Puzzling illustrations

Advocates of modern translations and the Greek critical text have introduced the puzzle – particularly the jigsaw puzzle – to try to illustrate either the problem or the solution regarding whether we now have all the words inspired of God for the New Testament.[i] Curiously and tellingly, the puzzle illustration is puzzling, used in contradictory fashion by various apologists and text critics.

First, there is the “proof of preservation” use by apologists such as James White, Marc Minter, Robert Bowman, and Jonathan Beazley.[ii] Beazley writes:

Imagine the Bible is like a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Over the duration of history, we have obtained 10,100 pieces. This is a much better dilemma than obtaining 9,900 pieces. Textual criticism comes along and determines through in-depth factors, which would best resemble the original, and which were the added 100 pieces.

Minter uses the illustration similarly, only with fewer puzzle pieces:

Quite simply, the textual variants in the New Testament manuscript tradition provide 1,074 pieces (not a technically precise number) to a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. We do not have to wonder if we have all the words of the original authors; we are merely left with the task of fitting the pieces together appropriately and leaving the extras on the side.

White also uses the 10,000-piece puzzle in trying to explain how he can believe that we have all the original readings from the apostles (comments start about 12 minutes in on the linked video):

Robert Bowman used, I thought, a brilliant illustration – Dan Wallace agreed that it was a brilliant illustration – he said, “The situation we face is like having a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and we have 10,100 pieces”...Now, you know, that having 10,100 pieces would complicate that process, because you have to identify the extra pieces. But, which would you rather have, 10,100 pieces and have to identify the extra pieces, or 9,900 pieces and never be able to complete the puzzle? We don’t have the 9,900, we have the 10,100. And so, that is, to me, is a tremendous testimony to preservation of the text of scripture over time. I believe that God has preserved the New Testament.

On first glance, the puzzle illustration seems to provide an outlet for asserting the preservation of Scripture while at the same time dismissing providential preservation. It is, however, problematic. The apologists arguing on this basis simply assume that no pieces are lost and that the 100 pieces are extra.[iii] Once providential preservation has been jettisoned, they are left without a leg to stand on. Text critics do text criticism with a naturalistic mindset, “as if God didn’t exist.” “If God didn’t exist,” it is just as likely that they only have 9,000 pieces of the puzzle – with 1,000 needed pieces missing and 1,000 pieces that are extras from some other puzzle (just “chance survivals from the past”). As Dan Wallace claims, “We do not have now—in our critical Greek texts or any translations—exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it.” Using their own puzzle illustration: since they do not have the picture of what they puzzle is supposed to look like, they will never know whether they have pieced it together correctly. Only because of God promising to preserve and providentially preserving his word can we believe that we have the correct 10,000 puzzle pieces.

Second, there is the “lack of preservation” use by text critics such as Tommy Wasserman, Paolo Trovato, and Peter Gurry. Text critics contradict the assertions of the apologists.

In contrast to the apologists, Italian historian Paolo Trovato puts it this way:

Thus, a good simile for our situation could be that you are trying to put together the pieces of an enormous old puzzle in which the most precious pieces must be putted in the center of the puzzle, but only 5% or 10% of the pieces are extant, and the rest is missing.

Similarly, Gurry and Wasserman:

As Richard Evans reminds us, our historical knowledge is always contingent on “the extent to which it is possible to reconstruct the past from the remains left behind.” What is left behind are fragments, chance survivals from the past—we are trying to piece together the puzzle with only some of the pieces. In the case of textual criticism, this means that we have only a selection of the manuscripts that once existed, and sometimes incomplete manuscripts. Although New Testament textual critics are used to straining under the number of manuscripts that we possess, there must be an even greater number that are forever lost.[iv]

While White, Marc, Bowman, Beazley, and others have left over puzzle pieces, Wasserman, Trovato, Gurry and their partisans are short puzzle pieces, “trying to piece together a puzzle with only some of the pieces.” If apologists and critics approach the text of the Bible with a naturalistic mindset—“chance survivals from the past”—then the “lack of preservation” puzzle will win. Every time.

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[i] A jigsaw puzzle consists of various pieces of different shapes of cardboard, wood, or similar material, that have to be fitted together to form a picture or design.
[ii] These men believe God has preserved his word, after a fashion, in the total body of manuscripts that have been found. Probably Robert Bowman, referenced by White, is Robert M. Bowman Jr., an evangelical Christian apologist and President of Faith Thinkers.org.
[iii] This is based on the simplistic, senseless, and suspect “rule” that the shortest reading is the correct reading. Therefore, these proponents think you just “go through and examine those variants and see what has been added later.”
[iv] “Limitations and Future Improvements” in A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence Based Genealogical Method, Tommy Wasserman, Peter J. Gurry. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2017, p. 112.