A book titled 'The Ecclesiastical Text' with a medieval manuscript illustration on the cover, featuring a person writing at a desk surrounded by ornate medieval script.

The Ecclesiastical Text

PAGE COUNT: 283

RELEASE DATE: March 26, 2025

IMPRINT: Weidner Institute

Paperback: $22.00
Kindle: $9.99

This influential (and somewhat controversial) volume gathers a decade of essays (1987–1997) by Theodore Letis, Director of the Institute of Renaissance and Reformation Studies, written during his doctoral studies at the University of Edinburgh in defense of the Greek textual tradition that underlies the King James Bible. Originally published in both popular and scholarly journals, these articles range from accessible pieces to highly technical studies on translation philosophy, textual criticism, and the Protestant orthodox dogmatic traditions of the seventeenth century.

The collection also features four significant book reviews and two appendices, offering further insight into Letis’s thought. At its core, the work presents a rigorous defense of the Textus Receptus, the Ecclesiastical Text, over the various critical editions of the Greek New Testament that have dominated Biblical Studies since the era of B.B. Warfield. Letis challenges the prevailing belief that biblical authority resides in the original autographs, tracing the theological shift of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and contending instead that the Church’s authority rests upon the apographa—the faithfully preserved text handed down through the life of the Church.

CONTENTS

Table of contents from a book, listing chapters and sections related to Warfield, biblical criticism, and Protestant and Lutheran dogmatics.
A table of contents page from a book, listing sections and subsections related to religious history, biblical authority, Protestant orthodoxy, and theological criticism, with page numbers.
Table of contents from a book or article listing chapters and sections related to biblical studies, including titles like 'The Prologue of John and the Egyptian Manuscripts,' 'The Reformation and the Philosophy of Vernacular Translations of the Bible,' and 'The Ecclesiastical Text Redivivus,' with page numbers.
Page of a book or document with a table of contents listing chapters and appendices about historical and religious topics, including sections on Calvin, Jerusalem, America, burghers, and textual criticism.
Page showing a table of contents for a book or academic publication, including chapters and sections on White's Qualifications, Distortions, and Case Studies, with page numbers.