On Faithful Scholarship

I was really bothered, and I'm not going to rush much here. If we have to go a couple minutes over, go a couple minutes over. I just don't want to rush this. I read this review, and those of you who have the RSS feed, the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, may have read it as well.

This is a review by J .K. Elliott of the University of Leeds in the U .K. of J. Harold Greenleed's The Text of the New Testament from Manuscript to Modern Edition. Now, I do not have this edition of Greenleed.

It's on its way. It's probably arrived today. But this is an update of the books I do have, and that was his original work on textual criticism, which then became updated, I think, in the 80s or 90s to Scribes, Scrolls, and Scripture, and now has a new name with Hendrickson Publishers.

There are things that are said by Elliott in this that I want to check them out, make sure they're accurate. I don't have any reason to question they are. For example, he goes after Greenleed for a bad scripture index.

I understand how that happens, especially if you're updating an older book. I can understand how scripture index issues can arise, to be perfectly honest with you. And some of the other statements that are made here, I would take some issue with Greenleed on, but I want you to listen to the voice of modern scholarship.

And this bothers me, and I think it'll bother you as much, and I actually hope it'll bother you as much, because it really has prompted me to do a lot of thinking about how to avoid the irrationality of those who are just scared of scholarship.

Run, run, run, run, we can't use our brains. And who are afraid of tackling truth. Dan Wallace has a good point. He talks about people who are more desirous of having certainty than of having the truth.

And I've met many people who are very certain of untruths, so I don't want to go there. But at the same time, I don't want to be J .K. Eliot. Listen to what he says. I'm just reading two paragraphs. This is from his review, this is from SBL, Society of Biblical Literature, this is the RBL of January of 2009, so this is brand new.

Here's two paragraphs. The great majority of textual variants involve little or no difference in meaning. End quote, page 83. And, quote, the vast majority of the most theologically significant passages of the New Testament have no significant textual variations.

End quote, page 117. A blatantly unsustainable assertion that tests the gullibility of the readership. Also to be endured are his quoting Bengel's pablum, that, quote, the variations between the manuscripts did not shake any article of evangelical doctrine.

End quote, page 76. And his repeating Sir Frederick Kenyon's words, quote, we have in our hands substantial integrity, the veritable word of God. End quote, page 120. Despite his not drawing attention to the unsettling get-out phrase, quote, insubstantial, i .e. not complete integrity.

End quote. The fact that the majority of the text is secure may well be true, but what disturbs conservative readers is not the total percentage of variants that are insignificant as regards matters theological, but that minority of readings that are indeed theologically important.

More on these below. Second paragraph. Another means, listen to this, another means used to placate the fundamentalists is to appeal to divine protection of the text. Surprisingly, in a book by a respected academic, is his appeal on more than one occasion to the Holy Spirit.

Although why the index has a reference to the Holy Spirit on 46 -47 alludes this reviewer. On page 37 we do find, quote, we believe that the Holy Spirit guided the authors of the New Testament books so that their message would be protected from error.

End quote. And, quote, we likewise believe that the Holy Spirit operated providentially in the copying and preservation of the manuscripts through the centuries. End quote. Oh! Exclamation point. That is not the sort of precision one would find in the works of textual criticism of the Greek or Latin classics or of other ancient literature, nor is it warranted here.

In any case, such a view is a hostage to fortune. The vast quantity of textual variants is hardly suggestive of providential preservation. It were better had Greenlee avoided such peculiar obitur dicta.

Even Greenlee himself tells us in a prelude to a description of scribal habits that, quote, we should not think that it was only by supernatural preservation that the New Testament was kept from being lost or hopelessly confused during those centuries.

End quote. Page 37. Perversely, Greenlee allows, page 103, that Mark's original ending has been lost. Mainly, though, Greenlee is concerned to show how the frail human agency of scribal copying resulted in accidental and deliberate change.

And even he points to places such as 1 Thessalonians 2 .7 and 1 Corinthians 13 .3 where he is not certain which reading came from the, quote, inspired, end quote, biblical author. End of paragraph. Now, listening to this was like chewing on aluminum foil for me.

I was, here is someone who is indeed speaking the presuppositions of the modern academy represented by Bart Ehrman. And it is not an argument to mock a position. It would be better to provide a meaningful interaction.

But we do need to understand that this is the language of the modern academy. Now, I've never figured out why people who don't believe in the inspiration of the Bible would spend their time studying the Bible.

But there are a lot of people who do. Just a couple of things. He identifies as pacifying remark the statement, the great majority of textual variants involve little or no difference in meaning. I don't know how many times I've heard Bart Ehrman say that.

That is not even a disputable assertion, given that the largest textual variant in the New Testament, and I don't mean largest as a number of verses, but the most number of times this textual variant comes up, has to do with the movable new.

The movable new does not impact meaning. So, that's a fact. How is that a pacifying thing? Or are we just not supposed to mention that? Does J .K. Eliot so live in the realm of variation that he can't admit these facts?

Then the next quote. The vast majority of the most theologically significant passages in the New Testament have no significant textual variations. Okay, I've got to agree with Eliot on that one. I wouldn't say it that way.

He says it's an unsustainable assertion that tests the gullibility of the readership. Well, I think Eliot is following Ehrman in his review methodology here, to be perfectly honest with you. But I wouldn't say that.

I think that any theologically significant passage is going to have either minor or major textual variation in it. Most of it's going to be minor. Most of it's going to not be relevant. But, like I said, I've ordered the book to make sure that I can put this in context, because there's no period put at the end of this, so I'm not sure if he's missing something, when it says have no significant textual variations.

But the things that bug me, he identifies Bengel's statement as pablum. If a conservative was writing about someone else, a liberal, they would be dismissed for this kind of clearly biased presentation.

It's amazing. But then, here's what really hit me, and this is what I want to spend just a few moments on. I realize that we'll try to keep it brief. One of the means used to placate the fundamentalists, you'd be using the King James Version of the Bible, and you wouldn't be writing the stuff that Greenlee's writing in the first place.

Trust me, I know. Another means used to placate the fundamentalists is to appeal to divine protection of the text. See, it's as if that can't even be a possibility. That's not on the table now. But how do you keep it off the table?

You just mock the people who might believe it. You don't argue against it. You don't demonstrate any type of consistent worldview that would give you a reason for doing that. You just simply dismiss it.

That's how liberalism works, folks. That's how it works in politics. That's how it works in religion. And this is what's coming into the seminaries. This is the attitude that is producing the kind of literature that's out there today.

Listen to this. Surprisingly, in a book by a respected academic, is his appeal on more than one occasion to the Holy Spirit. This is simple secularism. This is simple unbelief. Are you going to argue, Dr. Elliott, that the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with the transmission of the text of the New Testament?

Oh, but we can't make reference to that. What do you mean we can't make reference to that? That sounds just like Bart Ehrman saying, well, a historian can't say anything about God because, well, God has nothing to do with history, huh?

But Christians believe that God has everything to do with history. And Christians believe that the scriptures are theanustas, and that nustas, breathed, is related to pneuma, which is spirit. So what we have here is you cannot be a believing Christian and engage in this practice.

I think what we need to realize is you've got a bunch of unbelievers who have, in essence, hijacked the, quote-unquote, leading edge of this discipline, and we need to start identifying that. What that also means is those who are believers, who, by the work of the Spirit in their heart, have had the rebellion against God's Word removed.

And I believe a part of regeneration, a part of the change of the heart, is to cause a person to bow the knee before God's speech, before God's Word. The men of old who've changed this world have been people who gave clear evidence of obedience to the Word of God.

And those in whose lives the Spirit has moved in that way, I challenge you, I plead with you. If you're a young man and you feel called to ministry, you feel called to study, I challenge the young men of our generation, go into this field.

Learn what these people have to say, yes, but don't imitate their unbelief. Take the truth that they say, yes, but combine it with faith and begin providing the kind of believing scholarship that goes beyond the circularity.

I submit to you, secular humanism is no foundation for dealing with God's universe. It will always result in the stunted viewpoints that we see in a Bart Ehrman that can give us no reason for life, no reason to get up in the morning and do what is right.

I call upon those young people, as you go into this field, don't just dodge this, don't dodge this area. Dive into it in trust and faith that God's Word is true and let's begin producing a kind of believing biblical studies.

We have so much given the field over to the unbelievers. And so they go, well, look at all we write. We run SBL and we do this and we do that. There is such danger when the Christian Academy is so in love with the acceptance of the world that we are no longer willing to stand up and say, I operate under the Lordship of Christ, you operate under the Lordship of your own mind, you are a rebel against Christ.

And that simply isn't allowed in the Academy any longer. I hope there's some listening right now. I know young Reformed men, they have a lot of zeal, they have a lot of desire. They desire to learn, they desire to study.

I call you, give consideration. You want to be a scholar? You want to teach? I'm not saying it's going to be easy. You're going to have to go against the flow. Anybody who believes in the Lordship of Christ, anybody who believes God's their creator today has to go against the flow.

But we need good, sound scholarship being produced out there. I'm not saying lower the level of scholarship. I'm saying go to a higher level of scholarship. Because I say to you, to do scholarship under the Lordship of Christ is the highest calling.

To do scholarship in the Lordship of secular humanism is not a high calling. We need to delve into this area and give an answer for the hope that's within us.