An Outline of an Anglican Life (Tarsitano, 1994)/Appendix III

APPENDIX III THE "TEXTUS RECEPTUS'

Adapted from a paper presented to the Clericus, Diocese of the Eastern United States, Anglican Church in America, June 11, 1993.

The Confusion over Bible Texts

It seems as if a new translation of the Bible is published almost every day, even as people are bombarded with the contradictory and confusing opinions of various sorts of "scholars" and self-appointed "experts" as to how they should read and interpret their Bibles.

Such confusion is relatively new in the Church. The essay that follows discusses the reasons for this confusion and some correctives, including some simple principles of Bible reading.

What is the "Textus Receptus"?

According to The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (IDB), the term "textus receptus" (or "received text") usually refers to the 1550 edition of the Greek New Testament published in Paris by Stephanus, which became the standard text in Britain; or to the Dutch 1633 edition of the Elzevirs, which became the standard text on the Continent. These two editions differ in only 287 places (IDB IV:614, 601). The term "textus receptus" itself is taken from the introduction of the Elzevir edition; "You have the text, now received by all: in which we give nothing altered or corrupted" (IDB IV:601).

By extension, the term "textus receptus" is also applied to the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. In the case of the Hebrew Bible, it may refer to the standardized consonantal text of the First Century A.D.; to the vocalized text of the Tiberian Masoretes of the ben Asher family, completed in the eighth-ninth Centuries A.D.; or to the edition printed in 1524/5 A.D. by Daniel Bomberg, as edited by Jacob ben Hayyim (IDB Supplement: 895).

These technical definitions of the textus receptus are not very helpful, in the sense that they obscure as much as they reveal. By focusing on particular editions of the Hebrew and Greek testaments, they give the impression that the particular editors invented the particular texts they published. But by whom was the "received text" received? Was the Bible originally received by scholars, or was the Bible first received by the Church? Even more importantly, was the Holy Ghost given to scholars "to guide us into all truth" (see John 16:13) or to the Church as a whole?

Of course, the whole matter of Bible texts can be made stunningly complicated. There are thousands of manuscripts of various descriptions, as well as ancient versions (a version is a complete translation), lectionaries (readings for services), and quotations by the Church Fathers. These can be sifted and their variant readings collated endlessly, and perhaps they should be, but scholarship is not the primary work of the Church. It makes very little difference, for example, to a modern English-speaker, whose own language did not begin to have fixed spelling until the eighteenth century, that a Greek name may have been spelt a dozen different ways by manuscript copyists. It does matter very much, however, that our modern English-speaker know that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord.

The potential for conflict between the scholar and the pastor has always existed in the Church. Not unexpectedly, no one makes the point more bluntly than St. Paul:

Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe (1 Corinthians 1:20-21).

Scholarship, whether textual, critical, or theological, must always be subordinate to kerygma, the preaching of the Word of God by the faithful Church. The supernatural must always take precedence over the natural, a state of affairs that galls many scholars, since scholarship cannot finally manage or handle the supernatural. The supernatural undercuts the work of human hands and minds, or at least all claims of human mastery. But the Church is a supernatural Body first, before it is anything else. And the Bible is a supernatural book first, before it is anything else.

It is important to say here that I am not attacking scholarship as a Christian vocation, but only trying to put it into perspective. Godly scholars have served the Church well, and they have been God's instruments, among other things, in transmitting and preserving the Bible. But the Christian scholar must answer to God and his Church, and not simply to other scholars, lest the scholars become a self-elected permanent synod enacting their own fads and whimsies as the dogmas of the Church, as actually happened with the periti (experts) connected with the Roman Church's Second Vatican Council.

The text and the translation of the Bible are especially bad places to indulge the scholarly appetite for the novel or the unusual. The "I've looked at more manuscripts than you have" game doesn't guarantee any more insight into God's Word than a tour of museums guarantees an understanding of art. And scholarly preemption, however well meaning, can be very misleading. The decision by the committee behind the New International Version of the Bible that they could do better than God by substituting a variety of terms in place of "sarx" (or "flesh") is a case in point. "Sinful nature" may be one valid way of reading sarx in 1 Corinthians 5:5, but it certainly isn't the only way. Theologians should cite the Scriptures, not edit them.

So, then, what is the textus receptus? It is the Bible as the Church has received it and used it over the centuries. When the scholars of the sixteenth century prepared their printed Bibles, they were engaged in an occupation very different from that of the modern Bible scholar. They were attempting to make available the Hebrew and Greek of the Bible as the Church knew it, in both the Western and Eastern Churches. They worked from the premise that the Bible exists separately from scholarship, and that scholarship at its best sheds light on the Church's understanding of the Bible. Most of all they believed that they were preparing a printed edition of God's Book, and not simply an edition of one human work among many others.

Let us use this, then, as our definition of the "textus receptus."¹ The textus receptus is the Church's working text of the Bible, understood as the inspired Word of God, and intended for preaching the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. The composite or critical text, on the other hand, is the text of the Bible viewed primarily as a problem of human editing, in a universe where claims of the supernatural are always, or at least usually, held to be pious falsehoods.

How Did This Get to Be a Problem?

The seventeenth to eighteenth century "Enlightenment," with its excessive rationalism, saw every problem as soluble by human reason. If the autographs of the Biblical books were lost, reason could reconstruct them, purging them of the various superstitions that had embarnacled them over the ages. Thomas Jefferson, for example, took it upon himself to issue an edited Bible.

The nineteenth century added to the Enlightenment's rationalism a superstitious belief in mechanisms and an overweening self-esteem. The Victorian believed that all knowledge would ultimately be reducible to mechanistic processes and that what a Victorian expert did not know was untrue or not worth knowing.

A spectacularly naive archaeology grew up in the nineteenth century, under the influence of this mechanistic thinking. The natural order of things was to be reversed: the higher was to be subordinated to the lower; mind was to be subordinated to matter. Sunday supplement scientists like Carl Sagan still indulge in this sort of foolishness. Physics became the great hope of reductionistic science: the explanation of everything, including a mother's love, by the manipulation of particles. Physics has yet to prove the key to reality, but this failure hasn't deterred the materialists who have captured the humanities.

Thus, since the nineteenth century scholar knew of no such place as Troy, there was no Trojan War and Homer was an elegant farce. Thus, since the nineteenth century physicist could not part the Red Sea, neither could Jehovah. It was that simple, and the archaeologists' job was to make the facts fit these prejudices. But honest men, willing to listen to the records of the past, got by the sentinels. Schliemann dug up Troy, and the ordinary believer simply nodded as the Biblical description of the ancient world was confirmed again and again.

The rejection of facts in favor of preconceived theories is the essence of gnosticism. Ironically, even as secular literary studies abandoned the gnosticism of nineteenth century textual and historical criticism, such a gnosticism became ever more entrenched in the Church. It is fascinating to note that a churchman like Alfred Mortimer in his Catholic Faith and Practice (London: Longmans 1898; Revised 1902) could systematically debunk historical criticism on rational and archaeological grounds at the turn of the century (Vol. II, Chapter 8, The Holy Scriptures), and yet opinions known to be unsubstantiated for almost a century continue to be taught as the assured results of modern scientific scholarship. Unfortunately for us, secular literature has relapsed into the gnostic disease in the form of deconstructionism.

Why This is Important

As our XXth Article of Religion states, the Church is a witness and keeper of Holy Writ. As Jesus Christ is the Word of God, the Bible is the Church's Book, and the Church is the incarnation of God's Word. The Church's canon of Scripture is not the Church's approval of certain books. It is the Church's faithful recognition, by the power of the Holy Ghost, of the saving work of God recorded and revealed in these books. The Old Testament Church canonized books because of their prophetic authority: they spoke for the Lord God. The New Testament Church canonized books because of their Apostolic authority, their reception by the entire Church, and their consistency with the rest of the Word of God (see R.K. Harrison and E.E Harrison, "The Canon of Scripture," appended to Young's Analytical Concordance, Eerdmans, 1975).

The textus receptus is the Church's Bible through the ages, in the context of her relationship with God. The Bible is not "personal" or "objective": it is both at once, and a choice of one over the other is always heretical. Just as a micro-analysis of the bread and wine taken from the altar cannot reveal their spiritual significance and reality, a microanalysis of the text of the Bible misses the point: it fails to grasp that the Bible is unique, divine and human, and not one book among many.

Worse, textual and historical criticism can easily become a more refined Marcionism. The constant search for the "perfect text" means we do not have the Bible yet. The only true text will be the one decided on by experts, so don't get carried away with building your life on the Bible until the experts speak.

The demand for human control implicit in so much of textual and historical criticism can also pervert valid, useful concepts of Biblical study. The autograph, the original text of a particular holy book, for example, can become an idol. What is the correct text of a piece of writing, the first or the last draft? What happens, as was often the case in the days of the Scriptures' composition, when more than one secretary was used to prepare the text? Were revised versions ever made by the Bible writers, and were the previous versions always recalled? Too much effort spent on "recovering" the autograph simply removes the text from reality and imprisons it in the scholar's study.

The Bible was written for farmers, fishermen, tradesmen, and all sorts of ordinary people. The effect of gnostic criticism has been to take the Bible out of ordinary hands. Too many people now believe themselves completely incompetent to read the Bible because they cannot evaluate the critical apparatus attached to the text. We could restore the Bible to them by using the Church's ancient principles of Bible study, the kind of approach that depends on a textus receptus, a received text generally recognized by the whole Church. I teach this sort of thing to my college literature students, and they are amazed to find themselves reading and understanding the Bible.

1. Determine what the text says, before you interpret it or claim to know what it means.
2. Use the entirety of Holy Scripture as the context for each particular passage.
3. Use the text itself to identify its genre (type of literature).
4. Be willing to admit that most often the text will mean exactly what is says in context.

Is There a Moderate Position?

The textus receptus ought not to be transformed into a competing idol with the composite text. Some conservative Christians have over-reacted to liberal claims by denying the usefulness of any textual study, but this would be a mistake.

Textual study, if done in the context of the Church's life and her zeal for the Word of God, can work as a necessary corrective to the more bizarre claims of the liberal critics. The Church is not the Bible's critic, but the Bible's witness and keeper, and as a good steward of God's gifts careful about the things that belong to God.

The New King James Version of the Bible is an interesting effort in this direction. Reference is made to significant textual variants, without giving the impression of a loose-leaf Bible. At the same time, the traditional Church text of the Scriptures, the textus receptus, is used as the basis for translation.

As Churchmen, we need to encourage this sort of approach, not denying scholarship, but putting it into perspective. We need to present to our people, not the results of abstract scholasticism, but the Word of God, as the Church of Christ has received it over the centuries. We ought not to allow our people to be cut off from the Church Triumphant or isolated in the present by giving them a different Bible every day.

We all need, but especially pastors, to be more careful about Bible texts and Bible versions. And we need to stop apologizing for being the beneficiaries of thousands of years of witness to the dependable text of the Word of God that we have received from the living Church of Jesus Christ.

Editorial Notes

Source: Louis R. Tarsitano, An Outline of an Anglican Life (Classical Anglican Press, 1994). Reproduced on AnglicanWiki by permission of Classical Anglican Press.