Textus Receptus vs Critical Text, Part 1

Hello there and welcome to Explain Apologetics. We are in day two of a series of debates we are having on the Texas Receptors versus the critical text. Yesterday, last night to be more precise for those of you living close to the U .S., we had an exciting debate on the longer ending of Mark, where Dr. James White defended the resolution that the longer ending of Mark does not belong in the canon.

It's not canonical. It wasn't written by Mark. And today we'll be going to the second part of the debate, the debates that we had on Ephesians chapter three, verse nine. We are going to skip the introduction.

For those of you who won the introduction, you can go to the first debate to hear both these speakers introduced and the work that they've done. So for this debate, the format will be the same as yesterday.

We'll be having 20 minutes opening statement followed by a 10 minute rebuttal from both sides and a cross examination where we'll begin with Dr. Jeff Riddle cross examining Dr. White. Following that, we have a response and a closing statement of 10 minutes before we get to the Q &A, which is supposed to be 20 minutes.

Yesterday, of course, we had a slightly longer, we had, I believe, 24, 25 minutes Q &A. We'll try and keep it to the 20 minutes. Priorities will be given to the superchats, but today, unlike yesterday, we'll be alternating the questions so that even if they are both superchats for one particular speaker, we'll still alternate between the speakers so that both of them will be able to, yeah, both of them will be able to answer.

And if a speaker says something about another speaker, we'll give the other speaker a chance to respond in the Q &A section. So with that, I'll just introduce the topic, the resolution for this debate.

It's going to be on Efficience 3 .9. As I said, the resolution is the TR or the Texas Receptors Reading of Efficience 3 .9 is original and inspired and should be received as the word of God. Defending that resolution, we have Dr. Jeff Riddle and Dr. Jeff Riddle will be going first for his 10 minute opening statement and the time starts whenever you're ready, Dr. Jeff.

The Confessional Text Position and the Preservation of Scripture

Great. Greetings. Once.

Again, I want to express my thanks to Samuel Naysan of Explain Apologetics for his invitation to participate in this two part debate on the text of scripture. Let me begin as I did in the first debate for those who may not have listened to that by noting that I am here representing the confessional text position, also known as the traditional text position or the received text position, the Texas Receptors position.

I believe that the proper text of the Bible is that found in the printed editions of the Old and New Testaments of the Reformation era, whereas modern critical text, the modern critical text method is based on an enlightenment influenced reconstruction or restoration model.

The confessional text position is based on a precritical preservation model. This position again is well summarized in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, chapter one, paragraph eight, which affirms that scripture has not only been immediately inspired by God in the original languages of Hebrew and Greek, but it has also been kept pure in all ages by God's singular care and providence.

My view holds that the scriptures were faithfully preserved by God throughout the process of copying and transmission, and with the technological revolution of the invention of the printing press, the true text in God's providence was then firmly fixed in a stable and printed form, which could become the basis for uniform translations of the Bible, the making of confessions, preaching, teaching, worship, and scholarly study.

John Owen in 1659 expressed this view in an essay in which he wrote, let it be remembered that the vulgar copy we use was the public possession of many generations, that upon the invention of printing, it was in actual authority throughout the world with them that used and understood that language.

And then he says, let that then pass for the standard, which is confessedly its right and due. So this debate is not about versions, but about the Greek New Testament text itself, and I will be defending the text of the Reformation, the Textus Receptus, the received text.

This text, again, is an eclectic text. That means it's not taken from any single manuscript, but it was chosen or selected by scholars who compiled it from the extant witnesses that were available to them.

In this process, God was also keeping his promise to preserve his word. Therefore, we might call their methodology providential eclecticism. Most of the time, the readings in the received text, the traditional text, are supported by the vast majority of extant manuscripts, but sometimes the editors recognized an authentic reading from a minority tradition, and they incorporated it into the text.

In the opening debate, we looked at a text, the ending of Mark, Mark 16, 9 through 20, that is more typical of the received text in that it is one supported by the vast majority of extant witnesses. Over 99 of the witnesses support the traditional ending of Mark.

In this debate, however, we will be examining a much shorter passage, a single verse, Ephesians 3, 9, that is supported in the received text in a few places by only a minority of extant witnesses. Remember, our approach is not based on a reconstruction model.

We do not believe it is possible merely to examine the extant empirical evidence in order to reconstruct the text, but we believe one must also consider the providential work of God in history to preserve his word.

So with that, let's move now to the substance, to Ephesians 3, 9. Our topic is this, resolve. The textus receptus or received text reading of Ephesians 3, 9 is original and inspired and should be received as the word of God.

It's my privilege today to defend this proposition today, this resolution. In our negotiations for this debate, I made the offer that if my opponent would be willing to debate the traditional ending of Mark as a representative of the traditional text that is supported by the majority of tradition, I would be willing to debate a text of his choosing that is supported only by a minority tradition.

There are a handful of these in the received texts that are often discussed, including Acts 8 37, where the Ethiopian eunuch makes his confession. I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God or the three heavenly witnesses passage in 1st John 5, 7 and 8.

My opponent chose Ephesians 3, 9, a passage that actually has not been very often discussed, rarely debated upon, and so it's interesting to have this opportunity today. What are the issues in Ephesians 3, 9?

Let me read it to you in an English translation based on the traditional text. Ephesians 3, 9 reads, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.

Now let me compare that verse in a modern translation. I'll read it. The previous one was from the authorized version. I'll read it now from the English standard version, which is based on the modern critical text.

It reads, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things. When we compare these translations, we discover that there are at least two significant differences.

First, the traditional text reads the fellowship of the mystery, while the modern text reads the plan of the mystery. Second, the traditional text reads at the very end, by Jesus Christ, whereas the modern text omits this phrase altogether.

Of these two variants, the first, the fellowship of the mystery or the plan of the mystery, is an example of a place where the received text follows the minority tradition, the fellowship of the mystery.

The second example, the phrase by Jesus Christ, is more typical of the text's receptus in that it represents the reading of the text that is found in the vast majority of extant manuscripts. The second example is also typical of the modern critical text in that it rejects this reading and it omits it, not because it's not present in the vast number of manuscripts, but because it's missing in some of the so-called earliest witnesses, like Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.

Most attention has been focused on this verse, on the difference between the TRs, the fellowship of the mystery, which in Greek is hei koinonia to mysterio, and the critical text translation, the plan of the mystery, which is from the underlying Greek, hei oikonomia to mysterio.

Should it be koinonia, fellowship, or oikonomia, plan? When it comes down to it, this question is about one word, koinonia or oikonomia, fellowship or plan? We can immediately see that the Greek words here are very similar in form to one another, and we can see that there might easily have been very early on scribal confusion between these two words, which led to a transcriptional error.

Both are feminine singular nouns ending in iota alpha, I-A. Both have an omicron iota at the very beginning. One has eight letters, the other has nine letters. Every letter in koinonia appears in oikonomia, except for there's an omega in koinonia.

According to my opponent, to accept the received text reading of Ephesians 3 -9 is dangerous. It is irrational. In fact, he has said that to accept the TR reading of this verse would be to embrace an anti-apologetic that would not allow one to do apologetics in the real world.

In it, it is, he writes, an argument without historical or logical content. Well, friends, it's going to be up to you to consider whether my opponent's claims are true, or if they're more than a little bit over the top.

You might even be convinced by listening to this that perhaps it is the modern critical text advocates who pose the greater risk to the undermining of the epistemological foundations of Christianity by undermining the authority and stability of scripture by attacking the received text.

My defense of the traditional reading of Ephesians 3 -9 will focus on three key points, much as the defense of Mark 16, 9 -20 did. We're going to look at the external evidence, we're going to get the internal evidence, and we're going to look at the doctrinal evidence, the doctrinal significance.

So first of all, let's start with the external evidence. And let's look at what are the available early Greek witnesses to Ephesians 3 -9. Let me begin by noting that it's been pointed out most recently in the Myth and Mistakes book, edited by Hickson and Gurry, that there are many well-meaning apologists who have overstated the number and the significance of the extant manuscripts, Greek manuscripts, that bear witness to the New Testament.

Some people will say, we have 5 ,800 manuscripts, or we have 6 ,000 manuscripts. In that book, one of the authors, Peterson, says it's safer to say we have about 5 ,100 to 5 ,300, and he points out that what is often not stated is that many of these, particularly the earliest ones, are but fragments, just a verse or two, and the vast majority of that 5 ,100, 5 ,300 are very, very late.

In fact, we have very little extant evidence for the New Testament in general, and we have even less for Ephesians 3 -9. Let's look at the external evidence, and when we look at the INTF Lista in Munster for Ephesians 3 -9, it reveals that there are, in fact, only six ancient Greek manuscripts that are before the year 800 that bear witness to Ephesians 3 -9.

They are Papyrus 46, which is dated by them to the 3rd century, they say between 200 and 225. Next is Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Ephraimi Rescriptus, and Codex De Claro Montanus, and so there are only six manuscripts pre -800 that give us any witness to Ephesians 3 -9, and I will admit to you that all of those read Oikonomia.

All of them support the plan of the mystery. Let me add that there was a very vigorous discussion that took place on my blog, JeffRiddle .net, back in October of last year about P46, and as I and several other people pointed out, when you look at P46, it actually doesn't read Oikonomia, it only reads Konomia.

The first two letters, the Omicron Iota, have, looks like perhaps been worn off, but we don't know. As it stands now, P46 is not actually an absolutely undisputed witness to Oikonomia, and so that would reduce the number of witnesses from six to five.

Well, what supports the traditional reading? What supports the reading Konomia? There aren't any manuscripts in the first 800 years that support it, but what evidence do we have? Well, the place we would start with is Bruce Metzger's Textual Commentary, 2nd edition, 1994, in which he notes that there are a scattering of late minuscules, as he puts it, that support the reading Konomia.

Unfortunately, Metzger did not identify that scattering of late minuscules by name or by number, and so we were discussing that. Well, enter onto the scene this anonymous commentator on my blog posting under the name CC.

I later discovered that his name is Luke Carpenter. He is a very sharp young man who is a student at Cedarville University. He gave me permission to share his identity, and Luke discovered and made known to us that actually there's a minuscule, minuscule 2817, that provides a double witness to the reading Konomia in Ephesians 3 .9.

It's found in the text, and it's also found in a commentary on the same page in 2817. 2817 is dated by the INTF to about the year 1000. It's located in the University Library in Basel, Switzerland, and this may well have been, we don't know for sure, but it may well have been one of the manuscripts that Erasmus consulted in preparing his Greek New Testament of 1516.

In recent weeks, CC, Luke Carpenter, has struck again. He discovered yet another minuscule, 1921, also dated to the 11th century, which appears to bear witness to the Konomia reading, although some scribe attempted to correct it in green ink and change it to Oikonomia.

So now we have at least two minuscule manuscripts with three references, two in 2817, one in 1921 to Konomia among the extant Greek manuscripts. Luke and several others have also pointed me in the direction of yet another intriguing discovery.

Although Metzger confidently asserted that the in all patristic quotations, in Book 4, Chapter 5 of his work Against Marcion, Tertullian describes believers as those who are in the fellowship of the mystery.

He uses the phrase in Latin, De societate sacramenti. Later in that same work, in Book 5, Chapter 28, he twice uses the phrase Dispensatio sacramenti, the dispensation or plan of the mystery. And in another place, he uses the phrase Dispensationem sui sacramentum, which is the dispensation of his own mystery or plan.

This may indicate that Tertullian knew both readings in Ephesians 3 .9 for the same, or that he used a translation, or he had reference to translating the same word by two different Latin terms. Nevertheless, his use of De societate sacramenti raises the real possibility that he knew the received text reading the fellowship of the mystery in Ephesians 3 .9 as referring specifically to fellowship among believers.

Tertullian lived from 160 to 225, and he would have written Against Marcion probably around the year 200. So in the first 300 years of Christianity, what do we have? We have one extant manuscript, P46, that most likely bears witness to the reading Oikonomia, but it currently reads Konamia.

And we have one reference from an early ecclesiastical writer, Tertullian, which seems to bear witness to Koinonia. That's the external evidence. Let's move on. Secondly, to the internal evidence. My opponent has written that the traditional reading, the fellowship of the mystery, makes very little sense in this context, he says, and in fact it distracts from the centrality of the plan and purpose of God, Paul's point, and moves the focus to some kind of fellowship or experience of the mystery of Jews and Gentiles in one body.

So he says it doesn't work internally. Funny, however, that Protestant preachers in many cultures and languages have had absolutely no difficulty over the years in preaching and teaching the traditional text.

Koinonia is a quintessentially Pauline concept. It appears in 13 other verses in the Pauline epistles and Hebrews, and outside of that, the term only appears in four other places in the New Testament, once in Acts and three times in 1 John.

It's a quintessentially Pauline concept, Koinonia. It's often used to express a sense of fellowship among the Christian brethren, and so my suggestion is that it fits perfectly well in the context of Ephesians, which is about the bringing together of Gentiles and Jews.

As Paul will say in Ephesians 3 .6, the mystery is that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise by the gospel. Finally, let's move on to the doctrinal significance.

External evidence, internal evidence, doctrinal significance. Although Koinonia is a minority reading in the currently extant Greek witnesses to Ephesians 3 .9, this was the reading that was incorporated into the first printed editions of the Greek New Testament.

It is often pointed out that Erasmus was more interested in his Latin translation than he was in his Greek text. Surely he would have known that the Vulgate actually read like the modern critical text, dispensatio sacramenti, but Erasmus instead chose communio mysterii, and in his Greek text he chose the fellowship of the mystery.

Despite the fact that the complotention polyglot in the same period followed the Vulgate reading, he chose this unique reading. In fact, we could call this, as it was embraced by the later Protestant editors of the Greek New Testament, we could call this the Protestant reading of Ephesians 3 .9.

When Calvin wrote his commentary on Ephesians 3 .9, he wrote, the publication of the gospel is called a fellowship because it is the will of God that his purpose, which had formerly been hidden, shall now be shared by men.

We can be sure that Calvin knew that his text was not the same as the Latin Vulgate. He preferred the fellowship of the gospel in Ephesians 3 .9 as opposed to the plan of the gospel. And so in conclusion, the external evidence reveals that the reading of the received text is admittedly in a minority tradition, but there are witnesses to it.

The term the fellowship of the mystery is there in Tertullian. It's there in scattered minuscules. The internal evidence tells us that the received text is consistent with Pauline usage, and the doctrinal significance is that this is the Protestant text.

Is this dangerous? Is this irrational? Is it ahistorical? Is it anti-apologetic?

No, it's not. Well, with that, again, sorry to cut you off, Dr. Riddle, but the 20 minutes is up. I just want to thank Dr. Riddle for that wonderful opening statement. We now go to Dr. James White for his 20-minute opening statement.

Dr. White, the time starts.

At your first word. Thank you very much. What this particular text allows us to do is to really recognize the circularity and irrationality of the TR-only position. Dr. Riddle will not use the arguments he used in the last portion of our debate, in this particular portion of our debate.

He cannot because the fact that the evidence for the reading of Koinonia in Ephesians 3 -9 is almost non-existent, almost non-existent. And so last night, you hear, oh, the overwhelming external evidence.

Today, the overwhelming external evidence is against that reading, and it won't make any difference. And in fact, even if you could not find 2817 or another minuscule that has been cited today, even if they weren't there, it would not matter to Dr. Riddle because this is his standard.

All the rest of this stuff is just, it's wallpaper. It really, really, really does not matter at all. From my side, I want to know what the apostles wrote. So what is the external evidence? There is no evidence whatsoever for a thousand years.

The Tertullian reference is in Latin. There are no Latin manuscripts that substantiate that. Dr. Riddle just admitted that. He just said what the Latin reading was. So to assume that a passing reference where there's no reference made to Ephesians, no citation given, and that the Greek original would have been koinonia is pure speculation.

Just absolutely. Yesterday, he was talking about speculation on our part. You want speculation? There's speculation right there. There is nothing in the first thousand years that substantiates the reading, the TR.

Nothing. There's nothing. We do have the great unsealed texts. They all say the same thing. And I can put this up on the screen later on if we want to. It is a horrific abuse of history to question the reading of P46.

I've examined P46 in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, and P46 is very clear in its reading. Every papyrologist in the world that has ever transcribed it has transcribed it in the same way. Its reading is a certainty.

And so you have the third century papyri, P46, perfectly consistent not only with the later unseals and all other texts of the first millennium, but you have John Chrysostom preaching through Ephesians 3.

What does he talk about? He talks about the dispensation, the plan. There is nothing for a thousand years. And then even after that point in time, 99 or more of all the Greek manuscripts that you hear TR-only people always referring to, the Byzantine text, majority text, whatever it is, they all say the exact same thing.

They say the same thing. So we have more than the exact reverse in this situation that we have of Mark 16. So who's being consistent? I want to know what the apostles wrote. And so I am going to examine that material, and I'm going to examine each reading based upon internal evidence, external evidence, manuscripts.

And therefore, last night, earliest manuscripts don't have it. All these other different endings, all the statements from Jerome, Eusebius, where are the statements from anyone the first thousand years talking about this?

Dr. Riddle talked a lot about, well, for 300 years, there's no disputation. How about for over a thousand years, there's no disputation. If his argument last night was valid, why isn't my argument today that for a thousand years, there's no disputation, three times more powerful?

The reason is TR-only is not a textual critical position. It is not something to where you're taking manuscripts and creating a text that represents what the apostles wrote. You already have your conclusions.

And so you use whatever form of argumentation you want. Now, for example, 2817 was cited, a Katina manuscript, it's not even a free-flowing manuscript, that is in Switzerland, may have been utilized by Erasmus in the production of his text.

Only a few verses later, or is it earlier? I was looking at it just a couple days ago, earlier or later, that manuscript does not have an article that the TR has. Should we change the TR? Of course not.

That manuscript's testimony is irrelevant to the actual readings of TR. The only reason 2817 has even been dragged into the light of day is because you're defending an already established text. And so, in reality, there's no way to debate this position, because there is a disavowal on the part of the other side of using any kind of consistent historical argumentation or analysis.

You can point out that Erasmus, over and over again, in his written works, as he talked about these things, talked about the fact that he would look at a textual variant and he would go, well, I'm going to put this, it could be that, I leave it up to the reader.

He plainly does not see himself as being providentially guided, providential eclecticism, whatever that means. Since eclecticism talks about making decisions, evidently Erasmus is being, a Roman Catholic priest, is being providentially guided as to the selections that he makes, except where Stephanus or Beza change it later on and that becomes adopted by Scribner.

This is the position that's being presented, but there's no way to debate it because there is no consistency in it outside of just simply saying, this is our text, it's our final authority. If there were a set of principles, see, we could have a debate.

Well, we wouldn't be having debate with any Byzantine priority person, majority text person. There would be no, the only people on the planet that would defend the reading of Koinonia in Ephesians 3 .9 are TR only and King James only as people.

They're the only people. All the people that they would work with in defending the longer ending of Mark or the Percupe adultery, leave them at this point and go, no, no, you're no longer dealing with history at this point.

You're no longer dealing with the reality of how it is that the Texas Receptus came into existence in the first place. Instead, they would say, no, obviously it's the ancient reading. It's the medieval reading.

It's the reading of all of the manuscript tradition. It's the, it's the reading of the patristics. Oh, and do I really need to mention in passing? It's the reading of every single translational version in all of history.

There isn't any question on this. It is indefensible to try to say that the apostolic reading that when Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, his initial word was Koinonia because that would mean that you have zero evidence of any Christian for a thousand years that had ever seen that reading.

And you have tiny bit of evidence that for the next 500 years, anyone had seen that reading. The vast majority of others, including all those reading the Latin Vulgate, have something completely different.

How is this keeping God's word pure in the way it's being used by TR Onlius throughout every age? How does that work? It doesn't work. That's the point. That's the issue. And so Dr. Riddle is right. I've called this dangerous.

It is dangerous, for example, to diminish the value, the historical value, and the textual value of the papyri as Dr. Riddle has done over and over and over again. He calls them the vaunted papyri. And he made reference to it.

He won't. Have you noticed? I'm not sure if anyone's noticed this. Once in passing, and I think mistakenly yesterday, Dr. Riddle actually used my name. But otherwise, I'm just the opponent or a popular internet apologist in his writing.

And it's in that very same context that it will talk about the vaunted papyri because as an apologist who actually debates other perspectives, I am very often pointed to the primitive witness of the papyri and how important that is in refuting the accusations made by world religions or by cults within what's called Christianity, that there was this early alteration of the text, insertions of doctrines, taking out of doctrines and things like that.

It is dangerous when you not only misrepresent, grossly misrepresent, what is in the papyri itself. I can demonstrate that. I've done that. I did almost an hour on that subject on the Dividing Line broadcast where I brought up the papyri.

And I can do it right here. We can do it during the rebuttal if it is necessary to do so. And demonstrated that it is not koinonia, it is konomia, and that the first two letters were at the end of the previous line.

There is a very clear margin in P46. And if Omicron Iota was not there in the margin, that would be a huge cutting into the margin. No one, I do not know of anyone outside of the TR Only group of any religion, any perspective on the planet that has made this argument.

So why are they making this argument? Because they have to. Because they have to. Because this is not a textual critical position. If all modern printed text, digital text, etc., etc., were wiped out, and we had to start over again, and we had to create from the manuscript evidence a printed edition of the Greek New Testament, which side could do so?

I submit to you that despite all the differences that exist within the academy, both believers and unbelievers, there are believers and unbelievers within the academy. There is no question about it. Let us just talk about believing textual critical scholars.

Would we be able to reproduce the modern eclectic text that we have today, given the principles that we have laid out? Yes, we would. Yes, we would. There's no question about that. Now, will there be differences?

Well, you look at the Tyndale Greek New Testament. The Tyndale Greek New Testament, the reading has to appear in the first 500 years, okay? And so others would say, no, there might be some readings from the second half of the first millennium that need to be considered in this way, and so on and so forth.

And so there might be small differences. But one thing is absolutely positively certain beyond question. You could never reproduce the Textus Receptus from the current textual data. It would be impossible because of the unique history of that particular document and the fact that this is not a Greek New Testament.

This is a Greek New Testament based upon the choices made by the King James translators, which was based upon the printed editions of the Greek New Testament that came before that, specifically the works of Erasmus, the works of Stephanus, and the works of Beza.

Here is Stephanus's 1550 Greek New Testament. It is not identical to this. And what's interesting is it even has variant readings in the margins, some of which are accurate, some of which are not. Beza misunderstood some of them.

We could get into all those things. The point is the TR has a history, and that history has created inconsistencies. Ephesians 3 .9 is one of those inconsistencies. Everyone must need to understand that when we hold up a modern Greek New Testament with all of that information, all those manuscripts, where they're found, what library they're in, and now we can actually go online.

It's interesting. People are ransacking these manuscripts. How can they do that? There has never been a time in history. Today, we've only been able to do what's being done in looking for these manuscripts for the past 10 years.

For the past 10 years. And having collations of manuscripts, listings of manuscripts, what those manuscripts contain, what they read, that's only existed for 50, 60, 70 years. So Erasmus could not possibly know what the entire manuscript tradition read at Ephesians 3 .9.

That's why it is so anachronistic and so dishonest to try to say, well, they would have said this because they did not have access to the information that we have today. They just did not have it. And it's hard for modern people to recognize that we are living in a very unique age that allows us to see things and to have information that no one before us had.

Now, Dr. Riddle has said, well, he's just over the top saying this is dangerous. Let me tell you why it's dangerous. Not only does it diminish the witness of the first thousand years of the papyri and the great unseals and so on and so forth, it is indefensible apologetically.

Because what it's saying is everybody just needs to start here. This is just where I start. And I'm not going to worry about its history. I'm not going to worry about what Erasmus said. I'm not going to worry about what manuscripts he had.

I'm not going to worry about Stephanos. I'm not going to worry about the fact that, for example, Erasmus was so unconcerned with the specifics of his Greek text that when he did his second edition, he's told, go get that Alden version that has come out since I did mine and fix Revelation.

He didn't even want to deal with Revelation. He had such a low view of it. And just make mine fit what they did with theirs. And he thought that that would fix everything. And he never bothered to check.

The problem was they had used his first edition. And so the errors, the many errors that he knew were in his edition of Revelation, Revelation 16 .5 would probably be one of them. Well, it couldn't be one because he read it correctly.

So it wouldn't be 16 .5. 14 .1 would probably be the one. Beza changed that one later on. He didn't care. He didn't care. It was like, just go do that. And they went and got it and said, well, it all says the same thing.

And so for hundreds of years, the exact same readings exist that go against all known manuscripts. And so this has a history. We have to recognize that history, but once you elevate it to the autograph, and that's what Dr. Riddle has done.

This is the autograph. This is what the apostles wrote. So what do you do when this disagrees with the Greek manuscripts? Well, you adopt whatever argument has to be adopted. So what you've listened to already in these two debates, one set of argumentation for the long ending remark, now completely different.

If Dr. Riddle followed his own arguments from last night, he would have to read Oikonomia at Ephesians 3 .9. He doesn't because these arguments don't really matter. The manuscripts don't really matter to this perspective at all because this has been removed from history.

And so why is that dangerous? Once this becomes removed from history, you can no longer defend it against any other position. So the Muslim comes along, and that's what the Muslim has done with the Quran.

The person who believes the Uthmanic version of the Quran is exactly the 1924 Cairo edition that a lot of people in the West have, that Arabic Quran. That's the autograph. And so if there's variance, then you use whatever arguments you need to use to deal with the variant because this is the autograph.

That's what the believing Mormon does in the Book of Mormon. Oh, there's been changes. Well, but we've got a prophet. This is what God's given to us, and so we'll defend it any way we need to defend it.

And if we as Christians have done the same thing, said, well, there it is, there's the autograph, then we've removed our text from history. And folks, here's the problem. God gave us the scriptures in history, in history.

The New Testament's use of the Old Testament recognizes that God gave us that scripture in history. So we are not following in the apostles' footsteps. When we go, oh, nope, nope, we need to have an absolute, no footnotes.

Yeah, but the apostles quoted variant readings from the Greek Septuagint. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. We need to have no marginal notes, some manuscripts say this. Yeah, it was in the King James Version, but no, we need to have something that's boom, just no questions to be asked about it.