My original post, later picked up by Evangelical Textual Criticism blog (thanks Tommy!) is to be found here. A later discussion with Stephen Carlson (in which he plays the part of an heroic defence attorney ably trying to get an obviously guilty client off the hook) can be found here. I repeat my original points with some clarification in the light of these discussions.
The reason I labelled it an “evangelical heresy” is really to be found in the second of my original reasons: it overthrows any strong evangelical doctrine of Scripture, and therefore undercuts the whole basis of evangelicalism. I admit I write this as to some extent at least, an outsider. But if the whole of Scripture is in some sense (acknowledging that evangelicals can disagree about the precise sense) either God-breathed (as the NIV has made fashionable) or God’s Word written (as older formulations had it) then singling out the words of Jesus implicitly invites people to believe they are more important, more the word of God, than the bits for which ordinary black type will do.
I think, however, that the other two reasons are more important to me. We Christians celebrate the Word made flesh, and our understanding of that is mediated to us supremely by the stories about Jesus, what he did and how he lived, and not simply what he said.
Finally, however, the red-letter typography is simply misleading. True, our stories present Jesus as saying these words, and more naive believers may think he spoke them. But even the more conservative tend to be aware that they are translations, and that Jesus didn’t actually speak English (at least after 1611). Red-lettering, precisely because it is not a convention of most forms of written English (as normal punctuation is), suggests much more strongly that we have verbatim words. We don’t. Punctuation is a conventional treatment of the narrative as it presents itself to us, seeking to clarify the text’s meaning. Sometimes – as in John 3 – it must inevitably interpret. Red-letters imply a trustworthy editorial judgement extrinsic to the text, not only giving a false confidence that these are Jesus’ actual words, but suggesting they are more important than the narrative in which they come.
All typography has its dangers. Witness the unfortunately common reading tradition with the KJV where words in italics will often be given special emphasis, despite a note explaining that italicised words are added by the translators to help make sense. In a sense it is a testimony to the power of typographic convention. People bring their reading experience of ordinary texts to the Bible. And, I suggest, it is a real warning that red-letter BIbles, whatever their intentions, will inevitably have the bad effects I outline in these posts.
I really think that exhausts my mind on the topic. I am, after all, a bear of very little brain.
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Oh bother. I wonder what Owl would say.
Seriously, good posts. Thanks.
I’m with you one hundred percent on this Doug. But can you explain to me what is the difference between red letters in Bible and the Anglican tradition of standing for the Gospel readings but not for other Scripture readings? I am genuinely puzzled by this, partly because I don’t understand the rationale, but also because I don’t like distinguishing between Scriptures in this way.
It’s RC as well and not just Anglican. Essentially it’s saying that the stories about Jesus are proclaimed as a way of encountering Jesus, a sacramental expression of his presence, and so in that sense we stand for Jesus rather than the gospel.
Other ways of looking at it. When Jesus told those stories and delivered that teaching, he sat and the listeners stood, and so we put ourselves in continuity with that.
It’s a hermeneutical device: the OT points to Christ and the letters etc explain and unfold his significance, but it’s Jesus who is the point and purpose of all the Scriptures, and standing signifies that this is the heart of it, and the key to interpreting the previous two readings.
This last option is of course to be set beside a different pattern at services like morning and evening prayer where the hermeneutic is a simple promise (OT) and fulfilment (NT) one.
I don’t know if any of those are any help.
It may also be partly because people need to stretch by the third reading.
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