How the Ancient Church Read the Bible

How the Ancient Church Read the Bible — Fr. Stephen De Young

Source: youtube.com/live/0poRvajkPrg · FACTS channel · 2h21m Every heading links to the exact moment. Timestamps in [h:mm:ss] are clickable via search.py (they build …&t=<seconds>s deep links).

Overview

A long-form interview in which FDY lays out a single, unifying thesis: Scripture was never a free-standing text to be mined for “the one correct meaning.” It was always a liturgical object embedded in a community, and what the apostles handed down was not merely the text but a way of reading and applying it. From this he derives his accounts of allegory (“application”), apostolic succession (a traceable “chain of custody” of interpretation, not just a list of names), the canon (messy, unresolved by the texts themselves, settled by churchly authority over time), and the collapse of sola scriptura into “solo scriptura.” The back half (after ~1:31) is a live super-chat Q&A covering the canon of Esther/Daniel, the Orthodox Study Bible, the Quirinius census, St. Paul’s Jewishness, his six books, Blood Meridian, and Orthodox–Catholic relations.

Interlocutor note: the host (Stephen Boyce, a former Protestant, now doing patristic/textual work) is a sympathetic, informed questioner, not a debate opponent. This is a teaching conversation.

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1. The governing hermeneutic: read a text the way its author read texts 0:03:33

FDY’s foundational principle for interpreting any text: interpret it the way its author interpreted the texts available to him. St. Paul is the practical test case — he is “constantly citing, referencing, alluding to” the Old Testament, so how he handles the OT is the window into how to read him. 0:04:35

He diagnoses a modern error that even conservative, traditional readers carry only with the Bible (not with other texts): the assumption that every verse/pericope has a single correct meaning, and that interpretation is the method for arriving at it. 0:05:33 Converts to Orthodoxy often invert this into an equally wrong form — the one true meaning is “out there in some mysterious place,” inaccessible to the layperson, received mystically by the Fathers through the Spirit — which collapses the moment you notice the Fathers say different things about the same passage. 0:06:44

2. Why texts were different then: the “literary monument” 0:07:33

Ancient texts carried a weight we have lost because they were staggeringly expensive and rare. A copy of Romans (16 chapters) cost ~$5,000-equivalent; owning a Torah in 5th-c. BC Judea was “like having a mansion in Manhattan.” 0:07:33 A text preserved through the “long, laborious, difficult process” of copying and recopying became a literary monument — like the standing stones of the OT — which is what gives the phrase “it is written” its force. 0:08:27 You don’t treat such a thing like a note from your mom or a novel; it carries layers of meaning. 0:09:14

3. Allegory is application, not interpretation 0:09:14

The “layers of meaning” the Fathers find are better described as a pattern or dynamic in the text that is brought to bear on the present — which is why FDY argues (in his essay on allegorical interpretation) we should speak of allegorical application rather than allegorical interpretation. 0:10:10

• The Antioch–Alexandria “literal vs. allegorical” schema is overplayed — useful as a teaching device, but Chrysostom in Antioch is not doing literal expository preaching like an independent fundamentalist Baptist; he’s full of typology. 0:10:10
• Much of what survives as complete OT commentary is Origen (Joshua, Psalms, Joel) — “yes, I know he’s condemned, I’m not calling him a Father.” Genre matters: commentary (abstract, verse-by-verse) differs from preaching (bringing a text to bear on a specific audience at a specific time). We fail to take the genre difference into account. 0:11:47

4. “Right vs. wrong” is the wrong category for patristic readings 0:13:21

When Fathers offer competing readings, asking “which is correct?” misframes the task. Examples:

• The three steps to Ezekiel’s altar: St. Gregory the Great says faith/hope/love; another Father says the Trinity. Which is “right”? Wrong question — both are applications bringing the monument to bear on worshippers. The exact step-height is irrelevant to a 6th-c. Roman hearer; “the correct way to approach the altar of God” is very relevant. 0:14:09
• 1 John 2:2 (FDY’s dissertation topic — five Greek words): every Father through the Venerable Bede says “by this St. John refutes the Donatists,” centuries before the Donatists existed. They are not claiming John prophesied the Donatist schism; they mean the principle of the verse (Christ died for the whole world, not just one’s own party) runs counter to Donatist error. Not a claim about authorial intent. 0:16:05

5. Authority, accountability, and submission 0:18:37

From the beginning there are people ordained and charged to interpret and apply Scripture. This has two sides: the authority to do it, and accountability to Christ at the judgment for how they shepherded His flock. 0:19:31 “Not many of you should presume to be teachers” (James 3) is exactly this — teachers held to higher responsibility; paired with “submit to your elders.” The flock submits to those God placed over them and to their interpretations/applications. It is never reducible to a power relationship — it is an accountability relationship. 0:20:25

6. Scripture’s native habitat: the liturgical assembly 0:21:15

The Sitz im Leben of these texts was always the gathered community. 0:22:11 Paul dictated to an amanuensis, approved the text, then the scribe physically carried the letter to the community, read it publicly, and was prepared to answer questions on Paul’s behalf. That is how Ephesians/Galatians/Romans were first received, and it remained their role thereafter. 0:23:00

Lectionaries — the ignored evidence 0:23:52

• ~42% of NT manuscripts are lectionaries, yet their data is almost inaccessible. 0:23:52
• Westcott–Hort (basis of Nestle-Aland / standard critical editions) used only 2 lectionaries out of ~2,500. 0:24:40 The Patriarchal Greek text (Ecumenical Patriarchate, 1904, rev. 1912 — the first printed Greek NT by actual Greeks, who had been forbidden printing presses under the Turks) used 250 handwritten lectionaries then in use in Greek churches. 0:25:28
• Lectionaries solve chronic textual puzzles: the bloody sweat (Luke 22) appears in some Matthew texts because a Holy Week composite lection spliced it in; the pericope adulterae “bounces around” (end of Luke, triumphal entry, within John) because continuous texts were copied from lectionaries; same with the long ending of Mark. 0:26:15
• The Didache already quotes Matthew/Luke interwoven (Sermon on the Mount + Sermon on the Plain braided together) in lectionary-style form in the late 1st c. 0:28:06
• Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza produced the received text by removing Scripture from its liturgical (lectionary) context — the form in which we now buy any English Bible. 0:29:44

7. Chain of custody: messengers, bishops, presbyters 0:30:36

Colossians 4 shows the pattern: Paul commends messengers, directs the letter be read in Colossae and Laodicea, and tells Archippus to fulfill his ministry. The community receives not just a letter but a messenger — a trusted representative attached to both author and church, instructed to read, explain, and take questions; if he can’t resolve something he brings it back to Paul (hence multiple Corinthian letters — possibly up to six). 0:31:26 The messengers were interpreters and protectors of the text, not a postal service. 0:33:06 This is the embryonic bishop–presbyter dynamic: teaching authority rests with the apostle/bishop, partially delegated to the representative in his absence. 0:34:02

8. Apostolic succession = handing down a way of reading 0:35:38

Bishops are entrusted to guard the texts from corruption and to continue their right application. This is the Jewish category of binding and loosing — the office handed from Moses to Joshua by laying on of hands, continuing to the Pharisees, whose work was largely ruling on questions the text doesn’t spell out (what counts as Sabbath work? when is required repentance complete?). 0:36:24 It is invested authority, “not just a free-for-all of ‘how do you read it?’” 0:37:16

Against “branch theory” and “I have succession because I hold the texts” 0:38:07

FDY calls this a “chain of custody” — a deposit requires traceable continuity. Wes Huff’s claim (“I’m a Baptist and I have apostolic succession because I affirm the apostles’ texts”) fails: an Arian, a non-Chalcedonian, a paedobaptist could all say the identical thing — they hold the NT texts and claim to teach what the apostles taught. Mere assertion, with no evidence, is “high-school Sunday-school apologetics.” 0:41:53

• On expertise: like Dawkins on religion or Bart Ehrman on theology, being expert in one field (textual criticism) doesn’t license pronouncing on another. 0:40:10
• “¿Por qué no los dos?” — teaching what the apostles taught and the laying-on-of-hands succession go together; the linear succession is the guarantee that you are actually teaching the apostolic faith. 0:41:00

Irenaeus and Tertullian as the historical argument 0:42:43

• St. Irenaeus: look at the churches with living memory of the apostles — Rome, Antioch, etc. — they all use the same four Gospels; the gnostic groups using something else have no living-memory connection. 0:42:43 Succession is not merely a list of names (those lists do exist — Antioch’s patriarchs, Rome from Linus) but the traceable history of what was taught through that list. 0:44:16
• Tertullian (Prescription Against Heretics, quoted at length): let heretics “produce the original records of their churches,” episcopal lists running back to an apostle (Polycarp placed by John at Smyrna; Clement ordained by Peter at Rome) — the “apostolic seed.” Heretics cannot produce this. 0:45:16

Concrete continuity: the Antiochian confession books 0:47:48

In the Patriarchate of Antioch each new bishop composes his own confession of faith (Trinity, Christology, etc.), reads it publicly at consecration, and writes it in a book kept in Damascus. You can physically turn the aging pages and see what bishops believed two, three generations back — “a concrete thing, not just hypothetical.” 0:48:41

The Baptist dilemma 0:49:36

A Baptist must say that for ~1,000 years (he grants 500–1500) no one on earth was validly baptized — everyone was baptized as an infant or in mass/royal conversions. Two escapes, both bad: (a) bite the bullet into restorationism (the true faith vanished from the earth for centuries), which they won’t do; or (b) argue these things “aren’t really important” — yet they’ll schism over baptism, so it can’t be simultaneously unimportant enough to ignore and important enough to divide over. Luther, Calvin, Bullinger would all side with FDY here. 0:50:23

9. The apostolic tradition is a way of reading the Old Testament 0:52:13

The best evidence (FDY did a whole Lord of Spirits episode on it): Irenaeus’s Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching contains not a single NT quotation — it is all Old Testament. So the apostolic tradition, for Irenaeus, is a way of reading the Hebrew Scriptures as speaking of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ/Messiah. 0:53:05 What gets handed down is a way of reading and applying, and that continuity is holy tradition. A novel reading, or the claim that everyone until now got it fundamentally wrong, is rejected out of hand — and Luther/Calvin/Bullinger would agree. 0:53:52

The Incarnation changed how Scripture is read and who has authority to read it. Paul’s Hagar/Sarah allegory (Galatians 4) is the showcase: Paul is not claiming “this is what Moses meant”; he is isolating a dynamic in the text (bondage vs. freedom, old vs. renewed covenant) and showing it playing out again. 0:55:25

10. Sufficiency ≠ sola: “you can prove every dogma from the Torah” 0:56:16

FDY separates the sufficiency of Scripture (2 Tim 3:16–17) from sola scriptura. Sufficiency doesn’t entail “nothing else”: “a meal can be sufficient without being the only food I ate.” 0:57:07 He then makes his provocative claim: you can prove every bit of Christian dogma from the Torah read correctly — and offers “non-controversial” examples: 0:57:58

• Second Council of Nicaea (icon veneration): Genesis 9 — the one who sheds man’s blood, because man is God’s image; the dishonor done to an image passes to the prototype. And the Torah’s death-penalty rules for mishandling the Ark and the cherubim-embroidered temple curtains — where offenders “dropped dead on their own,” i.e. self-excommunication = the meaning of anathema (exile from paradise, cut off from the tree of life / the sacramental life). 0:58:56
• The Trinity: Exodus 31/33 — God speaks to Moses face to face, then says no one can see His face and live. “There’s a God you can see and a God you can’t see, and it’s the same God” — hypostasis and ousia. 0:59:43
• Eucharist / typology cascade: Melchizedek’s bread and wine; God eating with Abraham at Mamre; Christ proving the bodily resurrection by eating; “that rock was Christ”; the Passover lamb; the tree sweetening the bitter waters; Moses’ arms against Amalek; the bronze serpent lifted up. 1:00:32

Torah being sufficient does not mean only the Torah is Scripture. The rest of the Hebrew Bible shows the Torah playing out (Deuteronomy prophesies exile-and-return; the law of the king in Deut 17 vs. Solomon); the OT as a whole is a way of reading the Torah, and the NT is a way of reading the whole OT — “a continuation.” 1:02:09

11. The Epistle of Barnabas and Matthew’s passion 1:03:11

Barnabas reads the unclean animals typologically (an animal represents a lifestyle/sin, not itself) and reads the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) typologically of Christ — doing the same thing St. Matthew does in the passion narrative, in epistle rather than narrative form, even sharing Greek vocabulary. 1:04:46

• Barnabas’s scapegoat has a scarlet thread (not in Lev 16); Matthew robes Christ in scarlet (same Greek). The goat is driven out struck with a reed and spat upon; Matthew’s soldiers take the reed (same Greek word) and strike and spit on Christ. 1:05:41
• Therefore “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matt 27:25) is Matthew invoking the Day of Atonement / covenant renewal — an instance of unintentional prophecy (like Caiaphas: “better for one man to die for the people”) — saying more than they know. This reframes a verse “used in various horrific ways throughout history.” 1:06:32

Patristic interpretation is therefore not substitutionary — the Fathers don’t interpret so you don’t have to; they show you how to read, interpret, and apply. 1:08:23

12. Sola scriptura rests on a defective (early-modern) epistemology 1:09:12

The sola response (“only Scripture is infallible; Fathers err — Irenaeus even thought Jesus was ~50”) misses the deeper problem: sola scriptura presumes the text is a “brute fact” that can be received uninterpreted. 1:10:53 But — even a Hegel will tell you — you never receive anything uninterpreted; everything is already digested through an interpretive grid. There is no pre-interpretive, infallible access to the text, even in “the Greek or the Hebrew” (none of us is a native speaker; every lexicon is itself interpretive; a chain of editorial decisions stands behind the critical text). 1:11:48

• So sola posits “an infallible rule to which there is no infallible access.” 1:12:35
• This is why Van Til, influenced by Hegel, knew there’s no “brute facticity” of the biblical text and “wrestled mightily to square that circle.” 1:14:20
• Everyone reading Scripture is taking a reading of Scripture — which is why sola scriptura always collapses into solo scriptura. “Secondary standards” never actually function as authority: a Platonist Bible-vs-everything-else metaphysics means the Fathers are quoted when they agree and ignored when they don’t — i.e., functioning as no authority at all. 1:14:20

13. Living with uncertainty; and the canon is genuinely messy 1:16:47

You must “adopt a way of reading”; that leaves people feeling uncertain, and “the text of Scripture isn’t certain” — “buckle up, buttercup.” 1:16:47 The canon problem is not only which books but which version: 1:17:33

• Nehemiah: FDY’s standing challenge — give an argument for the canonicity of Hebrew Ezra–Nehemiah as it appears in English Bibles. Josephus uses 1 Esdras, not Ezra–Nehemiah; every Father who quotes it quotes 1 Esdras. 1:18:21
• Esther: Melito of Sardis’s list (and others Protestants appeal to) lacks Esther; Clement of Rome uses the longer (Septuagint) recension (a prayer not in the Hebrew). A Protestant professor, pressed on the mismatch between Clement’s long Esther and the church’s short Esther, could only say “it’s something we’ve got to deal with.” 1:19:07
• Daniel: Jerome notes the authorities chose Theodotion over the Old Greek (LXX) for public reading. The Orthodox Holy Saturday Daniel is Theodotion — translated by a non-Christian Jew in the 2nd c. AD. “Let that sink in.” 1:20:14

14. Authority settles the mess over time — but the real reason is the Church 1:22:02

Jerome’s point: the texts cannot resolve themselves; authorities (councils, bishops) were needed, and this emerges over time like the canon itself — the work of the Holy Spirit. FDY borrows Michael Kruger: the same Spirit who inspired Scripture led the Church to recognize it over time — and FDY extends the same logic to the Ecumenical Councils. 1:22:50

But the core answer to the messiness: too often we argue “as if we’re all atheists,” marshalling historical proofs to show our position is logically correct — arguments an atheist could make. 1:23:37 The actual reason to accept the Church’s way of reading: the Church is the place where people repent, are freed from sin, are reconciled, find salvation, encounter Christ. Identify where that is, and that is where the authority is and where the Scriptures are read correctly — then you submit to it. Not an abstract point-by-point demonstration you sign onto; “that’s not how Christianity has ever worked.” 1:24:25

15. Authority is for transformation; becoming a Christian is backwards in Protestantism 1:25:19

Protestantism is, “at the end of the day, a sign of defying authority”; submission is largely absent — disagree and you “plant and salt,” find a group that agrees, and it “keeps mutating.” 1:26:05 Even Jerome modeled the opposite: criticized by the Hebrew authorities of Tiberias for translating Tobit and Judith for public reading, he said he’d “rather be criticized by Pharisees than disobey my bishop.” Though personally inclined toward the Hebrew canon, he submitted as “an obedient son of the Church” — which is exactly why Protestants shouldn’t enlist him on canon. 1:26:56

The point of authority is transformative: “if I just have my way… I will never be transformed, definitionally.” 1:28:38 After a conversation with Gavin Ortlund, FDY crystallized the contrast: in the Protestant paradigm one becomes a Christian alone, through an experience (the sinner’s prayer — “the evangelical shahada”), then seeks a gathering one mostly agrees with, and leaves when one no longer agrees. That is exactly backwards: one becomes a Christian by entering the assembly and being shaped, discipled, transformed into Christ’s likeness by it. 1:29:28

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16. Super-chat Q&A (the back half) 1:31:06

• Orthodox Study Bible critique 1:36:10: it keeps Nehemiah though FDY judges it non-canonical; OT translated by volunteers straight from Rahlfs (hence oddities), yielding 1 Esdras + Ezra-Nehemiah so you get Esther twice and part of Nehemiah twice; uses NKJV for the NT (because Thomas Nelson owns/distributes it) — “half the study-Bible notes correct the NKJV back to the Greek.” Study Bibles are tools, not binding; no ecumenical council endorsed the OSB. 1:40:04
• Whole Counsel of God = FDY’s parish Bible study, recorded as a podcast, verse-by-verse through the longer Orthodox canon (now on a second pass). 1:36:56
• James White debate 1:41:41: FDY is granting sola scriptura for the sake of argument and arguing atonement from the Greek NT; recounts their history (he was on White’s program as a Protestant; now “potshots on Twitter”; White won’t debate Ignatius unless FDY also debates the Immaculate Conception).
• Luke 2:2 / Quirinius census “contradiction” 1:47:23: “Syria” was a region, not the modern country/single province (reached into Asia Minor, the Levant, Lebanon, even W. Iraq — Coele-Syria); ancient dating is far less secure than claimed (no non-textual evidence of Pilate until an inscription ~35 yrs ago; Egyptian chronology recently shifted >a century). Herod’s death re-dated from 4 BC to 1 BC (last ~15 yrs), so Christ’s birth is now put at 3 BC, which fits Passover falling on a Sabbath in AD 30 and astronomical/astrological data in Luke/Matthew. The gap between Herod’s death and Quirinius (AD 6 “in Syria”) is shrinking. 1:50:42
• St. Paul the Pharisee 1:55:43: against James Tabor-style “Paul hijacked/de-Judaized the Jesus movement,” and against the reverse 19th/early-20th-c. German view (Paul the villain who Judaized Jesus’ movement). FDY argues Paul’s Pharisaic training under Gamaliel is real and his epistles are more intelligible from a Jewish standpoint; the opposing readings mostly inherit Luther’s reading of “works of the law.” Commends Matthew Thomas, Paul’s “Works of the Law” in the Perspective of Second-Century Reception. 1:58:08
• His books 2:02:48 (Ancient Faith Publishing; six out, a seventh coming): Religion of the Apostles (one-volume Orthodox biblical theology; 1st-c. Christianity & Second Temple Judaism), God Is a Man of War (violence in the OT), The Whole Counsel of God, St. Paul the Pharisee (biography + new translation), Apocrypha (the actual apocrypha — Enochic literature, Jubilees, apocryphal Acts — framed by Nikephoros the Confessor’s early-9th-c. canon list), and the Baal book (Baal cycle, archaeology of Baal worship, and OT passages using Baal language). “Apocrypha” means “[read] privately,” not hidden/secret/banned. 2:04:23
• Blood Meridian / Judge Holden 2:05:58: FDY (self-described “weird, sick individual” who enjoys bleak fiction; favorite novel is Camus’s The Stranger) thinks Judge Holden is not a spiritual being but a “modern Nephilim” — a human “completely gone over,” totally demonic in aspect.
• House of David / The Chosen 2:08:30: he was a consultant on season 1 of House of David (the Agag scene uses an actual Ugaritic death curse he supplied and coached the actor’s pronunciation on); he has eschewed The Chosen and reacts to its “Native American angels” / Mormonism controversy.
• Closing — Orthodox–Catholic relations 2:14:51: set aside filioque and papal supremacy (unresolvable in our lifetimes — “the microwave is out, but we’ve got a burst pipe”) to defend what united East and West for the first millennium against attacks on the intercession of the saints, the Theotokos, and the resurgence of Pelagianism. He distinguishes the Magisterial from the Radical Reformation (crediting Mennonites/Quakers with more value than American Evangelicalism), and confessional Protestantism (Ortlund, White, Horton) from non-confessional American Evangelicalism — the latter “the Walmartization of something resembling Christianity.” Key historical point: most of the doctrines modern American Protestants call “unbiblical” were still held by the magisterial reformers; only in the 18th–19th c. (esp. American Protestantism) were they “discovered” to have been unbiblical all along. 2:18:03

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FDY’s positions in brief (searchable via data/0poRvajkPrg.json)

Topic	FDY’s view	Where
Allegory	Call it allegorical application, not interpretation — isolating a dynamic in the text and bringing it to bear on the present	0:10:10
Antioch vs. Alexandria	Overplayed teaching device; Chrysostom is not a literalist	0:10:10
Competing patristic readings	”Right/wrong” is the wrong category; they are applications	0:13:21
Teaching authority	Ordained men are charged to interpret/apply; authority = accountability, not power	0:18:37
Lectionaries	~42% of NT MSS; ignored by the critical text; solve many textual cruxes	0:23:52
Apostolic succession	A traceable “chain of custody” of interpretation, not just a name-list	0:38:07
Branch theory	Fails — an Arian could make the identical “I hold the texts” claim	0:41:00
Baptist history	Entails ~1,000 yrs of no valid baptism; forces restorationism or self-contradiction	0:49:36
Apostolic tradition	Is a way of reading the OT as speaking of Christ (Irenaeus’ Demonstration)	0:52:13
Sufficiency vs. sola	Scripture is sufficient but not solo; you can prove every dogma from the Torah	0:56:16
Sola scriptura	Rests on early-modern “brute fact” epistemology; no infallible access; collapses into solo scriptura	1:09:12
Canon	Messy — not just which books but which version (Esther, Nehemiah/1 Esdras, Daniel/Theodotion); settled by churchly authority over time	1:17:33
Why submit to the Church	Not by atheist-style historical proof but because the Church is where people are saved/transformed	1:23:37
Becoming a Christian	Not an individual experience then shopping for a congregation; you are shaped into a Christian by the assembly	1:29:28
Quirinius census	”Syria” = a region, not modern Syria; ancient dating insecure; Herod re-dated to 1 BC, Christ’s birth to 3 BC	1:47:23
St. Paul	Genuinely Pharisaic/Jewish; opponents inherit Luther on “works of the law”	1:55:43
”Apocrypha”	Means “[read] privately,” per Nikephoros’ canon list — not hidden/banned	2:04:23
Judge Holden	Not a spiritual being — a “modern Nephilim,” a human gone wholly demonic	2:05:58
Orthodox–Catholic unity	Set aside filioque/papacy; unite against attacks on the saints, Theotokos, anti-Pelagianism	2:14:51

References surfaced in this episode

• Biblical: Genesis 6 (women/angels, head-covering context), Genesis 9 (image of God), Exodus 31/33 (face of God), Leviticus 16 (Day of Atonement), Deuteronomy 10/17 (law of the king) & exile prophecy, Isaiah 53, Daniel 7, Hosea, Galatians 4 (Hagar/Sarah), Colossians 4, 1 & 2 Corinthians, 2 Timothy 3:16–17, James 3, 1 John 2:2, Luke 2:2 / 22 (bloody sweat), John 8 (pericope adulterae), Mark 16 (long ending), Matthew 27:25.
• Fathers / early texts: Irenaeus (Against Heresies; Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching), Tertullian (Prescription Against Heretics), Origen, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great / Gregory the Theologian, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Venerable Bede, Clement of Rome, Jerome, Augustine, Melito of Sardis, Nikephoros the Confessor; Didache, Epistle of Barnabas.
• Texts/versions: Septuagint vs. Theodotion (Daniel), 1 Esdras vs. Ezra–Nehemiah, longer/shorter Esther, Westcott–Hort, Nestle-Aland, Patriarchal Greek NT (1904/1912), Rahlfs, Codex Alexandrinus.
• Modern scholars/figures: Michael Kruger, Cornelius Van Til, Bart Ehrman, Wes Huff, Gavin Ortlund, James White, Mike Horton, Scott Hahn, Matthew Thomas, Hans Boersma, James Tabor, Larry Hurtado; Beau “Doc” Branson (forthcoming “views” book with Ortlund).