Does Scripture’s Self-Attestation Apply to Textual Criticism?

The Reformed tradition has long held that one of the means by which Christians are convinced of Scripture’s divine origin is through the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. This work of the Holy Spirit is essentially one in which he removes the blinders from our eyes to see the truth and beauty of the Bible. Both these qualities were there before, but it takes the work of the Spirit to help us appreciate them (in both senses of the word). As the Westminster Confession puts it, “our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts” (§1.5). This quality is sometimes also referred to as Scripture’s self-attestation. Scripture impresses its own nature and authority upon us, we might say. Many Christians can attest to this feature of the Bible in their own experience.

In this post, I don’t intend to defend this particular doctrine; I take its truth for granted. Instead, I want to ask those of us who hold to this doctrine to reflect on the level to which it applies. In particular, I want to ask if (a) the doctrine applies to canonicity, does it also (b) apply to textual variants? If the Spirit attests to the divine qualities of Genesis or Jude, does he also attest to the divine ending of Mark’s Gospel or to the right form of Jeremiah?

Mike Kruger addresses this question in his book Canon Revisited. He has a chapter defending the view that Scripture’s self-authentication applies not just to Scripture in general, but to individual books in particular. In his words, there is, with regard to self-authentication, “no hard distinction between the Scripture ‘as a whole’ and the individual books within it” (p. 100 n. 35). He cites John Owen approvingly that “on these suppositions I fear not to affirm that there are on every individual book of the Scripture.... those divine characters and criteria which are sufficient to difference them from all other writings whatever, and to testify their divine authority unto the minds and consciences of believers.”

The question is whether or not such a view applies to textual decisions. If 3 John can attest itself as divine, then so can John 7.53–8.11 one could argue. One could, however, use this logic as an argument against Scripture’s self-attestation and here is Kruger’s response, with some paragraphing added:

J. W. Wenham, Christ and the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1972), 125, objects to the efficacy of the testimonium [of the Holy Spirit] in that it is not able to determine textual variants like Mark 16:9–20. But did the Reformers understand the testimonium as something that would solve textual variants? There is not space in this volume to treat issues of textual criticism at length, but we can make some brief observations in reply:

(1) We need to recognize that the historical process of the church’s recognizing canonical books is simply not parallel to the historical process of textual transmission. In the former, the shape of the canon is determined by the conscious and intentional actions of the corporate church as it receives these books. In the latter, the shape of the text is not determined by conscious and intentional actions of the church, but is determined by a myriad of causes during the transmission process, the most common of which is unintentional copying mistakes by individual scribes. Put simply, the canon is the result of the church’s corporate response; the individual textual variations are not. Thus, there is no reason to think that the final shape of the text is necessarily the original one. See John H. Skilton, “The Transmission of the Scriptures,” in Stonehouse and Woolley, The Infallible Word, 137–87.

(2) Although we have indications that the early church certainly cared about textual variations and even discussed them, they viewed this as a very different question than which books should be included in the canon in the first place. Metzger indicates that for the church fathers, “the question of the canonicity of a document apparently did not arise in connection with discussion of variant readings” (B. M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance [Oxford: Clarendon, 1987], 269). Thus, we should not view the church’s acceptance of a book as an endorsement of a particular version of that book.

(3) It is a caricature to argue that a self-attesting canon means that even the smallest portions of Scripture, down to even a single word, can be immediately identified by Christians as divine. Such a caricature is built on the presumption that the Spirit simply tells Christians which words are from God and which are not. But the Spirit, as noted above, does not deliver private revelations to Christians as they read a text (or do textual criticism), but simply allows them to see the divine qualities of Scripture that are already objectively there. Since such qualities are bound up with the broader meaning, teaching, and doctrine communicated by a book, they are not as applicable to individual textual variations (which, on the whole, tend to be quite small and change very little of the overall meaning). As a result, two different copies of the book of Galatians, though they would differ at minor points, would both still communicate divine qualities. (p. 101 n. 37).

In response, I would say that point one might apply to what Mike Holmes calls the “micro-level instability,” short variations at the verse-level. But I’m not sure it applies to those cases of more macro-level instability like Mark 16 or Jeremiah.

I agree with Kruger’s second point, but I confess I don’t see the relevance to the theological issue at hand. The question isn’t what the early church did or didn’t do; the question is what the doctrine of the Scripture’s self-attestation might have allowed them (and us) to do.

Point three seems the most important as it begins to tease out the level at which Scripture’s self-attestation applies—and that is the real issue with regard to its application to textual variants. With Kruger I agree that two copies of Galatians, or of Mark (to return to the main example), would both communicate divine qualities. We could probably include the various versions of Jeremiah here too (though maybe Kruger wouldn’t want to). That is an important and helpful apologetic point for Christians when thinking about textual criticism.

But my question is whether the logic would apply to larger textual variants that are not “quite small” and that do change something of the overall meaning. Obviously, these cases are the exceptions not the rule. But the question still stands: if the Holy Spirit can testify to the divine qualities of the book of Jude, does he not also, then, testify to the divine qualities (or lack thereof) in John 7.53–8.11 or the additions to Esther? Or should we conclude that both versions of those respective books still communicate divine qualities and so it does not apply?

I know how I would try to address this issue, but I’d like to hear from readers. Does Scripture’s self-attestation apply to textual criticism?