Featured Preservation of the Bible: Providential or Miraculous?

Preservation is one of those things that has been badly misunderstood of late, largely through the error of "Verbal Plenary Preservation."

In Psalm 78:5-7 God states that he has established His testimony and appointed His law for the purpose of teaching each succeeding generation. Every generation has the promise of a preserved Bible, that they "not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments."

"Forever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven," says the psalmist in Psalm 119:89. God's word has been settled, preserved, according to this verse. Some have argued that it is settled in heaven, but not on earth! I disagree. God's word is a revelation from God to man. It is man that needs God's word, mankind right here on earth, not God, or the already redeemed in heaven.

God has promised to preserve His word from generation to generation. Those generations are generated right here on earth, not in heaven! In Matthew 4:4, when Jesus was tempted by the Devil, He replied, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." How can a man live by the Word of God, if he doesn't have it? In order for men and women to live by the Word of God, it must be available to them, God must have preserved it!

By the way, I don't want to get too technical with you, but the word "written" is in the perfect tense, meaning that it was written in the past, and has continued right down to the time of Christ, and of course down to this present time also. In other words, God has preserved it!

The question is not "has God preserved His word" but rather how and where has God preserved His word.

So, I agree that preservation is more of a scholarly/theological pursuit than it is an exegetical pursuit.

There are three facets we must understand in order to properly discern God's preservation of His word.

1. Inspiration - God giving His word in absolute perfection. Applies only to the original manuscripts.

2. Preservation - God providentially insuring that His word did not get lost, but was available to mankind to accomplish its divine purpose. This applies only to the copies and copies of copies in the languages originally given. The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

3. Translation - Godly men who have worked hard in a diligent pursuit of knowledge have used that hard won scholarship to know and understand the language, grammar, and syntax of those original languages and have used that scholarship to bring those preserved words into the receptor language via translation.

Translations can only be thought of as "inspired" or "preserved" in the derivative sense.

A translation's prophecy is "inspired" and "preserved" prophecy because the translation is based on the preserved copies which were made from (often removed by several generations) the inspired originals.

A translation's promises are "inspired" and "preserved" promises because the translation is based on the preserved copies which were made from (often removed by several generations) the inspired originals.

A translation's history is "inspired" and "preserved" history because the translation is based on the preserved copies which were made from (often removed by several generations) the inspired originals.

And it must also be understood that the "preservation" of those copies and copies of copies is not verbal (ever word of every manuscript or a single manuscript) but rather "plenary" - the entirety of the textucopia has, in the totality of the manuscript evidence, preserved the very words of God.

That is why the excellent work done by Hodges and Farstad, and more recently Robinson and Pierpont, is so vital to the continuation of reliable bibles in the various vernaculars into which those scholarly works are now being translated.

 

That is pretty much where I stand.

However, in the interests of full disclosure, Ed Glenny is a friend who comes from the same home church in Rockford, Illinois as my wife and I. His dad (a long time deacon in that church) loaned me a truck to move our household from Rockford to Minneapolis where I attended Seminary. The same seminary Ed attended a few years before me. He also graduated and taught at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, my wife's alma mater.

I had the opportunity to renew our old acquaintance this past November at the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting in San Antonio where he presented a paper and chaired a discussion group.

But I agree with him because I think he is right, not because we know each other.

 

I don't know either, but a partial list of his published works can be found here: W. Edward Glenny - Faculty - University of Northwestern including how to contact him.

 

That's a good question. And the honest answer is "I don't know." I look at the vowel points much as I look at marginal references. Not part of the actual text but placed there as a help in understanding.

I know that is not a very enlightening answer, but I am of the opinion that theologians ought to say "I don't know" a lot more often than they do.

 

How do you know that?