Preservation: How and What? Part 2
Read Part 1.Fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals believe God has preserved His word. The debate among them is mainly over the manner of preservation and the form the preserved word has taken. Some believe we have a God-preserved, word-perfect text we can identify with certainty. Others believe we do not.
Those who hold to identifiable, word-perfect preservation cite several passages in support of their doctrine. Part 1 of this series examined several of the strongest of these to see what they they actually teach.1 I concluded that these passages lead us to believe God will preserve His word perfectly in a form that is at least potentially discoverable, but that they do not promise that God’s people will always be able to point to a particular manuscript or text and confidently claim it is the word-perfect, preserved text.
Others have examined these passages (and others) and come to very similar conclusions (Moritz, 86-88; Beacham and Bauder, 116-123; Williams and Shaylor, 83-111), and defenders of certainly-identifiable, word-perfect preservation have responded with counterarguments and accusations. Many of these obscure the real issues in the debate and attempt to frame it in a way that heavily favors their view.
Thou Shalt Keep Them
A fairly recent example is the book Thou Shalt Keep Them, edited by Kent Brandenburg in 2003 and revised in 2007. The book may well be the most thorough and thoughtful effort to make a biblical case for “verbal, plenary preservation” (23), but it also alleges that those who disagree with it’s view of preservation approach the Scriptures with attitudes strongly influenced by rationalism, humanism, and unbelieving textual critics (46-47, 131, 255), and with the aim of “trying to please the academic crowd” (126).
In Part 1, however, I argued exclusively from Scripture (both what it says and what it does not say), not from any external evidence. I cannot prove that I am not a rationalist or that I have no interest in winning the praise of the “academic crowd” (though perhaps “innocent until proven guilty” would be an appropriate principle here). What I can do is focus once again on what the Scriptures themselves reveal and, in the process, move toward framing the debate more accurately.
The Bible and Human Fallibility
Do the Scriptures teach that human beings normally do anything perfectly? If they teach that even faithful believers normally err in all they do, proponents of word-perfect preservation must make a biblical case for why believers would not err in the process of copying Scripture. So when we turn to the Bible, what do we find?
1. The fallibility of believers
We’re all sinners and all we do is tainted by that sinfulness (Rom. 3:23, Rom. 3:10, Isa. 64:6). Though believers are “new creations” (2 Cor. 5:17), sin remains an ongoing problem (Heb. 12:4, 1 John 1:8). We continue to sin both intentionally and unintentionally (Psa. 19:12-13).
In addition to this ongoing problem of wickedness, we also suffer from ordinary weakness (Matt. 26:41, 2 Cor. 11:29, 1 Thess. 5:14, Heb. 5:2). We make mistakes, forget things, express ourselves inexactly, grow weary, become confused, reason poorly, and literally fall down.
What sort of quality should we expect in the work of such beings as ourselves? Paul warned Timothy to exert himself diligently so that he would “rightly divide” (accurately handle) the “word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15; see also 1 Tim. 4:16). The clear implication is that he was capable of failing to be adequately diligent and capable failing to handle the word properly. What’s more, even mature, committed, well-trained believers such as the apostle Peter sinned in ways that distorted the gospel (Gal. 2:11-14).
Our understanding of inspiration and preservation must account for what Scripture reveals about believers’ propensity to err and sin.
2. The fallibility of Israel and the churches
The writers of Thou Shalt Keep Them claim that God has used two key institutions to maintain word perfect copies of His word. Thomas Strouse summarizes their view as follows.
[T]he Biblical writers clearly delineated the means for the preservation of God’s OT and NT words in Scripture. That the Lord used His NT congregation, as He did His OT saints, to be the agency through which His Words were preserved, is irrefragible [sic]. (109)
Chapters 11-14 focus on making a biblical case for this view. But weighing the biblical evidence for the idea of perfect preservation through the community of true believers requires that we first recognize what the Bible teaches about the character of these institutions.
Scripture reveals that, when it comes to wickedness and weakness, what is true of individual believers is also true of the body of believers. The epistles were all written to address problems in local churches, and some of these problems were severe. Though the church is described as “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), these words describe the responsibility given to the church, not the church’s inherent character (cf. Brandenburg, 117-121). Paul does not assert that the church will perform its role as pillar and ground perfectly.
In the Bible, only one local church receives an evaluation free of criticism for failures. Christ commends the church of Philadelphia (Rev. 3:7-13) on every point. However, even this church receives the solemn warning to “hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown” (3:11, KJV). Even this church was capable of slipping and failing to do its work properly.
The body of true believers in the Old Testament was certainly no better! That they were given the responsibility of keeping and declaring the words of God (Brandenburg, 100) is not in dispute. But they were given many other responsibilities as well, and ultimately failed to execute any of them perfectly.
Prior to the reign of Josiah, idolatrous kings even managed to lose a vitally important copy of “the book of the law” for years, until Hilkiah accidentally rediscovered it (2 Kings 22:8). Opinions vary regarding whether this “book” was Deuteronomy or the entire Pentateuch, or whether any other copies of “the Law” were then available. Josiah’s reaction (22:10-13) suggests this “book” was, at best, one of very few surviving copies at the time. Some might object that these Israelite kings do not represent the true people of God during this time. However, if the leadership in Judah was not the chosen agency for preservation during that era, who could have been? It was certainly not the consistently idolatrous kings of the northern tribes.
In both the OT and the NT, the community of faithful believers is revealed to be one prone to error, and our doctrines of inspiration and preservation must take this clear biblical truth into account.
Implications for inspiration and preservation
Because the Bible teaches that imperfection is normal for God’s people, any claim that they have done something perfectly requires strong biblical evidence of an exception to the rule.
In the case of inspiration, we have that evidence. We are told that God acted directly on the writers of Scripture as they spoke and wrote. “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. 1:21), and every Scripture is theopneustos, God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). In every part, it possesses the quality of having flowed from God Himself.
That the Scriptures thus inspired must be God’s words—word for word—is the point of Peter’s “no prophecy…is of any private interpretation.” Peter’s assertion is, literally, that Scriptures are not of one’s own epilusis—explanation or analysis. Though the meaning of epilusis is debated, the context clearly contrasts the idea of one’s own epilusis with the idea of speaking as the Spirit moves. Consequently, the point is that the Spirit produced the words.
This miraculous phenomenon of fallible men infallibly communicating God’s words is what David describes in 2 Samuel 23:2. “The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.”
So in the case of inspiration, we have strong biblical evidence that God miraculously overcame select believers’ normal fallibility so that they would produce His perfect word. But in the case of preservation, do we find equally strong biblical evidence? Though passages indicating God expects His people to faithfully “keep”2 His word are indeed numerous (Brandenburg, 100-102), does the Bible indicate that God’s people will certainly obey that charge or that they will do so with word-perfect accuracy?
Conclusions
Though Scripture speaks often of the preservation of all of God’s words, it contains no direct descriptions of the process of word-preservation that parallel the kinds of statements we have about inspiration.3 No passage refers to men of old copying, guarding or preserving as they were moved by the Spirit—much less, translating with miraculous intervention to ensure a perfect result.
Nonetheless, the authors of Thou Shalt Keep Them (as well as others), believe a strong biblical case for miraculous, verbal, plenary preservation can be derived from multiple passages that speak to the subject less directly.
Future articles in this series will examine that evidence to see whether it should lead us to believe that God has enabled fallible human beings to make error-free copies of His word.
Works Cited
Brandenburg, Kent, ed. Thou Shalt Keep Them: A Biblical Theology for the Perfect Preservation of Scripture. Revised edition. El Sobrante: Pillar & Ground, 2007.
Moritz, Fred. Contending for the Faith. Greenville: BJU Press, 2000.
Williams, James B., and Randolph Shaylor, eds. God’s Word in Our Hands: The Bible Preserved for Us. Greenville: Ambassador-Emerald International, 2003.
Beacham, Roy E., and Kevin T. Bauder, eds. One Bible Only: Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2001.
Notes
1 Kent Brandenburg objects at his blog that I ignored historical context in Part 1. However, the historical case for or against certainly-identifiable, word-perfect preservation is worthy of consideration in a separate article (or several). As demonstrated in Thou Shalt Keep Them, the Scriptures themselves are the best place to begin.
2 Brandenburg argues that the meaning of “keep” in many OT passages includes includes guarding and protecting physical copies (Brandenburg, 103). While I suspect this idea of “keep” is not in view in many of these passages, I grant this meaning here for the sake of argument.
3 Some have argued that the “scriptures” Paul says Timothy knew from childhood (2 Tim.3:15), refers specifically to copies they possessed at that time and that, therefore, the “all Scripture” described as “inspired” in 3:16 refers to copies as well. However, it is likely that Paul actually intends no distinction between the copies and the originals here because his point does not require that distinction. For all practical purposes, the copies partake of the quality of God-breathedness along with the originals. Thou Shalt Keep Them specifically denies any kind of re-inspiration on p. 204.
Aaron Blumer, SI’s site publisher, is a native of lower Michigan and a graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He, his wife, and their two children live in a small town in western Wisconsin, where he has pastored Grace Baptist Church (Boyceville, WI) since 2000. Prior to serving as a pastor, Aaron taught school in Stone Mountain, Georgia and worked in customer service and technical support for Unisys Corporation (Eagan, MN). He enjoys science fiction, music, and dabbling in software development.
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Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.
In reading TSKT, I frequently got the impression they had accepted an overly low biblical evidence threshold… that is, if you start out with the conviction that you don’t have much to prove, you tend to leap to your conclusion too soon and declare it proven.
In this case, the authors start out with the conviction that there are no biblical reasons to doubt that “God’s ordained institutions” would make perfect copies (because all doubt on that point stems from rationalism, the corrupt science of textual criticism, humanism, etc., and bedazzlement with academia). And if you assume all doubt on that point is inherently unbiblical, you only have to show passages sort of sound like word-perfect preservation and you’re done.
But the evidence needs to be stronger than that because of the biblical reasons to expect human error.
(I’m not sure what to make of it, but it’s interesting to me that in the years following TSKT, Kent has shifted a great deal of his energy to external arguments: history and epistemology. I’m inclined to say this is because the biblical case is so weak, but I think he would say it’s because the biblical case has not been refuted so he has moved on to additional evidence.)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
As I follow your reasoning, you are saying that although God did use imperfect human beings to produce a perfect product (i.e. inspiration), we cannot say that He did it in preservation unless we are specifically told in Scripture. In other words, we cannot infer a “miraculous phenomenon” to overcome human fallibility unless God tells us. And you reached these conclusions through methods common to the rationalist thought of Modernity.I’m intrigued. Please elaborate on how I did that and what “methods” for reaching conclusions would be preferable?
As for where the accusation of rationalism comes from, in the cast of TSKT, it is a priori… or just circular, I’m not sure which. In some places, the book alleges that those who disagree do so because they are rationalistic, in other places it seems to say the evidence that they are rationalistic is the fact that they disagree.
No one from that neck of the woods seems willing (yet) to just look at the case we’re making and weigh on its own merits. Much easier to dismiss it with something vague and unprovable like “You’re just trying to win the praise of academia” or “your thinking is too modern.”
Well, I’m game… how is my thinking too modern and how might I demodernize it?
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[RPittman] As I follow your reasoning, you are saying that although God did use imperfect human beings to produce a perfect product (i.e. inspiration), we cannot say that He did it in preservation unless we are specifically told in Scripture. In other words, we cannot infer a “miraculous phenomenon” to overcome human fallibility unless God tells us.To this point, I always ask, “When the Lord healed the lame man, did he walk with a limp?”
In other words, miracles are visible. You don’t need reason to discern them. You can see them.
If the miracle of preservation actually happened in the same way that inspiration happened, don’t you think we would see a body of documents that were identical, preserved in an unbroken chain without error through the centuries?
Instead, what we see are a body of documents that ALL vary from one another to one extent or another. They limp along. From that limping body, it is our task to sort out by discernment of some kind what the original words were. Preservation appears to be providential, using failing men, rather than miraculous, in spite of failing men.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
I am a vile sinner though, so it’s a good call either way. :)
Anyway, really, it’s not as complicated as you seem to suppose. Either we may reason from biblical evidence or we may not. What I’ve done in the article is nothing more than look at what is written and draw conclusions on that basis. There is nothing different going on epistemologically than what goes on when the writers of TSKT, for example, look at passages about preservation and conclude that God promised to preserve His word. It is the same process.
And I actually don’t disagree with them on that part of the book ( hardly anyone does, but that’s another topic), but even where I differ, it’s not on epistemological grounds, but rather on properly understand the texts involved in light of Scripture’s teaching as a whole.
Edit: missed this one.
….the question: “How did the church decide issues prior to the rise of Modernity and Scientific Rationalism?”The short answer is that those who did it right, read the Bible and interpreted it by something pretty close to the grammatical-historical method. (The longer answer would have to factor in that “the church” didn’t always decide things very well! … but at the early councils and such, the work of scholars weighed heavily and these men all employed reason to one degree or another in comparing Scripture with Scripture to arrive at conclusions.)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
"The Midrash Detective"
[Aaron Blumer]I think, Aaron that he’s getting more at the canonization question. There isn’t a chapter and verse telling us which books are canonical and which aren’t.….the question: “How did the church decide issues prior to the rise of Modernity and Scientific Rationalism?”The short answer is that those who did it right, read the Bible and interpreted it by something pretty close to the grammatical-historical method. (The longer answer would have to factor in that “the church” didn’t always decide things very well! … but at the early councils and such, the work of scholars weighed heavily and these men all employed reason to one degree or another in comparing Scripture with Scripture to arrive at conclusions.)
Personally, I am comfortable with God slowly working through His church to accept the good and reject the bad. To say is it harder for this to be done on the level of words versus books is somewhat amazing to me. Of course it is harder. It is not to say God hasn’t guided His church to reject bad readings. But as Don pointed out above, this aspect hasn’t resulted in a uniform position on the issue whereas the canonization process did (with respect to the NT and the three major branches of Christendom, Greek, Roman and Protestant).
Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.
(And since I’m pretty sure the writers of TKST are never going to be won over, it’s those wresting the issue I’m mainly trying to help)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[RPittman]I’m not Aaron, but given your argument above, I should point out that this argument of yours is also based on rationalism. There is nothing preventing the workings behind canonization and preservation to be entirely different.[Aaron Blumer] I might get to the canonicity argument eventually. It’s down the road a ways though. I don’t think most people who are wrestling with the issue are finding that particular argument very persuasive.Aaron, the canonicity issue is the first question to be settle. If the argument holds for canonization, then it holds for preservation. What do you think?
(And since I’m pretty sure the writers of TKST are never going to be won over, it’s those wresting the issue I’m mainly trying to help)
Dave Barnhart
But in reality it is not important in this particular case. It’s a red herring.
As I pointed out in the article, I haven’t cited any external evidence at all, but have argued on the basis of Scripture alone.
So there is no need to insert a lengthy digression about the history of philosophy, epistemology or the canonicity issue, etc.
If someone want to refute what I’ve concluded so for, it’s far less complex than that:
Just show how I have misinterpreted the Scriptures.
It really is that simple, because either I’ve gotten the Scripture right or I haven’t, and if I haven’t it should be possible make a case for where I’ve misconstrued them.
One can do that in two ways (and only two as far as I can tell)
- Use other Scriptures that expose how I have mishandled the ones I’ve cited, or
- use external evidence to show that he has mishandled them.
Edit: nope, there’s a third way to argue against the biblical case: a logical argument (based on other Scriptures) against how I’ve interpreted the passages involved.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
The Apostles of Christ, those who were called by him personally, were the Jewish emmisaries of Christ on earth who authenticate the new writings of scripture and are the foundation of the Jewish, Gentile church.
Luke, the one gentile author of scripture, had his historically researched and inspired writings (obtained without revelation), authenticated by Paul.
The above involved the supernatural as attested by the scriptures themselves.
After the above had occurred, we evidently have the normal processes of history overseen by the providence of God. This involved the use of secondary causes in which principles of historiography are used to determine a likeness to a original infallible source by a multitude of fallible sources.
The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ are in the arena of historical evidence where humanity must deal with it based on the normal evidence with which all events are validated. It is not the evidence of the scientific kind which requires observation. It is the evidence of the historical kind. A type of which is legal evidence where determination may often be made based on best evidence documents. Thus our salvation begins outside of history but involves the actual events of history. Paul places the salvation events within the realm of human historical verification at 1 Cor. 15.
If you want divine authority today that can be said to reside in a textual compilation such as the TR, or a family such as the Byzantine, or a translation such as the KJV, just point out when and where a bunch of Jewish guys who were personally called by a visible Messiah met and authenticated such a Greek text or such an English translation. Then I will personally support it being put in a doctrinal statement. Absent such a meeting taking place, your preferred compilation, family, or version is but your preference based on your reasoning.
Inspiration and canonicity = divine first cause miracle.
Preservation = providential secondary cause determination.
It is in the sixties here at Pismo Beach but is supposed to get up into the seventies next week. As high as 77. 8-)
[Bob T.] Romans 3:1-2 = Revelation, inscripturation, canonicity authority to the Jewish people.The above seems to be a key distinction between the two types of preservation (canonization for the books on the one hand, and preservation of the individual words, jots & tittles on the other). I recall that in Dr. Mark Minnick’s excellent sermon series on this issue, From the Mind of God To the Mind of Man (same title as the subsequent book), he emphasized that canonization was the process by which the Church was led to recognize (not select) the books God had inspired. More relevant to this discussion, though, is something else he pointed out: He said that if you take the set of surviving books (the books that make up our New Testament as well as rivals, such as the apocryphal books), then eliminate all books that were not written during the lifetime of the Apostles, the set of books you are left with are precisely the 27 books that make up the New Testament. In other words, if apostolic authentication is made a requirement for canonicity (as it should be), all the surviving rival books are eliminated on that basis alone. (I say “surviving rival books” because there were rival writings even during the times of the Apostles that didn’t survive.)
The Apostles of Christ, those who were called by him personally, were the Jewish emmisaries of Christ on earth who authenticate the new writings of scripture and are the foundation of the Jewish, Gentile church.
Disclaimer: It’s been quite a few years since I heard that series, so it’s possible I’m not remembering it precisely. However, that last point was such a watershed in my understanding of canonicity that I’m about 99.9% certain I’m remembering it correctly. Would appreciate it if there are any scholars out there who could verify.
Philip Knight
We’re talking about what requires more intervention by God into human activities vs. less or intervention of a miraculous sort vs. a providential sort.
Via providence, God uses secondary causes and allows for all sorts of error and even sin as He works all things according the counsel of His will. Using providential means, the church recognized the books that comprise what we call the canon. It’s not hard to see how they could do that without God performing a miracle to overcome their fallibility. Why? Because the true books of the Bible self-attest in such a compelling way compared to the alternatives. However, there is no such compelling drive to favor a noun instead of a pronoun or singular instead of a plural or any of a gazillion other minor differences that appear among manuscripts. In these cases, finding the true text without fail would require ongoing, repeated miraculous activity.
How does this relate to what Scripture teaches? Well, we know that believers—whether singly or in God-ordained institutions—normally err in all they do. Providence (pretty much by definition) does not prevent that from happening, though it might reduce it’s scope and frequency. Miracle is required to produce the sort of detailed error-free work verbal plenary preservation would require. And Bible-believing Christians have not been in the habit of supposing miracles have occurred where Scripture does not say they occurred—at least, not with a claim of biblical authority.
For example, when I was a kid, I used to hear pretty often the idea that the animals on Noah’s ark hibernated during the flood. This is supposing a miracle that the text does not say occurred. It was deduced from what the text does reveal along with external evidence that seemed at the time to require an explanation. But those who suggested this hibernation miracle recognized they did not have biblical authority for it. They didn’t represent it as the teaching of Scripture and assert that those who reject it are in serious error.
So, yes, verbal plenary preservation is “harder” than canonization in the sense that more/greater intervention is required to make it happen, and a higher biblical evidence threshold exists for the claim that this miracle occurred (and is still occurring in this view, let’s not forget).
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Surely you would not deny that there is a difference between miracle and providence… that one describes more intervention than the other? That they are equally “easy” for God I heartily affirm, so let’s just get past that part, eh?
I also didn’t say that all the manuscript differences were unimportant or that in no case would a singular vs. a plural matter. Rather, my point was that there are many MS differences in which there is no clear theological significance to make one obviously preferable to the other. If you have “Christ” in one phrase and then, in the next, one MS says “Christ” again and another says “he,” there is zero difference theologically. However, if we assume one of the MSS reflects the original reading, one of them is what God inspired and the other is not.
So, for the sinners involved to figure out if it’s “he” or “Christ” is a very different kind of decision than preferring Ephesians to, say, the “Gospel of Judas.” Multiply those kinds of pronoun vs. noun type decisions hundreds of times over, and the point becomes even more clear.
“Reason of faith”
Presumably, this would have to be faith in God’s word. So I repeat my earlier questions, slightly reworded:
- What passages have I misinterpreted and in what way?
- Have I incorrectly concluded that all believers—and the body of believers as well—are prone to err in all they do?
- Have I incorrectly concluded that a series of miracles would be required to ensure that such error-prone people copied every word correctly?
- Have I incorrectly concluded that biblical statements supporting that series of miracles is less direct and clear than the biblical statements revealing the miracle of inspiration?
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
1. It is not so much that you have misinterpreted Scripture. You have made valid observations that all men are fallible, sinners. There’s no disagreement. It’s your application and conclusions that produce the rub. Your sinner argument could be used just as effectively against a restorationist position because these scholars are sinners too. Their scholarship and conclusions are just as susceptible, even more so due to the complexity and lack of primary data, to error as the men doing a relatively simple task of copying Scripture.Yes, the use of one’s brain (aka “scholarship”) is also subject to error. I have no problem with that at all. But if one concedes that believers are also subject to error and the Bible teaches this, one accepts the main point of my article.
2. You fail to differentiate between what Scripture intentionally teaches and your inferences based on Scripture. The only advantage of using Scripture for your inferential basis is that you are assured of a true basis; beyond that your inference is no better than a non-Scriptural inference. Thus, you are creating an illusion of Scriptural backing where none exists unless you can tell us that these Scriptures intentionally teach these points. Obviously, it’s your inferences, not Scriptural teaching.This would also be true of any other position on the subject. It is not possible to use the Bible at all without making inferences. The real question is, are my inferences sound? Do they make sense? If they do not, in what way is my reasoning faulty? What inferences would be better and why?
3. I do not buy your requirement that “a series of miracles would be required to ensure that such error-prone people copied every word correctly.” Let’s put it this way: Did plenary, verbal inspiration require that God performed a series of miracles making the inspiration of each word a separate miracle? Or, was it simply the supernatural action of inspiration carried out by the Holy Spirit? Why must we make preservation different? No, it doesn’t flow.How exactly would a single act of inspiration result in 40 different authors producing God’s words over a period of thousands of years? A series of miracles was certainly required for inspiration. Likewise, in the case of making perfect copies of Scripture, every time a man set ink to paper and began to make a mistake, one of two things would be required to correct the mistake: either, a.) extraordinary providence (which I’ll define loosely as “natural causes” that are highly unusual) or b.) miracles (which is most agree to be the term for when God acts to directly reverse or suspend the normal operation of “nature”).
But I guess I may have gotten distracted, myself, a bit on that point, because whether we’re talking about providence or miracle, either way the question ends up being, Does the Bible teach that any human beings involved in copying the word will do it perfectly? But I still think that thousands of avoided errors over time would require multiple miracles.
4. Although I am not sure that you have firmly established that actions behind preservation are less direct than the act of inspiration. Direct and clear are two different concepts but you are a writer and know that. So, precisely what we can say is that more is said about inspiration so that it appears a little more explicit and perhaps clear, even though the process of inspiration is not that clear, because we really don’t understand how God did it, although we do believe that He did. We cannot say about directness, except that inspiration was direct influence because we are told. We don’t know about preservation because we are not told. God’s work behind the observable event is not necessarily indirect. For example, we read in the OT that Pharaoh hardened his heart as he did various actions. Yet, we are told in other places that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. I would call this direct action if it was through circumstances.Well, we may be agreed then that the question is whether the less-direct teaching we have in Scripture about preservation is ultimately “clear” or not. That’s really what I’ll mainly focus on in the next article, though I began getting into it in part 1.
Thou Shalt Keep Them has many chapters devoted to making the case somewhat systematically that
1. God promised to preserve His word (not in dispute, really—certainly not by me)
2. God promised to preserve His word perfectly (with the qualifier of “somewhere,” I wouldn’t dispute that either)
3. God promised to preserve His word through Israel (in OT times) and “His immersionist assemblies” (NT times).
4. God promised to preserve His word in a form that is recognizably perfect and directly accessible to His people.
I’ll definitely be examining 3 and 4 in the future, probaby both in part 3. What I aimed to do in part 2 is get some foundational things in place that TSKT seemed to ignore, namely what Scripture teaches about the error-prone nature of Israel and the church and the higher biblical evidence threshold that results. So it’s really prep for part 3.
I’m also doing what I can to expose the weakness of the “you’re all just rationalists” non-argument. It’s a non-argument because it cannot be proved without the a priori belief that anyone who rejects accessible “verbal plenary preservation” is rationalistic, not using the logic of faith, etc. It cannot be proved or disproved. Closest I can come is to follow the pattern in TSKT and build the foundation biblically before going to any external evidence.
I’ll close this one by just pointing out one more time that so far there is no difference between my general approach to the subject and that used in TSKT. The only difference is that I have interpreted the Scriptures differently. It will be up to readers to decide whether I’ve interpreted them more accurately. But it should be clear by now that the “your approach is too scientific” charge is groundless.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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