Textual Criticism
Fact and Fiction
a fresh look at
Bible Inspiration
Preservation
And Translation
Published by:
First Baptist Church Publications
8758 Troy Street
Spring Valley, CA 91977
(619)462-9019
COPYRIGHT 1995 BY THE AUTHOR
This work is copyrighted only to preserve the author's ownership of
his work. Any part of this work may be used without the author's
permission. All that he asks is that proper credit be given.
(All quotations are from the Authorized Version)
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Inspiration
Preservation
Translation
Preface
Why another book about the controversy surrounding the Inspiration
of the Bible, it's Preservation, and it's Translation? There has
been much discussion in recent years, much of it of such a mean
spirited nature that much more heat then light has been thrown on
the very important subject of our Bible. However, all of the
discussion has done very little to answer the questions most often
asked by the average Christian in the pew on Sunday morning: Is my
Bible inspired? Is it without error? Can I have full assurance in
my Bible as the Word of God, or do only the "Scholars" know for sure
what really is the Word of God, and what isn't? Hopefully and
prayerfully this book will help shed a little light on the
subject.
Introduction
In dealing with the doctrines of inspiration, preservation, and
translation of the scriptures, I do not intend this book to be an
exhaustive examination of these great doctrines, but rather to start
from the position that most of my readers will already hold, namely,
believing in an inspired and inerrant Scripture. These arguments
regarding the inspiration of Scripture are not new, but have raged
in Christendom for the past one hundred years, coming to a boil
about fifty years ago with the great Fundamentalist/Modernist
controversy, bringing about a breakup in most of the large
denominations. I intend only to touch upon the high points of the
historical arguments concerning inspiration, then deal more
thoroughly with what the Bible teaches, an area where many
fundamental Baptists seem to be guilty of fuzzy thinking, accepting
without serious question the opinions of men who may be called
conservative, but may not be fundamental in all their doctrines and
practices. My background was along such lines of conservative
orthodoxy, being saved in a church that had been part of the old
Northern Baptist Convention, but had left the convention in the
1940's when the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy became a matter of
great contention. My education started along similar lines,
attending Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, a school originally founded by the late great W. B. Riley
(as Northwestern Baptist Seminary), and continued by a former
Northern Baptist pastor, Dr. Richard V. Clearwaters, who was one of
the first to come out of the old convention and establish an
independent church. W. B. Riley stated in his book "The Menace of
Modernism" (New York: Christian Alliance, 1917), the Modernist
believes the Bible's "inspiration exists only in its ability to
inspire...its interpretation is a matter of mental conscience." Dr.
Riley goes on to say there were a group of men whom he describes as
the "old conception," who believed the Authorized Version or King
James Bible (hereafter AV) was inerrant. He states on page 11, "On
this point we are inclined to think that, even unto comparatively
recent years, such a theory has been entertained." He then ascribes
this belief to ignorance, and says, "I think it would be accepted
without fear of successful controversy that such fogies in Biblical
knowledge are few, and their funerals are nigh at hand." Actually
there are quite a few of us, and I for one am feeling just fine,
thank you. Dr. Riley then erroneously states the AV inerrancy
position by saying on page 13, "To claim, therefore, inerrancy for
the King James Version...is to claim inerrancy for men who never
professed it for themselves..." No one, that I am aware of, is
claiming inerrancy for men, but only for the words of God. This
position is, I believe, a straw man, attempting to ascribe to us
something we do not believe, and then condemn us for believing what
they claim we believe. I believe the AV is vested with derivative
inspiration, due to its having been carefully translated from the
inspired words of the original language texts contained in the
Traditional Masoretic (Bomberg's Second Rabbinic Bible, as edited by
Rabbi Abraham Ben Chayyim), and the Traditional Greek (Byzantine or
TR) text. I consider the Stuttgartensia and Alexandrian (WH) texts,
from which all modern bibles are translated, to be corrupt. This is,
I believe, easily demonstrated by the egregious errors contained in
the versions translated from them. If we believe the AV has
derivative inspiration, we must re member, where inspiration (even
derivative inspiration) goes, inerrancy (also derivative) must, of
logical necessity, follow. If inerrancy does not follow
inspiration, we produce the absurdity of an "inspired" error! I
believe the AV is inspired and inerrant because the preserved
original language manuscripts from which it is derived are both
inspired and inerrant, when correctly copied, which virtually all of
the textual evidence suggests is assuredly the case. The charge of
errors in the AV is an unfounded charge. The so-called errors are
usually the result of an insufficient knowledge of the etymology of
the English words used by the translators. Just a little knowledge
of the English language clears up a great number of these so-called
errors. Th ere are only about 268 words in the A.V. (out of 773,692,
a rate of only .00035) that are not currently used in English (wot,
wist, etc), or have changed meaning (Easter referred to the vernal
equinox in 1611, the time of the Jewish Passover, but now refers
either to Resurrection Sunday, or a secular holiday involving an egg
laying rabbit(?)). I believe it is easier (and safer) to educate
God's people as to the changes in English than to tamper with the
Bible.
So then, it seems clear to me that Dr. Riley believed there were
still a few of the "old conception" men in his day that still
believed in an inerrant AV, that they were mostly old men, and were
soon to pass away. If these men were old men when Riley wrote his
book, they must have dated to at least the latter part of the 19th
century. Over one hundred years ago, a group of "old conception"
men existed who still believed in the inerrancy of the AV. This
appears to indicate the "King James Only" position is not of recent
origin.
Thus we can see, in Riley's day, a group of men still existed who
believed, "(1) the Bible was finished in heaven and handed down,
(2) the King James Version was absolutely inerrant, and (3) its
literal acceptance was alone correct." (Page nine of Riley's book as
quoted by Dr. George W. Dollar in his book "History of
Fundamentalism in America", Page 114) We can easily see that W. B.
Riley (1861 - 1947), understood this group of men to believe
exactly as the "King James Only" crowd does today, and believed it
long before any of the contemporary antagonists were born! The
challenge of one scoffer to "Name one person who believed in the
inspiration or inerrancy of the King James Version prior to 1950
and I'll send you $1000", has just been answered (please send the
money to me at the address in the front of this book!).
Unfortunately Riley himself did not hold this position, and his
successor, Richard V. Clearwaters, went on to study at the
University of Chicago Divinity School (Masters in Greek Literature)
under Goodspeed. In 1923 Dr. Edgar J. Goodspeed published his "New
Testament: An American Translation," based on the corrupt Critical
(Wescott and Hort) Text. Goodspeed convinced Clearwaters that the
Critical Text as published by Wescott and Hort was superior to the
Textus Receptus that Clearwaters had been originally willing to
accept, and that others believed had been "handed down" from
heaven. This accounted for the fact that while I was a student at
Central, Dr. Roland McCune (now president of Detroit Baptist
Theological Seminary) taught Old Testament from the New American
Standard Bible, and more recently, the new president, Dr. Ernest
Pickering, often preached from the New International Version. Most
recently, Dr. Larry Pettegrew, Professor of Historical and
Systematic Theology, wrote a paper entitled "The King James Only
Religion", in which he states that those who hold the King James
Only position are in fact (1) not fundamentalists, (2) doctrinally
deviant, (3) of a "new view that was not held by the prominent
Bible teachers, pastors, and leaders of early historic
fundamentalism" (in spite of the fact that the founder of the very
seminary that now supports him believed these men pre-dated him!).
He goes on (and on and on) to say "...there are some poor
translations in the King James Version. When the Anglicans
translated the Greek word, 'baptizo,' for example, they were afraid
to translate it as 'immerse.' So they simply transliterated it as
'baptize.' Most Bible-believing Baptists would consider that a
mistake." It never ceases to amaze me that so called scholars, who
obviously consider themselves to be well educated, can spout such
nonsense. Any person who knows how to read can look up the word
"baptize" in the Oxford English Dictionary (any good college library
will have one) and see that the word "baptize" did not enter the
English language in 1611 via a transliteration of the Greek word
"baptizo", but rather, had been in common usage in England for over
five hundred years, having come into the English language via the
French "baptiste", at the time of the Norman invasion under William
the Conqueror in 1066 A.D.! A look at the word "immerse" in that
same dictionary will reveal that at the time the King James
translators were working, the word immerse did not mean the same as
it does now, to submerge in, but at that time meant "to fill and
co-mingle with" as a sponge soaks up water. No intelligent person
would suggest today such a meaning for baptism, yet these so-called
scholars are constantly assaulting our ears and intellects with
such nonsense! If a student of mine handed in a paper full of such
errors in simple research I would give him an "F", and make him
start over. Too bad Central doesn't have such a standard for its
faculty.
Much that I learned at Central was the product of the old Northern
Baptist thinking, as modified by the more liberal mind set of the
University of Chicago Divinity School, including the uncritical
acceptance of the conservative orthodox position on inspiration.
Many of my professors had been educated, not in independent Baptist
schools, but in colleges and seminaries that can best be described
as either conservative protestant, or former Northern Baptists who
left the convention but brought much of the furniture and baggage
with them when they came out. Their teaching, of course, reflected
the conservative protestant, or, at best, the conservative Northern
Baptist position. This problem of college and seminary professors
continues today. When the Independent Baptist movement began here
in the United States, much of the leadership of the new movement
decided to start their own colleges and seminaries. As these new
schools grew and the leadership began to look for additional
faculty members they soon realized the only men who were
academically qualified were educated in the old denominational
schools, and were thus infected with the menace of modernism. In
response to this new menace, these school leaders stepped out of
the traditional Baptist educational circle and sought faculty from
the conservative protestant schools such as Dallas Seminary
(Presbyterian), Grace Seminary (Brethren), Westminster (also
Presbyterian), and Bob Jones University (Methodist). By using
faculty members from these non-Baptist, protestant schools, the
leadership created a weak Baptist, pro-protestant, mind-set in
their students, who, of course, were the next generation of
Pastors, Missionaries, Evangelists, and college and seminary
Professors, thus perpetuating, in Independent Baptist schools, the
very modernist influence they had established these schools to
avoid! When I left seminary (with this weak-Baptist, pro-protestant
mind-set) and went into the pastorate, I found myself confronted
with many questions that had never even been asked, let alone
answered, during my seminary days. These questions forced me into
a period of self study concerning Bible inspiration, reading those
materials that had been written by fundamental Baptists, rather
than by conservative protestants. My new found understanding of
inspiration led me in turn to a period of self study in the area of
Bible preservation, where I found an even greater discrepancy
between what I had been taught, and what the Bible actually had to
say. My gradually growing understanding of preservation led me into
a thorough study of Bible translation which has increased my
confidence in the English Bible as the authoritative Word of God.
As I continued to study the phenomenon of American fundamentalism,
I had the added blessing of knowing the pre-eminent expert alive
today in the area of Fundamentalist History, Dr. George W. Dollar,
of Haines City, Florida. Dr. Dollar was dean of Central Baptist
Seminary during my last two years there, and had tried valiantly to
swing the school back to a solid position on Biblical inerrancy.
He left Central in 1980, after a long and tiring battle with the
internal politics of Central, and the Minnesota Baptist Association.
While at Central, Dr. Dollar was a breath of fresh air in the dry
and dusty halls of academia. On the occasion of his first
opportunity to preach in chapel, with all of the students
assembled, all of the faculty present, with many of the supporting
pastors from the area, Dr. Dollar took his Bible, opened it, and
said, "Take your King James Bibles and turn to (and gave the
chapter and verse reference), if you have anything other than a
King James Bible, SIT ON IT!" I turned to a fellow student sitting
next to me and remarked "I think this place just got a whole lot
more interesting!" It was my privilege to sit under his teaching
and preaching ministry while at Central, and to renew that
fellowship via telephone and letter after his "retirement" (he
still preaches every Sunday, and is now teaching at Florida
Seminary in Lakeland!). It became obvious to me through my reading
and my discussions with Dr. Dollar, that all fundamentalists are not
the same. I have come to the conclusion that there are four
different positions held by fundamental Baptists today. I want
every reader to understand, that none of the comments to follow
constitutes an attack on any man, or upon his work. I have no axes
to grind, nor am I mad at anyone. These are observations of facts
as I see them and are not meant to be a denunciation of any one man
or his work, and I hope and pray that those reading these words, if
they seem to apply, will take them in the spirit of love in which
they are offered. The truth ought never offend any child of God. If
these words are not truth, then they do not apply to you, and they
ought not offend. If they are true, and you do feel offended,
perhaps a careful examination of your position and ministry might
be in order. I know how difficult it is to bring about change in
the lives of Christians. When I took my present pastorate ten
years ago the church had only been separated from the American
Baptist Convention for about five years, and continued to practice
much of the American Baptist methods of government, worship, and
work. When I attempted to initiate change, the charge was made
that I was repudiating all that had been done before. If what was
being done required change, then they must have been doing it wrong
all those years. The church had been started by the late husbands
of many of our widows, and by the parents of many of our middle aged
members, and they felt that if we changed our practices we would
dishonor the memories of their dear departed loved ones. My intent,
of course, was not to dishonor any person, but to honor God. It
took a long time for many of our people to understand this, and
forgive me for changing the long held practices of their church.
We must remember, if we can see farther than our forebears, it is
because we have the advantage of standing upon that which they have
built, giving us a higher vantage point so that we can see beyond
their horizons. The following are the works of our spiritual
forbears upon which we have built.
Position number one is those who separated from the old Northern
Baptist Convention over the doctrine of inerrency and the
encroachment of liberalism, starting in about 1920. These
separatists today usually hold to a view of inerrancy that accepts
the views of the orthodox writers of the last century such as
Augustus Strong, and writers from the first half of this century
such as Henry Thiessen and others. These men, and the churches and
schools they control, usually accept and use the critical Greek
text, and later (1937) BHK (Biblia Hebraica Kittel) Hebrew text in
their classrooms. Their schools are often organized apart from the
local church, usually owned and governed by a "state association,"
or a "state fellowship," or they are governed by a "board" of
pastors and businessmen. Their financial base is often the high
tuition fees that they charge. Their churches generally take a good
stand on baptism, eternal security, dispensational premillenialism,
and have good music standards, but they sometimes have a slight
tendency towards formalism in their services. They often use the
old Northern Baptist form of government by committee, have a "board"
of deacons acting as an executive committee, often also having a
"board of trustees" to oversee the "business" matters of the church,
and to act as an advisory committee to advise the Pastor and others
in areas both spiritual and temporal. There churches generally have
"business" meetings fairly often, such meetings sometimes chaired by
a "moderator" instead of the pastor. These churches are often less
inclined to emphasize areas of personal holiness such as dress
standards and modesty, sometimes characterizing those who do as
"legalists."
Position number two is those who separated from the conservative
protestant churches over the doctrine of inerrency at about the
same time, but have retained at least some of the characteristics
of their former denominations. These characteristics may include,
but are not limited to: a tendency toward formalism expressed in
the wearing of "clerical" garb such as robes, etc. in the pulpit;
an unbiblical or unstated position on baptism; an unbiblical or
unstated position on eternal security; an unbiblical or unstated
position on escatology manifesting itself lately in a definite
swing towards the covenant position, holding to a mid/post/ or
prewrath rapture position. Much more alarming, many are now
denying the necessity of the blood of Christ for salvation, saying
the blood is merely the symbol of His death. There is a large
segment of this group who are now dividing the Biblical role of
pastor into "ruling elders" and "teaching elders." These men also
often hold an unbiblical or unstated position on the primacy of the
local church; an adherence to the somewhat liberal position of
their former denominations in the area of inspiration and
preservation of the Scriptures, using the critical Greek text, and
later (1937) BHK Hebrew text in their classrooms. These separatist
Protestants often have an incomplete understanding of Biblical
standards and personal separation, while practicing what they call
"secondary separation" which they often interpret to mean anyone
who is not part of their group, fellowship, school, or organization
(don't misunderstand what I am saying, I believe in separation,
both from the lost and from the unruly saved. However, I don't
believe any separation is "secondary", all separation is "primary",
meaning it is a requirement for obedience, consecration, and
holiness). Their schools are seldom, if ever, organized under the
authority of a local church, and they often hold "church" services
in the school auditorium, said "churches" not being
congregationally governed, and if this "convenience church" has a
"pastor", he is either the school leader, or works for the school
leader, thus denying, in practice, the primacy and autonomy of the
local church. These schools are generally organized as
"para-church" organizations, a term borrowed from the New
Evangelicals, and without Biblical support. These schools and
organizations are usually run by one man, but are sometimes
governed by a "board" made up of pastors, politicians, and business
men. Their financial base comes from the high tuition fees they
charge, or occasionally from income associated with other aspects
of their "ministry", rather then from the tithes and offerings of
God's people given through their local church.
Position number three is held by those who separated from the
Southern Baptist Convention, beginning in the mid 1940's, over
standards, convictions, separation, etc., before the doctrine of
inspiration was called into question in the convention. These men
and their churches are generally characterized by strong stands on
Baptism, eternal security, the local church, pastoral leadership,
and an inspired, infallible, inerrant, preserved scripture. About
half of the schools controlled by these men are under the authority
of their local churches and are sometimes, but not always tuition
free. These schools generally use the traditional Masoretic Hebrew
text (BHK 1906 - 1912), and the Received Greek text in their
classrooms, never having fallen under the influence of the
modernistic German rationalists of the last century. These men and
their churches generally have a strong position on personal
separation, expressed as good standards in the areas of music and
dress.
The fourth position is held by those who are unaffiliated with any
of the conventions, associations, fellowships, and never have been!
This group tends toward the historic "Landmark" position, believing
in the local church only, Baptist perpetuity, and a faithful Bride
identified as the church of the New Testament, and educates their
preachers in local church centered Bible schools.
Because of the above differences in background and training, it is
no great wonder that there exists a tremendous diversity of opinion
among those calling themselves fundamentalists. It is with this
great diversity in mind that I endeavored to put on paper a concise,
well reasoned statement of the controversial subject of Bible
inspiration, preservation, and translation.
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