Secretariat and 1 John 5:7

On June 9, 1973, was the 105th running of the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Belmont, New York in front of a crowd of 69,138 spectators. Facing a field of five horses, Secretariat won by 31 lengths, the largest margin of victory in Belmont history, and never since approached, winning the Triple Crown of horse racing, Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes. Secretariat continues to be considered the greatest horse in racing history.

On June 9, 1973, it would have been the epitome of foolishness to bet against Secretariat and among those who did bet on Secretariat, it would have been considered absolute lunacy to say that the horse would win by an unheard of before 31 lengths. Nevertheless, this extraordinary victory is no hypothetical notion but an exciting part of horse racing and American history. The seemingly impossible margin of victory unimagined before the race 2 minutes and 24 seconds later became reality.

The church has been told, indeed commanded by scholars who tout some notion of a past premonition of what the autographa said, to omit, for example 1 John 5:7. What makes these scholars less credible than the money losers who bet against Secretariat is that what Secretariat accomplished had never been achieved before in horse racing history, whereas, I John 5:7 has a robust historic and confessional significance to the church only recently rejected by secular scholars and their evangelical surrogates. Conversely, betting on the racing history of Secretariat to win the race made for a profitable day at the track.

For all the friends of Standard Sacred Text.com you may be wondering why betting or gambling is a blog topic at all. It is because, dear brothers and sisters, modern textual criticism is nothing more than high brow horse racing. Scholars have no more way of knowing what a textual reading is than the person laying a bet on a horse at the track. But what makes textual criticism at least as corrupt as horse racing is that they rig the race by means of publishers to make sure their horse or reading wins. Rigged race after rigged race gives the crowd in the stands the impression that the same horse always wins, e.g. NIV, ESV, et al., that it is really the fastest, the best reading, when really the reading is part of a rigged system designed to take the money of the spectators. Unlike the King James Bible and Received Text, modern versions and the critical text are financially and ecclesiastically unsustainable if not propped up by publishing corroborators.

The Church was not in need of a new bible at the end of the 19th c. but scholars and publishers decided we all needed another bible anyway. And because we had no need for another bible, a propaganda crusade by publishers pressed the novel edition on the spiritually weak ecclesiastical market. From the beginning, the race has been rigged against the Church under the auspices of scholarship. The Church would never have forsaken 1 John 5:7 until someone they thought was trustworthy told them to omit it for their own good.

So, in the world of chance, how secure is the wager to omit 1 John 5:7 considering its long-term reception by the Church? Or, on the wager to include 1 John 5:7? Let’s consider the wager from two vantage points, a race where the fix is in, or a race that lets the best reading win. If the fix is in, to omit or include really doesn’t matter, but considering the modern textual argument the fix is only oriented on omitting 1 John 5:7. Scholars and the Church already knows due to Church history that if the race is not fixed, 1 John 5:7 is the sure winner, and from the position of placing a wager, one will return from the seminary classroom a richer person by holding to the passage.

Horse racing “experts” before the 105th running of the Belmont States would have told all 69,138 spectators that day that no horse could win by 31 lengths, a laughable bit of “expert” trivia now proven to be absolutely false. “Experts” are now telling us they know what is in the autograph and that 1 John 5:7 was not in the original writing of the Apostle John, an equally laughable bit of “expert” trivia. But what makes the textual critical “expert” even less credible than horse racing aficionados, is that 1 John 5:7 was already part of the Church’s vocabulary and confessions; it had to be omitted from the ecclesiastical text, whereas no horse had ever won a race by 31 lengths. Based on the evidence available, wagering on 1 John 5:7 is even a better bet than wagering on the fact that Secretariat would win by 31 lengths which makes omitting 1 John 5:7 a bad bet.

DEBATE: Dr. Van Kleeck Jr. vs. Francis Turretin (aka TurretinFan)

Recently I have accepted an invitation to debate Francis Turretin (aka TurretinFan) on Nick Sayer’s YouTube channel. The topic under examination is as follows:

“Has God’s Word Been Perfectly Preserved by the Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts or by the King James translation?”

The question, as proposed by TurretinFan, needs some work. It is a bit sloppy but I think as details regarding the debate emerge we should be able to tighten up a couple of things contained in the question.

Currently there is neither a date nor a time for the debate but as those details emerge I will be sure to share them here.

Blessings.

P.S. – If there are any others out there that would like to discuss/debate the validity of the TR/KJV as the preserved word of God for God’s people, then add a comment to this post and we’ll see what we can work out. I am willing to do so both in person and online.

Reformation Bible Society Paper Presentation Topics

With the Reformation Bible Society’s inaugural meeting fast approaching we wanted to share our paper titles with our readership. Both Dr.s’ Van Kleeck will present papers in their respective fields on the topic of the Septuagint. The title of our papers are as follows:

Dr. Van Kleeck Sr. – Andrew Willet (1562-1621) and the Management of the Septuagint in His Hexaplas

Dr. Van Kleeck Jr. – Augustine, the LXX, and Reformed Epistemology: A Temporally Conditioned Case Study

As a reminder the Reformation Bible Society conference will meet on August 3rd at the Liberty Mountain Conference Center in Lynchburg VA. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Pastor Christian Khanda Gives a Distinctively Christian Argument for the TR

In the video to follow, Pastor Christian Khanda (OPC) offers a clear and concise argument in favor of the TR. Leaning on Scripture (as all Christians should when it comes to their theological belief) Pastor Khanda shares both exegetical and theological reasons for holding to the TR. Even more, with the help of the interviewer both Khanda and the interviewer are able to weave into the conversation historical theology by appealing to the Westminster Divines and their use of contested passages of Scripture. Noting that these passages were used as proof texts for theological confession. This episode as a whole was a breath of fresh air. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think you will too.

Our Artless and Banal Textual Scholarship (Repost)

“It is impossible to read Shakespeare – the best of Shakespeare, not the four or five weakest plays – and not (1) recognize his genius, and (2) enjoy the plays. Not by trying to read one in a night, but rather reading it in a week, following the footnotes the first time or two, catching up with the language, then reading for pleasure. Similarly, it is impossible not to enjoy Mr. Bach if you start slowly and are willing to devote a little effort at first.”

Phil G. Goulding, Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works (New York: Fawcett Books, 1992), 108.

You will not find the modern textual scholar making such claims and admonitions as to read something beautiful, something momentous, and to read it multiple times. You will not find them advocating for “catching up with the language the first time or two” in your study of Scripture or to “start slowly” and “devote a little effort at first” in your Bible reading. For Bach and Shakespeare, yes; for the Bible, no.

Instead we are treated to junk suppositions like “That’s hard to read” and “Those are archaic words.” If we are to learn Shakespeare and to understand his genius, and we should, we are going to have to read it in the words he wrote. If we are going to enjoy Bach and understand his genius we are going to have to start slowly and devote a little effort.

But instead of observing the genius of the these and like writers and composers we don’t study them at all. Not in public school and not in most private schools. And once out of school very few actually take it upon themselves to read and study these great works which formed the Western mind.

And now we are fighting to keep I Am Jazz and Sam the Transformer out of public schools because these messages are diametrically opposed to the survival of any society and culture. What happened? Which came first, whining about how difficult it is to read the King James Version or stupidly asserting that reading Shakespeare and the like have no use and are therefore obsolete?

Use?! This is the very thing that Karl Barth, as wrong as he was on so many things, warned the Church about. The Bible is no mere tool given to people to shape and reshape like Michael Jackson’s nose in order to give ecclesiastical credence to evil. The Bible is not a mere object of inquiry. Oh the Bible does have a use and that use is in the same way obedient subjects have a use for an almighty sovereign.

Disposable music, disposable literature, disposable technology, disposable theology, and disposable Bibles are the order of the day. Instantly the rage one day and by next year we need something new. If you don’t have the newest iPhone then you are behind the times, and if you don’t have the latest Nestle/Aland Greek NT you get charged with the same lapse.

We don’t have a use for real works of genius which yield longevity like the King James Bible or Shakespeare or Bach because we as Americans, starting in the academy, have become artless, banal, and misshapen down to our very souls. And we are proud of it, to boot.

Was B.B. Warfield’s View of the Autograph the Same as the Protestant Orthodox?

To answer this question Richard Muller [PRRD, Holy Scripture, pp. 413-414] observes,

The case for Scripture as an infallible rule of faith and practice and the separate argument for a received text free from major (i.e., non-scribal) errors rests on an examination of the apographa [i.e., copies of copies] and does not seek the infinite regress of the lost autographs [i.e., originals] as a prop for textual infallibility.

1.) For the Protestant Reformed, the argument for the inspiration of Scripture rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

2.) For the Protestant Reformed, the argument for a received text also rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

3.) Again, for the Protestant Reformed, the argument for the infallibility of Scripture rests on the copies of copies of the New Testament, not on the originals.

4.) The Protestant Orthodox weren’t foolish enough or illogical enough to seek an infinite regress of the lost originals.

5.) The Protestant Orthodox did not use the autographs as a prop as Warfield did. Consider Muller’s footnote placed at the end of the quote above.

A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the views of Archibald Alexander Hoge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield…The point made by Hodge and Warfield is a logic trap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critics – who can only prove their case for genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.” p. 414, fn 192.

Pre-Critical and Post-Critical Bibliology are not the same in form and content. Pre-Critical and Post-Critical textual criticism are not the same in method and conclusion. Pre-Critical and Post-Critical views of the autograph and apograph are not the same in explanatory force and scope.

The modern church has separated from its Protestant roots concerning Bibliology and those who claim otherwise naively cry, Peace peace; when there is no peace.

Andrew Willet (1562-1621), Matthew Poole (1624-1679), and Matthew Henry (1662-1714) and the critical examination of the authorship of 2 Samuel

A recurring maneuver of evangelical apologists for the critical text is to insinuate that those who support a standard sacred text resist or reject reformation era text critical work. This of course is a feckless fallacy of the interlocular. The conspicuous difference between pre-critical and post-critical text critical work is that pre-critical text criticism worked within the scope of the apographa, the copies of the autographa then available. Post-critical text-criticism makes a historic leap backward over the apographa of the Reformation focusing upon the reconstruction of the “never-to-be-recovered” autographa. Muller calls this attempt to reconstruct the autographs, “a logical trap, a rhetorical flourish, a conundrum designed to confound the critic – who can only prove their case for the genuine errancy by recourse to a text they do not (and surely cannot) have.” [Richard A. Muller, “Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology,” Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 433, fn. 165.]

While the critical nature of pre- and post-critical scholarship shows similarities, the documents under consideration differed greatly. For the apographa, all the theological categories of God’s word were brought to bear upon its reception and analysis – Scripture was self-attesting, self-authenticating, and self-interpreting, autopistos. And, the Holy Spirit is the final arbitrator for the sacred scripture, not scholars, impelling the covenant keeper through the reading and preaching of vernacular scriptures.

Introducing his commentary on 2 Samuel under the heading “The Inscription of the Book,” “Samuel, it is held, was the author of the book until mention is made of his death,” Willet writes. He continues, however, stating, “there is greater question why the second book bears his name,” and lists the following reasons: “1. His actions are not its content; 2. He is not the penman; 3. It is written by some of the prophets. Perhaps Nathan who followed Samuel, or another prophet, from manuscripts collected by Hezekiah or manuscripts collected by Ezra.”

This concept of collecting and editing books of the Bible is also taken up by Matthew Henry (1662-1714) and Matthew Poole (1624-1679). Henry writes in the introduction to his commentary on Judges:

The history of these judges in their order we have in this book to the end of ch. xvi. And then in the last five chapters we have an account of some particular memorable events which happened, as the story of Ruth did (Ruth i.1) in the days when the judges ruled, but it is not certain in which judge’s days; but they are put together at the end of the book, that the thread of the general history might not be interrupted.[1]

Henry also calls the collator of Judges a “historian” which lends itself to the idea of systematizing a historical chain of events.[2] This editorial element of the sacred texts formation is clearly identified by Henry and poses no problem either for himself or for others of his era.[3]

Poole, introducing his commentary on Judges, writes, “The author of this book is not certainly known, whether it was Samuel, or Ezra, or some other prophet, nor is it material to know.” What matters not who was the king’s secretary, or with what pen it was written, it once be known it was the king who made the order or decree.”[4] More pointed is Poole’s introduction to the book of 1 Samuel. There he says, “It is not certainly known who was the penman of this Book, or whether it was written by one or more hands… It may well suffice that there were in these times divers prophets and holy men of God; as Samuel and Nathan, and Gad, and David himself, who might each of them write some part of this and the following book.”[5]

 No conflict is recognized by these men between the inspiration of the text and the text’s collection and editing. That the text may have been written by a variety of godly men and copied from other collected sources is also not in question. The idea of a historian, to use Henry’s word, depicts a man or men who sat down to review the historical documents and arranged them in an order that was best suited to communicate the sacred history. What each of these men is confident to say is that this aspect of the canon’s formation is not necessary to know. The salient element is that the words, from whomever they were penned either in an exemplar from which they were copied or in the original document itself, were the self-authenticating, autopistos, written words of God.

[1] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, n.d.), p. 120.

[2] Henry, Commentary, p. 120.

[3] Cf. Muller, “Holy Scripture,” pp. 135-137.

[4] Poole, Commentary, p. 456.

[5] Poole, Commentary, p. 513.

Reaching the Next Generation

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with three students from Virginia Tech. These students attend my Church. They are reformed in theology and presuppositional in their evangelism. Somehow they came across the debate I had with Dr. White and having listened to the debate they had a series of questions.

So one Sunday afternoon the four of us sat down and worked through their questions. By the end of our conversation, the three of them were staunch defenders of the TR and the KJV, bought Westminster Reference Bibles, and apologized to their Muslim friends for conceding that the Bible had scribal errors. As I reflect on that conversation and the fruit of it I came to some observations which I wanted to share here.

1.) The Bible Compels: I believe it is imperative when speaking with other Christians regarding belief in a standard sacred text that the Bible speaks and compels us to believe something. In this case, I reminded these students that the Bible teaches us that God made man and woman, that Jesus rose from the dead, and that one day Jesus will return. And because the Bible teaches these things, and given that the Bible is the word of God, the Bible therefore compels the Christian to believe something about what it is to be man and woman, who Jesus was/is, and what the future looks like. In like manner, the Bible says things about itself and so the Bible compels us to believe things about the Bible.

2.) Your Bible: After it is agreed that the Bible compels us to believe something about the Bible, it is important to prioritize the fact that when the Bible says something about the Bible, it is talking about your Bible and my Bible. It must be clear to your interlocutor that when the Bible says that God’s word is inspired, preserved, pure, trustworthy, etc. that the Bible in your hand is saying those things about the Bible in your hand.

3.) What the Bible Says: After #1 and #2 do not turn to theology first or manuscript evidence. Take them to the living, inspired, and compelling words of God and exegete those passages for them. Answer their questions not with erudite theology first, but with sound exegesis of what his/her Bible says about his/her Bible. Allow the Spirit of God to speak through His words to His people to sanctify his/her belief and in so doing receive the truth of those words by faith.

4.) Theological Statements: When the Bible says something about your Bible that “saying” is a theological statement. The Bible is the ground and foundation of theological belief and knowledge because my Bible says my Bible is the revelation of Jesus (Revelation 1) and Jesus (the Ground and Foundation of being [John 1]) is Truth (John 14:6) and so His word is truth (John 17:17). As a result, claims about what is God’s word (Long Ending in Mark, John 3:16, and John 1) as well as claims about what is not God’s word (Long Ending of Mark, Woman Caught in Adultery, 1 John 5:7) are all theological claims and as such must have their epistemological anchor first in what the Bible says about itself. Indeed, what your Bible says about your Bible. Thus to say the Long Ending of Mark is Scripture or to say the Long Ending of Mark is NOT Scripture is to make a theological statement and as such the speaker must have an exegetical grounding derived from Scripture to make that claim. We argue that God promised to preserve His words (Psalm 12:6-7; Isaiah 59:21) and that the same Spirit that gave God’s words by inspiration (II Timothy 3:16) now indwells the believer who accepts those words by faith (Romans 10:17). Our opponents on the other hand offer manuscript evidence and probabilities regarding their theological claims in this regard. Our opponents currently prevail not because of their exegesis but because they have the bully pulpit.

This has been our argument here at Standard Sacred Text, that belief in the Bible is a work of the Spirit to sanctify the believer by means of the Spirit of God speaking through the word of God to the people of God who accept those words by faith. Only from this vantage point can theology, philosophy, and evidence find their proper place as servants to the primary and kingly role of the King speaking to His people through His words by His Spirit.