institute
for
renaissance
and reformation
biblical
studies
June 9, 2003
(A Reply to Letis, A Romanist? found at http://www.kjvonly.org/other/theodore_letis_has_a_romanist_odor.htm)
Mr. Ross begins his diatribe with an ad hominem attack upon Dr. Letis.
He employs "guilt by association" by comparing Letis'
exposé of Warfield with that of Karl Keating, the well known Roman Catholic apologist. If Dr. Letis'
view is to be rejected because of agreement with Keating, should
Fundamentalists rethink their abbreviated five-point creed of “the fundamentals
of the faith” since most Romanists are in agreement with it? Moreover, that Letis is a member of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod,
which demands of all its members and ministers that they believe, as Luther
did, that the Papacy is the very Antichrist,(see: http://www.wls.wels.net/Publications/Theologia/vol3no1/WrightAntichrist/WrightAntichrist.PDF
), leaves Ross’ entire article,
the sole intention of which was to impugn Letis, as
the exercise of a rather inept propagandist.
Moreover, Mr. Ross does not seem to have a grasp of Dr. Letis' teaching on "inerrant autographa."
For some reason, Ross only states Keating's position on the subject.
Dr. Letis
should be allowed to speak for himself:
The popular
teaching that text criticism never affects doctrine was taken up one final time
by the late 19th century Princetonian,
B.B. Warfield. Warfield gave a new twist to his attempt to domesticate of the
threat of textual variation to the doctrine of verbal inspiration. He now
claimed that no matter the state of the extant text, it was, after all, only
the original text that was authoritative at any rate! This was completely out
of step with his own 17th century confessional standards as well as
out of step with his own continental Reformed dogmatic consensus (as it is with
Lutheran dogmatics as well—see Robert Preus) which argued that the extant edition was infallible.
And to this innovative adjustment he added a new theological term borrowed from
astronomy, “inerrancy,” rather than use the traditional term of “infallibilitas.”
Hence, on
this point Warfield became a genuine restorationist,
because if he vested final authority in the autographs alone, one must now go
on a search for these lost standards before one can have full inerrancy. The
implications for this were nothing short of remarkable. In his quest for the
historical text Warfield was quite willing to give up the earliest resurrection
account from the earliest Gospel as a fabrication. So Warfield abandoned any
defense of the existing manuscripts and strictly in order to win the argument,
shifted his defense to only the original manuscripts (which were beyond the scrutiny
of his critics, you see). Hence, in Warfield’s own words, he had no intention
of any longer defending the existing Bible as had his forefather’s and hence
would not assert that the common text, but only that the original
autographic text was inspired. No "error" can be asserted,
therefore, which cannot be proved to have been aboriginal in the text.
Furthermore, he now claimed that science, rather than the church, would now
present us, at some future date, with this “original” text:
[Warfield] “The inerrant autographs were a fact once; they may
possibly be a fact again, when textual criticism has said its last word on
the Bible text. In proportion as they are approached in the processes of
textual criticism, do we have an ever better and better Bible than the one we
have now”
Science will
be the means of their “restoration”:
[Warfield]m“The
autographic text of the New Testament is distinctly within the reach of
criticism in so immensely the greater part of the volumes, that we cannot
despair of restoring to ourselves and the Church of God, His Book, word for
word, as he gave it by inspiration…”
(Theodore Letis,
“Contemporary Bible Translations: Anabaptist Victories in the New World”: http://www.holywordcafe.com/bible/resources/Ft_wayne_lecture.pdf)
As one can see, there is no
similarity between Letis' position and the Roman
Church. The Romanists place co-equal authority in tradition and Scripture. The
Vulgate is the locus of authority in scripture, according to the Council of
Trent. That is, they place final authority in a translation (see Letis’ excellent study on this theme as found in the
journal Reformation, noted here http://www.tyndale.org/Reformation/7/reformj7.html).
The anabaptist Warfieldians are the ones guilty of this blunder. The
Vulgate is held by them as "authentic" because the extant Scriptures
(the Byzantine majority texts) are held to be corrupt. The extant copies of the
Scripture, or as some call the Majority text, are held by modern textual
scholars to be corrupt. If Mr. Ross holds the Byzantine copies to be corrupt
then he, in fact, has "the odor of Romanism" on him.
Ross makes the claim "Letis blasts Non-profit Bible Societies as well as
independent companies which publish Bibles…"
The Rupert Murdock conglomerate
(NIV) is a non-profit company? They go to great lengths to market their product
with "Quest Study Bible,” “New Student Bible,” “Couple's Devotional
Bible,” “Youthwalk Devotional Bible," etc. Futhermore, Letis is not alone in
pointing out that a great deal of mischief can be laid at the door of the
“Bible Societies,” as well documented in Professor Jakob
Van Bruggen’s excellent expose of this movement in
his book, The Future of the Bible (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978,
recently reprinted and available from the Institute for Renaissance and
Reformation Biblical Studies, P.O. Box 870525, Stone Mountain, GA 30087)
"Guilt by
association" is employed once again in Ross' short article. Dr. Letis recommends the 21st Century KJV update. Dean Burgon was also for the revising of the KJV for private
study. This sets Dr. Letis miles apart from those who
hold the KJV to be "inspired." Yet, the KJ21© is accused of Romanist
involvement by way of those who recommend it. The inclusion of Fr. Michael
B. Davidson and Brother Isaac (now Father Andrew) is proof enough of
a Roman Catholic connection by Mr. Ross’ sloppy accounting. Mr. Ross, however,
would do well to be a little more thorough in his research. Fr. Davidson is a
member of the Episcopal Church and Fr. Andrew is a member of the Greek Orthodox
Faith. The KJV was actually the product of the former and has long been
associated with latter.
Ross goes on to say:
Letis says he is
going to inform "laymen as well as religious and academic professions,
about the historical understanding of the Bible as a sacred text," which
means he presumes to know something that you and I need to know which we
haven't already heard from Ruckman and other scholars
of the Cult. PCC could have gotten the same information from their next door
neighbor, Ruckman, which they heard from Letis, but with much more laughable material.
Here again Mr. Ross invokes his favorite tool of guilt by
association. That Letis has written an entire essay
denouncing in the strongest, unequivocal language and with unimpeachable
argumentation, the entire KJV only movement as, indeed, a cult, in his book, The
Ecclesiastical Text (go here to read this chapter on line: http://www.holywordcafe.com/bible/ecctext/index.html),
leaves Mr. Ross looking as though he either 1) never read Letis’
book; or else, 2) he chooses to deliberately misrepresent him. Either option
leaves Mr. Ross with a very serious credibility problem.
Once again, the credentials of
Dr. Letis as well as Dr. Hills are impeccable in
regards to the study of textual criticism. On the other hand, Peter Ruckman, Sam Gipp (pro-KJV only
advocates), Doug Kutilek, James White, Gary Hudson,
and Bob Ross (anti-KJV Only), do not have advanced degrees in the field of
textual criticism and/or from accredited institutions.
Finally, Ross closes his
article with quotes that he feels silences
Letis’
argument that Warfield changed the paradigm from "infallibility" to
"inerrancy." Ironically, what he does not seem to have
grasped is that the two authors he cites (John Gill and Andrew Fuller) state
exactly the position of Letis, the Reformers, and
Protestant Dogmaticians!
Perhaps the following may clear
the air:
By
"original and authentic" text, the Protestant orthodox do not mean
the autographa which no one can possess but
the apographa [preserved copies] in the
original tongue which are the source of all versions… The orthodox discussion
of autographa and apographa
was designed, therefore, to point toward a continuity
of text-tradition between the original authors and the present-day texts
(Richard Muller, as quoted by Theodore Letis,
Ecclesiastical Text, p. 56)
Mr. Ross has long produced the
works of Spurgeon (for which we are thankful). Let us hear Mr. Spurgeon on the
matter of infallibility.
Infallibility
used to be claimed for the pope, but Luther upset that nonsense. The
Protestants then asserted that infallibility lay in the Bible; and this became
their fulcrum. It seems to me that now it is commonly thought that
infallibility lies nowhere; or, if there be any such thing, it is to be found
among young green-horns, fresh from college, who do not know A from B
in theology, and yet criticize the Bible, and cut it about as they choose.
They are infallibles, and we must all bow down before their idol of advanced
thought. I prefer my infallible Book, and I shall stick to it, God helping me,
knowing that it has never led me astray, and believing that it never will.
[Spurgeon, “So It Is.” No. 2175]
Spurgeon was speaking of Higher
Critics and the infallible apographa (the extant
copies of the Greek NT, not the autographa) as a
careful consideration of his sermons and writings will bear out.
Perhaps a reading of Dr. Letis' book The Ecclesiastical Text and in
particular The Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text and the Claims of the
Anabaptists would be in order for those interested in a complete picture of
the debate (an electronic version of the latter can be found here: http://www.holywordcafe.com/bible/ecctext/index.html).
Pastor Curtis Dubreuil
June 9, 2003