Even Our Opponents Agree: The TR was the Standard Sacred Text of the Church

Kurt Aland

In my perusal of the internet for all things TR/KJV I came across this article by Kent Brandenburg entitled, Another Quixotic Whiff from Mark Ward on the Bible and Its Preservation.

The article is a good one and I would consider Brandenburg to be very much in the Traditional Text/Confessional Text camp as touching Scripture after reading several of his articles. Concerning the article mentioned above, Brandenburg quotes from Kurt and Barbara Aland regarding their understanding of the Church’s relationship to the TR before the rise of the Critical Text.

Undoubtedly some if not all of the following material is familiar to our readership, but it bears repeating. Kurt writes of the Textus Receptus,

[I]t is undisputed that from the 16th to the 18th century orthodoxy’s doctrine of verbal inspiration assumed this Textus Receptus. It was the only Greek text they knew, and they regarded it as the ‘original text.’

Kurt Aland, “The Text of the Church?” in Trinity Journal (Fall, 1987), 131.

In another place he makes a nearly identical observation when he writes,

We can appreciate better the struggle for freedom from the dominance of the Textus Receptus when we remember that in this period it was regarded even to the last detail the inspired and infallible word of God himself.

Kurt Aland, The Text of the New Testament, 11.

Kurt’s wife, Barbara, continues in this vein. She writes,

[T]he Textus Receptus remained the basic text and its authority was regarded as canonical. . . . Every theologian of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (and not just the exegetical scholars) worked from an edition of the Greek text of the New Testament which was regarded as the “revealed text.” This idea of verbal inspiration (i.e., of the literal and inerrant inspiration of the text) which the orthodoxy of both Protestant traditions maintained so vigorously, was applied to the Textus Receptus.

Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament, 6-7.

I rehearse these quotations for one simply reason, the Church had a received text, a standard sacred text. We have been trumpeting that from the housetops for a while now. Our opponents above have admitted and freely so that the Church had a received text of Scripture which she regarded as the inspired infallible original.

We, those who hold to Confessional Bibliology and a standard sacred text, are not the schismatics (αἱρετικός hairetikos). We are simply holding to the text which our Reformation-era forefathers held to as the inspired infallible original words of God.

Our modern opponents on the other hand approve and applaud the factious proliferation of versions in the Church. They pretend to create standard versions like the Christian Standard Version and the English Standard Version, but in the end they give us no received text in the Greek or English which they themselves regard as the inspired infallible original.

And for what? They admit that a vast majority of the modern versions are sufficiently reliable. It stands to reason then that one of those modern versions would be sufficient, but no, for them there must be many and there must be doubt as to whether the text we have is the inspired infallible original.

We believe our Greek NT in the TR to be the inspired infallible original. The Critical Text folks believe their text to be sufficiently reliable. Which position do you believe is defensible from the teaching of Scripture? Which position do you believe is more consistent with historic orthodoxy?

It is not the TR/KJV side that has divided the Church. It is the Critical Text/Multiple Version Only side which has broken away and for no robust exegetical or theological reason at all. They are the schismatics. They are the ones dividing the Church into factions. Properly speaking, they are the αἱρετικός (heretics).

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Stop dividing the Church through your constant issuing of new versions of the words of God every year. Stop explicitly and implicitly casting doubt on God’s words by claiming we are 95% sure or the words of God are in the text or apparatus. Instead, embrace one of your many Greek editions as the inspired infallible original words of God. Then embrace one of your many English editions as the derivatively inspired and therefore infallible word of God in English.

Why not? What in the Scripture prohibits you from such a belief?

Providential Preservation Argues for a Closed Canon

This post taken from Exegetical Grounding, 96-97,

“argues for the end of the historic, providential process once the text is the replica of the exemplar, both the process and the end according to the plan of God, or a closed canon. The terminus is written by the Apostle John in Revelation 22:18-19. Speaking for not only the letter to the seven churches, but canonically to the whole of Scripture, there is by God’s care and keeping, a 66-book whole, that if added to or taken from will result in that soul’s eternal damnation. For an eternal curse to be merited, the lines of demarcation must be crystal clear. That added must be added to the existing whole, and that taken away must be subtracted from the same. These verses of dire warning are pointless if the text of Scripture is fluid. The Judge of all the earth will do right, and the premise of the condemnation is adding or subtracting from a known quantity, that which has come to completion, the written word of God.”

How 16th c. Scottish Hymns Teach the Doctrine of Scripture

Reformation in Scotland

As I write this entry consider how little of what is posted on Standard Sacred Text that can be utilized by or is relevant to the modern Evangelical MVO critical text adherent. Having thrown off the past and being every day in the process of recreating an uncertain theological future, the ecclesiastical history and historic defense of the Faith is of little consequence to them. The initiation of Christianity, for them, was inaugurated at the end of the 19th century. From this perspective it is relatively easy to understand why modern Evangelicalism bibliology is so anemic and negative. Evangelicalism has little ecclesiastical or theological history to build upon, unless, as has been noted in previous posts, it borrows from pre-critical theology for the sake of deceiving the simple. Rather than building on the rich theological and exegetical tradition built upon the apostolic message and preserved throughout the epochs of time since then, the Church today is spiritually starving on scholarly offerings. Like the Left’s opposition to taking advantage of the wealth of oil in America by drilling and fracking leaving the consumer with $5/gallon gas, the theological Left’s opposition to the historical wealth of theological resources has the church spiritually destitute.

The following are excerpts of a Scottish Hymn published in 1567 as part of a compendium entitled “Followings of the Great Loving and Blessedness of God’s Word.” The hymns of the church, like Confessions, convey the theological sentiments of the Church. The same is true today. The existentially centered music of the contemporary church reflects the ecclesiastical transition from theological doxology to anthropological self-absorption and the distorted notion that “If it’s not about me, why go to church?”

Stanza 1

“We know perfect, the holy writ”

Note here that the Scriptures are perfect and holy, two adjectives unsuited to qualify the MVO tradition. This is the theological and confessed position of the latte 16th c. Scottish kirk.

Stanza 3

“Teach them from thy hand to understand, Thy word to their Salvation.”

Here, the salvific quality of Scripture is addressed. Scripture is not a science project or textbook but the means of eternal salvation from the hand of God. This verse also infers the Scripture to be the means of evangelism and teaching. Epistemologically, being taught to understand also infers that understanding the Scripture is not a natural ability but comes through the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Stanza 4

“Though Pope or King would so malign, To make the word of God forlorn, Their strength shall fail and not prevail, Though they the opposition all have sworn.”

Here the Church is cognizant of the institutional attack upon the Scripture from an apostate church and corrupt civil government. Attempts to make the Word wretched or miserable in the eyes of the people, even the most resource-rich and entrenched opposition will fail and not prevail against the power of Holy Scripture.

Stanza 5

“They give thy word a false report, Though never fails the truth”

Falsifying the Scripture is the modus operandi of the apostate church and corrupt civil government. In effect, there is an attempt to make the Scripture as wholly unreliable as every other authority except the apostate church and government, neither of which will allow allegiance to anything other than themselves. Once Scripture is accepted as containing prevarications, the gullible masses will have nowhere else to turn than to the church and government. Having abandoned the only thing that argues for freedom of conscience, the naïve voluntarily submit to slavery.

But for those who trust the Word, they know that it’s truth never fails, that it is the source of liberty of conscience, and that God always keeps His promises.

Stanza 6

“Thy word shall stand fast and perfect.”

The providential preservation of Scripture was a constant theme of the 16th c. writers. The Word being preserved is “perfect.” For the word “perfect” to have any relevant meaning it is imperative that God be the Preserver of the words and canon. Only God is capable of fulfilling such a promise. You see, then, once God is removed from the scenario man begins to speak of the Scripture in terms of intrinsic and transcriptional probability, of conjectural emendations and degrees of doubt.

Stanza 7

“To us though he a promise made, Us to convey from pain to Joy, Both in our life, and in our death.”

The eschatological ramifications of this issue is rarely addressed. “What bearing does the version issue have upon the eternal destiny of your soul?” This is usually answered by saying you can come to Christ through any version, or without a printed text through, the quotation of Scripture. All this is true at present, but this stanza deals with not only comfort in death but comfort presently in life. Only the reader can answer the reality of this statement in their own life. Are the new versions a comfort to you in the adversity of life? When on your deathbed, will reading the ESV, et al, give you comfort as you depart this world for the next? In the 16th c. this was not an issue. God made promises in His Word, they did and do convey or move the saint from pain to joy not only in this life but the next. Are believers in the pre-critical text and believers in the post-critical text believing the same thing about the person, word, and work of Jesus Christ? I don’t know. Do you?

Stanza 8

“We hope and trust the Holy Ghost, Shall not forget us at our need, So we thy word, with one accord, Hold in our heart, our Soul to feed.”

In the last stanza the inseparability of the Word and Spirit is presented in the hymn. Note the doctrinal depth of this hymn compared to the repetitious drivel that characterizes much of contemporary music. The Holy Spirit as comforter in accord with the Word satisfies the hungering heart and soul. This is the affectual impact of the Spirit and Word upon the saint. It is love for the Spirit and Word, especially in times of trial, that the saints cling to. To hold the word in the heart is to hold the Spirit in the heart and to hold the Spirit in the heart is to hold the word in the heart.

The attributes of Holy Scripture described in this hymn surpass those of Multiple Version Onlyism. They speak of the fulfilled promises of God, holiness, perfection, preservation, salvific qualities, and the inseparability of the Word and Spirit, all of which is in keeping with the writings posted at Standard Sacred Text. To speak and write this way about Scripture has a doxological focus toward which we should all strive. We “Praise God from Whom all blessing flow” except when it comes to the rational source of these blessings, the Holy Scripture. At that point, everyone has to throw away their Christian theological precommitments and think like a natural man.

A. F. Mitchell, ed., A Compendious Book of Godly and Spiritual Songs commonly known as “The Gude and Godlie Battatis,” reprinted from the Edition of 1567 (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1897, 1567), 56-57.

Edification Does Not Require Intelligibility

Mark Ward is known to say, “Edification requires intelligibility.” If we take “intelligible” to mean “able to be understood” as it does after a brief Google search, then Ward’s claim is simply false in nearly all sectors of life. If Ward means something other than “able to be understood” then clearly he has introduced one of his own False Friends into the conversation and we don’t know what he means by “intelligibility”.

Assuming Ward does mean “able to be understood”, let’s break that definition down and see how much of edification falls into the category of “able to be understood”.

So what constitutes ability? Simply put, one is only able if they have the requisite faculty, opportunity, and the time. If you are blind you are not able to see the sun. Therefore you are unable to see the the sun because you lack the faculty of sight. If you are seeing, but in extreme solitary confinement, you are still unable to see the sun. Therefore you are unable to see the sun because you haven’t the opportunity. If you are seeing and free to see the sun, but you work third shift during the winter in Northern Canada, you will sleep during the few hours the sun is up. Therefore you are unable to see the sun because you haven’t the time.

Is the blind man edified by the sun even though he cannot see the sun? Indeed, he is. Is the imprisoned man edified even though he cannot see the sun? Indeed, he is, for without the sun there would be no food for him to eat and no guards to let him out of his cell 1 hour a day. Is the third shift worker edified even though he cannot see the sun? Indeed, he is and so is his family for whom he sacrifices who lives by the sun while he works by the moon.

But what about understanding beyond the senses? Do the same criteria of faculty, opportunity, and time apply to intellectual understanding? They, in fact, do.

Consider a simplistic example of the interrelation of the college professor, the chemical engineer, and the business owner. The college professor has a faculty for abstract thinking, the opportunity to acquire post-graduate degrees, and the time to do so. The chemical engineer has a faculty for advanced mathematics and chemical composition, the opportunity to work for a large semiconductor company, and the time to do so. The business owner has good business sense, the opportunity because his father owned the factory, and the time to be a business owner.

Does the business owner understand how microchips are made? No, probably not. In fact, he very well many not know how to install one in the computers he uses to run his business. Is the business owner edified by what he does not understand? Most definitely especially if you included his house in the Shenandoah Valley and the Beach House in Boca.

Does the chemical engineer understand Divine Command Theory? Probably not. But he is edified by the fact that moral absolutes are indeed expressions of God’s good and perfect will. Does the college professor understand how Amazon Web Services works? No, he probably doesn’t. Is he edified though he does not understand? He very much is every time he uses the internet to order books from Amazon.

If you don’t have the time to learn and to be a college professor, business owner, and chemical engineer then you never understand these things but you will be edified by them. If you don’t have the faculty for the abstract or advanced math or good business sense then you will never understand these thing but you will be edified by them. If you don’t have the opportunity to get the kind of education or receive the kind of position necessary to know and do these things you will never understand them but you will be edified by them.

Do you have the faculties, opportunity, and time to examine all the things in your food? I venture that for most of us we do not and yet we are edified by the food we eat. Do you have the faculties, opportunity, and time to understand your car? Again, I think for many the answer is, no, and yet you are edified by the existence and use of that car.

But I can hear it now, “You are using ‘edify’ in an old [and more robust] way. Edification has an exclusively moral/religious slant to it.”

Fine…

Do the lost understand God – I mean Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus? Well, sort of. Apart from Scripture, they understand that God is angry at them and desires to judge them. They have just enough understanding to be eternally destroyed.

And yet the image after which God they are made and the conscience which the living and true God put within them brings about moral and religious edification. The God that they do not know gives them daily grace and mercy restraining their wickedness. Billions of people in the world do not understand the Triune God but are morally and religiously edified.

Are the secularists morally and religiously edified by the God they do not understand? Well of course the answer is yes. The presence of the God they do not understand among the people of God they do not understand curbs, redirects, and condemns the immorality of the secularist. The God they do not understand calls them to a holiness they do not understand and that call in itself edifies.

What of the Christian? Many Christians inflate their capacity for free will and they misunderstand the sovereignty of God and yet they are edified by God’s sovereignty in their lives. Many other Christians have become fatalists and misunderstand the role of free will in the life of the Christian but nevertheless are edified by the godly sanctified free choices they make every day by the power of the Holy Spirit.

What about the Bible? Is my two year old edified by the Bible even though she does not understand a single word? She indeed is because her parents know the Bible and as a result we take her to church and sing the Psalms in her ears and teach her truth and obedience. My two year old daughter is edified morally and as a person because of the Bible she does not understand.

This post is already long and we haven’t even begun to discuss degrees of edification. That is, I could listen to a Kenyan Church singing their liturgy and thereby be edified by the symmetry, beauty, comradery, friendship, union of persons, and voices before God as an act of worship without understanding a single word. It is safe to assume that many Christians do not understand the Trinity as one substance in three subsistences but that does not mean they are not edified by fact that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God. Christian’s may not understand what it means for God to reconcile all things to Himself, but they are edified by this truth nonetheless.

Then there is the act of prayer. Christians all over the world are edified through prayers they never heard offered up by people they may never meet. Understanding?! Christians in Ukraine don’t even know who is praying for them or what is being offered up and yet those same Ukrainian Christians are being edified through those prayers. Shucks, prayer itself is something we often misunderstand but we are still edified by it.

Put simply, the list of things that we “are not able to understand” but are nevertheless edified by is so long it is difficult to understand why Ward would say something so clearly false as, “Edification requires intelligibility.”

A Theological Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text

Our third volume in the Standard Sacred Text series is now available on Amazon. In this volume we leverage our work to this point in order to offer a robust historical, exegetical, and theological position in favor of holding to a standard sacred text and particularly the Authorized Version.

In the first chapter we discuss the nature of first principles and particularly epistemic first principles as commonly understood by our Reformation era forefathers. In the second chapter we discuss the role of the first-century apostles and the Apostolic Message in founding and disseminating the Scriptures.

In the third chapter we deal with the weaknesses of merely historical criteria and particularly how our Reformation era forefathers recognized these external historical criteria while at the same time rejecting them as the primary ground and foundation of how the Christian knows the Scripture is the word of God.

In chapter four we pivot to a thorough discussion on the role of the Holy Spirit in the formulation of the Canon by drawing on the works of Calvin, Ursinus, Bucanus, Owen, and Venn. In the fifth chapter we begin our discussion on the nature of inspiration and particularly the nature and implication of immediate inspiration.

Chapter six constitutes the discussion of inspiration in observing a strong link between inspiration and preservation. Particular to this chapter is the treatment of the theological term “providential preservation,” what that term means, and its application to the apographa by making use of the thought and work of Whitaker, Willet, Owen, and Turretin.

In chapter seven we discuss the distinction between immediate inspiration and derivative inspiration recognizing the Scripture as the Viva Vox Dei – the living voice of God. In chapter eight we offer a mechanism whereby the Christian can understand how the Church over the centuries has been able to move from one text to another without doing violence to his/her belief nor to the beliefs of prior generations of Christians.

Finally, in chapter nine we offer a couple dozen or so arguments, both positive and negative, which favor the King James Version as being the standard sacred text of the English-speaking Church. Each argument is brief in part because of the arguments we have heretofore offered in A Philosophical Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text and An Exegetical Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text.

Two final points:

1.) For those who disagree with our work or our conclusions we would love to discuss those things with you in person, on the phone, or online. If we must debate, then we are ready and willing but we much prefer to have a cordial and professional discussion of the issues over a cup of coffee and a piece of pie.

2.) For those who agree with our work and our conclusions you can help immensely by sharing our material with others whether in your own arguments or by pointing them to this blog. I have great confidence that together we can present a belief in the Bible that will change the world.

Thank you.

Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith…

The writer of Hebrews pointing to the fact the Jesus Christ is one greater than Moses, calls to his readers attention Psalm 95:7-11. But in doing so the writer of Hebrews does not invoke the penman of the Psalm, King David, but rather writes,

“Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the day of provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness.”

Hebrews 3:7-8

Why would the writer of Hebrews present the author of Psalm 95 as someone other than David? Did the writer of Hebrews not know that David was the one who put pen to paper and wrote Psalm 95? Was the writer of Hebrews attempting to be less precise? Is “as the Holy Ghost saith” a Hebraism? It is an oriental hyperbole? The answer to all of these questions is, no.

The words of Psalm 95 are the words of the Holy Spirit and are more commonly called, the words of God. We could say the same of the whole of Scripture. Paul says in 2 Timothy that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. We could also use the words here in Hebrews 3, “All Scripture is what the Holy Ghost said.” Seeing that all of Scripture is only the Old and New Testament, then the New Testament is only what the Holy Ghost said.

If the words of Scripture are properly and precisely what the Holy Spirit said, how then do modern evangelical textual critical principles determine what words are the Holy Spirit’s and what words are not? I mean, they are His words, so how is it that oldest, shortest, and hardest show that the Holy Spirit said X?

Ultimately put, evangelical textual scholars are not looking for the New Testament. They are looking for what the Holy Spirit has said. This is the correct focus and such a focus should shift the scholars focus from mere historical manuscripts to the transcendent nature of words spoken by God the Holy Spirit.

So, what criterion are used in the CBGM to determine which words are the Holy Spirit’s? How do they know any of the words in the entire manuscript tradition are the Holy Spirit’s words? What proof, what evidence, what component of reason eclecticism provides a means for knowing what words are the Holy Spirit’s words?

How many text critical books, from evangelicals or otherwise, offer a robust treatment of how a textual scholar locates and recognizes the words of the Holy Spirit? Who among textual scholars speak of the manuscript tradition as the words of the Holy Spirit?

What authority does the textual scholar possess and from where does this authority come to critique, add, and subtract from their eclectic Greek Critical Text year after year only to call it the New Testament? Where has God given the academic and the scholar the right and privilege to determine what words are the Holy Spirit’s and the additional right and privilege to tell Christ’s Bride what those words are?

The writer of Hebrews has no problem referring to an ancient text which is at least a copy of a copy of a copy of the original as what the Holy Ghost said even without holding oldest, shortest, and hardest as criteria. Can you believe it? It’s almost like you can know what words are the words of the Holy Spirit without so much as a peripheral glance at modern evangelical textual criticism and its varied and multifarious conclusions.

The writer of Hebrews knew this but it is readily apparent that the vast majority of modern evangelical textual scholars do not.

Dr. John Cosin (1594 -1672) on Scripture’s Force and Efficacy

John Cosin (1594 -1672) English hymnwriter and Anglican cleric who became Master of Peterhouse College Cambridge, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1660 and Bishop of Durham.

“For though there be many Internal Testimonies belonging to the Holy Scriptures, whereby we may be sufficiently assured, that they be the True and lively Oracles of God, Rom. 3:2, (such as be, The Height and Majesty of the Things there delivered above all other Conceptions and Writings in the World; The Perpetual Analogy and Conformity of all the several Parts therein contained, one with the other; The Greatness and Dignity of those Prophecies which be there foretold; and the Truth or Certainty of them all, which be there fulfilled; together with the Divine Power and Providence, that hath confirmed and preserved them to all posterity; beside the Spiritual Force and Efficacy, (which is never there wanting unto them who do not willfully resist it,) to move and induce us unto a most certain and firm belief in them). Yet for the Particular and just Number of such Books, whether there be More of Less, than either some Private Persons, or some One Particular Church of late, have been please to make them, we have no better nor other External Rule or Testimony therein to guide us, than the Constant Voice of the Catholic and Universal Church, as it hath been delivered unto us upon Record from one Generation to another.”

As noted in an earlier post, Nathaniel Ingelo in The Perfection, Authority, and Credibility of the Holy Scriptures writes “We acknowledge they [the penmen] did [record and transmit the word of God], received their books, and are satisfied.” The accent was upon the satisfying aspect of Scripture or its affectual impact on the Church. Cosin in this excerpt writes of the “Spiritual Force and Efficacy” of Scripture upon the believer “to move and induce us unto a most certain and firm belief in them.” This describes the summary statement of the self-attestation and self-authentication of Scripture. Scripture moves the will of the saint to a “most certain and firm belief in them.” And, according to Cosin, this in not a Spiritual Force and Efficacy of an individual nature. This efficacy is not dealing with “some Private Persons or some One Particular Church” but the “constant Voice of the Catholic and Universal Church.” The Spirit and Word through the Church is the arbitrator of what is and is not Scripture, and not some sectarian academic or ecclesiastical convocation or individual.

What we gather from this is that there is a common affectual moving of the body of Christ through the Word and Spirit that moves with such force and efficacy as to determine what is and is not Scripture. Cosin moves the discussion forward by arguing that self-attestation and self-authentication is efficaciously forceful within the Church, so forceful and efficacious as to move the Church and convince the Church of a “most certain and firm belief in them.”

In recent times the efficacious forcefulness of Scripture has been degraded or rejected as less significant than the inducements of scholarly reason. The transfer of inducing influence by the Church from the Scripture to the scholar is a demonstration of Cosin’s caveat “which is never there wanting unto them who do not willfully resist it.” Something as powerful as Scripture’s self-attestation and self-authentication is only missed by those who “willfully resist” Scripture’s Force and Efficacy. This is not something easily dispensed with seeing that historically this force and efficacy has moved and induced the Universal Church. How can it be, that during the current epoch of history, the Evangelical Church seems to casually dispense with the historic force and efficacy of the Scripture upon historic orthodox Christianity? And yet, this is where contemporary Evangelicalism finds itself.

While some call for the confession of sin and the need for revival, quoting 2 Chr. 7:14, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land,” they do so within the context of thinking that this verse does not relate to the prevailing Evangelical attitude toward the Bible. While “willfully resisting” the force and Efficaciousness of Scripture “to move and induce us unto a most certain and firm belief in them,” a terrible comedy of calls for revival are made from pulpits. You know you have hit a spiritual nerve if you stand in the pulpit and say there is only one standard sacred text. The response to that message and return to a standard sacred text of the historic orthodox Church will be the measure of the degree of willful resistance that must be confessed to move 2 Chr. 7:14 forward.

Dr. John Cosin, A Scholastic History of the Canon of Holy Scripture or the Certain and Indubitable Books thereof, as they are received in the  Church of England (London: Printed by E. Tyler and R. Holt for Robert Pawlett, at the Sign of the Bible in Chanecry-Lane, near Fleet-street, 1672), 4-5.

Ancient Mathematics and Ancient New Testament Readings

In a paper published in 2017, William Mansfield and N.J. Wildberger published a paper entitled, Plimpton 322 is Babylonian exact sexagesimal trigonometry. Plimpton 322 is pictured above. The abstract of Mansfield and Wildberger’s paper reads as follows,

“We trace the origins of trigonometry to the Old Babylonian era, between the 19th and 16th centuries B.C.E. This is well over a millennium before Hipparchus is said to have fathered the subject with his ‘table of chords’. The main piece of evidence comes from the most famous of Old Babylonian tablets: Plimpton 322, which we interpret in the context of the Old Babylonian approach to triangles and their preference for numerical accuracy. By examining the evidence with this mindset, and comparing Plimpton 322 with Madhava’s table of sines, we demonstrate that Plimpton 322 is a powerful, exact ratio-based trigonometric table.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0315086017300691

Since the publication of their paper mathematicians and historians have questioned whether Plimpton 322 is a full trigonometry table or whether the table was used to teach or record trigonometry, but few seem to object to the fact that something of trigonometry existed over 1,000 years prior to Hipparchus of Ancient Greece. In sum, it is plausible that the Ancient Greeks did not ”invent” trigonometry. The Ancient Babylonians were already knocking on the door and that is if you reject Mansfield and Wildberger’s conclusions. If you accept their conclusions, the Hipparchus was late to the game by over a millenium.

Before the discovery of Plimpton 322, the West claimed Hipparchus as the inventor of trigonometry. It seems thought that such a supposition may be false. What is more, we learn from Plimpton 322 that older does not equal more ignorant. Rather, in this case the opposite may be true. The older [Babylon] may have been more advanced than the newer [Greece] in terms of mathematics.

I bring up this little history lesson in order to make the observation that Hipparchus is credited with the mathematical emendation of trigonometry when in fact, at a minimum, primitive trigonometry tables had existed 1,000 years before Hipparchus.

Oldest is best is not the same as the oldest we currently have is best. Claims that older = more ignorant is simply false and naive especially at a time in the west when many educated people have the hardest time defining what a woman is. Those of the modern west are the ignorant ones even with advancements in medicine and technology. We use that medicine and technology to chemically castrate children and murder other children in their mother’s womb. Only the morally blind and woefully naive would claim that the modern west occupies some obviously superior echelon of human knowledge and wisdom when it comes to truth.

In the last 150 years, the 21st century west has grown closer to superstition than to reason.

This goes for morality, spirituality, and even science. Most evangelical textual scholars ground their arguments in scientism with a good old Presbyterian sprinkle of theological terminology.

In sum, history is in so many sectors anything but an exact science. The best historians merely report the facts. Commentary is left to a minimum because so much is missing from the picture. To simply say WW2 started because of Hitler is to miss all the socio-political, economic, and worldview implications preceding and surrounding the war. That Hipparchus was the father of trigonometry is now in question after finding one artifact.

In like manner, dogmatism that comes from historians and particularly textual historians is largely unwarranted seeing that the vast majority of copied NT manuscripts have been lost. All it would take for scholarship to question their stance on the story of the woman caught in adultery is to find one manuscript which suited their tastes and then their whole argument would be turned on its head. The feasibility of such a discovery does not engender confidence.

History and age are not potent enough to tell the Church what the original words of Scripture were and are any more than the testimony of ancient Greeks were in telling us who discovered trigonometry.

Van Til, Richard Brash, and the Underwater Bridge

In 2018 I was in the midst of my Ph.D. class work. I was living in FL at the time and classes were in Lynchburg, VA. I had classes in September of that year and part of my journey north included traveling through the lowlands of North Carolina just as Hurricane Matthew passed through the day before.

In the picture above you can see how high the water rose over the course of a few days. I came to several bridges like the one shown above. A couple with police telling me I couldn’t cross the bridge because it was under water. And why is that dangerous? Well because the bridge could be swept away as happened to at least one bridge on my journey, but the fact was that I could be swept away or simply get stuck in the middle of the bridge and need rescue at least for my car. So I was turned back by the police twice.

But I was not to be deterred. I kept hunting for a bridge that the police were not guarding until I found one. On both sides of the bridge cement jersey wall hemmed in the road. The water from the river had risen above the bridge and began to flood in around the ends of the jersey wall. Water was pouring onto both ends of the bridge. The only way I knew there was a bridge there was because I could see the jersey walls sticking out of the water on both side. So I pressed on. All the way across the bridge I was pushing water with the bumper of my 2007 Crown Victoria.

I had this experience two more times before I was able to get out of the lowlands. Usually when I tell this story people look at me like I was crazy, or like the risk wasn’t worth it or that I was irresponsible.

In this video Dr. Richard Brash points out and utilizes an analogy proposed by Cornelius Van Til regarding the relationship of the lost original manuscripts and the current manuscript tradition. In sum, the originals are lost to view but nevertheless support the Bible of the Church which is like an underwater bridge. You can’t see the bridge [i.e., the originals] but it is there and it supports your vehicle [i.e., the current manuscript tradition].

Given my experience with underwater bridges, I find Van Til’s analogy and Brash’s use of it inept for the circumstances touching current textual debate. In my experience the police would not allow crossing an underwater bridge because of the inherent danger. Where the police weren’t present, lines of cars would wait at the bridge wondering what to do. In one case there was a long line of cars waiting in front of what looked like minor river rapids. A semi-truck from somewhere back in the line pulled into the oncoming traffic lane and began to plow his way through the water. As soon as I saw him making a wake I pulled out of line and followed close behind. No one else moved.

The point is that people do not cross underwater bridges because they don’t trust them. In like manner, professing Christians do not trust the Bible as I pointed out in this post about the American Worldview Inventory of 2022.

One might be able to understand Van Til’s failure on this point given the influence of Scottish Common Sense Realism at his time, but Brash has no excuse. If the underwater bridge analogy is representative of anything it is representative of the Church’s distrust of Scripture and nothing more.