Hey:

Is the Bible inspired in its Teachings/Meaning only? Or, are they the very Words of the living God?

If the Greek and Hebrew texts are the very Words of the Living God, then how do you get around the fact that there are errors in them?

If the Bible is inspired in its Teachings/Meanings only, then how do you get around the fact that there are many different understandings of major texts in the Bible?

JerusalemBlade is not allowed to answer until after 10 posts!

Blessings,

-CH

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Deo Vindice

Not fair!

Now you have me salivating, and I will have to bother Dr. Gamble about this!

To those who hold to the Textus Receptus (including me):

If inspiration goes to the very words of the Hebrew and Greek, then how do you explain the many differences/errors found in the TR?

To those who hold to the Critical Text:

If inspiration only penetrates to the meaning of the text, and the words themselves are not important, then how do you explain the many different "meanings" found in the many different texts in your heritage? NIV, TNIV, Good News, RSV, NRSV, ESV, CEV, NASB, etc...

G&P

-CH

What are some of these differences/errors you are referring to?

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Mark
Independent baptist
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Do tell.

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Daniel Franzen
Church Creek Presbyterian (PCA)
Charleston, SC

The doctrines of plenary inspiration and inerrancy hold that the human authors of Scripture were so moved by the Holy Spirit that, while yet reflecting their own experiences and personalites, they penned the exact words that God intended.

This view is foundational and true for both TR and Critical text guys.

I'm not sure what you are driving at in the OP. Are you baiting? Or, are you wanting to discuss Textual Criticism?

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Jim
1689 LBCF
Independent Bible Church
North Texas, USA

Yes, I'm confused also. Please come right out and ask directly what you're trying to get at. Inspiration of the original manuscripts is plenary - every word is God's Word. This is the confessional position.

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Hi:

Sorry for the confusion. I hold to the TR and know what I beleive. I am looking for what others would say on the subject in order to improve my own knowledge - iron sharpening iron - so to speak.

Gomarus:

Those who hold to the Critical Text do not understand inspiration the same way as the Orthodox. In acknowledging that there are errors/mistakes in the copies of the originals they argue that inspiration is not in the very words of the text, but in the meaning behind the words. It is this theory that has given rise to all the different versions of the Bible that are now on the market. Consequently, the Orthodox doctrine of inspiration, which you have so eloquently explained, is undermined.

Errors in the TR:

One of the big ones can be found in the last verses of Revelation. Originally, Erasmus had to translate these passages out of the Latin because none of the Greek Texts he had contained it. In doing so he created a word that is nowhere found in any Greek Text (Byzantine or Alexandrian):

Summarturoumai.gar at Rv 22:18.

Another "error" that is claimed is found in 1 John 5:7-8. Compare the King James (TR):

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

With the ESV (CT):

For there are three that testify, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree.

Grace,

-CH

Thanks C&H, for clarification. But it is my experience that Critical Text guys do not "argue that inspiration is not in the very words of the text, but in the meaning behind the words."

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was signed by 100 conservative evangelical theologians, the great majority of which were Critical Text guys. This Statement concurs with my earlier post summary with which you agree -- verbal, plenary, and inerrant (in the original autographs).

If the thrust of your concern is difference between original autographs, extant manuscripts, and english texts, the answer is providence. I don't see a huge difference unless one wishes to say that providence provided for the very words of the english KJV and stopped there.

Good point.

But when we talk about the copies of the originals I believe that the CT position opens itself up to "meaning" rather than words.

Historically, prior to the mid to late 1800's the phrase "in the original autographs" cannot be found in any of the Orthodox statements concerning the inspiration of the Scriptures. This compromise with the doctrine of inspiration was devised in response to Lower Critics like Wellhausen and Tischendorf who started pointing out "errors" in the Received Text.

Up until this time the Greek and Hebrew Texts were thought to be true apographia of the autographs - thus, inspired in their words and not meanings only. As you have pointed out they are "Providentially Preserved," but are they preserved in meanings only or in the very words themselves?

If they are preserved in meaning only (the CT position) then why so many different translations?

If they are preserved in the very words, (the TR position) then how can there be "errors" in the text?

Blessings,

-CH

Can Mr. Rafalsky respond now?

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Yes, he can if he so likes.

IMO that passage is different in the CT because the Arians took it out of the so-called "oldest and best" manuscripts. So the "error" is not in the TR text, but the CT reflects early Arian error.

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I would have thought that inspiration must extend both to words as well as to teachings.

In passages like Mark 12, when arguing with the pharisees, Jesus references not just teaching, but the form of words in the OT. So he uses the phase 'I am' (v26) to prove the resurrection, and the particular word 'Lord' (v37) to prove that the Christ is not merely a physical descendant of David.

The short answer is: both text and meaning are inspired.

The problem is not that the very words were not inspired. They were.
The problem is not that the very words have ALL been preserved. They have.

The problem IS, where (which mss tradition? one? another? all taken together?) and on what basis (majority of mss? oldest? clearest reading? most grammatical? light from ancient translations? etc.) are we to determine how to get as close as we can to those very words. The problem is in people and the various mistakes they made here and there as copyists, and in our fallible attempts, through a wide collation and careful 'listening", to remove what static we can from our system. The basic trouble is internal to us, not external.

The truth is that there is, despite all the heavy breathing, an extraordinarily reliable text of this ancient book, no matter how many introductions of "errata" one can cobble. Nothing, absolutely nothing else in the world is comparable. So where we as humans end up disagreeing about whether the word has a missing letter, objectively we typically have little trouble agreeing on the inspired meaning of that sentence.

There is more disagreement between an Arminian and a Calvinist--who may both agree perfectly on inspiration--over the theological import of a sentence, than scholars arguing over the placement of certain letters.


In my humble opinion, for whatever weight an unbeliever or an apostate gives to "mss differences" for turning his heart away from trust in the God of inspiration, his problem is not ultimately intellectual, but a one of "hearing." The failure is in his "equipment," in his "receiver."

In the end, this duty we have as Christians to "hear" the Shepherd's Voice (Jn 10:27) is very much akin to the early church's need to settle the canon. Where is God doing his talking? If you don't like the NIV, and prefer the KJV, I hope it is because the former is in your estimation a "crummy receiver," too filled with "static" that it hardly gives you what clarity of reception you want, and NOT because you cannot tell that it is GOD talking to you in those pages!

For if that is your problem, then what will you do if you lose your KJV, and cannot find another? Unlikely, perhaps, but the thought experiment is still valid. If you can't tell God's is the Voice behind the NIV, then you obviously can't tell the difference between the NIV and the NWT (the jw deliberate work of distortion) or the Book of Mormon. In your determination not to be led astray, you will just sit at home, preferring no Bible, and your rusty memory to feed yourself. What a pity!

So, make your choice. Say something like this: "This is the Best Bible I can find; I hear Christ in it most clearly and wonderfully. I don't think I'll ever give up this vacuum tube technology, or my earbuds, or these old speakers, or that brand ruins the tone, or I don't think the reception is quite as good in that one, or this one uses the word 'Jehovah', or...."

I hope you get the picture. Listen to the advice of someone you trust to give you a good "brand" recommendation. And then don't worry about it.

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Hey:

There is a bit of a paradox here. If you believe that the words are inspired, then you would naturally have to hold that the meanings of those words are inspired as well - otherwise - the words would not make much sense. However, if you believe the meanings are inspired, then you do not necessarily have to hold on to the words. This is evident in practice: We see the NIV, ESV, NASB, the Good News, etc. all of which claim to teach the meaning of Scripture, but using different words.

G&P,

-CH

Using different words from what? The KJV?

The words of the original manuscripts were inspired. The manuscripts we have are "inspired" words in so much as they are accurately copied from the original manuscripts. Regardless of differences, I think it is evident that we can clearly see the word of God preserved in the mss we have today.

Different people translate from the Hebrew and Greek using different synonyms, syntax, etc. But each of the Bibles above (well, I don't know the Good News Bible) are accurate to the manuscripts, which means they teach the meanings of Scripture and are the very words of Scripture.

This is most evident if you speak a language other than English. I visited a KJV-only church last week, and since I couldn't find my KJV, I brought my French Bible. When I read along in that language, it definitely had different words than what the preacher was saying. Yet I believed what I was reading to be the very words of God preserved. In my head, I could translate the French word "ombre" in Ecclesiastes 1 as "shade" or "shadow" or "obscurity", and I would say any of these would be the preserved word of God. I would be foolish to pick, say, "shade", and declare any translator who used "shadow" to be translating meaning and not words.

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The basic point is well-taken. There is much agreement even between the TR and CT. However, it seems that CT folk tend to underplay the real differences that do exist. Recognizing that different statistics are sometimes given, we can do some evaluation. This from an article in the Quarterly Review:

The Greek text underlying the New Testament in modern versions is approximately 2,500 words shorter than the Greek text underlying the New Testament in the Authorised Version. This is nearly 2% of the whole. It is the equivalent of removing 1 and 2 Peter from the Bible. The total number of word differences (chiefly omissions, additions and substitutions) between these two texts is approximately 10,000 or nearly 7% of the whole.

While many of these differences are minor, over 1,500 affect the meaning of the text and nearly 500 of these substantially affect the meaning. Biblical doctrine is at stake. "Which Version: Does it Really Matter" by Rev. David Blunt, Quarterly Review 577 (October-December 2006)

This is worth being concerned about in my book. And if I lost my King James, I would buy another one

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Rob (C&H),

I did wait till 10!

You said,

“To those who hold to the Textus Receptus (including me):

If inspiration goes to the very words of the Hebrew and Greek, then how do you explain the many differences/errors found in the TR?”

And later you said,

“Errors in the TR:

One of the big ones can be found in the last verses of Revelation. Originally, Erasmus had to translate these passages out of the Latin because none of the Greek Texts he had contained it. In doing so he created a word that is nowhere found in any Greek Text (Byzantine or Alexandrian):

Summarturoumai.gar at Rv 22:18.

Another "error" that is claimed is found in 1 John 5:7-8.”

Pastor Bruce gives a good short answer in his post above, which should be helpful to all parties, whatever their choice of Scripture.

My own view, which focuses on the question you raise, pertains to the concept of “preservation in the minutiae”, which we have discussed here previously.

Let me briefly review:

There are two schools of Traditional Text defenders; one says yes, the 1894 TR compiled by Scrivener is absolutely identical with the original autographs due to providential preservation of the text-form by the Lord. The other school, championed by John Owen, Turretin, E.F. Hills, Letis, etc, own minute variants within the TR manuscripts. Hills, for instance, said he’d found 3. So while not “absolute”, it is virtually identical.

The 3 phrases Hills says are errors (Believing Bible Study, p. 83) comprise nine Greek words. In the Greek of the Textus Receptus (1894 edition) there are 140,521 words. That is .0064% or sixty-four one thousandths of one percent. Compare that with the variance between the Greek of the TR and the Greek of the Westcott and Hort text: 9,970 Greek words are changed. That is 7.095%. This would be equal to having the entire book of Romans (9,447 words) plus 2 and 3 John (and then some) thoroughly changed (usually the changes are omissions)! The uncertainty is 1,108.59 times greater in the Critical Text. (The word count for the TR is from D.A. Waite’s, Defending The King James Bible, p. xii)]

From Dr. Theodore P. Letis’ books, we can see that John Owen (and perhaps Turretin) owned possible minute variants within the TR editions, and their view was that God had allowed them:

This is from Letis’ The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate:

Owen saw only the minor variants between the various editions of TR as valid areas for discrimination, staying within the broad parameters of providential preservation, as exemplified by “Erasmus, Stephen, Beza, Arias Montanus, and some others.” Within the confines of these editions was “the first and most honest course fixed on” for “consulting various copies and comparing them among themselves.”

This is both the concrete domain of the providentially preserved text, as well as the only area for legitimate comparisons to choose readings among the minutiae of differences. In fact, “God by His Providence preserving the whole entire; suffered this lesser variety [within the providentially preserved editions of the TR –TPL] to fall out, in or among the copies we have, for the quickening and exercising of our diligence in our search into His Word [for ascertaining the finality of preservation among the minutiae of differences among the TR editions –TPL] (The Divine Original, p. 301)* It is the activity, editions, and variants after this period of stabilization that represent illegitimate activity, or, as Owen says, “another way.”

Thus Owen maintained an absolute providential preservation while granting variants. (“John Owen Versus Brian Walton” fn 30, p. 160)

* Owen’s Divine Original online: DIVINE ORIGINAL, AUTHORITY, SELF-EVIDENCING LIGHT, AND POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES. This is from volume 16 of Owen’s works.

This would be in line with the thinking of Dr. Hills. There is another view, and that is God completely – that is, perfectly – preserved the Greek and Hebrew texts, so that they are without any error whatever. And there is another view – ably defended by Will Kinney, among others – that the King James Bible is without error. And Kinney is no slouch, or fanatic, but an able scholar.

Now the one error you brought up (I don’t think you are turning coat and claiming for yourself that 1 John 5:7 is an error – otherwise I might as well expect you to turn and give up your paedo confession for credo as well, as another here has recently done) was in Revelation 22:18, “Summarturoumai.gar at Rv 22:18.” Of this you said,

“Erasmus had to translate these passages out of the Latin because none of the Greek Texts he had contained it. In doing so he created a word that is nowhere found in any Greek Text (Byzantine or Alexandrian)”

As for the word not being found in any Greek text, is it not also in Romans 2:15 and 9:1, albeit in slightly different form? But perhaps you meant not in any Greek ms at Rev 22:18?

Using one of the arguments you used to use (and still do?) concerning 1 John 5:7, is that there is testimony that there were texts extant in the Reformation era that contained verse 7, actually, more did than didn’t (of those that had that portion of 1 John 5), although they are not found existing today. As you know, Gill said, “...out of sixteen ancient copies of Robert Stephens’, nine of them had it”.

So why can this not be the case here with Eramus and Rev. 22:18? I have written on this portion of Scripture here: The supposed “Erasmian Inventions”. I just give the link so as not to encumber this post with too much verbosity, as that puts some off.

The point is, it is an assumption that Erasmus did not have the last page of Revelation, and translated it into Greek from the Latin. As you can see from Dr. Coats’ remarks (see the link in the previous paragraph), Hoskier denied this was the case, and Hoskier was well versed in the Revelation manuscripts.

I recently came across an important contribution to this issue of the Textus Receptus (particularly the 1894 of Scrivener) by Will Kinney, in an online article he wrote called, ”Tyndale, the Textus Receptus or the King James Bible?” We do not have the exact manuscripts the translators of the AV 1611 used – the Greek, other language versions, other English versions – and we do not have notes as to the reasons they made what choices they did, I believe because of one of the great London fires, which destroyed such records. What we have is the English version the Lord providentially brought into existence, from the Greek and other mss He provided the Reformation editors and the KJV translators. The Scrivener 1894 TR is but a back-translated Greek text from the English of the AV. We really don’t have a Greek text that is perfect and which we can call “exact”, although by the method of John Owen (noted above) he arrived at “an absolute providential preservation while granting variants”.

Is this not – what Owen referred to – the Greek spoken of in the WCF 1:8?

What we have, amazingly, is the English rendition of the Word of God preserved and prepared for His church. I will hold to it.

Have you more “errors”? Bring them on. I suppose we will have to fight in the trenches over them, hand to hand.

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Great question!

Hi:

Thanks Steve - I knew you would come up with an excellent, and well thought out, answer.

I side with Owen on this matter. My intention with this thread was to see how others considered these questions. Consequently, I was playing a sort of Devil's advocate position. I am fully on board with the TR and both Word and Thought inspiration.

Excellent post - Blessings brother!

-CH