--Col. 2:8
-- The modern versions (ASV, RSV, NIV) are based on
the “science” of modern textual criticism which was developed in the 19th
century and resulted in the ERV of 1881.
The ERV and other modern versions were rejected by strong Bible believers until
recent decades.
-- Now Fundamental Baptists are
promoting textual criticism and the modern versions: “…textual criticism … is not a negative attitude
toward the inspiration of the
Bible. It is in reality an effort to assure us that we have the inspired Word
of God.” (From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man, p.
24)
1. Modern textual criticism ignores the
supernatural character of the Bible.
2. Modern textual criticism ignores
Satan’s attack on the Bible.
3. Modern textual criticism ignores
God’s promise of preservation.
4. Modern textual criticism ignores the
preeminence of faith.
I.
MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM IGNORES THE SUPERNATURAL
CHARACTER OF THE BIBLE.
Westcott and Hort: “The leading principles of textual criticism are
identical for all writings whatever.” (Intro. to the N.T. in the Original
Greek, p. 19)
REMINDER OF THE TRUE
NATURE OF THE SCRIPTURES:
JESUS CHRIST: “…the scripture cannot be broken;” (John 10:35)
APOSTLE PAUL: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16)
APOSTLE PETER: “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of
man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter
1:21).
--
Because so many are denying that modern textual criticism is rationalistic
(previous statement from From the Mind of
God to the Mind of Man), we offer the following extensive documentation:
Testimony of a wide variety of godly men to the rationalistic
nature of textual criticism:
HENRY JOHN TODD, chaplain to the king of England:
“For
when we see men of the most latitudinarian principles uniformly pressing
forward this dangerous proposal; when we see the most unbounded panegyrics
[elaborate praise] bestowed on those, who have converted the Mosaic history
into allegory, and the New Testament into Socinianism; when we see
these attempts studiously fostered, and applauded, by the advocates for this
projected [Bible] revision; we must conjecture, that something more is meant
than a correction of mistakes, or an improvement of diction” (Todd, A Vindication of Our Authorized Translation
and Translators of the Bible, 1819, pp. 79,80).
THE
BIBLE LEAGUE of England. Formed in 1892 to resist the tide of apostasy that
was sweeping across the Protestant landscape in late 19th century Britain.
“In
the eighteenth century Religious Rationalism was begotten in
Germany and began to spread in its Universities. It has influenced and debased
the theological thought in almost the whole of Protestant Christendom. ... The
Father of this new revolutionary attitude to the Word of the Lord and the Lord
of the Word was J.S. Semler (1725-91),
Professor of Theology at Halle. One of his pupils, J.J. Griesbach (1745-1812) was
appointed Professor of the New Testament at Jena in 1775. ... It should not be
surprising, nor should it be overlooked, that GRIESBACH, INFLUENCED FROM
HIS UNDERGRADUATE DAYS BY THE RISING TIDE OF RATIONALISM SWEEPING OVER HIS
COUNTRY, WAS A FOE OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY. HE ABANDONED THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS, AND
CONSTRUCTED A NEW GREEK NEW TESTAMENT TEXT” (emphasis added) (D.A. Thompson, The Controversy Concerning the Last
Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to Mark, The Bible League Quarterly,
London, 1973).
TRINITARIAN
BIBLE SOCIETY. Formed 1831
in a battle against Unitarianism within British & Foreign Bible Society
(which was founded in 1804).
“Textual
Criticism [is] very largely conducted under the direction or influence of
scholars who by their adoption of these erroneous theories have betrayed the
unreliability of their judgment in these vital matters. WE MUST NOT PERMIT OUR JUDGMENT TO BE OVERAWED BY GREAT NAMES IN THE
REALM OF BIBLICAL ‘SCHOLARSHIP’ WHEN IT IS SO CLEARLY EVIDENT THAT THE
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF THE PRESENT CENTURY ARE MERELY REPRODUCING THE CASE
PRESENTED BY RATIONALISTS DURING THE LAST TWO HUNDRED YEARS. Nor should we
fail to recognise that scholarship of this kind has
degenerated into a skeptical crusade against the Bible, tending to lower it to
the level of an ordinary book of merely human composition” (Terance
Brown, If the Foundations Be Destroyed,
T.B.S Article No. 14, p. 13).
JOHN BURGON (1813-1888)
--Professor of Divinity at Oxford
--One of the foremost textual scholars
of the 19th century
--Spent 30 years tracing the history of
the Bible through the ages.
He
made tours of European libraries, examining and collating N.T. manuscripts
wherever he went. Visited the Vatican Library in 1860 to
examine the Vaticanus. In 1862 he traveled to Mt.
Sinai to inspect manuscripts at St. Catherine’s. Edward Hills notes the purpose
of these travels: “Believing firmly that God had providentially preserved the
true text of the New Testament, he set out to discover how the depraved and
corrupt readings developed.”
-- added
particulars of 374 Greek manuscripts previously unknown to the world of
scholarship.
--index of N.T. citations by the Church
Fathers consists of 86,489 quotations.
Burgon
observed kinship between higher and lower criticism:
“That which distinguishes Sacred Science
from every other Science which can be named is that it is Divine, and has to do
with a Book which is inspired; that is, whose true Author is God. ... It is chiefly from
inattention to this circumstance that misconception prevails in that department
of Sacred Science known as ‘Textual Criticism’” (Burgon and Miller, The Traditional Text, p. 9).
ROBERT L. DABNEY (1820-1898) Noted American Presbyterian scholar who boldly opposed
modernistic views of the Bible.
Dabney
warned that Evangelicals who accepted the modern text were adopting it “FROM
THE MINT OF INFIDEL RATIONALISM” (Dabney, “The Doctrinal
Various Readings of the New Testament Greek,” Southern Presbyterian Review, April 1871).
DR. EDWARD F. HILLS (1912-1981). Th.D. in N.T. Textual
Criticism from Harvard. The King
James Version Defended (1956)
“Has
the text of the New Testament, like those of other ancient books, been damaged
during its voyage over the seas of time? Ought the same methods of textual
criticism to be applied to it that are applied to the texts of other ancient
books? . . . IN THE REALM OF NEW
TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM AS WELL AS IN OTHER FIELDS THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF
MODERN THOUGHT ARE HOSTILE TO THE HISTORIC CHRISTIAN FAITH AND WILL DESTROY IT
IF THEIR FATAL OPERATION IS NOT CHECKED. If faithful Christians, therefore,
would defend their sacred religion against this danger, THEY MUST FORSAKE THE FOUNDATIONS OF UNBELIEVING THOUGHT AND BUILD UPON
THEIR FAITH, a faith that rests
entirely on the solid rock of holy Scripture. And when they do this in the
sphere of New Testament textual criticism, they will find themselves led back
step by step (perhaps, at first, against their wills) to the text of the
Protestant Reformation, namely, that form of New Testament text which underlies
the King James Version and the other early Protestant translations” (Edward
F. Hills, The King James
Bible Defended, Introduction, 3rd ed., 1979, p. 1).
ALFRED MARTIN (Vice President, Moody)
“At precisely the time when liberalism was
carrying the field in the English churches the theory of Westcott and Hort received wide acclaim. These are not
isolated facts. Recent contributions
on the subject--that is, in the present century--following mainly the
Westcott-Hort principles and method, have been made largely by men who deny the
inspiration of the Bible”
(Alfred Martin, “A Critical Examination of the Westcott-Hort Textual Theory,”
Th.D. Thesis, Dallas Seminary, May 1951).
-- Not all textual critics are
unbelievers, but the fathers and chief architects of it were and are; not 1 in
100 is a believer
RICHARD SIMON (1638-1712). French Roman Catholic who denied verbal
inspiration.
RICHARD BENTLEY (1662-1742). Classical scholar who
treated the Bible like any other book.
JOHANN BENGEL (1687-1752). German churches of his day charged him
with heresy against the Scriptures.
JOHANN WETTSTEIN (1693-1754). Charged with Arian and
Socinian heresies.
KARL LACHMANN (1793-1851), German rationalist. Lachmann treated the Bible as a
mere book.
JOHANN GRIESBACH (1745-1812).
- Westcott/Hort said they venerated the name of Griesbach “above that
of every other textual critic.”
-
Described as “a foe of orthodox Christianity.” Denied deity of Christ and
inspiration of Bible
Griesbach’s theories were roundly rejected by Bible believers. An example is Frederick
Nolan, who, in 1815, published An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Received Text of the New Testament (576 pages). Nolan said, “... it
shall be my object to vindicate those important passages of the Received Text
which have been rejected from the Scripture Canon, on the principles of the
German method of
classification” (p. 43). Among these was 1 Timothy
3:16.
Griesbach was well received by the Christ-denying Unitarians
and Modernists. Officials
at Harvard College in 1809 published an American edition of Griesbach’s
critical Greek N.T, because it promoted
text criticism, which was called, “a most powerful weapon to be used against
the supporters of verbal inspiration.”
B.F. WESTCOTT (1825-1901) and
F.J.A. HORT (1828-1892).
Edited Greek N.T. published with the English Revised Version in 1881.
Apostasy of Westcott-Hort
1.
The witness of their own writings (study by
Dr. Donald Waite, who for his book Heresies
of Westcott & Hort,
studied 1,291 pages of the writings of these men). They did not affirm the
infallibility of Scripture. They questioned the vicarious, substitutionary
atonement of Christ. Embraced Fatherhood of God and
evolution. Subtle undermining of truth: Like many Neo-orthodox
and Modernistic theologians, Westcott and Hort did not so much deny the
doctrines of the Word of God directly; they undermined these doctrines with
clever doubt, with subtle questioning. “Westcott’s attack on the bodily
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is not by any means a direct clash of
out-and-and denial, but rather an adroit,
skillful, oblique undermining of the bodily resurrection of Christ by means
of a re-definition of terms” (Waite, Westcott’s Denial of Bodily Resurrection).
2.
The witness of their textual theories:
“For ourselves, we dare not introduce considerations which could not reasonably
be applied to other texts, supposing them to have documentary attestation of
equal amount, variety, and antiquity” (Hort, cited by Dr. Edward F. Hills, The King James
Version Defended, pp. 65,66).
3.
Their support for dangerous heretics:
When several thousand Anglican clergy signed a petition calling for the removal
of Unitarian George Vance Smith from the ERV committee, W-H threatened to
resign if Smith was dismissed. 2 John 9-11
PHILIP SCHAFF (1819-1893). President of committee
for the ASV of 1901. He was twice brought to trial for heresy, his
liberal views forcing him to move to Union Seminary, which was already a hotbed
of theological innovation in the late 19th century. He kissed Pope Gregory
XVI’s slipper during an audience in 1841. He longed for the reunion of
Protestants and Catholics and believed it would eventually be achieved through
the efforts of a future pope who would promote ecumenism.
UNITARIANS:
GEORGE VANCE SMITH (1816-1902).
ERV. Unitarian minister who denied
the deity of Christ and the inerrancy of Scripture. Smith testified that
the textual changes in the English Revised Version and the Westcott-Hort Greek
New Testament reflected his own theology.
EZRA ABBOT (1819-1884). ASV. Harvard theology professor. He was called the foremost
textual critic in America of that day. He was a Christ-denying Unitarian. He
authored the footnotes in the ASV which say that Christ should not be
worshipped and which question his deity.
JOSEPH HENRY THAYER (1828-1901). ASV. Harvard professor of N.T. criticism. Unitarian
who denied the deity of Christ and the infallibility of Scripture.
CASPAR RENÉ GREGORY (1846-1917). Wrote influential
books on textual criticism. Was a pupil of Unitarian Ezra Abbot at Harvard. Was the son-in-law to Unitarian Joseph Thayer.
CHIEF TEXTUAL CRITICS STILL DENOUNCE INFALLIBILITY OF
SCRIPTURES:
CARLO MARTINI (1908- ). Editor of the United
Bible Societies’ Greek N.T. since 1967. Jesuit priest.
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Milan. He is a professor
at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, which, in addition to RC
heresies, promotes the theory of evolution and the heretical documentary views
of biblical inspiration, etc.
KURT ALAND (1915-1997?). Coeditor of the
Nestle-Aland Greek N.T. Rejected verbal inspiration. Claimed that even the canon
of Scripture is yet unsettled.
EUGENE NIDA (1914- ). Editor of the United Bible Societies’ Greek N.T. The father of the dynamic equivalency theory of translation. Nida has been
associated with the American Bible Society and the United Bible Societies since 1943.
Claims the Bible is not absolute, but is finite and limited and that “God’s
revelation involved limitations.” Says the Bible is NOT “a kind of Holy Ghost
language.” Denies substitutionary atonement of Christ.
BRUCE METZGER (1914- ). Metzger is the most influential textual
critic alive today. Every book defending the modern versions lists his works (From Mind of God to Mind of Man 1999,
Central Baptist Seminary’s The Bible
Version Debate 1997). R.L. Sumner said he trusts Metzger. He is one of the
editors of the United Bible Societies’ Greek N.T. He was professor of N.T.
Language and Literature at Princeton. He headed up the continuing RSV translation
committee of the National Council of Churches in America. Metzger was the
chairman for the Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible and wrote the introductions to each book, in which he
questioned the authorship, traditional date, and supernatural inspiration of
books penned by Moses, Daniel, Paul, James, and Peter. Metzger’s modernism is
also evident in the notes to the New
Oxford Annotated Bible RSV which
he co-edited with Herbert May. He claims the O.T. contains “a matrix of myth,
legend, and history,” denies the worldwide flood, calls Job an “ancient
folktale,” claims there are two authors of Isaiah, calls Jonah a “popular
legend,” and otherwise denies the infallibility of Holy Scripture.
“The
Old Testament may be described as the literary expression of the religious life
of ancient Israel. ... The Israelites were more history-conscious than any
other people in the ancient world. Probably as early as the time of David and
Solomon, out of a matrix of myth,
legend, and history, there had appeared the earliest written form of the
story of the saving acts of God from Creation to the conquest of the Promised
Land, an account which later in modified form became a part of Scripture.”
(Bruce Metzger and Herbert May, New
Oxford Annotated Bible, Introduction to the Old Testament)
“The
ancient folktale of a patient Job
circulated orally among oriental sages in the second millennium B.C. and was
probably written down in Hebrew at the time of David and Solomon or a century
later (about 1000-800 B.C.).” (Metzger and May, New Oxford Annotated Bible)
“Archaeological
evidence suggests that traditions of a
prehistoric flood covering the whole earth are heightened versions of
local inundations, e.g. in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.” (Metzger and
May, New Oxford Annotated Bible)
“The
book of Jonah is didactic narrative which has taken older material from
the realm of popular legend
and put it to a new, more consequential use.” (Metzger and May, New Oxford Annotated Bible)
Conclusion:
Does
this matter? “…a textual critic may be an unbeliever when it come
to the Bible’s doctrinal truths. But when it comes to the Bible’s text—to this
question of the Bible’s words—a textual critic is initially little more than a
reporter” (From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man, p. 71)
Contrast:
“Look
to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we
receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath
both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this
doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he
that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” (2 John 7-11)
“But the natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14)
“To
the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is
because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20)
1. Erasmus did not use textual criticism
to form a text.
2. Erasmus did not create the Received
Text; he merely passed it along.
Westcott
& Hort themselves say that Erasmus merely published the text commonly held
as Received “without selection or deliberate criticism.” They say
the choices of the 16th century editors were “arbitrary and uncritical.”
(Intro. to the N.T. in the Original Greek)
“Although he was not himself outstanding as a man of faith … ERASMUS WAS PROVIDENTIALLY CONTROLLED BY THE COMMON FAITH IN THE PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. Luther, Melanchton, Stephanus, Calvin, Beza, and the other scholars of the Reformation Period who labored on the New Testament text were similarly guided by God’s special providence. … in the Reformation Period the textual criticism of the New Testament was different from the textual criticism of any other book. The humanistic methods used on other books were not applied to the New Testament” (E.F. Hills, Believing Bible Study).
-- Fathers of textual criticism treated
Bible like an ordinary book
(classical scholars who applied theories of literary criticism to Bible:
Bentley, Lachmann, Griesbach) “For ourselves, we dare not introduce
considerations which could not reasonably be applied to other texts, supposing
them to have documentary attestation of equal amount, variety, and antiquity”
(F.J.A. Hort).
“Not one of the over 5000 manuscripts
extant is unorthodox… Not one heretical mutilation of
Scripture is extant today” (Thurman Wisdom, Light on the Bible Text Debate).
-- Began in Garden of
Eden
Questioned
v. 1
Subtracted
v. 2 “every” “freely”
Added
to v. 3 “touch it”
Softened
“lest ye die” –contrast “thou shalt surely die” (2:17)
Denied
v. 4
Blasphemed
v. 5
Ignored
and Disobeyed v. 6
OLD TESTAMENT: King Jeroboam cut up Scriptures with pen knife (Jer.
36:23)
APOSTOLIC ERA: “For we are not as many, which corrupt the
word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.” (2 Cor. 2:17)
“…nor
handling the word of God deceitfully” (2 Cor. 4:2)
“…by
letter as from us” (2 Thess. 2:3)
“…so
do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the
truth” (2 Tim. 3:8)
“…they
that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures,
unto their own destruction” ( 2 Peter 3:16)
2nd And 3rd Centuries:
“It
is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions
to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred
years after it was composed; that Irenaeus (AD 150), and the African Fathers,
and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior
manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus,
or Stephens thirteen centuries later, when moulding
the Textus Receptus” (Scrivener).
“In
the age in which the [Latin] Vulgate was formed, the church was infested with Origenists and Arians; an affinity between any manuscript
and that version consequently conveyed some suspicion that its text was
corrupted" (Frederick Nolan, An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek
Vulgate, p. 415).
-- many
of the “church fathers” are rank heretics:
ORIGEN 185-254 A.D.
–
laid foundation for modern versions with commentaries and textual changes
--
denied perfect inspiration of Scripture, taught baptismal regeneration,
believed Holy Spirit created, believed in purgatory and universalism, believed
even Satan would be saved, promoted allegoricalism, given to wild conjectures
and dishonesty in controversy
EUSEBIUS 270-340 A.D.
--collected
writings of Origen and promoted erroneous teachings. Produced
Greek New Testaments for Constantine the Great, father of church-statism. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are thought to be
two of these.
-- omission of Mark 16:8-20 and John 11:1-8 traced to this
period (Nolan, Integrity of Greek Received Text, 1815, p. 240)
JEROME 340-420 A.D.
–
rejected Received Latin Text and used the Eusebius-Origen text to produce the
Catholic Latin Vulgate
--promoted
veneration of holy relics and bones, promoted prayers to dead, taught that Mary
was instrumental in salvation is a perpetual virgin, vicious toward those with
whom he disagreed (calling them dogs, maniacs, monsters, stupid fools,
two-legged asses, madmen), justified the death penalty toward “heretics”
AUGUSTINE 354-430 A.D.
--
one of fathers of Roman Catholicism, instigated persecution against Donatists,
father of a-millennialism, taught the sacraments are channels of grace, one of
fathers of infant baptism, taught that Mary is sinless, believed in purgatory,
exalted authority of the church over the Bible
-- Augustine’s teaching “contains the germ of the whole system of spiritual despotism, intolerance, and persecution, even to the court of the Inquisition.” (Neander)
DARK AGES:
-- Bibles burned (Foxes martyrs)
-- entire
groups of Christians destroyed
(Waldensians, Samuel More, represented Oliver Cromwell, 1655, Cambridge University
Library)
-- Translators martyred (Wycliffe’s bones, Tyndale 1524, John Rogers –
Matthews Bible 1541)
TODAY:
-- The last 100 years has witnessed the
greatest attack upon the Bible in history (Modernism and New Evangelicalism) – biblical
scholarship has become exceedingly corrupted with unbelief
1985, symposium on Bible criticism in Christianity Today
“Not one of the
participants was prepared to reject higher criticism. All came to its defense.
IT BECAME EVIDENT THAT ALL THE SCHOLARS FROM THE LEADING SEMINARIES IN THIS
COUNTRY HELD TO A FORM OF HIGHER CRITICISM” (Herman Hanko,
The Battle for the Bible, pp. 2,3,
professor, Protestant Reformed Seminary, Grandville, Michigan). [Hanko’s book should not be confused with Harold Lindsell’s book by that same name.]
1995,
theology conference sponsored jointly with Inter-Varsity at Wheaton College
“NOT A SINGLE REPRESENTATIVE
OF HISTORIC EVANGELICAL ORTHODOXY COMMITTED TO THE UNBROKEN AUTHORITY OF THE
BIBLE WAS FEATURED...” (Calvary
Contender, July 1, 1995).
III.
MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM IGNORES GOD’S PROMISE OF
PRESERVATION.
Psalmist: Ps. 12:6,7 (Luther, Calvin,
Coverdale 1535, Matthew 1537, Geneva 1560, Henry Anisworth
1626 “Prince of Puritan commentators,”
Matthew Poole 1685, John
Wesley 1700s, Henry Martyn 1800s, G. Campbell Morgan)
Prophets: Isaiah 40:8
Christ: Matthew 24:35; 28:18-20
Apostles: 1 Pet. 1:23,25
Contrast Textual
Critics:
Constantine
Tischendorf -- “the struggle to regain the original form of the New Testament.”
Michael
Coogan -- “There are instances where no existing
manuscript is likely to preserve the original wording ... In such cases
scholars must assume that the original wording of the text has been lost or
distorted in the course of the copying process” (“Textual Criticism,” New
Oxford Annotated Bible, 3rd edition, 2001).
Most standards works on
textual criticism do not even mention divine preservation!
The New Testament in the Original Greek (Introduction) by Westcott and Hort (1881)
A History of the Textual Criticism of the New
Testament by Marvin Vincent
(1899)
The Text of the New Testament by Kirsopp Lake (1900, 1949)
Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the
Greek New Testament by Eberhard Nestle (1901)
The Canon and Text of the New Testament by Casper Rene Gregory (1907)
History of the New Testament Criticism by F.C. Conybeare (1910)
The Text and Canon of the New Testament by Alexander Souter
(1912)
The Text of the Greek Bible by F.G. Kenyon (1936, 1975)
New Testament Manuscript Studies by Merrill Parvis and Allen Wikgren (1950)
The Text of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger (1968)
The Text of the New Testament by Kurt and Barbara Aland (1981)
Westcott and Hort:
“The … reverence paid to the apostolic
writings, even to the most highly and most widely venerated among them, was not
of a kind that exacted a scrupulous jealousy as to their text as distinguished
from their substance. … Textual purity … attracted hardly any interest. There
is no evidence to shew that care was generally taken to choose out for
transcription the exemplars having the highest claims to be regarded as
authentic, if indeed the requisite knowledge were forthcoming. Humanly
speaking, the only influence which can have interfered to an appreciable extent
with mere chance and convenience in the selection between existing readings, or
in the combination of them, was supplied by the preferences of untrained
popular taste…” (Intro. to the N.T. in the Original Greek, pp. 7,9)
The
promise of Divine Preservation of Scripture tells me one thing FOR SURE:
--The
Received Text is the preserved Word of God because it is the Bible that has
been preserved among God’s people.
From
100 A.D. to 1900 A.D. the Received Text was the dominant Bible
JOHN BURGON (collected 86,000 quotations and collated 150
manuscripts; more than
4,000 of the quotations were from writers who died before the year 400 A.D.)
“Call this text Erasmian or Complutensian,
the text of Stephens, or of Beza, or of the Elzevirs,
call it the Received or the Traditional, or by whatever name you please--the
fact remains that a text has come down to us which is attested by a general
consensus of ancient Copies, ancient Fathers, and ancient Versions.”
“I am utterly disinclined to believe, so
grossly improbable does it seem--that at the end of 1800 years 995 copies out
of every thousand, suppose, will prove untrustworthy, and that the one, two,
three, four, or five which remain, whose contents were till yesterday as good
as unknown, will be found to have retained the secret of what the Holy Spirit
originally inspired” (John Burgon)
DONALD WAITE (Dr. Waite has hundreds of hours of training in the
biblical languages plus countless hours of teaching and personal research in
the use of these languages. He has a Th.M. with high honors in New Testament
Greek Literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1952; a
Th.D. with honors in Bible Exposition from Dallas Seminary in 1955; and a Ph.D.
in Speech from Purdue University in 1961. He holds both New Jersey and
Pennsylvania teacher certificates in Greek and Language Arts, and has taught
Greek, Hebrew, Bible, Speech, and English for over thirty-five
years in nine schools.)
37 historical evidences supporting the Received text and King
James Bible.
“The Received Text in the New Testament is the Received Text--the text that has
survived in continuity from the beginning of the New Testament itself. It is
the only accurate representation of the originals we have today!”
IV.
MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM IGNORES THE PREEMINENCE OF
FAITH.
Faith
is not mentioned by textual critics. Everything is scholarship. God is rarely
mentioned. Everything is man centered. -- former
Heritage Baptist University student who went to a New Evangelical seminary and
soon denounced the “fidiastic approach to the Bible”
--faith & believe 516 times
“But
without faith it is impossible to please him: for he
that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6)
“Whatsoever
is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23)
“Now
faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things NOT SEEN”
(Heb. 11:1)
--The preserved Scriptures can never be
found through human scholarship. It can only be received by faith.
--My faith is not in Erasmus or the KJV
translators, but in God.
Conclusion:
--In my opinion, any one of these
overthrows modern textual criticism.
--Evangelicals and fundamentalists have
“adopted it from the mint of infidel rationalism.”