Which Bible 3
Monday, August 26, 2013
My Apology
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. I have made several terrible errors in my
posts entitled “Which Bible” and “Which Bible 2.” These errors were first uncovered by the
article written by Dr. Daniel Baird Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary,
“The Majority-Text Theory: History, Methods and Critique”, in The Journal
of the Evangelical Theological Society (JETS) 37/2 (June 1994) pages
185-215.[1]
Subsequently to reading this article, both of these posts,
and every findable trace of them were removed from the internet: these
deletions took place around August 17, 2013.
Ever since that date, I have been scrambling to find satisfactory answers;
but the subject matter is difficult and technical, not to mention highly
controversial.
I immediately wrote to Dr. Fee and to Dr. Wallace requesting
help. Because Dr. Fee is aged, he may
not be able to help. Dr. Wallace may
have pressing obligations that preclude his assisting me as well. In any case, neither Dr. Fee nor Dr. Wallace
have yet responded.
I am very sorry for whatever trouble I may have caused you,
and sincerely hope that I have not misled you in any way. This is the first of a series of posts,
showing the sequence I went through in my own recovery from shock, and my own attempt
to provide answers that will fill the vacuum created.
What You Deserve from Me
You deserve a detailed and explicit account of my errors and
what I intend to do about them. If my
errors risk undermining faith, yours or mine, I need to address that
issue. You deserve from me the faithful
report of a rock solid foundation on which you will continue to build your
faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in God the Father, and in the Holy
Ghost.
Qualifications for Text Critics
Who is qualified to be a text critic. I am certainly not qualified to be a
text-critic. Neither is your
pastor. Nor are most of the professors
that teach text-criticism in colleges, seminaries, and universities. My mentors, Mr. Farstad and Mr. Hodges were
not text critics. Dr. Fee and Dr.
Wallace are probably not text critics either.
To be qualified as a text critic, one must have access to, and possess
great familiarity with the manuscripts in question. The vast bulk of these manuscripts are
located in English and German libraries, in the Vatican, in monasteries, and in
various, hard-to-find archives around the world. Very few people have had the privilege of
working in such libraries or of spending their lives in the meticulous
examination of such manuscripts. Consequently,
none of the rest of us are text critics: all of us must work with the reports
published by the real text critics, which we possess only second or third hand.
We hope that this will not always be the case. The art of photography has long been capable
of mass producing copies of such quality to be as good as the original for most
purposes. Issues of manuscript
chemistry, microscopic examination, and such, cannot, of course, be
communicated through mere photographs.
But photography has not provided any practical solution to the problem
of extending visual access to the manuscripts.
For the Bible, a sufficient collection, of such manuscripts would cost
half a million dollars or more: and that is obviously outside the budgetary
reach of most libraries.
We have new hope in the development of computers and the
internet. Digital copies can be made,
analyzed and published at no cost to the reader or student. There would necessarily be a great cost to
the producer. This would make any
interested party a potential text-critic.
Such a person could become well qualified to examine the manuscripts,
and evaluate such complicated subjects as text families, and text
variants. Perhaps such technical
capability will develop in the ensuing years.
Our Contemporary Problem
In the meantime, the rest of us are limited to the published
reports and text apparatus we can afford to buy. This information is, at best, complicated and
second hand. At worst, this information
can be misleading, wrong, and impossible to verify in any significant way.
Pastors and all who wish to study and explain the Bible are
immediately confronted with the Greek Text and the Greek Apparatus beneath
it. Our job is to make a thorough study
of what these things say, and faithfully report that study to you in everything
we preach, teach, and write. This is not
an easy task.
The Source of the Question
The
last week and a half was not the best ever.
It began with someone yanking the theological rug out from under
me…. AGAIN! No, they did not repeat the action, they meant
me no harm, it happened by accident.
Yet, it has happened many times before.
I stumbled on one of those crucial essays that makes us rethink our
whole theological grid. This essay was
about Text Criticism.1
The Objective
No, I’m not trying to make you into an expert text
critic. I’m not even trying to become an
expert text critic myself. However,
because this is about what exact words exist in our Greek Bibles, it caused
great concern, even confusion. After
all, all our English language translations depend on these very words, as does
our theology, even our very relationship with God. This is God’s love letter to us, isn’t
it? If we don’t have a clue about what
it says, we’re sunk. Needless to say, I
was shook-up and scrambling for answers.
This is foundational stuff.
We think we’ve been building on granite bedrock, when suddenly we
discover, not sand, but what might very well be quicksand. The whole theological house could be at
risk. This is no time for panic. This is time for some real serious
reflection.
Where do we go
for comfort and support when it seems as if all is about to be lost? Where do we find answers?
Where God Showed Me Answers
Obviously, I was driven on my face in prayer: not just to my
knees — full prostration. God’s answer
came swiftly and surely from the strangest of places. From the Law of God.
The
Decalogue: The Law (Exodus 20:1-17)
And God spoke all
these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
1
You shall not have other gods before Me.
2
You shall not make for yourself any graven image: any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
3
You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them (for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth
generation of those who hate Me; and showing mercy to thousands of those who
love Me and keep My commandments).
4
You shall not take the name of the Lord Your God in vain (for the Lord will not hold him guiltless
who takes His name in vain).
5
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. You shall labor six days, and do all your
work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God: You
shall not do any work in it: not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor
your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who
is within your gates (for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed
the Sabbath day and hallowed it).
The
First Commandment with promise
Honor your father and your mother: that your days may be long on the land
which the Lord your God gives you.
6
You shall not murder.
7
You shall not commit adultery.
8
You shall not steal.
9
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10
You shall not covet
your neighbor’s house; You shall not covet your neighbor’s
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
anything that is your neighbor’s.
Whoa, shouldn’t God have directed me to the Gospel? Isn’t this flying in the face of everything
God showed Paul in Romans? Isn’t this
counterintuitive to all that we believe?
What God Showed Me
I was convinced a long time ago[2] that the Decalogue is an
ancient suzerainty covenant or suzerainty treaty. This idea was either gleaned from the
writings of Meredith Kline,[3] or reinforced by them.
As I remember it, the general historical setting and
construction of such a document ran something like this.
·
A people came into grave
danger and oppression: most often life threatening, or involving at least
mayhem and/or cruel slavery. In their
suffering they cried out to a great king or suzerain for redemption or
salvation.[4]
·
Now, as a result of this
redemption or salvation, after it is effected, the suzerain meets with the delivered
victims, and draws up a suzerainty covenant or suzerainty treaty with them.
·
The delivered victims make
no contribution to this treaty, they contributed nothing to the redemption;
therefore, they have no rights. The
suzerain delivers the covenant or treaty unilaterally as part of his gracious
gift: part and parcel to their redemption and salvation.
·
The treaty is introduced
with a summary statement that specifies the nature of the deliverance, the
saving act.
·
The treaty then lists the
suzerain’s laws or requirements which the delivered victims must accept if they
wish to continue to live under the suzerain’s protection, become his vassals.
·
The suzerain represents
himself in the middle of the suzerainty treaty showing that this is his
unilateral redemption or salvation, and his unilateral law.
·
However, rejection may
bring stiff penalties. The suzerain may
be offended at the rejection of such a great gift. The delivered victims may be unable to
prevent reacquisition by their cruel former owners; they may be exposed and
unable to fend off new foes; they may be left without means to care for themselves.
Suzerainty Treaty and Decalogue Covenant
Among the more remarkable aspects of the suzerainty treaty
is the suzerain’s representation of himself in the middle of the treaty. Consider what this means for the Decalogue,
which is called an eternal or everlasting covenant.[7] The pre-incarnate Christ stands in the middle
of the covenant as the perfect Son. Of
all the sons in the universe, He alone honors both Father and mother perfectly.
The
First Commandment with promise
Honor your father and your mother: that your days may be long on the land
which the Lord your God gives you.
This, the Commandment with Promise, summarizes the ten words[8] perfectly. Honor your Father expresses Christ’s love of
God; while, honor your mother expresses Christ’s love of the Church and humanity. This one Commandment combines the two
Great Commandments in a single phrase.[9] Mother calls to mind, Eve[10] or Zoe,[11] the mother of all living.[12] As C. S Lewis puts it, “the sons of Adam and
the daughters of Eve.”[13] Mother, also addresses Mary, in typology, the
full expression of the Church, the whole people of God.[14] Christ the Λόγος comes offering His λόγοi to the
Father as the sweet smelling sacrifice of perfect obedience.
The Essential Problem of Humanity
And God spoke all
these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Mankind’s essential problem is that it tends to
slavery. People inherently[15] love slavery, because
they inherently, since the Fall, hate God and all His works. The wondrous nature of God’s Law is that it
demands the defeat of all human slavery.
The beloved slaves of God cannot be slaves to any other. God wants to give His slaves their freedom,
and the Law spells out the essential elements of that freedom.
Christ the Λόγος comes in
perfect obedience breaking all the chains of slavery and setting men and women
free everywhere. He initiates the
eternal year of God’s Jubilee.
The Spirit of the
Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim deliverance to the
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are
bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
He closed the book,
and He gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all those who were in the
synagogue were fastened on Him.
He began to say unto
them, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”[16]
The Law is Received by Love
I the Lord your God
am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the
third and fourth generation of those who hate Me; and showing mercy to
thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
The great
dividing line between the children is over those who hate God and those who
love God. This is the key to the
law. The lovers of God are characterized
as keeping God’s commandments: that is, treasuring them. Keeping cannot possibly mean that perfect
blind, rote, obedience to these Laws will save these children. They are already saved; the Law is given to
them as a redeemed people. Such perfect
blind, rote, obedience is clearly impossible as Psalm 119 shows us. The Psalmist agonizes over his inability to
keep the Law. Again and again he
requests instruction.[17] Before he was afflicted he went astray.[18] His eyes run with rivers of tears, because he
did not keep the Law.[19] He describes himself as a lost sheep.[20] These are not the words of a person who has
discovered the secret of perfect obedience through works of the law. These are the words of a person who has found
humility, grace to help in time of need, the Gospel as the law actually teaches
it.
Paul’s rib[21] with the Law cannot
possibly be with the Decalogue. Paul is
a Pharisee, who formerly believed that the perfect blind, rote, obedience to
these Laws would save Him. To his dismay,
yet finally to his everlasting joy Paul learned this such obedience would not
work. The Pharisees, to their shame, not
only were graceless, yet punctilious in their observation of the Law; worse,
they added to it many rules and regulations of their own. Paul observes that these are under the Law.
Even so, if men
and women can put themselves under the Law[22] and find death, there
must be an opposite. This opposite is
most certainly not above the Law, but on the Law. Now we see that the Law itself is just and
good.[23] Being under the Law is to be crushed by
it. On the other hand, building on the
Law is to be supported by all the gracious power of God through faith.
Now, we see the
blood of Christ everywhere, sprinkled upon the Law, upon the mercy seat. This is the blood of the eternal and
everlasting covenant. Christ stands in the middle of the Law
as the perfect Son. He is at one and the
same time, the Law’s Author, Fulfilment, and Interpreter. The Pharisees must be corrected because they
do not understand what Christ wrote to begin with. But now, we see Jesus, the great cornerstone
of our faith, and we are able, by the power of the Holy Ghost, to build on Him,
together with all the Apostles and Prophets who have laid such a great foundation
for us.
No quicksand here, only solid granite. The love of the Law and the love of God, and
the Gospel are one seamless garment that was not divided at the
Crucifixion. The tension between Law and
Gospel is mostly the tension between the corrupt-use of the Law, in opposition
to the Gospel. The Law can only be
fulfilled by faith. The Law can never be
fulfilled by perfect blind,
rote, human obedience. This kind of
obedience requires Divine power.
The People are Confronted with a Decision
These are real
people confronted with real decisions having life effecting consequences. They have been redeemed.[24] They are not completely saved. Salvation is from something: they have been
saved from the slavery of Egypt.
However, salvation is also to something: salvation is to the promised
land, to the kingdom of God, to the fruit of the Eternal Year of Jubilee. Faced with this declaration the people have
three choices: one, they can enter the promised land, they can wander in the
wilderness for the rest of their lives, or they can return to their slavery in
Egypt. They chose to wander in the
wilderness for the rest of their lives. There
were few exceptions. To Jeremiah’s
dismay, eight hundred sixty years later, they chose to return to Egypt.[25] This is not decisional regeneration; this is
the difference between walking by faith or by sight. We have been confronted with the same
choice. Christ has completed our
redemption on the cross. We have been
saved from great slavery, we have been set free. Sadly, great masses of people chose to
squander this great salvation and wander in the wilderness for their entire
lives. Others chose to return to the
bondage of sin. A few accept the
glorious gift and are saved to the glory that has not yet been fully revealed.
A Few Applications
How does this solve problems in text-criticism? It doesn’t.
What it shows me is that my faith does not rest on a perfect Bible, on a
perfect translation; but, on Perfect God, and Perfect God-Man.
I may never resolve the controversy between Alexandrian and
Byzantine text-types. In the final
analysis, I don’t need to. I stand on a
perfect foundation without them. I stand
on the Perfect Foundation, with God as my Father, with the Church as my mother
in full assurance that I am a building stone, a brick in God’s palace, being
placed in my proper position by the work of the Great Architect and Savior of
my soul.
In the image of God, I am an heir of a noble line of people, as are you. My earthly father is a Swanson, not a
Johnson. My earthly mother is a
Knapp. I give the greatest glory to God
in my appreciation of the fact that I stand on their shoulders, and so I am
built up in Christ. My appreciation and
recognition of my earthly heritage gives the utmost glory to God. It is what He has built.
In the same manner I have been standing on the shoulders of
Erasmus, since 1971. All those who have
built on the Byzantine text-type have had their part in supporting my place in
the building of God. I do Christ great
disservice by being disloyal to them. I
do not need to become the second Judas.
I cannot give glory to God by ceasing to stand on their shoulders.
If time should prove that the Byzantine text-type must be
abandoned, then this can only be done by following the Truth and continuing to
appreciate and honor my rich heritage.
There is nothing left, with which to be in perfect blind, rote, human obedience. There is only God and faith. “The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be
with you all. Amen.”[26]
Yours in Christ,
Augie-Herb
[1] http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/37/37-2/JETS_37-2_185-215_Wallace.pdf
[2]
1971, Dr. Bruce K. Waltke’s
Old Testament Introduction class at Dallas Theological Seminary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Waltke
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Kline
and Meredith G. Kline, “The Two Tables of
the Covenant”: Westminster Theological Journal 22
(1960) 133-46, and many other
places.
[4]
Here we are using the words redeem and save as completely synonymous. This is not usually the case. Frequently, redeem means the act of freeing
the victim; while salvation may refer to the victim’s acceptance or rejection
of the gift. Salvation generally looks
at the end of the process; while redemption looks at the beginning of the
process.
[5]
Some ancient suzerains were fond of claiming the name or title, Savior, for
themselves.
[6]
Exodus 24:3, 7; Joshua 1:16-18; 24:15
[7]
Exodus 6:4, 5; 19:5; 24:8; 31:16; 34:10, 27, 28; Leviticus 24:8; 26:9, 15, 25,
42, 44, 45; Numbers 25:13 (even the subsidiary parts are everlasting covenant);
Deuteronomy 4:13.
[8] δεκάλογοi =
δέκα + λόγοi, ten + words
[9]
Matthew 22:36-40
[10]
Hebrew
[11]
Greek
[12]
Genesis 3:20
[13] Chronicles
of Narnia
[14]
Hebrews 12:18-29
[15]
This does not mean that Original Sin is transmitted genetically, or legally:
that is because, Adam was the legal decision maker for the whole human race and
the father of us all. Rather, it means
that we mystically participated in Adam, and therefore helped commit the
Original Sin. Mystically emphasized the
fact that none of us understands how this can possibly be, it defies further
explanation.
[16]
Luke 4:18-21
[17]
Psalm 119:12, 26, 33, 64, 66, 68, 108, 124, 135
[18]
Psalm 119:67, 71, 75, 107
[19]
Psalm 119:82, 123, 136
[20]
Psalm 119:176
[21] Hebrew, argument or contention
[22]
Romans 6:11-18
[23]
Romans 7:12
[24]
Here we see the explicit theological difference between redemption and
salvation.
[25]
Jeremiah 42:18-22, see also all of Jeremiah 40-45.
[26] 2
Corinthians 13:14
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