2 Timothy 1, verses 13 and 14, wherein the Apostle Paul says this, Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in us. May God bless today the reading and the hearing of his word in this place. Well, I want to give you greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to express my thanks to Pastor Robert Truelove and to Christ Reformed Church for their invitation to speak at this conference and for the hospitality that's already been extended. And I want to give my greetings to those who have assembled for this Texan Canon conference and to those who will eventually listen online. When Robert and I discussed on the phone holding this conference earlier this year, we didn't really know if there would be any interest in this outside of the two of us. Since we're both Reformed Baptists, numbers don't mean that much to us. And as I have sometimes said to some of my fellow Reformed Baptists back in Virginia, you know, sometimes you can have a good Reformed conference in a meeting place the size of a phone booth. or in a good minivan as you're driving somewhere. Those have been some of the best Reform Baptist conferences that I've been to. So given that fact, how encouraging it is to see such a good group of men and some women as well, and some young people who have come out literally from across the country. You've come from Arizona and Seattle and from Indiana and South Carolina. You've come from across the country. We even have people from outside of the country. We have brothers here from Canada. We've got the brother who's come from the UK. So believe it or not, this conference is an international conference. Wow. I am truly amazed, and I am humbled, and to God be the glory, that there are people who desire to hear about God's Word, have a passion for God's Word, a love for God's Word, because that's what's drawn us here. May the Lord use this meeting and these lectures to his glory and to the blessings of his people. Again, Robert and I are both preachers, and in these talks, it's kind of hard to know who to aim it for. There are some people here, honestly, who know a lot about this subject. I was speaking with Taylor and Dane earlier today. And they've really outstripped us. They know a lot about this topic. There are other people, there are some young people here, this may be completely new to you. Now in these talks, I'm going to be talking about some things that maybe it's just going to speak to a few people who know a lot, but I'm going to try to keep it on a level so that if you're kind of new to this, hopefully there are some things that are intelligible. And somehow in the providence of God, you're here and you've been put on a track to learn more about these things. And maybe there will be a hunger in you to learn more about these things that we're going to talk about. This Texts in Canon conference is devoted to exploring, defining, and defending what has come to be known as the confessional text position, as I like to call it. It's also been called confessional bibliology. It's also been called the traditional text position. It's been called the textus receptus position. And by some who have criticized us, it's been called traditional textism. And as I said, what's wrong with tradition? What's wrong with good tradition? If it's a bad tradition, throw it out. If it's a good tradition, then it should be kept. I'm not offended if you call me a traditionalist. Yes, I'm a traditional Christian, I'm proud of it. So, it's been called many things, but we're here because we're devoted to understanding again, exploring, defining, and defending this position. This view holds that the preferred text of scripture For those who identify as Bible-believing, Christ-exalting Christians should be the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Old Testament, and the Textus Receptus of the Greek New Testament. This was the text that was immediately inspired, preserved, copied, printed, and then translated into the various vulgar European languages during the time of the Protestant Reformation and beyond. It was used by the Protestant Orthodox in their doctrinal preaching and teaching and in their articulation of the historic Reformed and Protestant confessions of faith. And it continues to be used up to this very day among countless thousands of churches and individual Christians. There are some people out there who want you to believe that, oh, nobody uses that anymore. That's old-fashioned, it's outdated. I think that's quite inaccurate. There are countless thousands who still love the Word of God, love the traditional text, love translations that are based on the traditional text of Scripture. We prefer this confessional text over against what is called the modern critical text, which only emerged in the 19th century. and has, since its emergence, attempted to topple and to replace the traditional text. The modern critical text suggests that it is based on supposedly more objective historical grounds than the traditional text. As we and others have noted many times over, the modern critical text is based on what we could call a reconstructionist model. We must reconstruct the text. We don't have it anymore. It's somewhere in the mass of manuscripts and we must reconstruct it. Whereas the confessional text position holds to a preservation model that the Lord has faithfully preserved his word. In a recent book published by Crossway in 2019, Dirk Jonkund, who was one of the editors of the primary editor of what is called the Tyndale House Greek New Testament, which was produced in 2017 by Crossway. He wrote a book called An Introduction to the Greek New Testament. And in that book, he offers a short chapter titled, Why Not the Texas Receptus? Now, on one hand, I appreciate Dr. Youngkind for addressing this issue. Many modern text critics just simply ignore the Texas receptus position. At least he did us the honor of addressing our position, and he did so actually quite charitably, although I disagree with his opinions that he expressed in that chapter. In that chapter, he says the following. He says accepting the Texas Receptus as the authoritative text of the New Testament means that one accepts the printed text of the 16th and early 17th centuries. That's correct. And we'll talk more about that later. He then says the distinctive reason for accepting the Texas Receptus is rarely historical, but rather theological. And it rests on the notion of providential preservation. And again, he's largely accurate in what he says. At the close of that chapter, however, Yonkin goes on to say, I cannot escape the notion that defenders of the Texas receptus shrink back from the historical task and adopt a solution in which the theological notion of providential preservation functions in a way not dissimilar to the theological outlook that the reformers rejected. That's what he's saying. If you hold to the TR position, you're actually holding a position that the reformers rejected. I believe that Jankind is much mistaken in this assessment. He does not seem to recognize that the doctrine of the providential preservation of the Word of God is not rooted in Rome or in Constantinople, but in Geneva and in Westminster. He also fails to consider the possibility that it is the modern critical text and its reconstructionist methodology that is in fact a radical departure from the spirit of the Reformers and the Protestant Orthodox creeds, having more in common with the Enlightenment than with the Reformation. Nevertheless, in this lecture and the next one that I'm going to do in particular, I'm going to attempt to address some of the historical questions that he says we don't pay any attention to, alongside of some theological and pastoral and practical considerations that relate to what I want to describe as four stages. First, the emergence of the traditional text. Second, the triumph of the traditional text. Third, challenges that were brought forward against the traditional text. And then finally, to the affirmation or the reaffirmation of the traditional text, which I think we're part of a movement to do. So the first two lectures, actually, we're going to talk about, I'm changing a little bit as Robert did, these lectures we gave over the titles of months ago. The first two lectures, I'm going to try to trace the traditional text from the time of the apostles up to the time just before the Reformation. So that's the emergence stage. Then in the third lecture, I'm going to talk about the text from the time of the Reformation up to the time just before the Enlightenment. And I'm going to call that the triumph stage, when the traditional text triumphed. And then I'm going to talk in the lecture tomorrow on from the Enlightenment to the postmodern age we're in now. And we're going to discuss the challenges that have been thrown up against the received text. And then finally, though, also in that lecture, I'm going to talk about a case that can be made for the confessional text in our age. And that will be ending on an affirmation and a reaffirmation of the confessional text or the traditional text. So again, one of the key questions I want to ask in these first two lectures is, does one have to abandon all historical considerations in order to embrace the traditional text or the confessional text? And we would answer to that, of course, you do not have to abandon all historical considerations. Historical considerations are to be undertaken alongside of theological and pastoral ones. To that end, I want, in these opening two lectures, to address four historical questions. So I'm going to address two historical questions in this lecture and then two in the next. So here are the four questions we're going to look at. First, we're going to ask, how did we get the Christian scriptures? And related to that, how did we get them, and should they be treated like any other writings from the ancient or classical era? Second question we're going to ask, historical question. How were the scriptures transmitted? How were they copied? The third historical question that we'll address in the second lecture is going to be, how many early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament do we have, including the vaunted papyri? How many of these exactly do we have? And related to that in the third question, do these manuscripts necessarily undermine the confessional text position? Because that's what they tell us. Then the fourth and last historical question I want to ask is, why do we have so relatively few early manuscripts in the New Testament? And what are the implications of this for textual study and for evaluation? And here's a key question we'll ask throughout the day and probably into tomorrow too. Do we really have enough extant manuscript evidence of the New Testament to justify the entire reconstructionist approach? And I think we do not. And that's why we have to rely on providential preservation and not reconstruction. But let's begin with the first question. The first question is, how did we get the Christian scriptures and should they be treated like any other writing from the ancient or classical era? Now, the position of the academy today could be summarized as follows. They would say the Christian scriptures are not particularly distinct in essence from other religious writings of the same era, and so should be offered no special consideration in evaluation. Those in the academy want to study the text of scripture and its transmission in the same way that they study Caesar's Gaelic Wars or the writings of Homer or the writings of Plato and so forth. In contrast to this, we want to begin by tracing the confessional view of the origins and the essence of scripture. The first Christians had from the beginning the Old Testament scriptures which had been faithfully preserved by God through means of the Old Testament church and by faithful Jews during the intertestamental period. In Romans chapter 3 verse 2, the Apostle Paul says, unto them, meaning his fellow Jews, were committed the oracles of God, ta logia tu theum. So to them were committed the oracles of God. The risen Christ therefore can say to his disciples in Luke 24 and verse 44, these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. It's a very intriguing verse because it tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ knew the traditional tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible. The law, the prophets and the writings, the Torah, the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim. And the first works among the Ketuvim were the Psalms. So I have spoken to you from the law, the prophets and the Psalms. The Lord Jesus knew the traditional Hebrew Bible. As Robert said, I think we're over lunch. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't say, well, I've spoken to you about some of the scriptures. And in a few years, we'll have a better edition of them so that you'll be able to really know what they say. But he said, we have the word I have spoken to you from the scriptures, the law, the prophets and the Psalms about me. The apostles made use of the Old Testament scriptures to preach and teach about Christ. And they commended the Old Testament scriptures to the esteem and use of their fellow believers. I said I'm preaching right now through First Kings in our assembly in Louisa, Virginia. And before I preach some of these sermons, I sometimes like to read some things from the New Testament to set up the preaching from the Old Testament. And here are a couple of things that I've read. Romans chapter 15 and verse 4. The apostle Paul said, for whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. What things were written aforetime, the Old Testament, was written for our learning. And that's why the Old Testament is still valid. It's part of our Bible. And then another one I've enjoyed reading ahead of reading the Old Testament text is first Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 11. When the Apostle Paul wrote, now, all these things happen. Now, he had just talked about some of the things that happened in the Old Testament, the lifting up of the brazen serpent and how this was a type that was pointing toward Christ being lifted up on the cross. He says, Now, all these things happened unto them for in samples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. They're written for our admonition. And then the last one I've enjoyed reading is one that I feel sure that you know well. Where Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, all scripture, all graphe is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly finished unto all good works. And so the Old Testament was received by the apostles and it was preached and it was taught. Now, those same apostles then were guided by the Holy Spirit. They had been eyewitnesses and earwitnesses to the ministry of Christ. And we're told in Acts 2.42 that the church in Jerusalem there had unity. And it says there that the early believers continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine. So they were listening to the didache, the teaching of the apostles. Jude likewise exhorted, but beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ himself, during his earthly ministry, had promised his disciples in John 14, 26, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things into your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. You ever talk with someone, children or youth in your church, or maybe apologetics with an unbeliever, and they say, how could the Gospels possibly record everything that Jesus said? Well, if it was just merely the work of men, this couldn't be true, right? But Christ said he was giving the comforter to bring to the remembrance of the apostles the things that he had said and done. So it could be faithfully recorded. There's a debate that goes on in contemporary academics about even among evangelicals. Do we have when we have the words of Christ, is it really the abscissum verba, the very words of Christ, or is it just, you know, the gist, the abscissum evokes? John 14, 26 says that the Holy Spirit would bring to the remembrance of the apostles these things. So we'll hold to abscissum verba. In due time, these apostles and apostolic associates, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, began to write down the books of the New Testament. They did so for evangelistic purposes in some cases, as John gives us a purpose statement for his gospel in John 20 and verse 31, that these things are written, that you might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life in his name, So it's written for evangelistic purposes. The New Testament writings were also written for what we could call catechetical purposes, teaching purposes, discipleship purposes. And so Luke could say to Theophilus, the God lover in Luke 1, 4, that he writes this gospel that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou has been instructed. The New Testament writings were also written for practical and pastoral purposes. We can cite so many examples of this. Just think about Paul writing the letter to the church at Philippi, and these letters were read aloud. And can you imagine the two women who had had a disagreement with one another? And the letter is read and the elder gets up and reads Philippians 4, 2, I beseech Euodias and I beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind in the Lord. So the scriptures written for pastoral purposes. And they were also written at times at the explicit direction of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. As John records in Revelation 119, that Christ said to him, write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. In the modern age, there's been a lot of downplaying of dictation. Oh, we don't believe that wooden dictation theory. Well, there are many parts of scripture that are dictated. Christ speaks, thus saith the Lord, ko amar Jehovah. And he told John to write down these things. Thus, the apostle Peter can say that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For he says, the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21. Peter's words apply not only to the Old Testament, but also to the New Testament. And so we had 27 New Testament books that were written under divine inspiration to complete alongside of the Old Testament, the canon of the Christian scriptures. So the Apostle Paul could write in Ephesians 2, 19 and 20 about the household of God, which is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. So let us think for a second. And I'm hedging into Robert's territory, perhaps from last time about what is the New Testament? What do we have? Well, there are four gospels recording the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, each culminating with his death, burial, resurrection and resurrection appearances. Each gospel, if you take the traditional ending of Mark out, You have a gospel without resurrection appearances. But that's what modern text criticism tells us, that we can have a gospel without resurrection appearances. Well. Two of the four Gospels were written by apostles, Matthew and John. Two were written by men who were not apostles, but who were closely associated with the apostles. Mark recorded the memoirs of Peter, and Luke was a companion of the apostle Paul. Luke is perhaps the most self-conscious of the evangelists with regard to his role as a historian, an inspired historian, where he notes in the introduction to his gospel, Luke 1, 1 through 4, his use of eyewitness sources in compiling his work. Remarking on the traditional ordering of the gospels, Augustine, in his Harmony of the Evangelist, says that Matthew and John, as apostles, were set on either end of the gospel collection so that Mark and Luke, who were written by apostolic associates, were supported on either side by the same, like sons who were to be embraced. At least 13 letters were written by the apostle Paul and possibly 14 if we include, as did the early Christians, the book of Hebrews in the Pauline corpus. It is clear that Paul, at least on some occasions, made use of an amanuensis or scribe, as in Romans 16, 22. It says, I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. Then we have the seven general epistles written by James, Peter, John, and Jude. Think about that for a second. If Hebrews is Pauline, it means we have 14 letters of Paul, seven times two. And then we've got seven general epistles. And if we go to the book of Revelation, what do we have? The letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor. There is a harmony, there's an order in the way that all of this has been put together by the Holy Spirit. So, then after the general epistles, we have, again, the book of Revelation written by the Apostle John. It is, of course, our contention that these books, alongside the Old Testament scriptures, were given by inspiration of God. Thus, they are unlike uninspired works of merely human composition and should not be treated as such or considered as such." So there's the answer to number one. We cannot treat the scriptures like we do other works of antiquity. We are believers after all, are we not? So we cannot treat the scriptures as we do uninspired works. Now let me move on to the second question. the second of the four questions. How were the scriptures transmitted or copied? And let me again begin by summarizing the position of the Academy. The Academy says that the transmission of the Christian scriptures was generally like the transmission of any ancient works of antiquity that were made by private and professional scribes. That means there were numerous unintentional and intentional scribal errors introduced from the beginning. In modern text criticism of the 19th and 20th centuries, it was believed with more or less confidence that it was possible to reconstruct the autographs or the originals of the various books of scripture. In the 21st century, however, we'll talk more about this later. The academic text critics now believe that such a reconstruction of the original is all but impossible. In fact, they say the best that we can do is get back to what they call the Ausgang's text or the initial text. The best that we can do is trace it back maybe to the third century. They've given up. They've abandoned. trying to find the originals. They don't believe we can do that. They don't think it's profitable or worthwhile. We'll talk about why a little bit later. So let me begin our approach to this question by reviewing some of the details about the material and writing style used in the copying in the New Testament. For those of you who are very steeped in this, this is going to seem elementary. But again, we've got all types of people here. And so let me just talk. basically about the materials. The earliest copies of the New Testament were made on papyrus. That is from the fibrous plants of the same name and they were kept most likely in the beginning on long rolls or scrolls. We have a very interesting note in 2 Timothy 4, 13, when Paul writes to Timothy and he says, the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee and the books, ta biblia, but especially the parchments. And he uses the word membrana. And this may well have been a reference to papyri rolls, whether it was scripture or not, we're not sure, but it could have been it could have been rolls of of works that were considered Christian scriptures, whether from the Old Testament or the New Testament. C.P. Hallahan estimates that a copy of 2 Thessalonians would have required a roll of 5 feet in length. He continues, Romans would need 11 1�2 feet, Revelation 15 feet, Mark 19 feet, and Luke 32 feet. He adds that due to the size of these copies, few Christian communities and even fewer individuals possessed all canonical books. In his important monograph, Books and Readers in the Early Church, published by Yale University Press in 1995, Harry Gamble notes that among the many religious movements of antiquity, only Christianity and Judaism produce much literature at all. You know, I teach at a community college and I teach survey of the New Testament and New Testament early Christianity and it's always amazing to teach these students and everyone comes in with a lot of presuppositions. They think about religion in the way that has been influenced or shaped by the triumph of Christianity over the last several generations. And so they think all religions are about what do you believe and all religions have sacred writings and so forth. If you go back and look at the Greco-Roman religions, they had no creeds. They did not focus on written literature that would be copied. There's something unique about Judaism and Christianity that makes us people of the book, people of the word. And Gamble points this out. He says, there is no appreciable body of religious writings from the Greco-Roman world with which early Christian literature can be fruitfully compared. This isn't a KJV only. This is somebody who teaches at University of Virginia. So what I'm saying is, Another reason why we can't compare the transmission of Christian literature with something, let's say, from Greco-Roman literature. There's no comparison to be made. The desire to collect biblical books together and to be able to locate passages within them led to the development of the codex or the book form in which pages or choirs, that's Q-U-I-R-E-S, were sewn together rather than the role Many believe that it was the Christians who invented books. Today they think we only know how to burn them. But we invented books. We invented the codex form because Christians were readers and they wanted to read and they were studiers. They want to read and study God's word. What did Christ himself say in the Great Commission? He commissioned the disciples to go and to teach all nations, to baptize them and to teach them all the things that he had commanded, along with his promise to be with them to the end of the world. So because Christians were readers and studiers of the word, the codex form was created. Gamble. describes the predominant Christian use of the codex as a genuine anomaly that needs explanation. He suggests three reasons why early Christians began to use the codex. First, he says, it was more economical. It was cheaper, since writing could be done on both sides of the choir. Second, he says, it was easier to use. It could be held in one hand. It did not have to be unrolled and rolled back again. Third, he says, it provided ease of reference. You've got a codex, you've got a book. It was easier to locate passages which was helpful in discussions and debates. And Christians from the very beginning have not only been studying, but we've been debating and theologizing. And they wanted to have Bible studies. They wanted to follow along with the preacher and look at the word themselves, to be like the Bereans, to see if what was being preached and taught was so in the word. With the conversion of the Roman Emperor, and I use conversion in quotes, the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, significant changes came for the fledgling Christian movement. Persecution ceased and wealth increased. One practical result of this was that more copies of the Bible were made and they began to be written on vellum, that is the skins of cattle, sheep, goats, and especially young cattle and sheep and goats. Vellum was the preferred material for copies of the New Testament from the 4th to the 15th centuries. And people who study these things today, when they find something that's written on papyri, then there's good reason to think it's pre-4th century. When they find it's written on vellum, there's good reason to believe it's 4th, 5th century or later, up to the 15th century. And there was also a change that took place with regard to writing style. In the beginning, the earliest copies that we have are written in all capital letters and without any breaks between words. These are called unseal manuscripts written in the unseal script. It's also called majuscule. And then sometime around the ninth century, so it's thought we were talking about this earlier. Some believe it stretches back even earlier. But as far as we know about the ninth century, there was a technological advancement that apparently occurred when the manuscripts were written with a lowercase cursive script that came to be known as the minuscule script. And that's another thing that helps in dating. So if you get a manuscript and it's written on vellum and it's in minuscule, it's probably post ninth century. You get some of this on papyri. Some of it's written in unsealed script. You can date it earlier. And so that's what scholars do who study these things. Now, let's return for a second to the question about the quality of the copying that was done. And again, to state the obvious, in the beginning, those first 1,500 years, if you had a Bible, it was copied. It was hand copied by someone. And one of the questions we have is, how well was this done by early Christians? Was it done in a haphazard manner? Or was it done in a careful manner? Although evangelical supporters of the modern critical text may not take things as far as their modern critical text supporting compatriots do, they are clear that they do not believe that the New Testament text was reliably copied, even at, and particularly at, they often stress, the earliest stages of transmission. Again, I want to return to Dirk Yonken's An Introduction to the Greek New Testament. This is 2019, so this is some of the most recent things that are being said by those who are advocates for the modern critical text. And once again, to his credit, Yonken puts forward, attempts to put forward, a theology of the transmission of the text, which is rarely done by modern text critics. But he tries to theologize, I think, as an alternative to providential preservation, the way we see it. And one of the things he discusses is what he perceives to be a radical difference in the way the Old Testament was transmitted and the way the New Testament was transmitted. And this is what he writes. He says, once the church started to spread away from Jerusalem, it became increasingly decentralized. The temple was the focal point of textual preservation in the days of the Old Testament. Yet there never was a comparable institution in the days of the New Testament. The church is described in temple language, yet without a physical center where the apostles and others could deposit the authoritative master copy of their writings. He notes there was something, as he believes it, inherently good about the distinction that was drawn between the temple and the church. He continues to say, yet it was a development that had a profound effect on the transmission of the written word. No longer was there a central authority that could authenticate the approved status of the individual copies of the text, just as there was no single central location that would produce approved copies. The absence of a central sanctuary in the worldwide apostolic church, he said, is intentional and theologically meaningful. Unreliable transmission of the New Testament text, according to Yom Kippur, is indicative of the decentralized and dispersed situation of the people of God. In a draft of a book review that I've written of Yom Kippur's book, I noted that his position is in some ways too optimistic about the transmission of the Old Testament text, given that the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and by the Romans in AD 70. but also too negative about the transmission of the New Testament text. You evaluate for yourself what you think about that as I share with you some of the data. In juxtaposition to the modern view as expressed by Jankin, this rather negative view, I want to put forward a more positive confessional view of the early preservation and transmission of the text of Scripture. Scholars typically refer to the original manuscripts written by the apostles or apostolic associates who were the authors, the inspired penman of those books. They refer to them as the autographs, or maybe you've heard the Latin form, the autographa. And so those would have been the original writings that came from the pen of Matthew or Luke or from the Apostle Paul. Do we have any of the autographa? That's another question I always ask when I'm teaching this class in a college environment. And I have them raise their hands. There will always be a few people who think that we have a few of these. So I say, is it somewhere? Is it in the British Museum? Is it in the Smithsonian? Well, the answer is no. All the autographa are lost, either worn out by usage, destroyed by persecution, or lost by some other unknown means. Now, should it bother us that we don't have any of the autographs of the canonical books? I don't believe it should for several reasons. First, we do not have the autographs of any works of antiquity. We don't have the original hand of Caesar's Gaelic Wars, of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethic, of Philostratus's Life of Apollonia of Tiana, Second, it has been suggested that God did not allow the autograph to survive because Christians would have turned these things into objects of superstition or worship like the relics of the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox churches. Here is what John Owen, the Puritan John Owen, wrote about the autographs. He said, first then it is granted that the individual autographs of Moses, the prophets and apostles are in all probability and as to all that we know utterly perished and lost out of the world as also the copies of Ezra. The individual ink and parchment, the rolls or books that they wrote could not, he says, without a miracle had been preserved from moldering into dust before this time. He continues, nor does it seem improbable that God was willing by their loss to reduce us to a nearer consideration of his care and providence in the preservation of every tittle contained in them. And then he says, had those individual writings been preserved, Men would have been ready to adore them as the Jews do their own apographa in their synagogues. Third reason we shouldn't be concerned about the fact that the Lord did not see fit to preserve the autographa. We have the faithfully preserved copies of the scriptures. And we call those the apographa. Apo means from, preposition means from, apographa. We don't have the autographa, but we have the apographa. And we have them in generally abundant number, in such a number that at least meets and often excels the number that we have of any other work of antiquity. We're going to talk more about exactly how many we have and why that might be significant. Fourth, another thing to consider about the whole concept of the autograph, is the fact that the idea of a single authoritative autograph might not always describe the way in which some biblical books, especially the New Testament letters, were produced. There may have been more than one scribe writing down what Paul dictated, for example. Some works from the very start were written for more than one recipient. And so multiple autographic editions might have been produced from the very beginning. Paul wrote Galatians, according to Galatians 1, 2, for the churches of Galatia. Did multiple autographic editions of this letter immediately go out to those several churches? In Colossians 4, 16, Paul urges the church at Colossae to read this epistle, meaning Colossians, among them. And Paul says, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans. Did the Colossians have the original and was Paul urging them to send it along to the Laodiceans or to make an authoritative copy and send it to them? Or were there possibly simultaneously autographic editions that were produced? One sent to the church at Colossae, one sent to the church at Laodicea and possibly to other churches. Revelation was written according to Revelation 1.4 to the seven churches which were in Asia. were autographic editions of the work immediately produced for the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. It is possible also that there were early Christian scribes from the very beginning of the Christian movement whose task it was faithfully to copy the biblical works. The Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 13, 52, Therefore, every scribe, and he uses the word grammatius, which is instructed in the kingdom of heaven, is likened to a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasures things new and old. What about the note in Acts 6, 7, where Luke says, and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith? The Christian movement had its roots deeply in the religion and practices of the people of Israel. Christ, The apostles and many of the first disciples were, according to the flesh, Jews. Surely they gained from these roots a sense of the necessity of meticulous care in the proper transmission of these writings that they regarded as scripture. We know, in fact, that the New Testament writings were recognized and collected as scripture very early on, even before the last New Testament work was completed. Think about Paul's statement to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5, 18. For the scripture, graphe saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And the laborer is worthy of his reward. It's a very intriguing statement because what does Paul do? He says, here's the scripture. And he gives one quotation from Deuteronomy 25, 4 from the Torah. Do not muzzle the ox that treads the corn. But then he gives another citation. The laborer is worthy of his reward and scan all the ancient literature that you want. Where's the only place you find this? Luke 10 7. Deuteronomy and Luke, the scriptures. Compare also Peter's striking words in 2 Peter 3, verses 15 and 16, where he says, An account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest. That's W-R-E-S-T. as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction. Note three important things about Peter's statement. First, Paul's letters were being collected together and circulating even before the completion of the New Testament canon. Second, Paul's letters were being regarded almost immediately by God's people as scripture, as graphe. Third, notice that already before even the end of the New Testament canon, there were already unlearned and unstable men who were attempting to corrupt and to do damage to Paul's letters. Notice something else interesting about those two passages. There's a reference there to a gospel and to Paul's writings. We'll come to this in just a moment. The first, the earliest consensus was on the Gospels and the writings of Paul. And so perhaps not surprising that we find that reference within the New Testament itself. As David Trubisch, among others, has pointed out, the New Testament writings were not collected in a single volume in the early centuries of Christianity. So young people, if you were to go look for a New Testament like we have it today, 27 books bound together alongside the 39 books of the Old Testament, the 66 books of our Christian scriptures, that great library of the Holy Spirit, you most likely would not have found such a thing being owned by an individual Christian or even being found within a church. They simply weren't bound together in those early centuries as one book. What happened instead is The scriptures circulated primarily in four main collections. First, the Gospels, the four Gospels circulated together in one collection. Secondly, the Pauline epistles, and that would be the 13 letters plus Hebrews, circulated as one body, one corpus. Third, interestingly enough, it seems that Acts, And the general epistles, or the Catholic epistles, when I say Catholic, I don't mean Roman Catholic, but Catholic with a small c, universal epistles, circulated together. And sometimes these are referred to as the Prax Apostolos. And then lastly, Revelation circulated. So there are four main collections. Of these four, the first two, the Gospels and Paul's letters, achieved the earliest consensus acceptance and recognition. And thus, we have more and earlier copies of them. The latter two, the Praxapostolos and Revelation, gained universal acceptance and recognition later. And therefore, their copies are generally later and fewer. Note two things very well about this. This does not mean that The Prax Apostolos and Revelation only became canonical at a later time. Here's what my view is on the canonicity. When was the canon closed? When the last inspired book was written, whether people acknowledge it or not. That's when the canon was closed. If it was the book of Revelation, perhaps. That's when it closed, when the last inspired book was written. And then it's just a process of the church recognizing it and acknowledging it. So they were canonical from the moment they were written due to their inspiration, even if they were not universally recognized until a much later time. The other thing to notice about this is some of the most dogged fights about the text of the New Testament relate to the Catholic epistles and Revelation. And the people who confidently say, Koma Yohane, 1 John 5, 7. It's so late. No, they're just showing that they don't understand. this process, and we have very few copies of the Catholic Epistles and Revelation in comparison to the Gospels and the writings of Paul. It's like comparing apples and oranges to compare what we have. Well, given the high view of these sacred scriptures among early Christians, they would surely have handled them with great care. If they think Luke and the writings of Paul are scripture, do you think they're going to be nonchalant? in the copying and the transmission of these works? Of course not. Again, we can turn to the Puritan John Owen, who makes this point in his work, A Vindication of the Purity and Integrity of the Hebrew and Greek Texts of the Old and New Testament, that was published in 1659. And I'm going to read just a little bit. It's kind of an extended quotation, but I hope you can attend to it and hear it. where he describes how the early Christians would have been very careful about translating the scriptures. And I'm going to read a paraphrase that I've written from Owen to make it a little simpler. This is what he writes. He says, The Jews have a common saying among them that to alter one letter of the law is no less sin than to set the whole world on fire. Shall we then think that in writing out the word of God, they took no more care than in writing out Aristotle or Plato? Consider the fact that they held each word to be transcribed down to the very iota and tittle to be the word of the great God. These copyists also knew that their work would come under the inspection of innumerable eyes of men. There were thousands of extant copies to which they could be compared and tried. This was known by everyone who took up this work. Thus, it is not hard to prove that their care and diligence would have far outstripped those of copyists of pagan authors. There are, in fact, many accounts of the exact diligence and reverential care of the ancient Jews in this work, especially when they had the task of making a copy that would be a rule and standard for making and testing other private copies. Maimonides tells us that Ben Asher spent many years in the careful, exact writing out of the Bible. They had a list of no less than 20 things that would profane a book copy. One of them was, if but one letter is wanting. Another was, if but one letter is redundant. Even among the pagans, Owen continues, much care was taken in copy. One would scarcely think, he says, that Roman priests would transcribe the verses of the Sibylline oracles negligently or treacherously or alter one tittle from what they found written. Should we then entertain such thoughts of them who knew they had to do with the living God and with that which is dearer to him than the whole world? In the same work, Owen lists 12 reasons why the copies would have been carefully made and why they would have accurately reflected the true text of God's word. Here are the first seven. First, he says, because of the providence of God in taking care of his word. Second, he says, because of the religious care of the church to whom the Oracle of God was committed. Third, he says, the care of the first writers in giving out authentic copies of what they had received from God to many, which might be standards for the first transcribers. Fourth, the multiplying of copies to such a number that it was impossible for anyone to corrupt them all, either intentionally or by negligence. Fifth, the preservation of the authentic copies first in the Jewish synagogues, then in Christian assemblies with reverence and diligence. Six, the daily reading and studying of the word by all sorts of persons ever since its first writing, making every alteration liable to immediate observation and discovery and that all over the world. Seventh, the consideration of the many millions who looked on every letter and tittle of this book as their inheritance, which they would not have lost for all the world. And he says that is particularly true of the Old Testament, which in his day was so much under attack. Let me turn to one point that Owen makes. It's point number five. He says that following Jewish tradition, authentic copies Exemplars, or possibly in some cases, even autographic editions of the books were kept within Christian assemblies with reverence and diligent care. And we need to contrast this, remember, with what Youngkin said. No, we've got a decentralized church, and there's no place to lay up the copies, no place to check them. But Owen says, no, no, they were laid up in the churches. And they were diligently compared to make sure that the copies were being done authentically. In another place, Owen makes this observation. He says, for the scriptures of the New Testament, it does not appear that the autographa of it were ever gathered into one volume. That's what I said earlier. This is Owen saying this in 1659. There was never a bound together 27 books of the New Testament in the early church. The autographer were never bound together, but he says the epistles, though immediately transcribed for the use of other churches, Colossians chapter four, verse 16, were doubtless kept in several churches. We're into, they were directed from these proto TIPA. There were quickly type Umana or transcribed copies given out to fateful men. Whilst the infallible spirit yet continued his guidance in an extraordinary manner. Notice three points and three key terms made by Owen. First, he talks about the autographa, the autographs, which were never gathered together in a single volume. Second, though, he talks about what he calls the prototypa, which were immediately transcribed prototypes of the autographs. And thirdly, he speaks about the ectypoumena, the transcribed copies that were made from the autographs and from the prototypes. Owen's observations are supported by what we find in several places and writings from early Christian history, from the church fathers and from other evidences. We can look first to the epistles of the early martyr Bishop Ignatius of Antioch, who lived from around the year 35 to the year 107. He described himself in his writings as Theophorus, God-bearer. He felt like he was bringing God to men in his preaching. Ignatius composed seven letters to churches and to one individual, Polycarp, while he was being transported from Antioch to Rome, where he would suffer damnatio ad bestias. He would be fed to the lions. And so as he made the journey, Christians would come to him at various places, and he would speak to them, and he would write these letters. And these became devotional literature, I guess we could say, among some early Christians. And before you think, well, that's early church. These accounts were found helpful by Protestants. The account of Ignatius of Antioch is in the Fox's Book of Martyrs, for example, of 1563. In one of those letters, Ignatius was writing to the church at Philadelphia, to the Philadelphians. And in that letter, he is contending against schismatics and Judaizers. And as part of that discussion, he says the following. He says, certain people declared in my hearing, unless I can find a thing in our ancient records, I refuse to believe that it is in the gospel. And when I assured them that it is indeed in the ancient scriptures, they retorted, that has got to be proved. But for my part, my records are Jesus Christ. For me, the sacrosanct records are his cross and death and resurrection and the faith that comes through him. And it is by these and by the help of your prayers that I am hoping to be justified. Now, there's a lot that's intriguing about that statement. And as a friend of mine likes to say, the church fathers really ought to be called the church infants sometimes, because they didn't always have as clear a theology, certainly, as the Apostle Paul. There was declension that started almost immediately after the time of the apostles. But for our purposes, it's very interesting to see Ignatius's reference to what he calls the ancient records. And in Greek, it's the toi archeoi. against which one apparently might have been able to compare his copy of the Gospels to verify if any disputed reading was true or authentic. Kearsup Lake, in his translation of this passage, I gave you one from Andrew Luth, but in Kearsup Lake's translation he renders this term as the charters. To those who desire to check the ancient records or the charters, Ignatius says, For him, the sacrosanct records, and here he uses, for some reason, a neuter plural noun, archaea. He says his sacrosanct records are the cross, the death, and the resurrection of Christ. Now, one should not necessarily think that Ignatius was elevating his experience of Jesus over the written gospel accounts of his life. He may simply have been drawing an analogy. As one might go check the ancient records to verify that his copy of the scriptures are correct, So one must check his theology of Christ over against his death, burial, and resurrection, as taught in the Gospels. Though it might be suggested that the ancient records or charters refer to the Old Testament, it's also possible that Ignatius knew of places, probably churches, which held the autographa, or the prototypa, where one might be able to take his copy his autograph and verify whether he had the proper reading. Next, we can look at the early writer, Tertullian, who lived from around 160 to 225. He wrote a work called Prescriptions Against Heretics. And in chapter 36 of that work, he writes the following. He says, come now, if you are ready to exercise your curiosity better in the business of your own salvation, run through the apostolic churches where the very thrones of the apostles preside to this very day over their districts. where he says the authentic letters of the apostles are still recited. And he wrote in Latin and not in Greek is one of the first Western Latin fathers, and he uses the term for authentic letters, the authentic literary. And he says of those letters, those authentic letters of the apostles that were still recited, he says they bring the voice and the face of each one of them to mind. If a Kiel or Greece is nearest to you, he says, you have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi and Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, you have Ephesus. If you are close to Italy, you have Rome, the nearest authority for us also. Now, the title of Tertullian's work, Prescriptions Against Heretics, is ironic, given the fact that Tertullian himself later abandoned the Orthodox faith. Nevertheless, what he says here is of great interest in that Tertullian seems to suggest that the authentic letters of the apostles might still be found within the various churches to which they wrote. He mentions in particular Corinth, He mentions Thessalonica, Philippi, Ephesus, and Rome as places where these letters, and perhaps all of Paul's epistles, and perhaps the other New Testament writings too, were kept with the expectation that Christians might well visit these locations and examine their writings over against these authentic copies. Lastly on this topic, I would call your attention to a 2015, a very recent article, by Craig A. Evans, who teaches at Houston Baptist University. Now, Craig Evans is a typical evangelical modern critical text supporter, but friends, we've got to rob the Egyptians, you know, and we've got to learn from their scholarship and apply it, even if we don't agree with it. And he wrote an article titled, How Long Were Late Antique Books in Use? Possible Implications for New Testament Textual Criticism. After surveying various pieces of evidence from ancient libraries, book collections, and authors, both pagan and Christian, Evans concludes that it was not unusual for the autographs and early copies, the prototypa, of documents to remain in existence and circulation for several hundred years after their creation. He then suggests the implications of this study for understanding the preservation of the New Testament documents. He writes, if manuscripts were in use for two or three centuries before their destruction or retirement, we must entertain the possibility, perhaps even probability, that the autographs and first copies of the first century New Testament writings continue to circulate to be studied and to be copied throughout the second century, and in some cases, even on into the third century. In addition, he gives a fragment from a bishop in Alexandria who was called Peter, who lived around the year 300, in which Peter of Alexandria is writing about the gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Christ. making reference to the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Mark. As part of that discussion in that fragment, Peter asserts that his conclusions are, quote, as the accurate books have it, end quote, suggesting that those who doubt these things might consult, quote, the autograph copy itself of the evangelist John. which up to this day has, by divine grace, been preserved in the most holy church of Ephesus, and it is there adored by the faithful. If Peter of Alexandria is right, then the autographed copy of the Gospel of John might well have been kept at Ephesus until the early fourth century. This evidence, at the very least, offers a challenge to Young Ken's assumption of massive early transmission errors in the New Testament due to decentralization. And it does so on historical grounds and not just theological ones. The Apostle Paul had exhorted Timothy and all faithful believers who would come after him to hold fast the form It's the form of sound words. And we believe that with the help of the Holy Spirit, those men were able to do just that. Now we have some other challenging things to consider. Why do we have so few of these now? But that'll wait for the next lecture. Let's close together in prayer. Let me invite you to stand together.