John Cosin (1594 -1672) on Canonical Authority

The books of the Scripture are therefore called Canonical, because as they have had their Prime and Sovereign Authority from God Himself, by whose divine will and inspiration they were first written, and by whose blessed Providence they have been since preserved and delivered over to posterity, so have they been likewise received, and in all times acknowledged by his Church to be the Infallible Rule of our Faith, and the Perfect Square of our actions in all things that are anyway needful for our eternal Salvation.

Other books, what honor soever they have heretofore had in the Church, or what is there still continued to them; yet if they cannot show all these marks and characters upon them, 1. That they are of Supreme and Divine Authority; 2. That they were written by men specially acted and inspired for that purpose by the Spirit of God; 3. That they were by the same men and the same Authority delivered over for such to all posterity; 4. That they have been received for such by he Church of God in all ages; and 5. That all men are both to regulate their Faith, and to measure their Actions by them, as by the undoubted witnesses of God’s infallible Truth, and Ordinances declared in them.

Dr. 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), 1-2

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.

Did Every Word of the Bible Matter?

In order to address this question let’s make a series of stipulations first. Let us assume that we are first century Christians. Let us also assume that we have in our hands the book of 1 Corinthians, and that we have the very document written at the hand of Paul. Finally, let us assume that the Spirit of God speaks to us through the word of God [1 Corinthians] and that we accept every word of this document to be the inspired infallible word of God in Greek.

There are a few ways we could attempt to answer the question above as first century Christians in possession of the original 1 Corinthians whose belief is that every word of this text is the word of God in Greek.

In the negative there seems to be three meaningful answers: 1.) We could conclude that there are a few [or more] words of little importance to Paul’s overall argument and teaching. That is, perhaps we could conclude that a few words [or more] here or there really don’t matter to the overall structure of Paul’s thought and teaching. 2.) We could conclude that a few [or more] of the words are of little import to God being ultimately God’s inspired infallible words in Greek. 3.) We could conclude that a few [or more] words are of little import to God’s argument and teaching for our church in Corinth.

Positively, the only interesting answer seems to be one, All the words of the original 1 Corinthians matter. Given these four answers, as far as I can tell, these are the only meaningful answers we could bring to the table as first century Christians in possession of the original 1 Corinthians whose belief is that every word of this text is the word of God in Greek when asked to judge, “Which words of 1 Corinthians matter?”

We here at StandardSacredText.com take the latter positive position. We believe that every word of the original 1 Corinthians matters, regardless of how seemingly small and/or insignificant the word may appear. Furthermore, I believe that many who do not hold our position would also maintain that every word of the original 1 Corinthians matters, regardless of how seemingly small and/or insignificant the word may appear.

But what about the copies which come after the original? Does every word of our Greek NT’s matter the way every word of the original mattered? This is where the Standard Sacred Text Christians and the Critical Text Christians part ways. The former still holds to a high and robust defense and necessity of every word mattering. The latter on the other hand plainly and regularly state that not every word matters. They say not every word matters when they proclaim, “We have a sufficiently reliable text” or “We have 95% of the original text” or “We have the original words in the text or apparatus of the N/A 28” or “Rest assured no known error affects any major doctrine” or “Our goal is now the initial text.”

Of course, the elephant in the room is, “Seeing you [evangelical CT/MVO advocate] make so much theological hay over every word of the originals being inspired and inerrant [rather an infallible] it is puzzling and embarrassing that you have no positive theological argument to explain why its “OK” that every word of your Bible is not inspired and inerrant.” In fact, they admit it, and without shame. This is not an oversight or result of ignorance. They know their own Bible is not inspired and inerrant in places if at all. Either that or they know they don’t know if their Bible is inspired and inerrant in places. Then they say it out loud for lost and saved alike to bask in the glory of their doubt and uncertainty.

But let’s say the CT/MVO position is right and let’s further assume that in some Ancient Alien Illuminati Bilderberg temple in South America that there is a document which contains this robust positive theological argument for why the originals have to be inspired and inerrant to the very words, but our Bibles are not and that is “OK” [i.e., acceptable and encouraged to be embraced for the time being]. What then do the CT/MVO advocates mean by “sufficiently reliable,” “no errors affect major doctrine,” and the like?

If they mean that some words don’t matter to Moses’ or Luke’s or Paul’s overall argument, then we have at least two objections: 1.) It is presumptuous to conclude that Moses or Luke or Paul did not need words X, Y, and Z to make their case. Such a claim is only to say, “According to my understanding of Paul, Paul does not need X, Y, and Z to make his point.” It doesn’t get more subjective than that. 2.) Such a construal misunderstands that the argument and thing being taught is not Paul’s properly speaking. 1 Corinthians is not the Word of Paul. 1 Corinthians is the word of God written at the hand of Paul using Paul’s skill and knowledge. To ignore the transcendent quality of the Bible is to ignore the Bible, and some, at least, are very much ignoring the Bible on the point of inspiration, preservation, and certainty.

If they mean that some word’s don’t matter to God, then they are wholly bankrupt in their theology and practice. If all the words of the NT do matter to God because they all mattered when God gave them, then they should matter to us. If all the word of the NT matter to God, then they should matter to us to the same degree that they matter to God. Unless someone can make a robust positive case from exegesis and theology that God only sort-of-kind-of cares of about some words now, then we are not in a place to speak of or treat the words of the NT in another fashion than God does. I mean, they are His words, and they are our Creator’s words, so He gets to say how we speak about and treat those words. All the words matter equally because all words matter equally to God. They did from the original and there is no exegetical or theological grounding to indicate otherwise.

By the way, every time I hear some Ph.D. tell me that some words don’t matter, some errors don’t affect doctrine, we have most of the NT, I hear, “Some words don’t matter to God.” At no point in time are the words of God other than the divinely appointed, inspired, infallible, God-given words of God. They all matter and they all matter all the time. Either admit that you have them all in your Bible or admit that you don’t have them all and that your Bible is faulty and that such a conclusion is devastatingly bad for you, your family, your church, and your country, because the lack of having those words is a direct reflection on the power and person of the God you serve.

If they mean that some word’s don’t matter to God’s argument, then the matter is worse than with Moses, Luke, or Paul discussed above. Most of us have a hard enough time understanding our husbands or wives, and then there is the US tax code. But somehow some “scholar” is going to say that words X, Y, and Z are not necessary to God’s teaching and argumentation therefore they make no impact on any major doctrine. This is the height of superbia. This is Lucifer level, snake-in-the-garden-of-Eden hubris. For my IFB friends, this is good old fashion run of the mile pride. Who are we to say what words God deems necessary to make His case or to reveal His goodness? Who has the chart which states how many words it takes for God to reveal the Gospel and that all others are extraneous or do not affect a single major doctrine? How many and what kind of words does it take for God to make His case to a 1st century Christian? How could you know other than to conclude, “As many words as God deems necessary”?

In sum, it is unclear to me how the CT/MVO advocate can say or behave like some of God’s words don’t matter. Whether they claim that God’s argument or Paul’s argument can suffice without certain words, such advocates are presumptuous, proud, and/or foolish. If they claim that some words mattered to God in the first century but don’t matter now, then they propound their presumption, pride, and foolishness. If I’m wrong on this one, point me to the book or journal article that explains what CT/MVO advocates, especially the formally trained ones, mean by in simplest terms, “Not every word of God matters at this point in time. Your Bible is sufficiently reliable.”

The 1568 Bishops’ Bible and 16th century dynamic equivalence

Translations that are fundamentally formal translate what the word says, while translations that are fundamentally dynamic translate what the word means. I say fundamentally because no translation is solely one or another, but rather fundamentally formal or dynamic. On one occasion when asked to speak about the superiority of the Received Text and King James Version, a Wycliffe translator was also present at the pastor’s home after the service. I though it a splendid opportunity to test my academic definition of dynamic equivalence against a real-world Bible translator.

I began with a hypothetical interpretive scenario, “What if the receptor language did not have the word “red”? describing the primary color. I continued, “In place of the word ‘red’ could the translation be, “the color of the sky at the end of a nice day,” replacing one word with twelve words that mean red, based on the adage, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” To these inquiries the Wycliffe translator said, yes, that would be a fitting translation, especially because the rendering was following a traditional literary phrase. I then asked, “how many of the twelve words that created the paraphrase were God’s words?” His concern was not accuracy but readability. Rather than the tribal language, the trade language would have sufficed to fill the gap permanently or until the Scripture shaped the tribal culture and language to provide a new word that said “red.” In my scenario, the only authentic word was “red.” This paraphrase is indicative of dynamically translated versions, such as the NIV. I always thought that all the words that did not have underlying Hebrew or Greek support should be in italics.

Dynamic equivalent translations are not new to Christianity as noted in the 1568 Bishops’ Bible. At Psalm 12:7, rather than maintaining a formally equivalent translation like its predecessors, translating what the pronoun says, “them,” the Bishops’ Bible includes a dynamically equivalent rendering by including what the bishop’s concluded the pronoun meant. “(Wherefore) thou wilt keep the godly O God: thou wilt preserve every one of them from this generation for ever.”[1] Disregarding the Hebrew, or for that matter the Greek/Latin texts, and assuming “them” solely referred to people, the translators replaced the pronoun “them” with the words, “the godly,” words that cannot be substantiated by any textual tradition.

Never really gaining any influence against at the Geneva Bible, this passage is illustrative of why the Bishops’ Bible never attained the ascendency among English Bibles and contributed to the necessity of the King James Version.

[1] The Holy Bible 1568 (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilm)

A Recent Exchange

I had a recent exchange with someone not agreeing with the standard sacred text position. First, it was a cordial exchange and so I thought it to be fruitful. Second, I thought that it would be fruitful for you all to read. In the interest of keeping things anonymous my interlocutor will be spoken of under the pseudonym: Luke.

The discussion centered first on my philosophical argument for a standard sacred text. The following is one segment of that overall discussion. Luke first begins by quoting some of my own words

Luke: “The Scripture’s authority derives from itself as does its canonicity, authenticity, trustworthiness, and testimony. How then does this touch on the Christian’s belief in the Scriptures? At its foundation the Scriptures neither appeal to another for its particular virtues, nor does it demand the believer to seek validation for those virtues beyond the Scripture. When the believer believes what the Bible teaches about the Bible she believes in and through the Scriptures by the Spirit without appeal to something supposedly more pertinent of foundational whether that eb the Pope or the internal and external evidence supporting reading X out of Aleph and B.”

Of course Aleph was someone’s bible.
Of course B was someone’s bible.
In fact given the annotations – many people’s bible.
Given their very nature (large format, high value pandect editions) they were the bibles of the churches.
So Aleph was the self-authenticating word of God.
So B could quite rationally have been held to be the Word.

Me: Let me be clear. I agree Aleph and B may have been the self-authenticating word of God for someone at that time, in that place, and according to the language through which Aleph and B were used. The question is, Is it now? I think all sides agree the answer is, no. Aleph and B may contain the words of God and even to great measure, but they are not regarded as THE word of God by either your side or by mine.

Luke: No – I myself would (and in our previous exchanges) have already indicated that I do think Aleph and B are the word of God, I also think the Textus Receptus is the word of God, and I think the various “Modern Critical Texts” are the word of God, just as I think the KJV is the word of God, and the NIV is the word of God, or the NASB. For me personally (not theoretically) I can testify to the KJV, NIV, RSV, ESV, etc. have functioned as the word of God. Since learning Greek, the TR has, and the NA/USB have functioned as the word of God. They are all the word of God to the extent they reflect the copy or in translation the autographic text and message.

Me: Would you say the NT is the word of God in the same way as the whole canon is the word of God? If yes, how? If no, why? Why do you not believe the NT a sufficiently reliable version of the Bible apart from the OT? And what makes the canon sufficiently reliable? Who determines this measure? If men, then how is that subjective grounding sufficiently reliable to the saving of the soul and if God where in the Bible is sufficient reliability taught?

Luke: (1) There is danger in equivocating over the meaning of the expression “The Word of God.” (2) Par excellance, “The (inscripturated) Word of God” applies properly to the entirety of the canonical Christian Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. (3) By synecdoche, all parts of the “Word of God” may be called the “Word of God.” (4) The NT to the exclusion of the OT would be self-defeating, as it testifies to the OT as being God’s word(s). (5) God knows not only those who are his, he knows what he has said and caused to be inscripturated as the canonical scriptures.

“And what makes the canon sufficiently reliable? Who determines this measure?”…I answer that in (5). “If men, then how is that subjective grounding sufficiently reliable to the saving of the soul and if God where in the Bible is sufficient reliability taught?” Answered in the negative. See (5).

Me: Agree to #1. #2 is the word of God as a whole taken as a whole. #3 is the word of God as a whole take as parts (which includes each word) representing the whole. #4 OK. #5 Indeed, God knows. Unless you believe Aleph is the whole word of God taken as a whole then #2 does not apply to your statement that Aleph IS the word of God. If you believe Aleph is the word of God by synecdoche, then the part speaks for the whole and the whole for the part. If that is the case, then you believe every part (every word) of Aleph is the word of God. Do you believe that? As to #5, sure God knows every word which is His but that does not mean you know every word is His or which words are His. Admitting that God knows, how then do you know?

This is where the discussion currently stands. If Luke responds that every word of Aleph is the word of God, then I am going to ask if every word of the TR is the word of God. If he answers yes again then I am going to point out that God could not have both given the long ending in Mark and not given the long ending in Mark. Therefore, Luke has an undefeated defeater for his understanding of what counts as the word of God and as such can either hold his position or be rational, but not both. We’ll see how things turn out.

God makes the facts what they are

Since my first speaking introduction by Dr. David Otis Fuller to present the defense of the King James Bible in 1987, the CT/MVO position has hardly budged from its original 19th century moorings. Like a boat that has never seen open water the position is so tied to a narrow interpretation of the evidence that it has been allowed to see the ocean of evidence for the Reformation Scriptures. After so many years the CBGM remains dependent upon the same four antiquated and worn-out presuppositions of Westcott and Hort in the 1880’s –the  shortest, longest, oldest, and mss that best explains the origin of another – is to be preferred. The point is, the critic scoffs at the notion that the interpretation of the evidence can only be performed by the guidance of the Word and Holy Spirit. He’s on his own. He boasts of being on his own, but is this boast really boast worthy? What follows is a little Calvin Theological Seminary grad school tutorial on epistemology or “knowing what we know.”

What connects the manuscript evidence, or object, to the mind of the critic that enables the critic to understand the evidence properly? It is external to him, he did not write it, the manuscripts are empirically observable, parchment, ink (which in itself creates a multitude of problems by their own admission). Which brings us to the truth that facts are not what man makes them; facts existed before the mind of man analyzed them, six-day creation a demonstration of that fact. The worlds were here before Adam was created to experience them. God makes the facts what they are; God’s interpretation of the facts is the only true interpretation. In other words, ontology, or what is, precedes epistemology, what we know about it. God made both the mind of the critic and the object, in this case the mss, and it is God which is the personal, common bridge between the mind of man and the thing he immediately created or through secondary causes brought into existence. God as the personal, common bridge between the mind and object enables the mind to properly interpret the world in which it lives. God allows us to see a sunset as it was meant to be seen and properly interpret it because He is the link between the sunset and the mind of man. If God is omitted, the sunset is because of “mother nature.” God also allows us to see the mss as it was meant to be seen and properly interpret them because God allowed them to be written and allows them to exist. To properly interpret all the facts that surround us we must know the God that made the facts what they are, and the only way to know the God that made the facts as they are is through the Word and Spirit.

But let’s suppose an impossibility that there is no God to be the link between the mind and the object. The autonomous mind must then project or create meaning for the object and interpret the object according to that projection making the fact what it is. In this case epistemology precedes ontology – what we know about something makes the thing what it is. Either the mind of God or the mind of man will assign the object meaning, and with the exclusion of God, the mind of man is what remains. The irresolvable problem with this scheme is that autonomy by definition is singular, isolated, and fundamentally schismatic. Autonomy drove Eve to separate herself from God and Adam to blame his beloved Eve for the transgression. Autonomy destroys perfect unity. Indeed, autonomy has no unifying characteristics. Autonomy makes every man god. See Gen. 3. The minds of men project multiple meaning to the object and multiple interpretations of the multiple objects. One means of limiting the multiplicity of meanings and interpretations is for one mind or some minds to convince other minds that their mind’s projection of the object is superior to all others. This convincing can be performed in different ways. One manifestation of the autonomous tyranny of this projection is what we call secular scholarship. After removing God, the autonomous mind gets to interpret the world and the facts however they please. Such minds assign value to objects and value to morals and virtue. Such minds determine what is right and wrong good or bad, accurate or inaccurate. To agree with them is good; to disagree is not only mistaken, but also bad. Another kind of convincing  is when these gods have the power of the State to compel the lesser minds to yield or to conform to their interpretation of the facts and their projection of the world. Visit the Holocaust Museum in DC to see to what lengths such projectionism will go to assert itself.

The problem is yet further exacerbated when after years of the mind failing to make the facts what they are, leaving men in despair, finally and totally isolated within himself. His confidence in other minds wanes, the impossibility of opposites meaning the same thing depending on the many autonomous interpretations of the facts leads to skepticism, the uncertainty of the mind itself after making a projection and then reversing itself, leaves the mind isolated within itself. The autonomous mind, after removing God, cannot maintain the link between itself and the object, which leaves the mind abandoned to itself, knowing nothing for sure. With Descartes, all that can be said is, “I think, therefore I am.” Not to be sidetracked from its goal, the mind in this paradigm creates a world of little gods, each god making a world in their own image, with their own sectarian laws and morals; little autonomous kingdoms were the autonomous mind reigns supreme. Man does indeed want to be like God, but God is God, and He has asserted his Authority through the Word and Spirit. God lovingly stands in the way of the host of gods and in his grace and mercy sent His Son, so that little gods might be rescued from their self-deluded, meaningless world and experience the fulness of truth and life. See Luke 19:10.

The modern textual critic is attempting to gain power over the minds of men the likes of which the world has never seen. Some may not see the forest for the trees but whether actively or passively engaged, the results are the same. To control the creation of the Book ascribed to God, a Book that has the power to change the lives of men and shape the course of history, by themselves taking the role of God in its creation seems more than a serious thinker could contemplate. Are we to swallow the notion that the only way to recover the words of God is to leave God out of the project? If we have access to the Original Writer, why not ask Him what He meant by His Writings? But you see, there is no one to ask. This entire project acts as if God does not exist, that we do not have access to Him, or if He does exist what He has already told us about His Word is futile and impossible. See Matt. 5:18. The critical text, even if it could come to completion, would only be provincial or sectarian, serving only the kingdom of the mind that created it. If that autonomous kingdom had the “scriptures” what a powerful kingdom it would be. Indeed, look around you at the power the autonomous kingdom of the scholar and his interpretation of the “evidence” already possesses over the Church. According to that autonomous kingdom, if they don’t have the scriptures, neither does anyone else.

If God is preserved as the link between the mind and the object, the interpretation of the object will be made through the Word and Spirit. What is right or wrong, good, or bad, sweet or sour, will stand for all minds because the Mind of God is the link between  the minds of all men and the object. Today, like every day, the saint has the choice of kingdoms within which to live. He can either live in his own autonomous kingdom in forsaking the love of his Lord, or he can submit his life to Lord and live in the kingdom of Heaven.

The Apostolic Message and Your Bible (Part 3)

In this episode Dr.’s Van Kleeck continue their discussion of the Apostolic Message, Canonicity, and a dogmatic argument for a standard sacred text. Picking up where we left off last time, we begin this episode with a treatment of the necessary criteria for being an apostle and how those ties into the revealed word of Scripture.

John Owen, 1658, and the Bond between the Spirit and Word

John Owen, with erudite precision makes the following observations dealing with the role of the Spirit in the confirmation of the Authority of Scripture. Owen argues that in reading the Scripture the covenant keeper hears the Authority of the Holy Spirit’s testimony in the word, and the self-authentication of the Truth spoken by the Spirit.

Sect. 11.2 There is a testimony of the Spirit, that respects the object, or the Word its self, and this is a public testimony, which, as it satisfies our souls in particular, so it is, and may be pleaded [alleged], in reference unto the fashion of all others, to whom the Word of God shall come. The Holy Ghost speaking in and by the Word, imparting to it Virtue, Power, Efficacy, Majesty, and Authority, affords us the Witness, that our faith is resolved unto. And thus whereas there are but two heads, whereunto all Grounds of Assent do belong, namely Authority of the Testimony, and the self Evidence of Truth, they do here both concur in one. In the same Word we have both the authority of the testimony of the Spirit, and the self Evidence of the Truth spoken by him; yea, so, that both these are materially one and the same, though distinguished in the formal conceptions…. The Spirit’s communication of his own Light, and Authority to the Scripture, as evidences of its originall, is the testimony pleaded for [or alleged, or the argument maintained].

Owen is alleging [testimony pleaded for] that the testimony of the Spirit and the self-evidence of the truth spoken by the Spirit concur in the Word both being materially “one and the same.” Though formally distinct, the Spirit’s testimony, or the communication of his own Light, and the Authority of Scripture as self-attesting or self-evidencing are evidence of its source in the original or autographa.

John Owen, Of the Divine Originall, Authority, self-evidencing Light, and Power of the Scriptures: With an Answer to that Enquiry, How we know the Scripture’s to be the Word of God. Also A Vindication of the Purity and Integrity of the Hebrew and Greek Texts of the Old and New Testaments; in some Considerations on the Prolegomena (Oxford: Printed by Henry Hall, Printer to the University for Tho: Robinson, 1658), 96-98.

Understanding the CBGM: Coherence

In our fourth installment of Understanding the CBGM we now come to the idea of coherence which is the primary and most important contribution of the CBGM. Generally, and simply, there are three ways in which coherence is observed in the CBGM: pregenealogical, genealogical, and stemma. Beginning with the first,

“Pregenealogical coherence is the percentage between the texts of any two witnesses at all places of variation where both are extant and legible.”

Wasserman and Gurry, A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method, 27.

In other word, pregenealogical coherence is the percentage of places where two manuscripts differ and where both of the manuscripts have that text, and that text is legible. From these differences it is possible to observe how the two manuscripts cohere minus their differences. For example,

“If manuscript A and manuscript B are compared at one hundred places and disagree at twenty, then their pregenealogical coherence is 80 percent (eighty out of 100).”

Wasserman and Gurry, A New Approach, 27.

The second kind of coherence is that of genealogical coherence which Wasserman and Gurry define in the following way:

“Whereas pregenealogical coherence only tells us how closely two witnesses are related, genealogical coherence also tells us the direction of their relationship.”

Wasserman and Gurry, A New Approach, 28.

They go on…

“Recalling the ways that the relationship between any two witnesses is determined (A equals B; A-> or A<-B; A-?-B), pregenealogical coherence only accounts for the first (A equals B) whereas genealogical coherence includes all three.”

Wasserman and Gurry, A New Approach, 28.

So pregenealogical coherence allows us to know where two texts differ and where they are the same. Genealogical coherence allows us to know which text is the ancestor text and which is the descendent text. On the genealogical front

“The direction of the relationship is taken directly from the editors’ own decisions made at each place of variation.”

Wasserman and Gurry, A New Approach, 28.

In sum, subjective human interpretation with the assistance of computer tools makes the decision about which is an ancestor, and which is a descendent when comparing two witnesses/texts. Wasserman and Gurry use Sinaiticus and Vaticanus as an example. They observe that Vaticanus has readings which are deemed prior to those of Sinaiticus in 250 places, and conclude,

“…the CBGM is not suggesting that Codex Sinaiticus was directly copied from Codex Vaticanus. The relationship is a more abstract one. It is not a relationship between manuscripts but between texts conveyed in them. Since Vaticanus has the prior text overall to Sinaiticus, its text is considered one of multiple potential ancestors for Sinaiticus within the CBGM.”

Wasserman and Gurry, A New Approach, 29.

It is interesting to note that it is feasible that “one of multiple potential ancestors” means direct ancestor, or copy, or copy of a copy. If this is the case, then it is also feasible that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are one witness, kind of like how text critics treat they Byzantine Text Form even in the CBGM.

The third type of coherence concerns that of stemmata: local stemma, substemma, and global stemma. The first tries to determine which variant is the ancestor of the other or which variant gave rise to the subsequent variants of that kind. Our authors observe that “the construction of these local stemmata involves the traditional tools of textual criticism” e.g., oldest, shortest, hardest, internal and external evidence etc. The second, or substemma, determines “the minimal number of ancestors for a given witness in a given book or corpus” (31). The point here being that the aim of the editors, in observing Ockham’s Razor, is to offer the least number of witnesses that can account for the text of some particular witness. The third is “the combination of all available substemmata.” Wasserman and Gurry point out that at this stage of the CBGM game, “there is not yet a complete global stemma for any portion of the New Testament” (33).

In our next installment we will turn to a more thorough treatment of pregenealogical coherence as a tool to help editors make decisions about what is or is not the NT. Blessings.

Faith & Philosophy

Welcome to the Brickyard. This is a place to find quotes for use in your own research and writing. The bricks are free, but the building is up to you. The following quotes are drawn from various philosophical sources dealing with faith and belief. I include these quotes because faith and belief are foundational to the arguments we make here at StandardSacredText.com. And seeing that all that is truth is indeed God’s truth, sometimes it is good to see familiar objects of thought from different perspectives.

“I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that ‘unless I do believe I shall not understand.’ (Isaiah 7:9)”

Anslem of Canterbury, Proslogion, Opera Omnia, 1, 100.

“I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.”

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. Kemp Smith, B xxx.

“…the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.”

Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong, 82.

“…but at least get it into your head that, if you are unable to believe, it is because of your passions, since reason impels you to believe and yet you cannot do so. Concentrate then not on convincing yourself by multiplying proofs of God’s existence but by diminishing your passions.”

Blaise Pascal, Pensees, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer, No. 418, 152.

If you say the evidence doesn’t support the promises of God, you are misinterpreting the evidence

Edward Stillingfleet was a British theologian and scholar, considered an outstanding preacher as well as a strong polemical writer defending Protestantism. In his work Origines Sacrae he argues for the truth of Scripture in history. What he published in 1680 rings true for us today. Must the extent of God’s omnipotent power “pass the scrutiny of our faculties, before it obtains a place for Divine revelation?” Stillingfleet argues,

“Secondly, to commensurate the perfections of God with the narrow capacity of the human intellect; which is contrary to the natural idea of God; and to the manner whereby we take up our conceptions of God; for the idea of God doth suppose incomprehensibility to belong to his nature; and the manner whereby we form our conceptions of God, is by taking away all the imperfections we find in ourselves, from the conception we form of a being absolutely perfect, and by adding infinity to all the perfections we find in our own natures. Now this method of proceeding doth necessarily imply a vast distance and disproportion between a finite and infinite understanding. And if the understanding of God be infinite, why may not he discover such things to us, which our shallow apprehensions cannot reach unto? what ground or evidence of reason can we have that an infinite wisdom and understanding, when it undertakes to discover maters of the highest nature and concernment of the world, should be able to deliver nothing but what comes within the compass of our imperfect and narrow intellects? And that it should not be sufficient that the matters revealed do none of them contradict the prime results or common notions of mankind (which none of them do) but that every particular mode and circumstance, as to the existence of God, or the extent of his omnipotent power, must pass the scrutiny of our faculties, before it obtains a place for a Divine revelation?”

Has the Church come to place regarding the Scriptures that because the promises of God can’t be classified, categorized, or easily referenced, that after the “scrutiny of our faculties” it concludes that what God said just couldn’t happen, an indictment against the “narrow capacity of the human intellect” when contemplating divine matters?

Edward Stillingfleet (1635–1699), Origines Sacrae, or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith, as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures, and matters contained therein (London: printed by M.W. for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul’s Church-yard, and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall, 1680), 234-235