Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words...
Bible versions, Greek New Testament, Textual Criticism, history of the Bible, Westcott Hort, 'modern' versions, KJV, NIV, NA27, UBS, omitted verses, word of God, textual transmission, history
Showing posts with label Bible Versions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible Versions. Show all posts
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Shopping for a NT Text-Critical Theory
Imagine if you will, a world where sound collides with color, where the boundaries of time and space are blurred, and where the improbable and impossible thrive, and coexist side by side. Yet this is no dreamworld... its the everyday world of the New Testament Textual Critic. Of course you knew that already.
But now let us suppose an even more fantastic occurrence: truth in advertising. Imagine all the glitz and packaging has been stripped away; the misdirection, the sleight of hand, the magician's banter, the sexy assistant, the clever lighting, all removed, leaving all offerings naked and vulnerable, their ugly secrets exposed.
In such a world, open to the sunshine, the 'goods' dangle lamely, completely transparent to the buyer. Let us enter, and find what proposals await the Christian who searches for the normally elusive and difficult to identify 'word of God', in its purest and most direct form.
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Door # 1: The Traditional Text.
It is called the "Textus Receptus" (TR), the Byzantine Text-type (Byz.), the Majority Text, the Traditional Text, the Antiochian, the "Syrian", the Lucian Recension, and the 'Late text', almost interchangeably, depending upon who is talking and when. 1
Even most of its detractors will admit that this NT text has been used by Christians throughout Europe from Spain to Russia, for at least a thousand years, from the 9th century to the 19th, with very little variation. It has been used by Greek Orthodox, by Roman Catholics in Latin translation, and even accepted by Protestants for some 400 years from 1500 to 1900. It is admitted to be the text found in most of the 5,000 surviving handwritten Greek copies, and 20,000 Latin copies, spanning this period.
But it has its problems:
(1) There is no complete copy of this text older than the 4th century. Most of its 'readings' can be traced back to the 2nd century, through papyri, 'Versions' (early translations) and early Christian writers (ECWs), but there is no complete copy for this text in its entirety. Earlier witnesses seem to show instead wild 'mixed texts' with individual readings coexisting alongside rival readings of other text-types.
(2) A few standard verses lack the support of a majority of witnesses. For instance, the infamous Johannine Comma (1st Jn 5:7-8) and a verse or two in Acts have little support from any Greek manuscripts.
(3) The Traditional Text has some secondary features. The text appears to have evolved slightly, with grammatical and stylistic changes reflecting the Greek language as it was later used. This places a 'layer' over the text, and distances it from the presumed 'original'. Spelling and syntax have been standardized over time, removing some of the idiosyncrasies of individual writers and early form, making it somewhat 'artificial'. Possibly even a few readings have been harmonized with parallel passages.
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Door # 2: The Critical Text.
Also known as the "Alexandrian", Egyptian, Uncial, or 'Neutral' text. This text has been constructed mainly or almost exclusively from favorite 4th century Uncial manuscripts (the oldest available in the 19th century), notably, Codex B (Vatican 1209) and codex א (Sinaiticus). The theory was, older was better, and closer to the original.
The main problems with this text are:
(1) The 'critical' text ignores the text contained in 95% of manuscripts. All the later copies are dismissed as 'secondary' and ignored. This in effect forms a claim against the NT used by the majority of Christians throughout history. The presumption is that the original text was interpolated and altered so badly that it was essentially 'lost', preserved only in a few unused documents. For extreme Protestants, marginalized sects, and even atheists, this is not so hard to swallow. The NT supposedly suffered the same fate as ordinary books that were hand-copied. But to buy this, one must abandon any distinct doctrine of Providential Preservation or Divine guidance granted by God to Christians. The 'originals' are presumed lost, and any text now reconstructed is neither original nor 'inspired'. The critical text is a conscious rejection of the traditional text (see above). It necessarily involves limiting 'divine inspiration' to the (now lost) autographs, and downgrading the authority of currently printed Bibles of every type.
(2) The 'critical' text is riddled with errors. There is little doubt that critics have succeeded in collecting together many common readings from the 2nd to 4th centuries. Unfortunately, many of these, while legitimately reflecting earlier texts, are quite obviously scribal blunders. Critics have not so much reconstructed 'the early text', as they have compiled a catalog of genealogically propagated boners. The main principle used, "Prefer the Shorter Reading", was supposed to be based on scribal habits, but it is now known that scribes tended to accidentally omit lines 2 to 10 times as often as they 'interpolated'.
(3) The 'critical' text ignores the earliest evidence. Subsequent discoveries in the last century have provided many early papyri and fragments, averaging 100 or more years earlier than 4th century Uncial copies. If the same principles were applied today (i.e., use only the oldest MSS, prefer the shorter reading) we would have a quite different 'critical text'. The new text however would still be basically an Egyptian text, because all the papyri come from Egypt. The early evidence is simply too narrow geographically.
(4) There is no reason for Christians to switch to the critical text. Since the critical text cannot be shown to be 'better' in any significant way than the traditional text, there is no reason to prefer it over the text that Christians have used for nearly a thousand years. Nevertheless, most 'modern' translations are based on this poorly constructed and now outdated text.
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Door # 3: Make Your Own Text.
Since the first two options above are really the only game in town, the only third option for the savvy shopper is to reconstruct his own text. This is not impossible, but one may wonder what kind of result will follow.
Here are the Problems with Option 3:
(1) The Individual becomes Judge over the text. The obvious danger and temptation is for the individual to simply pick and choose readings he or she likes, and reject unpopular readings. The NT becomes a 'salad bar', and each individual creates his own 'Bible'. One can see that even if relatively well-done, the text is being filtered through individual bias and ignorance.
(2) The Authority of the Text is eroded. Its hard not to see that the very nature of what a 'Bible' is will change, if individuals are allowed to customize their own texts to any great extent. 'Heed the word of the Lord' becomes now 'Choose what you will heed from the Lord.'
(3) The Nature of Faith and Belief is Altered. One's belief about the Bible would be fundamentally changed. One now must adopt a belief that 'the Bible' is more like a quest, an archaeological dig, or a treasure-hunt. One no longer believes in a publicly delivered clear and common message from God to all. It is now something akin to 'cat and mouse', with a personalized individual message, differing from person to person.
Welcome, to ...the Twilight Zone.
"Walk while ye have the light,lest darkness come upon you:..while ye have light,believe in the light,that ye may be the children of light." (John 12:35-36)
1. To be fair, many will meticulously document distinctions between these terms, both in specific readings, and in real or imagined histories and pedigrees. But when all is said and done, every permutation and edition, every 'version' of this text, is to all intents and purposes virtually identical in content. Even with some 6,000 variants between manuscripts, even with a few stunning differences (e.g., 1st Jn 5:7-8), a person would be hard-pressed to come up with a really critically important difference among the witnesses and editions of this text. Most variants don't significantly affect actual translation, and the few that do amount to a mere handful of minor disputes.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
How the Germans perverted the Bible
I'm reposting this short article on Kittle, because to this day modern translations use his text of the Hebrew O.T. as a basis for the Protestant Bible, including his translational suggestions through his "Hebrew Lexicon":
Monday, April 4, 2011 (Elizabeth K. Best, PhD)
Kittel a 'Minor Nazi'? Think Again: Kittel as the 'author' of 'Alien Status' for the Jews.
In Robert Ericksen's book, Theologians Under Hitler part of his delineation of Gerhard Kittel's role in the war and assessment of culpability in war crimes is his role in establishing the concept in National Socialist policy/law of the status of 'guest-citizenship' or 'alien-status'. While many in holocaust education are aware of the 'guest status' of the Jews in German Society from 1933 on, ,many are not aware of its doctrinal or theological underpinnings, nor that it was Gerhard Kittel, the editor of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
, who founded doctrinal anti-Semitism in the Third Reich, who was primarily responsible for the theological basis of 'alien status' for the Jews.
The reason Kittel's role in the establishment of 'guest-citizenship' is important is
The Concept of Guest Citizenship (Alien Status).
To understand why there would even be a question of 'guest citizenship' necessitates understanding the concept of the 'Volk', the concept of 'blut und boden' or 'blood and soil' and the construct of national identities and a 'nation within a nation'.
The Volk was the German concept of the 'gestalt' or whole of the people, the german people, consisting of the conglomerate 'soul' of the people, their culture, religion, politics, society, etc as something that was a sum of the parts and yet greater than the parts. 'Volk' may be translated akin to 'folk' or people, and the concept was used throughout Nazi policy and thought. It was not a group of individuals, but the 'Volk' that would rebuild Germany and lead it to a new day and age,; it was the 'volk' that would triumph victoriously over other nations which had left Germany desolate, it was the 'Volk' which would see a restored Germany, with they as her people.
The idea of 'blut und boden' or 'blood and soil' was that a people to be a people belonged in a real and mystical sense to the land from which they hailed and in which their ancestors had lived. The tie between the German people and their land or soil was foundational in much of the thought that pervaded influential belief systems such as those of armarten society tying Germans to lineage and the land, or the 'oceanic' views of such as Gobineau and other racial scientists in which certain evolved peoples lived in certain regions: he posited that nations bordering the oceans had certain characteristics, while even Nietzsche in his formulations of the the 'Hyperboreans' posited that more evolved or racially superior peoples lived 'above Boreas' or rather in the winter climes. (Taha) Kittel would use this theme of a people and a land prominently in several writings.
The third concept is that of a 'national identity' or a nation within a nation. This is somewhat more complex than merely the concept of the 'Volk' because it entails the nature of persons of multiple nationalities living together 'under one roof', so to speak. Today, that is not a great difficulty to many, especially in the US and Great Britain as many nations have become multicultural, with those of many nationalities living side by side. The National Socialists though saw the Jews, as a separate nation, living within their nation, although many Jews, especially more liberal Jews saw themselves as German citizens, and Jews. This conflict was the issue that Kittel would take and make 'theologically acceptable' as he had with other aspects of anti-Semitism.
Kittel and 'Alien Status'
Kittel based his writings on a doctrinal treatise he had proposed even before the war. He saw the Jews as also a people characterized by 'blut und boden' and he built a biblical argument: since the Bible clearly shows God as designating the Jews as 'chosen' and 'Israel' as their promised homeland (there are a multitude of passages), the Jews, ergo, are tied to Israel. They are a people with a land, and they are so 'identity-bound' to Israel that the two are inseparable, and remained inseparable in the various exiles (e.g. the Babylonian/Assyrian exile, or the dispersion in 70ad, with a minor reign of Babylon of 8 years in Judges).
Likewise, Kittel argues, the German people are 'bound' to the 'Deutschland' , the 'Fatherland' and are not entirely the same people without being there, so that even in "Lebensraum" as Germans were sent out to 'colonize' occupied territories, they carried with them their music, culture, food, customs etc like soil in the coffin.
Kittel also argued though, that the 'Volk' and the 'Jews' could never share the same citizenship, so bound up was citizenship in their thinking with 'native land'. Kittel attempted to place the Jews as bound to Israel, and claimed later that it was a tolerant attitude, but the application was clear that it was a clever but sinister exegetical foundation for the Jews having 'alien-status' which would rob them of their German Citizenship, allowing deportation, denial of the court system, education benefits, and even already paid retirement funds and pensions. They were argued as a 'nation' within a nation, and an 'alien' one at that. While the argument bore some biblical foundation, i.e. the Jews with Israel as their homeland, it was cleverly used to create a doctrinal reason tied to other Reich philosophies which allowed the segregation, robbery, deportation and later mass killing of the Jews. It also indicates Kittel's eminent role.
Martin Buber the foremost Jewish theologian of the Shoah years, took his colleague to task over his vile rendering of the policy of 'alien status' for the Jews. The following letter shows Buber's rebuke of Kittel:
Guest Citizenship and the Jews
While this discussion and others seems rather 'theological' or philosophical, the effect of the status 'guest citizen' had very real consequences for the German citizens who were Jews. A narrative of one account is of a retired man and his wife who had juvenile delinquents damage portions of his property during the Reich. The man was a war veteran of WWI in Germany, and had retired from university teaching. After changes were made, he called the local police who would do nothing about the incident and was bewildered. The police informed him that since he was no longer considered 'of aryan descent', he had no citizenship rights, and therefore they did not have to respond to his call at all. When he sought remedy in the courts, he found that the courts had the right to refuse the case, and that after years of work and loyalty to Germany, his mortgage and property ownership were also in question, as only aryans could own property. They were forced to flee the Berlin area. But 'guest-citizen' or 'alien-status' had other dire consequences: soon no Jewish child could attend an aryan school. No Jewish attorneys or physicians could treat any but Jewish clients. Geographical restrictions were levied and soon no Jewish person could sit on park benches or even frequent public parks. Bus riding became prohibited for all but those employed in the armaments industry, and pet ownership, and the hiring of maids and cooks was forbidden. As time wore on, there were even odd restrictions such as not allowing women to attend hairdressing salons partly in an effort to increase the separation between Jew and gentile, and partly to keep the Jews from appearing groomed and therefore appealing to their counterparts. If Jews wished to leave Germany, they had to receive permission from police departments now largely staffed by Gestapo and National Socialist party members. Church congregates who had converted to Catholicism and Protestantism from Judaism were not allowed to receive communion at the same time, and large 'tarriffs' were levied allowing the Jews to carry out of the country only about 10-15% of earnings and savings, the rest going to the Reich. In short, the 'doctrinal' base for the Reich policy turned into civil rights violations for the Jews, and untold suffering and humiliation, even before deporation to work and death camps. This is why Kittel was found guilty of war crimes, in that he had aided in the 'production' and strategy of war as well as undermining of the institution not only of the church but of the courts, universities, theological schools and other mainstays of German life.
The doctrinal argument for the Jews tied to Israel not Germany, the Jews with a different God (Marcionism), the Jewish OT scriptures as foreign and unnecessary for Christian study and practice, gave the Nazis inroads into the church on the back of one of their most notable theology professors. Kittel was clearly guilty of the subterfuge of both the citizenship rights of the Jews and of Church doctrine using it as servant to the expulsion of the Jews and denial of their civil rights. His role as a doctrinal juggernaut in the exegesis of Nazi policy cannot be denied-it lay dormant for many years as many of Kittel's writings remained unavailable and in German while his lexicon and his fathers Hebrew Bible sold worldwide.
Kittel would go on later to defend other social/political platforms of the Nazis with a doctrinal base. His integration of racial science with biblical and theological concepts would eventually come forefront. His dismissal with others of a requirement in theological education for Hebrew, placing it instead with other ancient languages, undergirds his lack of regard for anything Jewish. While Kittel argued that his was a 'non-vulgar' anti-Semitism (he held himself distinct from the type of Rosenberg and Spreicher) (Eriksen), he nonetheless provided an intellectual platform for the 'Judenrein' of Germany. The arguments that Kittel was not an ideological Nazi should fall on deaf ears, as any lay person, much less any scholar upon reading Kittel, will eventually find him to be anything but objective where the Jews are concerned.
Monday, April 4, 2011 (Elizabeth K. Best, PhD)
Kittel a 'Minor Nazi'? Think Again: Kittel as the 'author' of 'Alien Status' for the Jews.
In Robert Ericksen's book, Theologians Under Hitler part of his delineation of Gerhard Kittel's role in the war and assessment of culpability in war crimes is his role in establishing the concept in National Socialist policy/law of the status of 'guest-citizenship' or 'alien-status'. While many in holocaust education are aware of the 'guest status' of the Jews in German Society from 1933 on, ,many are not aware of its doctrinal or theological underpinnings, nor that it was Gerhard Kittel, the editor of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
, who founded doctrinal anti-Semitism in the Third Reich, who was primarily responsible for the theological basis of 'alien status' for the Jews.The reason Kittel's role in the establishment of 'guest-citizenship' is important is
1. It establishes Kittel's primary role as a Nazi Theologian and not just a bystander.
2. It establishes Kittel's culpability in war crimes, in subterfuge and sedition against the German Church,
3. It establishes Kittel's ideological commitment to Nazism and not merely perfunctory party membership.
4. It demonstrates the extent of doctrinal anti-Semitism which was vital to Reich Policy, and
5. It establishes at least part of the war upon the Jews as clearly doctrinal and ideological.That it is important to establish Kittel as a loyal Nazi and not merely among the thousands who joined the ranks to keep the peace or their employment, can be seen in the role of Kittel during and following the war: though arrested at the end of the war and imprisoned for war crimes, Kittel's Dictionary of the New Testament and his father Rudolf's Biblia Hebraica, have established themselves as the primary ground for translation of all modern English bibles.To believe that translations made with the Old Testament and the accompanying lexicon by ardent anti-Semites would not produce a tainted text, with at least underpinnings of the broad stream of dejudification, would seem far more ludicrous than to take the stand of most modern bible translators, that Kittel either wasn't a Nazi, or that it had no affect on his scholarly work. That aside, though, one need consider the 'exegesis' of the platform of guest-citizenship which Kittel refers in his writing to as 'alien status' to understand that the war against the Jews was indeed a religious and ideological one and not merely a political one as many scholars would prefer to avoid being labeled 'reactionary'.
The Concept of Guest Citizenship (Alien Status).
To understand why there would even be a question of 'guest citizenship' necessitates understanding the concept of the 'Volk', the concept of 'blut und boden' or 'blood and soil' and the construct of national identities and a 'nation within a nation'.
The Volk was the German concept of the 'gestalt' or whole of the people, the german people, consisting of the conglomerate 'soul' of the people, their culture, religion, politics, society, etc as something that was a sum of the parts and yet greater than the parts. 'Volk' may be translated akin to 'folk' or people, and the concept was used throughout Nazi policy and thought. It was not a group of individuals, but the 'Volk' that would rebuild Germany and lead it to a new day and age,; it was the 'volk' that would triumph victoriously over other nations which had left Germany desolate, it was the 'Volk' which would see a restored Germany, with they as her people.
The idea of 'blut und boden' or 'blood and soil' was that a people to be a people belonged in a real and mystical sense to the land from which they hailed and in which their ancestors had lived. The tie between the German people and their land or soil was foundational in much of the thought that pervaded influential belief systems such as those of armarten society tying Germans to lineage and the land, or the 'oceanic' views of such as Gobineau and other racial scientists in which certain evolved peoples lived in certain regions: he posited that nations bordering the oceans had certain characteristics, while even Nietzsche in his formulations of the the 'Hyperboreans' posited that more evolved or racially superior peoples lived 'above Boreas' or rather in the winter climes. (Taha) Kittel would use this theme of a people and a land prominently in several writings.
The third concept is that of a 'national identity' or a nation within a nation. This is somewhat more complex than merely the concept of the 'Volk' because it entails the nature of persons of multiple nationalities living together 'under one roof', so to speak. Today, that is not a great difficulty to many, especially in the US and Great Britain as many nations have become multicultural, with those of many nationalities living side by side. The National Socialists though saw the Jews, as a separate nation, living within their nation, although many Jews, especially more liberal Jews saw themselves as German citizens, and Jews. This conflict was the issue that Kittel would take and make 'theologically acceptable' as he had with other aspects of anti-Semitism.
Kittel and 'Alien Status'
Kittel based his writings on a doctrinal treatise he had proposed even before the war. He saw the Jews as also a people characterized by 'blut und boden' and he built a biblical argument: since the Bible clearly shows God as designating the Jews as 'chosen' and 'Israel' as their promised homeland (there are a multitude of passages), the Jews, ergo, are tied to Israel. They are a people with a land, and they are so 'identity-bound' to Israel that the two are inseparable, and remained inseparable in the various exiles (e.g. the Babylonian/Assyrian exile, or the dispersion in 70ad, with a minor reign of Babylon of 8 years in Judges).
Likewise, Kittel argues, the German people are 'bound' to the 'Deutschland' , the 'Fatherland' and are not entirely the same people without being there, so that even in "Lebensraum" as Germans were sent out to 'colonize' occupied territories, they carried with them their music, culture, food, customs etc like soil in the coffin.
Kittel also argued though, that the 'Volk' and the 'Jews' could never share the same citizenship, so bound up was citizenship in their thinking with 'native land'. Kittel attempted to place the Jews as bound to Israel, and claimed later that it was a tolerant attitude, but the application was clear that it was a clever but sinister exegetical foundation for the Jews having 'alien-status' which would rob them of their German Citizenship, allowing deportation, denial of the court system, education benefits, and even already paid retirement funds and pensions. They were argued as a 'nation' within a nation, and an 'alien' one at that. While the argument bore some biblical foundation, i.e. the Jews with Israel as their homeland, it was cleverly used to create a doctrinal reason tied to other Reich philosophies which allowed the segregation, robbery, deportation and later mass killing of the Jews. It also indicates Kittel's eminent role.
Martin Buber the foremost Jewish theologian of the Shoah years, took his colleague to task over his vile rendering of the policy of 'alien status' for the Jews. The following letter shows Buber's rebuke of Kittel:
The grave rebuke by Buber is both poignant and ironical, in that he rebukes Kittel based upon the tenets of Christ and Christianity: he holds that it is a sinister twisting of the Holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testament. Buber could see from the outset the path the reasoning of Kittel would follow, and hence targeted Kittel as the 'theologian that made anti-Semitism theologically acceptable'.
An Open Letter to Gerhard Kittel
Martin Buber
You have sent me your essay on the Jewish question, werser Herr Kollege. From the accompanying letter and from the text itself I conclude that you believe yourself to be in agreement with me; not to be sure, on your specific judgments about Judaism and your suggestions on how to treat it but on the essential issue: our basic religious commitment.
Since your statements were made publicly, I must contradict them publicly.
I need say nothing of your judgments an demands; they are the prevailing ones. I learned from your essay that which I neither knew nor suspected: that they are yours as well: that you maintain that “a member of a foreign people” has “no business in German literature.” That “if he wants to be a writer,” he should “work in a literature which is clearly marked as Jewish and which is intended for his coreligionists and Volksgenossen:” that “if his book is of general literary value and transcends that particular Volkstum,” there would be “nothing to prevent its being read by Germans in the same way that Swedish and French literature is translated and read by us.” You and the public will, I hope, understand that I have nothing to say to this or to anything of this sort in your essay: especially since you make your intention of “lending a Christian meaning to the struggle against Judaism” clear in your introduction.
Yet it is incumbent upon me to object, especially since you welcome in this lending the participation of Jews, namely those Jews who, as I, look forward to a religious renewal of Judaism. According to you the problem is whether it will be possible to arouse a living religion in that part of Jewry which says yes to alien status” The “authentic alien status”. But what you understand by “alien status” is clarified by the answer to the question of what should happen to Jewry. There you have stated that one should “resolutely and consciously preserve the historical fact” of “alien status” among nations. You explained your understanding of this in this fashion: the “right of the guest” must be sharply set off from that of the citizen; the Jew must give up “all claims to civil equality.” If he proves a “decent guest, “ “there may then come a time” when he appears only “relatively unequal” and no longer “absolutely inferior.” You take “obedience under alien status,” which according to you belongs to a pious Jewish attitude to mean that discrimination against and defamation of Judaism must be accepted in faith; that it must therefore be viewed as God’s just dispensation and as the just action of men. Hence you presuppose the identity of that which you mean by alien status with that which God, to whom we owe obedience, means by alien status with that which God, to whom we owe obedience, means by alien status, But this is not so.
That which the God of the Bible means by alien status, more correctly guest status (a ger is one who is a guest in a land), can be learned from the Pentateuch. In an extraordinary appeal, the community is admonished (Num. 15:16; Lev 24:22) “Congregation”! There shall be one law for you and for the resident guest; it shall be a law for all times throughout the generations. You and the guest shall be alike before YHVH (the LORD); the same instruction and the same rule shall apply to you and to the guest who resides among you.” Thus no discrimination! But it is not only a question of law; it is a question of love. “When a guest resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The guest who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens. You shall love him as yourself for you were guests in the land of Egypt” (Lev. 19.33f.). In Deuteronomy, with even greater emphasis, love is not only found with the dative [showing love to him] but with the accusative [loving him] in a way at once holy and paradoxical. “For YHVH your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, who loves the guest and gives him food and clothing. You too must love the guest for you were guests in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:17ff.). Love of the guest is an aspect of biblical imitation Dei: As God loves the unprotected, so must you love him! The acceptance of this stance has consequences which extend to redemption and a mystery that unties all. It is said of the peace-offering which is offered by the community because of an error (Num. 15:26): “The whole Israelite community and the guest residing among them shall be forgiven for it happened to the entire people through error.”
Yet, Herr Kollege, although you quote a passage from Deuteronomy in which we read that one may not subvert the rights of the alien [Deut. 24:17] , you quote none of those passages in which we read that this right of the alien is not separate from that of the natives of the land but that both rights are the “same right.” Only if you start from this Magna Carta of biblical faith, which should be binding not only upon Israel but upon all nations among whom guests reside (or is it your belief that God no longer asks this justice and love from nations), and only if you believe that this was not abrogated by the New Testament (for how could the gospel intend a diminishing of justice and love between nation and nation?). , only then is it possible to talk in an attitude of faith of an “alien status” and of an “obedience under alien status.” However, if one does this in the seriousness of faith as a believer among the nations, then surely one must first of all inquire into the obedience of the nations.
However, an obedience under alien status as you understand it (but as God does not understand it) God does not order us to give. It does not become us to rebel against it but it does not become us either to yield to the will of a Volk as if it were the will of God. Psalm after psalm of our Book, adopted by the Church, utters an appeal to the liberator from oppression. Psalm after psalm would be blasphemy if God not only demanded of us that we should endure, but also that we resign ourselves without appeal to whatever He has ordained. We pray today as well,. The “enemy” against which the psalmist inveighs means, as we utter the psalm in prayer, not men of human powers but the original tempter, who hinders redemption in history.
“Authentic Jewry,” as you say, “remains faithful to the symbol of the restless and homeless alien who wanders the earth.” Judaism does not know of any such symbol. The “wandering Jew” is a figure of Christian legend, not a Jewish figure. Authentic Jewry is ever aware that in the very next moment the promise may be fulfilled and its wandering may end. It does not believe that is its ordered to affirm the dispersion but believes that it must prepare itself in the dispersion for the ingathering. It knows of no “tragedy willed by God” which it must needs recognize but knows only the mercy which calls man to His work.
History is no throne speech of God but His dialogue with humanity. He who does not wish to miss everything must be mindful to discern the voice of the Partner. The “historical fact” of “alien status,” the reinstatement of which you, Herr Kollege, hold to be the “solution of the Jewish question,”* is partly the question itself---God’s question to the nations and to Israel which He poses in history; partly it is the lack of an answer. TO be sure, emancipation as it took place was not the true answer either. But it does not follow from this that one must go back to that lack.
July 1933
_______________________________________________-
Of the other three “attempts at solution” which you mention, extermination, assimilation and Zionism, we wish to touch upon the last only. The arguments which you put forward against Zionism are partly exaggerated. (As one who has constantly fought for a more serious consideration of Arab claims. I have the right to say that there is no ground for speaking of a “frightful violation of the fellahin) Partly they are false. I am hardly able to understand how you can hold “unemployment and need” to be prevalent in Palestine of today or how you can see in residential and agricultural cooperatives----a witnessing to collectivity and sacrifice---communistic tendencies which reflect back into “lands of culture and which wish to penetrate and poison those countries.” Finally, the the growing reality of faith within Zionism is totally unknown to you. [MARTIN BUBER]
1. In a later reply to Kittel, Buber observed that the failure of emancipations was that Jews were emancipated individually but not collectively (F.E.T.)
From: Talmadge, F.E. Disputations and Dialogue: readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter, (1978) KTAV Publishing House,
Guest Citizenship and the Jews
While this discussion and others seems rather 'theological' or philosophical, the effect of the status 'guest citizen' had very real consequences for the German citizens who were Jews. A narrative of one account is of a retired man and his wife who had juvenile delinquents damage portions of his property during the Reich. The man was a war veteran of WWI in Germany, and had retired from university teaching. After changes were made, he called the local police who would do nothing about the incident and was bewildered. The police informed him that since he was no longer considered 'of aryan descent', he had no citizenship rights, and therefore they did not have to respond to his call at all. When he sought remedy in the courts, he found that the courts had the right to refuse the case, and that after years of work and loyalty to Germany, his mortgage and property ownership were also in question, as only aryans could own property. They were forced to flee the Berlin area. But 'guest-citizen' or 'alien-status' had other dire consequences: soon no Jewish child could attend an aryan school. No Jewish attorneys or physicians could treat any but Jewish clients. Geographical restrictions were levied and soon no Jewish person could sit on park benches or even frequent public parks. Bus riding became prohibited for all but those employed in the armaments industry, and pet ownership, and the hiring of maids and cooks was forbidden. As time wore on, there were even odd restrictions such as not allowing women to attend hairdressing salons partly in an effort to increase the separation between Jew and gentile, and partly to keep the Jews from appearing groomed and therefore appealing to their counterparts. If Jews wished to leave Germany, they had to receive permission from police departments now largely staffed by Gestapo and National Socialist party members. Church congregates who had converted to Catholicism and Protestantism from Judaism were not allowed to receive communion at the same time, and large 'tarriffs' were levied allowing the Jews to carry out of the country only about 10-15% of earnings and savings, the rest going to the Reich. In short, the 'doctrinal' base for the Reich policy turned into civil rights violations for the Jews, and untold suffering and humiliation, even before deporation to work and death camps. This is why Kittel was found guilty of war crimes, in that he had aided in the 'production' and strategy of war as well as undermining of the institution not only of the church but of the courts, universities, theological schools and other mainstays of German life.
The doctrinal argument for the Jews tied to Israel not Germany, the Jews with a different God (Marcionism), the Jewish OT scriptures as foreign and unnecessary for Christian study and practice, gave the Nazis inroads into the church on the back of one of their most notable theology professors. Kittel was clearly guilty of the subterfuge of both the citizenship rights of the Jews and of Church doctrine using it as servant to the expulsion of the Jews and denial of their civil rights. His role as a doctrinal juggernaut in the exegesis of Nazi policy cannot be denied-it lay dormant for many years as many of Kittel's writings remained unavailable and in German while his lexicon and his fathers Hebrew Bible sold worldwide.
Kittel would go on later to defend other social/political platforms of the Nazis with a doctrinal base. His integration of racial science with biblical and theological concepts would eventually come forefront. His dismissal with others of a requirement in theological education for Hebrew, placing it instead with other ancient languages, undergirds his lack of regard for anything Jewish. While Kittel argued that his was a 'non-vulgar' anti-Semitism (he held himself distinct from the type of Rosenberg and Spreicher) (Eriksen), he nonetheless provided an intellectual platform for the 'Judenrein' of Germany. The arguments that Kittel was not an ideological Nazi should fall on deaf ears, as any lay person, much less any scholar upon reading Kittel, will eventually find him to be anything but objective where the Jews are concerned.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Spurgeon on ancient translations
Spurgeon was recognized as a great preacher and teacher well into the 20th century. Part of the reason was his sound and practical doctrine.
Spurgeon had words to say on preserving the well-known and often used translations of the Bible; the same principles used by the KJV translators who sought to "make a good translation better" by preserving as much as possible the work of earlier translations then familiar to English hearers.
Spurgeon, preaching in 1856, spoke on the great statement of Paul found in the second letter to Timothy:
'Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me,
in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.' - 2 Timothy 1:13.
"...Keep to your faith, I say again, for the Church's sake, for so you will promote strength in the Church. I saw lying between Chatham and Sheerness a number of ships that I supposed to be old hulks; and I thought how stupid Government was to let them remain there, and not chop them up for firewood, or something else; but some one said to me, those ships can soon be fitted for service; they look old now, but they only want a little paint, and when the Admiralty requires them, they will be commissioned and made fit for use. So we have heard some people say, "There are those old doctrines—what good are they?" Wait; there is not a doctrine in God's Bible that has not its use. Those ships that you may think are not wanted, will be useful by-and-bye. So it is with the doctrines of the Bible. Do not say, Break up those old doctrines, you can do without them." Nay, we want them, and we must have them. Some people say, "Why do you preach against Arminians? we have not much to fear from them now." But I like to practice my men against the time comes for action. We are not going to burn our ships; they will be wanted by-and-bye, and when we sail out of harbour, the men will say, "Whence came these old ships?" "Why," we will reply, "they are just the doctrines you thought good for nothing; now we bring them out, and we will make good use of them." Now-a-days we are having new and marvellous hymn-books, full of perfect nonsense; and we are having new theories, and new systems; and they say, "Why be so stringent? our Christian brethren may believe what they like on those points just now;" but as certain as there is a church in this land, they will want our old ships to fight their battles; they may do very well in times of peace, but they will not do in the time of war. They will then need our broadside to support the faith of the gospel, though now they laugh at us. For the strength of the church, my brethren, I bid you "hold fast the form of sound words."
I need hardly comment on what implications Spurgeon's position on this scripture will have for the Authorized or King James Version of the NT.
- Rogue Physicist
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Majority Text: True Power of the Probability Argument (pt V)
Some people may think that the argument in favor of the Majority text is simply this: That errors, being introduced later in the stream, will almost always be stuck in the minority of manuscripts.
This however, is not the actual argument at all. The possibility that a manuscript with a given error (or set) could be copied more often than manuscripts without the error(s), is actually a given. As Hodges notes:
Errors do indeed accumulate. In the above diagram, all manuscripts copied from the first copy with the Yellow Packet will have its errors. Further down, an Orange, Red, and Purple Error Packet are added. But the effect is obvious:
(Secondly, although the 'White text' (pure text) as a unit is in the minority of MSS, its readings remain in 99% of cases perfectly safe, still vouchsafed by majority readings. )
Even wiping out all earlier generations doesn't help. This only stabilizes the percentages for each group of readings, once normal or average copying is resumed:
The majority of errors in the extreme texts (e.g. the Purple Text) will have their reading-support all over the map, and with very few false-positives (e.g. Yellow); but the bulk of errors will remain graduated minority readings.
Error Packets (and real errors) will still be identifiable because:
Typically, opponents of the Majority of MSS Model will reason that a process of uneven copying could occur repeatedly, boosting minority readings into majority readings on a larger scale. Hodges showed the failure of this argument by showing that cumulatively speaking, the probabilities for multiple accidents favoring a bad text quickly skyrocket downward. In discussing the case of a second error (or error packet) in a following generation, Hodges has stated:
Compounding Unlikely Events: Rapidly Decreasing Probability
We allowed for one catastrophe: over-copying of the Yellow Packet. Hodges' argument here is actually so powerful, its clinching:
Probabilities are calculated by multiplication, with the probability of each event represented by a fraction less than 1. A 50% chance of an error being over-copied (as an example) means 1/2 the time it could happen. But the second error also being over-copied at the same time is (1/2) times (1/2), = 1/4, only a 25% chance. The chance of three equally probable events in a row happening is 12.5%. This is the same as flipping a coin. For a fair and random coin-toss, the chances of tossing 7 'heads' in a row is less than 1%!:
Likewise, even with 50/50 odds, seven generations of errors have almost no chance of ever being consistently copied more often than their rival readings in a random undirected process.
But our observations here go far beyond even this argument: Its a case of the experiment being poisoned before it can even get off the ground.
The Defocussing Effect of Noise on Transmission
What is not being mentioned so far in any of the discussions is the fact that ALL scribes introduce errors, in every single copy. Contrary to intuition, this actually also assists the Majority Reading Model, by sabotaging false positives further.
The scheme above isolates four Error-Packets for discussion, and the analysis is valid because they are 'independent' in the sense that normally errors won't overlap or interfere with each other in the early transmission. Its like a needle in a haystack: The chances of two errors bumping into each other is nearly zero.
But with errors being added randomly and on average roughly equally with each copy, we have now introduced random noise into the signal at all points. This random noise acts to mask the false signals as effectively as the true signals.
One can think of injected random noise as a 'damping factor': A bell rings clearly and long in the air. But a mute, or mask attenuates both the loudness of the bell and the duration of the note. Imbalances (spikes and dips) in the transmission process are softened, evened out and muted in a variety of ways, randomly. This impedes the efficiency of transmission; the clarity, and the duration of false signals (errors) as well as true ones are attenuated.
However, the true signals have an enormous starting-advantage: They are already 100% Majority readings, and it takes a lot of accumulated noise in the transmission to disturb the original text enough to actually supplant a majority reading. These are modern considerations now well analyzed by engineers, but which were unknown to 19th century textual critics relying on 'common sense' or intuitive guesses.
Although both true and false signals are attenuated and masked by noise, the much smaller error signals suffer the most relative damage from further random noise. Anomalies in the error transmission are smoothed, masked, and truncated by random processes, which defocuss unique and unusual signals in the mix.
peace
Nazaroo
This however, is not the actual argument at all. The possibility that a manuscript with a given error (or set) could be copied more often than manuscripts without the error(s), is actually a given. As Hodges notes:
"...of course an error might easily be copied more often than the original in any particular instance." (Pickering, Identity..., Appendix C p 165).But the point is, this only works once. Errors can't accumulate gradually in such a manner. Lets see why. We start with Yellow Packet copies getting copied more often, and this gives as an initial false majority for the Errors introduced by the Yellow master-copy:
Errors do indeed accumulate. In the above diagram, all manuscripts copied from the first copy with the Yellow Packet will have its errors. Further down, an Orange, Red, and Purple Error Packet are added. But the effect is obvious:
White (Pure) - 10 / 25 = 40% minority reading (unfortunate)It doesn't take a genius to see that again, the natural tendency pins down most subsequent errors as minority readings. This doesn't bode well for the Purple text. The very manuscripts that support the Yellow Packet readings testify strongly against the Purple Packet readings.
Yellow Packet - 15 / 25 = 60% majority - false ('lucky break')
Orange Packet - 8 / 25 = 32% minority
Red Packet - 3 / 25 = 12% minority
Purple Packet - 1 / 25 = 4% minority
Even wiping out all earlier generations doesn't help. This only stabilizes the percentages for each group of readings, once normal or average copying is resumed:
White Packet - 2 / 8 = 25% - minority (in present / future)Although this extreme case seems to undermine the reliability of majority readings, this simply isn't the case. Probabilities remain strongly in favor of Majority readings. Lets see why. We need to remember that only a very small number of early and frequently copied readings will have a false majority rating (e.g. Yellow Packet).
Yellow Packet - 6 / 8 = 75% - majority - 1 false reading set
Orange Packet - 4 / 8 = 50% - neutral / uncertain
Red Packet - 2 / 8 = 25% - minority / true reading
Purple Packet - 1 / 8 = 12% - minority / true reading
The majority of errors in the extreme texts (e.g. the Purple Text) will have their reading-support all over the map, and with very few false-positives (e.g. Yellow); but the bulk of errors will remain graduated minority readings.
Error Packets (and real errors) will still be identifiable because:
(1) These minority readings will however, still be strongly associated with the most corrupted and generationally later texts (e.g. Orange, Red, Purple).
(2) These texts will be easily identified, because (a) as texts or composite groups of error-packets they will remain minority texts. (b) The differently supported packets allow us to use genealogical methods.
Typically, opponents of the Majority of MSS Model will reason that a process of uneven copying could occur repeatedly, boosting minority readings into majority readings on a larger scale. Hodges showed the failure of this argument by showing that cumulatively speaking, the probabilities for multiple accidents favoring a bad text quickly skyrocket downward. In discussing the case of a second error (or error packet) in a following generation, Hodges has stated:
"Now we have conceded that 'error A' is found in 4 copies while the true reading is only in 2. But when 'error B' is introduced [in the next generation], its rival is found in 5 copies. Will anyone suppose that 'error B' will have the same good fortune as 'error A', and be copied more than all the other branches combined?...but conceding this far less probable situation, ...will anyone believe the same for 'error C'? ...the probability is drastically reduced. " (Append. p. 167)These 'errors' would be equivalent to our Yellow, Orange, Red Packets respectively.
Compounding Unlikely Events: Rapidly Decreasing Probability
We allowed for one catastrophe: over-copying of the Yellow Packet. Hodges' argument here is actually so powerful, its clinching:
Probabilities are calculated by multiplication, with the probability of each event represented by a fraction less than 1. A 50% chance of an error being over-copied (as an example) means 1/2 the time it could happen. But the second error also being over-copied at the same time is (1/2) times (1/2), = 1/4, only a 25% chance. The chance of three equally probable events in a row happening is 12.5%. This is the same as flipping a coin. For a fair and random coin-toss, the chances of tossing 7 'heads' in a row is less than 1%!:
Likewise, even with 50/50 odds, seven generations of errors have almost no chance of ever being consistently copied more often than their rival readings in a random undirected process.
But our observations here go far beyond even this argument: Its a case of the experiment being poisoned before it can even get off the ground.
The Defocussing Effect of Noise on Transmission
What is not being mentioned so far in any of the discussions is the fact that ALL scribes introduce errors, in every single copy. Contrary to intuition, this actually also assists the Majority Reading Model, by sabotaging false positives further.
The scheme above isolates four Error-Packets for discussion, and the analysis is valid because they are 'independent' in the sense that normally errors won't overlap or interfere with each other in the early transmission. Its like a needle in a haystack: The chances of two errors bumping into each other is nearly zero.
But with errors being added randomly and on average roughly equally with each copy, we have now introduced random noise into the signal at all points. This random noise acts to mask the false signals as effectively as the true signals.
One can think of injected random noise as a 'damping factor': A bell rings clearly and long in the air. But a mute, or mask attenuates both the loudness of the bell and the duration of the note. Imbalances (spikes and dips) in the transmission process are softened, evened out and muted in a variety of ways, randomly. This impedes the efficiency of transmission; the clarity, and the duration of false signals (errors) as well as true ones are attenuated.
However, the true signals have an enormous starting-advantage: They are already 100% Majority readings, and it takes a lot of accumulated noise in the transmission to disturb the original text enough to actually supplant a majority reading. These are modern considerations now well analyzed by engineers, but which were unknown to 19th century textual critics relying on 'common sense' or intuitive guesses.
Although both true and false signals are attenuated and masked by noise, the much smaller error signals suffer the most relative damage from further random noise. Anomalies in the error transmission are smoothed, masked, and truncated by random processes, which defocuss unique and unusual signals in the mix.
peace
Nazaroo
Thursday, April 14, 2011
List of Articles related to KJV and Modern Versions
 |
| P75: Leaf 57 verso - Click to Enlarge |
Papyri (Capital Script) Related Articles
- F. Kenyon (1948) on the Papyri - & dating John
- Four Earliest MSS - with guilty knowledge of PA
- The Egerton Fragment - 8:1-11 - Early Evidence
- P 75 & Jn 8:1-11 - more Dot Markings found...
- Clark (1962): the Papyri - their significance
- Nomina Sacra in the Papyri - sacred abbreviations new!
- P. Head (2000): Papyri Sources - Tyndale Bull. 51
- E.Tov (2002): Punctuation Marks - early MSS
- Hurtado (2006): the New Papyri - significance
- P75 & B: Agreement? - greatly exaggerated!
- P45 Readings - omissions of interest new!
Uncials: Key Articles (on Uncials)
- E. Miller (1886) on א/B - date and origin
- Burgon (1871): Dating א/B - א 50-100 yrs later
- Ezra Abbot (1872):Dating א/B - reply to Burgon
- R.Harris (1890) א/B & PA accident
- K. Lake (1911) on א - origin, history new!
- Skeat (1997) on א - origin & Cod.B
- Myshrall (2005) on א - the scribes of א new!
- Edwin Abbott (1905) on B: readings Hort ignored!
- R. Harris (1891) on Codex D - Latinisms found
- E.Tov (2002): Punctuation Marks - early MSS new!
- Olley (2009) Dots & Spaces - Punctuation in Uncials
Miniscules & Lectionaries: (Cursive Script)
- Scholia - Marginal Notes
- Koehler (1953) Evangelistaries - backgnd
- Anderson (1992): Byz. Lectionary - good intro
- Wikgren (1934) Lectionary text - PA & talk
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Where the 'Historical-Critical Method' led the world
Where the 'Historical-Critical Method' led the world, according to those who bought into it.
It should be remembered that at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, science as we know it now was in its infancy, and there was no universal scientific standard or method, or even any real grasp of what a truly scientific method might entail.
Even the longstanding "assured results" of the physical sciences were in confused mess, as the early discoveries of quantum effects and the paradoxes of light-speed and the atom shook the very foundations of the Newtonian worldview.
While the less talented 'academics' of the soft sciences (historical, social) were busy embracing the materialistic, non-supernatural, deterministic universe, the real physicists were frantically abandoning it as completely unworkable in light of new discoveries.
Yet while the fields of Textual Criticism, Linguistics, History etc., had hardly even begun to address what a 'scientific method' might entail, and the vast amount of work ahead, along with the rigorous logic required, they had already run off to the press with the "assured results of modern criticism" regarding the New Testament.
Textual Critics had convinced themselves and others that they had essentially solved all the important questions regarding the NT text. All that lay ahead was to weigh the consequences of their brilliant analysis:
Did the majority of manuscripts in the 2nd century really "not agree with one another" to the extent we can't determine the actual text?
Must we "abandon all hope" of securing an accurate and true text?
Must any and all precision regarding the word of God, the Holy Scripture, be "hopelessly abandoned"?
Should we really dismiss "any exegesis or interpretation of Scripture which hinges upon the precise form of a particular word" as a fraudulent illusion?
What then do we do with St. Paul, who bases an entire argument on a single letter of the Hebrew O.T.? (Gal 3:16)?
What shall we say when Jesus does the same with a single phrase? (Mark 12:26-27)
What happens to John 1:12?
The answer is that the "one thing" that the proponent of the "historical-critical method" wants us to "hopelessly abandon" turns out to be confidence and certainty regarding a whole lot of things, namely just about every precise and specific statement in Holy Scripture!
Because these all must now become 'doubtful forms' suggesting 'illusory precision'. The real 'word of God' is a nebulous paraphrase, represented by the wide and bland fuzzy renderings of everything from the 'Living Bible' and the 'Message' to the Jehovah's Witless translation.
The door swings wide, and bangs in the wind. Every liberal heresy, every mediocre notion, every confused understanding is free to walk in and preach from the pulpit. Every foundation of Biblical truth, every fundamental Christian doctrine, every sure word of prophecy, in complimentary fashion, must now be released, sent into the forest as food for the wolves.
But it turns out however, that all this panic, all this frantic editing of the Holy word of God, all this chucking of hundreds of 'doubtful verses' on the basis of a handful of crappy Egyptian copies, was based on a fraudulent claim in the first place:
But it can be proven that these men had no 'scientific method' that the rest of the world could openly inspect, or that any even among themselves could universally embrace:
It can be proven that in 1882 they had not done the massive amount of preparatory work needed.
And as a consequence it is apparent that they were not worthy to alter the Holy Scripture for all Christians, all future generations, and the whole world standing in need of salvation.
Three strikes and you're out.
Nazaroo
It should be remembered that at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, science as we know it now was in its infancy, and there was no universal scientific standard or method, or even any real grasp of what a truly scientific method might entail.
Even the longstanding "assured results" of the physical sciences were in confused mess, as the early discoveries of quantum effects and the paradoxes of light-speed and the atom shook the very foundations of the Newtonian worldview.
While the less talented 'academics' of the soft sciences (historical, social) were busy embracing the materialistic, non-supernatural, deterministic universe, the real physicists were frantically abandoning it as completely unworkable in light of new discoveries.
Yet while the fields of Textual Criticism, Linguistics, History etc., had hardly even begun to address what a 'scientific method' might entail, and the vast amount of work ahead, along with the rigorous logic required, they had already run off to the press with the "assured results of modern criticism" regarding the New Testament.
Textual Critics had convinced themselves and others that they had essentially solved all the important questions regarding the NT text. All that lay ahead was to weigh the consequences of their brilliant analysis:
Must a 'perfect' text remain the "delusion of the ignorant"?"...while we never can predict what may not be brought out from the timeless sands of Egypt, there is little hope of every securing that original text. ...
"Moreover, if we actually had an autograph manuscript, we could not be sure that no slips of the hasty pen of the writer had taken place...A perfect text must remain... the delusion of the ignorant.
"...What then is the conclusion? Evidently this - that in the 2nd century there was no general uniformity among the manuscripts. Most of them ...did not agree with one another. ...
"When we thus abandon the hope of securing a perfect text, and especially when we learn that the number of variations in existing manuscripts is roughly reckoned to be 200,000, we are tempted to despair of knowing what the original contents of the New Testament were.
...we must bear in mind that only "a very small proportion of the variations materially affects the sense, ...and no variation affects an article of faith or a moral precept.." (Vincent).
This was finely illustrated by the Revised Version (1882). When it first appeared, some persons who were not inclined to accept the teachings of the King James version hastened to examine it, hoping to find matters more to their taste. But though there was scarcely a verse that did not show some slight change, and though a few passages had been wholly omitted, it was the same New Testament after all.
...we had to give up 1st John 5:7 as a proof-text for the Trinity ...but there remained texts in abundance that could ...support the doctrine.
...
There was only one thing that had to be hopelessly abandoned, namely, any interpretation of Scripture which hinges upon the precise form of a particular word, finding deepest significance in the use of an aorist instead of an imperfect tense, and in the presence or absence of the Greek article. This kind of exegesis, at least in its extreme form, is no longer possible; and I think that we all feel that its passing is not to be deplored."
- W. B. Hill, The Present Problems of NT Study, (NY, 1903) p. 19 fwd.
Did the majority of manuscripts in the 2nd century really "not agree with one another" to the extent we can't determine the actual text?
Must we "abandon all hope" of securing an accurate and true text?
Must any and all precision regarding the word of God, the Holy Scripture, be "hopelessly abandoned"?
Should we really dismiss "any exegesis or interpretation of Scripture which hinges upon the precise form of a particular word" as a fraudulent illusion?
What then do we do with St. Paul, who bases an entire argument on a single letter of the Hebrew O.T.? (Gal 3:16)?
What shall we say when Jesus does the same with a single phrase? (Mark 12:26-27)
What happens to John 1:12?
The answer is that the "one thing" that the proponent of the "historical-critical method" wants us to "hopelessly abandon" turns out to be confidence and certainty regarding a whole lot of things, namely just about every precise and specific statement in Holy Scripture!
Because these all must now become 'doubtful forms' suggesting 'illusory precision'. The real 'word of God' is a nebulous paraphrase, represented by the wide and bland fuzzy renderings of everything from the 'Living Bible' and the 'Message' to the Jehovah's Witless translation.
The door swings wide, and bangs in the wind. Every liberal heresy, every mediocre notion, every confused understanding is free to walk in and preach from the pulpit. Every foundation of Biblical truth, every fundamental Christian doctrine, every sure word of prophecy, in complimentary fashion, must now be released, sent into the forest as food for the wolves.
But it turns out however, that all this panic, all this frantic editing of the Holy word of God, all this chucking of hundreds of 'doubtful verses' on the basis of a handful of crappy Egyptian copies, was based on a fraudulent claim in the first place:
(1) That these 'experts' actually had a scientific method available;
(2) That they had actually done the massive preliminary work required;
(3) That they were honest and trustworthy men, worthy to shoulder the sacred task of editing Holy Scripture for the whole world.
But it can be proven that these men had no 'scientific method' that the rest of the world could openly inspect, or that any even among themselves could universally embrace:
It can be proven that in 1882 they had not done the massive amount of preparatory work needed.
And as a consequence it is apparent that they were not worthy to alter the Holy Scripture for all Christians, all future generations, and the whole world standing in need of salvation.
Three strikes and you're out.
Nazaroo
Thursday, March 31, 2011
The Sabotage of the Christian O.T. in favor of 20th cent. Judaism
The following is a succinct explanation for the RSV O.T. fiasco:
The verse most often mentioned by conservatives was Isaiah 7:14, in which the RSV translators rendered the Hebrew word almah as "young woman" instead of "virgin." While this was not a case of a clear violation of the Hebrew (the word must be interpreted according to its context), it was by no means necessary. (5)
And there were many other instances of the same problem, which revealed a pattern of systematic contradiction of the New Testament interpretations of Old Testament passages. For example, in Genesis 22:18 the RSV renders an ambiguous sentence as "by your descendents shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves" contrary to the interpretation given by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:8 and 3:16.
The contradictions foisted into the Bible by the RSV translators included also some renderings which created blatant contradictions within individual books. For example, in Genesis 9:20, where the ASV had read, "And Noah began to be a husbandman" (i.e. a farmer) the RSV reads "Noah was the first tiller of the soil," thus generating a contradiction with the statements in Genesis 3:22 ("the LORD God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground") and 4:2 ("Cain was a tiller of the ground"). It was the belief of the RSV translators that the Book of Genesis is composed of traditional stories that frequently contradict each other, cobbled together by editors who neglected to harmonize them in many places.
The objections of conservatives to the RSV were not merely captious criticisms concerning the meaning of a word here and there; the controversy was about whether or not a version of the Old Testament which ignores and contradicts the New Testament, as well as itself, in so many places, has any right to be received as the standard Bible of American churches."
- Michael Marlowe, Bible Researcher.com.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/rsv.html
The 5th Columnists who had infiltrated the RSV OT committee essentially committed sabotage, and violently betrayed the Christian public.
James Moffatt (Union Theological Seminary) had died earlier in 1944, leaving
The RSV was repackaged and sold again by an Ecumenical group deeply involved with the Roman Catholics, in
- The Dean
The verse most often mentioned by conservatives was Isaiah 7:14, in which the RSV translators rendered the Hebrew word almah as "young woman" instead of "virgin." While this was not a case of a clear violation of the Hebrew (the word must be interpreted according to its context), it was by no means necessary. (5)
And there were many other instances of the same problem, which revealed a pattern of systematic contradiction of the New Testament interpretations of Old Testament passages. For example, in Genesis 22:18 the RSV renders an ambiguous sentence as "by your descendents shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves" contrary to the interpretation given by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:8 and 3:16.
The contradictions foisted into the Bible by the RSV translators included also some renderings which created blatant contradictions within individual books. For example, in Genesis 9:20, where the ASV had read, "And Noah began to be a husbandman" (i.e. a farmer) the RSV reads "Noah was the first tiller of the soil," thus generating a contradiction with the statements in Genesis 3:22 ("the LORD God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground") and 4:2 ("Cain was a tiller of the ground"). It was the belief of the RSV translators that the Book of Genesis is composed of traditional stories that frequently contradict each other, cobbled together by editors who neglected to harmonize them in many places.
The objections of conservatives to the RSV were not merely captious criticisms concerning the meaning of a word here and there; the controversy was about whether or not a version of the Old Testament which ignores and contradicts the New Testament, as well as itself, in so many places, has any right to be received as the standard Bible of American churches."
- Michael Marlowe, Bible Researcher.com.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/rsv.html
The 5th Columnists who had infiltrated the RSV OT committee essentially committed sabotage, and violently betrayed the Christian public.
James Moffatt (Union Theological Seminary) had died earlier in 1944, leaving
* Millar Burrows, Yale University. (joined 1938)
* Luther A. Weigle, Yale University, Chairman.
* Fleming James, University of the South, Executive Secretary.
* Julius A. Bewer, Union Theological Seminary.
* William R. Taylor, University of Toronto.
* George Dahl, Yale University.
* Willard L. Sperry, Harvard University.
* Leroy Waterman, University of Michigan.
* Kyle M. Yates, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
* William F. Albright, Johns Hopkins University.
* J. Philip Hyatt, Vanderbilt University.
* Herbert G. May, Oberlin Graduate School of Theology.
* Harry M. Orlinsky, Jewish Institute of Religion.
The RSV was repackaged and sold again by an Ecumenical group deeply involved with the Roman Catholics, in
1973 (with an awful, nearly unreadable translation of the Apocrypha), and again, asThis was really part of a larger Ecumenical plan to gut and dismember Reformation Protestantism, in favor of modern liberalism, a program which was apparently largely successful.
1977 (by Metzger, Oxford U.P. as, "the New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: RSV, with 2nd ed. NT")
1990 (NRSV, Oxford U.P., removing all "sexist" language, and creating the 'unisex' version.)
the NRSV was quickly adopted as a replacement of the RSV in the liberal denominations associated with the National Council of Churches. It has also been favored by liberal university professors, for use as a text in "religion" courses.
1991 (re-edited by Metzger/Murphy), and again republished and disguised as a different version[!!!]:
1993 (re-edited by Wayne Meeks et. al, as "The Harper Collins Study Bible" in an attempt to avoid the reputation of the RSV)
- The Dean
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Predecessors behind the Westcott-Hort Fiasco (1882)
A recent post at the KJV Only Debate Blog laments the lack of knowledge about the many people prior to the infamous Revised Version of 1881 and the Westcott-Hort Greek Text. The poster admits he himself had little aquantance with Philip Schaff, the semi-Catholic American ecumenicalist and liberal scholar who translated/edited/published an English translation of virtually all the then known Early Fathers, over several volumes.
Schaff is quoted as follows:
Schaff's understatement demands some remarks. Putting aside whether the radical, naive and sometimes absurd opinions of German critics etc. were really "improvements", what needs to be faced is the heterodox, fringe group nature of the motley crew that made up 19th century 'scholarship'. The Reformation had marched on by this time for 200 years, and spawned many 'denominations', sects, cults, and maverick loners.
The majority of the 19th century 'reformers' interested in revising the NT text were Unitarians, and could only be classed as 'mainstream' in the sense that they were part of rapidly expanding movement generally to abandon orthodox Christian doctrine and embrace rationalist historical-critical attitudes. Although these men were not consciously dishonest, they were certainly biased and largely motivated by their theological beliefs, one of them being their belief that the NT had been 'corrupted' by Trinitarians and Roman Catholics to an extent unjustifiable by the actual historical evidence.
But the lineage of the modern critical text is fairly easily traced, from the initial paranoid marginal notes of Wetstein who feared Latin/Romanist contamination, to the grim insistence on the "oldest MSS" by Tregelles, the last in the line of attempts predating Hort.
The Westcott/Hort branch of textual criticism goes:
(1707) Toinard (Roman Catholic Priest) - use 2 oldest MSS + Vulgate
(1720) Bentley (Cambridge Master) - no witness newer than 5th century
(1751) Wetstein (Arminian, Amsterdam) - prefer the older manuscripts
(1776) Harwood (Unitarian Presbyter.) - abandoned Textus Receptus
(1796) Griesbach (German Critic) - 'prefer the shorter reading'
(1842) Lachmann (German Critic) - 'recreate the 4th century text'
(1861) Tregelles (Quaker, non-conformist) - oldest MSS only
(1869) Tischendorf (Russian, Orthodox) - prefer Old Uncials
For a more detailed picture of all the previous scholars and editors, complete with articles on each, try our page here:
Early Critical Greek texts
All these critics and editors built on their predecessors and repeated the same naive mistakes in both methodology and MSS/reading preference. Their opinions and their texts are remarkably alike, and Hort's text is essentially the most extreme editing job of the lot (excluding Lachmann).
For an estimate of Schaff's work on the PA etc., try here:
Schaff on the PA
Peace
Nazaroo
Schaff is quoted as follows:
"...the great majority of the changes of text...(probably more than 4/5) which they finally adopted had been anticipated by previous translators and commentators, and had become the common property of biblical scholars before the year 1870. But these improvements were scattered among many books, and lacked public recognition. They had literary worth, but no ecclesiastical authority. They were the work of individuals, not of the Church."
- Schaff, A Companion (1881) p 368)
Schaff's understatement demands some remarks. Putting aside whether the radical, naive and sometimes absurd opinions of German critics etc. were really "improvements", what needs to be faced is the heterodox, fringe group nature of the motley crew that made up 19th century 'scholarship'. The Reformation had marched on by this time for 200 years, and spawned many 'denominations', sects, cults, and maverick loners.
The majority of the 19th century 'reformers' interested in revising the NT text were Unitarians, and could only be classed as 'mainstream' in the sense that they were part of rapidly expanding movement generally to abandon orthodox Christian doctrine and embrace rationalist historical-critical attitudes. Although these men were not consciously dishonest, they were certainly biased and largely motivated by their theological beliefs, one of them being their belief that the NT had been 'corrupted' by Trinitarians and Roman Catholics to an extent unjustifiable by the actual historical evidence.
But the lineage of the modern critical text is fairly easily traced, from the initial paranoid marginal notes of Wetstein who feared Latin/Romanist contamination, to the grim insistence on the "oldest MSS" by Tregelles, the last in the line of attempts predating Hort.
The Westcott/Hort branch of textual criticism goes:
(1707) Toinard (Roman Catholic Priest) - use 2 oldest MSS + Vulgate
(1720) Bentley (Cambridge Master) - no witness newer than 5th century
(1751) Wetstein (Arminian, Amsterdam) - prefer the older manuscripts
(1776) Harwood (Unitarian Presbyter.) - abandoned Textus Receptus
(1796) Griesbach (German Critic) - 'prefer the shorter reading'
(1842) Lachmann (German Critic) - 'recreate the 4th century text'
(1861) Tregelles (Quaker, non-conformist) - oldest MSS only
(1869) Tischendorf (Russian, Orthodox) - prefer Old Uncials
For a more detailed picture of all the previous scholars and editors, complete with articles on each, try our page here:
Early Critical Greek texts
All these critics and editors built on their predecessors and repeated the same naive mistakes in both methodology and MSS/reading preference. Their opinions and their texts are remarkably alike, and Hort's text is essentially the most extreme editing job of the lot (excluding Lachmann).
For an estimate of Schaff's work on the PA etc., try here:
Schaff on the PA
Peace
Nazaroo
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Bible Rankings by sales, 2011
Bible Translations - Based on Unit Sales (March 2011)
1 New International Version (TNIV)
2 New Living Translation (NLT)
3 King James Version (KJV)
4 New King James Version (NKJV)
5 English Standard Version (ESV)
6 Reina Valera 1960 (Spanish)
7 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB=NRSV)
8 The Message
9 New American Standard Bible updated (NASBu)
10 Other Translations
___________________________________________________
The newest listing is interesting.
(1) Its no surprise that the NIV is at the top, since about 60% of all modern book sales is based on promotion budgets and campaigns, and the NIV is the flagship for many Bible publishers. The NLT is again one of the longest running easy modern translations, popular with many for whom English is a second language. Number 6 isn't really an English translation, but is of interest to a growing Spanish-speaking population in the USA, hence its inclusion by the CBA Listing.
(2) The actual numbers aren't given, but its a good bet that collectively the KJV and NKJV would still outrank sales in numbers of any other single version, in English-speaking countries of the West at least.
(3) The "Holman" Bible was originally meant to follow the KJV NT text (i.e., the TR or Majority Text) but the originator and editor Farstad died shortly after the project began, and those who took over switched to the UBS text.
(4) The NASB and CEV have slid down and off the chart respectively, in part because the Spanish version was inserted (out of place here), but mainly because these older translations have lost promotional investment to newer versions.
(5) The suprise is the NLT, which has probably moved up for a few reasons: (a) it has won 2nd place in the 'modern version' race due to its longstanding history, (b) it is one of the popular versions purchased by educational institutions and liberal denominations, (c) money has been invested in promoting it, especially among Roman Catholics in North America, (d) it is the default '2nd language=English' translation for new immigrants to NA.
peace
Nazaroo
1 New International Version (TNIV)
2 New Living Translation (NLT)
3 King James Version (KJV)
4 New King James Version (NKJV)
5 English Standard Version (ESV)
6 Reina Valera 1960 (Spanish)
7 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB=NRSV)
8 The Message
9 New American Standard Bible updated (NASBu)
10 Other Translations
___________________________________________________
The newest listing is interesting.
(1) Its no surprise that the NIV is at the top, since about 60% of all modern book sales is based on promotion budgets and campaigns, and the NIV is the flagship for many Bible publishers. The NLT is again one of the longest running easy modern translations, popular with many for whom English is a second language. Number 6 isn't really an English translation, but is of interest to a growing Spanish-speaking population in the USA, hence its inclusion by the CBA Listing.
(2) The actual numbers aren't given, but its a good bet that collectively the KJV and NKJV would still outrank sales in numbers of any other single version, in English-speaking countries of the West at least.
(3) The "Holman" Bible was originally meant to follow the KJV NT text (i.e., the TR or Majority Text) but the originator and editor Farstad died shortly after the project began, and those who took over switched to the UBS text.
(4) The NASB and CEV have slid down and off the chart respectively, in part because the Spanish version was inserted (out of place here), but mainly because these older translations have lost promotional investment to newer versions.
(5) The suprise is the NLT, which has probably moved up for a few reasons: (a) it has won 2nd place in the 'modern version' race due to its longstanding history, (b) it is one of the popular versions purchased by educational institutions and liberal denominations, (c) money has been invested in promoting it, especially among Roman Catholics in North America, (d) it is the default '2nd language=English' translation for new immigrants to NA.
peace
Nazaroo
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Bible Rankings by sales, 2005
*Bible Translation Market Share for March and April 2005
- NIV (New International Vers, 1984 rev Basis: BHS, UBS2/NA26 )
- KJV (King James Version, 1769 Oxford: TR Stevens/Beza )
- NKJV (New King James Version, 1979 Basis: TR (scrivener), HF?)
- NLT (New Living Translation [TLB], 2nd ed 2004 BHS, UBS4/NA27)
- The Message (The Message, 1993, 2002 )
- NASB95 (New Amer. Standard 1995rev Basis: ASV, BHS N23/NA26)
- NCV (New Century Version 1978-91 : N23/NA26 )
- TNIV (Todays New International Version, 2002: BHS, etc., NA27 )
- ESV (English Stand. Vers. 2007 rev: from RSV71, BHS2, UBS4 )
- HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible 2010, BHS5, NA27 )
* Reflects cumulative Bible sales at all Mardel stores for March and April 2005
The chart above is quite interesting. Although the publisher listed the NIV as the top seller (no doubt pushed by hardcore promotion from the publishers), the KJV and NKJV together probably outstripped it in sales, even in the USA.
Almost all other bibles are based on the latest available 'critical Greek NT texts', essentially just one text: the UBS2-4 and/or NA26-27. Both are based on the Westcott/Hort text, updated and modified by Aland, who adopted the Nestle-text (23rd ed.) and then made some 500 changes to that. Aland was also a heavyweight player in the UBS text(s), which adopted his text, then adopted his apparatus and punctuation, finally making the UBS4 and NA27 essentially identical. RC Cardinal Martini also got involved in the 60s, but then retired.
Most of the modern versions have been adopted and simultaneously printed along with Apocrypha by the Roman Catholic church, in an attempt to supplant the English Bible (KJV).
"Back in 2005 a rough estimate set the number of Bibles sold at around twenty-five million copies. That was just in the United States! Back then the amount spent on Bibles sales was estimated to be more than half a billion dollars per year. The American Bible Society distributed over 60 million Bibles last year in the U.S. alone. The Gideon's distributed 59,460,000 Bibles worldwide last year. This is an average of over one million Gideon Bibles every week, or about 113 per minute. One publisher has 350 different editions of the Bible in print this season alone."
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