The King James Version Debate


     In this issue we give you article number three of a very
scholarly work by Theodore Letis, which is a reply to a work by
D. A. Carson, "The King James Version Debate."

     We will present this work in four installments; the entire
work may be obtained by writing to Theodore Letis, Box 4302,
Springfield, MO., 65804, and students and teachers who wish to
have light on the Greek Receptus should obtain the work.

by Theodore P. Letis
Copyright-July, 1979

     We must now make our application of the principle we have
been applying, so as to understand why "two" distinctly different
schools of approach to textual criticism have emerged. We must
observe what the projects are for Carson's school (the origin for
which Westcott and Hort are responsible) which "determine what
knowledge he seeks and what degree of certainty is needed for
belief and action."

     Accordingly, the critic (whether he be "evangelical" or
otherwise, according to Fee) who has been trained to view the
Bible on a naturalistic basis, at least in the area of textual
criticism, (such as Westcott and Hort did) will be looking for
data and conclusions which best substantiate the criteria of the
naturalistic approach. The practically observable results of
which have been well characterized by Hodges when he observed
that by this method, "80% of the tradition is corrupt. And no one
is quite sure how to use the remaining 20%!"

     The subjective, and sometimes contradictory nature of the
canons of the eclectic method which tries to make sense of the
20% has been demonstrated by Pickering.26 Without any theological
guiding principles, such as a need for a continuous, obviously
providentially preserved text, we could conceivably come up with
any number of varieties of an "Historical Jesus." Hills makes the
observation that,

"...if we rely on the Bodmer and Chester Beatty papyri, how do we
know that even older New Testament papyri of an entirely
different character have not been destroyed by the recent damming
of the Nile and the consequent flooding of the Egyptian sand?"27

This type of consideration bears quite importantly on the issue
that is continuously asserted by Carson's school but which never
seems to satisfy, that is, that none of the critical editions has
affected any important doctrine, (we will take issue with this in
a moment). But in principle, it could present us with an entirely
different gospel tomorrow. For example, Epp has demonstrated that
there are only four explicit statements in the New Testament
which allude to a literal, bodily, ascension of Christ.28 It
happens that the Western text-type, expunges these four passages
of such explicit references.29 Now, were the Western text-type
suddenly raised to a superior position by the ever-shifting
criteria of modern textual criticism, we would, no doubt, have a
Bible minus this event.30

     Another example that could be offered to show potentially
what could happen in principle, without the theological
requirement of a continuous, providentially preserved text, is
found in Morton Smith's The Secret Gospel.31 According to Smith,
he feels that he has found an "older" (2nd or 3rd century) and
longer edition of Mark's gospel, which represents Christ as one
who espoused libertinism, and practiced a baptismal rite which,
Smith intimates, involved a homosexual initiation act.32
Accordingly, it would not be surprising if the "Christian"
homosexual community clamored for a revision of Mark based on
this "most ancient" manuscript testimony.33

     In short, without a methodology that has for its agenda the
determination of a continuous, obviously providentially preserved
text (a confessional tenet, for sure) we are, in principle, left
with maximum uncertainty, as Edward Hiss characterizes it,34
versus the maximum certainty afforded the methodology that seeks
a providentially preserved text. It must be remembered that both
approaches are reconstructions of textual transmission based on
the same historical and textual data. Majority text defenders do
have some problems: How to view the non-majority readings found
in the T.R. for example.35 But when compared with the maximum
certainty afforded by the majority text approach, the various
treatments of such secondary issues are not monumentally
problematic.

			............


     26 Pickering, The Identity, pp. 21-92.

     27 Hills, The King James, p. 225.

     28 Eldon Jay Epp, "The Ascension in the Textual Tradition of
Luke-Acts," a paper presented in the N.T. Textual Criticism
Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orelans, 20
November 1978.

     29 The following are the passages in question, including the
omitted words which alter the explicitness of the ascension: Lk.
24:51 (and he was being borne up into the heaven); Acts 1:2 (he
was received up); Acts 1:9 (he was lifted up and...); Acts 1:11b
(into the heaven).

     30 It should be noted that the New American Standard Bible
already omits the reference at Lk. 24:51.

     31 Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel, (New York: Harper and
Row, Publishers, 1973).

     32 Ibid., pp. 113-114.

     33 This should not be considered outlandish in light of
another minority group succeeding in getting the scriptures
modified to accord with their perspective, to wit, the feminists.
"Dr. Bruce Metzger, of Princeton, has announced that a New
Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible will be out in 1980,
and will have eliminated the fake sexist language that was
introduced in the King James Version (KJV)" (?) Springfield News
and Leader, March 2, 1979.

     34 Hills, King James Version, p. 224.

     35 Hills finds no problem with this, arguing plausibly for
the providence of these passages making their way into the T.R.
see The King James Version Defended, pp. 193-213. Hodges,
advocating a "consistent" methodology, feels they should be
omitted, because of their not appearing in the majority text.