The cancer of Warfieldian inerrancy spread rapidly from Princeton throughout the ranks of the Presbyterians. From there it continued to infect other conservative groups. During the early part of the 20th-century the Southern Baptists adopted Westcott and Hort through the person of their greatest Greek scholar, A.T. Robertson. Robertson greatly admired Warfield and succumbed to his beliefs on text criticism. In 1925, Robertson dedicated his handbook "to the memory of B.B. Warfield".1 To this very day, the poison continues to infiltrate and dominate all conservative circles. Truly, "a little leaven leavens the whole lump."

The reason that this wicked compromise began and goes on unabated, is that brilliant Christian scholars have refused to humble their intellects - placing their own education and intellect above the promises of God and historic Church creeds on inerrancy. All too many find themselves unwilling to stand in simple faith alongside the dauntless Reformers, Burgon, Miller, Hoskier, Nolan, Hills, Van Bruggen, Fuller, Pickering, D.A. Waite, Green, Letis, Moorman, etc., as well as many other men of God over the past centuries - wishing instead to be admired by their peers as "progressive", "informed", and "abreast of the latest scientific approaches". The vast majority thereby blindly supports the "restoration" position.

Though at first the reader may be taken aback by the following, let him read it over several times until it be comprehended. We are not interested in anything concerning the "originals" or "autographs". God saw fit to destroy the original autograph of the tables of stone upon which the Ten Commandments were inscribed, as well as the second tables. Moreover, He allowed wicked King Jehoiakim to cut up and burn the "original autograph" given to Jeremiah and written by Baruch while at the same time the Lord preserved the original text without error (Jer.36, esp. vv. 22-23, 28 and 32). Nor are we waiting in anticipation for some archaeologist or textual critic to "find and restore" to the Church the "original" text. In certain faith in God's many promises to preserve His Holy Word, we know that we already have these ten "Living Words" exactly as the Lord gave them to Moses, as well as those of Jeremiah etc. Were we to discover the "original", by faith we know that it would read exactly as we have had preserved for us in the TR/KJB.

Likewise, it is God Himself as Sovereign Lord and King who was pleased in His wisdom to destroy the autographs of the N.T. Thus, it is tempting God and sinful for us to say that there were (and can still be obtained via text critical techniques) autographs better and more reliable than the Providentially Preserved Bible that we have today. We are not, therefore, interested in any discussion or so-called scholarship which seeks to "uncover" what the originals were like. It is His preserved Bible that is the Word of God, not the autographs. The autographs were the infallible Word of God. As they no longer exist, they cannot be the Word of God - for God has promised that He would preserve His Word forever.

Nearly everyone who invokes the autographs does so to alter (and thus pervert) the Providentially preserved Scriptures. Most men and/or institutions that claim to embrace the "Doctrine of Inerrancy," do so intending it to apply only to the "originals". In so doing, they have embraced


1 A.T. Robertson, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1925) and pp. vii-ix. Warfield's compromises included that of Scripture and evolution. Accepting the supposed great age of the earth as required by evolutionary hypothesis (as had Princetonians Charles Hodge and his son Alexander), Warfield continued bringing down Princeton Theological Seminary by assuring his readers that evolution could "...supply a theory of the method of divine providence." Arthur Custance, Two Men Called Adam, (Brockville, Ontario: n.p., 1983), pp. 3-7. Robertson further compromised himself by accepting the Synoptic problem. This hypothesis teaches that the similarities and differences between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke may only be resolved by assuming a literary relationship among them. Thus the evangelists must have copied from each other and/or consulted the same written source(s) - that the Gospels are the result of interdependence among the three "Synoptic" writers. It purports that Matthew and Luke used Mark in preparing their Gospel accounts and that since Matthew and Luke recorded nearly identical matter for much not found in Mark they both used a second source in common (i.e., "Q" for the German quelle or "source"). Further, that Mark wrote his gospel under the direct influence of Simon Peter (rather than the Holy Spirit): Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels, (NY: Harper & Row, 1922), pp. vii, 255-256. Yet the Synoptic Problem cannot be proven neither indeed does it exist! Eta Linnemann, Is There A Synoptic Problem?, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992), pp. 9-15, 24-27.

119


continued...