The following is a production of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and is made possible by the generous financial support of our listeners and friends. For more information about the seminary, how you can support it, or applying to become a student, please visit GPTS.edu. Hello and welcome to another edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. My name is Zach Groff and I'm the host of the podcast and also Director of Advancement and Admissions here at the school, and today I have with me, joining me on the podcast by Zoom actually, two OPC ministers, Brett Malin and Christian McShaffrey Brothers. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having us, Zach. So Brett Malin serves as associate pastor at Covenant OPC in Orland Park, Illinois, where he oversees Covenant's prison ministry. He's contributed to a number of familiar podcasts and blogs and the like, and if you Google search his name, you'll surely see the Aquila Report come up and Reform Forum and other things. Christian McShaffery is the pastor of Five Solas Church, which is an OPC congregation in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, and he blogs regularly on the church website, which is fivesolas.church. Together, these brothers host the annual Kept Pure in All Ages Conference on Bibliology or the Study of the Bible. This year's conference will be held at Five Solas Church there in Reedsburg on July 22nd and 23rd. The conference exists to issue an earnest but brotherly call to return to the classical Protestant view of the biblical text of Scripture, which led our fathers in the faith to receive the Textus Receptus as the authentic Word of God, especially in light of the radical changes that are coming to both the Greek New Testament text and our English translations." And that was a quote pulled from the conference website, which is keptpure.com. The theme for the conference this year is Received Text Apologetics. Pastors Malin and McShaffery will be joined by Dr. Jeffrey Riddle, pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia. Now, the reason I'm having them on the podcast today is to spotlight their work in a field that is somewhat neglected in the Reformed world today. A couple of years ago, I interviewed Dr. Ben Shaw and Dr. Sidney Dyer about the majority text, a textual tradition of the Bible in the original languages. and I suspect that today's interview will engage with similar ideas and arguments as we unpack the topic further. I've also interviewed Dr. Mark Ward of Faithlife and Logos, who takes a very different position on these issues, and I do want to note that some of our faculty here at Greenville Seminary favor a majority text or Byzantine text type position, and others favor what's called the critical text position. So I want to make abundantly clear that today's podcast is not putting forward one position as a test of faith, but rather engaging with an important topic for us to consider and discuss as brothers. And since I'm not a subject matter expert in these things, I have asked pastors Malin and McShaffery to give me some questions that I can ask to tee them up for the discussion. So we're going to dive in with those questions now. First, What in the world is a Bergonian? Well, Zach, we borrowed the word from a lecture by the late Theodore Ledis, who referred to Edward Freer Hills as a 20th century Bergonian because he followed in the footsteps of Dean William Bergon. And we understand that these names might be new to some, so let me just give a little background and set the stage. None of your listeners would disagree that the Protestant Reformation was probably the most significant event in modern history. The light of the gospel was recovered. It was brought out from under a bushel of medievalism and potpourri and sacerdotalism. Countless souls were saved. Churches were reformed. Nations were baptized and discipled. Western civilization, as we know it, began because of the Protestant Reformation. And behind all of it was the power of the word of God. And during that era, as you think back in history, we see some wonderful acts of providence. The printing press was invented, enabling mass production of texts. Constantinople fell, bringing a treasure trove of manuscripts to the Western church. The Renaissance left scholars with a love for the sources. And it was during this era that the New Testament text was then collated and printed in a stable form. From there, it was translated into several languages, and it established a standard text that spanned for four continents and endured for nearly four centuries, that is, until the late 19th century. And maybe I'll let Brett jump in and give us the bad news of the late 19th century. so late nineteenth century uh... there was uh... to be a revision of the bible and uh... it was simply just to be a revision certain words to be updated that sort of thing and uh... the committee decided that in addition to updating the bible they would update the uh... new testament as well and so uh... they got from men on there uh... and and some of them orthodox some of them good some of them not so much and uh... Dean Burgon happens to be a contemporary of them and a critic of the revision committee. And as you read his work, especially Revision Revised, you see that this man is a master of the New Testament and a master of the patristic literature. And really, probably, these men probably were not in his league. uh... he was just a master of peace discipline so uh... it's interesting to uh... to read him and see uh... you know this guy's not a fundamentalist some people try to make him out to be a fundamentalist uh... he's not that he's an anglican uh... but he's seeking to defend the integrity of god's word And since the debate between Burgan and the Revision Committee, we've had, for over the last 100 years, two main Greek New Testaments, the Received Text, which was produced during the times of the Reformation, and then this Reconstructed Text by Westcott and Hort and the Revision Committee. And here we are a century later, and the experts in text-critical fields are still tinkering with this Reconstructed Text. And we think it's time to return to the text of our fathers that we confess has been kept pure in all ages. So that's kind of what a Bergonian is. It roots our movement in Reformation history, but also recent history because of the Reconstruction. So that's what this discussion is about. It's not really about English translations except in a secondary sense. It's first and foremost about the textual basis which lies behind our English translations. Is that right? That's right. So you're not advocating for King James only-ism? not at all awkward if if you begin to talk about these issues unfortunately you do get pigeon-holed uh... and and it's it's almost like people have a knee-jerk reaction uh... almost if someone talks about the texas receptive or even if someone just read the king james they get uh... they they get pigeon-holed because uh... the net seems to be so so broad and it's cast so broadly so i know we're not what we're simply uh... advocating for it uh... yes uh... we are advocating for uh... reformation era bible friend or the uh... text this receptive uh... book but also uh... engaging with reformers the puritan and uh... the text that they were dealing with rather than this new age in which we live. So, there you go. Yeah, and on the topic of King James-only-ism and the canard, the ad hominem, the texts that are given, it's understandable because, you know, Anglican Burgon and then Presbyterian Hills and Lutheran Theodore Letus advocated for the traditional text of Scripture, but then there was a gap in which the independent, fundamental Baptists seemed to have taken over this charge and this argument, and that's very unfortunate. It's one of the reasons we want to bring it back into more of an established church context so that we can continue the discussion. Absolutely. I would say that when when the issue is often presented to us it's it's uh... category a and b it's just that either critical text or there's textus receptus and uh... it's it's really sad we seem to have been given up or sold at that bill of goods because uh... there's actually a third option and that it is it is the reformed and uh... confessional understanding and it's just when when you look at berg on uh... hill who followed in his track and then leader and now riddle just stand back and look you have these four men who've written and uh... and done wonderful things for the text book one is an anglican and then the next is a reformed presbyterian uh... and then the next of the lutheran and then the next is a confessional baptist there's no uh... k j v o fundamentalist baptist here uh... in in these four and it's just interesting to see that uh... in it for me i came to this issue and i i realized but they're really in the third option people who know the original languages who uh... have studied who understand the history of read the 17th century and are really competent in these issues. It's just fascinating to see, and it's an avenue that I did not know existed. As you're seeking to do some retrieval work in bibliology and really going back to what we call pre-critical scholarship on these things, Do you grant the legitimacy of modern scholarship, namely the scholarship which would have led to the formation of the Revision Committee and the production of the Westcott and Hort, Nestle Island, critical text tradition? Do you grant that there's some legitimacy there in their scholarship, or do you reject it whole cloth? Scholarship is essential as a spiritual gift to the institutional church. I mean, Christ set up his church in this world as the pillar and ground of the truth, and scholars are a great blessing to the worshiping community. The question is, are scholars to be engaged with recognizing and receiving the infallible Word of God or reconstructing a hypothetical original that will never be found? That's a starting point that is entirely different one from the other, and it's also based on presuppositions that I think are incompatible. One assumes corruption of the Word, and the other presumes preservation of the Word. And I love modern scholarship. I stay current on text-critical issues. I read the new textbooks as they come out. But what's the purpose? To reconstruct a lost original? I cannot say that that's what God has called us to do. Absolutely. Let me just piggyback on that and say, Christian's been to seminary. I've gone to seminary and loved it a couple of times. Zach, you've gone to seminary, and I think we've got a pretty good diversity of seminaries represented among the three of us. And who would dispute the fact that we have sat under brilliant people, brilliant men, who were amazing? And we live in a day and age of credible learning and uh... great scholarship greek and hebrew scholars another thing like that so we we love this stuff it's all it's often that you want to other people want to paint people as the curmudgeon that are anti-scholarship and only know english or something like that and that's that's not what we're advocating for we're advocating for uh... going back to these incredible scholars from previous centuries that uh... were amazing and also uh... advocating for something that we would think more confessional we are we are pro-scholarship both of the modern age and of the previous centuries because it's interesting if you'll find so many people in our day like a book ktv fundamentalist or anti-scholarship and then you'll listen to some critical scholar people who will pocketed it uh... people in the previous centuries were just making mistakes and they're just blue lips and they're just a kid that that's not the case these the these these men were brilliant back then so uh... it obviously you run into problems when when when you assume that people are just who lives are wrong or stupid or something like that we're not advocating for anything like that How many versions of the Greek New Testament are there out there that are kind of a part of this conversation or scholarly milieu? Is it just two? You have the Texas Receptus and the Westcott and Hort, or are there more than two options that someone in good conscience might adopt and take as their textual basis or preference? Well, mainly there are two if you're going to judge the legitimacy on whether they've been printed in English or translated. That would be the received text. Again, it was edited in the Reformation era, and it was based on the text used by the churches, the worshiping community, East and West in all ages. Then there's the revised text, the eclectic text, and that's based mainly on two manuscripts which are purported to be very old, the Sinai and Vatican manuscripts and also some papyri. But then we also have the majority text. And you mentioned that in the introduction, Byzantine priority majority text. And that, from what I understand, was a well-intended move back toward the traditional text of the Greek New Testament, a return to the majority of textual witnesses. And it's based on a huge number of Byzantine manuscripts. And it's quite similar to the received text, but not identical. And there are some differences between the two. But there hasn't really been an English translation based on the majority text. So it's a rather niche position to hold. And it's never taken traction for some reason. Are there really that many textual differences between these, I guess, these three major traditions or the two major traditions and the one more niche tradition of the majority text? The main differences that you'll see in your English Bible is the loss or the retention of John 8, the woman caught in adultery, and the ending of the Book of Mark, which is the resurrection portion. And then there are 16 other verses that are either taken out or, some would say, added And then there are a number of other portions of verses from the New Testament that are taken out, just words here or phrases there. So depending on what you mean by that, as far as drastic changes, the most drastic ones are two large pericopes and 16 verses. But all told, as far as meaningful ones, there'd be about 650. differences between the received text and most critical text of the present day. Do any of the missing or questionable verses affect doctrine in any substantive or material way? Well, definitely. The first doctrine being that of bibliology. It may, you know, mainly the attribute that we call infallibility. We've confessed for centuries that the Bible, because of what it is, as inspired by God, is not capable of falling or erring or being mistaken. So, having inspired the Bible, the question is, did God then also preserve it? Is this something He promised to do? Do we have today? And can we hold in our hands what the apostles actually wrote? And I believe that God promised that. I believe Christ promised that, that not one jot or tittle would pass from the law. So, the doctrine of bibliology is probably the most affected by the Reconstructionist model. But there are several other doctrines that we could touch upon. I'd mentioned Christology. In John 1.18, is Jesus the only begotten Son or the only begotten God? That's a textual variant and those are two different things in my view. And also, the great proof text of the incarnation of the Son, 1 Timothy 3.16, was God truly manifest in the flesh or was it just He or who was manifest in the flesh? Brett, do you have others that you can think of? Yes, well, before I mention any others, I would just mention there's a really helpful and eye-opening essay on John 118 in Theodore Ledis' The Ecclesiastical Text. Very interesting that that actually, he argues that that's actually Valentinian Gnostic reading that found its way into our Bibles, whereas at first you'd think this is just a proof text for the divinity of Christ, and I can show my Jehovah's Witness friend But it actually might be a little bit different than that, maybe a little more problematic. So I certainly commend that. We can talk resources later. But as far as others, there are some interesting things going on lately with changes that are going to be taking place with something called coherence-based genealogical method. But basically, the end of second peter second peter uh... three uh... there are some changes there uh... whether uh... the earth is going to be burned up or whether it will be exposed or whether it will be not exposed uh... very interesting changes seem to be coming uh... on that and uh... so we will see what uh... bought bibles are going to do with that another one it's uh... somewhat interesting yes uh... cute five whether Jesus takes the people out of Egypt, the Israelites out of Egypt, or whether the Lord does it. Of course, Christologically, Jesus becomes Jesus at the Incarnation. We don't tend to talk about Him as Jesus before the Incarnation. We tend to talk about Him as the Son So, a number of interesting variants there, obviously not verses that are removed, but verses that are changed. Let me also follow up, if I could, on 2 Peter 3.10 very briefly. When we talk about the confessional view of Scripture, we're of course focusing on this phrase, kept pure in all ages, that God kept His Word pure. But also in the Westminster Confession of Faith, we affirm that the locus of inspiration is the Hebrew and the Greek text. And this new reading in 2 Peter 3.10, not It's not based on any Greek manuscript and only scant versional support. And that should be alarming to those who are confessional. Wait, actually, that brings up a very good point that we should understand is that simply we ought to have English translations that are based on the Greek and Hebrew. And if you do read a lot of the modern versions, you'll see that In the introduction, they will often say, we have veered from the Greek and the Hebrew in these. There are certain chapters and certain verses, certain Bibles that will show you this is, in the body of the text, this is what the Septuagint says, this is what the Vulgate says, this is what a number of other versions say. to shifting gears a little bit from the nitty-gritty that we've been getting into, which is good stuff, and I hope would encourage some of our listeners to take an active interest in your conference, where you're gonna be really doing a deep dive on some of these issues. Bigger picture question here, and you've touched on it a little bit already, but I want you to really address it head on. What is your goal in keeping this discussion alive? Maximal certainty in the authority of God's word. As ministers, there is nothing more significant than when we stand before a congregation and say, listen to the Word of God, thus saith the Lord, hear the words of your Savior. It is our calling to help our people believe that the Bible they hold in their hands is the true, authentic Word of the living God. And if there are questions about the text, footnotes that raise objections or undermine the authority of it, it can be very destructive to the faith of weaker people, the weaker saints. So we want to serve our people well, but we also want to call our brothers to reconsider where the past century has led them in terms of scholarship and the understanding of the historic Reformed confessions. We've lost something, and this is an age of retrieval and recovery. Everybody talks about that, and we want to retrieve a classic Protestant bibliology. Absolutely, and let me just piggyback on that. Our concern is obviously for our brethren, our fellow pastors, seminarians, and uh... theological geeks uh... the these sorts of things but especially and far more so it is for the people in the pew it's for the young people you know we have concerns were say uh... young people growing up in the church they might have gone to more of a youth group culture where uh... they're not given a lot of the heavy hitting stuff let me go off to college and they end up with the professor that uh... has imbibed some of Ahriman, and he's going to point out, or she's going to point out all sorts of changes in your Bible, and they're going to look, and they're going to see this right in the text. uh... a lot of people obviously lose their faith uh... courses calvin if we could we never had it but uh... we still have a responsibility to teach you think and it seems to me a very good answer to airmen and i think uh... i think uh... the best answer would be the reformed and confessional answer uh... uh... we would encourage people to go back to the sources and see that in a in one sense and uh... airmen has been answered last century and the century before into 17th century. Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't find Bart Ehrman's arguments all that compelling for what it's worth, and I know I'm nobody on these issues, but there's a lot of, just even his argumentation is not consistent, but certainly his use of the sources and appeals to evidence Don't hold much water once you actually examine them and put them under the microscope, so to speak But this this podcast isn't about his issues Maybe that'd be a good topic for another podcast in particular to help the Saints kind of think through from a confessional Presbyterian perspective how to respond to the claims that come out of Duke Divinity School and other bastions of liberalism and textual criticism, but we keep on saying confessional confessional position and I think it'd be very instructive now to engage a little bit with the Westminster confession of faith and from which you draw the name of your conference that kept pure language. It's in chapter 1, paragraph 8 in particular, but also 9 and 10, I think, would be relevant to our discussion. But I'll just read paragraph 8 and put that before our listeners, and then I'm going to have a question for the two of you. The Old Testament in Hebrew, which was the native language of the people of God of old, and the New Testament in Greek, which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations, being immediately inspired by God, and by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical. So, as in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them. But, because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded in the fear of God to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come, that the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner. and through patience and comfort of the scriptures may have hope." And here's my question for you men. Are you suggesting that some or even all those who would disagree with your position also disagree with the Westminster Confession of Faith on this point that the scriptures by God's singular care and providence have been kept pure in all ages? no we're not exactly saying that they disagree with that uh... what we're advocating for is uh... uh... greater understanding of uh... how we ought to agree with it but what i mean by that it simply that what did the original writers of that mean well they weren't advocating for uh... k g v only uh... fundamentalism at the same time they understood that there were some variants within uh... the fondness and uh... baza and harassment there were there were even textual variants and the king james and other bibles so what what we're asking for us for people to uh... look at these things and see that uh... there there is what i would say uh... a greater certainty and a maximal understanding of what those words actually meant. I think we've gotten away from what those words actually intended originally. Yeah, and we know what was intended originally because of work that's been done, you know, specifically by Richard Muller in his post-Reformation dogmatics. He explains what the Puritans believed when they said, kept pure in all ages. They acknowledged that the autographs, the original writings of the apostles, had been permanently lost to the vicissitudes of age. But they also believed that the copies they held, the opigraphs, were the authentic Word of God. Now, modern Presbyterians can disagree with that, but they can't deny that was the prevailing view amongst the Reformed in the Reformation and post-Reformation era. Absolutely. I think we would encourage your listeners to understand that what was intended there was the opigraphs, not the autographs. And if you ask most Christians, you know, a Christian on the street, is God's Word inspired? And often they will say, well, yeah, it is inspired in the autograph, and our Bibles are inspired insofar as they correspond to the autographs, which the autographs, those are not what we have. So, is the Bible in my hands? Is that inspired? And the Reformers, the Puritans, the Confession writers would have said, yes. So, really, in terms of retrieval, we would encourage those who hear this to see that the confession was talking about an apograph, and that would be a more confessional understanding. I will say that I certainly held to the critical text at one time and confessed the Westminster Confession, so I would have taken great offense if someone said, oh, you're not confessional. what we're advocating for uh... greater confessional uh... conformity rather than uh... you're either in or you're out it's it's more about degree then uh... fully in a fully out or something like that Well, and just make it positive. We believe that the position we're representing can help our brothers subscribe more wholeheartedly to the Westminster Confession of Faith. Without their mental scruples or equivocations, they can, if they come to agree with us, just say, yes, God has kept his word pure in all ages, and we hold in our hands the authentic writings of God. And that's a wonderfully liberating and emboldening place to be. It helps you to believe, it helps you to preach, helps you to minister, and of course it puts you in communion with our fathers in the faith. Besides textual concerns, do you men advocate for a single translation that the church should be using exclusively? We are not advocating for something exclusively, no. We would recognize how good the King James is, but we would not dispute the helpfulness of the New King James, the helpfulness of the Geneva Bible, of others. We would even advocate for certain readings in, say, ESV, even the NIV. In other words, it's not so much one version. There are ones that I think we would rank certain ones higher than others, and I think we would all do that. We would just tend to rank those that are based on the Textus Receptus higher, but there are, even in the modern versions, certain verses that add greater clarity, and we are thankful then for modern scholarship in that. The only thing I would add is modern translations based on the critical text are missing portions of the Word of God. And we shouldn't be embarrassed to admit that. We believe that at least, you know, an epistle's worth of material is missing from the New Testament. And that doesn't undermine the authority of the Word of God that is present in other translations because we believe the Word of God is quick and powerful. It's able to save to the uttermost. So, even a poorly translated verse on a refrigerator magnet or a bumper sticker is able to reach people and to change hearts. But we want the full Word of God translated into our common language and only those translations that are based on the received text offer that. Absolutely. In addition, when the King James translators wrote the beginning material, the preface, They actually say, we acknowledge that the meanest translation, the roughest translation, is the Word of God, just as the King's speech translated into another language is the Word of God. So, obviously, we've benefited. I read the critical Bibles. uh... for four years and and benefited for them but uh... i would just say we did not have the maximum that we could have had or we had the inspired word in uh... in the footnotes and i think we just see that that we are missing something there uh... but when you look at the the proof texts that are in the for three forms of unity the for the proof texts that are in the original westminster standard you'll note that they held to these disputed texts. They believed in them, they had looked into it, they had listened to the arguments for and against, and they had said that all Scripture is inspired by God. That would include even the disputed texts. And then, so when you'll take the Belgic Confession and it says, this is just going to be a paraphrase, but it lists all the books that they understand to be inspired, and it says, we receive all the things that are taught in these. That included the disputed material and so we we wouldn't encourage people to trip think about that and to consider that and i'm going to stamp some will disagree and we we certainly love people you disagree with us but way dot dot dot cause a spot if uh... if if we find ourselves in stark disagreement uh... with uh... with our our standards Well, we even have an entire Q&A in the Westminster Shorter Catechism based on the doxology of the Lord's Prayer, which according to the critical text is questionable at best and inauthentic at worst. And that has been memorialized in our confessional standards. Is it the word of God or not? That's the big question. And it's one that we faced here at Greenville Seminary. You men probably don't know this, but Dr. George W. Knight III, who recently passed into glory just a few months ago, when he first came on board, onto literally the Board of Trustees at Greenville Seminary, and began teaching for us in a kind of adjunct capacity, you know, we're a strict subscriptionist institution for our faculty and board. And so he brought his difference with the standards on that very point, where he noted that he did not believe that portion of Scripture to be authentic. And what our board ruled on that issue was that he had a scruple because he didn't differ from the doctrine. He didn't disagree with what was said, but he differed on the textual basis. And so that's something that we have faced yet. In my understanding, he's the only one who has taken that scruple, though we do have a faculty member now, Dr. Curto, who takes a critical text position, but I don't know where he lands on that particular point. You know, my own personal take on this, or maybe not take, but just engagement with this question of which translation to use and which textual basis do you prefer, Dr. Piper and I both, along with Dr. Sean and Dr. Dyer, generally prefer a majority text, textual basis, and the Byzantine text type for the New Testament. But Dr. Piper and I used the New American Standard Bible, 1995 translation at this point, in our church, at Antioch Presbyterian Church. And the reason why I landed there was that was the translation that I found to be the one that I would be least likely to adjust or change or feel compelled to comment upon in the pulpit out of all the translations that were available in a modern idiom of English that I believe my congregation could really engage with. And you might have a different take on whether or not the King James is is useful for the folks in the pews and in corporate worship. I think that it has a beauty and a grandeur and a kind of almost sanctified sense to it, but I also think that there are some translation moves that are made, particularly in the New Testament, that I'm not 100% on board with, even apart from textual considerations. So I use the New American Standard, but when I do my own translation work, week-to-week, when I'm preaching, I'm going back to, well, I'm looking at the full critical apparatus, for starters, so I can see if there are any textual issues or questions that I should anticipate or possibly address. But usually, if I'm just depending upon one, it's going to be a Byzantine text or a majority text or the Textus Receptus. It's usually what I look at on my phone, even when I'm standing in chapel at the seminary and there's a New Testament passage that's being read, I'm looking at the Textus Receptus and kind of comparing it as we go. We live in an eclectic age, I guess, one way or the other, and that leads me to my next big question. Which Textus Receptus? Because there are multiple versions of the Greek New Testament that are put out under that banner as being the Textus Receptus published in one year or another. So which one should we be referring to from your men's position? Yeah, this has become one of those gotcha questions in modern textual apologetics, which makes it kind of fun. But having heard it so many times, I don't think it's as clever or convincing as people intend, because every scholar acknowledges that several editions of each text base exist. And they also acknowledge that there are variations between those printed editions. You know, for example, there's about 190 differences between Beza 1598 and Scrivener's 1881 edition, but only 20 or so are even translatable. And if you compare that with the 3,000 differences between the Sinai and Vatican manuscripts and the Gospel alone, you're talking 3,000 versus maybe 20 translatable or 190 technical variants. And the other thing that I don't find persuasive about it is, you know, we could just turn the tables and say, which critical text? There have been just as many editions of the NA as the TR. And here's something that no one seems to know. There's not a single English translation that follows any one printed edition of the Greek New Testament exactly. Check the introduction to your Bible translation and they'll acknowledge it. Brett already mentioned this. They start with a base text and then they engage in textual criticism while translating. You know, so which critical text? Which TR? We use, as most critical scholars use, the latest printed edition of our preferred text base, which is Scrivener's. So that's my answer. Brett? Yeah, I use Scrivener. I read from Scrivener, seek to do my devotionals out of the Scrivener text. uh... so so really what what it comes down to is are we talking about a feel a lot of a theoretical text or one that we can hold in our hands you know the prisoner the eighteen ninety four i can hold that in my hand and i can reach up in myself and i can grab a uh... uh... an n a twenty six twenty seven twenty eight And I can hold that in my hand. That's really what this is about, the ones that we can hold in our hands. You can grab the 1550 Stephanus. That's in print. You can hold that. And you can look online and see what the minor variations are between them. But when it comes down to it, what are you going to read today? What are you going to read tomorrow? To me, you've got to make a choice. And so some, I would say, will argue that the final form of the TR, of the Reformation, is the King James, and so then, therefore, the Scrivener from, say, the Trinitarian Bible Society, is that And I can understand why people would say that, but at the same time, Scrivener has a critical edition of the Greek New Testament, which tells you variance in the margin between different TRs. So anyway, at the end of the day, Scrivener's critical text, or just the Scrivener itself, Yeah, and let me add a retraction. I said 1881 because I have critics on the mind. 1894 is indeed the edition. And that's also why it comes back to that translation question that you brought up, you know, the King James Version. It does represent the underlying Greek text. and the text-critical decisions that were made by the King James translators. Now, obviously, we don't have that Greek text before us anymore, but Scribner did the work of bringing it into print so that we can understand the King James Version Greek text as an independent variety of the Textus Receptus. That's fascinating. Thank you, men, for opening this up. I really appreciate how much research and work you've done to get behind a lot of the hype, or beyond the hype, to really get down into the substance of these things. And I hope some of our listeners will be inspired to do similar reading, even if they come to different conclusions. And so my last question for you all is, how can people learn more about these issues? What are some resources that they could go digging for in order to engage with these questions of textual criticism, but also these questions of, you know, what the church has had in its possession through all ages as the Lord has kept His Word pure? Well, part of what Brett mentioned earlier is our desire for people to go back and read, and to see what Owen had to say, and Turretin, and Whitaker about textual issues. And in anticipation of this interview, I posted a select bibliography on our church blog. I'm going to leave it right at the top for the next few weeks. So fivesolos.church, the title of the blog post is Receive Text Reading List. And I organized it according to elementary, intermediate, and advanced. And anyone, for example, at your school will have immediate access to all of the volumes listed there. So I hate to say it in this age of illiteracy, but we have to read. Go and read some good books. Amen. But just to name a few, I think we ought to highlight some, obviously. Richard Muller's second volume in his post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics really lays out the history of it. And then Garnett Howard Milne's Has the Bible Been Kept Pure? This book is a treasure trove of quotation from the seventeenth century and it really gives you a feel more where the people of that century were and it's just amazing but in addition to that i would point to uh... especially uh... berg on hills and leaders uh... berg on uh... revision revised you'd the amazing uh... amount of scholarship that this man out will it will come through with the flow the flow read and then uh... the king james version defended or text in time by edward f hill very helpful and uh... you mean here's a a scholar with to ivy league diplomas westminster graduate from the early years uh... i've actually seen a picture of his uh... it is westminster diploma you know he has uh... major in murray vento because the westminster diploma have the uh... professors signatures on it i mean he was there in the the in the beginning and then theodore leadership uh... the ecclesiastical text Very, very helpful book. I especially would recommend chapters 1, 5, and 8. Very, very, but the whole book is good. So there are a number of things out there that are very, very helpful. In addition to that, I would say there are some videos you can find on the Kept Pure channel. Letus Lectures. Letus lays this out, and then he gives a speech or a lecture on Bergon and his life. and then uh... a lecture on hill and his life and uh... i would also point uh... readers to uh... something that christian iron and christian i wrote together on hill himself somewhat of a biographical uh... sketch of him and how he was uh... how he was understood how we he was perceived and so uh... i mean maybe christian might want to put that in the reading list or i'll leave that to him but Anyway, it was fun to do that and talk about a confessional and reformed Presbyterian who was briefly OPC, and he was just brilliant, and he's been very helpful to me and to Christian and to a number of others, and I'd really commend that that work by him, but also the fun biographical sketch that we gave of him. Yeah, and if people do visit the blog to see the bibliography, most red posts are listed on top, and one of those is the tribute to Dr. E.F. Hills that we wrote together. So it's right there on the top. Well brothers, thank you so much for joining me today for this power hour through textual issues, and I'm excited that you're engaging with these things and seeking to make them available to a broader audience than is currently privy to these questions and debates and arguments. Again, I want to note to our listeners that I've been speaking with Brett Malin and Christian McShaffery, two ministers in good standing in the OPC, that is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and together these brothers host the annual Kept Pure in All Ages Conference on Bibliology. This year's conference will be held on July 22nd and 23rd at Five Solas Church, and information about the conference is available at keptpure.com. I do commend it to our listeners to at least investigate, and I'll put links in the show notes to a couple of the resources that were mentioned during the podcast. Men, thank you again so much for joining me. Thank you, Zach. Yes, thank you, Zach, and I'll see you in a couple weeks. Yeah, looking forward to it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this edition of Confessing Our Hope, the podcast of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. To help ensure that we can continue to produce content from a Reformed and confessional Presbyterian perspective, please consider making a gift of support in any amount at gpts.edu slash donate. For more information about Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, please visit gpts.edu. you