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.
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