Examination of Modern NT Text Criticism (2/2)
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(iii) The Lectionaries Witness Against the Major Premise.
There are at least 2143 lectionaries extant. Lectionaries are portions
of the New Testament books arranged according to a fixed order for reading in
the churches at worship. This system developed at a very early date in the
church (probably the first century), because the practice of assembling the
scriptures in this way was taken over from Judaism. This being the case, the
text of the lectionaries represents a very reliable transmission medium since
the lectionaries saw such limited use and were publicly read. The
lectionaries support the reading of the traditional text over against the
proposed changes of Westcott and Hort.
(iv) The Later Copies Witness Against the Major Premise.
There are about 3000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that were
copied by handwriting. Most of these copies are dated after 800 A.D. The
class of manuscripts dated after 800 A.D. is known as the "later copies" in
this section. It is the contention of Westcott and Hort that since there was
a conspiracy that fabricated the traditional text, all later copies may be
collapsed into a single fabricated copy of the fourth century which may be
ignored. But since they did not show that there was such a conspiracy, the
witness of the church in the fourth century is in reality a consensus of
independent witnesses to the authenticity of the traditional text. Westcott
and Hort don't believe there were any errors due to transmission between the
fourth century and the later copies that couldn't be corrected through a
majority consensus of the manuscripts. Since they did not prove the fourth
century text to be a fabrication, a procedure that corrects the errors in the
later copies establishes the authentic text.
The rate that errors formed in transmission by handwriting may be
observed by considering how many times Codices A and C mentioned above differ
from the traditional text in the book of Luke. This gives about one word
being affected in 90 over the course of 400 years. Estimate the New Testament
to contain approximately 140,000 words. There are 2000 copies that existed
less than 1200 years from the autographs. If the transmission rate was
basically the same until the middle ages, and no corrections were made, it may
be concluded that the average error rates of the later copies is about 1 word
in 30.
Even if all early copies were destroyed, the original text could be
recovered from the later copies through error correction. The error
correction procedure is to take an odd number of manuscripts and form the
corrected text by adopting the words supported by the majority. This recipe
of correction is hardly novel, it has intuitive appeal as a reasonable
correction algorithm where independent, equally credible witnesses are
available.
One modern text critic objects that this method is irrational because
the later copies are "too homogeneous" for this model [12, p. 207]. This
difficulty may not exist, because this author does not quantify his claim; to
a liberal text critic, one error in thirty may be considered homogeneous.
Even if the error rate is lower than one word in thirty, it is easily
explainable in that a majority vote process may have been employed by many
independent witnesses in the course of document transmission, and thus the
errors corrected through independent observation. It is significant that no
mechanism has ever been put forward by these critics to account for how an
archetype would be universally enforced in the monasteries of the middle ages.
This is a large difficulty because hand-writing had to be the mechanism of
transmitting and enforcing the archetype. Logistically this is a very large
task. How could it be executed without evidence is a puzzling mystery.
If it is pessimistically assumed that no copyists in the middle ages
employed error correction, it would still only take 7 independent manuscripts
with an error rate of 1 word in 30 to establish the New Testament text with
only 1 error. If 21 manuscripts are used then the probability of a single
error in the new testament is less than 1 part in one hundred thousand.
Before the final edition of Erasmus Greek text of the New Testament, he had
considered at least 17 Greek manuscripts, and 10 Latin manuscripts on a first-
hand basis. Many more manuscripts were consulted by those who reviewed or
commented on his publication, including codex B whose variants are mentioned
in the margin of the second and 5th editions and accurately characterized as
corrupt. In addition to this Erasmus compared two other contemporary Greek
editions: the Aldine, and the Complutensian. With this large, diverse body
of manuscripts consulted, it is more likely that the original autographs were
re-assembled by Erasmus than to think that they were not. [13, p. 35-42]
The later copies are sometimes wrongly thought to be the strongest
evidence against the theories of Westcott and Hort. Those who argue from the
later copies are accused of trusting only the later copies instead of the
ancient. All the opponents of Westcott and Hort attempt to do with this
argument, however, is show that it is unreasonable to think that there are any
uncorrected errors in the New Testament caused by transmission through
writing. The later copies show that Westcott and Hort's theory is wrong
because there was no conspiracy in the fourth century. It is unreasonable in
the face of historical evidence to believe that the ancient Christian church
accepted a fabrication, and so the later copies establish the original
autographs.
It is usually claimed that the text type of the later copies isn't
represented very strongly in the earlier centuries by remaining manuscripts.
This difficulty has not been proved to exist because the "text type"
categories have never been precisely defined. (See section II B, and D.)
Even if this difficulty exists, it is no serious problem to the traditional
view, because the more popular and reliable a manuscript is, the more likely
it is that ancient copies would have worn out and no longer be available. One
author who has the courage to mention this argument in a scholarly paper [12,
p. 206] raised the related difficulty that if this applies to the copies
before 800 A.D. why does it not apply to those after 800 A.D. The reason is
simple. Movable type was invented in the early 1400's, and manuscripts didn't
see the same use that they did prior to it's invention.
When movable type was invented the mechanism for text preservation was
changed. Without movable type a reliable manuscript had to be handled at
least once, and probably many times for each copy that was produced. With
movable type, copies could be produced by the thousand with little more
manuscript handling than it previously took to produce one copy. It is no
wonder that the Gutenburg Bible is the first book of this period known to be
printed in movable type. By 1500, there were more than 1,000 printer shops in
Europe. Erasmus, who assembled a Greek edition for printing, lamented the
idleness and carelessness of copyists in 1522 "such are the customs of the
clergy, who care more about plates than pages and are interested more in money
than manuscripts." [13, p. 41]
In the later copies we have a snapshot of the reliable manuscripts that
were employed to preserve the text through transmission by handwriting. As
you go back in time before the invention of movable type, the more reliable
manuscripts gradually taper away until none are available before 800. This
same phenomenon is observed in other works that were preserved by transmission
through handwriting. The following list gives the title and date of the
earliest extant copy of 14 works whose earliest extant copy is later than 800:
Caesar (900 A.D.), Plato Tetralogies (900 A.D.), Tacitus Annals (1100 A.D.),
Tacitus minor works (1000 A.D.), Pliny the Younger History (850 A.D.),
Thucydides History (900 A.D.), Suetonius De Vita Caesarum (950 A.D.),
Herodotus History (900 A.D.), Sophocles (1000 A.D.), Catullus (1550 A.D.),
Euripides (1100 A.D.), Demosthenes (1100 A.D.), Aristotle (1100 A.D.),
Aristophanes (900 A.D.). [9, p. 42] The Bible has much support before 800
A.D. by manuscripts that were not used regularly by professional scribes, but
this evidence is inferior to that of the later copies because the breadth of
evidence more than compensates for the time span from the original {see also
section II B. point (2) comment (c)} If this is not reasonable to you, then
can you tell where so many homogeneous copies would have appeared from if not
from an abundance of similar copies that existed in previous centuries but
were worn out?
(c) Recent Papyri Finds Prove the Major Premise False
When Westcott and Hort published their Greek Text in 1881, all but one
of the more than 200 early Egyptian Papyri were yet to be discovered.
According to their view, none of these Papyri (dated between 100 and 300 A.D.)
should support the readings that are included in the traditional text but
not in ALEPH, B, or D. They believe their major premise (that the traditional
text was fabricated in the fourth century).
Sturz [14] has collected lists of readings found in Papyri dated between
100 and 300 A.D. that contradict the major premise of Westcott and Hort. His
first list gives 150 different readings of the traditional text, that Westcott
and Hort rejected because they were found in neither ALEPH, nor B, nor D.
This evidence is extremely damning to the major premise because it is 50 times
longer than the list Westcott and Hort offer for proof of conflation. A
second list of Sturz contains 170 readings found in the traditional text that
were confirmed by early Papyri, but were rejected by Westcott and Hort because
they were not found in ALEPH or B but were found in D. A third list contains
80 readings found in the traditional text that were confirmed by early Papyri,
but were rejected by Westcott and Hort because either ALEPH, or B, or D did
not contain the reading.
(4) The Beliefs of Westcott and Hort Favor Gnosticism.
"Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light,
and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!",
Isaiah 5:20
Given the incredible weight of evidence standing against the theory of
Westcott and Hort, and the very thin evidence they offer to establish their
theory, it is natural to ask: what motivated their theory? Since Westcott
and Hort say that the church up to their time has been following the wrong
manuscript, they claim that Christianity for the last 1500 years has been a
large heretical sect. Since their favored manuscripts show Gnostic doctrinal
corruption, it is natural to suspect that they espoused Gnosticism, and this
is the reason for their conclusion. A brief review of the history of
Gnosticism compared to Westcott and Hort's biographies and works shows this to
be true. Early in their career Westcott and Hort were open, flagrant
spiritists. This apostasy continued throughout their life but was veiled in
secrecy for the success of their text critical theory. The doctrine that they
taught publicly reveals their Gnostic bias.
One might think that the correlation of Westcott and Hort's heresies
with one of the early heretical groups is nothing more than coincidence. The
history of the Gnostic heresy makes this thought impossible because Gnosticism
was an extremely popular and repulsive heresy. The visible roots of
Gnosticism trace back to Philo Judaeus (20 B.C. to 40 A.D.) a learned Jew of
Alexandria who had a school that produced most of the prominent early Gnostic
leaders including Basilides [7, p. 74] who also established a school in
Alexandria. Basilides was secretive about the unspeakably disgusting
practices, but we know from those who practiced openly (e.g. Carpocrates) that
they cast spells by sorcery, practice dream-bringing of familiar spirits, and
so on. "In keeping with this they teach that all the vilest things must be
done by those who intend to go through with their initiation into these
'mysteries' or rather abominations; for in no other way can they escape the
'cosmic rulers' than by rendering to them all the due performance of
unspeakable rites." [4, p. 159, p. 87] These unspeakable rites involved
cannibalism, unlawful intercourse and such like. It is reported that the
Gnostic movement was the mother of nearly every heresy that plagued early
Christendom [4, p. 86]. Yet they did not represent a monolithic organization
that agreed in doctrine, but "one after another new heresies were invented,
the earlier ones constantly passing away and disappearing, in different ways
at different times, into forms of every shape and character." [4, p. 160]
Because Gnostics claimed to be Christians, it was believed that Christians did
these horrible things, and this was the wellspring of the persecutions. [4, p.
160-161]. The religious doctrines that characterized Gnosticism were not
always found with the unspeakable rites in evidence. For example, Clement of
Alexandria (150-215) and Origen (185-254) were apparently never accused of
partaking of the secret rites, though they espoused Gnostic doctrine. It is
difficult to find a heresy from the early church that was not related in some
way to Gnosticism. One can learn a great deal about the opposing doctrines
that precipitated the creeds by comparing the summary of Gnostic doctrine
presented earlier with the content of the creeds. It is no coincidence that
Arius (318) the leader of the controversy that opposed the true church and
necessitated the creeds was a presbyter at Alexandria [7, p. 121], the hot-bed
of Gnosticism.
As an undergraduate in 1851 Westcott organized something called the
Hermes club with Hort and Edward White Benson who later became the Bishop of
Canterbury. In Hort's own words this was "a society for the investigation of
ghosts and all supernatural appearances and effects, being disposed to believe
that such things really exist." [15, p. 211] Hort's enthusiasm for
investigating the phenomena was unbounded, he proselytized by passing out
papers by the thousand. [15, p. 219] Westcott's son says that his father had
a lifelong "faith in what for lack of a better name, one must call
Spiritualism." [11, p. 235] They were not above recruiting impressionable
students as members. Henry Sidgwick a student of Westcott's and cousin to
Benson was recruited before he took his degree in 1859.
Hort suggested that their spiritism remain hidden for the success of
their text theory. In 1860 (22 years before published) Hort wrote to Westcott
"This may sound cowardice--I have a sort of craving that our text should be
cast upon the world before we deal with matters likely to brand us with
suspicion. I mean, a text, issued by men already known for what will
undoubtedly be treated as dangerous heresy will have great difficulties in
finding its way to regions which it might otherwise hope to reach and whence
it would not be easily banished by subsequent alarms." [15, p. 445] And
elsewhere, Hort said "If only we speak our minds, we shall not be able to
avoid giving grave offense to...the miscalled orthodoxy of the day." [15, p.
421] Westcott evidently agreed, for his son reports in his biography that "My
father labored under the imputation of being 'unsafe'." [11, p. 235] and
"What happened to this (ghostly) Guild in the end I have not discovered. My
father ceased to interest himself in these matters, not altogether, I believe,
from want of faith in what for lack of a better name one must call
Spiritualism" [11, p. 119]
Someone today objecting to such membership may be called superstitious
or old fashioned. But scripture says "Regard not them that have familiar
spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your
God." Lev 19:31, (c.f. Lev 20:6 Deut 18:11)
Although they never openly claimed to be Gnostics, their favor for
Gnostic doctrine was evident in their life and beliefs. Hort read Philo
Judaeus more than any other author. [16, p. 485] Westcott said he was anxious
to learn all he could of "the (Jewish?) literature of the apostolic age" --
especially Philo Judaes. [11, p. 233] Among the beliefs classified as
Gnostic Spritism in section II-A-(1)-(a) Westcott and Hort taught the
following: that the Father is not God [8,p. 10], that Jesus is not God [8, p.
22-26], that the Holy Spirit is not God [8, p. 15], that the devil is not a
person but a power [8, p. 13], that heaven is not a physical place but purely
spiritual [8, p. 16], that Hell is not a place but represents earthly
suffering before death [8, p. 17]. Among the beliefs classified as Gnostic
Anti-Materialism in section II-A-(1)-(a) Westcott and Hort taught the
following: that the spirit of man is divine [8, p. 9, 11], that Jesus was a
mere man [8, p. 22-26], that Christ is a possessing spirit that descended at
Jesus' baptism [8, p. 14], that the resurrection of the body of Jesus is not
true [8, p. 32], that the father is the creator of all material including man
in his present state [8, p. 9]. Among the beliefs classified as Gnostic
Illuminism in section II-A-(1)-(a) Westcott and Hort taught: that it is not
the word of God that is inspired, but the messengers [8, p. 5], that
revelation is in scripture, but not scripture itself [8, p. 5], that God is
the primary revealer (note they say that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not
God, so they must mean spirits by this) [8, p. 7].
Thus we are left with the conclusion that a group previously discounted
as heretical by the early church was to Westcott and Hort the keeper of the
truest autographs. These people were made to suffer the brand of heretic, and
up until 1881 languished in obscurity. In essence what is behind their major
premise is a subtext accusing the Christian church as a whole of false
doctrine and successful suppression of the true church. But how do we know
what the true Christian church is? This is not primarily an historical
question, but a doctrinal question. The true Christian Church is that Church
which publicly teaches the doctrine ordained by God and administers the
sacraments according to Christ's institution. It is irrational to think that
Gnosticism is true Christianity because the Messiah of Christianity must be
the Messiah who was promised and foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures.
The proof that the publicly accepted Christian Church is heretical must be
made from the Old Testament. But this Westcott and Hort never do. In fact
their entire system is impossible in the face of the Old Testament. For one
need read no further than the first commandment to know that Gnosticism does
not reflect true Judaism. "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." Exodus
20:3
B. Consequent Assumptions of Westcott and Hort
are False Because the Major Premise is False.
Recall the major premise of Westcott and Hort: that there was a
conspiracy that fabricated the traditional text. Derived from their major
premise are several principles used in the text critical method that are wrong
because the major premise is wrong. Westcott admitted premeditation in the
rejection of the traditional Greek text when, 30 years before it was
published, he said "I am anxious to provide something to replace them." [11,
p. 229] A summary of the modern principles of text criticism [1, p. 419-453]
will be analyzed in the light of the erroneous nature of their major premise.
As the principles are discussed, note particularly those things denoted in the
right hand column by lower case letters according to the following notation.
Three items are particularly of note (a) the principles which artificially
favor the Gnostic texts and (b) the principles that only make sense if their
major premise is believed (c) the principles that call for something
impossible on the part of the critic.
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Westcott & Hort Principle | Analysis
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(1) A scribe usually went about | (b) This makes no sense whatever
blending the texts available to him | unless you assume the text was
trying to make improvements to the | lost. What would be the motive for
text. | a faithful scribe? To improve
| God's Word?
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Westcott & Hort |
Principle | Analysis
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(2) Older | (a) This principle is wrong. Observe that the
manuscripts have | poorest condition books are those used most
fewer corruptions. | frequently. The roughest book I own is my Bible.
| The only way a book can last a long time is if it
| is so corrupt that it is never used. The fact
| that a book has survived for a very long time is
| an indicator of corruption. Two cases in point:
| B which was on a forgotten shelf in the Vatican
| library, and ALEPH which was literally snatched
| from the waste fire.
| (c) While it would be true that older
| manuscripts are more reliable if the later
| manuscript is known to have been copied only from
| the earlier one, this information is unknown. If
| many independent later manuscripts are compared
| using a majority vote, an error rate is achieved
| that is lower than the error rate of single older
| copies. For example, if 3 manuscripts are used
| with an error rate of 1/30 words each (12th
| century) an error rate of 1/300 is achieved in
| the resultant text. This error rate is more than
| 3 times lower than a single reliable 4th century
| manuscript.
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Westcott & Hort Principle | Analysis
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(3) You must not look at each | (a) This principle prevents them
variant point-by-point within a | from being forced to prove their
document to determine the | assertion. Who can present any
character, but you must make a | evidence against them other than
value judgment of the document as a | point-by-point. With this
whole. | principle they can make any
| judgment about any document they
| wish and claim academic superiority
| without any evidence whatever.
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Westcott & Hort Principle | Analysis
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(4) If a document is of mixed type | (c) Who can tell what the two
(appears to be a harmonization of | originals were without having them?
two contradictory texts), then a | This makes putting the toothpaste
critic must divorce the two types | back in the tube look easy.
and rely on the older or more | (b) Unless you can prove that a
reliable type. | fabrication occurred in the past,
| this principle is wrong. It
| essentially assumes deletions
| didn't occur but blending.
| (a) The critic is totally free to
| choose any false reading he wishes.
| He is also unassailable on this
| point if he posits anything at all
| because who can prove any such
| fabrication wrong without having
| the originals. He can also claim
| that all evidence that disagrees
| with the hypothesized reading
| supports it because it is longer,
| and must be a blend.
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Westcott & Hort Principle | Analysis
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(5) A very small group may be | (c) The formation of groups is
good, a very large group may be | something which they first
bad. (By group they mean a set of | introduced, but they never clearly
manuscripts that give largely the | defined the criteria for group
same reading and so form a common | formation or explained what
witness) | constituted their groups or how
| they arrived at them.
| (a) Could they perhaps be thinking
| of their small group of corrupt
| witnesses over against the +95%
| large group that supports the
| traditional text? A principle this
| obvious shows lack of imagination
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Westcott & Hort Principle | Analysis
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(6) If of 10 readings 9 agree and | (b) This only makes sense if they
one is different, the tenth is | are talking about a fabrication.
preferred. | Since there is no such thing, this
| principle leads to a wrong text.
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Westcott & Hort |
Principle | Analysis
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(7) Counting | (a) How convenient for Gnosticism. Take an
manuscripts must | analogy to an election process: Suppose there
play no part at all | are three candidates I, II, and III. 99.99% vote
because all | for I, 0.004% for II, and 0.001% for III. By
manuscripts that | their reasoning this election is a tie because
agree descend from a | there are three candidates. While it is true
common ancestor, and | that you must select one of the three, that
so must be counted | doesn't mean that all three candidates are
as a single example. | equally supported by votes.
| (c) They fail to inform the reader that no one
| has been able to prove that any extant manuscript
| is the ancestor of any other extant manuscript.
| We have a host of witnesses, but we know
| absolutely nothing about how they descended or
| are related to one another. Since this
| information is lacking, any hypothesis of
| ancestry is unfounded. By this ruse they try to
| collapse a host of independent witnesses into one
| opinion which they will ignore.
| (c) This assumes the critic knows the answer
| ahead of time. How else can he be assured that
| the majority of witnesses don't favor the right
| answer? Why complicate the matter with
| terminology and learning. They should adopt the
| simple principle that the critic may choose
| whatever text he wants, in spite of all evidence,
| and save us the trouble of reading their circular
| reasoning.
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Westcott & Hort Principle | Analysis
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(8) The only kind of consent | (c) Marvelous! Here we are again
between documents that shows | being able to tell which documents
community of origin is community of | are in error. If the critic knows
error. | what an error is when he sees one,
| then he must also know what the
| true text is. It would be nice, if
| Westcott and Hort claimed to know
| the true text, but they claim the
| opposite. They leave us to doubt
| saying they are left to subjective
| considerations. Then how can they
| spot errors?
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Westcott & Hort Principle | Analysis
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(9) In a mixture the ancestor | (b) There is no such thing as
stands nearer to the autograph than | mixture that has been demonstrated
any of it's later copies. | so this principle is wrong.
Therefore a mixture cannot speak | (c) Recall that not a single case
against an ancestor. | of manuscript ancestry has ever
| been proven. They are theorizing
| about thin air.
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Westcott & Hort Principle | Analysis
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(10) The harder (poor | (b) This only makes sense if it is
grammatically) and shorter reading | believed that a fabrication took
is preferred. (This assumes that | place. This essentially assumes
the source texts were bad | that the penmen who spoke Greek
grammatically and that they were | fluently didn't even bother to
shorter than the resultant text) | check their own grammar in what
| they wrote, and that the Holy Ghost
| didn't care.
| (a) This principle favors the
| Gnostic corruptions, because the
| Gnostics had a low regard for
| Scripture and changed words to suit
| them. A lapse in grammar is more
| likely to occur in this procedure
| because grammatical agreement is
| likely to slip by such a butcher,
| who attempted to falsify what he
| found. Unless it is a first draft,
| native writers tend to use flawless
| grammar. Since many doctrinally
| motivated corruptions are
| omissions, this principle favors
| the Gnostic corruptions.
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C. The Text Criticism Method of Westcott and Hort
The method comes down to five steps. (1) Classify documents according
to similar type of reading. (2) Find the Parent for each type of text (that
is: the oldest of that type). (3) Ignore all the rest of the evidence
except the Parents. (4) Ignore those parents which are believed to be a
mixture of other parents. (5) Where the remaining parents disagree you must
rely on the personal taste of the revered experts.
From the fallacies pointed out in the previous section the reader is
able to list what is wrong with each step of this method. The biggest fallacy
in my estimation is step (3), when all evidence but the parents is ignored.
The implicit assumption is that the oldest document that agrees broadly with a
large class of readings is the document from which all latter documents were
copied. No ancestry link between any two manuscripts has ever been
established. The fact that one document has survived longer than others is
more likely evidence that it was not in the same lineage at all. This
implicit assumption is nothing but the opposite of the sensible assumption.
By this assumption, the entire host of extant evidence is reduced to the
earliest, and therefore most corrupt, representative. It is perhaps more
amazing that this one representative is subsequently ignored for subjective
reasons. Such a procedure is extremely damaging to the true faith because we
know that some manuscripts within this era were fabricated by people hostile
to God's word. Surely ignoring the doctrinal deviation at each variation is
the same as giving equal time to heretics. But Westcott and Hort do more than
that, they enshrine the doctrinal deviations due to their own theological
bias. It is a sad commentary on the current crop of Text Critical scholars
that they call conservatives who support the traditional text theologically
biased, but say that Westcott and Hort who were biased with a heresy were
"objective." [12, p. 204]
D. The Application of the Text Criticism Method is Disastrous.
The method of text criticism defined by Westcott and Hort has been
applied with disastrous results. Westcott and Hort themselves used it as an
excuse to disregard the traditional text entirely. They defined the following
four categories.
Traditional_text: (also called Byzantine or Syrian or Antiochian or Graeco-
Syrian or Constantinopolitan or Asiatic or Oriental or Koine or Common or
Alpha) A lot of names for something which Modern Text Critics only ignore.
Westcott and Hort claim this is a blending of Western and Neutral texts.
Western_text: represented by D. Westcott and Hort claim this was a
corruption of the Neutral text.
Alexandrian_text: Westcott and Hort claim this was generated by an attempt to
correct the Western to agree with Neutral.
Neutral_text: Represented by B, and vaguely by ALEPH. Disagreeing with
Traditional, Western and Syrian. Westcott and Hort say no manuscript,
version, or patristic writer preserves this text in its original purity.
These are new terms, but the conclusions have already been presented.
In the new terminology, Westcott and Hort believed that there were two New
Testament text revisions. They said that the Syrian text is a conflation of
Western and Neutral types. Since the Syrian is a blend it must be ignored.
(The traditional text of scripture is a forgery). They said that the Neutral
text type is the original and was corrupted to form the Western type. The
Western type was made closer to the Neutral through revision, resulting in the
Alexandrian text type. Since they say you should only use the oldest document
of any given type, this means codices B and ALEPH must be used exclusively to
form the New Testament. (The Gnostic corrupted texts must be used to replace
the traditional New Testament.)
Recent text critics have not blindly accepted the complete system of
Westcott and Hort. Indeed there is room for arguing that if all the
criticisms of Westcott and Hort are gathered from the various modern text
critics, a complete refutation of their system may be assembled. While they
have not been uncritical, recent text critics have in large measure adopted
Westcott and Hort's major premise, conclusions, text criticism method, text
type definitions, and favored corrupt manuscripts. This is why so much space
has been given in the present essay for refutation of Westcott and Hort.
Modern text critics' conclusions are in practice identical with those of
Westcott and Hort. They still ignore the traditional text and believe in
spite of the evidence that there was a conspiracy that fabricated the
traditional text. Modern text critics trust ALEPH and B so that their
resultant text differs very little from that of Westcott and Hort. Modern
text critics adopt Westcott and Hort's critical method and principles; how
could they possibly come to true conclusions when at the foundation of their
system is an outrageous lie?
Recent text critics have eliminated the Neutral category, saying that
ALEPH and B are the oldest of the Alexandrian text type. This is a fatal
admission. The witness comes from those who adopt the theory of Westcott and
Hort, so the witness is biased toward their view. It shows that the category
of Neutral was a begging of the question. The major premise, that an
authoritative revision produced the traditional text, has grown into an
exalted myth among text critics which no one dare question. Since no one has
ever shown that there was a revision, each critic may believe his own
mechanism, author, and source texts of the mythical revision. The so called
experts are not able to convince one another. Their various conflicting
opinions demonstrate that it has not been proved. If it had they would all
agree. For example, Von Soden thinks there were three revisions instead of
two, but no one really agrees with this. [14, p. 22] Streeter disagrees with
the notion of authoritative revision saying the revision was not global, but
local. A small minority rejecting both of these innovations, still cling
entirely to the whole system of Westcott and Hort, "neutral" text type and
all. No one is allowed to speak of manuscripts among the modern critics
unless he uses the three remaining text types defined by Westcott and Hort.
This is amazing, since Westcott and Hort never even bothered to explain what
they meant by the categories they used, other than which manuscripts they
thought to be the earliest representative of the type. The practice of only
trusting the earliest representative of a type is very attractive to the
modern text critics because they are lazy. Why bother looking at more than
the earliest text type since the problem must be solved with subjective
considerations anyway. Instead they just trust the earliest representatives
(ALEPH and B).
That the modern text critics attempt to build theory based on a
foundation of sand is amazing. But the reader should recall that the theory
is very complimentary to the scholastic elite. The acceptance of the theory
is self-serving and self-aggrandizing. They want to have their publications
well-received by their peers. But most of all they want to deny the
inspiration and preservation of the Scripture because it gives them the
opportunity to substitute their own word for God's Word. They want to sit in
judgment of God and be better than Him. The temptation is not new, in the
garden of Eden the devil brought about the fall with this temptation saying
"ye shall be as God" Gen 3:5.
It is God's Word that created and maintains the present order of the
physical world. The moderns lie when they say that the physical world created
or determines God's Word. This lie is the mark God has given for us to
recognize this apostasy. (2 Pet 3:3-13)
E. Modern Text Critics have Never Answered the Points
Raised in this Essay Although the Weighty Arguments Were Cited
within 2 Years of the Publication of the Text Critical Method.
The reader should not think that a proper view of text criticism is no-
where to be found in the present day. There are a large number of scholars
today who are questioning more and more of the text critical principles they
inherited from Westcott and Hort. They have not totally thrown off the yoke
of erroneous assumptions brought by Westcott and Hort for the success of their
Gnostic New Testament. Nor is the Greek text of Westcott and Hort thoroughly
Gnostic. About 10% of the New Testament was doubted or rejected by Westcott
and Hort. Recent scholars have assembled texts that place more weight on the
traditional text than Westcott and Hort. Hodges, Farstad, et al. assembled a
text they mis-named the "Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text."
The name is misleading because they have incorporated minority readings [12,
p.196], yet they have reduced the variation with the traditional text down to
1%. A huge step in the right direction. Other modern authors that advocate
the correct view include Pickering, Moorman, etc. A Greek text that truly
contains the majority text has been assembled by Pierpont and Robinson. The
recognition of the King James Version as the best translation is becoming
common among layman. A recent book criticizing the modern versions has sold
50,000 copies. [5]
Recently some text critics have tried to refute the supporters of the
traditional text. The attempt of Wallace [12] is particularly noteworthy
because it is very recent, and shows the typical arguments. The ammunition of
the text critics consists mainly of name calling, name dropping, and ignoring
the arguments which, they admit, have been known for over 100 years but remain
unanswered.
Name calling: the first line of defense is to claim that traditional
text advocates don't have proper credentials. [12, p. 188, 197, 200 (note
96)]. When traditionalists do have credentials acceptable to them they call
us other names. Burgon doesn't deserve to be answered because he has an acid
pen. [12, p. 189] Westcott wouldn't read or answer him because of "violence"
in his writing. [12, p. 189] Hoskier may be ignored because he is "quirkish"
[12, p. 197 (note 83)]. Hills is accused of academic dishonesty because he
only got his credentials by pretending to believe the modern Text Critical
School [12, p. 192]. Hills and his followers are theologically biased
(believe inspiration and preservation) [12, p. 192, 197, 198, 201 (esp. note
97), 202, 203, 204]. Traditionalists are called "schizophrenic," [12, p. 213]
"backwaters," [12, p. 185] and "prejudiced." [12, p. 201] Their views are
called a "scholarly curiosity", which doesn't rate an answer. [12, p. 200].
Name dropping: the second line of defense is to say all the really
important text critics accept the views of Westcott and Hort and so you have
to accept the more learned view. Thus famous scholars are paraded who dismiss
the traditional text with a wave of the hand without adducing any reasons
whatever. Thus Martin Vincent, A. T. Robertson, Leo Vagany, Bruce Metzger are
paraded. [12, p. 189] So also G. D. Kilpatrick [12, p. 192] and Greenlee [12,
p. 200] are cited. Even the author, Daniel B. Wallace, references his own
works, and dismisses Traditional Text advocates out of hand without any proof.
[12, p. 200 (note 96), p. 208 (notes 134-6)] When modern critics reject the
traditional view without evidence, this procedure of refutation is evidence of
the poverty of their argument. Later, when it is admitted that the better
traditionalist scholars have never been answered, [12, p. 189] it shows why
name dropping must be employed.
If traditionalists are really such unlearned dolts, why can they not be
answered convincingly without resorting to name calling and name dropping as
two main lines of attack? As highly learned as the elite critics are, it
should be child's play to answer simpletons like me. Yet their silence is
devastating. They admit that no point by point rebuttal to Burgon has ever
been prepared. [12, p. 189] Again, it is argued that the acceptance of the
traditional text is a 'scholarly curiosity'. And since there are no text
critics alive today that believe it, it will not be answered. Yet they admit
that there are prejudiced, fundamentalist, backwater, schizophrenics who
believe it. It may seem strange that their learned fury pleases me. Without
it, it would be difficult to illustrate that they really have no convincing
arguments. Wallace is extremely convincing that he cannot answer the
traditionalists, simply because in the end, he admits he must ignore their
arguments and call them names, and find excuses for not considering what they
say. He stands before us as one of the many so-called scholars who write
before they read, and condemn before they consider.
I thank thee Lord God heavenly father that thou hast hid these things
from the wise and the prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. For thus it
pleases God to reveal the devil's mask to all men low and high.
References
1. An Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, 2nd Ed., A. H. McNeile,
Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1955.
2. The New Testament in the Original Greek, Text revised by Brooke Foss
Westcott D. D., and Fenton John Anthony Hort D.D. Cambridge and London
1881. Volume 2 Introduction.
3. The Revision Revised, John William Burgon B.D. Dean of Chichester.
October 31, 1883.
4. Eusebius The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, Translated
with an introduction by G. A. Williamson. Penguin Books Baltimore
Maryland 1965.
5. New Age Bible Versions, G. A. Riplinger. A. V. Publications Munroe Falls
Ohio, 1993.
6. R. G. Taylor, Distorted Scripture: Analysis of the New International
Version of the Holy Bible Compared to the King James Version, New Haven
Indiana July 1995.
7. A History of the Christian Church, Lars P. Qualben Thomas Nelson and Sons,
New York, 1942.
8. Heresies of Westcott & Hort, Rev. D. A. Waite, Th.D., Ph.D., 1979, by
Plains Baptist Challenger, Lubbock, Texas.
9. Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Volume I, Josh McDowell, Here's Life
Publishers, Inc., San Bernardino CA, 1986.
10. The Shorter Works of Ivan Panin, The British Israel Association 1238A
Seymour Street Vancouver, 1934.
11. The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, Vol. I, Arthur Westcott,
London: Macmillan and Co., Limited 1903.
12. Daniel B. Wallace, The Majority-Text Theory: History, Methods and
Critique, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society June 1994 pp.
185-215.
13. Erasmus' Annotations on the New Testament From Philologist to
Theologian, Erika Rummel, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1942.
14. The Byzantine Text-Type & New Testament Textual Criticism, H. A. Sturz,
H. A. Thomas Nelson, NY 1984.
15. The Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, Vol. I, Arthur Hort,
Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London, 1896.
16. The Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, Vol. II, Arthur Hort,
Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London, 1896.
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| Jeffrey A. Young, Ph.D. Electrical Engineering (Digital Communication) |
| Seminary training from my Pastor since fall '89 (currently 2/3 done) |
| Synodical Affiliation: Lutheran Churches of the Reformation |
| Church: Christ Lutheran Church of the Reformation, Ft. Wayne, IN |
| Employment: Magnavox Ft. Wayne, IN (Soon to be part of Hughes Aircraft)|
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