Quote:
|
The very weapon Rome used to try to subvert the Reformation"”the array of variant readings from its bag of MSS"”is what the Critical Text is doing today in the hands of our fellow Reformed believers; this is the text of Rome! Is there not something amiss?
|
No, sir. Nothing is amiss. Somehow those of us who follow critical texts have managed to hold onto sola scriptura and other biblical doctrines. This does not rise above guilt by association.
Quote:
|
this is a form of marginalizing a view (and a man) through the use of condescending labels and stereotypes.
|
Talk of an ecclesiastical text IS rhetoric, for several reasons. For instance, Wilson bandies about a criticism of "autonomous science", as if people like James White could rightly be labeled as "autonomous" in this sense. Wilson's appeal is, at base, an appeal to authority, and a type of subjectivism, rather than empirically-driven.
And moving from "ecclesiastical text" to the textus receptus is a jump.
Quote:
|
have seen people in my care, as well as classes of mine (to whom NIVs had been distributed before I took over the teaching) distressed at the marginal notes saying very plainly that the Biblical text is uncertain
|
If this is the real rub, then consider what other pastors would do - they would explain that, even when some textual matters are not all clear to us, God has preserved His Word with sufficient clarity for us to be prepared unto every good work. God has guided the church throughout the centuries through various textual traditions, and did not wait to the 16th century to shine His light of preservation on the textus receptus (which, itself, is nothing other than an eclectic text).