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Originally Posted by StaunchPresbyterian  Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomas2007 When Warfield talked the Church into accepting the opinions of an independent academy of textual critics that were under the authority of nobody, . . . | Do you have any references or links regarding this statement about Warfield? |
Theodore Letis, The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical Authority and the Popular Mind, 1997; 2nd Ed. 2000 247 pages
The books first essay is entitled: "B.B. Warfield, Common-Sense Philosophy and Biblical Criticism."
Brief history of this issue and how Warfield fits into it:
1. Erasmus following Lorenzo Valla publishes his Latin Translation and Annotations with the common Greek text printed alongside. His purpose is to demonstrate that the Latin Vulgate is in error in both it's translation and text and these errors are the basis for many of the errant practices and abuses in the Church.
Example: Mary is "full of grace" in Luke 1:28 in the Vulgate "gratia plena", he argues the proper translation is "gratiosa" - "favored," in his Annotations. In Matthew 1:25 the word "firstborn" is in the Byzantine text, it doesn't exist in the Vulgate. In Ephesians 5:32 marriage is referenced as "sacramentum," he says it is properly translated "mystery." These, of course, combine to attack the proof texts of the Immaculate Conception and co-mediatrix of Mary. In Matthew 4:17 Jesus begins his ministry in the Vulgate with "Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." This is the Roman proof text for penance, or external works instead of an inward faith, and Treasuries of Merit are developed wherein Indulgences arise. Erasmus translates it as "Repent." Martin Luther picks up on this and develops his 95 Thesis and the Reformation is born in Germany.
The Greek is provided to demonstrate his opinions are not novel introductions, but based upon the original Greek text. This, of course, is the Byzantine textual tradition - the Latin Vulgate is translated from the Western tradition (e.g., Vaticanus et. al.)
2. Tyndale, Luther, Calvin and Beza pick up this work of Erasmus and begin translating it into English, German and other languages.
3. Reformers are championing doctrine of Sola Scriptura against Papal Infallibility, change in the locus of Authority occurs for Protestants.
4. Council of Trent where Erasmus text is banned and Vulgate is established as canonical along with Apocrapha, first time Roman Church declares canonicity.
5. Reformed Confessions follow establishing Protestant Canon and deny Apocrapha, also establish the inspiration of the vowel points in Hebrew.
6. Tridentine counter-attack against Sola Scriptura asserts there are too many errors in the Greek text, it is impossible to know what Scripture is without Church tradition, there is no certainty for faith. Also asserts Hebrew vowel points are not inspired but late additions and is impossible to know precisely what they mean without Church tradition and Papal Infallibility. Brian Walton publishes Polyglot to demonstrate Tridentine counter-attack against Sola Scriptura.
7. Protestant scholasticism asserts Providential Preservation of Received Text and Reformed dogmatics are developed. Confessionalism becomes more refined as does development of Scripture in English
8. John Owen and Francis Turretin lead high orthodox defense against counter-reformation, but Rome has no critical weapons to contradict the academic scholarship of Erasmus and the Reformed followers.
9. Richard Simon develops textual criticism and departs for the first time from the sacred criticism for purpose of destroying Protestant doctrine and asserts church tradition.
10. Mills, Semler, Griesbach, Lachman, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Wescott & Hort all follow and continue Simon's work. This is a completely different approach to the text of Scripture.
11. Deists and Unitarians utilize Mill's collection of 30,000 variants as an argument to replace revealed with natural religion. Semler develops synoptic Gospels hypothesis and denies authenticity of Gospels, inspiration of Scripture, and argues that Holy Scripture cannot be equated with God's Word, denies canonicity of text as binding and asserts, essentially, that individuals can determine their own canon. Griesbach follows in his footsteps as does Lachman &c.
12. Darwin, Marx and Freud are the darling stars of science, economics and sociology - the whole world has sparkles of humanistic hope before their eyes and the greatness of man with the scientific method at their disposal to find truth.
13. B.B. Warfield goes to Germany to study under critics and adopts their presuppositions.
14. Buckminster at Harvard persuades officials to publish Griesbach's text because it is a "most powerful weapon to be used against the supporters of verbal inspiration." Is adopted as textbook at Harvard and significantly advanced critical camp in the United States.
15. Warfield intends to defend Scripture from within the scientific camp by following Wescott & Hort against the enemies of Scripture inherit in that discipline and explicit within that camp. He develops and applies this logical device as a doctrine of "inerrant original autographs," and publishes the same in his work on Inspiration.
Warfield, however, drastically departed from the historic Reformed scholastic method of Beza, Owen and Turretin and all of the Reformed Confessions that locate Authority in the apographs in possession of the Church. Warfied retained a certain scholastic view of verbal inspiration, but he located inerrancy only in the autograph and thus Authority. All Protestants had always asserted, against Rome, that God Providentially Preserved the text of Scripture, we know precisely what it is and we have it. The Protestant Church receives it as canonical, including 1 John 5:7-8, even though we cannot prove through the course of time how it came to be preserved in our Scriptures.