Mark Ward Knocks Down

Straw-Men in Preview of

IVP Chapter on the Septuagint

By Brett Mahlen

Dr. Mark Ward has dropped another video which he believes is a critique of the Confessional Text Position, often called Confessional Bibliology (My IVP Book Chapter Critiquing Confessional Bibliology – YouTube). Dr. Ward is advertising his chapter in an upcoming book on the Septuagint.

For background, Dr. Ward initially sought, a few years ago, to reach his brethren in Independent Fundamental Baptist circles who use the King James Version, exclusively. Ward sought to educate them about words they didn’t know they didn’t know. Ward felt successful in that endeavor so he went looking for other lanes to occupy. Ward should have stayed in his lane, however, because he made a mistake when he decided to set his sights on the Confessional Text position, codified in Westminster Confession of Faith (and Savoy Declaration, and London Baptist Confession of 1689) 1:8.

In setting his aim upon the Confessional Text position, Mark Ward seemed like a baseball player who had hit a grand slam in a game on Friday night, and then desired to have his four runs from the previous night’s game applied to Saturday’s game against a different team. Arguments against different opponents, much like runs in baseball, do not transfer from one opponent to another, though Dr. Ward seems to continue to act as if arguments are transferable; Ward believes he can use the same arguments against Confessional Text advocates that he feels were successful against Independent Baptists, since he struggles to tell the difference between the two positions; this non-transferability is one of the reasons his side of the interactions have failed so far.

After receiving plenty of pushback for a few years, and after being told he misrepresents the Confessional  Text position, Mark Ward posted a video two years ago, with visible frustration, planning to be finished discussing the Confessional Text position My Public Discussion with Confessional Bibliology Sufficeth Me – YouTube. Recently, after two years away from the Confessional Text position, Mark Ward went back on his plan and decided to try to engage the Confessional Text position again.

Mark Ward has not actually engaged the Confessional Text position yet; instead, he has consistently spent his time propping up straw-man arguments and knocking them down. Vince Krivda did an excellent job of responding to Mark Ward: (PDF) Which Textus Receptus?! A Response to Mark Ward’s Critique of Confessional Bibliology | Vince Krivda – Academia.edu but Ward does not want to respond because Krivda does not have a PhD, so it would not be fair. There have been plenty of responses to Mark Ward’s critiques: Answering the “Which TR?” Question – Text and Translation.

The question of “What is the TR?” has always been that the Received Text (Textus Receptus) is a body of printed texts (not one text) which printed texts correspond to Renaissance/Reformation era Greek and Hebrew manuscripts which had been in liturgical use in the synagogue and church, which were the property of the worshiping community, and which had been kept pure and providentially preserved by the people of God. Of course, since manuscripts were written by hand, there were minor variants, but those variants were usually minor and they rarely affect the sense of the meaning.

Mark Ward is to be commended, at least, for the fact that he does seem to read as much material produced by Confessional Text advocates as he can and I thoroughly and throughly believe he is trying to understand the position, but as of yet, he has not grasped it because he insists that the positions is about the “exclusive use of the King James Version,” which it is not.

I believe the reason Ward cannot grasp the position is not because of a lack of intelligence (he is very bright, is well-studied, and I appreciate his humor), but his failure seems to be because he grew up in a Christian context of fundamentalism, in which, “If all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail.” When Ward was in fundamentalism, he seems to have used his hammer on the critical text and new Bible versions; now that Ward is an advocate of the critical text and modern versions, Baptist Fundamentalism and Confessional Protestant Bibliology are his nails.

In praise of Dr. Ward: There have been plenty of criticisms of the Confessional Text position in the last few years, and most have been very weak and filled with straw-man arguments. I shall refrain from naming these critics because some of them are friends; I shall make an exception with Pastor Stephen Steele though, who infamously has made the worst arguments with the poorest writing and the most terrible citations that we have seen so far (for example Reading the Confession in Context (1): ‘Authentical’ (gentlereformation.com). Steele’s criticisms are so bad, we find ourselves astonished. At least Ward seeks to understand his opponents; Steele fails in not even reading or listening to any material produced by Confessional Text advocates, and Steele has shown that he doesn’t actually care to know what his opponents say or write; his work on the Confessional Text is the most abysmal, that we have seen, by far, so far. We give credit where credit is due, to our brother, Mark Ward, for his laborious attempts to criticize responsibly.

With that caveat stated, we note that in Dr. Ward’s video (above), he says that he is almost done…

“…dealing with different forms of defense of exclusive use of the King James, and I do definitely include Confessional Bibliology in that group, even though it’s a little more complicated than that, and it does have differences from the mainstream IFB King James Only movement.”

Ward goes on to define:

“Confessional Bibliology is the attempt of some contemporary Westminster Presbyterians and 1689 Reformed Baptists to sacralize a particular version of the Greek New Testament as a Confessional Text, in turn discrediting evangelical English translations of more recent vintages that use critically reconstructed texts, like their fraternal twin, independent fundamental Baptist King James Onlyism.”

Mark Ward truly believes he has defined the Confessional Text position, above. However, this is not the Confessional Text position, it is a straw-man fallacy, and the clock is ticking because Dr. Ward plans to be done with writing about KJV issues and he plans to be done trying to critique Received Text arguments after December 31, 2024.

I do wish I could have spoken with Dr. Ward before he made this video, so that he would not have made the same mistakes as he has made, thus far, critiquing the Confessional Text position. So far, he has not actually critiqued the Confessional Text position. Right out of the gates, in this video, he wrongly defines the Confessional Text view. John Owen, Francis Turretin, and the framers of the WCF would not recognize their own view in Ward’s critique in this video; they would not recognize their own view in any critique of it that Ward has made of the Confessional text position, so far.

I encourage everyone to read John Owen on the doctrine of scripture in his 16th volume, the appropriate sections of Owen’s Biblical Theology, and Turretin’s 2nd topic in volume one, especially questions/answers 10, 11, and 12, and then come back and read the two Ward quotations above, and try to explain that those Reformers’ positions are represented by Ward’s comment above.

Contrary to Ward, Owen and Turretin were not advocates of the “exclusive use of the King James Version” and since Owen and Turretin argued for the view, in the 17th century, it is hardly “contemporary.”

On the contemporary scene, Ward’s straw-man in the beginning of the video certainly doesn’t represent Jeff Riddle or Christian McShaffrey’s views either, as both have said, and as I have said publicly (here Devotion: Proverbs 26:4-5 – YouTube, here Sparring TR & KJV Advocates! Interview with Dane Johannsson and Brett Mahlen – YouTube, and here WM 313: Rejoinder to Ward, Ross, & Meade on the LXX and Classic Protestant Bibliology (Part 2) – YouTube).

Mark Ward is also free to listen to Word Magazine,  especially the early episodes, which go back to 2011, and he will see that Jeff Riddle has never defined his position for himself as Mark defines it for Jeff Riddle; if Ward were to do so, he would see that Riddle has always spoken of the TR as “the body of printed texts of the reformation,” (a loose quote) rather than, “exclusive use of the King James” and Mark can watch the Kept Pure Conferences in which the speakers do not affirm Mark Ward’s definition;  Ward’s straw-man is not Jeff Riddle or Christian McShaffrey’s definition of the Confessional Text position.

Twenty-five years ago I learned from Greg Bahnsen (whose extensive audio library is now online) that you should never present your opponent’s position in a weak way, and if his position is weak, you should prop it up in a way that is even stronger than his original advocacy. I encourage my brother, Mark Ward, a brother with whom I have enjoyed good fellowship, to critique the actual position, for a change. I shall lose no sleep over it if Ward continues as he began, since knocking down straw-men is something we are so accustomed to experiencing, just as Owen and Turretin have also experienced.

NB: I don’t believe Owen, Turretin, or the Westminster Divines held a weak position; their view is the antidote to the cesspool of declension that the Christian church and our society is presently experiencing.

Let us hope Mark Ward does a better job in his upcoming chapter in the IVP book than he did in this video. If he continues as he has done before, we shall suffer no loss; however, if he is able to show us we are wrong, or that Owen and Turretin are wrong, then we shall receive such correction, happily.

Epilogue:

We encourage listeners to listen to the whole video to hear Mark Ward speak of Confessional Text “idealistic theologies” (17:34) and imply that we seek “to beautify a particular form of the Biblical text” (20:15ff). Rather than idealistic, the original Westminster Confession 1:8 position is quite practical and we reject that we have beatified a particular text; though he is in error, I do appreciate Ward’s usual use of rhetoric and I appreciate his humor.

Author: Brett Mahlen (S.T.M., D.Min.) is a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church