WM 314: Review: Meade on "I've heard it said the Old Testament is full of errors"

 

I want to offer a brief review of a video and an article that was recently posted to the Crossway website (October 29, 2024) in the series titled “I’ve heard it said.”

This short video (less than two minutes) features Dr. John D. Meade, OT professor at Phoenix Seminary, and a recent critic of the Reformation Bible Society and its defense of the traditional MT of the Hebrew OT.

Meade’s segment is titled “I have heard it said that the Old Testament is full of errors,” This video (and others in this series) are meant to address various controversial topics on theology or apologetics from a contemporary evangelical perspective.

Let’s listen to the video and then I’ll offer a few observations.

Meade’s video is presumably meant to defend the authority, authenticity, and integrity of the text of the OT against unnamed modern skeptics who argue that it cannot be trusted because it is full of errors.

If you listen to Meade’s presentation, however, you will find that he does not deny or refute the charge that the text of the OT is full of errors. In fact, he agrees with and affirms this perspective.

Meade begins by noting, rightly, that there are no longer any extant autographs or original manuscripts of the OT books. We do not, for example, have any of the books of the Pentateuch handwritten by Moses. We do not have autographs but only apographs, copies of the OT books. The Puritan John Owen speculated that God did not allow the autographs to be preserved because he knew that men would be tempted to worship them.

Meade then adds that these copies of the OT are riddled with human “fragility” and are filled with transmissional errors. He says it is not a question as to whether or not there are errors, affirming plainly, “There are errors.”

Meade then suggests, however, that this admitted situation of an overwhelmingly corrupted OT text should not lead to pessimism or despair. Despite this confused textual situation, Meade says, one cannot conclude “We don’t have the Bible.” He assures his listeners, in fact, that we have “a wealth of manuscripts” (some modern scholars are fond of saying we have “an embarrassment of riches”).

Our saving grace (or saviors), Meade asserts are “textual critics” who can compare manuscripts, “sift out” copyist errors, and “actually restore the original text,” by comparing all of the evidence.

Meade concludes by saying he is “optimistic, that we can get back to the original books of the OT.”

Let me offer five observations on Meade’s presentation:

First, as already noted, Meade is NOT refuting the charge that the OT is full of errors. He is in basic agreement with that assertion. The title of the video might well have been, “I agree that the OT is full of errors, but I am nonetheless optimistic we can almost fix it.”

His approach here reminds me of the veritable cottage industry that developed among evangelical scholars a few years ago in order supposedly to “refute” the textual criticism of Bart Ehrman. The only problem was most of these men who lined up to “refute” Ehrman confessed that they basically agreed with Ehrman that the text of the NT was overwhelmingly corrupt, that traditional passages like Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53—8:11 are spurious, and that it is the task of scholars to attempt to reconstruct it to some semblance of what the original might have been. These evangelical scholars did not so much disagree with Ehrman as to whether the NT text was grossly corrupt and needed reconstruction, but only as to whether, under these circumstances, it could still be said to be inspired and to hold authority for faith and practice.

Meade is essentially suggesting a similar approach with regard to the text of the OT, though he does not explicitly cite a “Bart Ehrman” type OT scholar as a foe.

Second, Meade is promoting in this video a modern restorationist view of textual criticism. This view suggests that the text of the Bible is rather hopelessly corrupted, but that modern academic scholars can examine the extant empirical evidence and use human reasoning to at least “reconstruct” a close approximation to the original text. Such scholars are typically clear to point out that they cannot guarantee that the text they reconstruct is, in fact, the authorial text. It will be subject to change based on new discoveries and methods developed by scholars.

Third, this modern reconstruction model is a departure from the classic Protestant approach to the text of Scripture. That view held that the Bible had been immediately inspired by God, and it has been kept pure in all ages (see WCF/2LBCF 1:8). This view holds that though the autographs have not been preserved, they remain accessible through faithful copies (apographs). There were some scribal discrepancies in transmission, but these were minor and could be easily corrected using those faithful copies and the consensus of the rule of faith.

With respect to the OT the Protestant fathers affirmed that these ancient “oracles of God” had been preserved by the Jews in the traditional Masoretic Text of the Hebrew OT (cf. Romans 3:2). This text had then providentially come into print at the dawn of the Protestant era (first published by Daniel Bomberg in 1524-1525). These printed editions of the Hebrew Masoretic Text of the Old Testament were used as the touchstone and standard for all the classic Protestant translations of the Bible.

The Dutch divine Petrus Van Mastricht declared, “Neither the Hebrew of the Old Testament, nor the Greek of the New Testament has been corrupted” (TPT 1:164).

The English divine John Owen suggested that to attempt to amend or alter the traditional text would be “to make equal the wisdom, care, skill, and diligence of men, with the wisdom, care, and providence of God himself” (Works 16:357).

Fourth, the reconstruction method is advocating departure from the traditional Masoretic Text, affirmed by both Jews and Protestants for centuries, in favor of a modern critical text, reconstructed using reasoned eclecticism.

Fifth, as indicated by Meade’s answer, and as touched on above, those who hold to this modern view do not believe that we currently have the text of the OT rightly reconstructed in hand. They are only “optimistic”—to used Meade’s term— that perhaps a very close approximation of the text might be achieved sometime in the future, as a result of the application of modern textual criticism.

Sadly, we seem to be observing the same undermining of the stability and authority of the OT text, under the application of modern textual criticism, as has already largely taken place among many evangelicals and mainline Protestants with respect to the NT text. No doubt many evangelical scholars making use of this reconstruction method would be willing to say of the OT text what Daniel B. Wallace has already said of the NT Text. Something like:

We do not have now—in our critical [Hebrew] texts or any translations—exactly what the authors of the [Old] Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it [cf. Gurry and Hixson, Eds. Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, xii].

Let us, finally, return to the topic. “I’ve heard it said that the OT is full of errors.” Is it possible that we might still respond to this topic in the way that Van Mastricht and Owen the Westminster divines and the Particular Baptist fathers did in their day?:

The Hebrew OT is not full of errors. It was immediately inspired by God and has been kept pure in all ages in faithful copies. As it did for the ancient Jews and for men of the Reformation, the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text continues to provide for Bible-believing Protestant Christians a clear and authoritative canonical standard for both the sacred books and the sacred text of the OT.

JTR

Matthew Vogan: Robert Baillie's Defense of the Masoretic Text (RBS 2024 Breakout Session)

 

JTR

Book Review: Lanier & Ross, The Septuagint: What It Is and What It Matters

 

Read my written review on academia.edu.

JTR

WM 291: Mormons, DSS, Theological Presuppositions, and Modern Textual Criticism

 

JTR

WM 173: Life of Jerome.Part One: From Birth to Bethlehem

I have posted WM 173: Life of Jerome.Part One: Birth to Bethlehem.

It offers an overview of the life of Jerome of Stridon, one of the most important early Christian churchmen and scholars. One of his most significant achievements was the translation of the Bible into Latin (the Latin Vulgate), later editions of which would be declared by the RCC at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) to be the authoritative edition of the Bible. Though Protestants reject that claim, we do see his work as important for (1) preserving the Hebrew as the divine original of the OT; and (2) preserving many key readings in the Greek NT.

In this overview I share my reading notes from the classic biography of Jerome by J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (original, 1975; Christian Classics Reprint Edition, 1980).

This Part One covers Jerome's early years (primarily in Rome) from c. 331-386, or, "From Birth to Bethlehem."

Part Two will be forthcoming, focusing on his later years (primarily in Bethlehem) from 386-420, or: "From Bethlehem to Death."

Enjoy! JTR

Russell Fuller on John Owen and the Traditional Protestant View of the Old Testament

I listened today to the recently posted lecture by Dr. Russell T. Fuller, OT Professor at Southern Baptist Seminary, on “John Owen and the Traditional Protestant View of the OT" (see video above).  The lecture was given at the 2016 Andrew Fuller Conference on the theme, “The Diversity of Dissent.”

Fuller presents a compelling defense of the Hebrew Masoretic tradition as the authoritative text of the Old Testament, over against modern, reconstructionist text critical approaches, as represented in many modern liberal and also evangelical translations of the OT. And he does so on distinctly confessional grounds!

Here are some notes:

Fuller begins with a review of the “forgotten controversy” of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries over the antiquity of the vowel points and accents of the Hebrew Bible.

Traditional Jews and Protestant held to the antiquity of the vowel points and accents, tracing them back to Moses and Ezra.  The controversy began with the rejection of the antiquity of the vowel points and accents by the Jewish scholar Elias Levita and (surprisingly) the Protestant scholar Louis Cappel (Latin:  Capellus).  This was seized upon by Catholics who argued that the OT text was corrupted and proper interpretation only came through the Vulgate and the RC magisterium. Johannes Buxtorf (the elder) and his son Johannes Buxtorf (the younger) defended the traditional Protestant view.  This controversy re-emerged in the seventeenth century with Brian Walton’s Polyglott offering the same challenges and John Owen defending the traditional Protestant view.

Fuller rightly points out that the traditional Protestant view “has been discarded completely by the critical scholars and partly by evangelical scholars.”

While conceding that Owen and his colleagues “stumbled” in some details, he argues that they were correct on three core issues: (1) the preservation of Scripture; (2) the verbal inspiration of Scripture: and (3) the dangers of radical text criticism to Scripture.

The “final statement” of these confessional views were expressed in the Helvetic Consensus Formula (1675) and this view prevailed for c. 50-100 years.  The Baptist pastor John Gill, the Scottish theologian James Robertson of Edinburgh, and the German scholar Oluf Gerhard Tychsen represented a “rear-guard” defense of these views, but modernism eventually prevailed. The Hebrew text of the OT is now seen as corrupted, obscure, and outdated.

Fuller concludes: “We are all Capellian now.”

Nevertheless, he argues that the defenders of the traditional Protestant view were right on the core issues:

On preservation, he argues that the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible should be considered the standard for the OT.  It has been preserved in the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex.

The antiquity and authority of the MT has been proven by various evidences [Babylonian Talmud and rabbinic literature, versions (like the Vulgate), Masada texts, Qumran texts (Isaiah scroll), LXX revisions, and even NT usage].

So, Fuller says, “The MT is the OT.”

To traditional Protestants the “original autographs” and the scriptures of their day were the same.

On verbal inspiration, he notes that the traditional Protestants stressed the inspiration not only of Biblical ideas but of the very words of Scripture.

On the vowels and accents, he notes the traditional Protestants were right to say that this included the vowels and accents, “the power of the points,” whether in written form or as preserved in oral tradition as the proper pronunciation.

The Masoretic tradition (consonants, vowels, and accents) are the “Lydian stone” of the OT against which all versions must be evaluated.

On radical text criticism, Fuller bemoans departures from the Masoretic Text in modern translations of the OT, which give weight to versions like the LXX, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Pentateuch, and even to conjectural emendations.

Sadly, this is true not just of liberal translations (RSV, NRSV, NEB) but also of evangelical translations (ESV, NIV, NLT).

He cites a study that notes variations in the ESV from the MT of the OT:

277 times it follows the LXX;

18 times the Dead Sea Scrolls;

7 times the Samaritan Pentateuch;

26 times it amends with NO mss. support.

And this is just based on the consonantal text.  If vowel and accent changes were included variants would be in the hundreds!

Striking is Fuller’s observation: “If liberals amend [the text] thousands of times, evangelicals do so hundreds of times”!

He sums up (c. 37:15 mark): “Liberals and evangelicals create their own text.  Each translation committee creates its own magisterium.  This is what Owen and others foresaw and warned against.”

Though Owen and his allies erred in some details, they were right of the core issues:  preservation, verbal inspiration, and the dangers of radical text criticism.

JTR Evaluation:

I highly commend this lecture.  Fuller has hit the nail on the proverbial head with regard to the theological issues involved in text criticism of the OT and offers a compelling rationale for defense of the “traditional Protestant” use of the Masoretic Text as the text of the OT.

If you are making use of a modern translation of the Bible (like the ESV) which departs from the Masoretic text, you should pay especially close attention to Fuller’s argument.

I have one question/suggestion:  For the core issues, Why not follow the order inspiration, preservation, translation (as in Westminster I.8), rather than preservation, inspiration, translation?

And I have one significant disagreement.  It has to do with the only reference in the lecture to NT text criticism, and it goes by so quickly it might easily be overlooked.  At the 17:40 mark, Fuller says,

For the NT, Vaticanus, with obvious copyist errors noted, virtually reproduces the NT as given by the apostles. The same could be said for other famous uncial and papyri manuscripts.

This appears to me to be an inconsistency.  If Fuller prefers the traditional Protestant text for the OT why does he not also prefer the traditional Protestant text of the NT, namely, the Textus Receptus, or, at the very least, the Majority Text? When Owen and his contemporaries thought of the “autograph” they thought of the text of their day.  This was not, however, just the MT of the OT, but also the TR of the NT!

Part of his argument here is for the use of extant texts (the Aleppo and Leningrad Codices), over eclectic texts.  But why not the TR as the standard printed text of Protestant consensus?

JTR