In this Session of the Coffee House, Timothy Decker joins Jonny and John-Mark to discuss the practice of 'textual criticism' in biblical studies and pastoral ministry. They dig deep into the issue of whether the language of 'criticism' is helpful, how this practice has been a useful tool to the church in the past and why it still has relevance to the church today. They also touch on issues of church and state, preaching and academia, the relationship between systematic theology, biblical studies and pastoral ministry, and the place of the Johannine Comma (found in 1 John 5:7-8) within the Scriptures.
Timothy is Pastor at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, VA and teaches New Testament at International Reformed Baptist Seminary and Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. He has recently written "A Revolutionary Reading of Romans 13" and regularly blogs at CBTS where his articles on textual criticism and the Reformed Tradition can be found.
Contact Broken Wharfe
Thanks for listening!
In this Session of the Coffee House, Timothy Decker joins Jonny and John-Mark to discuss the practice of 'textual criticism' in biblical studies and pastoral ministry. They dig deep into the issue of whether the language of 'criticism' is helpful, how this practice has been a useful tool to the church in the past and why it still has relevance to the church today. They also touch on issues of church and state, preaching and academia, the relationship between systematic theology, biblical studies and pastoral ministry, and the place of the Johannine Comma (found in 1 John 5:7-8) within the Scriptures.
Timothy is Pastor at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, VA and teaches New Testament at International Reformed Baptist Seminary and Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. He has recently written "A Revolutionary Reading of Romans 13" and regularly blogs at CBTS where his articles on textual criticism and the Reformed Tradition can be found.
Contact Broken Wharfe
Thanks for listening!
let him So I'm here in the coffee house with Timothy and you the question himself a moment, but I wanted to begin, uh, and are some of answer after introducing yourself. Uh, but the question is recently, these the things we've been. discussing on this, uh, podcast in the House, uh, there's been a lot of emphasis on theological retrieval amongst evangelicals, uh, amongst people in Reformed, uh, stream of thought and theology.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:textual criticism and some of the. Kind of reformed thoughts on those issues.
John-Mark:and
Timothy Decker:I, I'm sorry, I can't leave the elephant in the room. I was always under the assumption that the coffee house sessions were in a coffee house and, uh, the elephant in the room is that the room is not a coffee house. I'm sorry, I had to
Jonny Woodrow:yeah,
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:you've, you've blown the special effects. What's going to happen is afterwards in the editing, clinking cups are going to be, um,
Timothy Decker:Oh, that's how
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:added. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, and, and it's, it's John Mark. He gets, he goes over the washing up, clink some cups together while he has a jazz band playing in the background. And then he just throws that on the top. So yeah. And going video as this is, it's blown that, uh, it's blown That illusion as well, hasn't it? Video over radio. There we are. Anyway, anyway, sorry He just threw you a massive question, so go for it.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Uh, so, where does, yeah, I guess the question could be, where does theological retrieval And, textual criticism intersect?
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Yes.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:And, you know, in one sense, I want to say that There is no need for retrieval because textual criticism has been going on since the early church. Uh, it's not like we just learned about textual variants and came up with ways to deal with them in the 1800s and more, you know, more refined in the 1900s. And now with the technology that we have in the 21st century, we've been doing textual criticism for a long time. So I think the very notion of retrieval. For textual criticism is almost, um, antithetical because it's nothing to retrieve. Now, the question might be, uh, what are we gleaning? Or are we are, or maybe to put it another way, should we stop the retrieval? Maybe that's a way to think of it, in that, have we arrived at the place where we no longer need to do textual criticism? Uh, that's what I might push against, and if we are going to say that we need to do a theological retrieval, then the theological retrieval that we need to do is one that has been doing textual criticism, and continues to do it so long as we have the nature of the manuscripts that we have. That's not a bad thing that's in God's providence. I believe keeping us in the text and, uh, not, not being satisfied. Like Rome might be with, uh, a, a finished, uh, finalized Vulgate that you can ever question or you can ever refine. So in one sense, it keeps us in the text and just the little bit of manuscript coalition that I have done. Uh, I, I, I've made a, uh. Funny quip when not funny, but, uh, that when I have been doing manuscript coalition, which is really laborious, tedious work, but it has gotten me a better understanding of the text than just studying for a sermon or writing a research paper, uh, because you are rereading. Reading and rereading the same text, you're looking for such small nuances that it's forcing you to ask questions of why is it spelled this way? Why do they not lengthen the thematic vowel and so forth? I have come to learn that in Doing the process of collating manuscripts textual criticism and so forth. I've become more intimate more acquainted with the text and that's because of textual criticism so I don't know if that answers the question or if I just convoluted more, but I'm all for theological retrieval. I'm just not so sure we're retrieving anything. We we've just been doing it. We've, we've been doing it all along. It was being done by, uh, origin and Augustine. It was being done. It was being done by the reformers and the counter reformers, even it was done by the scholastics and the protestant orthodox. The Puritans were doing it. So we're not retrieving anything. We're just continuing the line. What might what we might say is we have formalized. We have come up with. Uh, methodologies and systems that clarify, uh, what it is that we've been doing these, you know, many hundreds of years, that's natural. I mean, theological method, you know, we, we can formalize how we have done systematic theology now, whereas before it was, uh, almost broadly, broadly done, but it was done. And so we might be able to give a particular method. Well, same thing is true, I think, in textual criticism.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:how would you see the language of textual criticism rightly, uh, uh, how would you see it as a good representative of what it really is? Because I think the language of criticism has a lot of baggage with it. Obviously, when you look back to origin, you know, you've got second to third century church father that I can't imagine he used the language of textual criticism to engage with the different manuscripts and such. So how has the language developed and has there really been a consensus on how we ought to name this study?
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know when the term. Criticism has been applied though in our day and age, criticism has even a negative connotation. Whereas in the 1800s, when Scrivener, uh, who, who, you know, is, is where our now modern Texas receptus is drawn from. He even wrote a plain, what was it called? A plain introduction to the criticism of the Greek New Testament or New Testament Greek or something like that. And so it's not that the, the title criticism is a bad thing. It just means scrutiny. That you are criticizing not to demean. You're criticizing to be critical. You're, you're, you're being critical of, of decisions being made. You're, you're, you're answering with, with critical thought, even of, of why it should be a, not B or one, not two or something like that. And so the terminology, when did it develop? Well, yeah, I don't, I don't know the formal terminology. Uh, and maybe this is what I was. You know, leaning on that, maybe in the 1800s, when, when the methods that have been employed for so long were being given a methodology, a methodology, they are using terminology to go along with that. And so probably the concept of criticism, terms like external, internal evidence, those things were, those concepts were being used, but the terms themselves probably weren't more formalized until the 1800s. And so. For me, retrieval is going to look like, uh, I don't need to retrieve the terms so much as the practice, the theory, the methods that they employed.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Just, just connect it to that. Um, I, I, I, I mean I, I, my background is, is, is, is not in textual criticism. So this is, this is, I'm enjoying this podcast because this is all very new to me. The, the, the narrative that goes that there is a, we need to do retrieval because something happens in the enlightenment period, which settles in the, in the, in the 18th and 19th century, um, includes concern about what the phrase critical means philosophically. Um, uh, and, and that running, uh, uh, um, so, so it meaning more than scrutiny, it meaning it coming with a kind of a set of epistemological commitments to, um, to skepticism, um, as a starting place and doubt as a starting place for, for methodology, which then presents, which also includes a kind of a way in which, um, uh, knowledge gets done as, as apply skepticism and then, uh, to, to the world out there, which presents itself for arbitration on truth to the observing subject and so that that that that phrase critical in in in epistemological terms and in and you know, he's a bart kyle bart seen as a as a critical theologian because Um if anyone's playing, um Uh, bingo are when it comes to the coffee house sessions, you know, we're going to mention Emmanuel can't and the critical method, um, in theology since, since, uh, since, since can't and the, and the critical turn, we've, we've had a, um, a kind of a skepticism about whether we can get To anything, even if the critical methodology assumes eventually you can, it's method is we get there because of the observing subject operating a couple, a set of methods. So anyway, I just want to explore that term critical a bit more because as I understand it, looking into the discipline, there's a, there's a claim that there, There is a difference in, in, in epistemology and methodology between the pre and post enlightenment period, which is captured in that word critical. Um, I just, yeah, yeah. Any, any, any, any thoughts on, on, on that?
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Probably not, because we're attacking this from two different angles. So, I guess, I'm assuming, and maybe false or wrongly assuming, but those in my ilk, New Testament studies, which is a really, uh, strange field of study, that probably one of its, Uh, many concerning faults is that it doesn't deal enough in theology and philosophy, I'll readily admit. Um, so when we use terminology, it may not have all that baggage. And again, I, I look to someone like Scrivener, who's not coming from a place of, of doubt and skepticism, but he uses the term, uh, criticism, and simply We need to, you know, critically assess the evidence and, uh, so I, I would likewise use that terminology that, uh, I'm, I'm, I, maybe I'm, you know, influenced by content. I don't realize how much, but, uh, I, I'm not approaching this subject as we can't know. I'm approaching this as I want to know. I want to learn. I want to look at the evidence and that's, that's why, you know, New Testament textual critics are going to comb the thousands of manuscripts and focus in on one small little letter, one little detail because they are, uh, legitimately curious about the situation and all the data that you have to compile. So I, you know, I don't know, it might just be a difference of perspective of what, what the term can mean and how it often is used in this field. Not to say it's. You know, there's not a lot of skepticism. And in fact, I might even say more modern times, probably in the 21st century, uh, the skepticism has reigned and, uh, those who don't even seek to get back to the original text, but just the, uh, what's now called the initial text, uh, you know, as close as we can get as to the second century where everything kind of diverged and, um. And more than just two roads in the yellow wood. It's so, so it has finally, I think, leaked into that skepticism, but it took a long time and, uh, we're, we're well past the enlightenment era. Uh, we're, we're way past that. So, um, I don't know. I'm I'd, I'd have to think on that a little bit more and, uh, give you a more definitive answer.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:you, you see. A continuation actually in methodology. At the, at the, at the nuts and bolts level of assessing, um, what a text is saying and having them weigh up textual variance. Actually, in that sense, just at that nuts and bolts level, which is a vitally important level. Uh, not a lot's changed, but of course, as a discipline grows, you might get all sorts of nefarious and, um, and screwy kind of approaches that come in. I just, just one more question. What, what, where do you see the nervousness, um, coming from, uh, that locates something in the 19th, 18th or 19th centuries as, as, as problematic. You see what I, mean? that you can say, look, methodologically, nothing's changed.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:I, I'm not,
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Don't
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:I wouldn't say it's problematic. Uh, I, I'm not, I'm not of the persuasion that what happened to the, uh, 19th century in terms of textual criticism is problematic. Uh, what happened is we were able to look at a lot more evidence than was available. And even what evidence was available, there are many times where Puritans backwards, all the way to Calvin, they knew that there were multiple options for. Uh, a textual reading and instead of saying it's this one or that one, they would just say, all right, here's, if it's this, here's what it means if it's that, here's what it means. And, uh, you know, which really sounds very postmodern in some ways. And so when you get to the 18th, uh, the 19th century, the 1800s, they're like, well, let's, let's figure out which one it is. That way we can, we can be more. So there's where your, your, your, your age of reasoning is coming in that we can, we can know these things by the use of our own faculties. Um, but I'm thinking in terms of that being problematic. Why is that problematic? Because in 1 sense, you're, you're looking for textual certainty and whereas before there was well, it's, it's, it's either of these because the, the, Okay. God preserved this text in the extant manuscripts. And maybe those that are not extant, but we have documentation of them. Okay, fine. But it still leaves it up to, you know, well, it's, it's two options. And so let me give interpretation of both options and, you know. I, I always wonder what were those like Calvin or Matthew Henry when they would do this? Um, Perkins, were they expecting their readers to decide on their own? Um, so, so if that's the kind of retrieval we're doing, it almost seems counter to those who want textual stability because now we're going to something more unstable and left to, uh, the personal decision of whoever's reading or preaching or handling the text. So again, I don't think I'm answering your question. I'm not sure how to, how to go about this because this is one world interacting with another world. In my world, we just for, for, for faults of our own, we probably don't interact with this line of thinking as much as we probably should. Um, but it's because we're so enamored by all the analysis that we forget to do synthesis.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:how, how would you go about bridging the disciplines then, uh, for example, as a pastor, we have to be generalists on the whole, uh, and yet you'll have a, a specialty in, uh, you know, the, the textual traditions and, uh, the new and old testament, uh, texts, uh, and all of those issues. How would you go about bridging the disciplines in relation to these issues of, well, what actually is the text and then how does theology impact our relationship to the text? And I was wondering, and that's a big question, but I was wondering on top of that, uh, if you could give us any examples, uh, and whether there are any good examples from history, uh, I might think of. The issue of the Johannine comma. And when you look through a lot of patristic sources, a lot of medieval sources in their defenses of the doctrine of the Trinity, some will refer to it and others will not refer to it at all. For example, I haven't found any record of Thomas Aquinas using that in relation to his Trinitarian theology. Yeah. Would you see any good examples of really the bridging of those two disciplines of discerning? Okay, what is the text? And secondly, how does theology relate to this and how is it related to believers?
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Your first question is actually a little bit more difficult for me. I'm, I'm wondering just my, my, my, my own. You know, scenario, how do I improve on that bridging and what I would tell most, most pastors in general, but most academics and biblical studies fields, read more theology, read, uh, read more, more theology. It's become more of now a, uh, just a mandatory thing. Uh, I can, I can read. Uh, New Testament stuff that I, I, I jokingly call it soul sucking because sometimes you're reading about things that are just so dry, which I find interesting, but at the same time, they're not, they're not reviving my soul. So make sure that a pastor, probably the greatest thing you could do to inform your preaching is reading theology. And I would say the same thing to, um. Textual critics, New Testament studies, uh, the reason that we are, uh, inadequate for some of these discussions is because we're not as theologically astute as we think we are. And, uh, so I I've made that part of my just daily routine is to be more intentional about. Just reading theology, Prolegomena, Theological, uh, Theology proper, uh, reading through Venmasterich right now, just finding it very edifying to, to, to help me with these categories that we're not so accustomed to. So I don't, I think when you talk about bridging, um, that might be my first thing. You just need to be reading more in that discipline because I think that's the discipline that, that's the goal. Like the reason I do textual criticism, the reason I would do, uh, any kind of study in backgrounds is for interpretation for exegesis, but even that is a servant for theology. It all gets back to theology. And I think somewhere we have missed that. And so even textual criticism is a servant of exegesis, which is a servant of biblical theology, which is a servant of systematic theology. So that's the goal. And, uh, I would just, that that's how I would. That's how I would bridge that. You just need to read more in that field. As far as an example, you mentioned the, the, you know, Aquinas, but, but go before Aquinas and, and, uh, the Johannine comma, uh, where, uh, where does, um, Athanasius cite it. And here's a guy who would have loved to have had a passage, uh, like that. Had he been familiar with it and though you might say, well, he doesn't also, uh, site, uh, 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians 1314. Okay. But that's not the, that's not a, a, a Trinitarian passage per se that speaks of, you know, the doctrine of homoousius. Um, it just mentions the, the, the 3 persons or the 3, um. Uh, hoop of stasis, so to speak, uh, but 1st John 5 7 does bring in, you know, person and nature together. Uh, and so does, um, Matthew 28 19, uh, you know, Athanasius was very happy to, to look to Matthew 28 19 to speak of the name singular and then father, son, and spirit. Uh, but he doesn't do that with 1st John 5 7. So that's just one example. And then what's interesting, too, is, uh, uh, read Luther, read, uh, those around Luther, uh, Luther's pastor at one time, who was also his student at the same time, uh, they were actually aware of it, but they said that that was actually an So Aryan plot. Um, they, they would use the reverse and say that if you affirm this, then it actually proves Aryanism and not the other way around. And so it's really interesting. Historically, if we're going to talk about retrieval, then that's a text that if we're going to be honest, we could not retrieve until You know later, uh, what I would call a very western reading and so I reject the inclusion of the Comma as it's called, but that's just one example You might look at a more, uh isolated example and the one that's coming to my mind is matthew 6 1 Matthew 6 1 there is a very minor variant among the texas receptus tradition, but if you have anything That doesn't use the Texas Receptus, so an ESV, a New American Standard, it's going to read that you ought not to do your righteous deeds in front of people. Whereas the Texas Receptus is going to say you ought not to do your charitable giving in front of other people. It's very slight, very subtle, but this is the Uh, in a blog article series, I linked to Perkins says it could be one, it could be other. Let me give you both options. And it's actually interesting that even Beza, he went back and forth on this, uh, in his earlier additions, he, he put in the text, the charitable giving reading, but in his annotations, he argued for the righteous deeds. Reading and then finally in his final edition in 1598, he switches it and he puts the righteous deeds in the text and finally makes that change. But you go to his other additions and it's not there. They're always refining. They're always trying to. Make their, uh, improve their text. And so, are they being critical? Yeah, they're using, they're using methods of scrutiny and of evidence to make those textual decisions. Sometimes they're leaning on other translations, other ancient translations like Syriac and Ethiopic and so forth. But their goal is to, what was originally written? So, um, That's where we could say, yes, there should be retrieval, but I'm again, we've been doing that. It's not like it's been stopped. It's just that our methods have refined and maybe if we were going to retrieve anything, it's we need to give more weight to the ancient church's witness and maybe not a computer algorithm. That, that, that sounds strong, uh, and you know, the, the coherence based genealogical method, um, you know, that there's some value to that and I don't want to discount that, but, uh, sometimes it ends up meaning we don't even look at Aquinas or Athanasius, uh, or, you know, some of these other guys who would be dealing in these variants and we need to give them a, a, a a solid hearing as well.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:take us to for those who aren't familiar. I've got I've got two questions. I wonder if you can just help us out with one is, um, just give us give us a potted, uh, an overview of of the TR eclectic text. Just Manuscript traditions just so folks who who might not be familiar with with this field have got some handrails, but then secondly For pastors who are reading through John Owen, for instance, or you read Calvin read Owen We're working through Hebrews at the moment at church. And so we're the everyone who's preaching through is reading Owen And he'll quote the Syriac text and the Ethiopian text. And, and he'll have a moment of there's a variant here and that sort of thing. Um, so walk us through what's, what's Owen's toolkit as he's, as he's handling the text to then go from what's the text say to, um, to, uh, to then teaching it, you know, and then making some, some observations on it. So, so two things, one, just give us that. TR, eclectic text, kind of an overview of that discussion, and then, and then take us into Owen's study. and to those methods that, as you say, we don't need to retrieve, because we've been doing them.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Wow. Okay. you guys ask big questions and combine big questions. I'm going to forget one of them. I've no doubt.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Alright, don't worry, I'll, I'll probably forget as well, but I'm sure John
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Well, so, Ron, you might think very broadly of two streams. I think that's a misnomer. I mean, I was taught textual criticism with Maurice Robinson, who follows the Byzantine tradition. He adheres to the Byzantine tradition as Uh, the manuscripts and admittedly, there are many, many more of those, but there are many, many later centuries as well, but they, they have a, what he would call a transmissional history. They have a stable transmission throughout, uh, covenant time. Uh, the problem with that is that they are, uh, at many times located. And only one, uh, one place. And so they don't transcend covenantal space. So while there's transmission of history, it's not all the church using that. And eclectic approach is going to say, well, let's look at all the manuscript data and let's, let's, um, let's. Use various kinds of evidence to determine that what ends up happening though with an eclectic approach is that they end up leaning upon either a, a segmented portion of manuscripts that are very ancient and usually they are very much, uh, in one front from one location. And so, again, you're limiting yourself both through covenant time and covenant space. You're just, you're one of the earliest in quote unquote best and while they might be the earliest. Um, how you assess what is better and best is, is the, the question. Um, then you have the Texas Receptus tradition that is going to say, uh, it really starts with either Erasmus or the Competentian Polyglot, whichever one you want to start, 1514, 1516. And, uh, at the, uh, at the period, at the very start of the Reformation. Uh, with the printing press who's gonna get the first printed edition of the great new testament, which means you've got to do manuscript collating. You've got to, uh, decide which variants are you going to follow? Uh, which manuscripts are you going to examine? And, uh, you know, there weren't. Quite as many manuscripts available to those who were doing this, like Erasmus, but he starts the process and the manuscript, um, that he has most readily available were Byzantine, though he, he knew of other variants, he had access to other things, how much he lent access to, uh, is disputed, uh, but, um, You know, they were, they were doing textual criticism that the competention polyglots when you get to, uh, the Lord's Prayer, they actually have that they leave off the doxology at the end. And this is part of the Texas receptus tradition, and they explain why in that likely. They use an internal argument that it's clearly liturgical. It was only added because everyone always adds this liturgical ending, but it wasn't actually part of the text. So they were doing textual criticism using what we would later call internal evidence. And so you have Erasmus, you have others, Aldine, uh, Coloness, uh, others, and you get to Stephanus. Stephanus text is pretty stabilized. Uh, Beza, Elsevier's, and then, They, they're all drawing from the same tradition, although there are variants among them. This is a project I've been working on, is to look at what are the variants among the, the Texas receptor tradition. It's not as stable as is sometimes purported. And, uh, I, I hope to do something on that here in the near future. But they're drawing from a limited amount of exposure of, of Byzantine manuscripts, and they don't always follow the Byzantine reading. Sometimes, uh, they depart from it, uh, and, and include. Uh, like the, the comma in 1 John 5, 7, which there's, there's very little, very little manuscript evidence for that. And what, what Greek manuscript evidence we have actually follows the Vulgate reading, and it's not actually what you have in the TR. So it's, it's, it's scant, but that's the Texas Receptus tradition. And so your King James, your New King James, they're following the Geneva. They're following those, uh, there's not really any modern. Uh, translations that are just Byzantine priority, or some would call a majority text. Their, their field is to say, like, alright, let's count all the manuscripts and which one has the most, that's the one we'll go with. Um, like the Hodges and Farrstad text. You have the Tyndall Housecrete New Testament. They have their own kind of, uh, text critical methodology. They're looking for old, but they're also looking for a certain amount of manuscripts within a certain Time period, uh, they're looking for diversity, but, uh, it's still a limited kind of diversity of, of, of, uh, geography and diversity in that way so that you, you have various ways that you can go about it. And so an eclectic text, uh, like the Nestle Allen text is going to favor, uh, you know, papyrus, it's going to favor, uh, some. Fourth century codices like Alexandrinus or Vaticanus. Um, it's going to be very, what we would call Alexandrian, if you used to hold to those, those concepts which are being disputed right now, but I don't think they'll ever be gone. It's going to be very, in other words, uh, African or Egyptian in its origin. And you know this because those who, uh, did translations of the New Testament, like Coptic, they follow those same. So you can localize these. It's, it's not like it's impossible to do. And you can localize them so much so that when Origen would leave one location and go to another location, uh, he starts following a different manuscript tradition. He starts following Byzantine manuscripts or Caesarean manuscripts because that's what he has available. So, we know that there is a geographical limitation to how manuscripts will copy one another within their own locale and they'll reproduce their own variants and errors and so forth. So, we, we, we know about. So that's how we get an eclectic text. And the error, I think the major error of an eclectic text is that you could have, you could have one verse that has, uh, four or five different variants. And because you're eclectic, you're going to say, we're going to take from this Alexandrian reading with this one isolated variant and this Byzantine reading with this variant and this Caesarean variant and this Western variant, we'll put them together. And now you have a one verse. Uh, with four different variants that has no manuscript reading at all because it's eclectic and that, that's a problem that goes against transmissional history with that Maurice Robinson was going for. So the advantage of a Texas Receptus or Byzantine is that it, it's a stable transmissional history. There might be slight variation and there are not, not one manuscript reads just like another manuscript. There are slight variation, but. It's far more stabilized and the amount of variance are much more limited. So that's the kind of situation that you get into. And if you're going to put me on the spot and say, which do you advocate? I'm going to say, for me, I don't I don't advocate a text like Nestle Allen, Texas Receptus. I'm more interested in a methodology, uh, because we have all this evidence and I want to know how to assess the evidence so I can, uh, preach the word to my people as God has given me charge. And so I'm more interested in a methodology that takes Seriously, the concept that God's church would have access, uh, to his word in all different geographical locales and that church throughout church history is going to have access, not just at one point arrived out of nowhere, or it fell off in another place, but that these readings, uh, uh, Are are seen throughout space and time. That's kind of my two major criteria that I'm looking for. So covenant space, covenant time and so forth. And so that's, that's my general methodology. And, uh, so that was, that was the first question. What was the second question? I knew I was going to forget. Oh, yeah.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Well, then I wanted, I wanted to get to take us. That was, that was incredibly rich. That was extraordinary. Thank you very much. Um, and I've got questions popping off of that, but the second question to be disciplined, to discipline myself, um, was take us into John Owen's study as, as a pastor's reading through his commentaries and you, and, and particularly, you know, I'm going through the Hebrews commentary at the moment. You get a section, won't you? Where he will set out various variant readings. And then make a case for what the text is. It's like he settles the text, and then gives you, um, uh, a translation of the text, and then works through it verse by verse. But you, you, so that, that, it's, I suppose, that, that bit we, we read, where he's got the Syriac and the Ethiopian, and the, the, the, is a moment of textual criticism, you'd say. And so, so what kind of methodology is
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:sounds to me, I'm not an expert by any means, but it sounds to me, he's doing a couple interesting things here, that his his exegetical methodology starts with where a lot of modern day New Testament exegetes start, you have to establish what the text is. Um, which, which sounds like to me, he's not assuming it's the Texas receptus or something. He's, he might want to prove it, but he's going to give arguments. He's going to make a text critical case. I'm great with that. That that's, that's fantastic, but that means he's doing it. He's not retrieving it. He's doing it. He's doing what's been, uh, been happening for the last 600, 1600 years. Uh, what, what's interesting about this as well is that in order to, to say what a text means, you've got to determine what a text. Is, or I think you use the word says, what, what is the text? And so it sounds like he's doing that. And, uh, when Owen draws from the Syriac and the Ethiopic and, and, and other ancient translations, it sounds like he's drawing from the, the London polyglot, Walton's polyglot, which is interesting because, uh, Owen excoriated the, uh, uh, London polyglot. Uh, he gave, he gave 10 reasons or 11 reasons why it was just. You know, no good because it was giving, uh, textual variance. And so he would go through those variants and, and use various forms of, uh, methodology, text critical methodology of why one reading is better than another. So he was still doing textual criticism there. But when you look at, uh, the London polyglot, it has not just the Latin and it has multiple Latins. It has the Greek, uh, the Greek transliterated. It has the Syriac, it has the Ethiopic, and it has. I'm trying to remember one other translation. I can't remember if it's Coptic or something else, but it's just loaded with, with, with all this fascinating information now, it may not have been the London polyglot, but that's the one that would have been most readily available at his time, mass produced. And it was you and we know he used it because he had it to criticize it. So what's interesting is that he is critical of it and yet he's making use of it. Well. That's, that's kind of like me. Uh, I don't agree with the Nestle Allen text, but the amount of information that is in the Nestle Allen text is, is so overwhelming. It's just, there's so much information there, manuscript evidence, uh, variants that you wouldn't otherwise know about that. Uh, even when I was, uh, being taught textual criticism, uh, by Maurice Robinson, who has his own, you know, Byzantine priority platform, his own Greek New Testament, the Byzantine. He made us get the Nestle Allen because. He is interested that we have a methodology and that we can assess these, these variants. And so, I'd like to think that what Owen is doing is, he's establishing what the text is and removing doubts. It sounds like he's trying to remove doubts and making an argument for why it's this and not that. And then once you know what the text is, then you can, you know, argue what the text means. And, uh, it sounds like that's his methodology. Again, I'm not an Owen's scholar by any stretch, you know, when I come to Hebrews, I would, he's one of the first two, uh, first go to sources I would, I would have, uh, but not necessarily for textual criticism though, you know, that he does that and we know he does that. So that would be helpful as well. They, they all seem to like to refer to the Chaldean, the Syriac, the Ethiopic and other ancient church historians. So again, they're just doing what we would expect, uh, modern new Testament textual critics to do as well.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:I, I wasn't going to ask questions such as, Johnny, we'll, we'll come to you in a moment, just because you mentioned, uh, Stephanus, uh, and how, uh, he engaged, well, he, he kind of was involved in, uh, the, Received text tradition and things like that. And I was preaching at church in Lincoln a couple of months ago. And the chappie who was there actually gave me a copy. I'm going to hold it up to the camera. A copy of Stephanus. Um, this is obviously only one double side from 1539. Who was found in Paris and it's a Hosea 4, 12 to 14 in Hebrew. So that's, uh,
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Well, it's, it's at a page from 1549.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:says it, yeah, it says it is.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:You get that kind of gift when preaching.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Now, that net, that was not necessarily a Stephanos Texas Receptus when it's Old Testament, so it can't be Stephanos was also a printer, so it could have come from an earlier Old Testament print. Tradition. So I, I might be able to look it up what, what that could have come from. Um, I don't want to mess up my computer. It's already lagging.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:Maybe it was that I just wanted to, to mention, we have some, uh, primary
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:And as you hold it up, I mean, he's dealing, uh, he's got annotations, he's
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:overstating
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:languages on there. So you can see that the only reason you would do that is because people are interested in, uh, not, they're not assuming we have a final form of the text printed, but that we need to refine, we need to do the, the task. Call it an art, call it a science of textual criticism. I just, it seems like it's, it's written on the page. So retrieve that. That's what I want to say.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Um, in your, um, we should link in the, um, just show description notes too, um, uh, to Timothy's. Uh, uh. that he's done, um, on, on continuation of methodology in, in, uh, textual criticism. Um, uh, so I just, cause one of the points you make there is that, as you've said, is that this has always sort of been going on and you've mentioned certain kinds of evidence. This is read through Owen, for instance, I'm not an Owen scholar. I'm just a pastor trying to read through the text, you know, um, he will sometimes settle out, I think is this meaning because of. Um, other passages in scripture, um, other, the word used elsewhere in scripture, or what's going on in the particular, in the discourse that he's analyzing, as it were, would that be, internal evidence. So just walk us through the kinds of evidence. just for The uninitiated that, that you, that
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:That would be, Owen, I think, places The most emphasis on internal evidence. When he's critiquing the London polyglot, most of his critique is based on internal evidence. The funny thing about internal evidence is that there's really two kinds. There is what would have it. What would an author have likely written based on the context, based on what's used throughout the Bible, based on the, uh, uh, the flow and the style of the author? The, another form of internal evidence is not just what would the original author Normally do, but what might we expect a copyist, a scribe to do as well? So what are scribal tendencies and scribal errors? That's a form of, of internal evidence. What, what's, what's, what's difficult for me is that those two things often work against one another. So, uh, A canon of internal evidence is that you usually prefer the harder reading, because the assumption is that a copyist is going to, uh, maybe fix, smooth things out, and so you'd want the harder reading, and yet, the harder reading typically goes against what the author, the, the, the scriptural author is Intending the right. So usually the internal evidence factor cancels itself out. Um, I, I, I advocate that internal evidence is, is helpful, but it doesn't necessarily convince me more than other unless the external evidence is divided and split, then I might use the internal evidence to, um, you know, decide for me. But external evidence is simply elsewhere. What is the manuscript situation? What is, where, where are they located? Where, where's the reading from? You know, geographically, is it isolated to just one location at one point in time? So you're, the external evidence is looking at the manuscript data, the, the fathers, the, The translations, you're looking at the history of the reading, the variants and so forth. And that's a bit more objective. It's a bit more of a, uh, I would call it a more sound way to assess the situation, not to say again, you don't look at the internal evidence, but I think internally there, there is a bit of subjectivity there that, uh, who gets to decide what an author style is, uh, one of those soul sucking yeah. Books kind of books that I was talking about would be those higher critical scholars who say, you know Peter could not have written first peter because it's not his style and uh, they you know, but when something's too close Obviously, it's a forgery because the style is too similar. So these same people who have no rhyme or reason as to style Uh, so so you bring that over to Internal evidence. Well, why does that have to be his style here, but not another place? And so the, the amount of subjectivity that goes into internal evidence is so great that I, I don't lean on it. I, I use it as an helpful aid, but, uh, I, I want to fall back mainly on external evidence. So those are the two main concepts that have always been, it's just now we have terminology that we've given them.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:How, how would, um, uh, the analogy of faith, um, operate so, so, uh, in terms of evidence. So, so not just sort of gathering up internally repeated phrases and how a word is by, by head count is used, for instance, in other contexts within the Bible. But, um, but, um, But the doctrinal structure of scripture and, and, and so therefore, um, once it's, how does both the theology that there's one author of scripture, the Holy Spirit, and also a body of knowledge impact Um, solving textual variance. Is that another kind of, um, internal evidence or is that, is that when the textual critic goes down the corridor to the system, systematicians office and says, I think I've got this reading. What was it due to the, to the theological
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Well, usually because, and this is where your, you know, enlightenment thinking we need to be as unbiased as possible. They wouldn't want their theology to affect their textual criticism. I want to say that I get the impetus to do that, but certainly you're not going to want to follow a reading that would be clearly contradictory to the rest of scripture. And usually if you have a reading like that, it's contradictory within the same book itself. The same, you know, New Testament document, you know, usually that kind of internal evidence again can cancel itself out. Um, you know, if, if you have all the external evidence seems to point this way, but it can't be that because that would mean, you know, you know, the result would mean this, then there's a good chance to either need to reassess the evidence, uh, or, uh, the evidence needs skewed. Now, I can't think of an. An instance of that, though, so I'm giving a hypothetical here where I can't think of where there's external evidence that points to a, uh, a non orthodox or a, uh, a reading that would indicate something like, you know, I can't think of a variant that's going to promote pato baptism. Might love to say that, you know, I, I,
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Yes.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:see what I'm saying? Like, I, I, can't, I can't think of a variant though that also, you know, uh, leads to credo baptism at the same time, I don't think. But, um, so, so what I want to say is I'm giving a hypothetical that there still needs a place of of theology, uh, but, um, I am trying to lean on as much objective criteria in the external evidence, but I don't do away completely with the, the subjective element and, and looking at the whole canonical teaching is as part of that subjective element because, um, the Bible can't conflict with itself. Uh, God cannot deny himself as he said. So, um. What I might say is that the way I make the use of internal evidence primarily is, um, I want to know based on the internal evidence how that mistake came about and that's going to come about through the Examining internal evidence, ascribable error. Why might ascribe change it on purpose, change it on accident? Uh, how, how would that error come into the text? And if I can't answer that, then I've probably got a problem, uh, that I need to, you know, sit down and think about a little bit more. Um, so for me, that, that's the great use of internal evidence and theologically, uh, using systematic theology, you might be able to help yourself with that. Why might, uh, ascribe. Change this where their theological motives and if so, were they nefarious or were they, you know, were they promoted from, you know, uh, you know, good motivations, but it altered the text when it, the text didn't need any help, you know, God, God doesn't necessarily need help from a scribe to make it more orthodox. Um, I think sometimes we try to make scripture more orthodox than it, you know, which, which seems odd. So, you know, you do take into that component as well. But I can't think of that hypothetical where all the evidence points to a non Orthodox reading, and yet, uh, but again, I don't want to discount theology, I don't want to discount that, and in some ways we need to be aware of that to help us understand why a variant might arise. But ultimately, and we, let's apply this to 1 John 5, 7. Uh, you could make a case, uh, as Luther and, and other, other Lutherans did that the inclusion of it actually helps the Aryan argument. Uh, I'd have to pull out their, their statements, but, uh, they would, they would say that, um, let me see if I can go to the memory bank that, uh, the, the kind of witness that is in heaven is the same kind of witness on earth and therefore you would have some form of Nestorianism or something like that. It's just very interesting how they would, uh, work that out. Um, And so forth, but, uh, they, if we were to say it should be there because it affirms trinitarian orthodoxy, I want to say you're, you're putting the cart before the horse. I want to say trinitarian orthodoxy is true because it's found in scripture, not I want to find it in scripture to prove trinitarian orthodoxy. And so I think you see this with Owen's method. He starts with what is the text and then what does the text mean? And so there's still a right way that you want to. Uh, use systematic, uh, theology, but you don't want to prioritize it, that it forces a certain kind of textual variant reading. It can help, it can aid, but, um, it can't be the final arbiter, um, given the evidence that we have.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:it seems like, yeah, yeah. It seems like on the one hand, uh, just like all things, we don't want to make our systematic theology just default our, you know, view of the text or do our textual criticism because there's a distinction there. But at the same time, it seems like you're, you're getting at the point that we need to think about the discipline of textual criticism, the question of, well, what is the text theologically? And tell, tell me if I'm Getting at something of what you're saying here, the, the idea of, uh, trying to consider the manuscript evidence, uh, is a good one, but it all depends on how we approach it. So the weakness with, uh, some of those enlightenment thinkers and that enlightenment, uh, view that you mentioned is surely that they approach to the text. From, uh, the posture of considering it as, uh, no different from really any other religious text. Uh, and so we can best, uh, approach it with that presupposition, uh, uh, because that would mean that we're completely unbiased. We haven't got any, uh, almost, uh, lean in a certain direction when we approach it. Uh, we want to deny that, but on the other hand, we don't want to do just The equivalent of
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:well, I think that's absolutely correct. So, as a textual critic, I'm going to assume, I have a presupposition that scripture is going to be preserved because it's God's word. then I'm going to take a theological concept like Covenant theology and how God operates through both covenant time and covenant space. How his, uh, his Garden of Eden temple goal is to have his presence fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. And he's going to do that throughout space and throughout time. And that's going to inform my methodology. So I am bringing theology into my methodology where a Enlightenment text critic only wants to do textual criticism the same way that they would assess, uh, the works of Plato. And. I'm going to say there, there, there's something to be gained from that. Don't get me wrong, but the final arbiter for me is going to be, how would God have done it? And I believe that God would have done it with the voice of the church throughout history. So the voice of the church geographically, uh, diverse and the voice of the church throughout church history. That's how God operates. That's the, that's my theological presupposition. And so where I would have a hard time With a text critic who is only looking at the New Testament or the Old Testament for that matter as though it's just any other human document and Not that we can't, you know use those those methods But ultimately that for me that final standard is going to be it's a theological standard. It is a theological standard. So that that Is where I might even depart from a modern textual critic, uh, from those, those men that I really appreciate and, uh, those even conservative evangelical scholars, though, I think that they are being more governed by, uh, you know, 19th century, you know, enlightenment thinking, uh, rather than how would have God done it. And so, yeah, that's where theology intersects in this, in this vein, I think.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:quickly, I was going to ask, how does that affect or how does that impact your view then of providential preservation? Just, uh, give us your perspective on that because some people will use, uh, you know, we had Jeff Riddle on, uh, this, uh, podcast, or I should say we had him inside, uh, the virtual coffee house, uh, and virtual now that it's, it's been, uh, yeah, it's been exposed, um, no, and he made quite a convincing case in some ways for, uh, yeah. Us leaning on the received text tradition, uh, because or as an outflow of a doctrine of providential preservation. So how would you view a doctrine of preservation that we find in a lot of reform thinkers and our own confession of faith from these arguments in this
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Well, like, uh, Dr. Riddle, I, I, I also affirm 1 8 of our confession and, uh, that God would preserve it. But what he preserves is the question. And what is kept pure is the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. Not an edition, um, and not a stream necessarily. Um, the, the text hasn't said that the Hebrew is kept purely, or the Greek is kept purely, it's not an adverb, it's an ad. It's kept pure, and so preservation applies to the manuscript tradition. Uh, I, I wanna make that argument. And if we're gonna go about retrieval, then I would simply ask who retrieved the, the tr. What I mean by that is, do you see anyone saying, well, the TR says this, therefore, that's what we're going to go with. I don't see that. So if we're going to retrieve the methodology of the, the Orthodox and the Puritans and the Reformers, you know, we're going to retrieve their methodology of doing textual criticism. They're doing that because they believed in a preserved text, but they believe that it was preserved not in the Latin Vulgate. Uh, but the authoritative text is the Hebrew and the Greek. That's what settles all religious controversies that you have to go back to the original languages. And so I want to say, if that is the case, if, if what is authoritative is the Hebrew and the Greek, that's what's kept pure, then we have to, as we saw with Owen, we have to establish, as best we can, what that text is. We have to figure out what it is before we figure out what it means, uh, but there's a hermeneutical cycle in this as well, because in order to understand what it, what it is, you have to already know what it means and, uh, you have to be able to already have that in place, that, that you Prolegomena, that theology in place in order to rightly assess what the text should be. So there's that hermeneutical spiral, that tension that you have to deal with, and which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Uh, that's the same issue in hermeneutics. That's the same issue in theological method. It's present in New Testament textual criticism. I just want to say that, um. Why does preservation have to mean a certain, uh, a specific tradition? Why does it have to mean, uh, not all the manuscripts? Uh, why would it be a tradition that's localized in time? Why would it be a tradition that's localized in, in, um, The, the, the geographical space of church history, uh, that to me goes against the flow of how God preserved his text throughout history, throughout the geographical spread of Christianity. So, my pushback is, show me where Owen says, the Texas Receptus says this, therefore this is the preserved word. Show me where Perkins appeals to Stephanus or Beza, uh, or, they don't do that, they don't do that. What they do is they argue from the manuscript data. And I want to say that's what I want to preserve. That's what I want to, uh, resource, uh, when I do textual criticism.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Um, just a couple of quick reflections. Well, they're not going to be quick, I don't know why I say that. I try to make them quick, but they're not. Um, the first one was, um, just dialing back a few moments ago, when you were talking about the hypothetical, could, you know, you end up with a situation where a textual variant throws out. The system of theology and you can't think of one which which actually just demonstrates something doesn't it that God's voice is is as clear as a bell from his word and we're not talking here about the possibility of, um, well, you know, you know, the Islamic texts are. are famously difficult to resolve on the question of violence, right? And how that works, you could, you can go to the Quran and you can make a case for a peaceful Islam and you can make a case for a violent Islam and you, it's very difficult to solve what the central doctrines are on those Kinds of issues. We don't have
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:Well,
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:in with with the Bible text, do we? Sorry, John Mark. You're gonna come in on that
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:quickly that, that part, for some, the resolution there is the satanic verses isn't it? They actually have to say, well, this, this cannot be the case. And they don't really argue from a manuscript sense. They just say, well, Satan was the author of those verses.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Yeah, so so so what so one of the things that that um So folks who don't aren't versed in a textual criticism kind of approach and perhaps folks who are non academics, um, uh, brothers and sisters in Christ listening in, um, one of the one of the key things that I take from listening in on these, because I'm not a textual critic either, um, is is that the Lord has preserved word and doctrine. And, um, we're not looking at a situation where you could suddenly undo the trinity because there's a textual variant out there, which does itself, whatever the methodology the Lord has used, speak of the preservation of, of, um, of text and truth. And
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:I would, it sounds like it, right? I, I, sorry to cut you off, but in other words, why, why would Christians copy a variant that would say that the sun is less than God? If they came across a variant like that, they wouldn't record that. Uh, all, the only variants that we have it, we can use John 118, either he's, uh, monogamous Theos or monogamous monogamous Hwios. Now there's various reasons of why that variant came to, came about, whether for good or nefarious reasons. But I don't think either are going to undo the eternal generation of the sun. And those are the kind of variants I'm talking about. Hypothetically, is there a variant that says that he is a demigod? No.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the, so the, the scriptural witness is consistent and, um, uh, and, and both wherever one comes down on, uh, within the reformed tradition of, uh, uh, an eclectic or a received text or the, you know, there's, there's there's a commitment to, because it's the word of God, uh, and the Holy Spirit illuminates the minds of, of his church that we can receive and teach and pass down the faith once held. Um, we, we, that, that's, that's an ob, a spiritual objective reality. Um, so we don't need to be nervous. Uh, as one, I suppose one reflection I was thinking of. Um, the other one is though, I wonder, this comes back to sort of my puzzlement about, is there change? in the enlightenment period that we're still downstream of because I know it was a few hundred years ago but culturally we are absolutely in a all things are divided into the attention between the subjective and the objective which the critical method In, um, in epistemology, um, and more broadly, just how do we know anything? The tension between the objective and subjective, um, is part of that post enlightenment way of thinking. And you've mentioned. So I, I, I don't know, I've got, I've got a comment. I've just got a, and we won't, we won't solve this now, but I'm just, I'm just, I just wonder if I've heard a shift in what you said, not a historical shift, um, because you've talked about objective. Um, sources of evidence being the, the kind of manuscripts, the location where they're found, and then in the subject, and then, and then use the subject object kind of dichotomy, and the subject if including the theological and, and that. I wonder if we go. Pre enlightenment, if we'd find an Owen not accepting those distinctions because they wouldn't make sense in that context, and actually, therefore, what we've got in the post enlightenment situation is a, is a epistemology that does subjective, objective, but also fragments the disciplines. So that when you go pre enlightenment, Owen and others are more in a tighter way cycling through systematics, covenantal theology, textual criticism in, uh, without doing the object subject sort of objective subjective thing kind of formally epistemologically, but um, uh, but all under the it's God's word. So we're going to find the truth. So we can do analogy of faith. We can do analogy of scripture. We can do where did this tradition come from? And, and they, and, and, and so I think I find this in kind of, um, uh, you know, the modern problem with this sort of category of practical theology. a system as if it's its own discipline or something like that and you go back this isn't silo things like that in the pre enlightenment period so anyway i just wonder i don't know i was just wondering if if there is a difference and and and as much as we can continue the methodology As it comes through the enlightenment period, we end up with a bit of fragmentation, a little bit of sprinkled in kind of epistemological categories that leaves us open to forms of skepticism, forms of unhelpful disconnection between the disciplines, which might then make people nervous. And you know, and so there is a retrieval project. And the Retrieval Project is an approach to theology and knowledge that gets behind that enlightenment fragmentation. Even if there's, what we end up with is a continuation of methodology, but a different way of framing it, an older way of framing it. That's just a bunch of thoughts that just went off in my
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:I think you're
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:they might all be nonsense, I just don't
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:and, uh, I'll, I'll be the 1st to tell you. I'm probably not the 1 to answer that. Um, I, I want to say that, um. So I've already kind of tipped my hand about my text critical methodology. Uh, most of the modern text critics disagree with me because I am coming from a more theological, uh, reasoning or what I would say is this, um, Maurice Robinson argues for, uh, stable transmission history. I just give a theological rationale for that. Uh, David Allen Black will give a geographical dis uh, dispersion rationale. I'll give a theological rationale for why that's so. I, I, I wanna say maybe, maybe I'm doing, uh, uh, a more preen enlightenment kind of methodology that I, I take. All the evidence, but what's governing my evidence is as a theological method, but I think you're right. I think you're right that what we should be retrieving here is a, a theology is a, uh, a methodology even, but not necessarily the practice. Because it's not gone anywhere and it's not a text. I, I want to say it's not a text either. We're not retrieving a text. So I think that you're on to something that, yeah, we, we have, uh, fractured out these disciplines and, and these concepts even, um, and, and like I said, I, I'm a product of, of my, you know. upbringing. And, and so for me, it's hard not to think in terms of subjective and objective. Uh, but, but this is why it was, it was so, it was so interesting to me to see how these pre enlightenment, pre critical, um, thinkers, pre enlightenment thinkers could see two different variants and be comfortable with that, knowing that one of them is God's word, and we're going to interpret it. And, um, and, and be okay with that and move on as if we don't have to have, you know, epistemological certainty. I don't, I don't know, there's a tension here because the other attention I find is how are those who advocate for textual certainty, like we've got to know what the text is, you know, every jot and every tittle, how is that not a post enlightenment or enlightenment way of thinking like that's, that's, we're skeptical until we have certainty for me.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Yeah. I th I think that's a really interesting point. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, uh, just, uh, just, just to, just to quickly pick up on that, um, because, uh, because you can end up a radical empiricist or a radical subjectivist, and that's the kind of the post enlightened problem we've got. And you can end up ping ponging between, between the two. But it does fascinate me that in that confessional era, that pre preen enlightenment era and, and, and the reformation era, you can have a, um. a a Luther could have bothered that James probably shouldn't be in the Bible, but nobody's freaking out about that. So they obviously had a very different view. And I, I wanna say I say a more live view, um, beyond the radical empiricist sort of evidentialist, you know, thing and, and, and a subjective, it's just a live view of God is speaking through his word. So we'll hear and we'll listen. and we'll work out what the text is and that sort of thing, but not, I don't, you know, I just read Owen, I'm not an Owen scholar, but just, just a pastor reading Owen. I don't find him in a panic to try and establish the text in the same way that we might in a kind of, uh, hyperskeptical age and then shrink our evidential basis to certain kinds of. Uh, easy, um, uh, um, um, objective, objective criteria or something. And that they just look more relaxed
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:I mean,
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:to
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:they're very
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:that. I don't know.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Go ahead, John.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:I was just saying it's fascinating you point that out, Johnny, because it seems like there's a shift from where those people were. I mean, it is really interesting how they would basically exegete both variants. And I think part of the motivation for that must be that they perceived, uh, the scriptures, the word of God, uh, as the, the words on the pages as signs pointing to. The things that are signified and within the enlightenment, we have this hyper strong, uh, kind of critical grammatical historic approach to the text, which says we absolutely have to determine by kind of grammatical scrutiny of each individual word, what the intended meaning is of the human author, but that that wasn't what Calvin and Owen and Perkins were trying to get at. So it's interesting that there can be a type of trying to get certainty on the text approach, which is totally other to actually just our theology of what the scriptures are themselves. I don't know if you'd agree with
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:you mentioned the blog articles that I wrote. Let me read from Perkins because he's kind of getting at this tension at the very beginning of the first article. Uh, he's commenting on that variant I mentioned from Matthew 6. 1. Is it, uh, don't do your righteous acts in front of, you know, people or your charitable deeds, uh, far different Greek words. Uh, Perkins says this. When he talks about that, there's a variant, which must not seem strange, that in God's book, there should be diverse readings. This is a longer quote, so bear with me. It says, for in former ages, before printing was invented, the scriptures of God were conveyed from hand to hand by means of writing. Now they wrote, now, by the way, I got this quote, this wasn't me just stumbling across Perkins. Daniel Scheider, um, also a, a, a professor at IRBS, uh, said, hey, have you, have you seen this before? Alright, I, I continue, quote. Uh. They were conveyed hand to hand by means of writing. Now they, they that wrote out the copies of scripture did now and then mistake some words and letters by negligence or ignorance, and put one thing for another, whereupon do come these diverse readings. Yet, we must not think that the word of God is hereby maimed or made imperfect, for the true sense of the Holy Ghost, so there he's referring to what you were getting back to John Mark, not the original. Uh, intent of the human author, but the Holy Ghost, he says the true sense of the Holy Ghost remains sound and perfect that it may be we cannot discern of the right reading and the sense of scripture is rather to be judged the word of God than the words and letters thereof. Now, it being here uncertain which reading to follow, is it charitable deeds? Is it righteous acts for either of them contain a sense convenient to the place? Therefore, I will exclude neither, but from them both propound this instruction. And so he's like, all right, let me just talk about this and move on. So he is appealing to the authority of the, uh, divine author and the Holy spirit. End quote.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's fascinating. Yes, fascinating that they, yeah, all sorts of thoughts of ideas of the, we have some, uh, some, some concerns now that they, they didn't have, they're more relaxed about certain things back then. I've got a whole bunch of questions. I know we've gone an hour and 12 minutes and we really, um, we've really thrown some big, big ones at you. So we probably ought to wind up, but I, I wonder, it'd be great to have you back and, um, and talk about. Um, I just, I just, just, just the, I guess the, some of the, some of the post enlightenment, um, uh, issues. in text criticism and its impact on, um, uh, on preaching and teaching and those sorts of things in our particular, in a world that is skeptical, um, and, um, and, and, and, and some apologetic stuff. You know, like, because, because there's some popular level textual variant stuff gets out there on YouTube, you know, uh, for, um, and your bar airmen kind of stuff. It'd be quite interesting to see, um, how you, how you might handle some of those sorts of things and help us out, but that's, that's for, that's for another time. Um, but, uh, John Mark, what are we going to do? We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up or, um, uh, or, or try and, um, squeeze more things out of Timothy's brain.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:I, I think, I think it would be best to wrap up. However, before we. Get the, uh, the teacup or I should say coffee cup, uh, tinkling noises and coffeehouse music going. I, I mentioned that Timothy would introduce himself at the beginning, but I think the question was so long and big that he forgot,
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:So we don't know who he is! Ha ha ha ha!
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:By the time we got to the end of the question, I'd forgotten what happened at the beginning, uh, which is perfectly fair enough. So would you like to introduce yourself to people, Timothy? See where, uh, just so people can go and see more that you've written. We're going to put those two blog posts, uh, that were done, uh, with CBTS3 blog posts. Um. In the show notes, uh, and you've also recently, uh, written a book with founders press, Uh, that we, we want to discuss this in the future, uh, about Romans 13 and reading it
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Well, hi, I'm Timothy Decker. Uh, there's my
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:just just tell us something about
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:the pastors at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in, uh, Roanoke, Virginia. And I teach at various seminaries, one of them being IRBS. In fact, I'm coming, I'm slated to come, uh, to Ramsbottom in, uh, September be, I will be teaching a class on Acts and Paul.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Mmm!
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:uh, talk about a lot of information to get into one class, but looking forward to that. Uh, so I, I have various academic interest and one of them having nothing to do with any of this would be Hebrew poetry. Maybe if you want to have a discussion about that, uh, I, I feel like I'm the only one that enjoys Hebrew poetry, but, uh,
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Oh, that'd be wonderful!
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Um, anyways, uh, so I, I, I pastor, I. Uh, teach and then when I have moments, I do writing and research and, uh, I'm, I'm not sure where, I mean, these text critical articles were, uh, at, um, Governor Baptist Theological Seminary's blog. They asked for some text critical, um, uh, blogs, but, uh, I'm, I'm doing some other projects right now, uh, working on, uh, stuff with a couple other authors about, uh, the Texas receptus. So we're still teasing out what that's going to look like. Um. I don't even sure where it's going to drop or what platform, but, uh, let's see here. What else did you want to know? Yeah, the book. So revolution, just, just real quick revolutionary, not as it's a novel, um, interpretation of Romans 13, but that it has to do with private revolution and Romans 13. Being a prohibition against, uh, humans and Christians specifically engaging in private revolution. So, uh, with all that happened in 2020, 2021 and, and on, uh, it was what I wish I had known and studied and applied, uh, then. And in retrospect, kind of being able to teach myself and it worked out into a book that founders published and it's kind of out, but it's kind of not. You can get it, but you can't get it yet. And so it's the full form, uh, will, will, will be available in March. Uh, some copies have been distributed and, um, the actual, uh. Final edition is going to have a forward by Dusty Devers, who is a state senator in Oklahoma. And so that is, that is to be the full rendering is going to be in March. So that's, I would love to talk about that. That'd be a lot of fun.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Yeah, I'd love to hear about that. I mean, for a text critic, a critical expert, and then, and then thinking of um, That
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Only if
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:There is a text
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:only if you want to really Stretch. Uh, I, I did, I did mention something
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Have you really forced one?
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:the language used of Romans 13, you know, be subject to the governing authorities. That same word is used in Ephesians 5 22. If you hold to a certain textual variant, which I have a sneaking suspicion that when the, uh, new Nestle Allen ECM project comes out and updates Ephesians, I am, I'm almost willing to put money on that. They're going to, uh, include, uh, the, the. If the variant in Ephesians 5 22 is, is the, the command for wives to be subject to their husbands. Is it the verb assumed and omitted in verse 22, but it's assumed from verse 21, or is it actually in the text in verse 22? It's not a problem because it's also, it's actually repeated in Colossians, but, uh, I, I'm guessing that one of two variants are going to come up in Ephesians 5 22. It's not the one I would have preferred, but, um, I, I'm pretty sure it will be there. So it's, yeah, there's a really. Really long way you can go about connecting my book to contextual criticism, I suppose.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:But I mean, it's a, it's a I'm looking forward to reading it It's a culturally engaged book. It's, it's, it's trying to apply the word straight into, um,
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:It would be fun.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:into
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:It would be fun to
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:years, I suppose, where for many people.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:uh, revolutionary War of Independence as a good thing. Positively not, uh, not done out, out of anything, uh, unbiblical. But it was a, it was a public revolution, not a private revolution. It was led by the lesser magistrates. Uh. Combating a tyrant and King George. Um, but so it'd be fun to get your take on that because I don't have, uh, very often the opportunity to speak with, uh, my brothers across the pond.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:well let, let, let's book in a time to do that. Uh, we'll get hold of a copy of the book. We'll have a, we'll read it through and we'll, we'll get you back'cause um, it hits on a whole bunch of topics that I'm very passionate about, um, at the moment, um, particularly in our context and looking over in your context. Look, we're in the American Empire. I've said this before, aren't we? There was a quiet handing over of the Empire in the, in the post-war years. to, to, to the US. In fact, in the war years to the US. Um, and, um, you, uh, the American nation is the, um, is, is, is the child of the British in many senses. And the empire, uh, and, and, you know, we're, we're, we're under the empire. So we need to understand how to live as Christians. In the empire for good and ill anyway, so we'll, we'll, we'll get the book and we'll come back to you on that one. Yeah, definitely.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:I am very much looking forward to that conversation. And just as you were speaking there, Timothy, this is, um, this is some of my reading at the moment that I'm enjoying. Empire. Uh, and I believe it says how Britain made the modern world. So maybe we
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:And he's just for those listening on the audio, he's just flashed a book by Neil Ferguson, who is a historian at the Hoover Institute and not the one. Who makes up numbers, um, in London, uh, on pandemics. Anyway, uh, different Ferguson. One's a scholar. The other one's not.
timothy-decker_1_02-15-2024_094008:Yeah, this would be fun.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:See how this you wonder where this book conversation is going to go when we get around to it anyway.
john-mark_1_02-15-2024_144008:it's going to be great. Thank you to all of you who have joined us in the coffee house today. You can go and listen to more of these at brokenwharf. com slash listen, or wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple podcasts, Podbean, any of the others. Uh, there are some, uh, funny, funny names to those ones. Um, But yeah, go and listen to them and check us out at BrokenWharf. com if you want to get any good books. Thanks again and bye for now.
jonny-woodrow_1_02-15-2024_144009:Bye bye.