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Textual Criticism Is Legitimate Only as a Ministerial Discipline
Textual criticism is legitimate when it serves the preserved text under Scripture’s authority; it becomes illegitimate when scholarship is made the court that gives the text its identity.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
Bahnsen Against Bahnsen: The Question the Apologist Left Unfinished
Greg Bahnsen defended the self-attesting Word, rejected neutrality, and demanded Christian certainty. His doctrine of the extant biblical text did not consistently carry those principles through preservation, textual identity, and final authority.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
The Word That Cannot Fail: The Biblical and Reformed Doctrine of Infallibility
The historic Reformed doctrine begins with the God who cannot lie, proceeds to the God-breathed words that cannot be broken, and confesses that those words have been preserved in the authentic Hebrew and Greek Scriptures for the church’s present use.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
When Textual Criticism Becomes Magisterial
Textual criticism becomes magisterial when an indefinitely continuing scholarly reconstruction is made the court that gives Scripture its identity.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
No Neutrality—Not Even in Textual Criticism
Collation can be technical, but no scholar interprets manuscript age, genealogy, scribal habits, or internal probability apart from controlling beliefs about God, history, authority, and preservation.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
Correcting the Scrivener: Mistake, Reformation, and the Testator’s Actual Intention
A copyist’s mistake is corrected by returning to the author’s actual words, not by improving his general purpose. Modern will-reformation cases sharpen the line between ministerial correction and editorial creation.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
The Traditional Text Must Be Evaluated as a Providential Whole
Modern textual criticism habitually presents each textual variant as an independent contest.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
The Self-Attesting Word and the Impossibility of a Higher Court
An ultimate authority cannot be certified by a more ultimate tribunal. The doctrine of Scripture must therefore explain how the self-attesting Word is recognized in extant words without making critical reconstruction its higher court.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
Evidence Is Not the Instrument: Manuscripts, Editions, and the Rule of Faith
Manuscripts and critical apparatuses are indispensable witnesses, but the rule of faith is the divine text to which they witness. Confusing evidence with Scripture reverses their proper authority.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
Difficult Variants Must Be Resolved Within the Received Text
The previous thesis argued that the traditional text must be evaluated as a providential whole. That conclusion immediately raises a practical question.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
The Church Must Receive, Confess, and Use the Text God Has Preserved
The doctrine of Scripture cannot end in a library.
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.
Certainty, Not the Probability of the Contrary
Bahnsen rejected an apologetic that makes Christianity highly probable while preserving the possibility of its contrary. What happens when the wording of the final authority remains provisional in principle?
Why this matched: Matched subjects, doctrines, categories, or keywords for “Doctrine of Scripture”.