Deuteronomy 32:43 in the ESV and the NRSV Has Two Emendations

 

A Textual Criticism Issue:  Should the Septuagint or the Dead Sea Scrolls Emend the Masoretic Text?

By Charlie J. Ray, M.Div.

 

Evangelical scholars today place a high priority on proving that the Bible is accurate according to the extant manuscript evidence that underlies the modern English translations today.  All parties in the disputes agree that only the original autographs are the actually inspired or God-breathed words of God.  There are numerous complications entailed by the Evangelical dogmatics which assert that modern textual criticism can reconstruct the original autographs of the Bible from the original language texts in Koine Greek and Masoretic Hebrew.

This paper will examine only one example of a textual criticism issue that compares a reading from the Hebrew Masoretic text of Deuteronomy 32:43 and Hebrews 1:6 of the Koine Greek New Testament.  Advocates of modern reasoned eclecticism claim that Hebrews 1:6 indicates that the Masoretic Text of Deuteronomy 32:43 shows that the Masoretes or the Jews edited out part of the verse during the transmission of the text or that it was somehow accidentally left out due to a scribal error.  The basis for this claim is that at least one manuscript tradition of the Septuagint has the exact phrasing of Hebrews 1:6 as it is recorded in the Greek New Testament.  A further assertion is that at least one Hebrew manuscript discovered at Qumran in the Dead Sea Scrolls has a version of Deuteronomy 32:43 that contains the missing phrase that is recorded in one edition of the Septuagint.  Allegedly, the Greek wording of the Septuagint verse in Deuteronomy 32:43 is an exact phrasing match to the wording in Hebrews 1:6.

It is my contention that this is not necessarily a proof that the Masoretic Text is in error and that the LXX and the DSS scrolls are a correction to the Hebrew of the MT.  I will approach this problem using logic as the basis for my critique of the reasoned eclecticism position.  The science of modern textual criticism is based on the fallacy of induction or the fallacy of asserting the consequent.  If there are allegedly errors in the Masoretic Text, there could be other explanations for the apparent discrepancies.  Presupposing that the apparent errors are actual errors, leads to asserting the consequent for the simple reason that it is just as possible that the LXX adds to the text of the Masoretic Hebrew text and that the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that the text was altered to fit with the Septuagint reading.  There are, of course, other possible explanations for why the DSS manuscript has the alternate reading.  This paper will dig into the scholarship and offer an opinion at the end of this paper.

Since the English Standard Version of the Bible[1] is now the go to translation for many Reformed denominations and congregations, I want to first examine the translation of Deuteronomy 32:43 in the ESV and then talk about the footnotes in the 2002 edition and the 2025 edition.  There is at least one change in the footnotes for 2002 to 2025 in regard to Deuteronomy 32:43.

Apparently, there was a matter of controversy over the footnotes in the ESV in earlier editions.  The 2002 edition reads as follows:

“Rejoice with him, O heavens; bow down to him, all gods,(4) for he avenges the blood of his children(5) and takes vengeance on his adversaries.  He repays those who hate him(6) and cleanses(7) his people’s land.”(8)[2]

The 2025 edition has the following text with footnotes:

“Rejoice with him, O heavens;(9) bow down to him, all gods,(10) for he avenges the blood of his children(11) and takes vengeance on his adversaries.  He repays those who hate him(12) and cleanses(13) his people’s land.”(14)[3]

 

The first thing to notice is that in the updated edition that there is an additional footnote following the word “heavens”.  The second thing to notice is that there is an additional phrase in the verse that is not included in other translations:

Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people. (Deut. 32:43 KJV)

The added phrase in the ESV is after footnotes 4 and 10 respectively in the above quote.  I will first examine those two footnotes and offer a critique before proceeding to the other footnotes.  Of the several translations that I checked, only the New Revised Standard Version adds the phrase “bow down to him, all gods.”  The only difference is that the NRSV translates “bow down” as “worship”.  The NASB 1995, the Legacy Standard Bible, the NIV, the NET, and even the RSV[4] all leave out the additional phrase.  Footnote #4 in the 2002 edition of the ESV reads: 

Dead Sea Scroll, Septuagint; Masoretic Text Rejoice his people, O nations[5]

            What is going on with this footnote?  Footnote 10 from the 2025 edition of the ESV reads as follows:

Masoretic Text lacks bow down to him, all gods,[6]

Notice that the comment from the 2002 edition has been changed to remove the acknowledgment that the sources of the phrase come from the reading in the Septuagint manuscripts and from a manuscript found at Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Footnote #10 in the 2025 edition completely removes the information about the sources and simply says that the phrase is not included in the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text.  Whether intentional or not, the footnote in the 2025 edition splits the verse in order to remove the information earlier admitted in the 2002 edition of the ESV.  I tend to think that this is intentional because Bible readers familiar with other translations, especially the KJV and the NKJV translations, will be quick to notice that the ESV emends the Masoretic Text by adding a verse found only in an obscure DSS manuscript discovered in Qumran sometime after 1947 in the original Hebrew.  Presumably, the fact that the DSS confirms a reading from one of the Greek manuscripts of the Septuagint tradition.  But the question is whether or not this proves that the Masoretic Text is wrong and somehow mistakenly dropped the phrase from the Hebrew text?

            To their credit, most of the modern translations do not emend Deuteronomy 32:43 using the DSS or the LXX.[7]  Next, I will examine the reasoning behind the decision of the ESV translation committee to emend the verse with the added phraseology and the theological implications that result from that conjectural emendation.  Also, why did the ESV change the translation of “nations” to “heavens”?   I will also examine that issue before moving on to the argument that Hebrews 1:6 is a direct quote from the LXX as stated by Greg Lanier.[8]

Hebrews 1: 5– 14 draws on multiple Old Testament passages to make exalted claims about Jesus’s divinity. Hebrews 1:6 is one of the most impressive, as the Father commands even angels to worship his “firstborn” son— a status no mere human could enjoy. But the quoted text is drawn from the longer Greek of Deuteronomy 32:43 and is not present in the Masoretic Text (recall table 5.3 in chap. 5). A portion is also attested in 4Q44 of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Thus, the Old Greek wording used in Hebrews may reflect an earlier and better text than the shorter Masoretic Text form (which is why some modern Bibles like the ESV present a composite form at Deut. 32:43). Whatever the case, this additional wording from Moses’s final song allows the author to drive home the huge difference between Jesus and angels.[9]

            Although Lanier and Ross were not part of the translation committee for the Old Testament of the ESV, the reasoning used is most likely the same.  For some reason moderate Evangelicals tend to repeat the arguments of theological liberals, baptizing them with their Evangelical views as if this justifies the liberal arguments.  So exactly what is the LXX reading that is supposedly quoted in Hebrews 1:6 and how does that match up with the Hebrew reading from the DSS 4Q44?  The first thing to notice is that the LXX reads “sons of God,” not “angels”.  The other difference is that the Hebrew of DSS 4Q44 reads “gods”[10], not “sons of God”.  The Hebrew word is elohim, which is sometimes in reference to God and other times a reference to angels or false gods.

The discrepancies are numerous.  Furthermore, the emendation used to justify the reading in the ESV and the NRSV is based on a tiny fragment of a Hebrew parchment found at Qumran, which is dated to 50-1 B.C.  Instead of confirming Hebrews 1:6, the emendation that is lauded by Lanier and Ross in Deuteronomy 32:43 undermines the Masoretic Text as the standard and objective foundational text for the translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew original.  A further discrepancy is that the LXX does not exactly match Hebrews 1:6 because in the New Testament the verse reads “angels” not “sons of God”.  In short, the supposed match between Hebrews 1:6, 4Q44, and the LXX is very loose and mostly based on conjecture and on an extremely small fragment of a Hebrew manuscript found in the DSS.  The only other evidence is the portion of the LXX found in Codex Vaticanus, which has both the Old Testament with apocrypha in Greek and the New Testament in Greek.[11]

A short rejoinder regarding the theological implications of the Lanier and Ross view is in order.  First, it does not logically follow that because the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text is dated to the Leningrad Codex of about 1008 A.D. that it is therefore less trustworthy than the LXX or the DSS, including a fragment from 4Q44.  The Bomberg edition of the Hebrew Masoretic Text, which is preferred by the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Reformation Bible Society, is dated to the 15^th century A.D.  Dr. Jeffrey Riddle argues that the tenacity of the text means that the readings that are preserved in the Bomberg edition of the Hebrew Masoretic Text were providentially kept pure in all ages because those were the readings that God caused the church to accept as canonical Scripture over the centuries.

Another question arises concerning Hebrews 1:6. Is it really necessary to make conjectures as to how the apostolic writer came to write this verse?  What we do know is that the text has been universally accepted as the God-breathed and written word of God from the beginning.  Just as the apostle Paul quoted pagan poets in the book of Acts without implying that the writings of the poets were inspired, so the writer of Hebrews could possibly be aware of the LXX without viewing it as replacing the Masoretic Text.  A further possibility is that the writer of Hebrews viewed the allusion to the LXX as theological support for the deity of Christ without regarding that translation as a correction of the extant Hebrew of his day.  In other words, it is a huge jump in logic to presuppose that the writer of Hebrews had access to an earlier Hebrew manuscript that agreed with the LXX.  This is an entirely subjective conjecture on the part of Lanier and Ross.

Furthermore, there are other emendations added to the text of Deuteronomy 32:43 which Lanier and Ross completely ignore.  The MT reads goyim or “nations”, not “heavens”.  Another entire clause gets added from the LXX: 

4 Dead Sea Scroll, Septuagint; Masoretic Text lacks He repays those who hate him[12] 

None of the modern translations that translate from the MT add this clause to the verse.  Only the ESV and the NRSV add the verse as far as I can tell.  This is another reason that I do not recommend the ESV.  Not only is it based on the RSV, a liberal translation of the Bible, but it goes even further astray from the RSV by emending the Old Testament based on conjectural readings from the DSS and the LXX.  Even the RSV of 1952 did not go that far—at least in regard to Deuteronomy 32:43. Finally, the phrase “bow down to Him all gods” is a bias towards henotheism, or the acknowledgment that other gods exist in reality rather than simply being either empty idols or demonic fallen angels.  The Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament rejects the ancient near eastern idea of henotheism.  There is only one God.  All of the others are either idols with no real god behind them or they are viewed as demons under God's control.

---

[1] All Scripture references in this paper refer to the King James Version, 1900 edition, unless otherwise noted.  References from the English Standard Version are only pertaining to the topic of this paper, namely textual criticism, translation issues, and the footnotes from the 2002 and 2025 editions of the English Standard Version.

[2] English Standard Version.  2001. (Wheaton: Good News, 2002).  Thinline edition. 

[3] ESV, Ibid.  2025 edition.  The footnote numbering is different.

[4] The RSV was published in 1952 before the Dead Sea Scrolls became popularized.

[5] ESV, 2002 edition.

[6] Ibid., 2025 edition.

[7] Hereafter the Dead Sea Scrolls will be abbreviated to DSS, and the Septuagint will be referenced as LXX.

[8] “Hebrews 1:6 (Deuteronomy 32:43) Again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him [Heb. omits phrase].’”  Lanier, Greg; Ross, William A.. The Septuagint (p. 157). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

[9] Ibid., pp. 157-158.

[10] See:  https://dssenglishbible.com/scroll4Q44.htm

[11] 0240      Dt 32:43–33:11: Image 1.  Brannan, Rick, ed. Manuscripts of the Septuagint. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020. Print. Manuscripts of the Bible.

[12] ESV 2002, footnote 4.

A Review of Paul King Jewett's Book: Emil Brunner's Concept of Revelation

 

Book Review:  Emil Brunner’s Concept of Revelation, by Paul King Jewett

 

Paul King Jewett.  Emil Brunner’s Concept of Revelation.  (London:  James Clarke & Co. Ltd, 1954).  190 pages.

This book has been out of print for so many years that I cannot determine when it was no longer published.  It was written as publication of the Evangelical Theological Society, which Dr. Gordon H. Clark helped to found.  Paul King Jewett was a student of Gordon Clark when Clark taught at Wheaton College during the 1941 school year.[1]   Later Paul Jewett did a Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard Divinity School, and Dr. Clark used Jewett’s dissertation in his philosophy classes when was a professor at Butler University in Indiana.[2]  In 1954 the book was published by the Evangelical Theological Society at Dr. Clark’s request. 

I became interested in reading this book after reading about Fuller Seminary and Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s former students in Douglas Douma’s authorized biography of Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  It took some time to find a used copy online.   This book review is the result of that endeavor.  In the front of the book, Paul Jewett clearly dedicates the book to “Dr. Gordon H. Clark, Teacher and Friend.”  At the time of the publication Paul Jewett was teaching philosophy of religion classes at Gordon Divinity School, in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.  The school is now known as Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

In the acknowledgements on page vii, Jewett says that he is indebted to Dr. Gordon H. Clark, Dr. Roger Nicole, and Dr. Edward John Carnell for feedback during the writing of the book, and presumably during the writing of the dissertation.  While doing studies for his doctoral dissertation, Jewett took classes with Emil Brunner in Switzerland at the University of Zurich where Brunner taught systematic theology and practical theology in 1951. 

In the first four chapters of the book, Jewett explains in detail Brunner’s views on a host of theological topics, including time and eternity, the Bible, historiography, and existentialism.  In chapter five, Jewett begins to offer a critique of Brunner’s theology and neoorthodoxy.  Also discussed was the feud between Karl Barth and Emil Brunner over the issue of special revelation versus natural revelation and natural theology.  The problem with both men is that terms used by Evangelicals in theological discussions are completely redefined by the two neoorthodox theologians.  I suspect that this is one reason that Dr. Gordon H. Clark insisted on precise definitions of terms in his writings.  One indication of Clark’s influence on Jewett in the writing of this book is the precision with which Jewett discusses existentialism and the existentialist philosophers, especially Soren Kierkegaard.

In the interest of brevity, I will try to summarize the chapters of the book and the subsections of each chapter.  In the introduction Jewett says that Barth and Brunner wish to be known as theologians of the word:

Though the thought of Barth and Brunner has been nicknamed the Theology of Crisis, of Paradox, of Dialectic, sometimes even of Pessimism, the designation which undoubtedly best conforms to the intention of these theologians themselves is that of Kattenbusch, i.e., The Theology of the Word.[3]

In reviewing this book, perhaps the reader will indulge me a few digressions.  In the debates between the supporters of Cornelius Van Til and Dr. Gordon H. Clark, the question of the qualitative difference between God’s knowledge and human knowledge is often brought up in regards to the Creator/creature distinction and God’s archetypal knowledge versus humanity’s ectypal knowledge through divine revelation in the Scriptures.  The hard truth here is that Gordon Clark did not try to pry into God’s archetypal knowledge.  What he said was that the ectypal knowledge revealed to man, who thinks discursively, is univocally the very same propositions and thoughts that God has.  Clark did distinguish between God’s intuitive and direct knowledge of propositions and all other knowledge and man’s discursive and limited knowledge.  In other words, the qualitative difference between man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge is that God’s knowledge is omniscient and intuitive as an eternal Being, and man’s knowledge is limited to what man can intellectually absorb discursively given the limitations of time and history.  I bring this up in reference to Jewett’s quotation from Karl Barth at the top of page 1, opening the discussion of Revelation and History in chapter 1.

If I have a ‘system’, it consists in this, that I always keep in mind with the utmost vigour what Kierkegard has called the ‘infinite qualitative difference’ between time and eternity, and that in both its positive and negative implications.  ‘God is in heaven and thou upon earth.’”  --Karl Barth

This book is heavy reading for anyone who is unacquainted with neoorthodoxy or existentialism.  The very first chapter raises the issue of relativism in regards to historiography.  The problem of relativism is not new to the 21^st century.  It was already obvious in the early 20^th century.  Both Brunner and Barth recognized that WWII raised the problem of Nietzschean relativism to a higher level; Nietzshe's philosophy contributed to rise of the totalitarian regime of Hitler’s Nazi party.

The problem is that the existentialist view did not return to the authority of an infallible and inerrant Bible as the basis for a civilized society.  According to Jewett, the neoorthodox theologians did not think that the Bible could withstand modern criticism:

The answer to Relativism, however, is not a return to the infallible Bible of Orthodoxy.  Brunner shares with the other leaders of the Neo-Supernaturalistic school, the conviction that in the light of Biblical criticism, such a procedure would be hopeless scientific obscurantism that could only widen the breach between the modern mind and the Christian faith.[4]

Brunner wanted to oppose relativism because of what he had observed when the Nazis took over Germany. 

Brunner styles Relativism in religion “Historicism”.  It marks the dissolution of all theology.  Revelation becomes “’the inner feeling and certainty of the whole of things and its being, which we call religious feeling or perception’ (Troeltsch)”.  This progeny of religious Liberalism, is the parent of modern Totalitarianism.  The Relativism into which we have been irresistibly drawn by the abandonment of Biblical faith is, so Brunner feels, a cause of that monster of wickedness, the totalitarian state.[5]

Jewett’s analysis of Brunner’s beginning point or axiom for his neoorthodox theology or new modernism sounds almost orthodox, except it is not.  According to Jewett, Brunner understood that “Christianity stands or falls with its claim to a transcendental revelation . . .” that cannot be part of the historical process of world events.[6]  Yet, Brunner does not want to throw out history because he recognizes that the Bible reveals a history of revelation in historical time.

The thrust of Jewett’s analysis of Brunner is that he wants to ignore history and instead replace it with an existential encounter with an eternal God.  Brunner’s theology is nothing like the Reformed view of propositional truth and a biblical system of theology.  Instead, Brunner returns to a man-centered or anthropocentric view where revelation is an existential experience of God’s revelation, not a written source of information in propositional form.  Like Barth, Brunner emphasizes God’s transcendence, not His immanence in His creation.  Jewett’s book has the advantage of tracing the theological and historical roots of the development of modernist theology and philosophy and their influence on Barth and Brunner.

The problem is that Barth and Brunner did not return to orthodoxy.  Instead, they redefined the orthodox terms to fit with their reaffirmation of theological liberalism in a different form.  In chapter one Jewett compares Brunner’s view of Hegel and Kierkegaard.  Hegel's view of history was that of an evolution of religious thinking in the “consciousness of the race.”  Kierkegaard objected because this would just make Christianity a dot on the historical timeline, a blip on the radar screen of history.[7]

One of the reasons that Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til had differences is that Clark accused the supporters of Van Til of unknowingly crossing the line into neoorthodoxy at certain points of their arguments, which emphasized paradox.  On the other hand, supporters of Van Til's apologetics accused Clark of violating the Creator/creature distinction by his view that the Bible is univocally the very words of God in propositional revelation.

Jewett, although not mentioning the Clark/Van Til Controversy, brings out aspects of the dispute by highlighting Brunner’s belief in a totally transcendent God:

Brunner shares with Kierkegaard and Barth an unshakeable conviction in the absolute otherness of God, in the infinite qualitative difference between the Creator and the creature (eternity and time).[8]

The controversy rages on today.  John Frame, a student of Van Til, and professor emeritus of Reformed Theological Seminary in Oviedo, Florida, has proposed that God has two existences.  He was highly criticized for this view because it suggested a downgrade into ditheism.  Another professor at Westminster Theological Seminary proposed that God took on covenantal properties so that he could condescend to human level or become immanent in the world.  This was criticized by theologians who said that this would make God mutable instead of immutable.  The key feature of Van Til’s apologetic is the Creator/creature distinction.  To violate this distinction would be to make God mutable and immanent, not transcendent, according to Van Til.  The one thing that students of Van Til were supposed to avoid is mutualism or confusing the Creator with creation or with the creature.  Ironically, both Frame and Oliphant were students of Van Til as well.

For those who want to understand Gordon H. Clark’s critique of neoorthodoxy better, I highly recommend buying a used copy of Paul King Jewett’s book.  It is in fact the first book that Jewett wrote and the most conservative one.  In later years, Jewett went down the road of limited inerrancy and joined the Presbyterian Church USA where he began to push for egalitarian views of male and female leadership.  Clark’s book on neoorthodoxy[9] is recommended as well as his book on historiography[10].  Both books are meant to respond to both Barth and Brunner.  Clark was critical of Arminianism because of its view of God as finite and subject to autonomous humanity.   You could say that he opposed making God mutable or immanent as well.  Furthermore, Clark affirmed the transcendence of God by recognizing that God knows all things by intuitive and eternal omniscience.  He recognized the limitations of humans as discursive and limited to the temporal realm of time and space.

 

Soli Deo Gloria.

 

 

 

 

---

[1] Douglas Douma.  The Presbyterian Philosopher:  The Authorized Biography of Gordon H. Clark.  P. 307.                                                                                                                                                                            

[2] Ibid., pp. 309-310.

[3] Paul King Jewett.  Emil Brunner’s Concept of Revelation.  (London:  James Clarke & Co. Ltd., 1954).  P. 1.

[4] Ibid., p. 9.

[5] Ibid., pp. 8-9.

[6] Ibid., p. 10.

[7] Ibid., p. 12.

[8] Ibid., p. 13.

[9] Gordon H. Clark.  Karl Barth’s Theological Method.  1963.  Second edition.  (Trinity Foundation, 1997).  277 pages.

[10] Clark.  Historiography:  Secular and Religious.  1971.  Second edition.  (Jefferson:  Trinity Foundation, 1994).  366 pages.

An Update on a 2/11/2011 Blog Post: The Incarnation

I made a few remarks to update my change of views over time.  In February of 2011, I had an online dispute with a polemical supporter of Dr. Gordon H. Clark's views.  His name is Sean Gerety.  After many years of carefully studying Dr. Clark's books and articles, I have come to a different conclusion.  I made the following remarks on the top of the post this morning:

[08/16/2026.   I do not delete old posts from my blog in order to show how my views have evolved over time.  In the case of the accusations of Gordon H. Clark being called a Nestorian, this is really nothing new since the Lutherans think that most all Presbyterians are guilty of Nestorianism due to the fact that Presbyterians deny that the resurrection body of Christ is ubiquitous or present in, with, and under the communion elements of bread and wine.  Also, perhaps there is misunderstanding of Clark's view because Dr. Clark defined a person as the propositions that he thinks.  Proverbs 23:7.  According to Clark, all three Persons of the Trinity are omniscient and all three Persons are the same God.  The three Persons all know the same infinite propositions possible to aseity and deity.  The difference is stated well in the Athanasian creed.  The Father is not the Son or the Spirit.  The Son is not the Father or the Spirit.  And the Spirit is not the Father or the Son.  If the personal distinctions are actual distinctions between the Personal subsistences, then obviously the three Persons cannot think that they are the other two persons.

In regards to the incarnation, the Definition of Chalceon, 451 A.D., Clark noted that the creed says that Jesus had a reasonable human soul.  For Clark, human personality is therefore limited in every way that every other human is limited and finite.  God, on the other hand, being immutable, is not finite or limited in what He can know.  Therefore, when the divine Logos became incarnate in the human person of Jesus Christ, He did not replace the human and reasonable soul of Jesus Christ.  If so, that would be the heresy of Apollinarianism.  For Jesus to be a completely human person he must have a soul like other humans. 

On the other hand, if the divine Logos gave up the "free" exercise of His divine attributes, as contended by Millard Erickson, the Baptist theologian, and as contended by certain Assemblies of God Pentecostal theologians, then the Trinity would be short one of the Persons of the Godhead.  In other words, if God is immutable and all three Persons are fully and truly God, then it is impossible that the second Person of the Trinity laid aside His divine and incommunicable attributes or even the "free" exercise of the divine attributes.  That would violate divine immutability.  This is the heresy called the "kenosis" or "sub-kenotic" view of the incarnation.  Pentecostals favor this because they believe in the continuation of the apostolic gifts or charismatic gifts and want to say that Jesus did His miracles by faith and that modern day Pentecostals can perform miracles by following Jesus's good example of faith.

In order for Jesus to be both God and man, both the human nature and the divine nature must be preserved without separating the two natures or confusing the two natures.  Dr.  Clark was able to do this because of his definition of Person.  I think a better term might have been "mind."  The human mind or soul is fully human and not divine.  The divine mind of the Logos, the second Person of the Trinity, is always fully omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.  So, there is no need for the Logos to change in order to become incarnate.  Jesus, the human person or human soul with a rational mind, had to grow in knowledge as every other human person or soul does.  How the two minds are united is through a spiritual union that violates neither of the two natures.  

When Clark denies the infinity of God in his final book, The Incarnation, he is not saying that God is not infinite in the way that David Engelsma thought he meant it.  What Clark meant was that there is nothing mysterious about what God knows.  For Clark, it is a moot point to argue that the archetypal knowledge of God is unknowable.  Both the Van Tilians and the Clarkians agree on that point.  The argument is rather over whether God knows exactly the same propositions that we know as humans in our finite ability to understand special revelation.  Of course God knows exactly what we know because by providence God controls our very thoughts.  While we cannot know everything God knows in His intuitive omniscience and timeless eternity, we can think God's thoughts after Him as He has revealed them to us on the discursive and temporal level.  Clark never uses the terms archetypal or ectypal; however Clark's distinction between God's intuitive knowledge and man's rational but discursive knowledge amounts to the same thing.

Personally, I think Van Til and Clark agreed on much more than the students of either apologist realize.  I am beginning to study Greg Bahnsen's views on apologetics.  I think Bahnsen, of all the students of Van Til, is probably the most logical.  Bahnsen emphasized logic as finite, but did not reject logic or propositional revelation in toto as some of the more extreme Van Tilians today do.  

At any rate, these are complex theological and philosophical issues.  I will try to comment more in the future.  I still think that Sean Gerety should show more charity to the Van Tilian side instead of being so polemical.  Perhaps the same humility should also apply to the more radical Van Tilians like R. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary, California, and Scott Oliphant of Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.]

You can read the original post at:  Attempt At Reconciliation Is Rejected. 

For a serious of posts that I wrote on the issue of Clark's view of the Incarnation see:

Index of blog articles on Clark's view of the incarnation.

Although I mostly agree with Clark's biographer, Doug Douma, I think Douma is a bit off to say that the disagreement was about an impersonal nature of Christ.  Both sides of the issue agree that the human mind of Christ was limited in the way that all humans are limited.  I do not believe that those who hold that Christ is one Person of the Godhead mean to deny that Christ is a genuine human being with a rational human soul, though they are inconsistent in their attempt to avoid being accused of Nestorianism.

The Trinitarian view of God is that all three Persons of the Trinity are God, sharing the same divine nature.  So the divine nature is not impersonal.  It is tri-personal.  God is one in being or nature and three in Persons.  The Van Tilians emphasize the doctrine of perichoresis to show that all three Persons are the same God.  The same can be said about the incarnation.  The human nature of Christ is not impersonal because He has a genuine human soul that is rational.  Animals, not being the image of God, are not personal or rational beings, although animals do have some sort of soul and self-awareness.  You can read Douma's article here:  GHC Review 44: The Incarnation.

The problem I think that most Van Tilian critics have is that they have not taken the time to study Clark's view in detail.  To avoid making that same error, I have decided to take a year or more to study Van Til's works and the writings of those who studied under Van Til.  I think probably Greg Bahnsen and John Frame would qualify.  Scott Oliphant does not seem to be as objective as John Frame on Clark's views, although Frame gets things wrong as well.  I just bought a copy of Bahnsen's book, Van Til's Apologetics:  Readings and Analysis.  Hopefully, this will clarify the differences between Van Til and Clark.  It should be noted that several of those who studied under both Clark and Van Til agreed that in later years the two apologists reconciled, especially over the importance of the biblical doctrine of inerrancy.  One former student of Van and Clark reported that Clark was invited to speak at Van Til's retirement.