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)

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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. 

Why the UBS Text is a Prejudiced Fail

Aland

 

An excellent analysis of the actual textual-critical method used to construct the Nestle/Aland (NA/UBS) Greek NT text is given by Dennis Kenaga, (.pdf) in 'Skeptical Trends in New Testament Textual Criticism: Inside the Alexandrian Priority School...'
This analysis reveals that the method used is so constructed as to 'fix' the voting in favor of the Alexandrian text-type, meaning in practical terms, the text of Westcott/Hort, reconstructed from Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus (B and א).  Basically, the 'method' is a transparent fraud, designed to continue promoting the W/H text.

Here is an excerpt:

"10. The External Criteria, Stage 3

Aland’s seven critical rules are particular to NU editing and are often highly disputed. Metzger calls them criteria or evidence. He also calls them probabilities, since the probability of their being applied in any given variant set is unpredictable except that they need to support an Alexandrian reading. They are divided into four external and three internal rules (or criteria or probabilities). It is immediately evident that the external criteria come before the internal criteria generally and involve the age of the manuscript and text types. The text types that Aland identifies are Alexandrian, Western and Byzantine.

Metzger states:

“In general, earlier manuscripts are more likely to be free from those errors that arise from repeated copying. Of even greater importance, however, than the age of the document itself are the date and character of the type of text that it embodies, as well as the degree of care taken by the copyist while producing the manuscript.”

As we saw before and will see more so later, Metzger’s claim that the earlier texts are more error-free is not true, and is contradicted by Aland’s categories and by the NU selections themselves. Metzger himself is aware that most of the older papyri are not as good as the later Alexandrian uncials. But it is clear that in the Alexandrian priority text types, not age per se, are the determining fact of external evidence. Instead of text types, Aland usually uses the term categories, which is similar to text type but not identical.
Exactly how the text types or categories are applied to select variants, neither Aland nor Metzger reveals explicitly. The reader needs to gather this information inductively by examining the descriptions and the results. We get our first clue from Aland Rule 6: variants are to be “weighed, not counted.” A little reading and observation of the choices shows that this means that the Byzantine text, which Aland also calls the Imperial text, is eliminated from the candidate pool for selection. We get a hint of the Byzantines’ fate when Aland states: “They are all irrelevant for textual criticism, at least for establishing the original....” (10) If the thousands of later Byzantine manuscripts each counted as equal votes, they would swamp the few, older


Alexandrian ones, and the present NU would be just a quaint reconstruction of a long-discontinued regional artifact. So the Byzantine elimination solves a central problem for the Alexandrian priority by axing the teeming Byzantine hoards with one stroke.

The word “weigh” also does not mean to assign a measure or weighting factor to each manuscript, as it would imply. There is no table of weights. It is not individual readings or manuscripts that are weighed.

Rather it is the five NU categories (11) that are weighed. The categories span a continuum of text types from Category I (mainly Alexandrian) to Category V (mainly Byzantine) with Categories II and III in between and Category IV belonging to the “Western” codex Bezae and its allies. The Category V weight is zero. Metzger linked the external evidence to “the degree of care taken by the copyist while producing the manuscript.” Besides the text types, NU classifies the papyri by Aland fidelity categories: strict, normal, free, paraphrastic. Free means fast and loose, relatively speaking. The scribe takes liberties and makes mistakes.

11. The A-list (an Alexandrian subset) and the Mechanical Vote

TCGNT often mentions external and internal evidence and gives witness lists for selected and rejected variants, but does not mention categories or give a hint about the selection mechanics. Aland also does not disclose the selection mechanics. So the reader is left to deduce them from the results. In a particular case we picture several variants presented for election in a vote with qualifications for candidates and voters.

Some variants, such as singular and Byzantine variants, are eliminated—disqualified as voters or candidates. Some variants can vote but not run. Some votes count more than others.  The qualifications are based on the Aland categories. All of this is behind the scenes.

The TCGNT reader, distracted by a sideshow of internal evidence, reads only vague reports of the voting process.  It becomes clear from observation that the effective, though unspoken, weighing rule of NU selection is that the text must come from the small aristocracy of Category I uncials, the A-list, which Aland calls “presumably the original text.” (12) The A-list always includes Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, and possibly one or two other Alexandrian uncials. 

Strict papyri theoretically also belong to the A-list, but P75 is the only strict papyrus of substantial size (parts of John and Luke). For pro-Alexandrians it is the crown jewel of papyri. It is closest to Vaticanus. The bulk of the papyri are classed as free and do not qualify as candidates, although the older ones can vote. There is usually only one papyrus for a given passage and sometimes none, although in John there are usually two. Older papyri are more like the Alexandrian than Byzantine. Category IV uncial Bezae and its papyri may vote among the candidates but may not run as candidates even if they are older. When the vote is tied, candidates are ranked with Vaticanus first and Sinaiticus second. The Category II uncials may vote on rare occasion. The other 90% of the Category V and III manuscripts and minuscules never vote or serve as candidates, though they may appear in TCGNT witness lists and in apparatuses as if they had some influence.

The vote will overwhelmingly go to Vaticanus if it finds support from some other voters, and next to Sinaiticus. Non-normalized spelling is not admitted to the edition, but does not disqualify a voter. The A-list vote usually settles the matter at the external stage and makes the internal probabilities superfluous. Although internal probabilities occasionally override the A-list vote, their frequency and application are unpredictable. One problem with the external criteria as described is that they are based on an imaginary text history, which makes them invalid even when they are applied objectively.

12. Type Vote Is Determinative, Not Internal Probabilities: Evidence

First Corinthians was chosen as a moderate-sized text to test the methodology described above to see how well it would match the NU edit selections. Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus are the only three Category I uncials (candidates) for 1 Corinthians.  P46 generally is the only old papyrus. So with the Western Codex Beza, there are five qualified voters for 1 Corinthians. Let us pause to examine the voter composition.  Ninety-nine per-cent of the manuscripts are disqualified, including the Byzantine and minuscules. The three A-list manuscripts dominate the vote. At first glance it does not appear entirely rigged because two non A-list voters are included.  In practice, however, they are only there to help choose between Vaticanus or Sinaiticus when those two differ. First, P46 and Bezae are the least aligned of the five, so they cannot gang up. Second, if one voter is singular or missing and the vote becomes two against two, the A-list wins because they outrank the others. Non A-list can only win the A-list vote if all the A-list are singular or missing.

First Corinthians contains over 6800 words. About 1100 words required normalization in at least one of the witnesses, so that was the most frequent editing.   After normalization, about 1030 words (15%) had some variation in the five witnesses but NU only decided on 1009 of these (the rest are in square brackets). About 65% of these 1009 disputed words were settled by eliminating 'singular' readings. The reading was “selected” in the sense that there was no more contest or vote needed. About 85% of these selection votes went to Vaticanus. When Vaticanus was singular, it went to Sinaiticus. This concluded standard editing.

The 353 words not settled in the singular elimination (stage 2) were put to the A-list vote (stage 3 or the external criteria). Three-hundred ten of the votes (88%) matched the NU selections. In other words, all but 43 of the 1009 disputed words were correctly predicted by singular elimination and the mechanical A-list program, without resorting to internal criteria. Apparently, the 43 words (4% of the 1009 words in question), required the NU internal probabilities to settle. Some of these were settled by common sense, not requiring any particular internal criteria like lectio brevior. Others were settled by some internal evidence. The rules for settling others were not recognizable. Even when some internal criterion was invoked to settle the case, the reason for picking the particular criterion over a variety of others was unpredictable. In general, the area of internal evidence is quite small, secondary and subjective.

The one result that was perfectly clear from the examination of the 1009 words was that the Alexandrian uncials won a landslide victory: 1006 words matched Alexandrian (99.7%) and 3 words did not; 891 matched Vaticanus; 110 of the remaining matched Sinaiticus. Five remaining matched Alexandrinus, one remaining matched P46 and the last two were witnessed by Bezae alone. The landslide victory in favor of Alexandrian uncials could only result from the A-list, not from merely following the internal criteria. As we will see later, the internal evidence, if not overridden by the external vote, would often result in Byzantine victories. The Corinthians vote results are almost as lopsided as a Byzantine majority text victory based on a one-manuscript-one- vote rule. To summarize, we have a 96% predictability rate of the selected reading with singular elimination and a straight A-list vote. And we have a 99.7% predictability that the winner will be  Alexandrian. The 99.7% Alexandrian rate is an independent fact while the 96% prediction rate for the particular manuscript depends on a hypothetical A-list method. A method that cranks out such results causes an Alexandrian NT but is not defensible.   ...'

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10 Aland, 142.
11 Ibid., 108.
12 Ibid., 335.

mr.scrivener

Jack Moorman on Early Corruption

Here is a quotation from Moorman's book, "Forever Settled" p. 97-99:

'Beginning shortly after the death of the apostle John, four names stand out in prominence whose teachings contributed both to the victorious heresy and to the final issuing of manuscripts of a corrupt New Testament. These names are

(1) Justin Martyr, 
(2) Tatian, 
(3) Clement of Alexandria, and 
(4) Origen. 

We shall speak first of Justin Martyr.

The year in which the apostle John died, 100 AD, is given as the date in when Justin Martyr was born. Justin, originally a pagan and of pagan parentage, afterward embraced Christianity and although he is said to have died at heathen hands for his religion, nevertheless, his teachings were of a heretical nature. Even as a Christian teacher, he continued to wear the robes of a pagan philosopher.

In the teachings of Justin Martyr, we begin to see how muddy the stream of pure Christian doctrine was running among the heretical sects fifty years after the death of the apostle John. It was in Tatian, Justin Martyr’s pupil, that these regrettable doctrines were carried to alarming lengths, and by his hand committed to writing. After the death of Justin Martyr in Rome, Tatian returned to Palestine and embraced the Gnostic heresy. This same Tatian wrote a Harmony of the Gospels which was called the Diatessaron, meaning four in one. The Gospels were so notoriously Corrupted by his hand that in later years a bishop of Syria, because of the errors, was obliged to throw out of his churches no less than two hundred copies of this Diatessaron, since church members were mistaking it for the true Gospel.

We come now to Tatian's pupil known as Clement of Alexandria, 200 A.D. He went much farther than Tatian in that he founded a School at Alexandria which instituted propaganda along these heretical lines. Clement expressly tells us that he would not hand down Christian teachings, pure and unmixed, but rather clouded with precepts of pagan philosophy. All the writings of the outstanding heretical teachers were possessed by Clement, and he freely quoted from their corrupted manuscripts as if they were the pure words of Scripture. His influence in the depravation of Christianity was tremendous. But his greatest contribution, undoubtedly, was the direction given to the studies and activities of Origen, his famous pupil.

When we come to Origen, we speak the name of him who did the most of all to, create and give direction to the forces of apostasy down through the centuries. It was he who mightily influenced Jerome, the editor of the Latin Bible known as the Vulgate. Eusebius worshipped at the altar of Origen's teachings. He claims to have collector eight hundred of Origen's letters, to have used Origen's six-column Bible, the Hexapla, in his Biblical labors. Assisted by Pamphilus, he restored and preserved Origen's library. Origen's corrupted manuscripts of the Scriptures were well arranged and balanced with subtlety. The last one hundred years have seen much of the so-called scholarship of European and English Christianity dominated by the subtle and powerful influence of Origen.

Origen had so surrendered himself to the furor of turning all Bible events into allegories that he, himself, says, "the Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written." In order to estimate Origen rightly, we must remember that as a pupil of Clement, he learned the teachings of the Gnostic heresy and like his master, lightly esteemed the historical basis of the Bible. As Schaff says, "His predilection for Plato (the pagan philosopher) led him into many grand and facilitating, errors. He made himself aquatinted with the various heresies and studied under the heathen Ammonius Saccas, founder of Neo-Platonism.

He taught that the soul existed from eternity before it inhabited the body, and that after death, it migrated to a higher or a lower form of life according to the deeds done in the body; and finally all would return to the state of pure intelligence, only to begin again the same cycles as before. He believed that the Devils would be saved, and that the stars and planets had souls, and were, like men, on trial to learn perfection. In fact, he turned the whole Law and Gospel into an allegory.

Such was the man who from his day to this has dominated the endeavors of destructive textual critics. One of the greatest results of his life was that his teachings became the foundation of that system of education called Scholasticism, which guided the colleges of Latin Europe for nearly one thousand years during the Dark Ages.

Origenism flooded the Catholic Church through Jerome, the father of Latin Christianity. "I love .. . the name of Origen," says the most distinguished theologian of the Roman Catholic Church since 1850. "I will not listen to the notion that so great a soul was lost." (Newman).

A final word from the learned Scrivener will indicate how early and how deep were the corruptions of the sacred manuscripts:

"It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that Irenaeus (AD 150) , and the African Fathers, and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens thirteen centuries later, when moulding the Textus Receptus." 

The basis was laid to oppose a mutilated Bible to the true one.

mr.scrivener

(1) Clark contra Ropes

A. C. Clark, in his preface to his critical edition of the Greek text of  Acts of the Apostles (1933), comments on the unique problem of the Western (& Byz.) versus the Alexandrian (Aleph/B) text:

PREFACE  

'THE Acts of the Apostles furnish the most interesting chapter in the story of what is generally called the ' Western text '. In the Introduction to this volume (para. 1), to which I refer the reader, I show that this term is a misnomer and conveys a false suggestion when employed of a text which was current in the East, as well as in the West, in the second century A.D. : which formed the basis of the oldest versions, Syriac as well as Latin, and was used by the most ancient Fathers. These facts are allowed by the most thoroughgoing opponents of the text in question, even by Dr. Hort, and no one has stated them with greater candour than the latest editor, Prof. Ropes, as may be seen from the passage which I quote from him (p. xviii).
I therefore venture to substitute the noncommittal symbol Z [W] for this question-begging term, and denote the agreement of the oldest Greek Uncials אABC by Γ [B] (= Graeci).
I now proceed to say a few words about the special problem of Acts. This is that in Acts [W] and [B] differ conspicuously in length. [W] has a longer and [B] a shorter text. The passages which appear in [W], but are absent from [B], are very numerous ; some of them are of considerable  length, e.g. xi. 2, xvi. 39, xxv. 24-5. The question therefore in Acts which dwarfs all others is whether this extra matter is genuine or not.
Various solutions of this problem have been suggested. I will not here repeat what I have said in the Introduction (pp. xx f.), but will state quite briefly that I agree with Ropes when he says that only two solutions are possible. Either [W] is derived from [B], or [B] from [W]. He adopts the first alternative, I adopt the second. He considers that [W] was developed from [B] by expansion, I consider that [B] is an abridgement of [W]. I may remark that the solution adopted by Ropes is intrinsically less probable than that which he rejects, since it is easier to abridge than to invent fresh matter. 

A further objection is that patristic evidence for [B] is lacking before the time of Origen, while the existence of [W] in the second century A.D. is proved by the evidence of the versions and the quotations of the early Fathers. It is an act of faith to suppose that [B] was prior to [W]. The probability is that it was a revision, made not very long before the time when it begins to be quoted. These, however, are a priori arguments upon which I do not wish to insist. There is other evidence which is yielded by codex. Bezae (D), the chief Greek authority for the [W] text in the Gospels and Acts.
 This famous MS. has a peculiar feature, viz. that it is written in lines of irregular length (not, as is usual, in lines of equal length). It is usual to speak of them as ' sense-lines ', and this description fits fairly well the lines in Mt., Mk., and Acts, but it is inapplicable to those in Lk. and Jn. A description of these στιχοι as they are generally termed, will be found in the special article upon D (pp. 178-81). It is agreed that this system of division did not begin with D, but was inherited from an ancestor or a series of ancestors. The analysis which I have made, both of the Greek side of the MS. (D) and of the Latin side (Lat. d ), discloses a large number of corruptions, chiefly omissions of στιχοι, transpositions of στιχοι, and corruptions due to adjacent στιχοι(pp. 181-91), which testify to a number of intervening copies between D and a distant archetype. It is therefore quite possible that this peculiar method of line division goes back to remote antiquity.
After this prelude I proceed to state my own view, viz. that in Acts (not in the Gospels) [B] represents the work of an abbreviator who, having before him a MS. written in στιχοι similar to those found in D, frequently (not, of course, always) adopted the rough and ready method of striking out lines in his model, botching from time to time to produce a construction.
This solution did not come to me at once. The relation of [B] to [W] was first suggested to me by the observation that passages present in D, but absent from [B], very frequently occupy a line or lines in [W] , and that in many cases [B] appears to have been botched in order to provide a construction  after an omission. The evidence given by botching is of especial importance. Instances will be found on pp. xxv-vi. The only explanation which I could at first suggest was that [B] was formed from [W] by a series of accidental omissions.  

New light came from a palimpsest leaf which contains Cic. ad Fam. vi. 9. i 10. 6 in an abridged form (pp. xxviii-ix). This palimpsest omits a number of passages found in the minuscule MSS., and is on occasions impudently botched by the abbreviator in order to disguise the omissions. As the method which he followed was not apparent, I happened to apply an arithmetical test, which I have often found very illuminating when dealing with omissions. The method of application and the results of this test will be found on p. xxix. A clue was furnished by the first passages which I examined, and it soon became obvious that the abbreviator had cut out lines of his copy, botching when necessary. In my work The Descent of MSS., pp. 151-3, I have reconstituted the copy, showing the lines which were deleted and those which were retained. The same arithmetical unit is present in both.
The same test throws unexpected light upon a series of mysterious obels affixed in some MSS. to a number of passages in the speech of Demosthenes against Meidias (pp. xxx-xxxi). The results in this case are even more startling, since the evidence is spread over a larger area. I cannot see any other solution except that the obels were first affixed by an ancient critic who wished to abridge the speech and obelized passages which generally coincided with lines in his text.
I pass by some examples of minor importance, and will state briefly that I stake my case in the first place upon the evidence provided by the palimpsest of Cic. ad Fam.  

My work The Descent of MSS. appeared fourteen years ago and has been widely circulated. During this period no critic, so far as I know, has pointed out any flaw in these calculations. I venture therefore to hope that they are sound. If so, they show that some ancient abbreviators - I insert the word ' some ' to prevent misapprehension or misrepresentation - when making an abridgement, sometimes resorted to the simple device of striking out lines in their text.
In view of this evidence I now ascribe the excisions in the [B] text of Acts to an abbreviator who very frequently struck out lines in his copy. The hypothesis of deliberate abbreviation clears up a number of difficulties which were left unexplained by the theory of accidental omission (p. xxxii).  

The methods of the abbreviator are discussed on pp. xlv-lii. His most noticeable trait is his contempt for minute details. He was not interested in the ' seven steps ' which led up to the prison at Jerusalem (xii. ro) ; the hours of the day during which Paul preached at Ephesus (xix. 9) ; the statement that the rioters at Ephesus 'ran out into the street' (xix. 28); the information that Paul when sailing from Samos to Miletus broke his journey at Trogylia (xx. 15), or that on his journey from Caesarea to Jerusalem he spent a night in a village on the way (xxi. 16); that the ship carrying Paul drifted 'for fifteen days' after leaving Cyprus (xxvii. 5), or that, after Paul's arrival in Rome, ' the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard ' (A.V.) and that Paul was allowed to reside 'outside the camp' (xxviii. 16). His interest was in edification, not in topographical or chronological details. Hence his excisions are comparatively rare in the speeches and most common in the accounts of Paul's journeys. This dislike for detail caused him to substitute tame and colourless summaries for passages instinct with life and vigour, e.g. x. 25 (p. xxiii), xvi. 39, xxv. 24-5. A frequent result of his excisions is to produce obscurity. A typical example occurs in xv. 33 sq. (p. xlvii), where T omits v. 34, which explains how it was that Silas was still in Antioch (v. 40) after having previously received permission to go to Jerusalem ( v - 33)' Some writers consider this obscurity to be a laudable characteristic of Luke's style. Thus Ramsay remarks 'Luke expects much of his readers'. I cannot look on obscurity as a merit, but regard it as a fault which betrays the hand of an abbreviator.
Sometimes the cuts change the sense. Thus in xviii. 27, according to [W], Paul is invited by Corinthians residing in Ephesus to go with them to Corinth : according to [B], he went of his own will. In xix. i, according to [W], Paul wishes of his own accord to go to Jerusalem, but is told by the Spirit to return to Ephesus ; [B] merely states that he went to Ephesus, without any mention of his first plan or of the intervention of the Spirit. In xxiv. 8, according to [W], παρ'ου refers to Claudius Lysias ; according to [B], it refers to Paul. (For the absurdity of this reading cf. p. xlvii.) A more complicated case occurs in xv. i sq. (p. xlix).
Apart from these differences due to abridgement, there are irreconcilable variants. The most remarkable of these occurs in xx. 4, taken in conjunction
 with xix. 29. In xix. 29 Gaius and Aristarchus are both Macedonians : in xx. 4 Aristarchus is said to be a native of Thessalonica, but Gaius, according to [B], is Δερβαιος, i.e. a native of Derbe in Asia Minor. The [W] reading is Δοβηριος, i.e. a native of Doberus (in Macedonia). For a full discussion of this striking passage, the importance of which has hitherto escaped the notice of scholars, I refer to pp. xlix-1 and note ad loc.
There are also cases in which the reading of [B] is absurd. A striking example is in ch. xiii, where, according to [B], a sorcerer is called Barjesus in v. 6, and this name is translated by Elymas in v. 8. Barjesus, however, can mean nothing but 'son of Jesus'. For a full discussion of this passage I refer to the notes.
It seems strange that so inferior a production as the abridged text should have been accepted by the Church. It must have suited the taste of the age in which it appeared and may have been made by someone who enjoyed a reputation in his own generation. It is not always the best text that gains immediate recognition. I venture to refer to a person of no particular importance, the African Father, Primasius. Two editiones principes of his works appeared in the same year (1544), one of which was printed at Paris and the other at Bale. The Paris edition was taken from a corrupt and mutilated MS. which disguises long omissions by unskilful botching. The Bale edition was founded on a good and fairly complete MS. It was, however, the Paris edition that was several times reproduced, while the Bale edition found no successor. (Descent of MSS., p. 104.)

If the considerations which have been advanced are sound, it follows that the supremacy of what are frequently called the 'Great Uncials ' (i.e. א and B) can no longer be maintained. The chief duty of an editor  is to collect and combine the scattered evidence given by the various witnesses to the [W] text. This was done in masterly fashion by Blass in his reconstitution of what he considers to be the 'Roman form' of Acts (= [W]) as contrasted with a second edition by the same writer (= [B]). My own text is not indeed founded upon that of Blass, since I have considered all points independently and very frequently differ from him. It is, however, more like his text than that of any other editor, and I gladly acknowledge my great debt to him. On many occasions when my original view of a passage differed from that of Blass I finally became convinced that he was right. I cannot, however, accept his attribution of both [W] and [B]] to the same author (p. xxi).' 

- A.C. Clark, Acts of the Apostles, (1933) p. vii-xi

Majority Text: (XV): MSS Destruction and Text-types

Click to Enlarge

Back in the previous installments on the question of "disruptions" to the normal textual transmission, Hort, Sanday, Fee, Epp, Wallace, and James Snapp Jr. proposed that historical disruptions had catastrophic effects which account fully for the preponderance of the Byzantine Text-type over all rivals.   
James stated;

"...my description of disruptions is not specific -- which is true, since there should be no reason to dredge up a long list of events and dates to readers who should already be familiar with them; it would just make the discussion verbose. ..."

We on the contrary however, feel that any support-claims regarding the favoring of one text-type, specifically the Byzantine, need to be tested, not assumed.

Nor should readers be expected to be masters of early Roman and Byzantine history.  That expectation is both absurd and unfair.   The cards must be placed on the table, and claims left to stand or fall on the historical basis found.

For this purpose, we fully acknowledge that there were destructive forces at work, which targeted copies of the NT; forces more severe than those suffered by ordinary books.   We will give a point-form chronology of the important events here:

68-130 A.D. - The Jewish/Roman Wars:  Romans systematically destroyed cities, towns, populations, and just about everything and anything Jewish, and this would include New Testament scriptures, identified at this time as simply offshoots of Jewish sects.

250-300 A.D.  - The Last State Persecution of Christians by the Romans.  In this last desperate outbreak of hostility, the Romans specifically targeted Christian books for burning, torturing Christians to reveal their whereabouts.  This was so severe that survivors were disfigured and crippled, and the Church had to deal with the question of whether or not to forgive and restore those who had betrayed their bretheren and handed over manuscripts. 

c. 300-340 A.D.  - Emperor Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to become a Christian, had over 3000 Christians executed because their interpretation of the Bible did not agree with his. That is more than the number of Christians who died at the hands of the Romans during the well known 1st century "Christians to the lions" persecutions. [Manchester, 7-8]

304 A.D.  - Pope Marcellus I is not mentioned in Eusebius' History of the Church. Annuario Pontifico, the Vatican's official directory of the popes gives his dates in office as 308-309. The New American Bible gives them as 304-309. Upon becoming pope, Marcellus persecuted Christian backsliders so viciously that the Roman Emperor Maxentius banned him from the city to avoid public disorder. Marcellus was later made a saint. [Curran, 16-18, McBrien, 55]

310 A.D.   - Pope Eusebius, like his predecessor Marcellus, was involved in the dispute over the treatment of backsliders. Also like Marcellus, the dispute was so disruptive to civil order that he was deported by Emperor Maxentius. He was also made a saint. [McBrien, 55-56]

325 A.D.   - at the Council of Nicaea,  a majority of bishops  favored the Arian position. They were overruled by Emperor Constantine. In a letter to the churches, Constantine wrote that "any one who conceals a work of Arius shall be punished with death." State interference in church affairs resulted in politics causing some falsification of the Gospels' message. The church became more important than religion, to the detriment of Christianity. [De Rosa, 44; Richardson, Chapter III, "Writings," 23]

c.326 A.D.   - Constantine denied "heretics and schismatics" the right of assembly in public or private, confiscated their property and gave it to the Catholic church. His edict specifically names "Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians." Constantine also had their homes searched and confiscated any heretical books. [Eusebius, L.C., Book III, Chapter LXIV, LXV, & LXVI; "Edict against the heretics. In Eusebius, V.C., 3. 64-5." Cited by Richardson, Chapter III, "Writings," 32.]

330-380 A.D. In the eastern part of the empire, "orthodox" Christians killed large numbers of "heretical" Christians.   Vestal Virgins, Arians, Athanasians, Donatists, and Novatians were killed by other Christians. The death toll between 330 and 380 A.D. was many times more than had been killed by pagan persecution in two and half centuries. [McCabe, 1939, 55]

341-342 A.D.   - Constantius II passed the first major anti-pagan law in 341 and [the] next year ordered that 'all superstitions must be completely eradicated.'" [Johnson, 1976, 97]



372 A.D.   A law ordered the confiscation of Manichaean meeting places and books, and punishment for Manichaean teachers. [Engh, 93]

379 A.D. [St.] Ambrose persuaded Roman Emperor Gratian to outlaw Arianism in the west. [Delaney, 33]

380 A.D. Roman emperor Theodosius I ("The Great"),

        * made Christianity the official state religion.
        * began enacting repressive laws to punish non-Christians.
        * made paganism and pagan rites illegal, and abolished the pagan priesthood.
        * granted privileges to Christian clergy, banned activities on Sunday,
        * made Christmas and Easter legal holidays.
        * confiscated Arian Christian churches and banned their meetings.
        * removed Arian-leaning bishops from their offices or forced them to conform,
        * and systematically banished Arian believers (many in Constantinople).
        * forbade Apollonarians to call their leaders "bishop" or "clergy."
        * He also decreed the death penalty for Manichaean monks.
        * defined Christians as believers in the Trinity
        * declared non-Christians insane and subject to divine / imperial vengeance.
        * burned the books of the heretics.

[Bokenkotter, 62; Engh, 97; Grant, 272-273; Jenkins, 122-123; Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"; www.stopthereligiousright.org/theodosius.htm ]

381 A.D.  - Emperor Theodosius I,

        * "made 'heresy' a crime against the state." [Pagels, 1988, 62]
        * "made it illegal to disagree with the Church." [Ellerbe, 28]
        * "ordered that no Manichaean of either sex should be able
           to bequeath or inherit any property." [Freeman, 2009, 104; Engh, 93]
        * decreed that the Holy Spirit was divine,
          thus creating the Holy Trinity and expanding the Nicene Creed.
        * He declared Homoeans, Homoiousians, and Arians heretical and
        * ordered their churches handed over to Trinitarians.
          He probably did this for political reasons,
         because there was no consensus on the nature of the Holy Spirit.
        * Like Constantine before him, Theodosius wanted to put a stop to
          endless disputes, and just as before, he failed at this. [Freeman, 2005, 193]
        * called a council of pro-Nicene bishops, the First Council of Constantinople.

The council apparently affirmed Theodosius' decree regarding the Holy Spirit, but no record of that exists. The council also decreed that Christians who lapsed into paganism forfeited their right to make a will. [Freeman, 2005, 193; www.stopthereligiousright.org/theodosius.htm ]

        * Theodosius' edicts "confirmed emperor as the definer/enforcer of orthodoxy." [Freeman, 2005, 194]

382 A.D.  - Theodosius made membership in some Manichaean sects a capital crime, and made it illegal to support Manichaean monks.  He also used a system of informers to police the pagans. [Freeman, 2009, 104; www.stopthereligiousright.org/theodosius.htm ; Engh, 93-94; Jenkins, 123]

383 A.D.  Emperor Theodosius I decreed that Eunomians and other kinds of "heretical" congregations were forbidden to assemble or to build places of worship.  Another decree six months later confiscated their property and expelled all Eunomian clergy. [Freeman, 2009, 140]

 ---------------------------------------

c.400 A.D.    - Pope St. Anastasius condemned the writings of Origen, the Church's first great theologian, even though he was not familiar with them. Anastasius was also the father of his successor, Pope St. Innocent I. [McBrien, 65]

405 A.D.  - Emperor Honorius had published the Edict of Unity, "which ordered the dissolution of the Donatist [Christian] Church." [Bokenkotter, 79; Valantasis, 270]

407 A.D.  A law criminalized Donatists / Manichaeans'   beliefs. Punishment was confiscation of all their property. They were barred from inheritance. Convicted heretics were also barred from buying, selling, or making a contract. [Valantasis, 270]

409 A.D.  A law was passed requiring the burning of all books possessed by heretics. Failure to hand over a heretical book was made a capital crime. [Freeman, 2009, 143]  Astrologers were also deported if they refused to burn their books. [Valantasis, 273]

427 A.D.  A law forbade anyone to make an image of Jesus in any medium. [Valantasis, 266]

428 A.D.  The prohibitions against any and all heresies (35 were specifically named) was renewed. In addition, the law decreed that "they shall also be deprived of all aid, whether military or civil, of the law courts, the defenders and judges...." [Valantasis, 270]

448 A.D.  - Theodosius II passed another law which required the burning of all heretical books. [Freeman, 2009, 150]

457 A.D.   A law forbade Eutychians and Apollonarians to assemble, promote their religions, or to publish anything against the "holy Chalcedonian Synod." All their writings were to be burned. Violators were banished forever. [Valantasis, 271]

484 A.D.  - Arian Christian Huneric, king of the Vandals, declared Catholic Christians heretics and persecuted them as Catholics had persecuted Arians previously. Catholic churches were closed and their property confiscated. Catholic clergy were executed, exiled, or enslaved. Those who resisted conversion to Arianism were sometimes tortured. (North Africa, from Morocco to Carthage) [Engh, 103]

517 A.D.  Christians closed the university at Alexandria. [Johnson, 1976, 112] 

524 A.D.  Catholic philosopher Boethius was tried and executed by Arian Christians at Pavia. [Johnson, 1976, 153]

529 A.D.   - Emperor Justinian closed the school of Athens founded by Plato, located in a pagan temple. [Freeman, 2009, 154; Johnson, 1976, 112]

532 A.D.   - Encouraged by his wife Theodora, Christian Emperor Justinian ordered soldiers to massacre more than 30,000 non-conformist residents in Constantinople to impose his version Christian orthodoxy. Apparently,  Justinian did not see it as murder if the victims did not share his own beliefs.  The Old Testament of the Christian Bible has many examples of violent punishment by God. As God's representative on earth, Justinian thought himself justified in using his absolute power to punish Christians as well as non-believers, if those Christians refused to accept the canons of the Council of Chalcedon. [Frank Mortyn, "Blood on the Ground, Churches All Around," reprinted in Leedom, 237-240; Freeman, 2003, 253; Haught, 1990, 53-54; Jenkins, 235; Johnson, 1987, 166]

533  A.D.   - General Belisarius, sent by the Catholic Eastern emperor Justinian, defeated the Vandals and made Arianism heretical again. (in Western North Africa) [Engh, 104]

553  A.D.  - The Council of Constantinople condemned Origen as a heretic even though he had been dead for 300 years. "This conflict had only occurred because an orthodoxy had been proclaimed to which earlier thinkers, long since dead, were now expected to conform.
"Origen was the first major exegetist, or interpreter, of the Bible. In one the finest intellectual achievements of the third century, he began by putting together the HEXAPLA,  Hebrew & different Greek versions of the O.T. in parallel columns for comparison.
"The condemnation of Origen was thus a profound loss to Christianity. Not only did Augustine's extreme theology make nonsense of the concept of a loving and forgiving God, but the threat of hell was used to manipulate obedience." [Freeman, 2009, 133, 137, 139]

590-604  A.D.    - Pope [St.] Gregory I ("The Great") objected to grammatical study, condemned education for all but the clergy, forbade laymen to even read the Bible, and had the library of the Palatine Apollo burned.  [Ellerbe, 48, 50]

653-561   A.D.   - Lombard king Aripert I, a Catholic, outlawed Arianism. [Engh, 105]

It is clear from the chronological list that on many occasions, copies of the NT in possession of various parties and groups (Arian, Trinitarian, etc.) were confiscated and destroyed in many locations throughout the Empire.


But it is equally clear that many of these large and catastrophic events hit entirely different text-types, like the Arian copies, and the Western texts, and the Alexandrian etc.   While the destruction of copying lines was certainly rampant all over the Empire, and it may be admitted that many of these attempts were targeted, there is nothing here that consistently and uniformly favors the Byzantine text.  

The operation of the Arian parties within the Empire, and with Emperor-support, were as destructive as the Trinitarian attacks upon competing copies and their supporters.

The closer the real history is examined, the less likely it appears that events 'magically favored' the Byzantine text, over all others.  Such a large portion of destructive campaigns were targeted at such widely diverse groups, including Trinitarians and Byzantines, that a catastrophe of the kind which would transpose minority and majority readings en masse remains utterly implausible.

Nazaroo

Majority Text: (XIV): Source of the "major disruptions" Theory

Of course the theories and explanations for the magical reversal of the mass of majority and minority readings sketched by D.A. Carson and elaborated by James Snapp Jr., did not originate with Daniel Wallace, or even G.D. Fee or Epp.
In fact, this cluster of arguments reached its highest and clearest articulation way back in 1897, by the mouth of Sanday, at the great Oxford Debate on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament!

In the final printed report of the Oxford Debate, Professor Sanday (p. 25 fwd) states:

"...it is true there is a tendency for the Text which ultimately represented in the Received Text, for the Traditional Text as it is called, to gain ground in the latter part of the 4th century, and you would no doubt find it to a considerable extent in Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa.  

Of course, according to Dr. Hort, the home of this Text really is Antioch, whence it spread.  The way in which Dr. Hort accounts for its prevalence in later ages is not by the fact that it was regarded as in any way authoritative, but simply because of the great influence which Antioch exercised upon Constantinople at the end of the century [c. 400]. 

You have St. Chrysostom transferred from Antioch to Constantinople as Patriarch, and there are a good many other points tending in the same direction.  Its prevalence, therefore, is accounted for partly in that way, and partly also by the fact that the Church very soon afterwards lost its other great provinces. 

You have the wave of Mahommedan invasion in the 7th century.   First Syria and Palestine were lost, and then Egypt and Africa.  Almost all the Christian provinces were blotted out from the map, not entirely or absolutely, but still to a very large extent. 

Constantinople became the centre of the Christian world, and the Text which prevailed there prevailed all over the Greek-speaking world, because by that time, you will see, the West was purely Latin [4th cent.?], and Constantinople was I have no doubt a great centre for the manufacture of MSS.  That is the way in which Dr. Hort would account for this set of facts.  

To the prevalence of the Antiochene Text towards the end of the century there are very large and important exceptions.  St. Jerome, does not take that Text. [!]  Mr. White and Bishop Wordsworth have been investigating the character of the Greek MSS used by Jerome in his revision of the Greek Testament.   I will not anticipate Mr. White's answer to this question, but I do not think you will find it is Antiochene.  

...

I will end by venturing to do what Dr. Hort has never done.  It constantly seems as if his argument was leading up to it, but he never lets the name pass his lips.  He thinks there was a revision of some kind;  that is simply a way of describing the phenomena of the MSS on what appears to be the easiest hypothesis as to their origin.  He thinks that a kind of revision took place at that time, and was a more or less continuous revision.   I confess it has always seemed to me that that revision was probably connected with Lucian of Antioch and his school, which exercised great influence all through the 4th century.  This type of text is prominent in his disciples, most prominent indeed in Theodore of Mopsuestia, where it reaches its culmination.  The school was in close contact with the Syriac-speaking Churches and writers;

and I have always suspected, although I cannot prove it, that this Traditional Text, of which Mr. Miller is so fond, owes its origin ultimately to Lucian of Antioch."  (Sanday, p. 25-29)

One can see easily that all the main points listed by Carson and Snapp are found right here.

Again however, the fatal flaws remain the same.  The loss of other copying centres may account for a preponderance of the Byzantine Text, but this cannot possibly account for its origin. 

These factors do nothing to explain why the Byzantine Text should be wrong, and the Alexandrian Text (if it even existed) should be right.  These factors might explain why a few local readings could become dominant, but not why the majority of readings should be all the wrong ones, while the all the minority readings found in Aleph/B and Egyptian papyri should be the right ones.

But what is missing is any kind of plausible mechanism that would cause minority and majority readings en masse to switch places.  And the reason for the lack is that this Hortian reconstructed history is demanding the impossible.  There is no mechanism whereby minority and majority readings could switch places in the bulk of cases, through any known copying procedures, controlled or uncontrolled. 

When Sanday was theorizing, no one had done any mathematical modeling of textual transmission nor had anyone discussed the Majority Text Probability Model.  So he can be excused for not knowing that the claims he was making were logically fallacious and historically impossible.

But textual critics don't have the luxury of such ignorance today.  Probability Theory is well-understood and the consequences of copying trees are well known.   Furthermore, the general tendencies of copyists in surviving documents are also well known.  There can be no excuse for the type of subjective and arbitrary 'textual criticism' that was practiced in Hort's day.

Nazaroo

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

The Extremely Narrow Basis of the Papyri

The following is a map showing all the major archaeological sites where papyri have been discovered:

Click to Enlarge

 Of course we must immediately note that virtually all papyrus sites are located in Egypt.   The main trade and commerce route of this country was naturally the Nile River.   The flow of water goes from the mountains in the South, and finally Northward, branching out to Alexandria and other Mediteranean ports.  The flow of the New Testament texts however was in the opposite direction, reaching the main port Alexandria, and from the underground church and scribal centers there, spreading Southward and branching out to various smaller towns and colonies along the Nile.
The significance of this is profound:  pretty much all of the Egyptian papyri come from a single source or fountainhead, Alexandria.  At the same time, most of the actual NT papyri come from one single site or cluster centering around the colony of Oxyrhynchus (see map).  Fully 95% of all these NT fragments come from this one town.
The papyri then have two strikes against them as to purity of text:

1)  The narrow basis of their texts, namely Alexandria.

2)  Their secondary nature, as copies from a small town in Southern Egypt.


This is the severe weakness of the papyri witnesses to the text:  They simply can't adequately represent the state of the text throughout the Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and they only survived at all because of the extremely dry climate and isolated nature of the deposits.     Scrap papyrus is regularly burned for fuel, for warmth and cooking by nomad tribesmen who discover them.   Their value is often unknown to their discoverers.

mr.scrivener

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:

"...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

Daniel Buck on Romans 11:6 - Alexandrian haplography

Daniel has posted the following analysis on TC-Alt List:

Romans 11:6 KJV
"And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work."

The second sentence of this verse was already the focus of raging controversy before any of the KJV translators took up their pens. It was not part of the traditional text of the English church, having been left out of Wycliffe's translation:
"And if it be bi the grace of God, it is not now of werkis; ellis grace is not now grace."

The 1582 Rheims NT didn't have it, due to it not being in the officially
approved edition of the Vulgate. It was, however, present in the 1529 Wittenberg edition, but not in the words of Erasmus' Textus Receptus diglot; apparently he had access to a Vulgate ms in which it had been independently translated from the Greek.

Tyndale, translating from the Textus Receptus, rendered the verse:
"Yf it be of grace the is it not of workes. For then were grace no moare grace. Yf it be of workes then is it no moare grace. For then were deservyng no lenger deservynge."

Coverdale eliminated 'works' from the verse altogether, and then Geneva put it back in, eliminating 'deserving.' This was essentially the form in which the Bishops [Bible] and the KJV editors left it.

Naturally, most modern versions leave the sentence out--as recently as the TNIV, it was even deleted from the footnote. But is it wise? The Alexandrian manuscripts to not speak with a united voice on this verse; in fact, not a single one of them lines up exactly with the UBS text, or with each other!

UBS: EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPEI H CARIS OUKETI GINETAI CARIS.

P45 : EI DE CARIS, OUK EX ERGON, EPEI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS.
א/01*: EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS.
02/A: EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS.
03/B* : EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS. EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI CARIS EPI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN CARIS.

Now, as to the corrections, there is a bit of dispute in the literature. CSNTM's facsimile shows the spelling of B/03's second EPEI corrected with a tiny E above the line, which Muenster's transcript confirms, but only if you click on the right page (Compare; which leaves out 01's plus entirely). Muenster, on the other hand, shows GEINETAI corrected to delete the E, there being no sign thereof in the facsimile; perhaps an E got moved inadvertently on Muenster's template.

---

 Insert:   Here are photos of 220(recto) & 221 (verso) for B:

Codex B: Rom 10:6-11:10

Rom:11:10b-12:2

Click to Enlarge: backbutton returns

Click to Enlarge

The page in question has several sections marked with a ">" down the left-margin.  Romans 11:6 is in the middle of the 3rd column on the first page shown:

Click to Enlarge

 One can see the umlaut on right at the end of the section marked with ">" at top, and another umlaut in the middle of our line, and an unusual large colon also on the right lower down.

Of interest also may be the reading of Codex Augiensis (F-Paul, 9th cent.), a bilingual MS which reads similarly to P45 in one place:

F (Paul): ει δε χαριστι ουκ ετει εχεργων  επει Η χαρισ ουκ ετι γεινεται χαρισ.
P45 :        ει δε χαρισ     ουκ          εχ εργων, EPEI H χαρισ ουκ ετι γεινεται χαρισ.

F.H.A. Scrivener, the collator of F (1852) suggests χαριστι should be χαριτι in his exemplar (a mistake made also elsewhere in F;  e.g., see the previous line!).
 

- mr.scrivener

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Daniel Buck Continues:

א/01's correction is more straightforward: it's the addition in a 7th century hand to the bottom margin of the the rest of the verse in the Byz version, EPEI and all:
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI ESTIN CARIS EPEI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN ERGON.

Now, given that neither Sinaiticus (א) nor Vaticanus (B) end the verse at the second CARIS, it's interesting that modern editors have been so quick to do so themselves, with nary a note alerting us that "some ancient authorities add . . ." This especially when considering that other Alexandrian ms like Psi (Ψ), 104, and 1241 all have the full verse (33 has it too, but it's considered Byz in Romans).

An "Alexandrian text" of this verse can be reconstructed: it's the shared text of 01* (א) and 02 (Α), represented also in the Western text:
EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS.
The problem is that we know that already since the copying of p46, an E had dropped out of EPEI. This was not just a simple misspelling; it changes the meaning. Furthermore, we have to somehow make sense of 03/Β (Vaticanus') reading:

"And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, no more grace: otherwise work is no more grace."

This can be explained by a combination of parablepsis and dittography, starting with an Alexandrian version of   א /01's plus:

Step One (archetype):
EI DE CARITI OUKETI EX ERGON,
EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI ESTIN CARIS
EPI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN ERGON.

Step Two:
EI DE CARITI OUKETI EX ERGON,
EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI    (move 2 words one line down)
EPI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN ERGON. ESTIN CARIS

Step Three:
EI DE CARITI OUKETI EX ERGON,
EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI  CARIS   (move one word back up)
EPI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN ERGON. ESTIN CARIS.

Step Four:
EI DE CARITI OUKETI EX ERGON,
EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI CARIS
EPI TO ERGON OUKETI (delete 2 words)ESTIN CARIS.

Thus we can see that the second half of the verse must have existed at least a couple of generations back from Vaticanus. And since 03/B has a Western influence in Romans, we could even hypothesize its existence in that text-type, without any other evidence. We don't have the exact reading of our reconstructed archetype in any manuscript, but then neither does UBS. In both cases the spelling has been conformed to a more Ionic style.

There are a number of other MS readings for this second half, and a number of other possible scenarios. The main point of this post was to show that something seems to have happened in the 2nd century to the latter half of this verse, and to just throw it out because we don't know what it was is hardly the most astute thing to do.

Daniel Buck