earlier accepted an evidential approach to apologetics.
There seems to be some truth in this. A few sentences earlier Hills had said,
The explanation of this rationalistic tendency is to be found in the sad decline of Protestantism which set in as early as the latter part of the 17th century. Losing the ardor of their first love, Protestants left their Reformation principles and drifted back into Roman Catholic and rationalistic thought-ways….And then in the 18th century, under the guidance of Bishop Butler and Archdeacon Paley, they began to look upon Christianity as a hypothesis and to defend it as a probability on the basis of neutral facts. (ibid.)
Apparently Price does not like Hills’ worldview approach; in ¶ 13 he says,
Hills’ view was that textual studies should be conducted on a presuppositional basis. Lewis defined presupposition as “a specific, unprovable assertion postulated to make experience meaningful” (Gordon R. Lewis, Testing Christianity’s Truth Claims: Approaches to Christian Apologetics, Chicago: Moody Press, 1976; p. 345). Hills believed that it was only by proceeding on this presuppositional basis, which he called the logic of faith, that certainty could be attained.
A more sympathetic mind might say of presuppositionalism, also termed Reformed apologetics, this approach to epistemology “emphasizes the presentation of Christianity as
revealed—as based on the authoritative revelation of God in Scripture and in Jesus Christ.” (
Faith Has Its Reasons: An Integrative Approach To Defending Christianity, by Kenneth D. Boa and Robert M. Bowman Jr.; NavPress 2001, p. 249).
But then Price gets specific; I quote his ¶s 14-16:
Hills wrote that it was the logic of faith that “the Bible text current among believers is the true text.” He wrote that the logic of faith leads one “to a belief in the Bible text current among believers as the providentially preserved original text” (Hills, B.B.S., p. 187). But the text current among which believers? The text current among believers in different parts of the world has and does vary. While the Majority Text was in use in the Greek speaking world of the early church, the Latin Vulgate was in use in the Western church. Which current text was the original text? They do differ at times and neither is identical with the Textus Receptus or the KJV.
Is it the text current among believers of our day or the text current among believers of the fourteenth century? How can the text current among believers be the test of the true original text? The text current among believers has not remained static throughout church history. It has not been universal during the same time period in all geographical localities.
By Hills’ logic of faith, the text current among believers is the true text. Thus, whatever text is current among believers in our day ought to be the true text. But by this standard the true Greek text ought to be the Critical text. It is certainly the Greek text current among believers today. This writer had to go to great length to find a copy of the Textus Receptus to use in comparing the various texts, whereas the Critical text is available in almost any Christian bookstore. Hills’ position was not the logic of faith. It was a presupposition, which was neither logic nor faith.
First, I would not call this view of Hills a “presupposition”, but a proposition based upon a presupposition. The presupposition is, “…the Bible is God’s infallibly inspired Word which has been preserved by God’s special providence down through the ages.” (Hills, ibid, p. 87) The proposition is, “…the Bible text current among believers is the true text”.
Let me see if I can bring the nuance Hills maintained into focus, and show what he really believed and taught on this issue:
Do we believing Bible Students "worship" the King James Version? Do we regard it as inspired, just as the ancient Jewish philosopher Philo (d. 42 A.D.) and many early Christians regarded the Septuagint as inspired? Or do we claim the same supremacy for the King James Version that Roman Catholics claim for the Latin Vulgate? Do we magnify its authority above that of the Hebrew and Greek Old and New Testament Scriptures? We have often been accused of such excessive veneration for the King James Version, but these accusations are false. In regard to Bible versions we follow the example of Christ's Apostles. We adopt the same attitude toward the King James Version that they maintained toward the Septuagint.
In their Old Testament quotations the Apostles never made any distinction between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Scriptures. They never said, "The Septuagint translates this verse thus and so, but in the original Hebrew it is this way." Why not? Why did they pass up all these opportunities to display their learning? Evidently because of their great respect for the Septuagint and the position which it occupied in the providence of God. In other words, the Apostles recognized the Septuagint as the providentially approved translation of the Old Testament into Greek. They understood that this was the version that God desired the gentile Church of their day to use as its Old Testament Scripture.
During the 4th century the Roman Empire was divided into two parts, a Greek-speaking Eastern half and a Latin-speaking Western half. In the West the knowledge of Greek died out, and only the Latin language remained. Hence for the Western Christians the Greek Bible became useless. For more than 1,000 years the Latin Vulgate was their only Bible. It was the Latin Vulgate that John Wyclif translated into English, and it was through the study of the Vulgate also that Martin Luther gained his knowledge of those Gospel truths by which he ushered in the Protestant Reformation. Hence, in spite of its errors, it is not too much to say that the Latin Vulgate was the providentially appointed Bible version for Christians of Western Europe during the medieval period.
But if the Septuagint was the providentially appointed Old Testament version during the days of the early Church and if the Latin Vulgate was the providentially appointed Bible version for Christians of medieval Europe, much more is the King James Version the providentially appointed Bible for English-speaking Christians today. In it the true text of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament has been restored, and the errors of the Septuagint and of the Latin vulgate have been corrected. (BBS, pp. 81, 82)
I think this gives us a different picture of what Dr. Hills understood to be the truth. The superiority of the providentially appointed English Bible arrived when the English language was at its height, when the translators were the best and most learned, and in time for the greatest missionary outreaches — using the restored Hebrew and Greek texts — to translate the Bible into the various languages of the nations.
There was a process over time during which God guided “all things together for good” to bring the true readings of Scripture — which He had kept in their purity — together into one definitive text. Hills put it this way,
The Traditional Text, found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts, is the True Text because it represents the God-guided usage of [the] universal priesthood of believers.
…The first printed text of the Greek New Testament represents a forward step in the providential preservation of the New Testament. In it the few errors of any consequence occurring in the Traditional Greek Text were corrected by the providence of God operating through the usage of the Latin-speaking Church of Western Europe. In other words, the editors and printers who produced this first printed Greek New Testament text were providentially guided by the usage of the Latin-speaking Church to follow the Latin Vulgate in those few places in which the Latin Church usage rather than the Greek Church usage had preserved the genuine reading. [Emphasis mine –SMR]
…Through the usage of Bible-believing Protestants God placed the stamp of His approval on this first printed text, and it became the Textus Receptus (Received Text). It is the printed form of the Traditional Text found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts. (The King James Version Defended, pp. 111, 112)
It seems that if one is looking to find fault, find it they will, even if it means missing the thread of cohesion that holds their opponent’s arguments together. Sin has affected our ability to reason and perceive. No doubt I suffer from this also. Please, Lord, preserve me from that here!
So the phrase, “the text current among believers”, is not to be taken as an absolute, valid everywhere and for all time, but in the context of the historical steps of preservation, as Hills meant it to be taken. The crown of this process, being in English (for I have seen excellent translations from the TR in Arabic and in Dinka Padang New Testaments) the King James Bible, cannot be supplanted by inferior translations based upon inferior Greek texts, however widely used among believers, as is the case today.
In ¶ 18 Price says,
In order to have “a consistent, comprehensive, believing thought-system,” in relation to textual criticism, that system must explain the realities of the manuscript evidence. It was precisely at this point that Hills’ system broke down. His system simply did not explain the facts as they existed in the manuscripts.
I have tried to show above that this charge is baseless. Charges will continue from Price as we look further at his essay, but for what has been alleged thus far Hills is exonerated. And we will return to some of the above issues as we continue.
In ¶ 19 Price says,
Unless the facts drawn from the manuscripts, which are the history of God’s preservation of the Scriptures, are self-interpreting without the presuppositions of Hills being imposed upon them, all attempts to know the original text must retreat as Hills ultimately did into an existential assertion of truth which says that it is true because it is true to me! This retreat into virtual existentialism was seen in Hills’ treatment of the topic, “How Do We Know The Bible Is True” in Believing Bible Study. Hills declared, “This then is the basic reason why I know the Bible is true. The Bible is true because it is true for me” (Hills, B.B.S., p. 59). Kierkegaard, the father of theological existentialism, could hardly have said it better.
First of all, the charge that “the presuppositions of Hills [are] being imposed upon” the facts regarding the manuscripts is misunderstanding the nature of the presupposition. The facts are
interpreted or
understood in light of what is presupposed, that being God’s stated promises to preserve His words. One hostile to Reformed apologetics might view it as “imposition”, but how Hills handles the facts of the manuscripts and their history does not fall into such a category.
Then Price takes Hills’ words out of context in order to liken him to Kierkegaard! In this section of his book, “The Testimony of the Holy Spirit — How We Know the Bible Is True”, Hills talks about the Holy Spirit’s work in bearing witness to the truth of Scripture. I shall quote most of the section — and will put Hills’ wrested words in bold — to show the unfairness of Dr. Price in his allegation.
If we are true believers we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He is our Divine Teacher in our study of the holy Word. But what then? Is our faith perfect? Are we henceforth delivered from all doubt? No, the same Satan that beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden assails us daily with temptations to disbelieve (2 Cor. 11:3). But even when we believers doubt, we do not doubt as unbelievers do. Our anxieties are real, our sins are real, our doubts are real, but God is more real even than these man-made mists we throw up against Him. Why is this so? Because of the testimony of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:16) This assurance that we are God’s children is the divine antidote for all our doubts and fears. If we are God’s children, then our daily needs will all be met. Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things (Matt. 6:32) If we are God’s children, then our eternal future is secure. No man can pluck us out of our Father’s hand (John 10:29). And if we are God’s children, then we know that our Father’s word is entirely true. Thy word is truth (John 17:17b).
This then is the basic reason why I know the Bible is true. The Bible is true because it is true for me. The Holy Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God and that therefore all the promises of holy Scripture are true in my case. With Jesus Christ I am joint heir, because His death by faith is mine (Rom. 8:17). But what more precisely do I mean when I say that the Bible is true? The Bible tells me that I mean for things. First, the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself. Second, the Bible is eternally established. Third, the Bible is infallibly inspired. Fourth, the Bible is providentially preserved. (BBS, pp. 59, 60)
Dr. Price’s is not a fair critique. To misrepresent a person by taking their words out of context is not right. He likely did not do such a thing deliberately, but was careless — with a man’s reputation.
In the next post I will continue, Lord willing, examining Price’s critique, starting with the section, “Hills’ Axioms of Textual Criticism”
Steve
[Edited on 10-16-2006 by Jerusalem Blade]