TR/CT debate - split from White/Ehrman debate thread

[CalvinandHodges]

Greetings brother Wieland:

I would like to invite you to call The Dividing Line on Thursday if you would like, 4pm MST. I would like to discuss your assertions in this thread on the program. Thank you!

Hi Dr:

Unfortunately, I did not have the time to call you - I will do so in the future when I do get the time.

Having once been a student I am sure you understand the constraints - especially in the afternoon - of finding the opportunity to call.

The Lord's richest blessings to you and yours,

Rob

-----Added 1/30/2009 at 01:02:48 EST-----

In other words the rest of us doubt God fulfills all His promises.

You have said so ...

-Rob

[sotzo]

Rob:

Briefly, what would have been the points / questions you would have raised had you called in?

[CalvinandHodges]

Rob:

Briefly, what would have been the points / questions you would have raised had you called in?

Hi:

I don't know. Dr. White invited me onto his show. An invitation I did not read until this afternoon. I take it that he would set the agenda which would give him an advantage. Since it is his show - it would give him another advantage. And, since he is a very skilled debater, and I am a mere student, then all the advantages would be on his side.

In other words - when I call him on his show - I do not expect to do very well. I say "when" because I do plan on calling him - hopefully - this Thursday. I will try to block the time out for it.

I think it would be a good experience to talk to him directly about the Critical Text and the Textus Receptus.

Blessings,

Rob

[tdowns]

so we can listen.

I listen to the show, but, can't always get to it. I'm not looking to find a winner, just fun (like when Rich was on) to hear fellow PB'ers.

[john_Mark]

Rob,

I believe that you have already set the agenda. All Dr. White has asked is that you defend your assertions. Does this mean that you will have the advantage then?

You may be a mere student, but that doesn't really seem like that's how you presented yourself from the beginning.

Whoever has whatever advantages, do you atleast admit that Dr. White will be fair to you?

[CalvinandHodges]

Rob,

I believe that you have already set the agenda. All Dr. White has asked is that you defend your assertions. Does this mean that you will have the advantage then?

You may be a mere student, but that doesn't really seem like that's how you presented yourself from the beginning.

Whoever has whatever advantages, do you atleast admit that Dr. White will be fair to you?

Hi:

Touche' I will acknowledge your points. However, Dr. White will be in control of the conversation, and, thus, the questions he will ask of me will set the agenda. Since a lot of material was covered on this thread he will be able to pick and choose what he likes.

I assume that Dr. White will ask about this paragraph in the dozens of paragraphs I wrote:

Personally: I believe that Dr. White has been so browbeaten by King James Only advocates, that he is unwilling to admit the Textus Receptus as a legitimate copy of the autographs. To do so, it appears to me, would be to admit that the King James Only advocates are right in their assessment of the Greek text. This is my impression in watching him on his videos as well as a few personal conversations with him (one on the Dividing Line). However, I do not claim to be a mind reader, and I may be very wrong in assessing his motivations.

This was a personal observation on reading and watching his many videos on the subject. If I offended, then I do apologize. However, I am actually sympathic to Dr. White on the above matter - having to deal with those crazy KJO advocates shows a great deal of patience. I expect to be beaten to death about this in order to deny any of the other things I wrote.

If Dr. White is to be fair, then I would expect him to send me his agenda on this conversation.

Grace and Peace,

Rob

PS: I seemed to have misread his post - I get the impression that he wants me to call him this coming Thursday. -RPW

[mossy]

Rob,
Could you please provide evidence of this?
"Personally: I believe that Dr. White has been so browbeaten by King James Only advocates, that he is unwilling to admit the Textus Receptus as a legitimate copy of the autographs."

I have listened to his debates and read his book on the subject and have only heard him say the opposite. I could have missed him saying the TR is not a legitimate copy of the autographs, but I would be really surprised.
Thank you.
Terry

[Hippo]

Does Mr. White want a discussion or a debate? Which one for his radio program?

And will he be acting as brother in Christ, with love and patience admonishing another brother in Christ or as a secular critical scholar?

It is really insulting when you are stigmitised as a secular critical scholar because you do not accept the TR as pure in every respect compared to earlier Alexandrian manuscripts.

I really do not understand all these veiled allegations against a very learned and courageous orthodox Christian.

[ChristianTrader]

Thanks for the example in your post #46. That is the kind of thing I was looking for by way of instances. Again, please provide a list of other examples for the TR supporting orthodoxy against the CT.

See this thread: AV Theology Compared to Modern Versions

Rev. Winzer had a field day as they say. It seemed not many wanted to play.

As a person leaning towards the TR, I would rather have Rev. Winzer call the Dividing Line and the two discuss the thread the Av Theology compared Thread.

CT

[Marrow Man]

Just so everyone understands exactly where I stand with regard to Dr. White:



There -- undeniable proof that I am not only taller than James White, but I also have more hair.

[SolaGratia]

Does Mr. White want a discussion or a debate? Which one for his radio program?

And will he be acting as brother in Christ, with love and patience admonishing another brother in Christ or as a secular critical scholar?

It is really insulting when you are stigmitised as a secular critical scholar because you do not accept the TR as pure in every respect compared to earlier Alexandrian manuscripts.

I really do not understand all these veiled allegations against a very learned and courageous orthodox Christian.

What?


I do not accept the TR as pure?

You can always send me a private message.

[Hippo]

Does Mr. White want a discussion or a debate? Which one for his radio program?

And will he be acting as brother in Christ, with love and patience admonishing another brother in Christ or as a secular critical scholar?

It is really insulting when you are stigmitised as a secular critical scholar because you do not accept the TR as pure in every respect compared to earlier Alexandrian manuscripts.

I really do not understand all these veiled allegations against a very learned and courageous orthodox Christian.

What?


I do not accept the TR as pure?

You can always send me a private message.

You have misread my message (or indeed perhaps I have mistyped it or a combination of the two). It is Dr White who I undersatnd does not accept that the TR is pure in every single one of its variants. I certainly do not and I do not have to adopt secular critical assumptions to do so.

[TimV]

You have misread my message (or indeed perhaps I have mistyped it or a combination of the two).

You were perfectly clear. It is yet another example of how Gil is not following these threads with comprehension.

Gil, perhaps you should spend a few months using the search function here and reviewing these threads.

[Blueridge Believer]

I certainly am not an expert on this subject nor a scholar. I have been a christian for 24 years and by God's grace have been a student of the Word since then. I have been using the AV for all of that time. The only CT bible I own is a ESV that I use for comparison purposes besides that I have a NKJV and a Geneva. I also have online bible where I have access to other translations and "literal" translations. I have read the NKJV through as well as the Geneva but always go back to the AV because it is "burnt" into my mind from all the years of reading it. With that said I have a few questions that I am hoping some of those who advocate the CT could answer for me,

What new truth has the CT given us that we did not have in the TR?
What has the plethera of new translations done for the church?
Has the CT not caused a lot of confusion in the church regarding the accuracy of some texts maybe giving rise to unbelief in some?
What do we have in the CT that we do not have in the TR?

Blessings on you all

[Hippo]

What new truth has the CT given us that we did not have in the TR?
What has the plethera of new translations done for the church?
Has the CT not caused a lot of confusion in the church regarding the accuracy of some texts maybe giving rise to unbelief in some?
What do we have in the CT that we do not have in the TR?

Blessings on you all

What new truth has the CT given us that we did not have in the TR?

By the time the text evolved into the TR it contains additions and errors that were not in the original text

What has the plethera of new translations done for the church?

The new transalations are a mixture of good and bad, what the best have done is to show that even though in every tradition there are textual variants the cannon as a whole has remained pure and we have texts in the vernaculer where people can understand the message for themselves.

Has the CT not caused a lot of confusion in the church regarding the accuracy of some texts maybe giving rise to unbelief in some?

No, it is the different historical texts that gives rise to confusion and unbelief. If the Church ignored all such texts or denied there existance it would be accused of ignoring history and relying on assertion rather than history. Islam has done a splendid job of keeping its text pure and denying any historical variants in the text, in doing so they have stemed unbelief but they have done so by distorting history and truth.

What do we have in the CT that we do not have in the TR?

We have a more accurate historical text


Now all these points are arguable but in arguing against any form of CT as a matter of principle rather than as a matter of historic evaluation of individual texts it is opponents of textual evaluation who seem to deny any real historical basis for the biblical texts.

The reformed traditions great strength is its willingness to put mans minds at the service of the Gospel, to fight Liberalism on the basis of historic Christianity being fact, not to retreat into a mire of assertions.

[john_Mark]

Hey Tim P.,

Where I stand too.



So...why are you wearing a GA Southern shirt? (That's my Alma mater.)

p.s. If the image doesn't show up it's here.

[Marrow Man]

Hey Tim P.,

Where I stand too.



So...why are you wearing a GA Southern shirt? (That's my Alma mater.)

p.s. If the image doesn't show up it's here.

And my alma mater as well (x2)! Nice to see south Georgia churning out more Reformed folk!

[DMcFadden]

What new truth has the CT given us that we did not have in the TR?

The energy placed in this debate (on the PB) is fueled by a desire by orthodox Christians to have the most accurate, most exact, and closest text to the original autographs. TR folks think that they have it in the Erasmian text by the providential preservation of God providing him with the correct half dozen or so mss. that are the gold standard. The fact that he did not even have a mss. with the end of Revelation and had to "back translate" it himself from the Latin Vulgate would be enough to cast doubt in my mind as to the validity of the assumption.

As an orthodox Christian who holds to the inerrancy of the Bible, I want my English Bible to be based upon the closest thing we can get to the original autographs. The CT and TR crowd are both trying to do that. They do disagree on the way to accomplish that end. The TR side believes that we can find the more accurate text in the majority of mss; the CT group thinks that the better method is to look at the oldest mss.

Arguing against the invalidity of WH premises and presuppositions is typically not terribly impressive to CT advocates today because they do not view themselves as subscribers to WH. An analogy if you will would be Darwinian evolution (I write this as a 6 day creationist). In my disputes with modern evolutionists, they seem rather indifferent to my poking holes in Darwin. They suggest that they could poke their own holes in Darwin. Still, they hold to evolution as the best explanation of the evidence and credit Darwin with getting THAT right while much of the rest of it he got wrong. Bart Ehrman is an apostate. He uses the pheneomena of textual criticism to argue against the faith in the same way as others use the differences in the Synoptics to argue against inerrancy. Taking us back to the original premises of the founders of Textual Criticism or its earliest pioneers may be interesting, but will seldom convince a modern day practitioner, IMO.

What has the plethora of new translations done for the church?

Here we are mixing apples and oranges. The issue of Bible translation is not the same as textual transmission. The translators of the Geneva Bible, the KJV, and the NKJV all work with essentially the same texts and attempt to render them into the vernacular English as Luther did with his Die Heilige Schrift. The fact that people have proliferated English translations in the second half of the 20th century may be argued to have done as much harm as good. For every instance of easier translation, I would counter that we have lost a standard Bible, a function the KJV held for many generations. But, even the NKJV and the efforts to create a "modern language" English MT translation participate in that trend.

The American fascination with creating new Bible translations is only incidentally related to the text from which they worked. If there were no CT, we might have had a NAS, RSV, NIV, CEV, NEB, LB, etc. style all based on the TR!!! Lay people don't typically read the NLT because it is based on "older and more accurate texts," but because they think that it reads "easier." Proponents of the NAS think that it is more "literal" and less literary than the KJV or RSV. Frankly, I suspect that ego, party spirit, and marketing realities have as much to do with the plethora of translations as anything else. Is there really any reason why the SBC had to have their own Bible (HCSB)? I like the HCSB, but do not see that it was all that "needed." The same can be said for the CEV, NEB, NLT, etc. If you want to have different translation philosophies represented, then how about the [KJV, NKJV, NAS] vs. [RSV, ESV, HCSB] vs. the [NIV, NLT] vs. the [CEV, TEV, LB, Message]?

Has the CT not caused a lot of confusion in the church regarding the accuracy of some texts maybe giving rise to unbelief in some?

Sure. But there really are thousands of mss and they really do differ from each other. The rise of "reasoned eclecticism" is one approach to making sense of that reality. The fact that the Byzantine tradition (the vast majority of mss of which the TR is a part) differs from the TR provides the fodder for the critics regardless of whether the CT existed. IMO, critics would have a MUCH easier time throwing brickbats at the TR if we did not have a CT. The sheer weight of the argument that we have older mss that "differ" from the TR would be used to argue that the church corrupted the Bible from the original. Indeed, one might argue that the presence of the CT and apologists such as James White are a positive answer to Bible critics who try to make it out that we have a corrupt text. They argue with some measure of persuasion and cogency that the methods of textual criticism, albeit flawed, have allowed us to reconstruct the original text to such an extent that the arguments of the apostates and agnostics fall flat.

What do we have in the CT that we do not have in the TR?

This is a funny question. IFF you can forget that there really are thousands of mss with differences, and IFF you accept the KJVO arguments about providence leading Erasmus to have the "right" mss to translate from, etc. . . . then . . . nothing.

If you begin by saying that out of the thousands of mss. you want to have only the readings that the original Author and the biblical writers actually wrote, and you are confident in the methodology employed by the textual critics to determine this, then you may gain quite a bit.

In terms of doctrinal outcomes neither textual tradition gives us anything all that unique . . . you can be just as Reformed with either the TR or the CT, just as Arminian with either the TR or the CT, and just as committed to the Word-Faith "name it and claim it" movement with either one.

The vast majority of the most orthodox Reformed teachers today AND a rank apostate like Bart Ehrman all accept the CT. Some of the most Godly and articulate expositors of the Word (e.g., our own Rev. Winzer) AND some of the most heretical argue for their unusual views with a KJV in their hands. So, IMO, the issue is not one of what does the CT (or TR) add. You can be orthodox or heretical with either text in your hands.

Please remember: the most staunchly KJVO advocate and the firm CT devotee both argue that they have THE Word of God. And, on the doctrines of Christ, sin, salvation, the Holy Spirit, the Second Coming, Election, Predestination, the Atonement, etc. BOTH the CT and the TR "teach" THE SAME THING!!! Whether your Bible includes 1 John 5:7 or not, the Trinity is clearly articulated or suggested in many texts (e.g., Eph. 1:3-14; Matt 28:18-20, etc.). If you remove the woman taken in adultery from John 8, all of the doctrine and homiletical applications can be taught using other passages. The Marcan ending, however, just plain confuses me. I have nothing to say one way or the other on it. Mark 16:8 would indeed be a "weird" way to end a "Gospel." But so is snake handling???????

[SolaGratia]

I have heard that we have about 98% of the Word of God in our Bibles (either in the KJV, NASB, ESC, etc. or TR and CT). Also, that what we are missing is equivalent to not having one fat toe in one of our feet. However, this is okay since what we are missing we can know and figure out base on what we have already for certain in the Word of God revealed.

[Semper Fidelis]

I'm going to close this thread now and remind everyone that the biggest issues, on both sides, has been a supposition (by a few) that an alternative view is wicked. Positions are painted in the worst possible light.

This debate from a few threads has spilled over in a way to affect personal relationships. A few of us on the Mod team have become emotionally exhausted by the turmoil this has sparked.

This issue is worth debating over and fighting for but, for me, it's not worth splitting Churches over and decreeing the "believers in God's Providence" from the unbelievers.

For my part, I have resolved in the board at large that I'm gong to spend much less engery trying to explain that I'm a brother in Christ who has a differing view for Biblical reasons to some who really are not interested in why I do or even believe that I can have Biblical reasons for some. I've resolved to be more irenic and not throw my weight into discussions that can only inflame because my sense of what a fair discussion has been co-opted. I'm going to encourage those and help those that want to hear my thoughts on a matter and be nonresponsive and patient with those who are disinterested.

I can't see any other way to keep some level of peace here as well as letting it affect personal relationships that I hold dear.