Theodore P. Letis on John Owen vs Brian Walton

8/14/2019 Theodore P. Letis on John Owen vs Brian Walton

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14 The Majority Textgeneral public. Hence, he was influenced by the faith of others, and thisplaced a restraint upon the humanistic tendency to treat the text of theNew Testament as he would the texts of other ancient books.

What was true of Erasmus was true also of Stephanus, Calvin, Bezaand other l6th-century scholars who labored on the textus receptus.rto

The renewed commonfaith (the faith held by nearly all evangelicalsduring the l6th-century renewal) belief that the text handed downby the Byzantine Church was correct is what gave l6th centurytextual criticism its consensus; and since the Enlightenment, whensuch a theological control was abandoned, no such consensus hasarisen-but for the consensus that the l6th century was wrong. Andwhile the Reformers did not hold to a perfectionist view of thisreceived text, as is reflected in their notes, they nevertheless pre-served its form for purposes of canonicity-

In conclusion, it is not accurate to judge Beza and the Reforma-tion century as "unscientific" or without a method, by Enlighten-ment standards; because clearly,

During the Reformation period the approach to the New Testamenttext was theological and governed by the cornmon faith in HolyScripture, and for this reason even in those early days the textualcriticism of the New Testament was different from the textual criticismof other ancient books.lrl

rroHills, Believing Bible Study, p. 36.rlrHils, King Jarnes Version, p.63.

John Owen Versus BrianWalton: A Reformed

Response to the Birth of TextriticismTheodore p. Letis

I. INTRODUCTIONPaul christianson, in the Introduction to his excellent workReformers in Babylon.: Zyli h Apocalyptic Visions from the Refor_mation to the Eve of the civ, war.,r-r-rrp well the need for, as wellas the challenge of, intellectual history:Simple words seem to have clear meanings, but after analysis thedeception of simpliciry often vanishe.. rrr?iig""r;;;, ;;;r.super_stitions' of others strike one ur roo.a complex when examined incontext-what the outsider cans 'folly' sometimes contains ;;;;

"-o_ional and intellectual meaning foi ott ".r. One experiences greatdifficulties when attempting to"J--roi"ute with someone who inhab-its a different perceptuir worrd. 1"" "rii" sociar anthropologist tries totranslate his experience of unaccustomed cultural puri"*i-i.r,o ruo_guage understood by those who inhabit a contemporary but vastlydissimilar world of thought, so tt

"t i.ioria, or ia"u.'-*iuiJ-p, ,t

"ame task when reconstructing the world views of thos" *i.li"J ir,rr.ast. Ichristianson's remarks are welr fitted for describing the task ofexplicating the views not only of John owen but oi virtuaity attof seventeenth century Reformed tradition in .".pon." io g.iu,walton's "variantes rectiones" as well as the incipient Enrighten_ment challengues of saumur and the Roman cathoric church. Anindication of this can be seen in the contemporary scorn heaped onthe Helvetica Consensus Formula (1675) Uy *ort i, toO#, n._*,i*"?l;'i';1fi;,^$iff";i,;i,i: ,1;:;:;::.i ^ifffN:f"{#,f"*,,ff;,.3.

145


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146 The Majority Textformed tradition, so unfamiliar with the l7th-century debate. Theembodiment of this orthodox response was found in the clearlyarticulated doctrine of the providential preservation of Scripture, anecessary corollary, as the seventeenth-century divines understoodit, to the belief in the inspiration of Scripture.

The argument has been presented, however, that such emphasis,as well as other aspects of what has come to be known as Protestant scholasticism, are too far removed from the originaldynamic and genius of the first generation of Reforners, to be giventhe attention that the seventeenth century gave it. This opinion,unfortunately, is a result of an ahistorical approach to the subject athand, on both the part of the neo-Calvinists as well as theWarfieldians (errantists and inerrantists). The errantists (or limiledinerrantists) want to reject most of Protestant scholasticism alto-gether as illegitimate,2 while the inerrantists want to impose apost-Enlightenment,

Warfieldianism onto the seventeenth century.3Both projects are historically ill-informed. Not only is seventeenth2See Jack Bartlett Rogers, Soipture in the lhestminster Confession: A Problem of

Historical Interpretationfor American Presbyterianisn (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1966);Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundarnentalism: British and Americon Mil-lenarianism 1800-1930 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978 [first published in19701); Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and Interpretation ofthe Bible: An Historical Approach (San Francisco: Harper, 1979); Donald McKim,ed. The Authoritative Wiid: Essays on the Nature oj Scripture (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1983).

3see W. Robert Godfrey, Biblical Authority in the Sixteenth and SeventeenthCenturies: A Question of Transition, in D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge,editors, Scripture and Truth (Grand Rapids: Zondeman, 1983); John D.Woodbridge and Randall H. Balmer, The Princetonians and Biblical Authority:An Assessment of the Ernest Sandeen Proposal, in D. A. Carson and John D.Woodbridge, eds., Scripture and Truth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983): John D.Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the RogerslMcKim Proposal (GrandRapids: Zondervan, 1982); Norman L. Geisler, editor, InerrancT (Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 1980); John Warwick Montgomery, ed., God's Inerrant Word: AnInternational Symposium on the Trustworthiness of Scripture (Minneapolis:Bethany House Publishers, 1974); Norman L. Geisler, ed., Biblical Errancy: AnAnalysis of its Philosophical Roots (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, l98l); RonaldYoungblood, editor, Evangelicals and Inerrazcy (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984);Earl D. Radmacher and Robert D. Preus, eds., Hermmeutics, Inerrancy and theBible (Grand Rapids: Zordewan,1984); Gordon Lewis and Bruce Demarest, eds.,Challenges to Inerrancy: A Theological Response (Chicago: Moody, 1984); John D.Hannah, ed,. Inerrancy and the Church (Chicago: Moody, 1984).

3These titles-like modern translations of the Biblo.-go on ad nauream,

John Owen Versus Brian Walton

century theology legitimate in its own right, while having featuressomewhat different from though not in conflict with l6th-centurytheology; itis only legitimate in its own right, not after it has beenoverlaid with Warfieldian inerratcy, a dissimilar development awayfrom both the sixteenth as well as the seventeenth century. It seemsno one wants to allow the seventeenth century to speak for itself,from within the existential context that gave it its theologicalemphases. The following diagram may help to illustrate protestantscholasticism, which was merely the negative reversal of the blackand white print of Reformation theology, with regard to Scrip-ture:

l) l6th-century Reformers 2) (forced to define itself) Sola Scriptura Roman Catholicism-on the

offensive- defensive (Council of Trent theresult)

J

3) Roman Catholicism variants in yourSola Scriptura-offensive

One fact that clearly emerges from this schema is the clarity of theantithesis between these two positions. The defining process forcedboth positions to their logical conclusions, and neither party is fullycomprehended short of both the positive thesis of its position aswell as its defensive claification of that thesis. Hence, to trulyunderstand what it means to be Protestant one can neither dismissthe further clarification process of the defensive response thesis,which is organically connected to the original offensive critiquethesis, any more than one can transform the former to the liking ofmodernity because its conclusions are no longer fully understood,or appreciated because of the distance from the events that pro-duced it; or because of the major degree of capitulation toEnlightonmcnt mcntality which has no sense of continuity with it.

t47

4) (forced to define itselfl1 7th-century theologians

-on the defensive(Providential Preservationthe result)


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148 The Majority Text

One must detach oneself from the emotion and immediacy ofcurrent debates and become immersed in the lTth century to learnits own rationale, arguments, and the historic events that producedsuch, in order to understand classic Protestantism-both the offen-sive and the defensive aspects seen as two halves of an whole.

The only vehicle that can bring us to this place is history. Notapologetics, not polemics, not politics-history, and history alone.

An Overview of the History of the Problem of TextualVariants from the Twelfth Century to the Present

CONSISTANT CONFESSIONALISM BIBLICAL CRITICISM

[Prynne has his earscut-off and is brandedon the face.l

1633-

English Civil War(r642-1649)

-lbn Ezr a (1092-3-l I 67 )

-Levita (1468-1549)

-1622 L. Cappel (1585-16s8)publishes his Mystery ofthe PunctuationRevealed.

[Cappel's son becomes aRoman Catholicl

-1633 Amyraut is installed atSaumur

-1641 Petition against Walton

WestminsterAssembly meets (1643-1646)-

Westminster Confession 1646-

l-1642 Walton Arrestedl

[-1645 Laud executed]

[-1649 Regicide ]


Owen responds to Walton'sPolyglott A Vindication of thePurity... 1659-

HelveticaConsensus Formula 1675-Turretin publishes his InstitutioTheologiae Elencticae 1688-

R. L. Dabney acknowl- 1871-edges theological significanceof variants and calls for a re-tention of the TR in his TheDoctrinal Various Readings ofthe New TestamentGreek.

Dabney publishes his TheInfluence of the German University System on TheologicalLiteraturo. t88l-

t49

Commonwealth

(164e-1660)

-1657 Repubican edition ofthe London Polyglott

-1660 Royalist edition of theLondon Polyglott whereCromwell is referred toas a Dragon --{edi-cated to Charles II

-1689 Richard Simon publishes

his History of the Textof the New Testament

AUFKLARUNG

-1869 A. A. Hodge publisheshis The Confession ofFaith, and has no sub-stantive discussion ofProvidential Preserva-tion, but rather speaksin terms of ascertain-ing the true text.

-1876-1877 B. B. Warfieldstudies at the Uni-versity of Leipzig


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t52 The Majority Text

this point is more than offset by his formal correctness in viewingthe points as authoritative.T ln short, Owen's and Walton's ex-change on this particular matter is, in fact, rather secondary to thereal issue at stake: What was to be done about the variants in boththe Old Testament and the New? This we will be addressing under

the heading "Content of the Debate."But in order to even approach this topic the political context of

this period must be understood. In fact, the overthrow of themonarchy and the establiqhment of the Commonwealth are thebackdrop for this entire debate.8 The fierce animosity between thePuritan/Presbyterian/nonconformist factions and the establishedAnglican Church are well illustrated by the cruelty displayed onboth sides, before and during the Commonwealth. One infamousexample, on the Anglican side, was the arrest of William Prynne(1600-1669) under the direction of the father of "Anglo-Catholicism," Bishop William Laud (1573-164). Pr5mne, a learnedPuritan, had written lengthy and tedious critical, social commentary(Histriomastix,1600 pp. in quarto) on such contemporary practicesas mixed dancing, stage plays, the wearing of masks, or facemake-up, lewd pictures, long hair, etc.e His censure of the theater,with an index of women actors, had a direct political repercussionsince the queen herself aspired to such a role.ro He referred to thewhole lot as "notorious whores." This cost him dearly because theStar Chamber found him guilty of seditious libel. For his role associal critic/prophet he received a prophet's reward: life imprison-

Greek Text," in William H. Goold, ed., The Works of John Owen, Vol. XVI, p. 385.7As Bowman says in assessment "Forgotten Controversy": "While in a few caseswith rare words the Massoretes may have vocalized erroneously, or in a few cases

deliberately altered the expression to avoid apparent blasphemy, by and large,modern scholars have not found them wanting," (p. 67).

sFor a conspicuous example, consider the fact that two editions of the LondonPolyglot were published, one called The Republican edition, in which Cromwelldoes not receive a dedication, but is thanked for allowing the paper used to beimported duty-free, and the other called The Loyal edition, dedicated to Charles II,in which Cromwell is referred to as "maximus ille draco." Marvin R. Vincent, ,4History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (New York: Macmillan1903), p. 65 n.2.

eEncyclopedia Britannica, l5th ed. (1943-1973), s.v. "Britain and Ireland, Historyof," by Robert Walter Dudley Edwards

tolbid.

ii


ment, expulsion from the law profession, a fine of f,5,000, thehumiliation of punishment in the pillory, and finally, the cutting offof both ears rr

Such ruthless serverity was emblematic of both the scorn in whichPuritanism was held by the Anglo-Catholics, and of their resolve to

suppress all forms of religious challenge to the status quo.Laudwaswilling to oppose the Puritans by inflicting his belief in the divineright of kings and apostolic succession. This is also illustrated, bythe case of Prynne, who determined (like the apostle Paul) thatthough he was in prison, the word of God would not be bound;and so he continued to write "seditious" pamphlets (against theArminianism of the bishops). Again the Star Chamber imposed thewrath of Laud by branding both of Prynne's cheeks with the lettersSL for "seditious libeller".r2

Those Puritans unwilling to endure such treatment began the

Great Migration to the New World. Those who stayed, however,were rewarded with one of the most telling displays of poetic justiceever witnessed. The very first act of the Long Parliament (its firstsession met from November 1640 to September 1641) was to releasepolitical prisoners, including Prynne, and to impeach Laud fortreason. Prynne was received in London (November 28, 1640) withgreat ovation, elected at New Port to a seat in Parliament (1641),and became the solicitor in Bishops Laud's triallr3

It seems Prynne's sole basis for condemning Laud were some"ambiguous expressions" in his (Laud's) Diary arrd Private Devo-tions. Latd's last words were a public affirmation of loyalty to theAnglican Church:

The last particular, for I am not willing to be too long, is myself. I wasborn and baptized in the Church of England, established by law, and inthat I come now to die.ra

\Ibid.t2lbid.

ts3

t3Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge (1883), s.v. "Prynne,William," no author given.

t4lbld,, a,v, "Laud, William," by William Lee.


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Having said this he placed his head on the block crying, "Lord,receive my soul."

With the fall of the bishop and soon the king, the chess board wasenjoying a shift in power, where the dominant pieces had onlyrecently been dominated.

With the coming of the Commonwealth there was a far-reachingembrace of the democratic principles of Puritanism, so much so thatwhen the rector of St. Martin's Orgar in London, by the name ofBrian Walton, a devoted Laudian, attempted to compel parish-ioners to honor the tithe requirements, he was impeached byParliament and deprived of his livings (1641).ts In addition, becausewalton moved the communion table from the center of the churchto the east window (an explicitly Laudian practice), the petitionpresented to Parliament by his flock leading to his dispossession,resulted in the publishing of

the articles and charge prov'd inParliament against Dr. Walton,

minister of St. Martin's orgars in cannon Street, wherein his subtiletricks and popish innovations are discovered . . . as also his impudencein defaming the . . . House of Commons. (16+tlto

Hence Walton was reduced to a most degrading and humiliatingstate-as the Puritans under his mentor, Bishop Laud, had beentreated-by being thrown into prison as a common delinquent(1642).17

His library was sold off as well as "the small remainder of hisestate . . . and other goods," so he fled to the royalist stronghold ofOxford, there to begin plans for the production of his BibliaPolyglotta.ts

The politics of polyglots hold a great deal of unexplored potential

for understanding not only this debate, but the larger conflictbetween Rome and the Reformation. Freiday notes that Walton'spolyglot was "the only one not produced under Roman Catholicauspices."re On the surface, this would appear to be a surprising

rsDictionary of National Biography, s.v. "Walton, Brian," by D. S. M.t6lbid.tl lbid.tslbid.reFreiday, The Bible, p. 9.

John Owen Versus Brian Walton 155development. was it not Protestants and anti-clerical humanistswho rallied around Laurentius valla (c. 1406-1457), after Erasmuspublished Valla's Annotations in 1505 (written by Valla c. 1440),cryrng ad fontes? How is one to explain the fact that RomanCatholics seemed to have had a monopoly on the great polyglots,

until walton's? cardinal Ximenes (1436-1517) provides us with theanswer via the editors of his polyglot, the complutensraz (publishedin Alcala l5l3-17,6 vols. folio). They inform us that the vulgatewas placed between the Septuagint and the Hebrew in the OldTestament, in order to "compare. . . the position of Christ ascrucified between two thieves,-the unbelieving synagogue of theJews, and the schismatical Greek church.,,2o More than just arhetorical device, this polyglot had obvious polemical intent: if thereare variants in the versions, as well as in the original languages, thevulgate will become the established standard against which allchallengers

will bejudged

as deviations. What better way toestablish the supremacy of the vulgate, than to show the corrup-tions of variant editions whenever they differ from "christ" beingcrucified between two thieves?2r

The Antwerp Polyglot (Antwerp 1569-72,8 vols. folio) is of littlevalue because "it depends a good deal too much upon the Com-plutensian."22 Though issued at the expense of philip II of Spain(thus called Biblia Regia), very few of the only five hundred copiesprinted survive today because most were lost at sea on their way toSpain.

The Paris Polyglot (Paris 1628-45,l0

folios)was edited byGabriel Sionita, designed by Cardinal Duperron, and was financed

by Guy Michel le Jay. Le Jay spent his entire fortune on this andWolyglots," by Samuel M. Jackson.2lBasil Hall reminds us that "when Erasmus inquired during his controversywith Stunica where the comma Joanneurn could be found since iiwas in no Greelmanuscript known to himself, Stunica replied with Spanish intransigence that itwas well known that the Greek codices were corrupted but that the vulgatecontained the truth itself." "Biblical Scholarship: Editions and Commentariesj'inThe carnbridge- History of the Bible, vol. 3, p. 59. See also Jerry H. Bentley,Humanists 9n Holy writ: New Testament scholarship in thi Renaissance(Pri-nceton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1983), pp. lg4-209.

22 Schqff- H erzog, o, v, " Polyglots. "


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156 The Majority Textwas forced to resign as parliamentary advocate, and became apriest. Though the most outstanding in appearance, again it is oflittle critical value since it is "substantially a mere reprint of theAntwerp."z3 Because the price was so prohibitive, few were eversold but as waste paper

certainly each of these polyglotswas intended not only to elevatethe vulgate over all other editions, but to be a "display" of national

pride and superiority in the world of biblical scholarship, recallingthe role played by the decorative, illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels(c. 690) of the manuscript period.

Before we discuss Walton's polyglot, we must remember that hedid not at first aspire to provide the supreme polyglot, but rather hewas interested in circulating the paris polyglot in England. onlywhen this failed did he determine to produce his own.2a Accord-ingly, le Jay was asked for six hundred copies of his paris polyglotif he would sell them at half-price for English distribution. Herefused. Nevertheless, this clearly indicates that walton was lessinterested in producing his own polyglot than in getting a polyglotinto circulation in England. But why? we would venture that hesaw this as a propitious means of striking back at the puritans. Bycirculating this tangible evidence of the variety and uncertainty(surely the Papists had certainty in their beloved vulgate) of thetexts of Scripture, walton could greatly unsettle the noncon-formists' overconfident view of sola scriptura. This would alsodeter Anglicans from considering the views of the puritans/nonconformists. when the Paris polyglot failed to achieve theseends, walton

with the help of the orientalists at cambridge andOxford, resolved to produce his own, to outdo all prior polyglotsand reflect the latest textual evidence. Thus he could establish theAnglican Church, and the British nation to which she belonged, asthe true bastion of both apostolic succession and advanced learning.In turn, he knew that the nonconformists would rail against suchwork and consequently be condemned by the rest of learnedEurope. In the long run, the Puritans/nonconformists would most

"Ibtd"24lbid.

John Owen Versus Brian Walton $7likely lose credibility and the church of England would be reestab_lished in her former glory.

III. CourBNT oF rHn Dnsanp

surveying the respective political, religious, and theological world-view differences of both owen and walton, greatly

"r-hur"., o.r,chance of correctly interpreting their debate.Owen's response to Walton was not out of petty jealousy, or from

opposition to learning, as walton was wont to paint him.2s on theother hand, no one has been able to determine that warton was apapist, nor prove that he was cynicafly suggesting that the Scripturetexts were forever unsettled. But he was a Laudian, an Arminian,and after December 2, 1660, a bishop in the Angrican church. Hisaim was probably to produce a monument of learning that wouldcelebrate

the supremacy of Anglo-catholicism oveiagainst thePuritans/nonconformists, implying that the latter were Lerely aninferior interruption within the continuity of Episcopar Anglican-ism.

walton's formal positions differ rittle from owen,s in fact. Butthose of his highly suspect bedfellows did, such as cappel andGrotius, both of whom were either quoted in or empioyed bywalton in sections of the polyglot. Extracts from cappir,r-critirosacra (1650) were freery employed, where (as owen well knew)cappel not only rejected the vowel points but suggested that theHebrew be amended by the translations. Cappel,s work, in turn,was based on the works of catholic scholars in France who had anexplicit agenda of wanting to undermind protestantism by high-Iighting the existence of both variants in the protestant ..ori'ginals,,as well as the late, (and considered to be arbitrary) im-posingpractice of the vowel points. Furthermore, Grotius had alsosuggested certain conjectural emendations. Hence, while waltonhimslef maintained that in

.25walto-n compared himself variously to origen, Erasmus, and the translators ofthe King James version, while viewing o*.., ii tt

"ctass

"r'"ilirr"r"*t o olpor"othese men. See Rev. Henry John todd, ptr oiri of the Life and Wrilings of theRtght Rcv. Brtan walton, Vol. 2 (London: F. C. *i. ni"iriio", f erfj,';p. 3.s.


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l

I

I

I

i

l

158 The Majority Textgathering various readings by mere conjectures, that author of theprolegomena is so far from approving that way, that he expressly rejectsit and gives reasons against it. . . .26

Nevertheless, he implicitly endorsed Grotius and the host of RomanCatholic authorities underlying Cappel's research, by utilizing them

both in his polyglot.Moreover, while Walton used additional language that sounds atfirst like the established Protestant position on this debate's centralissue-the doctrine of the providential preservation of the true textsof Scripture-unlike Owen he qualifies himself till he joins theRoman Catholic camp. Initially he is a model of the orthodox,Protestant view of Scripture as represented by Owen, the West-minster Confession, the Helvetic Consensus Formula, and Turretin:

The original texts are not corrupted either by Jews, Christians, orothers; that they are of supreme authority in all matters, and the rule totry all translations by; that the copies we now have are the truetranscripts of the first ar)r6.ypaga written by the sacred penmen; that thespecial providence of God hath watched over these books, to preservethem pure and uncorrupt against all attempts of sectaries, heretics, andothers, and will still preserve them to the end of the world for that endfor which they were first written . . .27

What he says next, however, partly negates what went before; andwhile innocuous-sounding, is incipient-Enlightenment in nature. Assuch it coincides with both the aims of Roman Catholic attacks onScripture, and the cynicism and atheism referred to by Owen:

That the errors or mistakes, which may befall [sic] by negligence orinadvertency of transcribers or printers, are in matters of no concern-ment, (from whence various readings have arisen,) and may by collationof other copies and other means there mentioned be rectified andamen de d.28 [emphasis mine]

26Todd, Memoirs,Vol. 2., p. 15. Actually, Walton had the best of two worlds: hecould present himself as a learned patron of scholarship and maintain an orthodoxposture, while using Grotius and Cappel to suggest that the texts of Scripture werecorrupt and needed correction from the versions and from conjecture.

27lbid., p. 14.2tlbid., pp. 14-15. Certainly Owen himself allowed that transcriptional error

existed; but what he was concerned about was how this would be interpreted andrectified outside of Reformed or Protestant circles, either by the hostile groups ofRoman Catholics, Socinians, Arminians, Anglo-Catholics, or atheists.

John Owen Versus Brian Walton 159Here Walton is admitting that in principle other copies ando'other means there mentioned (in the Prolegomena) may supplanta currently recieved reading, which, from his perspective, wouldalways be a matter of no concernment (the reading, not the act).But by what criteria would the latter be determined?

For Owen, this final qualiflcation was the opening of Pandora'sbox:

But the mind of man being exceedingly vainglorious, curious, uncertain,after a door to reputation and renown by this kind of learning wasopened in the world, it quickly spread itself over all bounds and limitsof sobriety. The manifold inconveniences, if not mischiefs, that haveensued on the boldness and curiosity of some in criticising the Scrip-tures, I shall not now insist upon . . .2e

Among other ways that sundry men have fixed on to exercise theircritical ablhties, one hath been the collecting of various lections both inthe Old Testament and New. The first and most honest course fixed onto this purpose was that of consulting various copies and comparingthem among themselves; wherein yet there were sundry miscarriages, asI shall show in the second treatise. This was the work of Erasmus,Stephan, Beza, Arias Montanus, and some others. Some that came afterthem, finding this province possessed, and no other world of the likenature remaining for them to conquer, fixed upon another way,substituting to the service of their design as pernicious a principle asever, I think, was fixed on by any learned man since the foundation ofthe church of Christ, excepting only those of Rome. Now this principleis, that, upon many grounds (which some of them are long inrecounting), there are sundry corruptions crept into the originals, whichby their critical faculty, with the use of sundry engines, those especiallyof the old translations, are to be discovered and removed. And this also

receives countenance from those Prolegomena to the Biblia Polyglotta,as will afterward be shown and discussed. Now, this principle beingonce fixed, and a liberty ofcriticising on the Scripture, yea, a necessityof it, thence evinced, it is inconceivable what springs of corrections andamendments rise up under their hands.3o

2eJohn Owen, The Epistle Dedicatory, in William H. Goold, ed,. The Works ofJohn Owen, Vol. XVI, (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth, 1968 [flrst published in1850-531), p. 289.

3olbid., p.290. Stanley N. Gundry produced a major study of Owen's view ofScripture, lohn Owen's Doctrine of the Scriptures: An Original Study of hisApproach to the Problem of Authority, S.T.M. thesis at Union College of BritishColumbia (now the Vancouver School of Theology), 1967 . ln order to counter the


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160 The Majority TextHow then did Owen propose to resist this tendency of theunchecked consciousness of would-be correctors of the texts ofScripture? What Walton almost articulated-the explicit doctrine ofprovidential preservation:

The sum of what I am pleading for, as the particular head to bevindicated, is, that as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament wereimmediately and entirely given out by God Himself, His mind being inthem represented unto us without the least interveniency of suchmediums and ways as were capable of giving change or alteration to theleast iota or syllable; so, by His good and merciful providentialdispensation, in His love to His Word and Church, His whole Word, asflrst given out by Him, is preserved unto us entire in the originallanguages; where, shining in its own beauty and lustre (as also in alltranslations, so far as they faithfully represent the originals), itmainfests and evidences unto the consciences of men, without otherforeign help or assistance, its divine original and authority.3r

We must clearly understand that for Owen this providential pres-Rogers/McKim thesis that Owen had scholastic tendencies on this issue, hemaintains that Owen's treatment of preservation was seriously deficient, andthat his statements were self-contradictory, hence no scholasticism, only aconfused man, Gundry, John Owen on Authority, p. 220.

Gundry's own confusion, however, stems from his inability to understand howanyone could argue for complete preservation while also admitting there werevariants. Actually, Owen saw only the minor variants between the various editionsof TR as valid areas for discrimination, staying within the broad parameters ofprovidential preservation, as exemplified by Erasmus, Stephen, Beza, AriasMontanus, and some others. Within the confines of these editions was the flrstand most honest course fixed on for consulting various copies and comparingthem among themselves.

This is both the concrete domain of the providentially preserved text, as well asthe only area for legitimate comparisons to chose readings

among theminutiae

ofdiflerences. In fact, God by His Providence preserving the whole entire; sufferedthis lesser variety [within the providentially preserved editions of the TR] to fallout, in or among the copies we have, for the quickening and exercising of ourdiligence in our search into His Word [for ascertaining the flnality of preservationamong the minutiae of differences among the TR editionsl (The Divine Original,p. 301). It is the activity, editions, and variants after this period of stabilization thatrepresent illegitimate activity, or, as Owen says, another way.

Thus Owen maintained an absolute providential preservation while grantingvariants. An analogy that comes to mind might be the television reception of abroadcast image. The entire signal might be received providing the entire image,but occasionally the signal must be tuned in further for greater clarity.

3rOwen, Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Text of theSoiptures, Vol XVI, pp. 349-50.

L


ervation did not pertain to certain codices that had yet to berestored to the church, not to variants that would be scientiflcallydetermined to be original. Rather, it meant specifically those textsthen possessed by Protestants, the standard to judge all challengersby:

Let it be remembered that the vulgar copy we use was the publicpossession of many generations,-that upon the invention of printing itwas in actual authority throughout the world with them that used andunderstood that language, as far as any thing appears to the contrary;let that, then, pass for the standard, which is confessedly its right anddue, and we shall, God assisting, quickly see how little reason there isto pretend such varieties of readings as we are now surprised withal.32

Owen was calling for a canonical view of the text, or the text ascanon, by which to assess variants-but variants from the provi-dentially preserved, canonical form of the texts of Scripture. He isconcerned to defend

the purity of the present original coples of the Scripture, or rather copiesin the original languages, which the church of God doth now and hathfor many ages enjoyed as her chiefest treasure [emphasis mine].33

It was the whole Scripture, entire as given out from God, withoutany loss, that was preserved in the copies of the originals yetrofltaining. 3a

These copies, we say, are the rule, standard, and touchstone of alltranslations, ancient or modern, by which they are in all things to beexamined, tried, corrected, amended; and themselves only by them-selves.3s

To think that any other source of manuscript authority, whetheroriginal language texts, versions, or conjectures, should rival thisestablished standard is to set up an altar of our own by the altarof God, and to make equal the wisdom,care, skill, and diligence ofmen, withthe wisdom, care, and providence of God Himself. r6We

,Tbtd- p36(-33lbid., p.353.34lbid., p.357.xslbtd,t6lbtd,

161


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of the sacred text?"a Only by truly appreciating what Owen wasreacting to, reflected in the creedal statements of the time, will weunderstand this. It was nothing less than a full-fledged counterat-tack intended to undermine the very foundations of Protestantism.It was mounted by the Roman Catholic Church, and others with a

political and religious interest in seeing classic Protestantism fail(such as the Anglo-Catholics following Walton and the incipient-Enlightenment adherents of Saumur). Owen was keenly aware ofthe Romish strategy to destroy the single weapon that had dealtsuch a death-blow to the medieval church-sola suiptura-bydemonstrating that no such entity existed independent of theChurch. Owen felt that they aimed

to place themselves in the throne of God, and to make the words of atranslation authentic from their stamp upon them, and not from theirrelation unto and agreement with the words spoken by God Himself.And yet further, as if all this were not enough to manifest what trusteesthey have been, they have cast off all subjection to the authority of Godin his Word, unless it be resolved into their own, denying that any manin the world can know it to be the Word of God unless they tell him so:it is but ink and paper, skin of parchment, a dead letter, a nose of wax,a lesbian rule,-of no authority unto us at all. O faithful trustees Holymother church Infallible chair Can wickedness yet make any furtherprogress?a5

Owen was well aware of the plethora of Catholic critics in his day,having interacted with their literature (something the critics whoblithely dismiss Owen would do well to do), particularly MelchiorCanus, Gulielmus Lindanus, Bellarminus, Gregorius, de Valentia,Leo Castrius, Huntlaeus, Hanstelius, "with innumerable others."46All of these men were singing the chorus in the same song,

that the original copies of the Old and New Testaments are so corrupted("ex ore tuo, serve nequam") that they are not a certain standard andmeasure of all doctrines, or the touchstone of all translations.aT

Owen is certain that

ad la his biographer, p. 346.4slbid., p. zB4.46lbid., p.285.47 lbid.

-

John Owen Versus Brian Walton 165Of all the inventions of Satan to draw off the minds of men from theWord of God, this of decrying the authority of the originals seems to methe most pernicious.a8

He notes a Jesuit, named Huntley, who even had his own view ofhow God's providence was really working: for him, the HebrewBible had been corrupted in "the good providence of God, for thehonour of the Vulgar Latint"+s

With regard to the vowel points in particular, the Papists hadfound an opportunity to vindicate their approach to authority in amost telling way, as Bowman reminds us:

It would be quite erroneous . . . to form the opinion that the Protestantsand Roman Catholics held opposing views on the points, merely to beconsistent in their opposition to one another. The skein is more tangledthan that. In claiming the late origin of the vowel-points, the RomanCatholics saw a way of championing the Vulgate translation as morereliable than the present Massoretic Hebrew text, which latter was

regarded by Protestants as the very Word of God. Further, if theintroduction of the Massoretic points was late, no one could havelearned the Scriptures without the oral tradition of the Jewish church.The Protestants were professed antitraditionalists; they refused toaccept the tradition of the Church of Rome, yet accepted the results ofthe tradition of the Jewish church. In this way the Catholics sought toshow Protestant inconsistency.so

That Cappellus, the first Protestant to argue for the late introduc-tion of the points, could be connected with this conspiracy wasevidenced by the fact that his major work Critica Saua was refusedpublication in the Protestant states and so had to be published at

Paris in 1650 through the eflorts of Morinus and other Catholics.sr4lbid.aelbid. Gregory de Valencia, along with Huntley, believed the Hebrew should be

brought into conformity with the Latin Vulgate. De Rossi and John Morinus, aformer French Protestant turned Roman Catholic priest, maintained that ..Godgave the Old Testament without vowels because He desired men to follow thechurch's interpretation, not their own, for the Hebrew tongue without vowels as itwas given is a 'very nose of wax.' " Bowman adds, "In short, it is God's will thatmen depend on the priest." Bowman, "A Forgotten Controversy," pp. 5l n. 1,52.

soBowman, "A Forgotten Controversy," p.47.5tlbid.,p.54. Owen took note of this, commenting that Cappellus had to ..once

more flee to the Papists by the help of his son, a great zealot amongst them; as hedid with hia Critica, to get it published." Owen, Integrity, p.369.


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168 The Majority TextMasoretic Text "there are some diverse readings, or variouslections."61 However,

Where there is any variety it is always in things of less, indeed of no,importance. God by His providence preserving the whole entire,suffered this lesser variety to fall out, in or among the copies we have,for the quickening and exercising of our diligence

in our search into HisWord.62

Additionally, he concedes that among the scribes "it is known, it isgranted, that failings have been amongst them, and that variouslections are from thence risen."63 However, Owen is not concedingWalton's earlier interpretation of these. Nor is he conceding whatmoderns say-that no variants affect any essential doctrine, henceall manner of emendation may take place with no repercussions.Instead he believes that "the whole Word of God, in every letter andtittle, as given from Him by inspiration, is preserved withoutcorruption."6a These incidental errors do not give license to attempta new recension of the text, as Walton's use of Grotius and Cappellimplies. Furthermore, Owen directly confutes their belief thatsuggested emendations will not change doctrine and thereforeshould be allowed:

Nor is the relief Cappellus provides against the charge of bringingthings to an uncertainty in the Scripture, (which he found himselfobnoxious unto,) less pernicious than the opinion he seeks to palliatethereby . . . "The saving doctrine of the Scripture," he tells us, ..as to thematter and substance of it, in all things of moment, is preserved in thecopies of the original and translations that remain."6s

Owen answers,that

To depress the sacred truth of the originals into such a condition aswherein it should stand in need of this apology, . . . will at length befound a work unbecoming a Christian, Protestant divine.66

Furthermore,6rOwen, The Divine Original, p.301.albid.63Owen, Integrity, p. 355.flOwen, The Divine Original, p.301.6slbid., p.302.66lbid.


Nor is it enough to satisfy us, that the doctrines mentioned arepreserved entire; every tittle and i6ca in the word of God must comeunder our care and consideration, as being, as such, from God.67

And with this rebuttal owen spells out clearly, how utterly impen-etrable is the text when treated as canon.

owen had a further compraint with the variants found inwalton's polyglot, and modern research has vindicated him. Hewas most displeased with the unsystematic and uncritical use ofvariants. walton's anti-nonconformist stance along with his odiousassociations with cappellus and Grotius, whose works helped toamass the variants in his polyglot, were sufficient for owen toconclude that this was not scholarship so much as a rhetoricaldevice with a polemical motive:

The voluminous burk of various lections, as nakedly exhibited, seemssufficient to beget scruples and doubts in the minds of men about thetruth of what hath- been hitherto by many pretended concerning thepreservation of the Scripture through the care and providence of God.6s

In combing over walton's variants, owen noted that their ,.nakedexhibition" allowed for no degree of descrimination, betweenabsolute nonsense readings or technical errors, and bonafide vari-ants, thus giving the impression of reaching to make a point. Hecomplains that the appendix has a collection of variants that ..makeup a book bigger than the New Testament itself' "6e He observesthat prior to the polyglot, lists of variants were drawn up byscholars from manuscripts in their possession; others had listedthose "which they judged of importance, or that might make somepretence to be considered whether they were proper or no.,,7o But inthe polyglot,

we have all that by any means courd be brought to hand, and thatwhether they are tolerably attested for various lections or no; for as toany contribution unto the better understanding of the Scripiure fromthem, it cannot be pretended.zr

67lbid., p.303.68Owen, Integrity, p. 352.olbid., p.362.1olbtd., p.363.Ttlbld, Thia procedure broke precedent with sixteenth-century Reformed text

169


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170 The Majority TextOwen, has been vindicated on this observation as of the discoveryof the origin of the so-called Velezian readings, supposedlyvarious readings from sixteen Greek manuscripts. As it turns outthey were yet another Roman Catholic attempt at manuscriptfabrication and falsiflcation. They were printed by De la Cerda in

his Adversaria Sacra, (1626) as a supposed discovery in the marginof a Greek Testament received from Mariana, a Spanish historian.The variants, in turn, according to Mariana, were put in theTestament by its former owner, Don Pedro Faxardo, Marquis ofVelez. Faxardo maintained that eight of the MSS employed by himhad come from the library of the king of Spain. It was BishopMarch, however, who discovered that these readings were taken notfrom Greek MSS but from the Latin Vulgate as found in Stephens'1539-40.72

Owen went on to further underscore what he observed in theAppendix:

Hence it is come to pass . . . that whatever varying word, syllable, ortittle, could be by any observed, wherein any book, though ofyesterday,varieth from the common received copy, though manifestly a mistake,superfluous or deficient, inconsistent with the sense of the place, yea,

criticism, as can be seen in Theodore Beza's work. He clearly rejected Codex D andcertain of its readings as even meriting consideration. Owen was aware of how outof step Walton's practice was, nothing Beza's judgment: Beza. .. hath pro-fessedly slrgzatized his own manuscript, that he sent unto Cambridge, as so corruptin the Gospel of Luke that he durst not publish the various lections of it, for fearof offence and scandal. . . . We have here, if I mistake not [in the polyglot] all thecorruptions of that copy given us as various readings Op. cit., p.365. Cf.Theodore P. Letis, Theodore Beza as Text Critic: A Yiew into Sixteenth CenturyNew Testament Text Criticism.

T2Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek NewTestament (London: Samuel Bagster, 1854), pp. 38-39. Additionally, Vincentinforms us of needless redundancy in Walton's employment of the Wechelianreadings, found in the margin of a Bible printed at Frankfurt, 1597,by the heirsof Andrew Wechel. All of these readings are found in Stephen's margin, or in theearly editions. Marvin R. Vincent, A History of the Textual Criticism of the NewTestament (New York Macmillan, 1903), p. 67 n.2.

Oddly enough, rather than offering Owen some credit for calling for restraint inthis exercise of amassing uncritically and indiscriminatley as many variants aspossible, Tregelles informs us that Walton . . . is not to be blamed for insertingthese readings [Velezian] in his collection. Critical studies were then not sufficientlyadvanced to authorized the selection of materials. Op. cit., p. 39.

I

John Owen Versus Brian Walton nlbarbarous, is presently imposed on us as a various lection.T3

owen felt that if there had been an honest, scholarly attempt toverify as well as discriminate among this pool of variants, thenumber could have been greatly reduced, a number..whose consid-eration might be of some other use than merely to create atemptation to the reader that nothing is left sound and entire in theWord of God. 7a

on this point owen was remarkably ahead of his time. when heargued that it is not every variety or difference in a copy thatshould presently be cried up for a various tazding,,,ts h. *u,anticipating something Eldon Jay Epp would be calling for, overthree hundred years later, in his essay Toward the clarification ofthe Term'Textual variant'. Epp informs us (in ranguage very closeto what Owen was calling for) that

The common or surface assumption is that any textual reading thatdiffers in

any way from any other reading in the same unit of text is a textual variant, but this simplistic deflnition will not suffice. Actually,in New Testament textual criticism the term ..textual variant,, reallymeans-and must mean-'osignificant ot meaningful textual vari-ant, . . . A distinction must be made, therefore, betwin..reading,, and'variant -where

the latter term means signiflcant variant,,;'and itbecomes clear that textual critics must raise the question oi when atextual reading is also a textual vaiant.76This leads us to a third area where owen displays prudence far in

advance of his day. Now in our time F. F. Bruce and others havecharacteized owen as a mere dogmatist who suffered an undue sensitiveness on the score of variant readings,,,

and have praisedwalton for giving us our first systematic collection oi N *Testament variant roadings, 77 (This simply misrepresents the casesince the historic and theological context is ignored by such apresentation, not to mention a sensitivity to the actual detaits of the

O**jrtrsr$, p.365.talbid., p.364.Tslbid.

- ]lE lgl Jay Epp. Toward the Clarification of the Term 'Textuar variant,,,, inJ. Kr. Elliott' ed., studies in New Testament Language and rext (Leiden: Brill,1976), pp. 154-55.77Bruce, Tradltion, p. 156.


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172 The Majority Textaffair.) The truth of the matter is, Owen was quite frank inacknowledging that Protestants first attempted gathering togetherand evaluating variants.T8 Furthermore-because he had notlearned the convenient technique, so cofllmon among moderns, ofcompartmentalizing his understanding of the theological signifi-

cance of the text from the critical analysis and study of it-he feltthat from a pastoral point of view it was not proper to allow whatin many cases amounted to the conjectures of men conceited oftheir own abilities to correct the Word of God 7e to go on a publicdisplay. Rather than ignore or altogether stifle discussion onvariants, Owen wanted such speculation to take place in its propersetting:

It is known to all men acquainted with things of this nature that in allthese there is no new opinion coined or maintained by the learnedprefacer to these Bibles; the severals mentioned have been asserted andmaintained by sundry learned men. Had the opinion about them been

kept in the ordinary sphere of men's private conceptions, in their ownprivate writings, running thehazard of men's judgements on their ownstrength and reputation, I should not from my former discourse haveesteemed myself concerned in them. Every one of us must give anaccount of himself unto God. It will be well for us if we are foundholding the foundation. If we build hay and stubble upon it, though ourwork perish, we shall be saved. Let every man in these things be fullypersuaded in his own mind; it shall be to me no offence. It is their beinglaid as the foundation of the usefulness of these Biblia Polyglotta, withan endeavor to render them catholic, not in their own strength, but intheir appendage to the authority that on good grounds is expected tothis work, that calls for a due consideration of them. All men who will

find them stated in these Prolegomena may not perhaps have hadleisure, may not perhaps have the ability, to know what issue the mostof these things have been already driven unto in the writings of privatemen.

As I willingly grant, then, that some of these things may, without anygreat prejudice to the truth, be candidly debated amongst learned men,so taking them altogether, placed in the advantages they now enjoy, Icannot but look upon them as an engine suited to the destruction of theimportant truth before pleaded for $rovidential preservationl and as a

TEOwen, Integrity, p. 362.lelbid., p.359.


fit weapon put into the hand of men of atheistical minds and principles,such as this age abounds withal, to oppose the whole evidence of truthrevealed in the Scripture. I fear, with some, either the pretendedinfallible judge [pope] or the depth of atheism will be found to lie at thedoor of these considerations.8o

How well did Owen reflect the consensus of either the sixteenth-century Reformed tradition, or that of his own time? Owen himselfrefers to Theodore Beza's rejection of the oldest uncial in his day,because it was so corrupt in the Gospel of Luke that he durst notpublish the various lections of it, as a precedent for his own stance.As we mentioned at the outset, the sixteenth century was the era ofProtestant attack and no real confessional statement appears on thedoctrine of providential preservation until the Roman Catholiccounterattack, which precipitated both the Westminster Confessionof Faith and the Helveticus Consensus Formula. Concerning thefirst, Jack P. Rogers has done a good job in discovering just what

the Westminster divines meant when they said:The Old Testament in Hebrew. . . and New Testament in Greek. . .being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care andprovidence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical;. . .sr

According to Rogers, for the Westminster divinesThe text of Scripture is the Word of God, and God's Word is not to besought independently of the text of Scripture. Inspiration does notusually imply any particular theory about how the Scripture came to bethe Word of God. Nor does inspiration elminate the contribution whichthe human authors made to the written Scripture. And most certainly,for the Westminster divines, inspiration can not be used as an excuse fortrying to find God's word separate from the written text of Scripture.82

Furthermore, J. S. Candlish explicates what they intended by theirword authentical :

The eighth section of the chapter treats of the original text andtranslations of Scripture, and is directed, as to both of these points,

80lbid., pp.352-53.8rThe Westminster Confession (1646), Chapter l, Section 8, as found in John H.

Leith, Creeds of the Churches: A Reader in Christian Doctrine from the Bible to thePresent,2nd ed. (Richmond; John Knox Press, 1973), p. 196.

82Rogers, Suipture, pp. 301-302.

t73


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176 The Majority Textlet that, then, pass for the standard, which is confessedly its right anddue, . . . [emphasis mine]tz

Furthermore he charged the Papists with having called into ques-tion these texts as canonical standard. They were arguing

that the original copies of the Old and New Testaments are so corrupted( ex ore tuo, serve nequam ) that they are not a certain standard andmeasure of all doctrines, or the touchstone of all translations.8s

The Helvetic Consensus Formula said so too, noting the problem ofthose who

from their own reason alone . . . do not acknowledge any other readingto be genuine except that which can be educed by the critical power ofthe human judgement from the collation of editions with each other andwith the various readings of the Hebrew original itself-which, theymaintain, has been corrupted in various ways; and. . . they affirm thatbesides the Hebrew edition of the present time, there are. . . otherHebrew originals

.. . thus they

bring the foundation of our faith and itsinviolable authority into perilous hazard.se

With this in mind they determine that

The Hebrew original of the Old Testament, which we have received andto this day do retain as handed down by the Jewish church . . . not onlyin its matter, but in its words, inspired of God, thus forming, togetherwith the original of the New Testament, the sole and complete rule offaith and hfe1' and to its standard, as to a Lydian stone, all extant versions,Oriental and Occidental, ought to be applied, and whereyer they dffir, bec onforme d. [emphasis mine]oo

What of Francis Turretin (1623-1657), one of the contributors ofthis confessional statement, whose theology played such a large rolein the establishment of the so-called Princetonian theology in thenineteenth century? He, too, saw this entire debate as counter-response to the Roman Catholic challenge to the most fundamentalof the Reformation tenets, sola scriptura. Under the chapter, The

87Owen, Integrity, p. 366.88Owen, Epistle, p. 285.8eH. C. F., Chapter IILnlbid., Chapter ll.


Purity of the original Text, in Locus 2 of his Institutio TheologiaeElencticae, he says

This Question is forced upon us by the Roman catholics, who raisedoubts concerning the purity of the sources in order more readily toestablish the authority of their vulgate and lead us to the tribunal of thechurch.el

Turretin informs us that by the terminus technicus original texts,'he means

copies (apographa), which have come in their name [autographs]because they record for us that word of God in the same words intowhich the sacred writers committed it under the immediate inspirationof the Holy Spiril.ez

Like owen before him, Turretin admits to some minor technicalerrors and variants within the established texts, but it does notnecessitate (as it did for walton, and for post-EnlightenmentProtestantism) that a reconstruction of the text is therefore calledfor. Instead, again using the language of both Owen and theHelvetic Consensus Formula, Turretin believes that

The question is whether the original text, in Hebrew or in Greek, hasbeen so corrupted, either by the carelessness of copyists or by the maliceof Jews and heretics, that it can no longer by held as the judge ofcontroversies and the norm by which all versions without exception are tobe judged. The Roman Catholics affirm this; we deny it. [emphasismine]93

The reason for this, as it was with the westminster confession,John owen and the Helvetic consensus Formula, is because ofprovidential preservation:

That the sources are not corrupt is demonstrated by (l) the providenceof God, which would not allow (cui repugnat) that the books which Hehad willed to be written by inspired men for the salvation of the human

t77

_erFrancis Turretin, The _Doctrine of Scripture, ed. and transl. by John w.Uq1$spe III (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, l98l; rept. of l6gg

a.;,p. t tf .e2ibid.

ellbid., pp. l13-14. Although various small changes (corruptulae) may havecome into the Hebrew codices through the carelessness olcopyiits o.ihe *rage,of time, they would not therefore cease to be the canon of iaith and conduit,'(p. I l7).


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180 The Majority TextAbsolute historical certainty of results is not to be expected, since somany of the documents of the primitive church are gone forever; but,after all, the weight of that probability brings back the critical conclu-sions to the theory of Nolan and Scholz, restoring the claims of theKor,vil'Ex8oor6, or received text, to be a faithful one, and invalidating theclaims of exclusive accuracy made by our recent critics in favor of the

so-called oldest c odice s.to2Hence, Dabney, though showing the marks of Enlightenmentinfluence on his language ("weight of probability";,to: neverthelessstill reflects the Reformation content in retaining the received textsin the seat of primacy.

But as Rogers, McKim, and Sandeen have noticed, the NorthernPresbyterians, did not fare as well. Sandeen,rM Rogers and McKimare all correct when they argue that Warfield defended biblicalauthority in a manner wholly different from that of the Reformersor seventeenth century Reformed theologians. They are furthercorrect in maintaining that this resulted from the pressure of biblicalcriticism, and speciflcally, as William Orr recognized, textual criti-cism. It was this that chased Warfield into the arms of Common-Sense Philosophy. This is most obvious in the shift away fromdefending the in-hand texts of the Reformation, toward positing apost-scientific, inerrant autographa. Thus he escaped the cynicismof Enlightenment, Deistic New Testament text critics, who wereholding up variants as proof that no infallible record was left us ofthe "historic Jesus."

In turn, this allowed Warfleld to flex his own Enlightenment

ro2Robert L. Dabney, "The Doctrinal Various Readings of the New TestamentGreek," The Southern Presbyterian Review (April l87l), in his Dl'scz,ssiozs.'Evangelical and Theological (London: The Banner of Truth, 1967 [first published inl8e0l), p. 390.

l03He, however, in a later review of the Revised Version (1881) published thatsame year in the Southern Presbyterian Review (July l88l), speaks of the TextusReceptus standing up well, "Whether by good fortune or by the critical sagacity ofErasmus or by the superintendence of a good Providence. . ." Dabney, Discus-sions, p.395.

rMErnest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and AmericanMillenarianism, 1800-1930 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978 [originallypublished in 19701), pp. 103-31.


prowess in "reconstructing" the texts of Scripture, after the canonscreated by such higher critics as semler and his disciple Griesbach.

So he had it both ways: by positing the perfect, platonic form ofthe autographa-inscrutable and safe from whatever the cynicsmight say-he in turn surrendered the particulars of the previously-

believed-to-be-providentially-preserved texts of the Reformation tothe Enlightenment critics, believing that no doctrinal loss wouldoccur. Time has proved him to be naive on the latter point.ros

While Rogers and McKim argued that Warfield was the first tosurrender the Reformation texts (like Lot,s daughters to theinhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah) in order to preserve theangelic autographa. Woodbridge and Balmer have shown at leastone earlier explicit reference to this new shift, in the writings ofFrancis L. Patton (1869). The reader should note that by now, thedoctrine of providential preservation is no longer a necessarycorollary to divine

inspiration, as we saw in the seventeenth century.Rather we find the doctrine of divine inspiration tempered withnatur alis tic "reconstruction" :

The books of the Bible as they came from the hands of their writerswere infallible. The autographs were penned under divine guidance. Itis not claimed that a perpetual miracle has preserved the sacred textfrom the errors ofcopyists. The inspired character ofour Bible depends,of course, upon its correspondence with the original inspired manu-scripts. These autographs are not in existence, and we must determine

@ofthefoIlowingliterature,Bentley,seighteenth-centurynai'vet6 concerning the innocuous nature of variants, so often repeated up to thepresent, can no longer be maintained:

c.S.

c. williams, Alterations to thi Text ofth9 Synoptic Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, l95l); Leon Wrighi,Alterqtions of the lVords o Jgsus as Quoted in the Literature of the second century(cambridge: cambridge Univ. press, 1952);E. w. Saunders, ;studies in DoctrinilI411,*.gf on the Byzantine Text of the Gospels,', JBL LXXXI (1952), pp.85-92;K. w. clark, "Textual Criticism and Doctrine,- studia paulina in- HonoremJ:-haynil 3 Zloof (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn N. V., 1953), pp. 52-65; K. W.clark, "The Theological Relevance of rextual variation in current criticism ofthe Greek New Testament," JBL Lxxxv (1966); Erich Fascher, Textgeschichteals hermeneutisches Problem (Haale [Saale]: veb Max Niemeyer verlig, 1953);E.]do1 Jay epp, The Theological rendency of codex Bezae caniabrigiensls' in Acts(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1966); Edward F. Hills, ..Intioduction', tothc reprint 9f J._W. Burgon's The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel of Mark (n.p.;The Sovcreign Grace Book Club, 1959).

l8r


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t82 The Majority Text

the correct text of Scripture in the same way that we determine the textof any of the ancient classics.lo6

No clearer contrast can be found than that offered in Owen's earlierquoted words:

It can, then, with no colour of probability be asserted (which yet I findsome learned men too free in granting), namely, that there hath thesame fate attended the Scripture in its transcription as hath done otherbooks.roT

Twenty-two years after Patton's essay, R. L. Dabney would notewith disapprobation in his essay The Influence of the GermanUniversity System on Theological Literature (1881) a characteris-tic of German criticism, that Patton suggested should be employedin determining the text of Scripture:

They dissect the evangelists, epistles and prophets, just as they doHomer or the Vedas. They have never felt that declaration of ourSavior: The words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and they arelife. The response which is made by the profoundest intuitions of thehuman heart and conscience, quickened by the Spirit, to these livelyoracles, immediately avouching them as the words of the creator of thehuman soul, is unnoticed by these critics. They propose to settle theauthenticity or falsehood of the records by antiquarian processes only,similar to those by which Niebuhr proposed to test the legends of earlyRome, or Wolf the genuineness of the Homeric epics.tot

As it happens, B. B. Warfield himself was a paradigm of whatDabney was describing. Having studied at the University of Leipzigduring 1876-1877, he was the flrst confessing Evangelical fromAmerica ever to publish a handbook on the Enlightenment praxis ofNew Testament textual criticism. In this work he not only fails todiscuss the fundamental tenet of providential preservation, heabsolutely legitimizes the procedure that Dabney warned against,

r06Woodbridge and Balmer, The Princetoniaw, p.268. It should be noted thatPatton was not necessarily reflecting the view of charles Hodge on this point. SeeTheodore P. l*tts, Edward F. Hills's contribution to the Revival of the EcclesiasticalIexf, Unpublished M.T.S. Thesis, Emory University, May, 1987, pp.73-77.

lo7Owen, Integrity, p. 357.ro8Dabney, Discussions, p. 448.


which entails the canons devised by the Germanthese canons, Warfield tells us:

183

Noting

It matters not whether the writing before us be a letter from a friend, oran inscription from Carchemish, or a copy of a morning newspaper, orshakespeare, or Homer, or the Bible, these and only these ur ir, klrdtof evidence applicable.toe

so-what ever was warfield to do with the westminster confes-sion, which Professor Mois6s Silva reminds us, ..was produced onthe basis of the Textus Receptus? r, Noting the present disparity,Silva asks, who would want to argue that the adoption of the uBStext requires a revision of that document?,, In a sense, Warfieldconcluded that just such a revision was required. However, while hedid not revise the westminster confession, he did radically revise itsinterpretation, which amounted to a revision of meaning. Earlier,A. A. Hodge had offered a precedent for this inhis The confessionof Faith (1869), a commentary on the westminster confession.Unlike theframers ofthis document, orthe predominant seventeenth-century interpreters of it such as owen, Turretin, whitaker, Jewel,et al-,Hodge no longer spoke in terms of providential preservation,but of ascertaining the true text of the ancient Scripture . . . bymeans of a careful collation and comparison. . .',ur

warfield, in like manner, reinterpreted the westminster confes-sion to say not that the text had been providentially preserved, butthat it was in a current stage of providential restoration,through thesame naturalistic principles that the confession, John owen, theHelvetic consensus Formula and Turretin were guarding against.Nevertheless, he retained the traditional language:

In the sense of the westminster confession, therefore, the multiplica-tion ofthe copies ofthe Scriptures, the several early efforts towards therevision of the text, the raising up of scholars in our own day to collect

@troduction to the Textuar criticism of the New Testament(Lgldon: Hodder and Stoughton, 1883), p. 10.

rl0Mois6s silva, Review of -zare c. rtodges and Arthur L. Farstad (eds.), TheGreek New Testament Accordtng to the Majority Text,in westminster iheoiogicalJournal, Vol. XLV, No. I (Spring 1983), pp. 18485.. ^ i']4 {.. H9d se, The Confissioi oy riiin'lfonaon: The Banner of Truth Trust,l95E [originally published in 1869]), p. 41.


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184 The Majority Textand collate MSS., and to reform the text on scientific principles-of ourTischendorfs, and Tregelleses, and Westcotts and Horts-are all partsof God's singular care and providence in preserving His inspired WordPure'ttz

Warfield must have hoped that no real historian would come tothe fore and charge him with a radical reinterprctation of theWestminster divines' meaning, but alas (for him) they did. In thissame essay he quotes an opponent who raises this point:

As a professor in a theological seminary, it has been my duty to makea special study of the Westminster Confession of Faith, as I have donefor twenty years; and I venture to affirm that no one who is qualified togive an opinion on the subject, would dare to risk his reputation on thestatement that the Westminster divines ever thought of the originalmanuscripts of the Bible as distinct from the copies in theirpossession.l l3

Warfield did not address the historical reality of what the seven-

teenth centuryr14 thought, but diverted the argument to the moderncontext implying that those who did not hold his reinterpretationwere out of touch with the modern critical opinion regarding thepresent state of the text. This was a classic attempt at reductio adabsurdum:

Still another curiosity of the present controversy is found in theconstant asseveration which we hear about us, that the distinctiondrawn by the Presbyterian Church between the genuine text of Scriptureand the current and more or less corrupt texts in general circulation, issomething new. This is a rather serious arraignment of the commonsense of the whole series of preceding generations. What Are we tobelieve that no man until our wonderful nineteenth century ever had

"'BJ. W".fi.ldJr, Westminster Assembly and its work(Baker Book House,1981 [orig. publ. in his collected works, 1931]), p.239. Warfield felt his interpre-tation was "accordant with the teachings of the Bible and within the limits ofcommon sense" (emphasis mine), "The Inerrancy of the Original Autographs," inMark A. Noll, ed., The Princeton Theology 1812-1921: Scripture, Science, andTheological Methodfrom Archibald Alexander to Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield,(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983),p.214.

rr3warfield, The Westminster Assembly, pp.237-38 n.46.ll4He did briefly make an attempt in another essay to refer to some of the

westminster divines' opinion on this but it is a cursory treatment that is less thancompelling. "The Inerrancy of the Original Autographs," pp. 273-74.

t


acumen enough to detect a printer's error or to realize the liability ofhandcopied manuscripts to occasional corruption?rrs

warfield asserted, contrary to all that we have surveyed from theseventeenth century, that it was just the intention of the west-minster divines to make ftrs distinction between the perfect original

autograph and the preserved text which he calls o'corrupted" no lessthan nine times in a brief six-page essay, referring to extant copiesof scripture, which is in a perpetual state of ever being restoredcloser to its autographic perfection

This warfieldian revisionism has meant that while oceans of inkhave been spilled in defending these inerrant platonic forms (not tomention the divisions, hurtful conflicts and politics arising out ofthis modern theory), the heirs of the Reformation have had less andless regard for the actual form of the texts of scripture used in thegtrulqhgs.rte In short, actual biblical authority (i.e., actual regardand jealousy for the existential Bible) has not known the spiritualvitality that it possessed from the sixteenth to the end of thenineteenth century. with the real emphasis of importance beingplaced in an unseen, unsubstantial form of authority, the sense ofcanon has been lost.rrT How might this be corrected so that theinterlude era of inerrancy might be transcended, and the originalgenius of both the sixteenth and seventeenth century approach tobiblical authority might be recaptured? perhaps the emergingdiscipline of canon uiticism holds the answer.

V. CaNoN Cnrrtcrsu: AN OppoRTUNTry ro RETURN ToTHE ITEFORMATION

while canon criticism is no panacea, it does offer a new modelthat allows for the relegitimization of the Reformation approach to- ,r\btd- p2?L. ^lj .: Jakob van Rruggen's The Future of the Bible (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,1978) for a rare and accurate treatment of the historic shift from ecclesiasticaicontrol to secular control of the Bible Societies, and the complete dominance ofcommunication theory over theological considerations in veriracular translationwork-and the churches' ratification of this.llTThe Roman catholic church is alert to this: in their current edition of thecg.tlolic Elcyclopedia, s.v. "Bible," they list eighty-eight "private" (non-committeeeditions) Protestant editions since l6il. Lisiing eu"t oi these in chronoiogicalorder makes a rhetorical statement equivalent tJthe l6th/l7th century foiygiots.

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Theodore P. Letis on John Owen vs Brian Walton

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