A Recent Discussion on Paraphrasing God’s Words and the Use of the LXX in the NT

Gulfstream G-650 LX-LXX

Recently I had an email exchange with someone working their way through the version debate and the merits or demerits of the Standard Sacred Text position. My interlocutors position was that NT writers and NT accounts quote from the Septuagint/ LXX and also seem to paraphrase passages from the OT therefore the Bible can remain inerrant even if we choose words that are not exactly God’s words. My response to him is the following:

Yes, this is an old approach to issues of inerrancy and infallibility. The point that the NT penmen led by the Holy Spirit might have used the LXX or paraphrased OT texts as a defense for inerrancy may not be as robust as many think it is. In large part because it ignores the fact that it is the Holy Spirit bearing these men along as they quoted from the LXX or paraphrased the OT. As such, every word was inspired by God both in the original giving of the OT and in the paraphrase as it appears in the NT. Certainly the Holy Spirit can “paraphrase” His own words because they are His words. We on the other hand cannot paraphrase His words. There is no place in Scripture where the Christian is commanded to or encouraged to paraphrase God’s words or use words different than those God has chosen. But there are plenty of places where the prophet is commanded to say, “Thus saith the Lord…” 

In fact, the idea that a prophet would hear God and then be like, “Well I think my version sounds better and furthermore, I think it means the same thing” seems ridiculous and if true, is an act of will-worship or idolatry. In sum, the issue with the “Jesus used the LXX” or “Paul paraphrased the OT” is to almost entirely sideline the fact that the words of Scripture are God’s words and God can quote the LXX and paraphrase His prior words and when He does, those specific words become just as inspired and authoritative as the words upon which the LXX/paraphrase is based. We can certainly paraphrase our own words or the words of another man because they are for all intents and purposes our equals. God on the other hand is infinitely above us and we infinitely below Him in being, wisdom, and holiness and as such we have no moral ground upon which to paraphrase His words and then claim that paraphrase equals God’s words. We must know and believe His words and His only.

I liken it to the time when Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, offered strange fire before God. It was certainly fire and fire that could burn. It definitely would burn incense or the flesh of an animal. It was being offered by priests, the sons of Aaron, the rightful offerers. It was being offered in the tabernacle, the appropriate place for such an offering. It appears that Aaron’s sons intended to carry out God’s ordained priestly duties, so their hearts seemed to be in the right place. There is no indication that they thought their sacrifice to be anything other than pleasing to God. And yet after all that, God kills those two young men with divine fire and commanded that Aaron not uncover his head in mourning because his sons simply as a practical matter got fire from the wrong place.

God gave specific instructions about where to get correct fire and a kind of paraphrase on the part of two men led them to believe that fire from the brazen altar and fire from somewhere else were the same kind of fire and they had plenty of reason to believe that as I mentioned above. But in the end God struck those men down in a fashion similar to that of Sodom and Gomorrah. The same goes for Uzzah trying to steady the Ark on the cart when the cart hit a pothole. God struck Uzzah dead. Then there is the example of Eve who added “neither shall ye touch it” to God’s command not to eat of the tree. This was her paraphrase and it led to the fall of all of humanity. Then there was Cain’s paraphrase that God accepted fruits from the field rather than a blood sacrifice which ultimately led to the first murder. Examples abound throughout Scripture that man is in no place to paraphrase God’s word or to assert some other words which God has not said and then claim those words to be God’s words (e.g., every false prophet). 

In the end I find this argument only superficially Scriptural and largely at odds with the biblical narrative from the OT to the NT about God’s relationship to His own words vs. man’s relationship to God’s words. 

That said, I know we can only believe the things we think are true and you are working your way through these things. I hope the above can be a help to you. May the Lord continue to grant you wisdom and grace that the Spirit of God may guide you into all truth.

Blessings, 

PWVK

The Evangelical Mob

Since the early 19th century is there anyone who believes that the MVO position can produce a text to replace the King James Version having proven that the two things that are different cannot be the same axiom makes it impossible to come up with a definitive answer to the believer’s question as to whether the Church is in possession of the words of God? The neutral text failed, the genealogical method failed, the oldest, shortest, most difficult and text that is the source of another reading failed. Reconstructing the original failed leading to accepting the fluidity of the initial text. The science project of evangelical textual criticism over the past 100 years has moved the Church no closer to the original reading of Scripture while constantly disparaging the Received Text. Clearly, the King James Version has no credible contender as the Bible of the believing Church.

Justice Samuel Alito’s draft of the Supreme Court 5-4 decision striking down Roe vs Wade uncovered and highlighted the visceral attachment of pro-death advocates to the killing of babies in the womb. The fact that the 49-year law was egregiously void of Constitutional grounding is irrelevant to the howling mob. By mob, in kinder, gentler terms “mob” could be restated as a “consensus expressed forcefully.” The mob is not motivated by the rule of law but by a heightened emotional attachment to this visceral desire in many cases expressed violently. Note that reason or the rule of law does not ameliorate the emotional high in the least. Indeed, appeal to reason exacerbates the emotion. For the mob, there is no place for reason.

The mob is powerful. If the mob is forceful enough or intimidating enough, the rule of law will be forsaken and what the mob wants will take its authoritative place. And when the mob rules, chaos ensues. When the mob rules two things that are different can be the same, like the MVO. For 400 years the KJV has been the Law of God to the Church and morally an element of civil government to the Nation. Supporting the Law are thousands of pages of Protestant Dogmatics, like legal briefs successfully and eruditely arguing for the credibility of the Law. But a visceral desire to throw off the Law and replace it with the passion of the mob, or a “consensus expressed forcefully” that characterizes this cultural milieu. For the MVOist, what God has said has been replaced with what the evangelical mob approves of.

So pastors and professors, fearful of the mob have remained in their academic domiciles, intimidated by the Academy or Church that will have them fired if they speak against them. Writers and thinkers know not to go cite the Law. The mob is camped on their front lawn waiting to scorn them for their appeal to historic orthodoxy.

We will have to see what kind of impact the mob has on the Justice’s ruling. I suspect it will hold up, but if it doesn’t take notice. If this ruling is reversed, and the rule of law succumbs to the mob, then the mob becomes the law. Alito and the four other Justices were correct in their analysis and application of the Constitution, but their finding will be irrelevant to the saving of the unborn. MVOism is the religious element that feeds cultural mob mentality. MVOism is not exegetically, theologically, philosophically, or historically grounded, but it is viscerally, emotionally, and irrationally maintained as the present measure of Christian orthodoxy. The fact that the root of MVOism perpetually fails is not enough to dissuade the evangelical mob from its passion. For much of Christianity in 2022 the evangelical mob, not Scripture, is the law.

Pro-Choice Bible Versions

If you’ve spent any time watching the American media you know that there has been a huge leak coming out of the Supreme Court. Now there have been prior leaks coming out of the Supreme Court especially when big decisions are in the balance. But this leak is unprecedented in that never before has an entire draft been leaked. There have been names and vote counts leaked or simply the Court’s decision, but never the whole of the argument as a draft yet to be agreed upon. Still, this draft has caused no small kerfuffle.

Many of those who are pro-choice, which is a euphemism for pro-murder, have come to the fore in order to insist on the right to murder babies. Can you imagine it? People being upset even to the place of protesting that babies will no longer be torn apart and by the consent of their mothers. You don’t have to imagine it. It’s a reality.

Several pro-choice arguments have found popular daylight in defense of child murder. Ones like, “It is hard to believe that girls born today will have less right than girls born 50 years ago.” and “Sadly, without abortion, children will be born into poor homes.” Unfortunately and I pray, unwittingly, there is a perverse thread here which is also shared by the standard CT/MVO position.

In the case of abortion, the act of murdering a baby is a ghastly evil, but there is an evil which is prior and therefore more primary. That evil is the thought or disposition that one has the power or moral right to choose to kill a baby. Put another way, the act of killing their baby is evil, but the belief that one has the moral right, the choice, to kill their baby is a prior and more egregious evil. So while a Pro-Abortion woman may never murder her child; she believes herself to have the moral right to choose to do so.

Toughing the version debate, few of our interlocutors would seek to “abort” the Scriptures, which would be a grave evil in itself. Most though maintain the prior and more egregious evil of believing themselves and themselves alone as having the moral right, the choice, to choose what is or is not God’s word. And yet this is wholly backward.

Consider the Christian faith in general. It is not the person who first chose Christ, but Christ who first chose the person. It is not the person who first loved Christ, but Christ who first loved the person. Christ chose the disciples and not the other way around. It is not us who work effectually to the formation of the canon and the canonical words. It is the word of God dwelling richly in us whereby we hear and know the voice of the Shepherd in those canonical words. As such, we receive those words not as the words of men but indeed as the words of God. We are the recipient. The Bible tells us what is the Bible.

We do not choose the Bible. The Bible chooses us.

And no two Bible versions say the same thing. Ask our interlocutors. All they can speak of is the “sufficient reliability” of versions. This is an academic way of saying, “All ‘good versions’ [however that is construed] are close enough to God’s word to count as God’s word.” The prior sentence is evidence enough that modern Christians choose what is or is not God’s word because modern man chooses what is or is not sufficient.

Continuing on, if all “good versions” are sufficiently reliable they are so as to quantity and quality. That is, there is enough of God’s word present and that which present is of sufficient divine substance per the present manuscript evidence. No two versions agree in quality and quantity and as such cannot be equally God’s words as to quantity and quality. A choice must be made between Greek texts and between versions and it cannot be a choice initiated by the Christian.

Circling back, though our position is concerned with the continual weakening of doctrines like infallibility to inerrancy to qualified inerrancy to inerrancy being a Scriptural misnomer in the works of those like Pete Enns; there is an additional doctrinal divergence which teaches that choosing a Bible is up to the saint when in fact that choice is beyond their moral and spiritual purview. Rather, the Spirit of God speaks through the word of God telling the people of God what is the word of God. Then both the scholar and the people in the pew submit to the Spirit’s injunction. All else is will-worship. Idolatry, where man is God.

In sum, the problem is not only that some choose different versions or multiple versions or reject the Bible as the rule of faith and practice. The problem is also that they think themselves morally entitled to make such choices. In this regard, there is no difference between Pro-Abortion and Pro-MVO being pro-choice.

Apologetics in a World of Contemporary Inerrancy

Next week will mark one year since I graduated with my Ph.D. in Christian Theology and Apologetics from Liberty University. I love apologetics and especially the defense of the Principium: the Doctrine of God and the Doctrine of Scripture, which is a large part of why this blog exists.

If you look around at Ph.D. programs, they differ in requirements. At Liberty I first had to complete 48 yours of class work where fulltime is two classes a semester. This took me about four years to complete. Then I had to take a German or Latin comprehensive exam. I chose German. Then it came time for comprehensive exams. There were three exams to be done in one week. Each exam took approximately three hours to complete.

As the Lord would have it, the third one was the worst. I hadn’t felt that crushed since my early days at Westminster. Once completing those exams I could then officially begin my dissertation. At first, I was going to write on moral apologetics but a series of irksome events made that impossible. So I returned to what I love, the Principium and specifically the doctrine of Scripture.

The short of that story is, I had taken a class on moral theory and had bought a books written by an atheist who employed an exceedingly graphic example of exceptional human brutality toward a child in order to illustrate his point of moral objectivity apart from a divine lawgiver. Without giving the example I explained to my wife the content of the book.

We have young voracious readers in my house and my wife was concerned that my older sons, following the footsteps of their dad, would read this book and be exposed to grave evil without any meaningful internal recourse or robust coping mechanism. So my wife made a deal with me, “Trash the book and I will buy you Alvin Plantinga’s three volume work on warrant.” One banal little book for three written by a world class philosopher!? Deal. Thus began my journey of relating basic belief and Scripture beliefs.

Then the day came for my dissertation defense, the final hurdle between me and graduation. As you can imagine, given my stated position here at StandardSacredText.com there were some meaningful differences between my position and those of my dissertation committee. But the one that stuck out was, “Why can’t a Muslim say they have warranted basic belief in the Quran just like you [Peter] have warranted basic belief in your Bible?” It was a good question and I was able to offer a thorough answer to successfully defend my work.

But a similar question pertinent to Christian apologetic endeavors can be asked to those who do not hold to standard sacred text. Certainly many Muslims believe their text to be inspired and inerrant, and many Christians not of our persuasion call the Muslims out in order to dispute the inerrancy of the Quran. But why?

Many Christians openly admit the Bible in the Greek and Hebrew apographa has errors in it. They openly admit the text is not settled and therefore may have errors in it. They openly admit that the original reading is either in the text or in the apparatus and therefore may have errors in the body of the text. They regularly engage with fellow Christians demanding that those Christians recognize that the story of the woman caught in adultery or the long ending in Mark are not the Scripture [i.e., errors] though they have been regarded as Scripture longer than Islam has been a religion.

What is more, many evangelical Christians like Pete Enns and N.T. Wright reject a traditional understanding of inerrancy altogether. What then is the point of the accusing Muslim’s of not having an inerrant text? It seems only to relocate the Muslim text into a position consistent with the modern evangelical standard of no standard. In sum, the current Christian argument is not something like “We claim our Bible is infallible in the Greek and Hebrew, therefore your Quran cannot be infallible seeing that is disagrees with our infallible Bible.” No, the argument is something more like, “Our Greek/Hebrew Bible currently has errors and it may be that inerrancy doesn’t really matter. The Quran suffers from similar faults, therefore it also is not inerrant.”

The modern evangelical mind will allow no one to have a standard sacred text, themselves included. For them “no standard” is the standard which more resembles the Marxist ideology of Herbert Marcuse than orthodox Christian doctrine.

We Live and Die by The Measuring Tape

The Lord has blessed my wife and I with the opportunity to homeschool our 9 children. Well, the last of the 9 starts next year but she still participates in academic life in her own way even if it is spilling her milk at the table where everyone is doing their language arts.

That said, our two oldest sons will be graduating this year and heading off to college in the Fall. And as part of the preparation for college my oldest has started a job with a local master carpenter.

While I have spent my share of days roofing in the summer sun and laying road for the state of VA, I have virtually no skill in the world of carpentry and therefore have not taught my son much in that field. As a result, his eager mind is impressed with the care and precision of the carpenter as he does rough and fine work.

On his first day of work my son learned the carpenter’s four rules to becoming a master carpenter: integrity, honesty, how well you follow directions, and diligence. These of course do not merely apply to the world of carpentry but employers and employees around the world would benefit from like pledges and behavior.

Still, there was one rule that is more applicable to the carpentry trade which was, “As a carpenter, you live and die by the measuring tape.” Indeed, when the directions call for a precision of 1/16th or 1/32nd of an inch, the minutest increment takes on significance. And is it not the same with Christianity and the Holy Scriptures?

Do we not as Christians live and die by the measuring tape that is Scripture? Does not the minutest expression of the Holy Spirit in Scripture take on particular and even unfathomable significance? Indeed, it does. So much so that it may be said that 1/32nd of a word or even a letter bears that particular and unfathomable significance from the mouth of the Holy Spirit.

Preservation and Collation of the Scriptures (Part 3)

In this episode of Warrior Theology Podcast, Dr.’s Van Kleeck continue there discussion on the Preservation and Collation of the text of the Scripture. It is important to note that if the believing community by the Holy Spirit is the ultimate arbitrator of what is or is not a book of the canon of Scripture, then it also stands to reason that the believing community by the Holy Spirit is the ultimate arbitrator of what is or is not a canonical word of a given canonical book of Scripture.

Modern Evangelical Textual Criticism is Grounded in Vicious Circularity

Ask any modern textual critic, “Given the current manuscript data, how do you know you have all the pertinent manuscript data?” Be shrewd with them and even pedantic if necessary and they will finally confess, “We know we have all the manuscript data because the current manuscript data has all the manuscript data.” And based on this confession they are able to claim when speaking of the Ethiopian Eunuch like,

“There is every reason to believe that a scribe added this clarification, because without it the story never explicitly indicates that the eunuch has come to believe.”

Craig Blomberg, Can We Believe The Bible, 24.

Or this concerning the long ending in Mark’s Gospel,

“The open end of a scroll was the most vulnerable part of a manuscript for damage perhaps Mark literally got ‘ripped off’! More likely, he intended to end with the fear and failure of the women.”

Craig Blomberg, Can We Believe The Bible, 20.

Blomberg assumes that the manuscript evidence current in hand is all that has been or could be considered. And by assuming the current manuscript evidence is all that has been or could be considered the conclusions which follow can only be all that has been or could be considered.

Put simply, their argument is,

We have the best conclusions about manuscript data because we have the best manuscript data.
We have the best manuscript data because we have the best conclusions about manuscript data.

You see the first proposition [We have the best conclusions about manuscript data ] in CT advocates’ insistence upon abandoning the TR and starting fresh with Alexandrian priority. You see the second proposition [we have the best manuscript data] in CT advocates’ regular appeal to number and age of manuscripts compared to those supposedly had by our Reformation era forefathers and before.

In the end though, if the New Testament manuscript tradition were a tree, historically blind modern evangelical textual critics are wholly unable to tell whether the manuscript tradition they have a hold of is the trunk or a very large branch or even a twig when in the end they are looking for the root and don’t know it.

In sum, while the CT academic is intellectually blind and reasoning in a circle he compels us to join him because all the smart kids are doing it. I simply haven’t the intellectual inner ear to join them.

Richard Stock (1651) on Malachi 2:6

Introductory note on Stock’s study with Master William Whitaker at Cambridge

Turning to Cambridge again, the dates remind us (in the words of the loveable Author of the Thirty-two Lives’) that “at this time Doctor Whitaker was Master of St John’s,” who, Clarke says, “favored” Master Stock very much “for his ingenuity (=ingenuousnesss), industry, and proficiency in his studies,” and under whom “a younger brother had a sizar’s place.” Whitaker had succeeded John Still and Richard Howland, who were as sternly Anti-Puritan as he was Pro-Puritan, and brought with him at once the learning, the piety, and the zeal of their predecessors, Thomas Lever and James Pilkington. Dr. Whitaker’s “Mastership” is admitted by those who had no love for him or his doctrines, to have been “the most flourishing and remarkable period in the history of St John’s College” To have won and retained the regard of that foremost “Master in Israel,” not less erudite as a scholar than winsome as a man, argues not a little in favor of Master Richard Stock, more especially as at the time, the venerable man had much of the contradiction of sinners against himself to contend with. (vii)

Commentary on Malachi 2:6

The law of truth was in his month. He taught the truth and word of God, and nothing but that, and that wholly.

Doctrine. The minister of God must deliver to his people the law of truth, and it only ; only the word of God and nothing else : Rev. ii. 7, “Hear what the Spirit saith.” The law of truth was in his mouth. He taught the truth, and nothing else but the truth, and the whole truth, all the truth, not keeping anything from them.

Doctrine. The minister must deliver to his people the whole truth of God, all his will and counsel, whatsoever he hath commanded and revealed: Lev. x. 11, Deut. v. 27, Mat. xxviii. 20, Acts x. 33, and xx. 27, 35.

Reason 1. Because else he cannot be free from the blood of his flock, that is, the perishing or slaughtering of them, sanguinis, i.e. caeslis, saith Chrysostom, upon Acts xx. 26. For if Paul be free from their blood and from their murder, because, as he said, Acts xx. 26, 27, “I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the counsel of God;” then will this by the contrary follow.

Reason 2. Because else they should not be faithful, neither to him that sent them, nor to them over whom they are set; for what fidelity can there be, when, for their own pleasures or respects, they shall not deliver the whole he commanded, and might be profitable to them. 1 Cor. iv. 2, “And as for the rest, it is required of the disposers that everyone be found faithful.”

Richard Stock, A Commentary on the Prophecy of Malachi, 1651, (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1865), 138.

In Their Own Words: Peter J. Williams

The work of New Testament textual criticism is broadly a work of abduction centered on the particular evidence known the New Testament manuscript tradition. Put another way, NT textual criticism seeks to arrive at an inference to the best explanation by examining the textual evidence.

One gapping hole in their evidential argument is the fact that they don’t have the originals. Nor do they have the copies of the originals nor do they have the copies of the copies. Some would say that we don’t even have the copies of the copies of the copies of the original. Rather, we have at best credit card sized scraps of copies of copies of copies and a few mostly complete papyri. From an evidential standpoint this is a significant and currently insurmountable issue. This issue is so insurmountable that many prominent NT textual critics have left of the quest for the original and have begun a quest for the “initial text” which in most cases does not mean “original”.

In his book, Can We Trust the Gospels, Peter J. Williams attempts to put his reader’s mind to rest given this absence of ancient evidence. According to the book cover, Williams is “the principal of Tyndale House, Cambridge, one of the world’s leading institutes for biblical research. Previously a senior lecturer in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen, he is the chair of the International Greek New Testament Project and a member of the ESV Translation Oversight Committee.” A truly accomplished scholar and worthy of professional respect, though questions remain outstanding given his answer below.

In making this attempt to put he readers at ease he offers four responses to the question, Could the Text [of Scripture] Have Been Changed Early On? Here Williams does not invoke providential preservation or divine oversight of God’s words and God’s people. Rather, he offers distinctively evidential answers which by our lights do not withstand even minimal scrutiny.

First, to set the stage. Bart Ehrman writes regarding the state of the manuscript evidence,

“Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later – much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later.”

Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 10.

And this is not merely the opinion of Ehrman. On this point, Wallace concurs when he writes,

“the vast majority of NT MSS are over a millennium removed from the autographs.”

Wallace, Inerrancy and the Text, sec. 2.

In sum, “in most instances” and “the vast majority of” NT manuscripts are copies which are many centuries or over a thousand years after the writing of the originals. The total number of very old manuscripts which are not mere scraps is actually very small in comparison with the total number of NT manuscripts. With this understanding let us now look to Williams and see how he answers the question, Could the Text Have Been Changed Early On?

Williams writes,

“First, remember that this book is not about proving that the Gospels are true but about demonstrating that they can be rationally trusted.”

Williams, Can We Trust, 120.

Unfortunately, William’s first argument is fraught with trouble. First, it is unclear what Williams means by “the Gospels are true.” Does he mean with regard to their content, “What the Gospels teach is true” or does he mean the Gospels are truly the Gospels of the first century. I tend to think it is the latter and if it is then Williams has allowed via inference that we very well may not have the Gospels of the first century, but by his lights they can nevertheless be trusted.

Regarding what he means by “rationally trusted” his troubles continue. At the first page of the introduction Williams writes concerning today’s common understanding of faith,

“Faith is seen as a non-rational belief – something not based on evidence. However, that is not what faith originally meant for Christians. Coming from the Latin word fides, the word faith used to mean something closer to our word trust.”

Williams, Can We Trust, 15.

Of course there are theologically obvious questions here which Williams seems to overlook. First, note that Williams equates non-rational belief with something not based on evidence by his use of a hyphen. And there is no indication here that Williams has in mind things like properly basic beliefs and the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. I take it that Williams definition of evidence has something to do with the “objectively” measurable and testable kind of evidence. Except, the Bible is clear that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Indeed, Christians originally took evidence to robustly include those things which were not seen, those things which are not “objectively” measurable and testable. Furthermore, faith is not mere trust, but is a divine gift imparted to the Christian alone. On this point, not only is Williams’ definition of faith absent necessary biblical support is also theologically bereft. Williams on this point is baffling to say the least.

William second argument to the question, “Could the Text Have Been Corrupted Early On?” is,

“Second, to prove that something has not changed would be to prove a negative. Proving negatives is often impossible.”

Williams, Can We Trust, 120.

Williams is correct. Proving negatives is often impossible. That said, his formulation of the question is easily rephrased, and one wonders why it was not given Williams intellectual acumen. Williams could have simply phrased his statement in the positive. Instead of asking Williams to prove the Gospels have not changed; to satisfy this second argument one could simply ask Williams to prove the Gospels are the same, word for word, as those in the first century. The negative is gone and the thrust of the question remains the same. Again, I am baffled as to why Williams was not more thorough given the gravity of the question and the ease whereby the purported negative could be turned to a positive.

Williams third argument is perhaps his weakest. He writes,

“Third, it is possible to demonstrate that there is no good reason to think that the text has changed.”

Williams, Can We Trust, 120.

Possibility is perhaps the weakest ground upon which to formulate a position. It it weaker than impossibility in that at least we are able to strike all scenarios which are not possible though we may not have a positive place upon which to predicate our own argument. Possibility is less in certainty than feasibility which is less than probability which is less then certitude which is less than certainty which is less than mathematical certainty which is less than metaphysical certainty. So of course Williams third argument is possible, but so is argument that aliens seeded Earth with life and the flew off.

Finally, we come to Williams fourth argument which is summed up as, if the present is any indication of the future then we shouldn’t expect any major changes. Which of course points in the wrong direction of his question. The question is, “Could the Text Have Been Changed Early On?” The past is what is in view not the future. Still, Williams writes,

“Fourth, based on the facts I have laid out above, we can see that there are good reasons to think it has not changed. That is, if past discoveries are any indication of future discoveries, and if what we currently know about scribes and manuscripts is any guide to what we will find out in the future, we do not expect to find evidence of significant change.”

Williams, Can We Trust, 120.

Beside the fact that Williams’ answer is almost wholly future looking, he has not taken into account the fact that the vast majority of what we have in the NT textual tradition was copied over a thousand years from the original. In the end, he has failed to answer the most important and crucial element regarding the question, Could the Text Have Been Changed Early On?

We don’t have the originals. We don’t have the copies of the originals. We don’t have the copies of the copies of the originals. We don’t have the copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. And the vast majority of the copies we do have were copied over a thousand years from the writing of the originals.

None of Williams’ arguments overcome this evidential reality and seeing he does not employ an exegetical/theological solution, Williams seems compelled to conclude that the text of Scripture could have been changed early on, and that maybe Bart Ehrman is right. Christians are misquoting Jesus.

William Tyndale: Historical Faith vs. A Feeling Faith

The following excerpts are from William Tyndale’s An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, The Supper of the Lord after the True Meaning of John VI. and 1 Cor. XI and WM. Tracy’s Testament Expounded edited by Henry Walter and printed by Cambridge University Press in 1850.

Here Tyndale makes a distinction between a faith anchored in history and a faith anchored in genuine experience. In our current day, it seems that history and historical evidence are the prime means of knowing and understanding what is or is not the New Testament. Faith is somewhere on the value side of the fact/value divide. Tyndale would have us consider a different anchor point than historical evidence and that anchor point for our faith is the Spirit of God speaking through the Scriptures in the heart of the believer. In the last excerpt Tyndale says of this experiential or feeling anchored faith that it is so robust that “if all the preachers of the world would go about to persuade the contrary, it would not prevail; no more than though they would make me believe the fire were cold, after that I had put my finger therein.”

Consider Tyndale’s word below.

“I answer, ‘That there are two manners of faiths, an historical faith, and a feeling faith.’  The historical faith hangeth of the truth and honesty of the teller, or of the common fame and consent of many: as if one told me that the Turk had won a city, and I believed it, moved with the honesty of the man; now if there come another that seemeth more honest, or that hath better persuasions that it is not so, I think immediately that he lied, and lose my faith again.  And feeling faith is as if a man were there present when it was won, and there was wounded, and had there lost all that he had, and was taken prisoner there also: that man should believe, that all the world could not turn him from his faith.” p. 51

“So now with an historical faith I may believe that the scripture is God’s, by the teaching of them; and so I should have done, though they had told me that Robin Hood had been the scripture of God: which faith is but an opinion, and therefore abideth ever fruitless; and falleth away, if a more glorious reason be made unto me, or if the preacher live contrary.” p. 51

“But a feeling faith it is written (John vi.) ‘They shall be all taught of God.’ That is, God shall write it in their hearts with his Holy Spirit.” p. 51

“And this faith is none opinion; but a sure feeling, and therefore ever fruitful.  Neither hangeth it of the honesty of the preacher, but of the power of God, and of the Spirit: and, therefore, if all the preachers of the world would go about to persuade the contrary, it would not prevail; no more than though they would make me believe the fire were cold, after that I had put my finger therein.” p. 51

And so in this same vein we have argued for properly basic belief in one’s Bible without appeal to the historical evidence. Why? Because a Christian can know their Bible is indeed the word of God and not men to the exclusion of all others without appeal to the evidence. How is this so? Because God Himself writes it in the heart of the Christian by His Holy Spirit.