Hello and welcome to another episode of Word Magazine. This is Jeff Riddle, pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia. Today is Wednesday. It is March 30th of 2016. If you've been listening to the last few Word Magazines, you know that I've been doing a review of a presentation that was done by James White on the text of scripture. And it appeared on Apologia TV or radio, uh, on Saturday, March 26 can be found on YouTube. And, uh, so I started a review of this. The, this came out of a context of, uh, some social media forums where James White was interacting with some persons who uphold the traditional text, but in particular, the Texas Receptus in the New Testament. James White is an outspoken advocate for the modern critical text and has been influential in convincing many evangelicals to embrace whole hog, the modern critical text. And so, uh, he, uh, of late, it seems has been, um, bothered to some degree by the fact that there are more and more reformed men who are embracing the Texas Receptus for the Greek New Testament. They're not KJV onlyists, but they see this as a confessional issue because chapter one in the Westminster Confession of Faith and in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith Notes that the scriptures are immediately inspired in the original languages. That's why we can't be KJV only us in the original Hebrew, the old Testament and Greek of the new Testament. and that these texts have been providentially preserved. They have been kept pure and entire by God through all ages. And the proof texts that are cited throughout these confessions draw upon the traditional text. When they talk about the Trinity, they cite the Coma Ioaneum, 1 John 5, 7, and 8. And more than that, they have a view of the text of scripture, uh, where the dependency is not on the modern reconstruction of the elusive, uh, original autographs, but, uh, it assumes that the autographs, the copies have been providentially preserved and that they accurately reflect the autographs. Um, so, uh, we're doing this review. And we're up to about the 30-minute mark or so, and the presentation is a total is an hour and 20 minutes. And so maybe we need to go ahead and get to it. Right at the end of the last session in Word Magazine 50, White was talking about truth and certainty, and he accused those who uphold the Textus Receptus as sacrificing truth for certainty. And I was asking, why does there have to be an either or? Can it be both and? Can't you have both truth and certainty? What's wrong with wanting certainty about the text of scripture, as opposed to a very postmodern relativism. The scripture is whatever you want it to be, and every reading is equally valid. What's wrong with truth and certainty? Well, I went, I think I stopped at the 31 minute, 46 second mark last time. I'm jumping ahead just about a minute to the 32, 23 point where White is going to discuss in particular the passage, the Perikope Adulteri, John 7, 53 through 8, 11, which is one of the two most or longest contested passages in the text of the New Testament. The other being the so-called longer ending of Mark. And there was some sparring in particular with regard to this passage, in some of the forums that created the context that led to White's presentation and now this response by me. So let's pick it up. I would love to be able to get at least 20-30 minutes of this covered today in this episode. So there might be just a long period of time of us listening to him teaching and then I will intersperse comments along the way. Again, it's sometimes it might be long, sometimes it might be short. We'll start and stop. So let's pick it up here with Dr. White, uh, addressing the pericope adulteri. And so my concern is, um, in our discussion today is in the reform community, the reform community. Um, What happened that sort of triggered all this is there's another text. Let's take a look at another text. I was gonna look at some of these, but I've already talked way too much, and I apologize for talking so much. No, no, that's fine. Take a look at John chapter 7, verse 53. And if you look at your Bible, there will be a note. There should be a note somewhere. Yep. And a bracket, double brackets, depends on the translation. NASB. NASB has single or double brackets? Has single. Single brackets, okay. Alright. There are two major multiverse textual variants in the New Testament. Every Christian today should know exactly which two they are because once you know them, once you've studied them, There's nothing else this big. There's nothing else going to jump out and bite you. And you've just disarmed Bart Ehrman and all the Bart Ehrman gnomes that infest community colleges and universities all over the land. Let me just pause here for one second. Yes, those are the two longest. Those are the two that have multiple verses. the ending of Mark, Mark 16 through 20, the passage of the woman caught in adultery, John 7, 53 through 8, 11. However, uh, there are many, many, many other very significant verses, uh, where there are major textual, uh, variations and omissions. So the fact that there are these two, know extended textual variance doesn't downplay the fact that there are multiple shorter variants that are found throughout the New Testament so I just would like to make that point clear. I also find it interesting here that he you know says if you've got to know about these so you can defend yourself against Bart Ehrman This is a point I've made multiple times in responses to James White's teaching material. Really, he holds the same view as Bart Ehrman. He agrees with Bart Ehrman in upholding the modern critical text. They both support modern reasoned eclecticism. Neither one of them think that the longer ending of Mark, so-called or the traditional ending of Mark, is original to Mark. Neither one thinks that the per capa adultery, the woman caught in adultery is original to John. When Dan Wallace or James White has a so-called debate with Bart Ehrman, it's not really a debate about text criticism. They, it could be a debate about inspiration or authority of the Bible or whether there is a God, again back to inspiration, who has breathed in the scriptures. But when it comes to text criticism, they are in basic agreement. So I find this comment here a little bit disingenuous, because really Bart Ehrman and James White hold the same view to the text of scripture. They have a different view on inspiration, but they have the same view on the text of scripture. And Facebook chat com boxes, believe you me. If we would teach our people these things, we would absolutely disarm Bart Ehrman and his people. The reason he gets away with what he gets away with is because we're afraid to talk about these things because there are people who go, I don't like that you're saying these things, or I don't, you know, okay, but we're crying out loud for the sake of our, for the sake of the children, we've got to do it, okay? I mean, we've just got to get over the fear to do this. Again, maybe it's that the people in the pew who hear this teaching, whether it comes from James White or Bart Ehrman, they're troubled by it because instinctively, again, they hear in these passages, the voice of their shepherd. They, they see this as the authentic word of God. And, um, and so, uh, that this is why they have the response, uh, the negative response to those who want to diminish these passages, whether again, that comes from James White or whether it comes from Dan Wallace or whether it comes from Bart Ehrman. Um, I know he's very uncomfortable with that. Yes, we should be teaching. the people in our pew. In my opinion, though, we ought to be teaching them how to defend the authenticity of the traditional ending of Mark, how to defend the authenticity of the pericope adulteri. His view of education is educating our people as to why these texts are supposedly not in the Bible. I would urge a defense in exactly the opposite direction. So we can say, oh, we ought to educate our people, but what should we educate them about? That's really the question. Let's continue. There are two major multi-verse, 12-verse textual variants of the New Testament. The long grinding of Mark, Mark 16, 9 through 20, is a major textual variant. And the Percopae adultery, John 7, 53, 3 to 11. Interestingly enough, when you look at the manuscript evidence, there's always a bunch of variants within them. So, for example, 753 through 811, yeah, but some of them it's only 8-3 through 11, they didn't have 753 through 8-2, and there's all these variants. But those two 12-verse segments, are the major textual variants in the New Testament. There just isn't anything else. Yes, there's all sorts of other variants, but not that, not large blocks of text as you have in those two places. Now, there's far more, there's far better manuscript evidence, the long writing of Mark, than there is for the Percocet adultery. Alright? As Dan Wallace says, the story of the woman caught in adultery is his favorite story that's not really in the Bible. I absolutely hate that little phrase. Diminishing the passage of the woman caught in adultery, John 7.53-8.11, and saying it's your favorite text, it's not really in the Bible, I think it's offensive. Because I believe it is in the Bible. I believe it is the Word of God, and I don't think it is an unintelligent position to affirm that it is the Word of God. And you ought to at least have respect for people who hold that opinion. And you should know that if you say, this is your favorite verses passage, it's not really in the Bible, that's going to be offensive to those of us who hold that it is the word of God. And on another level, I would ask, I've said this before. to James White, to Dan Wallace, to anyone else that holds John Piper, anyone else who holds that John 7.53 through 8.11 is not inspired. That's what you're really saying. This is, it is not inspired. It's not part of the word of God. then as an act of integrity, you ought to insist that it be removed from the printed copies of the Bible that you use. You ought to insist that it be removed. What you're basically saying is you have within your Bible passages that are uninspired, that are in the text of the Bible. And if you're really serious about this, then you ought to insist that that passage is removed from your Bible. I can guarantee you that if there was a passage that I thought was inserted into my printed text of the Bible that was not inspired, I would fight tooth and nail to have it removed. And I don't understand how you could joke about such a thing. Do we believe in the authority and the integrity of scripture? Then how can we jest about this? So anyways, I don't like that little jab, that little joke, I guess we could call it. Let's listen to a little bit more. When you look at it, it appears in every Jesus movie. Even Mel Gibson managed to get into the Passion movie as a flashback, because it just had to be there. It had nothing to do with the actual story, but it had to be there. And so you trigger the traditional emotions. If you dare say anything about this text, or you dare, what happens? Again, is it just an emotional attachment that people have to this story? Or what about the possibility that it is part of the inspired word of God and the tenacity of this tradition, despite controversy? We'll admit, we'll grant. Yes, there's been controversy over the passage. Yes, we believe that there was an effort by some to remove it because they were offended by it. We don't know precisely the reasons for that as we'll get to later. Augustine suggested it was for ethical reasons, that some were offended by it, by Jesus' teaching of forgiveness for adultery and not upholding the penalty of the law, the death penalty for this woman. We don't know some of the reasons for that loss in the midst of time. There's no doubt, anyone, whatever your view on it, there's no doubt it was a contested passage, a very contested passage. At any rate, we're not denying that, but we do believe there is an intelligent argument that can be made, a reasonable argument that can be made for why it is the Word of God and it properly should be retained within the text of the Scriptures. Someone in what's called the Reformed Pub on Facebook asked a simple question. Would you preach, John 7.53 through 8.11, if you're preaching through the Gospel of John? That is a question I have answered. I have raised and answered over and over and over again because I think it's an important question. I don't think Willis had to listen. I don't think he says he's asked and answered this multiple times, but he never, at least in this forum, explicitly answers the question. I'm assuming from what he said and what he's going to say that he would say, no, he would not preach from this text. He does not think this text should be, should be preached, uh, within the church. And again, that's another position that quite frankly, I'm bothered by because I do believe it is the word of God. And I think you can with confidence preach this text. Um, I did a couple of word magazines, uh, sometime back, I think it would, they were word magazine, number 31 and number 32. doing a review of a sermon preached by John Piper on the passage. And he makes, he has a position very similar to James White's. And he also says that he doesn't believe that this passage is inspired and he gives a kind of a, I don't know, esoteric interpretation of it where it might've been something that actually happened. uh, historically with Jesus, but it wasn't part of John's gospel. And so it's not part of the inspired texts, but he would, he would, um, make reference to it. Um, in my opinion, again, this, this only serves to undermine the authority, the integrity of scripture. So, again, my view is that I would teach and preach with confidence from this passage. And I think there's plenty of adequate, reasonable arguments in favor of its inclusion in the text of Scripture. It allows me to ask the question, what do you want to preach from the pulpit? That which John wrote, or that which later tradition thinks John wrote? I want to preach what is Theanostos, what is God-breathed. I don't want to preach what scribes hundreds of years later thought was. And pray tell, how do you make the judgment? How do you know authoritatively, supposedly, that this is only something a scribe wrote and not something that John the Apostle wrote? particularly when the overwhelming evidence, historical evidence of the opinion of the church through the ages, uh, fellow believers that I'm not talking about church councils. Again, I'm talking about the overwhelming, um, confirmation of our fellow Christians through the ages. And I think my own, I get to speak personally, subjectively, my own personal sense is that this is the word of God. Um, So now it's going to be your opinion against my opinion. This is what happens when we have no authority, when we jettison a stable authority. Then it's just a subjective matter of your opinion versus my opinion. And many people in the reform pub disagreed. They disagreed. Because, but the church has used this. Now immediately as a person who has taught church history for years. I just get goosebumps because that was the exact argument used against Erasmus when he dared change the Latin Vulgate. The Latin Vulgate had been used in the church for 1100 years. Who do you think you are, modernist humanist you, changing what the church has had and God has blessed for 1100 years? Very good. Yeah, this is a very common argument that's made. They try to draw a parallel. I've heard this multiple times from advocates of the modern critical text. They try to draw a parallel between Erasmus presenting his Greek text and this challenging the Latin Vulgate and And then when people, when modern critics challenge Erasmus' text, they experience the same sort of pushback. But there are a couple problems with that analogy. One is that the Latin Vulgate is, as the name indicates, it is a version. It is not an original language text. Erasmus was the important thing from our perspective about the Novum Instrumentum Omni, although his original, I think what he thought was most important was probably his new Latin translation, which was challenging the Vulgate. But what came to be important about the Novum Instrumentum Omni and then later editions known as the Novum Testamentum was the Greek text. And that's it, it was ad fontes, going back to the sources, going back to the original Greek language. And so, this is where this analogy breaks down. Yes, there have been, we could say that when there are unbiblical traditions, There are people who resist when there is an attempt at biblical reform. We're all opposed to unbiblical traditions, but not all traditions are bad. Think about all the places in Paul's writings, uh, in first Corinthians 11, when he talks about the Lord's supper, um, I pass on to you that which I also received that on the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, et cetera. Or in 1 Corinthians 15, when he talks about the gospel that he has preached to the Corinthians, which he passed on to them that which he also received. The Greek word for tradition is paradosis. Not all paradosis is unbiblical paradosis. Trying to draw analogy between Erasmus and the Latin Vulgate and the modern critical texts versus the Textus Receptus, I think is an inappropriate analogy. We're comparing apples and oranges there. So let's go back and listen to it a little bit more. And I have had many King James only folks. God has blessed the King James for 400 years. Once again, confusing King James version only ism with Texas receptus. Let's talk about the Greek texts. Let's not talk about versions. Let's not talk about translations. Um, and James white does this over and over and over again. This is why many people. In places like the Reform Pub or in the Confessional Bibliology Facebook group, become frustrated with him because he continues to do this. Let's talk about the Textus Receptus, let's not talk about translations. But he keeps going back to this again and again. Well, that's barely, that's just a little over a third of how long he blessed the Latin Vulgate. And he did bless the Latin Vulgate. There were lots of people who, who served Christ faithfully using the Latin Vulgate, but that doesn't mean that the Latin Vulgate becomes the standard in that point in time. It's kind of odd. Okay. The Latin Vulgate was a translation, but again, What's important for confessional Christians and Reformed Christians is the Bible in the original languages. What's important about the scriptures is that they were immediately inspired in the original languages in Hebrew and in Greek. So the statement that he just made about God blessing the Vulgate is a little peculiar. Most people recognize that until we get into this area where you get these vague, nebulous assertions that, well, actually church usage needs to be how we determine what the text of the New Testament is. I had a disputatio with a friend of yours, Doug Wilson, on this very issue because he promotes the concept of the ecclesiastical text. Now, there is no one Ecclesiastical text, and unfortunately when you ask someone, well what is the Ecclesiastical text? Some people will say the Textus Receptus is the Ecclesiastical text. Why? Well, because it was the default text of the Reformers. That's not really true, if anyone has read Calvin's commentaries. There's a number of places where he'll go, he'll say, certain manuscripts say this, and certain manuscripts say that. It didn't bother Calvin to say that, by the way. And by the way, the King James itself had, it's a shame, most published King James today don't have the notes in the column that the King James translators themselves provided. Let me just pause here for a moment. Again, he's going back to the King James Version, same issue as I've noted. But let me go back specifically to what he just said here. He just said, why the Texas Receptus? And he said that the confessional people like me say, well, let's use the text of Receptus because it was the text used by the Protestant reformers. And he mentions John Calvin in particular. And he mentions John Calvin's commentaries. And I actually did a paper in February at Houston Baptist University. They had a conference marking the 500th anniversary of Erasmus' Novum Instrumentum Omni from 1516 to 2016, 500 years. And I did a paper on John Calvin and text criticism. And my opening, I guess, illustration or reference within that paper was the comments that James White makes in the King James Version only controversy. saying that the Textus Receptus was not the text of the Reformation and it was not Calvin's preferred text and then I went from that and I went to historical scholarship on Calvin And indeed, I point out in that paper, the early Calvin, in his early commentaries, did in fact use the Colonais New Testament of 1534, but the mature Calvin, the later Calvin, embraced the Texas Receptus, possibly under the influence of Stephanus, he came to embrace the Texas Receptus and used it in his later commentaries. I have done a reading of that paper that I did at Houston Baptist University. I will put a link to that article on my blog, jeffriddle.net. I'll do a post on Word Magazine 51 and I'll have several other links to some other material that I'll mention later on. So I would encourage you to read or to listen to the presentation that I did, John Calvin and Text Criticism. And I hope James White at some point will have a chance to listen to it as well and maybe correct possibly what I think is a misrepresentation that he puts forward here. There were hundreds, well there were thousands of notes, but there were hundreds of places where they noted, for example Revelation 15.3, they noted that other manuscripts read differently than what they had in their text. And so the King James translators themselves had no problem in recognizing the existence of textual variation and providing alternate translations in the margin. Most of those, unfortunately, are no longer published with the King James. And so people can use that without recognizing, oh, the translators didn't have any problem mentioning this. So anyway. Boy, he likes to talk about the King James version. I admire, respect, esteem the King James version, often preach from it, teach from it. read it devotionally. I think it's a fantastic translation, historic, cultural treasure for English speaking people. But this conversation is not about versions. It's not about the King James version or Hungarian versions or Spanish versions or French versions. It's about the original language text. What is the appropriate original language text? And James White, instead of talking about the merits or perceived demerits of the Texas Receptus, he always wants to try to steer the conversation back to the King James Version. Let's listen to some more. But what is the ecclesiastical text? I pressed Doug Wilson on that, and you can still find the disputatio. It's available online. We have it on our website, aomin.org. If you just look up disputatio, you'll find, and it's not long, because I think we only had, if I recall correctly, 150 words per exchange. Wow. So that's better than 140 characters, I guarantee you that. But 150 words per character. and you can make a real nice presentation of the concept of the ecclesiastical text. The church is the method by which the Word of God is preserved, and the means, and the usage of the church over time, and that way we don't have to worry about textual critics, and all that kind of stuff, and it sounds great, and it sounds wonderful, and you can get all Vantillian about it, and presuppositional about it, and all the rest of that stuff, until one thing happens. And this is what happened when Doug Wilson and I were doing this. Until you go, okay, then what is the reading at? And you get specific. Because vague generalities do not produce specific texts. You know, uh, when you embrace the textus receptus as the preferred text for the Greek New Testament, I don't think you're ducking your head. You're not avoiding. I'm willing to look at any verse that you want to turn to. I'm willing to discuss it. I'm willing, going to be willing freely to talk about the external evidence, to talk about the internal evidence as we did previously in this series with Revelation 15 3 I'm not afraid of looking at any verse and I'll get specific with you on any verse in the New Testament on the text and that is in the Texas Receptus vis-a-vis the modern critical text or the majority text. I'm happy to talk about it. I will freely admit that there are places in the Texas Receptus where The external evidence, the external witnesses are weak. Places like Acts 8.37, places like Revelation 15.3, places like 1 John 5, 7, and 8, I will be the first to grant that. However, I think there are also reasonable arguments that can be made in defense of the Texas Receptus, and I'm willing to have those conversations about it. So who's putting their head in the sand? Um, so, so anyways, I, I, I, I don't think that, uh, he, he's suggesting that people who embrace the Texas receptus don't want to have any conversation, just want to be in, I don't know, ignorance about this, and I just don't think that's the case. It may be with some people, but it's certainly not the perspective that I have, nor is it the perspective of the people that I know who support the Textus Receptus as the confessional text. And I brought up Luke 2.22 specifically to Brother Wilson. where there is a real issue with the text, but what the original text is is rather clear, and the later ecclesiastical text is very clearly not what Luke himself originally wrote. So what are you going to do? Where's your commitment? My commitment is I want to know what Luke wrote, because as you said, All scripture is Theanostas. Not the writer, because Theanostas means God breathed. It's what he wrote that is Theanostas. Now, do you really think, Dr. White, do you really think that people who uphold the text of Receptus, they don't want to know what Luke wrote? So only you, you're the only person, only people who uphold the modern critical, they're the only ones who want to know what Luke wrote. It's silly. Of course we want to know what Luke wrote. But here's the thing. You think that the way to understand what Luke wrote is a modern reconstruction of the text. I mean, the subtitle to Bruce Metzger's influential work on text criticism in the New Testament is your mantra. That the New Testament was transmitted, and then it was corrupted and then you're going to restore it. And our perspective is that the restorationist effort is misguided and it does not bear fruit. It does not bear consistency. And it leads to basically an evolving Bible that never reaches a final end, that is always in flux, that is always dependent upon the latest scholarly techniques or scholarly finds. Whereas we prefer a text that is the text of the Reformation, that is a standard, stable text. and a text that, as our confession affirms, has been providentially preserved. We would prefer a preserved text rather than a restored text. And so let's not Let's not say you're the only person who wants to know what Luke wrote. We want to know what Luke wrote, but we believe that what Luke wrote is accurately represented in the Textus Receptus. And we don't have to do this restoration work that in most cases leads to just more uncertainty. I mean, look at your analysis of Revelation 15, three, you don't know whether it's king of nations or king of ages, although you you're sure it's not king of saints. We say it's king of saints and that's it. And these are, these other variations are interesting. They're interesting to look at. They're there. Uh, we can talk about why those readings, uh, arose, but we're fine with saying that the preserved text is King of Saints. Let's go on. And so the question then becomes, has God then made sure that what He wrote has come down to us today? I absolutely affirm He has done so. I don't affirm that He has done so in the way that either King James onlyists or TR onlyists or ecclesiastical text onlyists say that He has done it. I believe he has done it through the entirety of the manuscript tradition. I view the discoveries we've had over the past couple of hundred years as great gifts to the church, given to the church at the very time when we need them most. Yes. And unfortunately, if you take the ecclesiastical text perspective, you end up basically saying that these papyri manuscripts are garbage. Well, let's actually, what he said is very, very important. And I, I, I, I, I really think you should go back and think about this because what he's saying is this is sort of a modern reinterpretation of what the doctrine of preservation means. And so James White says his reinterpreted the doctrine of preservation. And I think, He's not the first to do it. We could probably even go back to Warfield and other evangelicals of the late 19th century and on into the 20th century. And what they said, decided was God has preserved the word through modern textual criticism. So we had readings that were lost for hundreds of years. And then with the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus at St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai and with the publication of Codex Vaticanus, we were able to restore the New Testament and God has used the discovery of these unseals. Once again, he mentions the papyri, but the papyri did not really affect the development of the modern critical text that was done with the unseals. So God has used these means. Well, um, that is a, a very modern interpretation. I happen to disagree with it. That is not the view of preservation that was expressed in chapter one the article on scripture in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. Their view of preservation was that the Word of God had been preserved in God's superintendence, his overseeing, the copying, And it's been preserved in the opographs, in the copies, and not in the modern scholarly effort to reconstruct the original autograph. Which, by the way, there's a problem with James White's view on this as well, something I've pointed out in other places, and that is the current state, the current state of modern text criticism has essentially abandoned the idea of searching for the original autograph. Many will say the closest we can get is back to what they call the initial text. The closest we can get is the New Testament text as it was used maybe in the year 300 or the year 400. And then they'll also talk in a very postmodern way about all texts being valid. and they're not being one text in the New Testament, but they're being many texts, and whether it's a Gnostic text or a Paleo-Orthodox text, it doesn't matter, they're all valid texts. But the point is, get back to this, basically is working on a modern redefinition of the doctrine of the providential preservation of scripture. And what we're saying is we would, we want to hold to the doctrine of the providential preservation of scripture, which was the position that was held by our Puritan forebears who framed the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter one on scripture, and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter one on scripture. We would like to hold to their view of providential preservation rather than the Warfieldian modern reinterpretation of the doctrine of preservation. For more on this, you really have to read Theodore Ledis, he's helpful on this. His book, his collection of essays, the two collections of essays that he has, those books are very helpful. I don't agree with Ledis in all aspects, but he's helpful in that regard, helping you understand, in particular, how Warfield was influential in redefining many of these basic terms. They were found, a number of people in the pub was found under a rock, thrown away in a trash can or whatever else it might be. We're back to talking about the papyri. I'm not sure what was said on the Reform Pub. I don't have a Facebook account and I have not been involved in any of those discussions. My argument against the papyri is not that they're inconsequential or unimportant, they are. Again, my point is twofold with what James White has typically said in the past. Number one, he overestimates their influence on the modern critical text. Number two, he wrongly has said that they represent only Alexandrian readings. They do not. They represent Western readings. They represent Alexandrian readings. and they represent Byzantine readings sometimes. So those are my points with him. So the papyri don't necessarily just uniformly, some do support Alexandrian readings, but some support Byzantine readings, some support Western readings. And they have to attack them because, well, the ecclesiastical text of the church. Well, again, I go, what church are we talking about here? The ecclesiastical text of the Western church was the Latin Vulgate. They didn't use the Greek manuscript. No, the ecclesiastical text of the Latin church was not the Latin Vulgate because when we talk about ecclesiastical text, we're talking once again about the original language text. We're talking about the Hebrew and the Greek. Um, and again, I, it feels redundant, very redundant to repeat these things again and again, but he makes the same. comments and the same arguments again and again and again. And even then, they used the Byzantine text because that's all they had. They had the Muslims knocking on their door from the middle of the 8th century. You couldn't get down to Alexandria. Alexandria was taken by the Muslims early on in the expansion outward. What do you mean when you're talking about the quote-unquote ecclesiastical text? And if it's going to be such a vague thing, why criticize those of us that can actually produce a text from which you can make Bible translations, when you can't produce a text from which you make Bible translations? That's important, yeah. Well, how many Bible translations have been made from the Textus Receptus? The first Bible in German, the first Bible in English, the first Bible in Dutch, the first Bible in Spanish, the first Bible in Hungarian. What do you mean that the ecclesiastical text position so-called, again I prefer confessional text, that it can't produce translations? It's produced translations that have been foundational for the Protestant Reformation movement. So what exactly do you mean? And again, let's, let's look at the fruit. What, what, what has the modern critical text produced exactly other than in many ways, uh, uh, uh, downgrading of the authority of the Bible, confusion in churches, people not knowing what is the true text of the Bible, what is the proper translation of the text. So again, I don't get his argument here. Okay, this is sort of an important thing. Right. And so what I did is I responded to, you know, some people started saying, for example, Paul Barth quoted from Augustine. And Augustine wrote a short little book. It's available in Latin online. I pulled it up when we got here quite easily. And here's one. I wonder if he read it in Latin, because it implied that. I'm guessing he probably read it in English, but anyways. Translations, certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, remove from their manuscripts the Lord's act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, sin no more, had granted permission to sin. And so Augustine made a comment about the Percupe adultery, and Augustine's primary text was the Latin. He could muddle around with Greek, he could not read Hebrew. Quiz for the people around the table. Gonna wake you up. You ready? No Googling. The only two major early church fathers that could read both Greek and Hebrew. Oh, this is a tough one. Paul. Paul. We have a problem in defining the term. I'm going to say Jerome. Jerome's one. Jerome. And... The other guy was not nearly as orthodox as even Jerome. Oh, um... Hold on. Allegorical methodology. Yes, I lost him ahead here. Starts with an O. Origin. Origin. There you go. Thank you very much. Yes, everyone who takes my church history class ends up having these ideas tattooed on their brains. Yes. Anyway, so only two were able to actually deal with the entirety of the Bible in its original languages, origin and Jerome. And origin didn't do a very good job of it, actually. And so Augustine, for example, Augustine defended the Deuterocanonicals, or the Apocryphal Books, because they were in the Greek Septuagint, and he thought that represented the Hebrew canon. He was wrong. And as a result, which of the early church councils that end up promoting the Deuterocanonical Books, but the ones over which Augustine ruled, councils of Carthage and Hippo. So you see what happens when you don't actually have access to the original languages. Right. Origin and Jerome knew better because Jerome had access to the Hebrew and therefore knew that the Hebrews had never accepted those books as canonical in the first place. Right. Vitally important to church history, development of canonical issues, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So let me just briefly say something here. Um, uh, and this, this, this, this conversation about Augustine, has been extended. I've heard people pronounce it as Paul Barth, but I want to say Paul Barth, I guess. But anyways, I don't know Paul Barth, but he apparently is someone who affirms the Texas Receptus and is confessionally reformed. And apparently in the forum, reform pub, he had mentioned to James White that Augustine, St. Augustine, Augustine of Hippo, makes reference to the pericope. adultery and even talks about the fact that he knew that it had been removed in some manuscripts by persons who were offended by the theology and the ethics that it represents. What I don't like is, I'm fairly certain that Barth's point was that, look, it was known in Augustine's time. Augustine would be a source roughly contemporary with Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. And so it's what, what we have is, uh, an evidence of the ancient attestation of the existence of the pre-copay adulterite. And not only that, we also have an ancient attestation of a knowledge of the fact that the passage was contested. And Bart has written a longer article about Augustine that's posted at the Confessional Bibliology website. I'll put a link to that there. James White did a dividing line in which he attacked Augustine again in a more extended format. I think misrepresented the argument, which I think he does here. Here he talks about the fact that, well, Augustine didn't know Greek, and then he, for some reason, goes off on this tangent about Augustine's view of the canon and his acceptance of the apocryphal works and the Old Testament and so forth. And, you know, that is basically, he's saying these things to attempt to undermine and to speak negatively about Augustine. And Augustine's view on canon, Augustine's lack of ability in Greek, doesn't affect the significance of his comments about the precipate adultery in the Gospel of John. And that's what's significant in this discussion. I think James White tries to do this diversion because he recognizes that this citation from Augustine is damaging to his argument against the authenticity of the pre-copay adultery. And he, you know, he gets up in arms and he's just talking before about how Texas receptus people are closed minded and, and they, you know, want to stick their heads in the sand. and don't want to deal with the evidence, well, I'm kidding, let's just at least, let's be straight up and be honest about this. Augustine gives a very, you know, early evidential witness to the existence of the Percipate Adultery and also a very early and strong witness to the fact that it was a contested passage. So let's just admit that, whether you want to deny it or not, let's admit straight up the significance of the Augustan citation. Respects worship? This is important stuff. And that's why I'm going to be teaching. I taught church history at PRBC years and years and years ago. We're starting it again. Well, actually we started it last Sunday. Is it on Sermon Audio? Sermon Audio. I'll be teaching church history probably for quite some time because it took me over 11 years to teach the Synoptic Gospels. Yes, so yeah, that was well, but I'm not there all the time. That's straight straight Puritan right there. That is very. No, that was just I'm slow. Now. Going back to Augustine. How did Augustine know? What manuscripts in Greek? In Caesarea said when he is in Hippo and can barely read Greek, right? How does he know what motivations there were Now, Paul Barr's response when I said, when I questioned Augustine on this was, quote, but apparently modern liberal scholars know better than someone who lived contemporaneously with Codex Sinaiticus. Silly Augustine in his tinfoil hat. Oh, that's poisoning the well a bit. That's not dealing with the issue. Right. The fact of the matter is. Again, it seems to me it's very much dealing with the issue. What he's saying is the main thing to take in mind here is we have in Augustine a source that is of essentially contemporaneous antiquity with Sinaiticus and Vaticanus which omit the precipi adulteri. We have someone basically of the same era. And although yes, he made use of the old Latin, um, which was a version, but what was the old Latin based on? The old Latin was based on translations of Greek manuscripts, whether Augusta knew Greek or not. No one is who is suggesting that he was trying to do text criticism, um, versions, references to versions and references from the patristic authors Are recognized valid sources in doing text criticism? Is James White saying we disregard all patristic evidence? Would you really want to say that? Is he saying we have to disregard all versional evidence? No, he would not say that. The reason he takes exception with Paul Barth's comments about Augustine is he realizes that Augustine's comments undermine his desire to downgrade and remove the precipitate adultery from the text, legitimate texts of scripture. Gustin would not have had access to the information that we have today. Now, on the screen, and we're gonna hopefully be showing this, on the screen at the bottom of this is, let me tell you something, I am so thankful to God for what I'm looking at on the screen here, and I know you guys can't see it, but I have my bio program up here, it's called Accordance. At the bottom of the page is the UBS-5 apparatus. There's a bunch, I mean, the amount of textual data that we have available to us today is astounding and something to be greatly thankful for. I mean, I am truly thankful. But let me just give you the textual information on the Priccape adultery. The first Greek manuscript to include it is Codex D, which is called Beze Cantabrigiensis. Now, Beze Cantabrigiensis is the living Bible of the ancient church. Codex D is a Latin-Greek diglot that contains all sorts of really weird additions. For example, when Peter is freed from prison, and the angel lets him out, and he's going back to the believers, you know? Yeah. Codex D tells us that he descended 29 stairs to the street. Oh, very exact. Yes, very exact. There's a bunch of stuff like that. And it's called Koze Beze. Beze, Beza, Calvin's successor. He's the one who came into possession of it. And when he donated it to the school, he said, because of its character, he said, this is better to be stored than studied. Okay. So he even recognized, that's the first place it's found. Okay. Let me just, let me, let me respond to this. So again, this is another, a typical James White's method. He's going to basically do character assassination on Codex D, Codex Beza. Well, yes, Codex Beza is notorious. There's a so-called Western text in the Book of Acts, which is longer than the text of Acts in the Byzantine tradition, for example. So yes, it's notoriously longer. On the other hand, in some places it is shorter. So the most famous example of this is in the ending of the Gospel of Luke. There are places, there are verses in the Gospel of Luke, at the ending of Luke, in Luke 24, Um, where there are expressions in the Alexandrian texts and in the Byzantine texts that are not included in the Western texts and Westcott and Hort very famously in their 1881 Greek New Testament referred to these as Western non interpolations. And they argued that these were original, that these were the best. There are many people that use readings, modern text critics use readings from Codex Besa to support, defend readings in the modern critical text. So anyway, he basically attacks this, the evidence from this witness in this case because It provides a 5th century witness to the existence of the Pericope Adulteri within the text of the Gospel of John. Yes, it's the earliest witness that we have in an unsealed manuscript to the Pericope Adulteri, but it's from the 5th century. That's pretty early. Remember, only 1% of our extant manuscripts are from this era and earlier. And so it's actually not unusual to have the earliest witness to be basically in this ballpark. So, anyway, there are other arguments for also ancient evidence of the Pricpe adulteri. Most notably, again, we can look at the quotation from Augustine that we were just talking about. So anyways, kind of typical of James White. He's just going to do, you know, he's, if, if, if Codex Besa is going to support the pericope adultery, then he is going to just savagely attack it as he just did calling it the living Bible of manuscripts, et cetera. Again, I'm not saying it's a great manuscript. It's a Western manuscript. It's not a Byzantine manuscript, but, It is important in this case, in this particular case, because it shows that the Pericope Adulteri has great antiquity. And that immediately should set off all sorts of red alarm bells, okay? But it is omitted by P66 and P75, the two earliest papyri manuscripts we have of the Gospel of John. Okay, the two earliest manuscripts we have. It's omitted by Sinaiticus, apparently omitted by Alexandrinus. It's omitted by Vaticanus. There's a long list of unseals. Let me just break in right here. Yes, okay, so it's omitted in those Papyri, and it's omitted in Sinaiticus, but again, no one's, we're granting. Yes, this was contested. This is what Augustine said. It's been removed. It's been nefariously removed in some manuscripts. By the way, he mentions Alexandrinus, and if you have the Nestle on 28th edition, you can look in the listing of the manuscripts at the back and You can notice that under the reference for Alexandrinus, let me see if I can just pull it up actually, I've got a 27th edition in front of me but it's probably basically the same because Codex Alexandrinus hasn't changed. If you go back to the end of these critical texts, which is the Nessalon 28, you hear me talk negatively about the modern critical texts, but I really appreciate the work of the German Bible Society. These modern critical printed editions are a wealth of information and they're very useful for doing academic and scholarly and ministerial study of the text of Scripture. But anyways, when it lists Codex Alexandrinus, it notes that it has the Gospels, it has Acts in the Catholic Epistles, it has Paul's letters, and it has Revelation. So, it is one of those fairly rare instances of a very early manuscript that basically has most of the New Testament. However, it has a note that says VAC, it's missing, Matthew 1.1 through 25.6. So almost the entirety of the gospel of Matthew is missing in Codex Alexandrinus. It's also missing John 6.50 through 8.52. Ah, my goodness, wouldn't it be tremendous if we had those missing passages in Alexandrinus? Because I am pretty convinced Alexandrinus usually supports the Byzantine text in the Gospels, I think we would have another very early witness to the pericope adultery, but in the providence of God, the Alexandrinus is mutilated at this point, and so we don't have a reference to it. I say that because James White said it was probably omitted in in Codex Alexandrinus, and that gives you the background. I could just as well say, well, it was probably included in Codex Alexandrinus, and if we have the whole of it, then it would be another witness to it. By the way, Alexandrinus, just to fill out the conversation here, it's also missing 2 Corinthians 4, 14 through 12, six. So there are three places in Alexandrinus where the text is mutilated. Let's go on. So there are some, there are some versions that are missing the PA. Once again, we're not, we're not, we're not disputing that it was a contested passage. And you've listed some versions that omit it. We've already talked about the old Latin used by Augustine that included it. So the, we're saying the evidence here is divided. It's a divided issue. Now in the Greek manuscripts, the majority of Greek manuscripts, the majority of Greek manuscripts, including many ancient ones like Codex Besa included. And so, um, Anyways, let's be fair. Let's be fair with the evidence. Omit this. It is unknown in the first 400 years of the church with one possible exception in a early church father. Now, let me just mention very quickly, when we talk about early church fathers, you got to remember something. When someone says, well, uh, Irenaeus mentioned it. Well, not this, but if someone says Irenaeus mentioned it, how do we know what Irenaeus wrote? Irenaeus's writings were transmitted to us, how? By fax? No, they were handwritten just as much as the New Testament manuscripts were. And when you're, we got a few preachers here, have you ever paraphrased a text of scripture from the pulpit? Yes. Never. How do you know when you encounter something in a written sermon from your early church father if he's quoting or paraphrasing? if he's meaning to give us what is actually in the manuscript in front of him or whether he is not meaning to intend to do that and if he differs from what has become the standard ecclesiastical text of a scribe a thousand years later and they're copying him what's the probability that that scribe is going to think he just blew it and change what he wrote to what's acceptable to that day yeah so no one disputes that No one disputes that evidence from the church fathers, like all evidence, evidence from lectionaries, evidence from versions, evidence from Greek manuscripts, that there should be careful study. But by the same token, that doesn't mean that patristic evidence should be necessarily automatically discounted either, does it? Um, so, and, and, and he's talking about this in generalities, um, with, with the issue with Augustine here, either he, he made a reference to the Prick Bay adulterite or he did not. Um, this isn't a matter of a scribe later on trying to add something, um, put something on the lips of Augustine. This isn't, you know, adding a verse and a quotation in. This is Augustine talking in the substance of the discussion is about the Perikope Adulteri. Writers are relevant to the text of the New Testament, but their testimony always must be subjected to what's found in manuscripts themselves. Okay, must be, must be. And so, It is not in any of the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John, but here's, this, guys, is why there really isn't any question about this and why the vast majority of believing scholarship, vast majority, recognizes the pre-committed adultery is not original. Okay, this is going to be a very important discussion that's about to come up, and this is an argument that It's another one of these recycled arguments. Um, James White is going to argue, he just said it, the definitive reason to reject the pre-capital try. And this is the view of believing scholars. And he's going to say it's because it's a, he, I don't know if he's going to use this exact term, but he's the substance of his argument is going to be, it's a floating tradition because the pre-capital try in some manuscripts appears in different places in John and even in one tradition appears, it appears in the gospel of Luke. And for this reason, this is the, in his mind, this is the cinching reason to reject the pericope adultery. That's what he just said. So let, let, let me let him continue his argument. And I want to come back to this because I believe it is a fallacious argument against the authenticity of the Pericope adultery, and I will tell you precisely why, but let's listen to his explanation of the floating tradition anecdote or the floating tradition argument. This story. And everybody loves the story. And what you'll normally hear is people say, well, you know, yeah, it probably wasn't written by John, but it's such a wonderful story. And maybe it goes back to the days of Jesus and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I get it, I get it, wonderful. But it's not just here in the Gospel of John. This story is found in multiple other places. First of all, it's found after John 21, 25. Let me pull this up here so, okay. In Manuscript 225, it's found after John 736. In Manuscript 1, it's found after John 2125. And here's the important part. In a group of manuscripts called Family 13, it's not in John. It's after Luke 2138. And in Manuscript 1333, it's after Luke 2453. Now, when you have a story not found in the earliest manuscripts of a book that actually ends up finding a home in four different places, that is absolute evidence that it was a story, very popular, looking for a place to call home. And it found that place in the majority of manuscripts, in the Byzantine manuscripts, after John 7, 52. All right, let me go ahead and respond to this. I did a blog post, let me go back on this. Back in April of 2014, there was a conference that was held at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and the subject of the entire conference was the Pericope Adulteri. I went to it, I wrote a blog report on it, And I'll put a link to the, to this, uh, on my site at that conference, there were five speakers, uh, three of the speakers, uh, believed that the pre-coup adultery is not original to John. And among those were, um, Jennifer Knust, who is a professor at Boston University, is actually the head of the Society of Biblical Literature, text criticism section. And then there was a fellow named Chris Keith, who's an American, although he teaches at a university in England, who also has done a lot of work on the Pericope Adulteri, does not believe that it's original. And then Tommy Wasserman, who is a Swedish Baptist, who's one of the co-editors of the Evangelical Text Criticism blog. And so they were there and they did not believe in the authenticity of the Pericope Adulteri. Then, speaking in favor of the authenticity of the Pericope Adulteri, there was Maurice Robinson, who teaches at Southeastern. an advocate for the majority text, for the Byzantine text, and a fellow named David Punch, who did a PhD and wrote his dissertation on the Prikpet Dolterains of Pasturing, Colorado. So you can read the posts that I did about the conversation. Very good conference, very edifying, very good discussion among people who really are experts in the field. And one of the things that stood out was Chris Keith, in his presentation, and even though he does not believe in the authenticity of the Pericope Adulteri, one of the things that he said that stood out in my mind is this notion that the Pericope Adulteri was a floating tradition and did not have a settled place in the Gospel of John very early on is false. In fact, he wrote an article, and it's on his academia.edu page. I'm going to put a link to it. It appeared in the journal Novum Testamentum, a very respected academic scholarly journal. The title of it is, The Initial Location of the Pericope Adulteri in Fourfold Tradition. and basically he argues in this article that the the Pericope adulterize, its current position at John 753 through 811 was its initial position. He doesn't believe it's original, but it was its initial position and that these movements of it to other places in these manuscripts, all of these examples are very late. Let me just read. This is his summary and conclusion of this article. He says, taken together, then the facts that John seven 53 through eight 11 is one, the majority and two earliest known location for the pericope adultery. And three, that all of the alternative locations are late. And some are certainly due to liturgical influence, suggests that John 7.53 through 8.11 was intended by its interpolator as a proper narrative location for the Pericope Adulteri within the authoritative Jesus tradition in a manner that PA's numerous alternative locations were not. So the sum of that is, is for liturgical reasons it was moved around. And I also have a post, I did a blog post where I looked at Bruce Metzer's discussion of these places and I'll put a link to that as well. There are only a handful of examples in manuscript 225. the Percupadultura appears after John 736. In several late Georgian manuscripts, these are just versionals, no Greek manuscripts, it appears after John 744. In a couple of manuscripts, including, as he mentions, Codex I and a few others, it occurs after John 2125. And then in in family 13 it appears after Luke 21 38 again these are all the point is these are all very late manuscripts these are all very late and the earliest attestations are of it firmly in John 7 53 through 8 11 I'll put Chris Keith's article up there. I'll put my posts on the floating tradition. This is in no way a definitive argument against the authenticity of the Prick of Pei adultery. And let me just give you one other example that came to mind when I listened to this again. James White makes it sound as though it's completely strange and unusual for manuscripts to have a passage be transferred from one place to another within a book or from one book to another. And I just thought of an example a couple of years ago, I was reading through David C. Parker's book on Codex Sinaiticus. And within that, he has a discussion, let me see, I've got the book here beside me, let me pick it up. It's on pages 102 and 103 of his book Codex Sinaiticus that is published by the British Museum. And he makes the point in there that there's a passage in both Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. And it's found that in both of those manuscripts, At Matthew chapter 27 verse 49, both Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus insert the verse about the spear being thrust into the side of Jesus. That in the Textus Receptus, even in the modern critical text, only appears at John 19.34. But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, this is the way the New American Standard Bible reads, and immediately there came out blood and water. Jesus' side being pierced with the spear only occurs in John's Gospel. But in Codex Sinaiticus, in Codex Vaticanus, it floats over and is included at Matthew 27, 49. Is anybody going to take that and argue that because of that, that John 1934 is a floating tradition, is not an original part of the gospel of John? No one, as far as I know, has made that argument. Would James White make that argument? The point is the fact that knowing that there's controversy over the acceptance of the pre-adultery And then knowing that in later manuscripts it appeared in different places and maybe even in the Gospel of Luke, that doesn't undermine or settle in any way the question of its originality and authenticity. in the Gospel of John. I'm just looking at my clock here and it is getting late. We're at the 53 minute 32nd point in the James White presentation and I've gone about an hour and 20 minutes. So I think we're going to have to stop here. Hopefully, God willing, we'll pick it up and maybe finish it out next time. Maybe I need to just listen to the rest of it and see if we really need to cover much more But I'll give that some thought, but I hope this material in Word Magazine 51 has been helpful and that you will profit from having listened to this and we'll see if we're able to maybe add one more to finish out this series. Until the next, Word Magazine, take care and God bless. Rejoin, ye well-shunned, when your victory's won! We'll lift up our banners in God's name alone. And so may the Lord give you earnest request, And answer you prayers as He's true and best. How truly I know that the Lord from above Protects his anointed in common and love ♪ The breath in his holiness, the tears his pride ♪ ♪ Has changed my ever love, his light and all mine. ♪ In horses or chariots, some just for defense, But the name of the Lord is our strong confidence. They're brought to their knees, while in strength we arise. O Lord, save Thy King, hear and answer our cries.