Hello Pastor Truelove,
I knew I should have put this off to another day, I've got to be brief as I spent too much time in responding to Lady Flynt already.
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Originally Posted by prespastor  Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomas2007
To the Reformers and to the orthodox the Received Text, for three hundred years, was the very word of God. This is no small matter, as Rushdoony says: "the Faith is at stake." (8)
| I continue to maintain that the Reformers and the formerly orthodox were NOT on the "Traditional Text" page. The fact is, textual criticism was not advancing as a discipline until the late 18th Century and its resulting scholarship took over 100 years to advance through continued development and the introduction of new manuscript finds. |
Well, brother, you are maintaining something that is unsupportable.
The text for the Reformers is part and parcel of their return to ancient catholic orthodoxy and is received as a unified whole. That is to say Sola Scriptura is affirmed only in the context of the Regula Fidei of ancient catholic orthodoxy and it has never existed independent of it. Martin Luther's 95 Thesis of October 31, 1517, for example, rests absolutely upon his 97 Thesis of September 1517, and it cannot exist in its absence.
He affirms the doctrine of Grace in September and then sets out on an attack upon the doctrine of Purgatory in October which is derived from the Apocrapha. The Roman defense was in terms of the Greek Old Testament, behind the Latin Vulgate against the Reformers claim of Ad Fontes for the Masoretic Hebrew. In 1562, then, the Second Helvetic Confession is brought forth defending the inspiration of the vowel points of the Hebrew, because this is the locus of the defense at this time, not the New Testament.
It is true that the defense of the New Testament text didn't develop until after Trent (1563), but to argue that they weren't "on the Traditional Text page" because the cause of defending their position had not yet arisen while they were defending the Hebrew is contrary to all of their polemics against Rome. How can they receive Rome's text and deny the Regula Fidei of the Roman Magisterium, they cannot deny the Apocrapha on that ground.
Muller explains the continuity:
"Both the language of sola Scriptura and the actual use of the text of Scripture by the Reformers can be explained only in terms of the questions of authority and interpretation posed by the developments of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Even so, close study of the actual exegetical results of the Reformers manifests strong interpretive and doctrinal continuities with the exegetical results of the fathers and the medieval doctors. (1)" Richard Muller, Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 2, p 52 citing James Preus, From Shadow to Promise: Old Testament Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther, 1969
From the earliest reformatory arguments of Luther and the Swiss disputations and theses, the point was consistently made and dogmatically held forth that Scripture judged tradition and the church, rather than tradition and the church judging Scripture. At the same time, moreoever, the increasingly textual approach and literal hermeneutic of their theology affirming both the high view of inspiration and authority of Scripture, makes it impossible for them to receive the subjective text of the Roman Magisterium and deny the authority of that Magisterium. That would be nothing short of Revolution, not Reformation.
Textual criticism, as a discipline, arose under Richard Simon at the end of the 17th century for the sole purpose of carrying forth the Tridentine attack upon Sola Scriptura. In the 16th century Rome simply didn't have the philosophical and critical tools at hand to deal a stronger blow to the Protestants other than to assert their arguments. Simon, however, provided the tools - the discipline has been counter-Reformational since that time and worked in relative obscurity until Wescott and Hort brought forth Griesbach's text under the guise of updating the translation of the Authorized Version. Ever since then textual criticism has operated covertly under the guise of "translation" as if they are standing in the Reformed tradition when the opposite is true.
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Originally Posted by prespastor To demonstrate John Calvin's view of the text, read the following from one of my prior writings...
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I came across the following statement in Calvin’s Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2:4. "Where I have rendered -- everything that is called God, the reading more generally received among the Greeks is, every one that is called. It may, however, be conjectured, both from the old translation and from some Greek commentaries, that Paul's words have been corrupted. The mistake, too, of a single letter was readily fallen into, especially when the shape of the letter was much similar; for, where there was written παν το, (everything,) some transcriber, or too daring reader, turned it into παντα, (every one.)" This is very interesting...here Calvin argues for an alternate reading on the basis of a supposed scribal error or a 'too daring reader' (this deduced from an alternate reading from the Vulgate and some 'Greek commentaries'--not a variant in another Greek manuscript!). His rejection of 'παντα' in favor of 'παν το' here demonstrates that Calvin did not handle the issue of variants according to any 'Traditional Text' paradigm.
For the record, I think Calvin is wrong here (I would not argue for a reading not found in any extant Greek manuscript). I only intend to point out a place where a sampling of his approach to textual criticism is demonstrated. I find more and more of this sort of thing as I study the old commentaries.
This proves wrong the argument used by Traditional Text advocates that says the 'Traditional Text' approach to handling textual variants was the only known position until the advent of modern textual criticism.
Had Calvin had access to all of the manuscripts we have today, I think it highly likely he would have been an advocate for something like the Critical Greek Text. |
While I certainly appreciate your opinion, you've just misinterpreted the data. Calvin was a theologian and exegete, the textual work fell upon his protege Theodore Beza, who corrected Calvin's critical method and to whom Calvin acquiesced. It is true that Calvin had an affinity for Colines (1534) edition and utilized it in part of his Institutes of 1540, which is a departure from the established textual tradition of Erasmus and Stephanus, but it is also true that Calvin returned to Stephanus third edition (1550), and then updated subsequent editions of his institutes away from his utilization of Colines text.
However, it is important to understand, that for both Calvin and Beza, and even while Calvin utilized Coline's text he continued to base his critical decisions upon primarily external criteria. It is precisely this aspect of 16th century text criticism that causes modern critical scholars to foam at the mouth. Parker, for example, criticizes Calvin but does so from his position of supporting post-enlightenment methodology which places primacy upon internal evidence. Letis points out that Calvin's critical equipment wasn't faulty as Parker alleges, but that it merely followed a different criterion -
a criterion consistent with the established textual tradition but applied to Colines text in his 1540 commentaries.
Nevertheless, the scholastic defense of the New Testament doesn't arise until after Calvin and Beza's work had solidified the "Received Text" as not just a publishers advertisement but as an objective reality. Tregelles notes:
"Beza's text was during his life in very general use among Protestants; they seemed to feel that enough had been done to establish it, and they relied on it as giving them a firm basis....After the appearance of the texts of Stephanus and Beza, many Protestants ceased from all inquiry into the authorities on which the text of the New Testament in their hands was based." Samuel Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament with Remarks on its Revision upon Critical Principles, 1854, p 33 - 35
Cordially,
Thomas