A Summary of the Canonical Argument for the Received Text
The Received Text (RT) position, also known by a variety of other titles, such as the Confessional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Traditional Text, and “TR-onlyism”, among others, is often misunderstood by its opponents. This stems primarily from the fact that the proponent of Restorationist Textual Criticism (RTC) has a fundamentally different foundation than the RT advocate. Restorationists essentially believe that the goal of modern textual criticism is to “reconstruct” the “original” NT via empirical methodology, by sorting through thousands of textual variants, and determining, based upon several man-made standards, which readings should be included as authentic, and that this methodology is in fact sufficient in itself to accomplish such a task. And therein lies the problem.
The fact is, nobody is able to reconstruct the original New Testament via a purely empirical approach, simply because we don’t have the original autographs by which we can compare our present-day copies. This is why the vast majority of unbelieving scholars today have given up on the idea of trying to reconstruct the original NT text. This view is clearly explained by Bart Ehrman in a debate he did with Dr. James White a number of years ago, as well as his debate with well-known evangelical textual critic, Daniel Wallace. Both parties have the exact same empirical methodology, the difference is that the evangelical RTC advocate is not willing to admit the logical implications of this methodology. If he did, then he would have to agree with Bart Ehrman, and either hold to an even more unorthodox view of scripture, or just flat-out reject the faith entirely.
The RT position is vastly different, because we our methodology for determining the text of scripture is totally different. The RT position starts with the Scripture itself, and what it teaches about its own preservation, and works from there. We don’t start with the assumption that the Bible is like any secular book, like Plato, or Homer. We look at scripture’s teaching about itself, the testimony of God’s people, and the providential work of the Holy Spirit in history, to aid our approach to the text. This position has come to be known as the “canonical approach” to scripture. Here is a brief summation of the position:
When we look back in history, to the early years of Christianity, after the time of the apostles, the study of the place of scripture is a fascinating one. Many early Christians did not have access to every book of the Bible. There were a few reasons for this. The first was the fact that, in the first and second centuries, people didn’t have compact bibles that they could carry around everywhere they went, a privilege which we have today. Writings were usually copied via scrolls, and in fact, scholars have estimated that some NT books, such as the gospel of Luke, would have required over 30 feet of parchmant in order to be copied. And that’s just for one book of the NT. Christians quickly transitioned into using papyri, and eventually the codex, which is essentially what we would consider books today, but in their more primitive form, they weren’t easy to come by, let alone carry around with multiple copies. The second reason has to do largely with the fact that early Christians faced a great deal of persecution up until the fourth century AD.
They had to deal with Nero in the 60s (many believe that Paul was put to death by Nero, as he mentions his martyrdom in his second epistle to Timothy), then Domitian in the 90s (hence John revelator being exiled to the Isle of Patmos), and several others. The longest of all these persecutions was done under Diocletian, from 303 to 313 AD. During this time in particular, several copies of the NT were burned by this wicked emperor. So many Christians were usually on the run or hiding out, and didn’t always have access to scripture. This doesn’t mean scripture didn’t exist, we have writings from early Christians in the 2nd & 3rd centuries which show that they obviously did and were being copied in some areas, but it simply shows that the scriptures were not yet as widely available to God’s people due to circumstances. When Paganism had been supressed in the Empire by Constantine in the 4th century, this saw a great deal of deliverance for Christians, and this included a more wide-spread access to the Scriptures. However, even during this time period, there were some books of the Bible which were debated over. Most of the NT books were clearly agreed upon from ancient times, such as the four gospels, Acts, Paul’s epistles, among others. However, there was a set of books which took quite some deal of time to sort out. These sets of books became known as the antilegomena, or, the books which were spoken against.
Eusebius, writing in the 4th century, makes mention of which books were considered antilegomena among some sects of Christians during the time. These were books which were essentially “up in the air” in terms of whether or not they were truly canonical and God-breathed. These books were Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, the Book of Revelation, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache. Now, you’ll notice that within that list, are several which we consider to be canonical today.
Yes, it is indeed true, several books of the NT were questioned in the early church; this does not mean they were universally rejected, but again, what this shows is that it took some time before God’s people “officially” settled the matter. We see that this dispute even continued into the time of Protestant Reformation. Most people are aware of the fact that Martin Luther had reservations about the book of James, Revelation, Jude, and some others. Now, Luther was not, from a Proestant perspective at least, some rogue apostate. Luther was a godly man who was seeking to restore the true Gospel of salvation by faith alone, in Christ alone. He was a pioneer of one of the greatest revivals in the history of Christianity. And yet, even he had some questions about the antilegomena in the 1500s! Even Roman Catholics were discussing amongst themselves the exact status of the Deuterocanonical books. What this shows is that the question of the antilegomena was still an open question in many ways. How then, did this issue get officially settled?
Well, during the time of the Protestant Reformation, Rome began to throw down. The society of Jesus was formed by Ignatius Loyola, and the counter-Reformation was in full-swing. The council of Trent was eventually called, in which they anathematized several Protestant distinctives regarding justification and other key issues of debate between both parties. The council of Trent also officially declared what books belonged in the canon of Scripture. They included all of the book of the Bible today, with the addition of the Deuterocanon. The Deuterocanon literally means “the second canon”, and it includes 14 books which were known to and read by early Christians. These were historic Jewish writings which came into existence during the second temple-era prior to the coming of Christ.
Protestants, in the face of attack on the part of Rome, had no problem responding. During this time period, God had providentially raised up faithful men to earnestly contend for the faith. This included a defense of the true canon of scripture. Men such as William Whitaker, who wrote his Disputation on Holy Scripture, Francis Turriten, John Owen, the whole assembly of the Westminster Divines, among several others, came together in the unity of the faith, and unanimously received the standard 66 book canon that we all recognize as God-breathed Holy Writ. This was not the result of the authority of a council, nor of what a particular bishop said; rather, it was the result of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of God’s people to establish and receive the truth of the matter. And this is at the heart of the RT position. The Westminster Confession puts it this way in Chapter 1, Section 5:
We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.
What the Confession is essentially saying is, there are plenty of good, evidential reasons to believe in the authority and inspiration of Scripture, and indeed, the Reformers argued vigorously in this fashion when refuting the errors of Rome and their acceptance of the Deuterocanon. And yet, what ultimately testifies to the truth and authority of scripture is the work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness in the hearts of God’s people. This is exactly what took place during the Protestant Reformation. God’s people, as a whole, unanimously came to accept the 66 book canon, not based upon one specific piece of evidence, but by the providential hand of God.
How, then, does this relate to the text of Scripture? Put simply, the Canonical view argues that we simply cannot divorce the text of Scripture from the Canon of scripture. The text of scripture is a canonical issue. Just as the church universally received the 66 books of the Bible as canonical, so too did they universally receive a specific text of the Holy Scriptures, namely, the Hebrew Masoretic Text, and the Greek text represented in the several printed editions, which eventually came to be known as the Textus Receptus, or Received Text. The name “Textus Receptus” comes from the preface to the 1633 Elzevir Greek NT, which says: What you have here, is the text which is now received by all, in which we give nothing changed or corrupted.
So then, the RT position simply approaches the text of scripture the same way we approach the scripture as a whole. God providentially preserved the books of the NT, and providentially settled the matter of the canon during the Protestant Reformation; so also, God providentially preserved the specific text of scripture, and has providentially vindicated and authenticated that text, and that canon, via the unanimous reception of the text by God’s people, and the fruit which it has borne for the last several hundred years. Our methodology does not shun the study of NT manuscripts, but our methodology most certainly falls back upon our theology of preservation and inspiration, and our recognition of God’s providence at work in history. This is how we approach the issue of settling the text. What is the text which has been received and providentially vindicated? That is the text we will follow and recognize as God’s preserved, infallable, inspired word.
