Here are seven observations on the James White vs. Peter Van Kleeck, Jr. Debate on the TR, held on September 24, 2022 (Watch it here).
First, I felt there were many aspects of the debate that were
not handled in a fair or evenhanded manner.
Second, PVK began his opening statement with a very generous
and charitable overture toward JW and those who hold to the modern text.
Third, simply on technical, forensic grounds, PVK clearly won
this debate, as he rightly pointed out in his closing statement.
Fourth, even though PVK was not attempting to make an empirical
defense of the TR but a more philosophical and theological defense of it, he
did offer some meaningful rejoinders to JW’s evidential-based arguments.
Fifth, one of the highlights of the debate was in PVK’s
cross-examination of JW, where he effectively showed (again) that, in the end,
JW cannot point to a single verse in the Bible that might not be subject to
change based on new manuscripts discoveries or the development of new manuscript
discoveries.
Sixth, it was striking how JW in his cross-examination of PVK
mocked the distinct spiritual aspects of the Protestant approach to Scripture
(even comparing it to Mormonism).
Correction: The quotation from John Calvin's Institutes is from 1.7.5 (not 1.6.5, as mistakenly written on the PPT shared in the video).
Seventh, finally, PVK took his own unique approach to this debate and chose to argue on more philosophical grounds than evidential grounds. I think he could have pushed back with some evidential arguments at points.
All in all, again, PVK did prevail. It
is a shame that JW did not respond, especially to the first two arguments. We
are waiting for modern evangelicals to provide a Biblical based justification
for their Bibliology. We are also waiting for those who are confessionally Reformed
to respond to our suggestion that confessional Bibliology is a retrieval of the
Reformed and Protestant Orthodox method.
We did not get these responses in this
debate.
JTR
I think a good question for James White would be, can the text of the TR be found in the text or the footnotes of the NA28/UBS5? If all known variants are in the NA28/UBS5, then the TR must be a potential autographic text for him. How can he know that the TR is not the autographic text? James Whites position is dogmatic, the TR cannot be the autographic text, because James White says so. Any thoughs on this brother? Blessings.
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