Gavin Ortlund has recommended The Church of Rome at the Bar of History by William Webster as a good resource for Protestants to read in efforts to evaluate the claims of Roman Catholicism. My first response addresses the problematic use of 2 Tim. 3.16-17 in Webster’s book specifically but also in evangelicalism more broadly. My second response tackles the problem of canon in two parts. The first part concerns itself with why Webster’s approach is flawed and cannot achieve the end for which he aims. This latter part seeks the proper perspective on Jewish and patristic sources for the canon question as well as on the criteria used in the canonization process.
I have said before that there is a certain single-mindedness of approach to facts that can cause us to miss the forest for the trees. This tendency continues when Webster brings in evidence from Jewish and patristic sources. With respect to the latter, it is apparent that he does not take into account the (sometimes complicated) theological positions of those personalities he claims in support of his position. For starters, there are bigger issues that must be settled (because they are methodological) before we attempt to identify their canon(s). For instance, what is an author’s view of revelation? Does it include orality? What is an author’s view of Scripture? Does the author in question believe in a closed or (temporarily) fixed canon? Is an author reacting to groups who were using works outside the pale?
The answers to these questions will help us to appreciate early viewpoints on the sources of authority, how early Christians understood “canon” and its role, and why all attempts to affix criteria for canonization that fail to appeal, at the most basic level, to communal discernment are destined to fail, and in that failure to cause a lot of unnecessary spiritual angst. And I would have us recognize the natural compatibility and inherent consistency between that chief criterion for canonicity (i.e., communal discernment) and Catholicism’s operating principle (i.e., communal discernment). It is this natural compatibility and inherent consistency that not only struck me (while Protestant) as theologically superior but also as an adequate remedy for the aforementioned spiritual angst that occurs when our sets of criteria for the canonization process bleed out from a thousand small cuts of inconsistency.
With respect to Jewish sources, Webster claims: “It is quite clear that the Hebrew Old Testament canon used by the Jews of Palestine at the time of Christ did not include the Apocrypha” (8). He adduces four pieces of evidence to make this claim: (1) Jesus refers to the Scriptures as the “Law, Prophets, and Psalms” (which, he states, did not include the Apocrypha); (2) neither Jesus nor the apostles ever quote from the Apocrypha; (3) Josephus recognized only 22 books in the Jewish canon; and (4) Philo only recognized the same 22 books (8-9).
Although each of these claims merits its own detailed response, I hope my cursory approach will keep our main task of gaining the proper perspective in our minds.
The Gambler’s Approach to Scripture
Arguments from silence play a critical and uncomfortable role for Webster. One is evident, for example, in the idea that if Jesus and the apostles never quoted from a book, it cannot have been seen as Scripture, as if they made it a point to quote in order to establish the canon. Now, this problematic theological assertion gets some traction because the appeal to divine providence has an appearance of piety. Look how God seems to have anticipated our disagreements about the extent of the Old Testament canon and planted answers within the New Testament! Assigning multiple layers of divine intention to the Scriptures is an elevated (and orthodox) position, all the more so if it allows Scripture to be applied to problems that come centuries later. There really isn’t anything objectionable to the principle, but we must not be afraid to ask penetrating questions about its application.
First, is there any hint of the divine intention to determine the limits of canon through quotation? If not, we must understand that the application of this principle to any given problem may be opportunistic. I am reminded of the following parable (source unknown):
An earnest Christian, seeking guidance for life, planned to beseech God’s providence by randomly choosing a passage from the Gospels and following its advice, no matter how difficult. His first hit was Matthew 27:5b, where he read, “he went and hanged himself.” Confused, he prayed, “What is it I should take from this?” and then randomly selected Luke 10:37b, “you go and do likewise.” Very distraught, wondering what could possibly require such a course, he prayed, “When should this terrible thing be needed?” and randomly turned to John 13:27b: “what you are going to do, do quickly.” Intensely disturbed, the young man prayed a final time, “How am I to come to terms with this?” and randomly turned to Colossians 3:23a, which read, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.” Realizing that he had accidentally turned to a passage outside the Gospels, he disregarded it and prayed his true burden, “Jesus, how am I to know this is really you?” and flipped to Matt. 16.17b, which read, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven.”
This gambler’s approach to Scripture, operating under a seemingly pious guise of trust in divine providence is analogous to what Protestants do when they require Scripture to answer questions it does not address. And this reasoning appeals to those who are content with an indiscriminate application, not of Scriptural principles, but of a method that pinches out whatever meaning one wishes to find. It appeals to those who blindly trust in their expectations for divine providence rather than exercising the wisdom required to discern it.
To think: “I will apply (some assortment of) divine speech to a problem of concern to me” is not a misguided effort, at root, but real difficulties emerge whenever we force divine speech to apply outside its intentions, when we take Scriptures out of their context in order to apply them however we wish. Sure, for some problems, this may prove convenient, but in the above example, it would prove fatal. Such wild variance in potential outcome should at least highlight the questionable nature of applying any configuration of divine speech to any old problem of my making, and expecting divine providence to bless the interpretation. And the person who would argue that such a method employed with such results might truly reveal God’s intention for one of his children is to be avoided, for his fatalism is little different from those who worshipped the Roman goddess Fortuna rather than trusting in the real God.
The problem here is that we shouldn’t place the burden of canonization upon Jesus and the apostles. To think that Jesus and the apostles quoted from the books of Scripture in order to resolve (much) later controversies does little justice to the contextual and semantic reasons for their quotations. It is merely an unsupported assertion of divine providence without a good reason. It is also a convenient corollary of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. They go hand-in-hand and seem reasonable together.
The Lack of Clear Criteria Incriminates Our Current Canon
There are other good reasons not to buy this idea. Not only is it unsupported but also unsupportable. For starters, there are books in the existing canon that found quotation neither in Jesus nor in the apostles (e.g., Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon). According to Webster’s reasoning, they should also be excluded.
Second, we only have snippets describing some 66 days of Jesus entire life recorded in Scripture. How can we have any confidence that he didn’t reference other literature beyond what is recorded in the Gospels? Again, to respond that God would have preserved every quotation in Scripture we need is begging the question. If you assume sufficiency, then this reasoning makes sense to you. Otherwise, it does not.
Third, Jesus and the apostles did quote from or reference various non-canonical writings (e.g., 2 Tim. 3.8 seems to reference the Apocryphon of Jannes and Jambres). If quoting from a text tells us something of its canonical status, do references to those texts mean that Jesus thought they were Scripture (or that we should)? As a Protestant, I had to face the uncomfortable truth that it wasn’t fair to use this argument when it was convenient for my position but disregard it when it was not.
Fourth, Jesus and the apostles probably did reference Apocryphal books. For example, Tobit 3.8 was probably the inspiration behind the question posed to Jesus in Matthew 22.24 about whose wife a seven-time widowed and childless woman would be at the resurrection (cf. Beale and Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, s.v. Matt. 22.24, p. 75). Indeed, it’s likely that Tobit’s example of fearing God, giving alms, and praying (cf. 1.3; 12.8) comprised the ideal of piety to which New Testament authors referred. For example, Luke portrays Cornelius in this way, the key phrase being ποιῶν ἐλεημοσύνας πολλὰς τῷ λαῷ (“giving many alms to the people”, Acts 10.2). “Giving alms” is not mentioned in the Protestant Old Testament (cf. Beale and Carson, s.v. Acts 10.2, p. 577), so Luke is probably drawing from Tobit.
The backdrop of Colossians 1.15-17 is likely the Book of Wisdom (especially verses like 1:6-7; 7:26-27; 8:1, 5; 9:2, 9; 10.1-2). For early Christians, Christ was equated with Wisdom. As Wisdom preceded and (by implication) participated in creation (Prov. 8) and the spirit of wisdom, cooperating with God’s Spirit, “holds all things together” (Wisdom 1.7), so does Christ, cooperating with God’s Spirit, precede and participate in creation and hold all things together (Col. 1.16-17). In point of fact, the number of potential references in the New Testament to the Apocrypha, its examples, and its theology would probably surprise most people unfamiliar with the canon discussion. I invite the reader to carefully consider the significance of the list of Apocryphal verses in the above work by Beale and Carson (pp. 1197-99).
Now, a Protestant might reject one or more of the above references or allusions because they aren’t formal quotations. And as far as argumentation goes, it is a valid distinction to make, but just what to make of it is the harder (and true) question. When the premise is that Jesus and the apostles consciously pulled in material to settle a future canon debate, it seems a bit arbitrary to say that quotation counts but not allusions, references, common language, or other types of literary dependence. Moreover, what about indirect quotation or quotation of slightly (or significantly) mismatched form? More importantly, upon this new basis, books like Leviticus, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, etc., which only enjoy allusions and not quotations, would have to be excluded too.
The crucial point is simply that there is no good criterion upon which we might claim that the New Testament determines the scope of the Old Testament canon that doesn’t cut uncomfortably both ways, that is, that doesn’t exclude a legitimate book of our canon or include an illegitimate one (by the reckoning of both Protestants and Catholics). Again, I had to face it: I could not pick and choose criteria only when convenient for me.
Gaining some perspective, what applies to the Old Testament here applies also to the New. There is no unproblematic set of criteria by which to infallibly determine which books belong. Taken as a whole, this is why Protestants must concede, and many educated Protestants do, that the Protestant canon is a fallible set of infallible books. And in this principle both Catholics and Protestants can agree, which is not nothing with respect to the unity issue. Moreover, the concession itself could pave the way for greater rapprochement because Protestants now have categories by which to understand and appreciate that, in principle, there may be other inspired books that their canonical decisions have excluded. It doesn’t all simply boil down to authoritarian maneuvers to shove doctrines of Purgatory and prayers for the dead down the Church’s throat. No, Christians have greatly appreciated this literature as inspired over the centuries, and although we don’t have explicit and inarguable apostolic assertions of their inspiration (just like we don’t for most books in Scripture), our New Testament authors nevertheless referenced them as valuable.
Did Judaism Have a Fixed Canon During Jesus’ Day?
Another problem is that Judaism itself in the first century was a complicated entity. Textual collections like Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls testify to a great wealth of Jewish literature used by Jewish communities in this period. Some early Christians like Origen believed the Sadducees had a truncated canon. This suggests that Origen was not aware of any fixed Jewish canon but of (at least) two camps, one of which denied books that the other accepted.
A common Protestant argument is this: “if the Jews of the late first century solidified a canon, isn’t it more likely that Jesus and the apostles used that same one?” The alleged Council of Jamnia was said to have been the mechanism to fix that canon late in the first century. For better or for worse, the Council of Jamnia has become a discredited theory. Jack Lewis, the most lucid and primary detractor of the Jamnia hypothesis, who was (d. 2018) a Protestant, drew attention to the fact that the canonical discussions at Jabneh (the Hebrew source of “Jamnia”) pertained to Chronicles and Song of Songs–not the whole OT canon, and it would seem, it wasn’t an authoritative council with any binding power. Some of evangelicalism’s most erudite scholars (e.g., F. F. Bruce in The Canon of Scripture [1988]) agree. This is probably for the best for the Protestant position anyhow, because if a council was needed to establish the canon, that would suggest there were disagreements in play (and there probably were).
Nonetheless, it does seem likely that the Palestinian Jews codified their canon in the late first century, partly in response to disputation with Christians about the form and meaning of the Septuagint (Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006], xxxvi-xxxvii). But what this means is that there were vested interests to clarify (and even differentiate) the form and extent of Jewish and Christian inspired literature. The patristic evidence would seem to bear this out (see below). This is an important point because it means that there is not a disinterested attempt made by Palestinian Jews in the late first century to fix their canon, as if the Christian use of inspired literature had no bearing on their decisions. This suggests that we cannot assume a simple continuity between a late first-century Jewish canon and the set of inspired literature used by Jesus and the apostles. Given the motivated interests and known ideological and hermeneutical conflicts occurring between Jews and Christians, the assumption could just as easily be one of discontinuity.
So no matter how one looks at it, until we have achieved greater consensus, we cannot say that there was a fixed Jewish canon while Messiah was here, nor that it was identical to the Protestant canon. Moreover, even if we could, all the larger questions we have been identifying come into play. For instance, how did they understand canon? They certainly could not have believed the canon was closed, for how could we then make any sense of the canonicity of the New Testament? And who among Protestants would wish to deny the canonicity of the Gospels or Pauline Epistles?
Josephus and Philo
Webster draws attention to the fact that Josephus mentions a 22 book Old Testament in Against Apion 1.8, which he claims maps onto our current 39 book Old Testament. The major problem with this view is this: “Though the number twenty-two is clearly established in early Jewish and Christian tradition, it is not at all clear exactly how the various books of the Hebrew Bible are to be arranged to arrive at this number” (Duane Christensen, “Josephus and the Twenty-Two-Book Canon of Sacred Scripture”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29.1, 38). Josephus’ canon, for instance, did not include Esther (ibid., 46). Moreover, after offering various examples of leading arrangements of the Hebrew Scriptures, M. Stuart has observed: “No two are alike. Even the Masorites and the Talmudists differ from each other; Jerome differs from both, and Origen from him. And so, if we compare Melito, the Laodicean Council, the Apostolic Canons, Cyrill [sic], Gregory Nazianzen, Athanasius, Hilary, Epiphanius, the Council of Hippo, Jerome, Rufinus, etc., scarcely any two of them are alike throughout. And this is almost the case even with manuscripts and editions in later times” (quoted in ibid., 38). Now my point here isn’t that the canon was wildly different from person to person. Instead, it aims to demonstrate simply that the canon was not fixed for Josephus or for early Christians.
When it comes to Philo, Webster claims, “Philo seems to support Josephus, because although he wrote extensively on the Old Testament he never quoted from the Apocrypha” (9). If Webster’s demand that an author (or set of authors) must quote from all the books considered to be Scripture, we encounter difficulties. Even though Philo has left us far more material than what comprises the New Testament, we are missing quotations from more than a few books. Even if we assume that all references to one part of the Samuels, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah included both parts, and we assume that Ruth was united to Judges and Lamentations to Jeremiah (which is possible), we are still missing Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Ezekiel, and Daniel (cf. H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 2nd ed. [Cambridge, 1914], 25-26). Upon what basis can we exclude the deuterocanonical books but not the canonical ones that do not meet this criterion?
But let’s grant (although we should not) that Josephus and Philo agreed on a specific list of books, and let’s even grant (although we should not) that this list represents the position of all Jews in the first century. Let’s even grant (although we should not) that this list represented an unchangeable, fixed canon. Should the Christian Church accept any alleged Jewish consensus? I am here returning to an earlier discussion point.
Some early Christians would have answered in the negative. Once Jews and Christians began to wrangle about the proper meaning and interpretation of Septuagint, Jewish leaders began to favor non-Alexandrian Greek translations, which offered readings that better supported their viewpoints. This represents another early divergence to the Greek manuscript tradition (i.e., more textual diversity), one that created additional distrust between Jews and Christians about the versions in use within each other’s communities (Swete, 30). Little wonder that Origen, for example, warns Christians against accepting Jewish testimony about the Scriptures (§28, trans. Heine, 2.581).
Origen of Alexandria on Canon
Webster points to Origen’s statement in his Commentary on Matthew for support: “No one ought to use books outside the canonical Scriptures to confirm doctrines” (ibid., 2.582). But there are problems with invoking Origen on this point. First, neither the term “canon” nor the concept of “canonization” enjoy univocal meanings across time or even today (see, for example, Eugene Ulrich’s “The Notion and Definition of Canon” in The Canon Debate, 21-35; John Barton, Holy Writings, Sacred Text, 131f). This is a major problem, for instance, when it comes to the assumptions about what Origen meant by “canonical” and whether “canon” meant to him what we would consider a fixed and unchangeable canon.
Second, we are not sure which books Origen would have included. He doesn’t provide any lists. Interestingly, even though he acknowledged debates about the scriptural status of several writings, it is difficult to tell which side he fell on (e.g., Comm. Jo. 28.122).
Third, Origen quoted from or referenced books from the Apocrypha (e.g., Comm. Jo. 6.278 quoting Wisdom 17.1; Comm. Jo. 6.183 quoting Sirach 18.5; Comm. Jo. 13.168 referencing Judith 9.11; etc.) and from extrabiblical works like the Shepherd of Hermas (e.g., Comm. Jo. 1.103) and the Book of Enoch (e.g., Comm. Jo. 6.217) as authoritative.
Fourth, while he doesn’t provide lists, his supreme linguistic achievement, the Hexapla, probably included the deuterocanonical books because it was a comparison of multiple versions of the Septuagint, some of which contained them, and because it was a significant source in the creation of extant Alexandrian codices (i.e., Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus), which contain parts or all of them.
Fifth, in this same text that Webster references (viz., Comm. Matt. 28, about Matt. 23.37-39), there are a number of interesting things going on. First, Origen claimed that some followers of Hypythianus, of Basilides, and some of the Jews had fabricated books to destroy the truth of the Christian Scriptures. So he counsels his fellow Christians to beware of “secret books that are passed off in the name of saints”. Had Christians only been reading a fixed canon of Scripture and had they clearly differentiated the authority of such works from the authority of other helpful works, Christians would not have needed the warning to test all the works they were reading.
Moreover, Origen is making an argument about which books Christians should accept and which they should not on the basis of principle rather than name. That is, Origen is aware that books like the Epistle to the Hebrews are seen as questionable to some, and he introduces a quotation from it in the same way he introduces a quotation from the Book of Wisdom in his Commentary on John (“if someone will accept…”). And he makes a distinction between the books that Jews utilize and those that Christians utilize. To serve his point, he indicates places where Jesus and the apostles reference works outside the “law and prophets”. His intention seems to be to admonish the Jews for denying books that Jesus referenced, as if any book Jesus references should be accepted. His point would be served only if the Jews were excluding certain books that Christians should accept.
For example, according to Origen, although Jesus said that Jerusalem had killed the prophets, Jesus isn’t referring to any narrative “prophesied in the old Scriptures that are read in their [the Jewish] synagogues” (§28, p. 580). So what written material was Jesus referencing? According to Origen, Jesus is referencing books that are “more secret” than those currently used among the Jews; that is, books not read in their synagogues. Think about what this may mean for our outstanding question–whether we should assume continuity or discontinuity when it comes to how the late first-century (Palestinian) Jewish canon compared to the set of writings that Jesus and the apostles considered inspired. Perhaps Protestants ought to reconsider the argument that the Christian’s canon ought to be the same as the Jewish canon of the first or second centuries.
Moreover, according to Origen, it wasn’t just Jesus who referenced books outside the Old Testament, but also Stephen the first martyr and Paul the apostle. One of those books is the Secret Book of Isaiah, which is evidently not the book of Isaiah we know but a book circulating under Isaiah’s name. In saying these things, he is not simply making the interesting, historical point that Jesus referenced works outside the Old Testament. No, its relevance serves the question about which works should be accepted and/or rejected, and he condemns the Jewish rejection of the Secret Book of Isaiah and other books referenced by Jesus, Paul, and Stephen.
Moreover, it sounds a bit like the canon has been fixed when we read his statement “no one ought to use books outside the canonical Scriptures to confirm doctrines” (ibid., 581). The problem is that Origen’s text exists only in Latin translation, which was made by a late fourth, early fifth-century translator with different ideas about canon. Moreover, the Greek source of the Latin phrase canonizatas Scripturas, probably some derivation of the ambiguous terms γραφαί and κανῶν, may have simply meant the “accepted writings” and referred to a mixed collection of inspired and uninspired books.
But even if we should grant (and we should not) that Origen had a list, we don’t know which books were on it, and we have already seen the tentative status of Hebrews here, as well as the possible acceptance of the Secret Book of Isaiah, so not just the OT but the NT as well were evidently still under discussion. This is the very definition of a canon not yet fixed.
To collaborate what I’m saying, consider Origen’s next statement which comes on the heels of his reference to the canonical Scriptures: “We must . . . give careful consideration so that we not accept all secret books that are passed off in the name of saints [like that of Isaiah] . . .; we must also be careful not to deny all works that relate to the explanation of our Scriptures.” Again, if Origen is referencing inspired writings, the canon cannot yet be fixed. On the other hand, if he is talking about the corpus of works Christians are reading and finding valuable (including writings either then or later deemed uninspired), then we cannot pinpoint the broader discussion, or his use of the terms γραφαί and κανῶν, to what we mean by the terms “scriptures” and “canon”.
Moreover, if the phrase “law and prophets” was, as Webster claims, a handy way to refer to the OT canon now recognized by Protestants (which itself is dubitable because, for many diasporic Jews, the OT would have been the Septuagint, the manuscripts for which contain the deuterocanonical books), then Origen contemns the Jews for not including works that the modern church doesn’t include. Again, this is a sign that the canon has not yet been fixed in Origen’s time and milieu.
It should be clear by now that there is much involved in bringing an early author into the discussion. There are many fundamental questions that must be answered, and a sense needs to be garnered for his ideas about scripture, authority, canon, categories of inspiration, orality, etc., before too much can be made by lists of books. What was herein done with Origen was done by simply telescoping out a bit further in the same context in his Commentary on Matthew. Much more ought to be done besides. And then something similar for all authors brought to the table. This was sadly lacking in Webster’s discussion.
Canon versus Content
We are presented with another problem that, to some degree, even relativizes the problem of the selection of which books to include in the canon, and that is the content within those books. It is well known that the Greek Bible of Jesus’ day (i.e., the Septuagint) differs in many respects from the Masoretic (Hebrew) text used in our modern critical editions. I am not here referring to the obvious language difference but to which verses should be included and to which forms of those verses? Different sets of verses and different forms of the same verse owed to different recensions and manuscript histories. Moreover, the Masoretic text we use as our critical text was standardized sometime between the 7th and 10th centuries (CE), and our oldest complete copy (the Leningrad codex) dates from the 11th century. This exhibits a number of differences from copies of the Greek LXX that date from the 4th century.
In addition, the Masoretic text contains two different “readings” (the Qere and Ketiv). These are not identical and affect the wording and interpretation of individual verses (cf. Yosef Ofer, The Masora on Scripture and Its Methods [Boston: De Gruyter, 2019], 85). What good is a fixed canon if the specific verses and their forms differ? Here’s some perspective on this. Even if we could establish (which we cannot) that first-century Judaism had a fixed canon, and we could establish (which we cannot) which books were included, and we could establish that the books exactly match that of the Masoretic text of today, the problem as to which verses and which forms of those verses were canonical remains in shadow. None of our normal witnesses (e.g., Josephus or Philo) are of much help, unless they quote a verse, but then the question arises whether they are quoting (possibly erroneously) from memory or not, and what do we do when their form of a verse proves unique?
Final Perspectives
These finer points merely aim to bear out what modern scholarship is discerning more clearly about the process of canonization; namely, that its more definitive shape had not solidified until the fourth century or later. Such that we have a choice that Webster does not seem to appreciate. When we read that Augustine, an educated bishop in the know, supported a conciliar recognition of a canonical list that included apocryphal books, we have to operate from one of two positions: either the canon was settled or it wasn’t. We cannot have it both ways. Now, if it wasn’t settled, then we have to admit that the canon was still open at the time of the Synod of Hippo (late fourth century). If it was settled, then the Bible ought to contain the deuterocanonical books. For upon what reasonable basis can we affirm that it was settled if the very synod that addressed the canon and ratified it was unaware of the fact?
Now, we have covered much terrain that is fundamentally unfamiliar to most evangelicals, indeed, most Christians. Upon reading, it may seem as though our knowledge of the books, verses, and forms of those verses is in complete disarray. It may appear that God’s Word is lost irretrievably in a thousand unanswered questions. But it will only seem that way for those whose fundamental starting point is that the written word is our only source of truth. And it can only seem so for those who fail to perceive the proper balance.
The truth is that we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to our manuscript tradition. We have thousands of manuscripts which contain across them the (sufficiently) original form of our New Testament books. The Old Testament situation is messier, but it does not so much matter because although we can be, say, only 90-95% sure about the accuracy of any constellation of text critical decisions for the New Testament, and perhaps 70% or less sure about the textual decisions for the Old Testament, we can be 100% certain that our readings are good enough. And we can be this certain because the Church has made and continues to make available all that is necessary for our salvation, regardless of the accuracy of our text critical decisions. How much better it is to trust in the worldwide Church than in the independent judgments of a small number of textual critics and translators! And it just so happens that that is the proper domain in which to exercise trust in divine providence.