Tuesday, March 05, 2019

WM 119: Sanctified Mind Podcast: Text and Time




WM 119: Sanctified Mind Podcast: Text and Time is posted to sermonaudio.com (listen here).

In WM 119 I want to share a recent podcast by a group of three young men (Beau, Ryan, and Daniel—A RB and two Reformed Presbyterians) who live in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

The name of their podcast is The Sanctified Mind. The episode I want to share is episode 004, posted on 3.1.19. The podcast looks to be a reading discussion group. Each month or so they choose a different book to read and discuss together. The first book they reviewed was Machen’s What is Faith? I like that they are doing some older books and not just new ones.

In this most recent episode they are discussing Edward H. Hills, Text and Time: A Reformed Approach to NT Textual Criticism. If that title does not ring a bell for you, it is because this is a new kindle edition of Hills’ classic and influential work The King James Version Defended (Christian Research Press, May 25, 2018). The editor listed as Mary E. Hills Mueller. I assume this is Dr. Hills’ daughter.

I think it was, indeed, a great idea to release this work under a new title and in a digital format. As the men point out in the discussion, the book’s old title led to confusion with Hills’s view and KJV-Onlyism. They also make the point that Hills’ original editions of this work in the 1950s came before the avalanche of modern English translations.

As with WM 118 when I shared the podcast from Agros Church, I am encouraged by this podcast because it is yet another illustration of young Reformed men who are reconsidering the whole question of text (the “Young, Text-less, and Reformed”). They are seeing the difference between a presuppositional approach to text versus an empirical approach; a confessional versus a modern critical approach; a restorationist versus a providential preservationist approach.

At least one of the brothers notes that he is still working through the issues. I can respect that.

They also are aware of the ecclesiological issues. Toward the end, someone say something like, “We wouldn’t let unbelievers come into our church lead a Bible study, why would we let unbelieving scholars edit and control the texts of our Bible?” Great question.

There are some technical issues in the podcast. There are some long gaps at point, and they apparently could not always hear each other in real time and so sometimes talk over each other, but I think this podcast is still worth a listen. So, enjoy….

JTR

3 comments:

William Sandell said...

Yes, Mary Mueller is Dr. Hills daughter. Also, "Text and Time: Textual Criticism from a Reformed Point of View" is the original title of Dr. Hills book. However, when Evangelical publishers refused to publish his book (because they were pressured by Hills' opponents), he ended up self-publishing the book and changed the title to "KJV Defended" (upon the suggestion of his wife) in order to appeal to a more popular level audience. And yes, at the time he first published the book in the 1950s, I believe the only "modern" English version available was the RSV (which came out like 2-3 years beforehand).

Dr. Ted Letis discussed this history in his book, "Edward Freer Hills' Contribution to the Revival of the Ecclesiastical Text" (which I believe was originally Dr. Letis' Master's thesis. Btw, that work is included in Volume 12 of the Journal of Christian Reconstruction (1989), which is available currently as a reprint from www.chalcedon.edu

Jeffrey T. Riddle said...

WS, thanks for your comment. Yes, I had not realized this was the original title. Though I have a copy and did read Letis's thesis, I did not remember that detail. Very interesting. I like the new "old" title!

MarichD said...
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