The Whole Counsel of God

A note: I tried to both summarize Fr de Young’s book and provide some of my own insight and useful cross-references. And there’s some asides, arising from my own journey, no doubt.

Largely finalized as of 2026-10-24. Until I decide to revise it.

Introduction

As modern people, we are used to thinking of the Bible as a printed book.

See In Accordance with the Scriptures

Fr de Young sums up the modern ways of understanding the Bible as multiple and bewildering. He writes this book as an introduction on how to read the Bible as an Orthodox Christian. In addition to understanding the text, reading the Bible offers spiritual nourishment.

Chapter One: What Is the Bible?

The Bible as a book within a set of covers is relatively modern (printing press made this format popular, but think how we encounter it in Church, with the Epistles in one Book and the Gospel in another), and colors how we think of the Bible as modern people.

Writing was more expensive in the antiquity and written words therefore valued more. (They were not typing on a mechanical keyboard. Not only was the knowledge of writing not well known, the materials [parchment and quills] used were laborious to make.) (See The Scroll Whereon the Finger of God Inscribed His Word for a discussion of parchment making.)

Inspiration

Yet the Bible is inspired (spire both ‘breath’ and ‘Spirit’), which values it above all other writings. Yet the writings involved the human composers of the various books of the Bible.

Old Testament

The Torah is not currently in the paleo-Hebrew that would have been used in the time of Moses, but later edited.

Psalms composed and compiled over a long period of time.

The disciples of the Prophets wrote down their words at various times.

New Testament

NT also written and edited, though over a much shorter time frame. St Paul used a secretary. St John didn’t just write a first draft of the Gospel one afternoon.

This person [who delivered St Paul’s letters to the churches] would read the letter aloud to the community to which it was written and be expected to answer questions regarding its content.

Once, someone in my old Presbyterian church made a comment similar to this about St John’s Apocalypse, (chapters 2 & 3 are letters to the churches of Asia Minor) and I told him that if that were the case then the Protestant doctrine Scripture Alone wouldn’t be correct (as commentary on the letter wouldn’t have been written down). Part of my journey toward the fullness of the faith involved accepting those implications.

In the 2nd century, collections of various parts of the NT circulated together, the Pauline epistles, the Gospels, the Catholic (Universal) epistles. (The Apocalypse has a different history.)

Luke-Acts exist in two different forms, perhaps due to two drafts (although there are other explanations).

Thus, the quest for the “original text” is a fool’s errand. The Holy Spirit who inspired the text, also kept the text for us through the ministry of the Church. After all, it’s a bit meaningless to us in the 21st century if God inspired the “originals” but we’ve lost them.

Inerrancy

In the “Enlightenment” in Germany, a different approach was taken to the Scriptures than traditionally done by Christians.

Late dates were argued for the composition of the NT. OT history rewritten and NT studies focused on the quest for the “Jesus of history” as distinguished from the “Christ of faith”. (Terms from the 3rd[?] Quest for the Historical Jesus from the late 20th cent.)

In American Protestantism in the early 20th cent., we get the Fundamentalist-Modernist divide. Yet Fundamentalism assumes modern/enlightenment methodologies. (Fundamentalism would later diversify into what we know today as Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, and then Evangelicalism became a political movement…)

Out of this discussion, came the term ‘inerrancy’. But the term assumes an approach to the Scriptures at odds with the historic Orthodox understanding of the function of the Scripture. For the Orthodox, the Scriptures function within the Church and the Liturgy. Scripture meditation and its use in the Liturgy is to shape the believer into the image of Christ. Not so we can go take a shovel to some tel in the Levant and see if what we find (through our modern interpretation) aligns precisely with what the Scriptures wrote concerning that place. (And the Scriptures were not written to a modern audience, with modern presuppositions and concerns.)

Sola Scriptura

Scripture alone was the formal principle of the Reformation. That is, the Reformers thought that Scripture alone forms the doctrine of the Church.

However, as Fr Stephen notes, this doctrine was formed to argue against a Roman doctrine of Scripture and Tradition. (See Heiko Oberman and others on Tradition 0, 1, & 2, a classification scheme in which the Orthodox view does not neatly fit.)

Often it is said that Protestants and Romans have different answers to the same questions, but the Orthodox ask different questions. This is one of those cases.

In the West, there were 3 sources of authority:

Scripture
Tradition
Teaching authority of the Church (Magisterium)

(Some authors combine points 2 & 3.)

Sola Scriptura is the Prostestant view that Scripture is the primary source of authority. Tradition and Church authority can be (and have been) wrong. Contrawise, Roman Catholics place the Magisterium as the final interpretater of Scripture (which from the outside can look like placing the Church above Scripture).

What both of these views have in common is the view that God’s revelation consists of discourse primarily. Propositions (statements that describe something: God, man, the world, etc.) are communicated in Divine Revelation.

However, the Orthodox understanding of revelation is that it is Personal. The Word of God primarily refers to Jesus Christ, not the Scriptures. One must know Christ through experience. Scripture, and the Divine Services have him as their content. This experiential knowledge of Christ is mediated by the Holy Spirit. The activity in the Church throughout the ages is understood as Tradition. Scripture, the crown jewel of Tradition, was given so we may know Christ (John 20.30–31: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”)

So the Orthodox does not ‘reject’ Scripture alone so much as it considers it an answer to an irrelevant question. Much as if one were to ask, “what is the color of the sound of a waterfall?”

Chapter Two: What Is in the Bible?

The Bible is a collection of literature.

The canon (or list) of which books are Scripture was not developed by various predetermined criteria. Some Protestant discussions of canon argue the books met certain criteria, oddly this would seem to place the teaching authority of the Church above Scripture. ¹

Recognizing this problem, some Reformed Protestants have nuanced it saying the books of the Bible were recognized as inspired. And you get an odd teaching of the late Presbyterian teacher R.C. Sproul, that the Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books. (While attempting to find this reference, I discovered an Internet search of the term gives many results where Roman apologists have run with this pointing out its obvious deficiencies, although being Roman having a different solution than we would espouse.)

In our age, the canon is taken for granted, after all in the introductory material of our Bibles we find a list of books and their page numbers. But this is not how the ancients would have experienced Scripture. Primarily Scripture was encountered liturgically, and the codices were like our lectionaries. Epistles in one volume, Gospels in another, the Psalter in another and selections from the Old Testament in a fourth. Very few (like the famed Vatican Codex or Alexandrian Codex) resembled the Bible at home on the shelf. For more of the implications of this see In Accordance with the Scriptures by Fr John Behr.

The Ecumenical Church did not convene a council to determine the limit of the canon, which is why on the edges there is still some diversity (4 Maccabees and the Apocalypse of Ezra.)

The Old Testament Canon

A common misconception is that the Old Testament existed as such. (Again see In Accordance with the Scriptures where Fr John Behr discusses the inadequacy of the term “Old Testament”.) Codices were not widely used until popularized by Christians in the 1st and 2nd centuries. (Even today Jews have a Torah scroll prominently displayed in the synagogue.²)

The Torah

The Torah, the first five books of the Bible, has existed as a unit as far back as we know. It is associated with Moses, but a fundamentalist version of Mosaic authorship has issues. Chief among them is that paleo-Hebrew (the language of Moses’ day) is quite different from the language of the Torah (Biblical Hebrew). Additionally, Deuteronomy describes Moses’ death, and other passages indicate the text has been updated.

In the documentary hypothesis (once in vogue, but now rather modified among scholars) the J stands for Yahwist because of the German spelling (the hypothesis being initiated by 18th c. German scholars).

Fr de Young discusses the importance of Scripture as received by the Church. This concept is important for Orthodox Christians. How did the Church receive and use the Scriptures? Questions about precise authorship are less important for our understanding of the text.

The Prophets

The older designation of the Historical Books as the Former Prophets is a more useful categorization. This lets us see in the books of the Kings why there is so much focus on Elijah and other prophets, and why the history of these books is not written as we would write history today. Omri was rather important as determined from archaeology, but only has 8 verses about him in 3 Kingdoms.

The books from Joshua to 4 Kingdoms are concerned with the themes of Deuteronomy. However, the Books of the Chronicles³ have a different perspective, focusing on the Davidic monarchy in light of the coming Messiah/Christ.

The Later or Classical Prophets contain more of what we think of as prophecy but also contain historical narratives as well. Note the Twelve have been found on one scroll as far back as we have records, indicating they were collected together early, and did not circulate independently. This should have implications for how we study them. (But then again I examined Jonah without much consideration for the rest of the Twelve.)

The Writings

“And the rest”

The Psalms are preeminent in this section. But some of the others took longer to be accepted into the canon (e.g., Ecclesiastes, Esther, Song of Songs) and some were rejected by Jews but accepted by Christians (Judith, Tobit, Sirach) which were then later rejected by Protestant Christians.

The history of the books accepted by the Orthodox and Romans but rejected by the Protestants is complicated. While these books are given a less central role by the Orthodox, they are outright rejected by the Protestants. However Protestant apologetics claiming the early church did not receive these books especially break down concerning Jeremianic literature (Baruch and Epistle of Jeremiah) as well as in the additions to Esther and Daniel.

Daniel has a complicated history and is included among the Writings for the Jews, but among the Prophets for Christians.

The Formation of the Old Testament Canon

The TaNaKH is an acronym for the three divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Protestants enlist Josephus to say the 1st cent. Jews held to a unified canon. But Josephus was a member of one sect (Pharisaism) of Judaism and other sects had different canons. (The Sadducees for example held just the Torah to be authoritative).

Fr Stephen gives a helpful but brief introductory outline of the acceptance of the Deuterocanonical works here and a three-fold classification of books.

The New Testament Canon

Fr Stephen discusses various misunderstandings of how the NT was received. In summary, the NT was received by various Christian churches having recognized books and sharing among themselves. The Gospels and Pauline Epistles were recognized early, the General Epistles a little later with some controversy on 2 Peter. Apocalypse/Revelation took a long time to be accepted, and even today is not read in Orthodox Churches (except on the isle of Patmos) as it was recognized as canonical after the standardization of the Lectionary.

A footnote addresses the “Synoptic Problem” — how the Synoptic Gospels relate to each other, but while interesting, an in-depth analysis is outside the scope of an introduction.

Chapter Three: How Did the Bible Get to Me?

Textual criticism is the study of (handwritten) textual variants. However, recovering the “original text” is not an achievable or even desirable goal.

While the Protestant Chicago Statement on Inerrancy says we can now (mostly) recover the original text of the Scriptures, when taken to its logical conclusion, means the Church throughout the ages had only subpar noninspired texts.

An interesting question (though not addressed in the text) given Fr de Young’s statement that in every age the Church has the Scriptures the Holy Spirit intended her to have is “What do we do with scribal mistakes?” Granted some are obvious like the infamous “Thou shalt commit adultery” Bible (and this is post printing press, so typesetting mistake).

My beginnings of an answer is that textual criticism/awareness is not new, e.g., Origen’s Hexapla and no Scripture verse stands alone. Scripture is given within a community, and the bishops are entrusted with ‘rightly dividing the word of truth’.

See also Whose Bible is It? and St Augustine City of God

Old Testament Textual Criticism

The Leningrad Codex is the earliest complete Hebrew Bible extant, and is still the basis of the critical Hebrew text. (Not mentioned is an older Hebrew codex, The Aleppo Codex, which has an interesting history where much of it was lost in the 20th century. For future reading: The Aleppo Codex: In Pursuit of One of the World’s Most Coveted, Sacred, and Mysterious Books by Matti Friedman)

The Leningrad Codex represents the Masoretic (school of copyists in the 9–11th cent.) tradition (abbreviated MT). They developed vowel points and codified a marginal notes tradition (qere & kethiv read and written)

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls showed that some texts existed in multiple variants, and textual criticism focuses on these differences and the translation into other ancient languages.

The Greek Old Testament Tradition

Technically the ‘Septuagint’ (LXX) is the Greek translation of the Torah, but popularly it refers to all the Scriptures translated into Greek before Christ⁴. The oldest translation of nonTorah texts is properly called “Old Greek”. The Kaige recension was created before Christ as well (or possibly contemporary) but many LXXs today have the translations blended. Additionally, other translations were created after the time of Christ. St Justin the Philosopher (Martyr) refers to the Jews changing the texts to avoid Messianic inferences. (Although he might also have been talking about the Hebrew text; certainly centuries later the Masoretic scholars had to choose which Hebrew variants to codify, and consciously or not some choices reflect different readings than the Christian Scriptures.) The most ‘successful’ of these was Theodotion’s translation, his translation of Daniel is used today in the Orthodox Church. The Jewish people eventually gave up the use of Greek and most of the translations faded into obscurity.

One of the tragedies of history is that the Hexapla was lost. Origen was a scholar ahead of his time (speculative theologian aside); the Hexapla could only have been produced by him and had 6 columns:

Hebrew,
Hebrew transliterated into Greek,
Aquila,
Symmachus,
LXX, and
Theodotion.

A, S, and T are the 3 more recent Greek translations. Other scholars after Origen produced revisions of the Greek text for the Church.

The sum of this is that the Greek Scriptures are a family of texts, not a single document (this is true across both Testaments).

The Aramaic Old Testament

Targums

These are glosses of the Hebrew in Aramaic. (Although some parts of the OT were originally written in Aramaic, parts of Daniel, Ezra, one verse in Jeremiah, maybe Tobit). As the Targums are glosses, they provide useful interpretive historical insight.

The Samaritan Pentateuch

This is the version of the Torah/Pentateuch used by the Samaritans (who didn’t accept the rest of the Scriptures). There are some changes related to Samaritan life, but also some other difference from the Hebrew/Torah that are not specifically related to Samaritanism.

The Syriac Old Testament

There is a new translation (Antioch Bible) of the Syriac Scriptures (Peshitta). When I did my study of the Book of Ruth, I got ahold of a copy of it for a week through Pima Community College’s interlibrary loan. Syriac Ruth is rather similar to the Hebrew and Greek (at least in their English translations).⁵

The Syro-Hexaplar version was translated from the 5th column of the Hexapla, which became the basis for later Syriac versions.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The most important Biblical archaeological find of the 20th cent. was the Dead Sea Scrolls. These showed both how the Qumran community valued texts and how accurately the Hebrew texts were preserved. Interestingly there are two versions of Jeremiah, one that would be the basis for the MT, and another that would be the basis for the LXX. The insight in the Qumran community transformed our understanding of Second Temple Judaism: the background of the New Testament.

New Testament Textual Criticism

Fr de Young again emphasizes the quest of the original text is quixotic — tilting at windmills. However, in the various manuscripts of the NT we have a great resource left to us.

The New Testament Manuscripts

There are about 5,800 NT manuscripts (including fragments). On average the earliest of these date to about 75 years after the books were written (NT written in mid to late 1st cent, manuscripts from mid 2nd cent.). 5,800 manuscripts is orders of magnitude more than other ancient literature.

Fr de Young addresses the differences between manuscripts, and why Christian scribes were not as careful as Jewish scribes. (Judaism had lost much of its ritual life in the destruction of the Temple. Christian scribes often arranged the text into lectionaries, and sometimes glosses crept into the text.)

He includes the role of lectionaries in the transmission of the text.

Families of Manuscripts

There exist certain ‘families’ of manuscripts where manuscripts share similar patterns and other features

Alexandrian Type

From Alexandria, mostly written before the miaphysite⁶ (Coptic) schism, as the Coptic church focused on Coptic language text. As these are some of the oldest texts, scholars Westcott and Hort used them as the basis of the critical text in 1881. The Sinai Codex (א), Vatican Codex (B), and Alexandrian Codex (A) are the most well known of this text type.

Western Text Type

This type is smaller than the others, as the Bible was translated into Latin early on in the West. The Vulgate is based on this type.

Byzantine Type

The last major text type is Byzantine, which has the most manuscripts, but which were written later than the other two.

The concept of text type is useful as a general concept, but there are several manuscripts which are not easily classified. Additionally, although having geographic names, it doesn’t indicate where a particular text in that type is from.

Other Sources

Early translations into other languages can give us insight into the Greek, specifically what words were used to translate Greek phrases. Moreover, the Church Fathers quoted Scripture profusely.

Chapter Four: Which Bible Should I Read?

All of this is interesting, but most of us (myself included) can’t read Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. So how should we choose an English-language Bible?

Due to capitalism and copyright law, the number of English translations has proliferated. Take a look at the myriad of translations on Bible Gateway for instance.

Different Base Texts

Largely covered in the previous chapter, this section applies this to English translations.

For OT LXX translations: Brenton: 1800s English imitating 1600s English (a flaw of several 1800s translations of Patristic texts also.) Intended as an aid to the Greek. OSB: Common in English Orthodox circles but the OT relies too much on the NKJV. See OSB’s Differences from the LXX.

NETS: An academic translation, with technical introductions and useful notes. LES: Currently my go-to translation. Mostly readable, more accurate than the OSB. Fr Stephen notes the critique that it’s a diplomatic translation of the Vatican Codex, but the introduction to LES states as such. A correction on the Odes, the Magnificat is there as Ode 11 (perhaps they’re numbered differently in the text)

Newer translations from the Hebrew OT and NT make use of more available manuscripts. Fr Stephen goes into detail about the Received Text and the Majority text.

Methods of Translation

Fr Stephen discusses formal and dynamic equivalence, generally favoring formal equivalence as it is closer to the text. However, one does have to be careful not to translate woodenly or in a way unintelligible in Modern English.

Bibles with cross-references are very helpful for Bible Study. I have the Cambridge ESV Reference Edition with Apocrypha. The cross references are very useful to see connections between the portions of the Bible (also at ESV.org for just the Protestant text). The NET Bible has extensive notes that are useful for understanding the text.

Major English Translations

Fr Stephen recounts the history of the KJV; the ‘standard’ version from which its descendants (ASV, RSV, NRSV, NRSVue, ESV) get the ‘standard’ in their names. (The [Holman] Christian Standard Bible is doing something else and is not a descendant of the KJV.)

On the KJV-only movement, who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

See (upcoming) notes on the NRSVue translation of Genesis 1.1 and Psalm 1.1.

An amusing note, around the time of this book’s publication the NRSV was revised to the NRSVue (New Revised Standard Version, updated edition) which has three words to mean ‘new’ and two for ‘version’.

Chapter Five: How Should I Read My Bible?

Now the application section. We often don’t read the Bible because we’re not sure how to read it.

If reading the Bible straight through Genesis is relatively easy, but it gets harder mid-Exodus. And most efforts end in Leviticus, or Numbers.

Yet just reading is of little value if there is not corresponding understanding (Acts 8.31).

Reading: What Does the Text Say?

A variety of translations (available online) can be helpful in understanding the text.

While some knowledge of the Biblical languages can be helpful, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It’s best not to overrely on one’s dabbling in Greek or Hebrew.

Interpreting: What Does the Text Mean?

Interpretation is the art of determining what a text means. This requires knowledge of context, both historical and within the text.

Scriptural Context

First level of context: what’s the context of the portion of the Scriptures being read? Is it in a story or history, an argument or discourse? Psalms and Proverbs are more self-contained units brought together.

But most passages within a context and the interpretation must account for what comes before and after the passage.

It is good to read both small portions of Scripture as we do liturgically, but also large portions or whole books to glean context.

Historical Context

This next level of context covers when a piece was written; where in the overarching story of the Bible is it? Historical context also includes such things as what the cultures of the time were like, or what other literature were the authors interacting with.

Canonical Context

A third level is canonical context. How does the text reference other Biblical texts? How does the New Testament reference the Old?

Liturgical and Patristic Context

Addressed later in application: some relevant questions are: How has the Church understood the passage? How is it used in the life of the Church?

Applying: How Is the Text Relevant to Me and My Life?

Application is the culmination of interpretation. But this can be the most difficult at times.

Church Tradition and the Fathers

“Tradition moderates and directs our application of the Scriptures.” Saints from all ages have lived as Christians and found salvation in Christ.

We should look to their example of sanctity when interpreting and applying the Scriptures. Yet this is not without pitfalls.

“As contemporary people … we tend to think every verse in the Scriptures has one meaning and the goal of interpretation is to find that one meaning.” Yet the Fathers write otherwise, and find multiple layers of meaning in Scripture:

If there only existed a single sense for the words of Scripture, then the first commentator who came along would discover it, and other hearers would experience neither the labor of searching, nor the joy of finding. Rather each word of our Lord has its own form, and each form has its own members, and each member has its own character. Each individual understands according to his capacity and interprets as it is granted him. St Ephrem the Syrian — Commentary on the Diatessaron 7.22 (as quoted in The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition)

Fr de Young sums up the relation between literal meaning and application:

The truth is that these two levels of meaning require each other. If the Scriptures are not true in their original, contextual sense, then no other application can be certain. If the Scriptures are true only in their original, contextual sense, then they are irrelevant to anyone living after the first century AD except as a historical curiosity.

Liturgical Services of the Church

I’ve frequently said that all needful theology may be obtained by attending the Church services and listening to the words.

By participating in Church services, we can internalize the Scriptures in a profound way consistent with how the Tradition has been handed down to us.

Tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church, his people, which he has guided into Truth.

Conclusion

The Scriptures are central in the life of the Church. The liturgy is constantly quoting and alluding to them.

In the Scripture we both encounter Jesus Christ and receive the language to respond to him.

created	2026-06-03 22:54:03
updated	2026-10-25
book-title	The Whole Counsel of God: An Introduction to Your Bible
book-author	Fr Stephen de Young
publication-date	2022
rating	A good introduction
status	read
related	—
tags	status/stable, bible, textual-criticism
pandoc	—

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