"Throughout its record the Bible presupposes its own authority. For instance, the Old Testament is often cited in the New Testament with such formulas as “God says” or “the Holy Spirit says” (as in Acts 1:16; 3:24-25; 2 Cor. 6:16). What Scripture says is identified with what God says (e.g., Gal. 3:8; Rom. 9:16). For that reason all theological arguments are settled decisively by the inherent authority signified in the formula “it stands written” (literal translation). The same authority attaches to the writings of the apostles (1 Cor. 15:1-2; 2 Thess. 2:15; 3:14), since these writings are placed on a par with the Old Testament Scriptures (2 peter 3:15-16; Rev. 1:3). Apostolic Scripture often has the common formula “it stands written” applied to it (e.g., John 20:31). Therefore the Old and New Testaments are presented in the Bible itself as the authoritative, written, Word of God."
I find this an interesting paragraph, given that the Scriptures Bahnsen cites, 2 Thes 2:15 and 1 Cor 15:1-2, refers to ORAL teachings. Is Bahnsen thus telling us implicitly that the Apostles' TEACHINGS (not just written) were considered inspired? A read of the Scriptures should yield this conclusion. It is not a matter of something being WRITTEN that gives it authority, but its ACCEPTANCE by the COMMUNITY at large. Bahsen writes from the mistaken presumption when interpretating early Christianity. ANYTHING from the Apostles was considered authoritative by the Christian community - whether written or orally transmitted. Something being written did NOT give something authority over something NOT written.
This makes sense, given Christianity is NOT a religion of the book, like Judaism. It is a religion of divine revelation given through a person, Jesus Christ - who passed His teachings orally to Apostles who claimed to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Thus, the MEANS of transmission is inconsequential to the first Christians. This is something that most Protestants fail to understand.
Regards
Thanks, Harley. Bahnsen's article is excellent.
I would like to point out, with all respect to Greg Bahnsen's protestations, that the idea of the inerrant autograph first formulated by Warfield, et al did not exist prior to the 19th c.
I would be interested if anyone can show pre-19th c. evidence of this concept that the autographs are inerrant, but that body of Scriptural text that we actually have received cannot be said to be so. I don't think that it existed anywhere in Protestantism or in any pre-Protestant Christianity.
Warfield, et al came up with this idea because of the pressures put on them by the weight of liberal Protestant textual criticism. This criticism had come to the conclusion in the 19th c. that the text of the New Testament as we had received it (i.e. as the Greek Orthodox had preserved it for two millenia) was hopelessly corrupt, and that only then, in the 19th c. did mankind have the tools to determine what the more original texts had to say.
The Westminster Divines retreated behind a position that was, they felt, impregnable. After all, this way they could both believe in Biblical inerrancy, as their Presbyterian faith required, and at the same time not be accused of ignorance by their liberal counterparts.
By claiming that only the original autographs are the "real" Bible, it would never be necessary to give up the idea of inerrancy, since we will never have a copy of the original autographs, and since such autographs can never be reconstructed using modern techniques of textual criticism.
To the extent that attempts have been made to "reconstruct the autographs," one is left with the inescapable conclusion that until the 19th century, the Bible was never faithfully copied, since modern critical editions reconstruct the text based on scores of widely-flung and divergent manuscripts. This doesn't say much for the preservation of Scripture by the Holy Spirit.