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I speculated that if the Gospel of Matthew were published and circulated in 75 CE and if it and some of the first copies of it were in use as long as the manuscripts in the collections and libraries studied by Houston were in use, then some of these manuscripts could still have been in circulation, being read, studied, and copied, as late as the end of the second century and perhaps even on into the third century. This means that New Testament autographs and first copies could still have been available when our oldest extant papyri manuscripts (e.g., P45, P46, P66) were produced. If still in circulation and being read and copied, the autographs and first copies would have continued to give shape to the text. In a sense, then, the gap between autograph and extant manuscript is bridged.

via The Bible and Interpretation – How Long Were Biblical Manuscripts in Use?.

If this is so, the implications for the Textus Receptus/Majority Text/Byzantine Priority have much to deal with, I guess.

It also will take some ammunition away from the skeptics.

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In my mind Historic Fundamentalism as a movement was a good thing.  Sure, there were probably excesses.  Human are normally people who go to extremes in almost everything they do.  The goal and the purpose seems to have been honorable, however.

What went wrong?

Why is fundamentalism now distrusted and maligned?

Why is “fundamentalist” synonymous with “extremist”?

One of the issues is the fact that separation became an issue.  Some decided that they would rather not separate from error, but dialogue with those in error in an attempt to win them over.   Personally, I don’t think this has as much to do with the demise of fundamentalism as a movement as the following issues do.

Fundamentalists began to retreat from culture.  Instead of engaging and transforming culture, fundamentalists began to isolate themselves.  They did so to such an extreme that Carl F. H. Henry wrote a book entitled “The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism”.  His contention was that the fundamentalists’ understanding of the Scriptures should have led them to social activism in a redemptive context.  They failed in that respect.

In their retreat from culture and their separation from those in error fundamentalists began to separate from one another over various non-fundamental issues (dress, hair, Bible translations, music, etc.).  They committed a sort of intellectual and spiritual incest by creating their own institutions of learning and actively resisted learning from evangelicals or anyone else, choosing to recycle their students by bringing them into their faculty.  (This is a generalization, but it is an observation from this writer’s experience.)  This led to further isolationism, a clannish spirit within fundamentalism, as well as a growing anti-intellectualism.

Here we are today with fundamentalists struggling to find their identity.  They wonder what a fundamentalist is.  What does he believe?  And, should we even care?

It is this preacher’s contention that it does matter, and that we should care.

It is for this reason that we have this blog.  We long to call people back to the fundamentals of the faith.  We long to help those who have been hurt by extremism.  We long to point out error for the sake of helping those who are in error.

We have been down the extremist route, but we are Fundamentally Changed, though we are Fundamentally The Same.  We are fundamentalists with a capital “F”.  We have not abandoned that.  We have abandoned legalism.  May we encourage you, dear reader, if you are in legalism, to do the same?

Related articles

• If You Wish to Speak Against Fundamentalists, Read Fundamentalists (pastoralmusings.com)
• Fundamentalist Hermeneutics (pastoralmusings.com)
• Fundamentalism and Hate (pastoralmusings.com)
• Historic Fundamentalism and Young Earth Creationism (pastoralmusings.com)
• Fundamentalism, Funeral Protests, and Koran Burnings (pastoralmusings.com)

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Joel said,

What collected, affirmed, confirmed, and tells you how to interpret Scripture?

What, indeed?

Joel will probably say that the “what” is tradition, but is it?

Is it merely tradition to recognize, accept, treasure, and preserve Scripture?

Perhaps it is moreso a reverence for God that leads to a reverence for Scripture.

Just musing….

Let me hear from ya’.

Related articles

• Tradition and Scripture (pastoralmusings.com)

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The status of the canon has undergone a drastic shift in modernity. The precise boundaries of the canon, and the relation of canonical writings to nonbiblical tradition, remained matters of confessional dispute after the Reformation. Yet, precritical Christian theology was largely agreed that Christian faith and practice are governed by a set of inspired texts whose antiquity, orthodoxy, and wide usage entitle them to be recognized as prophetic and apostolic Scripture. With the rise of the critical history of Christianity in the eighteenth century, a different account of the status of the canon and the lengthy processes of canonization came to prominence.
On this critical account, canonization is not so much an aspect of the providential ordering of the history of the church, but a set of contingent human undertakings. The effect of this is the “naturalization” of the canon, so that it comes to be regarded as an arbitrary or accidental feature of the Christian religion, to be explained, not transcendentally, but simply in terms of the immanent processes of religious history. This means that the texts of the canon cease to be viewed as categorically different from other noncanonical texts. It means, further, that canonicity is to be defined as the result of an act of choice and authorization on the church’s part, apart from any supposed divine warrants for such an act.

Moreover, the processes of canonization are not viewed as the church’s gradual perception of the inherent status of the biblical texts, but as a product of, and medium for, social and political relations, to be analyzed in terms of the functioning of ideology as a means of social control. Canon, like “orthodoxy,” is a product, not recognition. Both in giving an account of the history of early Christianity, and in giving a theological account of the Bible, therefore, canon has been subsumed into the history of religion, and so it has become a concept both more arbitrary and less innocent.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Craig G. Bartholomew, Daniel J. Treier and N. T. Wright, Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, 98-99 (London; Grand Rapids, MI.: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005).

While I’m not convinced that we should through out all critical scholarship, it is certainly instructive to see that there is a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) anti-supernatural element in it.  Precritical scholarship accepted that canon as the result of providence.  Critical scholarship has led many to view the canon as the result of human decisions.  One views God as involved in it, the other views Him as not so involved.

What is the issue  in it all?  Presuppositions.  One has a presupposition regarding the providential involvement of God in the church.  The other has a presupposition that there is a more human element to the Scriptures and the canon.  This is the same issue that we see in the inerrancy debate.

The question is not, “how shall we prove our point”  The question is, “What shall we believe about God?  Is He involved in this world?  Is He even there?  Are we to hold to a Deistic view of God and Scripture, or are we to hold to a providential view?”

Are there other options?

What are your thoughts?

2011 promises to be a new year.

Did you know that?

It seemed apparent didn’t it?

Well, for me, I hope it is new in the sense of a new approach to my studies and blogging.

I enjoy blogging.  I also enjoy studying.  I also enjoy reading.  In fact, I’ve blogged quite a bit this year.  I’ve read approximately 100 books and reviewed more than 50.

For 2011 I intend to slow that down.  I intend to focus on a couple of special areas of interest to me.  I also intend for my blogging to reflect that.  It may be that the first quarter won’t reflect that as much as the latter three quarters, due to getting into a groove.

Never the less, this blog will be heading back toward more pastoral musings.  Musings that relate to pastoral duties, cares, experiences, application of texts, biblical studies in relation to the pulpit, and news as relates to Scripture (though I don’t think I’ll embrace Jim West’s “Total Depravity” philosophy of blogging).

I hope you’ll hang around, click through, subscribe, read, and interact.

Happy New Year!

From the advertisement:

The Codex was hand-written in Greek by fourth-century scribes, only 300 years after the time of the New Testament, making it one of the earliest and most reliable witnesses to the biblical text. It contained the Old and New Testaments in Greek, the text adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians.

The Codex was preserved for centuries at the monastery of St. Catherine’s, Mount Sinai, until Constantin von Tischendorf drew worldwide attention and notoriety to it in 1844. In the years following, its pages were divided and dispersed. Now, over 160 years later, after an extraordinary and historic collaborative effort by the British Library, the National Library of Russia, St. Catherine’s Monastery, Leipzig University Library, and Hendrickson Publishers, all the extant pages of Codex Sinaiticus have been brought together in print form to a worldwide audience in this handsomely bound, one-of-a kind, facsimile edition.

via Evangelical Textual Criticism: Sinaiticus Facsimile by Hendricksons.

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

Irenaeus, A.H. 3.1.1

1.  Matthew: Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome…

2. Mark: After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter.  (Note that it is while Peter and Paul were in Rome that Matthew wrote, while it is after they departed that Mark wrote.)

3.  Luke: Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.  (This is somewhat ambiguous, because he doesn’t give us a time frame.  Luke is probably viewed as third in order due to his being listed in that manner.)

4.  John: Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

H.C. Thiessen, in his NT Intro introduces an interesting point.

If Luke, when writing for Gentiles, used Mark as a source, why did he not use Mark 6:45-8:9 ?  This includes the encounter of Jesus with a Gentile woman when He cast a devil out of her daughter.  It also includes Jesus’ healing of a man who was a deaf-mute.  These things occurred in Tyre and Sidon.  These were Gentiles.

Why, if Luke relied so heavily upon Mark, would he leave something so significant out?

They see their spiritual odyssey as superseding the Scriptures, passing on to a higher level of understanding. In a very real way, they are the Gnostics of our day – believing that they have discovered the “real” Jesus that the masses cannot know because of the fetters of faith. Their faithlessness becomes their faith.

via The Historical Jesus pt 2 – The New Spirituality? | re:Fundamentals.

This is a series to follow.

Over on Re:Fundamentals, Erik is working through a response to the Jesus Seminar.