Bovine Droppings in the House of Prayer - 1. Autographs

It would be difficult even to count the many statements of faith issued by organizations, denominations and ministries in an attempt to define their theological stance. Most of them will include one or another definition of the inspiration of Scripture, often given as the very first and paramount point. Now, while the inspiration of Scripture is highly important to Christians (though I doubt it merits first place among doctrines - I’ll likely come back to that later), they were content for the first millennium-and-a-half to accept that fact without much definition. It has only been since the Reformation, and even more to the point, since the beginning of the Twentieth Century, that the intense haggling over terminology has infected the church’s attitudes toward Holy Writ. I am unconvinced that this is a good thing.
A typical modern Evangelical statement will often speak of the Scriptures as being “verbally inspired and without error” (I’ll probably come back to those statements) “in the original autographs.” That last phrase sounds eminently reasonable and is very widely used by well-meaning seekers after truth, but it rests upon some very flawed concepts, leading to a weakened concept of the church, a weakening of the real authority of the Bible, and a dilution of the immediate rule of God. I’ve always been strongly committed to the Scriptures as the ultimate authority for doctrine and practice in the church, and could not isolate for years just why this phrase made me acutely uncomfortable, but it always did, from the first time I heard it.

What Autographs?
By “autographs”, of course, is meant the original documents as produced by the writers themselves, thus, for example, Dr. Luke’s Gospel in his own handwriting just as he originally issued it. At first blush it seems eminently reasonable to assume that this original would be the very document inspired by the Holy Spirit. After all, “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:21) Wouldn’t you think that those sheets of papyrus hand lettered by that holy man of God would uniquely bear the imprint of God’s own authority? That may be so, but it presents one insuperable obstacle in the Christian’s search for an authoritative document. There are no autographs. No original autograph manuscripts of any of the books of Scripture have survived, nor is there any expectation whatever that such an artifact will ever appear. Even if a manuscript turned up that appeared to be an autograph, who would authenticate it, and how? What sort of evidence would prove indisputably that such an infinitely precious document really existed?

No Autograph, No Authority
If one holds a high view of the inspiration and authority of Scripture, as do I, then the confining of true or full inspiration to the nonexistent (or at least unavailable) autographs raises some truly painful questions. If I am serious about Scripture as the ultimate and essential authority in the Church of God, I need to see, hear, and identify the source of authority, but all I am offered is a more-or-less accurate copy of a lost book. If I can’t know exactly what the authority is, how can I follow it? Where is this God-breathed, inerrant, authoritative, volume? The answer that results from the restriction of inspiration to the autographs is clear and dismal: there is no such book - only a shadow of it. Yes, the texts we have contain enough of the Word (or so we assume) to carry us through, but they are not guaranteed to be what God intended us to have. Thus “inspiration in the autographs” deprives us of a truly inspired Bible.

No Stable Text
How do we know the actual text of Scripture? Twentieth Century scholars would have us establish it by a sort of archeological procedure. We begin with the assumption that the Bible we have been using is to some extent inauthentic, that it needs to be changed, that things have (obviously) happened to it to make it somewhat less than the ‘real’ Bible. Textual critics are constantly busy hunting for older and older manuscripts so they can have reason to amend the text they have received, and some of the changes are truly quite significant. All this is done under the assumption that the older manuscripts would obviously be more like the autographs, thus more authentic. As a result, Christians are left without certainty that the Bible they have today will be up-to-date and recognized in a few decades. The text is fluid. The latest discoveries and the most current (and fashionable) theories determine the text. Might that also change the Gospel? There is no guarantee. You see, though we are searching, no one has yet seen the true Bible.

Were There Ever Autographs?
Not every book of Scripture conclusively identifies an author. In fact most do not. Not every book of Scripture was actually composed at one time by one person. Few of them actually make such a claim. It is quite possible, without hurting the inspiration of the Bible, that some of the divisions into separate documents that liberal scholars claim to find may actually be there. That has no bearing one way or the other on the ability of God to inspire, or on the final works having been prepared by “holy men of God . . . moved by the Holy Spirit.” Was there a single text for each and every book before it became recognized as Scripture? Or did “holy men of God” consult the Spirit in editing the final product? Furthermore, did Dr. Luke write his Gospel once and not again? If we found a manuscript and proved somehow that it was in his handwriting would that make it the one and only true text? Might it have been an early draft that he later corrected? Could it have been a late, hasty, and inaccurate copy he himself made for someone? Or could he have written several copies with his own hand, each just a little different? All these are possible. Before printing presses, there was not a concept of exact copies, at least not that early, and variant versions could all represent the writing of an inspired man, equally.

Knowing the Bible
So, how do we know that our text is the inspired Word of God? Well, how did this large and assorted collection of writings get to be the Bible in the first place? The answer is startlingly simple. God’s people declared it so. First the Jews, and then the Christian church were confronted with a multitude of writings purporting to come from God. They selected. How? “Holy men of God . . . moved by the Holy Ghost.” There is no one “expert”, nor is there a committee, nor even an official church council evident at the real point of selection. The Holy Spirit, working in the whole Body of Christ, has seen to it that the truly inspired books were selected, honored, and used, and that the others, valuable as they might be, were not. To determine what books belong in the Bible, it is only necessary to check around and see what books the universal church is actually using. The historical development of the choosing is of considerable interest, but is ultimately irrelevant. We can learn a great deal from examining the historical process, by searching documents, by unearthing lost manuscripts, by all the research techniques available, but none of that tells us why the Bible has the form it does. The Bible is. There’s not much more to say.
I maintain that we can say the same thing for the text of each book. What is the authentic text? The text the church uses. And how do we identify that? For the New Testament the answer is elegant in its simplicity. What is the text continuously used in churches that have historically used Greek, the original language? That question immediately establishes a group of texts with no more than petty variations—for all practical purposes a single consistent and authoritative text. Whether we favor what is called the “received text” (on which the KJV is based) or the “majority text” or the “Byzantine texts”, we are in agreement, in the overwhelming number of cases, with the Bible as it has been used by God’s people. Older manuscripts with significant variations simply do not have the evidence of recognition by the church. They may indeed have been set aside as inadequate copies, or they may represent variant traditions that died out for good reasons. In either case they deserve to be laid aside as historical curiosities, and probably do not merit consideration in establishing an authoritative text. The New Testament was written in the church, read in the church, copied and distributed by the church, defined as Scripture by the church, and preserved by the church, and what we have is the real thing. Either that or the church itself is a colossal failure and the promises made by God about the church have failed—throwing God’s own authority into great question.
With regard to the Old Testament, however, the situation is a little less clear. The existing Hebrew text, fundamentally the Masoretic text edited by several generations of rabbis, seems to represent pretty well the Hebrew text as handed down and in continuous use. But Christians do need to recognize that this text was edited well after the coming of Christ, well after the establishment of the church, and that it was edited by Jewish scholars with a decided interest in opposing the Christian view of the scriptures. There are almost no extant Hebrew manuscripts dating to before the time of Christ (I would not have to have added ‘almost’ prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls). Now, during the centuries of its editing, Christians were most certainly using the Old Testament Scriptures, but in Greek translation, a translation made well before the coming of Christ. The text does make it obvious that the underlying Hebrew was often rather different from that of the later Jewish text, and there is also the matter of the so-called ‘apocryphal’ books, rejected by Protestants and insisted upon by Rome and the East. I remain at this time a bit conflicted as to which of these is the authentic text of the inspired OT scriptures. Either seems to fill the criterion of continuous use by those God appointed to guard and use them. But I remain convinced that, for the NT and for whichever view of the OT may be accepted, the authoritative text is to be recognized, not in the oldest documents found, but in the continuous use of God’s people — not in the autographs, but in the book that has rested upon the altars and pulpits of God’s church through the ages and into today.

Three Specific Issues
I’ll illustrate the difference these views can make in the actual use of the Scriptures by declaiming about three of my pet peeves.
Mark 16:14-20. Scholars have found a number of alternate conclusions in various old manuscripts of Mark. Does this justify eliminating the conclusion so long used in the churches? What nonsense! Whether Mark wrote several different versions (one possibility), or whether the current conclusion had been in detached oral transmission until editors placed it here, or whatever other explanation might be developed, it is clear that this ending was known and believed by many of the earliest fathers, and has been seen as Scripture through almost all of the church’s life. I think the main reason so many desire to drop it is that it is far too supernatural for the modern mind. That is part of the reason I’m so insistent upon its authenticity. We need it! The fact that certain wild sectarians have made strange interpretations has no bearing on the case. This is indeed the word of God.
John 8:3-11. It may be true that old manuscripts of John do not include this story. It may even be true that John did not write it. But it is also true that It is firmly attached to this place and firmly attached to the mind of the church. Can we live without the story of the woman taken in adultery? It is the one clearest passage about forgiveness and judgment and self-righteousness. In all likelihood the suggestion in the notes of the Jerusalem Bible states the case accurately: that the story was transmitted orally, often quoted, and often preached, but hadn’t been attached to one particular Gospel before the written form of the NT had gelled. This story may not be by John’s hand, but it certainly is scripture.
Matthew 17:21. Just because some ancient copyists eliminated the phrase ‘and fasting’, are we to eliminate the Lord’s intent that the discipline of fasting be an essential part of preparation for serious spiritual warfare? Perish the thought. Prayer and fasting have been linked together in the Christian imagination from the very beginning, and have been quoted in this passage from time immemorial.
I submit that it is no small matter how these questions are resolved. A great deal of clarity and depth in Christian witness depends upon getting the text right—and on the realization that God has always had an interest in preserving the text He wanted among the people He chose to guard it.

From the droppings of sacred cattle, Good Lord deliver us. Amen.