The Reformation and the Text of the Bible Conference (English and Hungarian)

 

I was invited to give these three lectures at this conference at the Soli Deo Gloria Reformed Baptist Church in Budapest, Hungary on October 29, 2022.

These talks were modified versions (to allow for translation) of the three lectures I did at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London in 2021.

The talks were done in English with Hungarian translation. Conference attendees included persons from Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Kenya, and South Africa. It was a blessing to participate in this conference.

SDG!

Conference @ Soli Deo Reformed Baptist Church, Budapest (10/29/22): Reformation and the Text of the Bible

I'm looking forward to this conference at SDG Reformed Baptist Church in Budapest, Hungary on 10/29/22. Come join us if you live in the Budapest area or in Central Europe.

For more info and registration:

Church website:

https://reformaltbaptista.hu/en/reformation-conference-2022/…

Facebook:

https://facebook.com/events/507682344242602/…

JTR

Poh Boon Sing on the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation

Pastor Poh Boon Sing has posted an insightful article on the Gospel Highway website, marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, celebrated by many this week. Here's the opening to the article and a link to the whole (below):

It is safe to claim that the Reformation of the 16th century in Europe has impacted the world, directly and indirectly, for good. This year marks the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation. How should it be rightly celebrated?

I. What was the Reformation?

On 31 October 1517 Martin Luther nailed his “Ninety-Five Theses” to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The event sparked of a spiritual movement that spontaneously spread across the nations, and continues to reverberate down the centuries. The Reformation was a work of the Holy Spirit, a true revival, and the mother of all subsequent revivals. Luther was the instrument used by God to start off the Reformation. He was a Roman Catholic monk and theologian who had been much exercised over the superstitious beliefs and practices propagated by the Roman Catholic Church.

The Ninety-Five Theses consisted of propositions of biblical truths, contrasted with the false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, that were put to the public for debate. It began with the claim that repentance from sin, shown by a changed life, is essential to the Christian life. The Pope has no power to save. The buying of indulgences — i.e. certificates pronouncing remission of sins — from the church cannot give salvation. The Ninety-Five Theses ends by urging Christians to follow Christ, whose death on the cross alone saves. Although the Ninety-Five Theses does not explicitly mention “justification by faith”, this doctrine lies at the base of Luther’s experience of salvation and was the spur to his action on that fateful day.

The fire of Reformation burned in the hearts of the people who discovered salvation by grace, through faith, in Christ, alone. The teaching of Martin Luther spread throughout Europe. Luther, now excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, founded his own congregations. Other men were raised up by God to strengthen the cause of the Reformation. John Calvin escaped France and settled in Geneva to preach there. His “Institutes of the Christian Religion” helped to consolidate the teaching of the Reformation. Other notable Reformers included William Farel, Martin Bucer, Philipp Melanchthon, and Heinrich Bullinger. John Knox brought the Reformation to Scotland. From the 16th century, a band of preachers arose in Britain who preached the truths of the Reformation. They have been called the Puritans — also dubbed the second-generation Reformers. Various Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed Baptist, and Reformed churches of today would own the Reformers as their spiritual forefathers, and the Reformation as their historical root.

To continue reading the full entire article look here.

Update: With Pastor Poh's permission I also recorded an audio version of the article to sermonaudio.com. You can listen to it here. I also uploaded a pdf of the article. You can read it here.

Is "sola Scriptura" a Reformation slogan?

I’m still working my way through Robert Letham’s Through Western Eyes: Eastern Orthodoxy: A Reformed Perspective (Mentor, 2007). It includes an intriguing chapter comparing Orthodox and Reformed views on Scripture and tradition (pp. 173-198), in which Letham notes confusion, on both sides, about the term sola Scriptura.

Letham’s point is that the popular modern concept of sola Scriptura as a “right of private interpretation” was not a Reformation principle (see pp. 194-195). He adds: “To categorize Reformed theology as individualistic, with no doctrine of the church, is an error of monumental proportions” (p. 195). See similar reflections in Keith Mathison’s The Shape of Sola Scriptura on the difference between the Reformers’ view of sola Scriptura and modern individualistic evangelical view of what he calls “solo” Scriptura.

In this year of the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, many discussions on various points of Reformed theology and practice are surfacing. I noticed that the May 26, 2017 issue of Christianity Today has an interview with church historian Mark Noll titled, “The Freedom and Chaos of Sola Scriptura” (BTW, I do not, in fact, subscribe to “Christianity Yesterday,” as some derisively call it, but take a look at it, as well as the mainline The Christian Century, from time to time when I visit the central library, and I just happened to thumb through this issue last week). That article begins its discussion of the slogan by noting, “It has been a hallmark of Protestantism for 500 years….” That may be true of the concept but Letham suggests that the actual slogan does not go back that far.

Letham comments:

In fact, this slogan cannot be traced back to the sixteenth century; it was a much later concoction. Its intention was not to suggest that only the text of the Bible was acceptable. Indeed, the Reformers produced a wide range of new catechisms and confessions….  What they taught was that the Bible is the supreme authority, and sits in judgement on the teaching of the church, not vice versa (p. 175).

He later adds, regarding the term:

This is often taken to mean that the Bible is to be the only source for theology. It is almost universally claimed that it is one of the central pillars of the Reformation. However, there is not evidence of such a slogan in the entire sixteenth century. It is probable that it did not put in an appearance until the eighteenth century at the earliest. Contrary to so much hot air, it is not a Reformation slogan. When it was coined it was held to affirm that the Bible is the highest court of appeal in all matters of religious controversy, which is what the Reformers and their successors actually held.

So, Letham makes two interesting points:

First, historically, the exact term or slogan sola Scriptura was not, in fact, coined in the sixteenth century but in the eighteenth century (though Letham does not suggest who first coined the term—that would be interesting to know).

Second, theologically, the Reformed concept of sola Scriptura does not champion “private interpretation.” It also does not suggest that the Bible is the only source for theology but that it is the standard by which theology is rightly understood and evaluated.

JTR

Contrasting Ryan M. Reeves and John D. Currid: Was the study of the Bible in the original languages a hallmark of the Reformation?

The first misstep in our story, then, is the idea that Greek had been completely lost until the sixteenth century (Ryan M. Reeves).

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the ancient Greek language was, for the most part, unknown (John D. Currid).

Last week I did a post [find it here] critiquing a blog post which recently appeared on the Reformation 21 website by Ryan M. Reeves, assistant professor of historical theology at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, (Jacksonville campus).  I also did a Word Magazine on the same topic (see WM# 46).

Reeves’ article was on the 500 year anniversary of Erasmus’ Greek NT (1516).  In my critique I raised a number of questions about his post, including the historical accuracy of a number of his comments about Erasmus’ Greek NT.

Beyond my questions about the accuracy of Reeves’ Erasmus anecdotes, one of the questions I raised about his post was his suggestion that the “real” myth about Erasmus is that there was little study of the Biblical languages in the pre-Reformation period. According to Reeves, there was, in fact, a vibrant interest in the study of the Bible in the original languages that existed even before the Reformation era.  Here is how Reeves put it in his blogpost (with some relevant passages underlined):

So the myth of this story is not that Erasmus altered the course of biblical scholarship. He did influence future scholarship. It is not that the reformers considered Greek irrelevant. The myth is how we understand the context. 

Prior to Erasmus a number of scholars learned Greek, mostly for the sake of classical studies, but at times to study the Bible. The Renaissance was centuries old by the time of the 95 Theses, though the movement had begun to focus on classical and biblical languages only in the previous century. Over the years, though, humanists strove to learn the scriptures to the best of their ability, even in the originals. Luther's own right-hand man, Melanchthon, was one of these prodigies in the study of Greek and taught this as a professor at Wittenberg. 

The first misstep in our story, then, is the idea that Greek had been completely lost until the sixteenth century. It is not true that everyone prior to the Reformation rejected the original languages for a view of the Vulgate as a pristine text. Catholic commitment to the Vulgate was as much a result of the Reformation as its cause. Prior to the Reformation there was no real dispute over it and other translations were not scorned, except in cases where texts were used by heretical movements. During the medieval period, Bibles did not languish in chains in dusty libraries, unloved and unread. Most people were illiterate, and so only the educated few could read the Bible. The reason they chained it was because it cost as much as a house to produce. One does not chain up things that are unwanted. 

Reeves’ comments came to mind again this weekend as I read John D. Currid’s book Calvin and the Biblical Languages (Christian Focus, 2006).  Contrary to Reeve’s comments above, Currid states the following:

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the ancient Greek language was, for the most part, unknown.  It was a mere curiosity even among the educated of Europe, almost a freakish field of study (p. 39).

This stands in complete contrast to Reeves’ statement that the “first misstep” in poplar conceptions of Erasmus is “the idea that Greek had been completely lost until the sixteenth century.” Did Currid make a blunder here, a misstep?  In fact, Currid offers sources to verify his statement.  He cites, in particular, D. Rebitté's work Gillaume Budé restaurateur des études grecques en France (Paris: essai historique,1846), which noted three key eras for the study of Greek in sixteenth century France:  (1) the scarcity period (1500-1530) when very few knew Greek, except for Gillaume Budé; (2) the pioneering period (1530-1560) reaching its climax with the publication of Henri Estienne’s Thesaurus in 1560; and (3) the “full blossom” period (1560-1600).  He notes that Calvin began learning Greek in the second period.

Currid later makes the argument, contra Reeves, that the study of Biblical languages was, in fact, a unique and distinguishing part of the Reformation period, setting it apart from the preceding age, which slavishly followed the Vulgate.  Thus, he writes:

Catholic priests and scholars of the sixteenth century were trained in Latin in order to use the Vulgate.  Few of them, however, studied Greek and even fewer were trained and knowledgeable in Hebrew.  What need was there to learn the languages to get at the real meaning of the Scriptures when, in fact, Jerome’s Vulgate was the Bible of Christianity and the version upon which the Church of Rome based its doctrinal tenets and teachings? (p. 65).

Reeves suggested, however, that RC commitment to the Vulgate was “as much a result of the Reformation as its cause.” Has Currid made another misstep?  Again, he cites a source to verify his view.  In this case his source is G. Lloyd Jones' The Discovery of Hebrew in Tudor England: A Third Language (Manchester University Press, 1983). Currid shares this quote from Jones:

Ignorant and illiterate monks, alarmed by the progress of the new learning, thundered from the pulpit that a new language had been discovered called Greek, of which people should beware, since it was that which produced all the heresies.  A book called the New Testament written in this language was now in everyone’s hands, and was ‘full of thorns and briers.’ There was also another language called Hebrew, which should be avoided at all costs since those who learned it became Jews (cited in Currid, p. 65).

While noting that this view was “commonplace” in pre-Reformation Europe, he evenhandedly observes that “it was dominant, but not absolute,” singling out Johann Reuchlin, in particular (p. 66).  Still, Currid firmly states:

In contrast to the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformers were, for the most part, seriously committed to the study of the original languages of the Bible.  It was a hall-mark of the Reformation (p. 66).

Later, he reiterates:

Yet, I would argue that the commitment of the reformers to the study of the original languages of the Bible was one of the hallmarks or emblems of the Reformation (p. 69).

Whereas Reeves appears to downplay the uniqueness of the Reformation interest in the study of the Bible in the original languages in distinction from pre-Reformation Roman Catholicism (and thereby he downplays the divide between the RC and the Reformed view of Scripture), Currid underscores it.

One would think that an article on Erasmus from a historical theologian on a blog titled “Reformation 21” would be a bit more like Currid than Reeves.

JTR

Sola Scriptura versus "Solo" Scriptura

Last Sunday evening I did a message on "The Dangers of Private Interpretation" in which I shared some reflections from Keith Mathison's book The Shape of Sola Scriptura (Canon Press, 2001) in which he distinguishes the Reformation concept of sola scriptura from the modern evangelical view of "solo" scriptura.

A friend sent me a link to this article by Mathison in the March/April 2007 issue of Modern Reformation in which he summarizes the content of his book. Those interested in the topic will profit from reading the article.

JTR