Word Magazine # 43: Definitions and the Confessional Text

I posted Word Magazine # 43 Definitions and the Confessional Text today to sermonaudio.com.  In this episode I give some feedback related to this video from RB Pastor Robert Truelove and his challenge to James White [modern critical text proponent] to debate Dr. Maurice Robinson [Byzantine text proponent].

I provide some of the background for this discussion relating to RB apologist James White’s tendency to confuse KJV-Onlyism with Reformed confessional critiques of the modern-critical text.  Here is the excerpt from Theodore Letis’ combined review of James White and Gail Riplinger in Letis’ Ecclesiastical Text (1997) which I referenced:

JW and GR are both cut from the same bolt of cloth.  Hence, the old saying holds true:  “it takes one to know one.”  They are, in fact, “kissing cousins.” In terms of religious genus.  The very fact that White felt Riplinger’s book, New Age Versions (which will be addressed below), merited an entire book length reply indicates that he must have felt that her propositions were compelling enough to deserve such treatment [footnote:  He does, of course, treat other authors as well as the movement itself, though he provides no historical analysis or even sociological analysis of the roots of this movement and its advocates.  I believe this is because it is all rather close to his own religious point of reference].  In other words, her superficial treatment of the subject was, nevertheless, disturbing, enough for him to treat it seriously.  This speaks as much about his grasp of the subject—or lack of—as it does about Riplinger’s effort (p. 222).

I also note that in his video Truelove claims that the titles of “traditional text” and “ecclesiastical text” should be reserved for those who hold to the Majority Text/Byzantine Text position. This got me thinking about definitions. I also make reference in this episode to the Confessional Bibliology FB group where this question has also been raised (see the related website here).

In an attempt to clarify matters, I suggested there are three camps or positions regarding what the proper text of the Greek NT (none of which include KJV-Onlyists) should be:

(1)  Modern-critical text.

(2) Majority/Byzantine text.

(3) Textus Receptus.

Though I think Truelove’s claiming “traditional text” and “ecclesiastical text” exclusively for the Majority/Byzantine position is more than a little dubious, I suggested that the Textus Receptus position might be called the Reformed Confessional Text position or simply the Confessional Text position.

JTR