Since I started this thread, I feel kind of responsible for the direction it takes, so I'm going to chime in once more. Tim, you are painting an inaccurate caricature of the position I asked about in my opening post. No one thinks Erasmus was inspired. No one is against textual criticism. No one disparages consulting diverse manuscripts when there is variance in the received tradition. The saying of Augustine in spot on. Erasmus is not the end-all, be-all of the Received Text: he was a collator, not a creator.

The misrepresentations and misunderstandings have impeded productive conversation. I don't think this type of debate is useful or beneficial. There is a time for proving someone to be wrong, and a time simply for inquiry about that with which we disagree so as to better understand what the other is saying -- and I think you are still missing what I and some others have been saying. I'm sorry I have not been more clear. I understand the critical text position -- I was an advocate thereof for many years, and am not unsympathetic to many of its desires. Keep in mind, the main problem is method, not results: most sober people will confess that the actual resultant differences between the two are nigh unto inconsequential; neither distorts God's word to the point of corruption, and neither opens the doors for heresy, unless we are looking for it already.

Also, keep in mind that no one has accused anyone of anything; with the exception that people are, indeed, disagreeing. This is acceptable. In this sense, I suppose we accuse one another of something with every disagreement we have: we accuse each other of teaching God's word improperly. This is no different than any other disagreement, and is tempered with the realization that we are fallible and can still accept one another in grace and love despite our differences.

(Important part of post begins now)
This being said, I still hold to my "I don't know" of my actual, opening question. In terms of method, I am absolutely persuaded that WCF 1.8 is against the purpose, goals and methods of the Critical Text mission. That, for me, is no longer an open issue. However, assuming that one is not a proponent of the Critical Text mission, I am undecided as to certain practical ramifications of this, i.e., whether then strict adherence to the confession requires that (in absence of controversy) the normal preaching of the word in the vernacular is to be translated from the received text (again, only as it is represented as the word of God ). This becomes a strange issue for me as, in most cases, you would have no idea based upon the English translation whether it stems from a version of the received text or of the critical text. I am not convinced fully that the confession requires, in day to day preaching, the use of a TR based translation over the ESV (though, again, I think it clear that in cases of appeal and controversy, the TR is that to which, confessionally, we are to appeal). I will say, at this point, that it at least seems to be more consistent with the confession to use a received-text translation in the day-to-day preaching (with, of course, the allowance that to open and explain passages, variants from outside the TR are free to be used).

How does that sound?

__________________
Paul Korte
OPC
Flint, MI

They who perceive in themselves discoveries of the divine goodness, so full and absolutely perfect, and who make them the subject of earnest meditation, will never embrace new doctrines, by which the very grace they feel so powerfully in themselves is thrown into the shade. --John Calvin

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