As part of the Christian doctrine of Anthropology all people regardless of skin color, social status, financial status, educational background, or gender are created in God’s image and as such are not bodies with souls, but souls with bodies. One and all of the human race since the creation of Adam are substantially the same as image bearers [Genesis 1:26-27].

For this reason, and certainly for others, the Christian is compelled to reject the evil and immoral practice of abortion. Indeed, we ought to seek it abolition. We ought also to regard the wanton slaughter of the Jews during the Holocaust as a blatant moral evil. The same goes for the horrors of Trans-Atlantic Chattel Slavery, the Armenian Genocide, the evils of Pol Pot, and the evils of Stalin’s Russia as vividly depicted by Solzhenitsyn. In all of these cases it is the substantive nature of each human, that of being created in God’s image, which marks these evils as evil.

But while we are substantively the same, we are in many ways accidentally different. We have different skin, hair, and eye color. We vary in height and weight. We each have different dispositions and aspirations as different instantiations of the human substance, as image-bearers. Then of course, we not only differ in these particulars, but we also differ in their combination. Some have blonde hair and brown eyes while others have brown hair and green eyes. All the while we are compelled to believe given the teachings of the Scriptures that though we are different in these ways we are all substantially the equal in essence.

Given all of the above I would now like to make a narrow comparison between the substantial equality of humans and the supposed substantial equality of Bible versions and particularly how this comparison relates to choosing and abiding by your mate and choosing and abiding by your Bible.

Let’s get the provocative stuff out of the way first. I’ll speak to husbands just to keep things simple. Assuming your wife is substantively the same as any other woman, then the reason for you choosing a particular woman is largely accidental. That is, you desire this or that hair color or this or that type of personality or this or that character trait. Furthermore, it seems to me that you stick by this woman because you love her. In fact, in many cases the man has made a vow that he is not going to leave no matter what.

Then through the course of your marriage you find out that you thought you understood something about her but really didn’t [i.e., a marital “false friend”]. Maybe there are parts of her person or personality that you simply cannot get your head wrapped around. It takes many long and meaningful conversations coupled with trial-and-error experience to understand that part of who she is. Even further, say you’ve been married for 40 years, and familiarity has bred contempt. You’ve grown tired of her, or worse, you hold her in contempt.

Let us say further that you hold her in contempt because there are other women out there with appealing accidental properties and by your lights may not need as many “long and meaningful” conversations to sort things out. Maybe where you once liked black hair you now like red hair. Maybe where you more interested in a curvy figure you now like a more slender figure.

Given the above you conclude that the best way to reconcile your relative contempt for your wife as well as enjoy the accidental properties of these other women is to, first, remain married. That’s right do not divorce her. Stay with her because in the end she does have some accidental properties that these other ladies do not have. In short, to meet your particular needs you need to be a Multiple Women Only kind of man.

Second, you make it clear to your wife that while she was your first and the woman with whom you learned about marriage and family, the fact is, by your estimation, that she has considerable faults and some worthy of contempt. As a result, the only option is to “consult” multiple women from this time forward. Third, if you are still alive at this point, remind your wife that all women are substantially the same and only accidentally different. This assertion will clear you of all fault in making the choices you have and all those going forward so long as they are in the same vein.

By this point I hope my attempted narrow parallel is clear. A godly Christian man would not perpetrate such an evil against the one whom his soul loves. And if a brother were to do this, it would be the role of his friends and of the ecclesiastical community to confront him for his infidelity.

The oddity of course is that many of the believing community would be appalled by such behavior between a human and a human but openly encourage such behavior between a human and the revealed word of God.

In case you missed the parallels:
1.) All women are substantially the same and we are told that all English versions are substantially the same.
2.) All women only differ as to accidents, and we are told that all English versions differ as to accidents.
3.) Especially for the newly married couple there exists “false friends” in the relationship and all versions contain “false friends” at one point or another for the reader.
4.) Familiarity can breed contempt in one’s wife as well as in one’s English translation of the Scriptures.
5.) There are different women than your wife and there are different versions than the one you hold to.
6.) Those differences can make you think it’s time for a new one.
7.) Those differences can make you think yours is inferior when it is not.
8.) Yet one is forbidden by God and the other is encouraged by the Evangelical Church of the 21st century.

Objections:
1.) Well, marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman…
Well, the Bible is the record of a covenant between Christ and His bride so…
2.) A difference here or there doesn’t matter.
Try telling your wife that, and, of course, God is not as picky as your wife. Right?
3.) God prohibits adultery.
God prohibits adding to or taking away from His words.

Perhaps it is time for a new nomenclature:

1.) Polygamist = having more than one wife.
2.) Polyamorous = having more than one lover.
3.) Polylogown = having more than one word of God.

In sum, perhaps one day we could be as faithful to our Bibles as we are called to be to our wives.

We here at Standard Sacred Text.com have made the argument that God has preserved His word via His singular care and providence. We have further made the point that we believe the TR in the Greek and the KJV in the English are the standard sacred text in their respective spheres. We have further argued that this comes down to the books, paragraphs, sentences, words, and even part of words or the accidents of words. In short, the little stuff matters to us.

In the video below it seems the same is held by those who do not hold to our position. If you watch the whole debate, Ehrman seems to care about the “little stuff” so much so that what amounts to misquoting Jesus depends on a word here and a couple words, there. In the excerpt below, Ehrman also makes the point that Daniel Wallace was soliciting for and accepting tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to study the myriad of differences between manuscripts.

Assuming people gave to Wallace’s cause we now have quite a long list of people who think the differences in the Greek NT matter and that those differences include the “little stuff.” We here at StandardSacredText.com, representing the TR/KJV tradition, care about these differences. Bart Ehrman, representing the skeptical/agnostic position, cares about them. Dan Wallace, representing the CT/MVO position, cares about them enough to make a sales pitch. Finally, the people who gave to Wallace’s project, representing the believing community, care about these differences enough to put their money where their mouth is.

Admittedly, the parties mentioned above may not care for the “little stuff” in the same way and for the same reasons, but the matter is clear – all parties involved know the “little stuff” matters enough to argue about it and raise money to that end.

If you ever find yourself standing in front of God’s people and you claim that no major doctrine is threatened or that there are only errors in the small stuff when it comes to the modern text-critical enterprise, know that the probability that God’s people believe what you’ve said may not be as high as you think or as high as you like.

One of my first forays into philosophy while a grad student at Calvin Theological Seminary was in writing a term paper wherein I compared the wisdom of the Wise Ruler in Plato’s Republic with the wisdom possessed and revealed by the Jewish king, Solomon. Not only did I compare them, but I also equated them. This as it turns out was a mistake and my paper showed the marks of that mistake.

In the last week or so the inimitable Jordan Peterson made some rather provocative, and for some Christian observers, encouraging comments on the nature of the Christian Scriptures and their role in establishing the substructure of Western truth paradigms.

Not long after Jordan Peterson made these comments some made naive jokes about how something could be truer than true, others were quick to claim Jordan Peterson for the Church as was done with Soren Kirkegaard, and others offered more measured and penetrating commentary. One such commentator was the Chestertonian pastor Presbyterian from Moscow…Moscow, Idaho. That pastor is Douglas Wilson.

Some know him to be a faithful pastor and gadfly on the horse that is modern Western culture. Still others perceive him to be a firestarter for the sake of firestarting. For this last group, I believe they hold Wilson in such a light because they have no taste for unrelenting razor-sharp rhetoric. Either that or they find affective comfort in soy lattes and/or skinny jeans and Wilson triggers their malformed Christian sensibilities which are chiefly expressed in their conflation of some amorphous concept of kindness with Christian love.

You can find Wilson’s observations and commentary here:

In the above video, Wilson observes that what Peterson means by truth and what the Christian means by truth is equivocal. Both are using the same term, but they do not precisely mean the same thing. Indeed, I agree that Peterson is not far from the kingdom of God [Mark 12:34] given the above statements and others regarding living as if there is a God and speaking of the Divine Logos and Christ being the embodiment of that Logos.

Regarding Peterson’s most recent comments, let us try to get ahold of his ideas first then juxtapose them to the Christian view and particularly what we are propounding here at StandardSacredText.com. Then finally we will note the differences and similarities between the two.

Beginning with Peterson, if you pay careful attention to the argument leading up to his statements on the truth quality of Scripture and Scripture as the precondition of truth you will note where he starts. He starts with western civilization and particularly with a less-than-brief western literary history. By my lights his points are as follows:

1.) There was a time when the Bible was The Book for western culture. By this he means that there was a book held in higher esteem or a book set apart by western culture and no other western book was considered its equal. In this sense the Bible was The Book.

2.) There is also a sense in which the Bible was The Book for the English-speaking western world because it was the first book printed. Note Peterson’s emphasis on technology and its advancements. The Gutenberg Press was inestimable leap in the means and method of communicating and the first book printed with this technology was the King James Version of The Book.

3.) Peterson uses 1 and 2 to begin to construct an inverse pyramid where the most foundational book to western society and culture rests at the pinnacle of this inverse pyramid and all other books are built upon this pinnacle. According to Peterson, close to the base or bottom of this inverse pyramid are the works of Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante in translation and by extrapolation, the great books of the western world as compiled in the Britanica series by the same name. But there is no doubt that Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante derive much of their material by either direct experience with the Bible and/or by experience through the culture via media i.e., stories, art, music, song, ecclesiastical architecture etc.

4.) Peterson thus concludes that the Bible is the foundation for all the truth we know, teach, and read about in at least our current western culture if not for western generations immemorial. In this sense the Bible is truer than true. The Bible is the precondition to truth as the western mind understands it. Put more concretely, to make a robust appeal to some truth, especially if truth is only a value in the fact\value divide, without referring to the Bible in some ways is like making a robust appeal to a child’s existence without referring to her parents in some way. You can do it, but the picture is profoundly incomplete.

Regarding the orthodox Christian position, the Scriptures are more than the precondition to truth as touching the western mind. Rather, the Scriptures are the precondition to all theological truth which includes ontology, epistemology, and morality or being, knowing, and ethics. The Scriptures are the precondition to these truths no matter the time or place in which the reader of the Scriptures finds himself/herself.

This is because the Scriptures are more than The Book which rests at the epistemological foundation of all other books in the western lineage of learning and teaching. The Scriptures are the propositional revelation of the incarnate Logos, the Archetypical Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. As such, the Scriptures rest as the founding pinnacle and the precondition of truth because the Scriptures are the revealed proposition of The Truth, and it is for this reason primarily that the Scriptures are The Book. And not just for the West but for all of humanity.

In sum, the efficacy of an argument depends on its explanatory scope and its explanatory force. We determine the former by how much of the data an argument can account for, and we determine the latter by how rational and believable the argument is given its attempts to explain the data. Peterson’s argument has considerable explanatory scope and force. It explains much of the data and in a way that is rational and believable, but it quite clearly seems to leave out the spiritual and theological implications of arguing for divine revelation as the precondition to truth. Thusly construed, the distinctively Christian argument employs the theological element and can absorb Peterson’s argument without doing violence to either.

If the Bible is the living word of God, then it is not we who examine it, but it that examines us. In other words, the virtues of the West were not built on the Bible. Rather, the Bible built the virtues of the West.

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, “tinker” means, “to make small changes to something, especially in an attempt to repair or improve it.”

At this point in the game, are the modern evangelical text-critics merely tinkering with the New Testament? I ask this question because of how the argument seems to be framed by the modern evangelical text-critic. Consider the following arguments.

Proposition 1: Nothing major is affected by the variants currently represented in the N/A 28.
Proposition 2: The original words of Scripture are contained in either the text or apparatus. If that worries you at all see P1.
Conclusion: We have all the words of the original and where we are unsure if the original word is in the text or apparatus nothing major is at stake.

Certainly, modern evangelical text-critics would think themselves to be repairing or improving the Greek New Testament. It is unclear if that is indeed the case and equally as unclear as to the standard by which such a repair or improvement is measured especially given certain Christian precommitments regarding what the Scripture says about itself. What is more, given the above propositions and conclusion it seems by the modern evangelical text-critic’s own admission that their work is only in minor things and in making minor changes. In sum, the modern evangelical text-critic seeks to repair or improve the Greek New Testament via the relatively minor things.

This seems to be the very definition of a New Testament textual tinker.

On the flip side, if the modern evangelical text critic admits that they are still making major changes to the Greek New Testament thus inferring the need for a professional, then something meaningful and substantive is in the balance. But if there are truly meaningful and substantive changes to be made thus necessitating a trusted captain at the helm, then it seems to me that Proposition 1 loses most of its bark and bite. Indeed, there very well may be major truths [however that is determined] at stake thus the necessity for professionals and not tinkers.

Perhaps this argument would be sufficient for a Bart Ehrman type who sees the text-critical work mostly done unless we achieve some Dead Sea Scroll level discovery at some point in the future. Perhaps the evangelical text-critic on the other hand would not accept this argument that they are merely tinkering with the text. And why? Because they believe themselves to be on the way to finding the original words of the inspired word of God. In this sense, their work is major work, but then of course they run into a whole other kind of hornet’s nest of objections. Consider the following:

Proposition 1′: Because the aim of modern evangelical text criticism is to find the original inspired words of the New Testament, every word is major in that each word of God is meaningful and substantive.
Proposition 2′: The fact that we are unsure in many places whether the original word of God is either in the text or apparatus [assuming it is in either of those two places] is a meaningful and substantive lack of assurance because one is God’s word, and the other is not, or perhaps a third unknown option is.
Conclusion’: Because we are unsure whether God’s original words are in the text or apparatus [or in some third place] meaningful and substantive [i.e., major] things are at stake and as such call for a professional and not a tinkerer to sort all this out.

In sum,
1.) Either the textual improvements made by modern evangelical text-critics are minor and thus their work is a work of tinkering.
OR
2.) The textual improvements made by modern evangelical text-critics are major thus the New Testament continues to endure major changes by professionals.
Conclusion: If (2), then the claim that we currently have the words of God in all major ways seems unfounded.

So, which will it be? Are you tinkers or are we still looking for the Scriptures in major ways?