David, when you say,
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,
it seems to me we are miscommunicating. If, instead of assuming you know my point of view, you would consider some of the things I’ve said in the thread on this topic, I do not think you would misunderstand. I realize it takes some time to look into such things, but why answer a matter if you do not hear it first – what the speaker has really said? It is simply a fact – nothing to do with “guilt by association” – that the primary MS of the Critical Text is
Vaticanus. It is a pertinent piece of data to consider when seeking to understand the textual situation today. I know, many good men and scholars hold to the CT.
When you say, “Talk of an ecclesiastical text IS rhetoric,” what of the text that was used for some four centuries – the Authorized Version of 1611 being the main English exemplar of that Hebrew and Greek text – and was the one the London Baptist Confession of 1689 and the Westminster Confession both referred to in their statements on Scripture? This was the ecclesiastical text. That’s not rhetoric, but history. Is it the ecclesiastical text
today? No, not generally, except in those churches who are not “abandoning the sacred text of the Church for a future scientific text reconstructed by the Academy.” [Letis, “The language of Biblical Authority: From Protestant Orthodoxy to Evangelical Equivocation” in
The Ecclesiastical Text, p. 81]
I know some pastors explain the marginal notes by saying “some textual matters are not all clear to us” and they do the best they can given the situation where the Academy has been allowed to encroach upon the precincts of God’s house and assumed its God-assigned prerogatives. Other pastors are not intimidated so and speak of what is clear to them.
We have discussed the process of preservation up through the centuries, and in various sectors of the church, in the aforementioned thread.
I do honestly think there is an “apocalyptic” aspect to the textual issue, but in the other thread such an approach is not the norm. I’m sorry if my approach here troubled you. I do not reason about these issues as I do in the poem.
Nick, thanks for your words.
Robert,
Thanks for the background. Glad to meet you.
You said,
To imply, in poetical form, that the CT is: "the spirit of the antichrist", "darkness come(ing) in like a flood", and, "darksome wood" are all inflammatory statements without logical or reasonable basis. Poetry does not require logical proof.
The poem does not say that the CT
is “the spirit of antichrist” but “is as the rising” of that spirit in its like casting of an evil shadow. The thread I mentioned above deals with the logic and “proofs” – the poems deals simply with that which is. “darksome wood” refers to “this world” and one might see an allusion to the opening lines of Dante’s
Inferno, but the “true guide” being Scripture.
I ponder your use of the word “inflammatory”. What is more inflammatory, saying the Bible is not now and may never be settled and certain, and the old King James is unreliable and inaccurate, not to be relied upon as the infallible Word of God,
OR, that such statements are reflections of darkness arising from Hell, causing in humankind a “strong delusion” which leads to doubt in the reliability and authority of God’s Word? Do I have to pussyfoot around an issue because telling the truth may cause those who trouble the Church – and have for many decades – the distress of being opposed? In poetry I speak with a degree of force and clarity I often do not use in general conversation. I am not a tame little poet, but a poet of the Lord Christ.
Let me quote here what text critic John Burgon said in the Intro to his
Revision Revised,
If, therefore, any do complain that I have hit my opponents rather hard….when the words of Inspiration are seriously imperilled, as now they are, it is scarcely possible for one who is determined effectually to preserve the Deposit in its integrity, to hit either too straight or too hard. (Pp. vii, viii)
Robert, you state,
DaveJes1979 has pointed out that many evangelical seminaries use the Critical Text. The NIV, RSV, ESV, and NASB all use the Critical Text, and many people have found salvation from reading these translations. What then do we do with this line in the poem:
we no longer know for sure what belongs within
that one Book where salvation is found.
If the critical text was that bad then what does one say to those who have found salvation from reading it?
To answer your question let me quote here from other posts of mine on this very subject:
There is a preserving of the text, and then there is a preserving of the text—where its integrity is held even to minute readings not granted the former. That the former was nonetheless efficacious is analogous to the Bibles based upon the CT being efficacious to save and edify God’s people today, as witnessed by the multitudes regenerated through those who use the NIV and NASB. The minute preservation occurred in the primary edition (KJV/TR) which was to serve the English-speaking people and the translations created for the vast missionary work they undertook, which impacted the entire world. (It is accepted by many today that the English language is now the universal language—the second language of most other nations.) There was a progression in the purifying of the text, so as to almost (some would say completely) perfectly [preserve] the original [words] of the apostles, even as there has been, in the area of theology, a restoration of apostolic doctrine, which also went through phases of deterioration and eventual renewal.
Thus, even those areas of the church which were non-Greek-speaking also had a “preserved text”—as do multitudes in this present day—though their texts were not “minutely preserved.” The texts they had were efficacious unto the salvation of souls and the sustaining of the churches.
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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.
It remains, however, that the deterioration of even Christians’ trust in the Scripture being reliable and authoritative increases; and I ponder as to what will be the state of affairs in 50 or 100 years if the Lord should hold off His return for that long (as He “is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” 2 Pet 3:9, by which I mean every last one of His elect saints). As Jesus said, “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8. Could this have any reference to there being a famine of the Word of God on the earth? I am serious in this question. The churches more and more dilute the Gospel, apostasy is widespread, Arminianism and semi-pelagianism weaken the faith of multitudes, and it is a sickly message that goes out to the lost. Those few churches that hold fast to their sure Bibles, and the sure word within them, and to the doctrines of grace, may be a small despised minority, and this within Christendom, not even to speak of possible persecutions from the world.
Robert, as you knew Ted Letis personally, would you know of any articles he’d published since his last book,
The Ecclesiastical Text in 1997? I would love to have even a rough bibliography of his works.
To change the subject (to another field I love), you don’t think it fitting a poem be polemic? Here are two:
TRIBAL MYTHS
may be a proper tag
when talking of Arthur
or Middle Earth,
but we talk history
speaking of a crown
from ancient lineage
and supernatural birth
of course worldview may screen
facts from truth,
calling ancient records
myths, not allowing
God in his universe;
but it remains, the crown
himself was actually seen.
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Thy word is a lamp unto my feet —Psalm 119
This walk I take will not end
when legs or heart fail, being connected
to a life-support that goes around the bend
of death,
so whatever happens,
loves lost, thermodynamics’ second law
in all its forms, I sing.
Sainthood has a bad rap
with those who would deconstruct
all text outside the relative heart,
but what is that to me, who walks
by a light they do not see,
whose hand and heart are held
by a love to and from Thee.
Why not be aggressive (in a winsome way) to dispel the darkness that obtains in the world of letters?
Too bad the PB doesn’t have a Christian Literature section; that could be quite interesting. No, you haven’t given me any offense, Robert. Thank you for your tender heart.
Maestroh Bill,
Good to see you back, if only for a moment!