THE WASTELAND OF MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM

THE WASTELAND OF MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Since the 1901 American Standard Version, English speaking people were told about new bibles that were more reliable and accurate than the antiquated King James Version. Indeed, only the ignorant of contemporary scholarship would be so foolish to hold to the superiority of the King James Version. Now over a century later the academic drivel disguised as scholarship in the field of textual criticism and new English bibles has proven itself to be an utter sham, a wasteland of academic deception, the basis of countless false claims. Name the newer and best of the new versions in the long list of “ have-to-haves” over the years while disparaging the King James Bible. Is anyone still reading whatever version came to your mind? Ah, but now we have the ESV. Yes, but for how long, anticipating its certain revision, until it is abandoned for something still “better”? And still, the King James Bible remains stalwart in the face of this maelstrom. Like the theory of evolution, born out of the same historic epoch, modern textual criticism is a farce, glossed over with the complexity of imagined and fanciful systems.

Since 1881 and the inauguration of what was commonly referred to as the Westcott/Hort (WH) method of textual criticism, how much closer is the Academy or Church to recovering the autographs? Indeed, consigned to the fact the autographs cannot be recovered, a new designation, the “Initial” text was created. The thesis of this paper is to demonstrate the historic futility of this discipline/art to discover the reading that best represents the Originals.

1. Oldest is best

2. Shortest is best

3. Most difficult reading is best

4. Reading that explains the origin of the other reading is best

This methodology lead to the Genealogical Method, a complex web of manuscript relationships attempting to demonstrate how one manuscript’s reading was transmitted to another manuscript. The futility of this process was conspicuous in that the proposed family connections showed family connections but brought the adherent no closer to the autographs.

The lunacy of this process was the “weighing” of the likelihood that the reading in question was authentic. “A” readings were good, “D” readings were bad, “B” and “C” were differing degrees of “we’re sure” and “we’re not sure.” A highly technical, ridiculously subjective “as much a science as an art” governed the renderings of the Christian sacred text.

Academic intimidation, like the criticism of six-day Creation or intelligent design served to keep those who held to historic, orthodox, Westminster Confession, Bibliology in check. This ivory tower method has been abandoned for individualized eclecticism, each scholar’s own evaluation the basis of the chosen reading.

The theological deterioration from the preservation of God’s word by “God’s singular care and providence” to the formulation of a document imposed upon the reader by the scholar, thus unsurprisingly concludes:

Pre-critical, Reformation era textual criticism is inferior to post-Enlightenment textual criticism, and thus:

1. The Byzantine text type is the least reliable

2. Erasmus’ Greek text is the least reliable

3. The Textus Receptus is the least reliable

4. The King James Bible is the least reliable

Acknowledging the absence of the autographs, long deteriorated over the course of time, and dependent only upon multiple copies of copies (apographa), the argument for post-critical methodological superiority is absurd to the point of creating a religious superstition as to its efficacy. Superstition is “a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary; a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false concept of causation.” What caused the Christian sacred text to exist as it does today? The mss tradition cannot be equated with the sacred text. Mss are not equivalent to a sacred text. The question is not where the mss came from but where the sacred text, God’s Word, came from.

Causation, for the modern textual critic is what they say it is; the notion is contrived according to a preconceived set of parameters and called causation, when in fact there is no connection between causation and the critics mind. Causation existed prior to the modern critic’s mind, unfolded independently of the critic’s mind, and is beyond the critic’s mind to explain in that the documents in question, the Autographa, do not exist.

This paper argues that this academic superstition has been codified as orthodoxy. The Emperor wears no clothes, is walking around his domain naked, but no one wants to say, put on some clothes for fear of bringing the wrath of the king’s guard down upon them.

Where Has Abandoning the King James Bible Brought the Church in the last 50 years?

1. The Argument from Competing Bibles – Geneva and Authorized Version.

The 1560 Geneva Bible was printed until 1633, 22 years after the AV was released. The Geneva fell out

of vogue and the AV took an unchallenged place among in the church and remains so until today. With the rise of modern versions this historic argument was used against the AV as if the AV was the Geneva, about to fall out of vogue to one of the modern versions. This of course has not occurred. Instead, modern version after version has fallen by the wayside – RSV, ASV, NASV and NIV among the most prominent. The NKJV never caught on. Today, the ESV remains in popular usage, but for how long? The nature of the critical text is to evolve. Modern textual criticism is a unscientific science project that is constantly looking for an answer to something science can never determine. It is therefore inevitable that the ESV be revised in keeping with its constantly changing underlying Hebrew and Greek texts.

Modern versions have caused injurious debate as their superiority to the AV was argued. After the damage, some irreparable, to personal relationships and churches was done, they were discarded and traded for another version, and still more debate and more schisms.

2. The Argument from Assurance

While the Christian is to “earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints” at the same time Providence is working in history to accomplish God’s redemptive plan. When all the rhetorical smoke clears, all the debates are over and after all the hard words of ostracization have been said, the AV stands intact against the scholarly assault from every quarter. And it stands, not because of some external support but by its own self-attesting, self-authenticating and self-interpreting qualities. The intangible, “unscientific” elements of the principium are at work in the AV and recognized by the believing community through the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. No other witness can account for the authority of the AV among Bible believers and their recognition of it as God’s Word to English speaking people.

The mistrust of organized religion by younger generations and the attack of those mistrusted institutions of the AV will serve only to generate curiosity as to why the AV and those who hold to its authority were maligned by mainstream religious entities. Time will tell, but for those looking for answers of first principles and truth, modern textual critical practices and their multiple versions will leave the serious inquirer without hope.

3. The Argument from Ecclesiastical Narcissism

What passed for reason in the mind of pastors to lead their congregations to reject the AV and replace the Bible upon which their church was founded with a now debunked modern version.? Was it really the Holy Spirit and prayer that prompted them to forsake the Bible of their youth or was it something far less noble and nefarious? And after the trajectory for change was set, how many times were they lead (by God) to change the bible in the pew? Where in their job description were they authorized as under-shepherd to make such a significant change? And after they have completed their ministry and passed from this life, what is to keep the next pastor from: 1) Throwing the bible out completely, or, 2) Bringing the AV back. The temporal nature of the pastorate makes his (or her) decision temporary demonstrating on its face that changing bibles, or the basis of the local church’s existence, cannot be motivated by God. Truth endures forever, ideally from pastor to pastor for the care of the flock, but his own decisions have limited shelf-life.

What we have witnessed over the past 50 years is the degradation of the pastorate from truth tellers to pastoral narcissism –what he cares about most, above everything else, is himself and how he is received by others. Can there be a more self-aggrandizing statement than to show the church and others that his authority as the pastor stands above the authority of the Bible?

Once pastoral authority usurps and replaces Biblical authority, all authority resides with the pastor. He becomes the resource for the proper interpretation of the bible and can now pontificate, “this passage Is better rendered,” citing extra-biblical writings written by other religious pontificators, all to the detriment of the flock. And while they may all feign being offended and respond to objections with religious platitudes, they need to remember, after their passing, that is, dead and in the grave, everything they have taught not consistent with the Bible will be rolled back as if what they said never happened. Their writings will be relegated to the trash heap of irrelevant books, a pile of paper raised in memorial to those who forsook the old paths; the paperbacks no one wants and after the first reading will go on the list to discard.

4. The Argument from Evangelism

What is the most formidable objection adherents of Islam raise when witnessed to by Christians? It is that the sacred text of Christianity is riddled with errors and is therefore essentially unreliable. The Quran however is without error and is therefore to be preferred as the preeminent sacred text. Modern version printers have been counting on the evangelistic short-sightedness of modern version proponents and that evangelism is not something they will engage in thus discovering their bible’s deficiencies. Those engaged in challenging the truth claims of the largest religious challenge to the American Christian church know first-hand the failure of modern bible versions and the willingness of Islam to exploit that failure.

5. The Argument from Passivity

In the absence of the Truth, the truth now reduced to the consensus of a select scholarly community, there is nothing theologically to fight for. The coward now breathes a sigh of relief in that there is nothing called upon him to do that would expose his cowardness. Like minivans that suck the testosterone out of men, new bibles emasculate the otherwise vibrant spirits of the faithful. The fluctuation of exegetical analysis makes dogmatics irrelevant. Indeed, dogmatics is the antithesis of the contemporary balanced scholarly approach to the bible. Certainty is impossible. Acquiescence to the imposed standard is the norm. Violating the norm is equivalent to being mean-spirited and lacking in the Christian virtues and bad scholarship. Such intellectual passivity neuters any claim to authority lowering the exceptionalism which is Christianity to scrap and climb amongst the hoard of idols and mongrel faiths.

So where has giving up the King James Bible got you?

What have the new versions done for you?

Dr. Peter Van Kleeck, Sr., BA, MAR, Th.M., D.Min.