Dr. Hills concludes: "... Begin with Christ and the Gospel and follow the logic of faith. This is the principle that must guide us in our graduate studies, especially in the biblical field. If we adhere to it, then everything we learn will fit beautifully into its place in the Christian thought-system. But if we ignore Christ and adopt a neutral approach to knowledge, we will soon lose ourselves in a wilderness of details and grow more and more chaotic in our thinking."1 Indeed, if we only used the majority concept as our standard, we would remain in constant uncertainty - in a state of flux. Who knows but on the morrow the archaeologist's spade may uncover an ancient library containing hundreds or even several thousands of Greek manuscripts embodying the "Alexandrian" text? Thus, the true reading would always hang in doubt for still later another library may be discovered with "Western" readings or even "Syrian". But we need not be concerned, for God has not left us depending upon the spade of the archaeologist to determine the true text. Neither are we awaiting his discovering a new papyri hiding in a jar somewhere. If we did so, our faith would always be wavering and we could never be confident that a dealer would not soon appear with something new from somewhere else. We would be wondering if the damming of the Nile River had destroyed some Greek text which would show us a new wonderful truth.

We already possess and have had all along the actual TRUTH of Scripture! We have, by faith in God's promises to preserve His Word, an assumed premise, a priori, of God's providential preservation of the text. Someone may say "prove it", but this fails to comprehend the nature of a priori premise. As Letis has reminded us: "One does not prove a first premise. A premise by definition is something one assumes, not something he proves."2 And even more to the point - the context of these promises having been for the use of His people throughout time - we rest with maximum certainty that we already have those precious Words at our disposal as preserved in the Bible of the Reformation.3 We are not lingering in expectation for the modern text critics to "restore" them to us.

It is not our position that the text found in the majority is the true text merely because it is found in the majority of mss (although some do so argue). It is the reason that this text is found present in the majority that is decisive. "The reason", says Letis, "that all defenders of the TR since the Reformation follow the majority text is because it reflects the actual text HISTORICALLY USED BY THE CHURCH - the believers in all ages to whom Jesus promised to lead into all truth - as sacred text."4 True, the supporting evidence such as that of Sturz' mentioned in chapter seven which revealed that the papyri sustained many of the Byzantine readings as being second century was encouraging, but our confidence is not in isolated scrapes of old papyri or vellum. It is founded on a much surer foundation. Our confidence is in God's never failing promises and in the text which has been continuously in public usage by the Church. This is why the TR is the true text, not merely because of its great statistical "superiority" or "probability".

Further, when we use such phrases as "the Word of God says ...", "the Scriptures say ..." or "the Holy Bible says ..." etc., we do not merely mean the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek Textus Receptus (Syrian, Byzantine, Traditional Text, or Majority Text). We are referring to something

1 Hills, The King James Version Defended, op. cit., pp. 113-114. The reader is enjoined to read the non-cited portions of this quote which have not been given for the sake of brevity; here Hills explains "the logic of faith" with regard to the TR & KJB.

2 Letis, "A Reply to the Remarks of Mark A. McNeil" (Edinburgh: 9-3-1990), p. 2. This is a 5 page response to a 8-14-1990 appeal for documentation from Mr. Eldred Thomas (Vid. supra, fn. 3, p. 45), whose program on the subject of Biblical texts had aired resulting in Mr. Mark McNeil's having taken issue with him on several particulars.

3 Hills, The King James Version Defended, op. cit., pp. 224-225.

4 Telephone conversation with the author, October, 1989. Dr. Letis has contended the same many times in various articles and correspondence (also Hills , King James Version Defended, op. cit., p. 113). He so does in fn 2 above (Reply to ... McNeil).

114


continued...