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. 

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.   ...'

________________________________

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

mr.scrivener

Majority Text: (XVII) - Marvin Vincent's confusion (Pt 1)

By the late 1890s, many important and outspoken opponents of the Lachmann/Hort approach had articulated and published their criticisms.  This did not derail the tampering of the NT text, but split textual critics and interested Christians of all denominations into two groups:

(1) Those who went with the new 'scientific' theories, preferring the critical texts, and
(2) those who were unconvinced, and held to the Traditional Text.

At this juncture, apologists like Marvin Vincent attempted to review the history of textual criticism itself, and distill out advances in knowledge and scientific progress.  In his book, A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Macmillan, 1903), Vincent advances what he considers to be the development of TC and current state of affairs.  He sums up the First Period of recent Textual Criticism as follows (p. 93-95):

'The First Period Reviewed

A review of the First Period (1516-1770) exhibits, in the beginning, a scarcity of documentary sources, an arbitrary determination of the text on a false and narrow basis, and a general ignorance of the comparative value of  documents. The small number of manuscripts accessible (1) or used was only one of the obstacles which opposed the purification of the text.  (2)  Scholars were  unable to make the best choice from among those actually at hand, or were not accurate in comparing them, or estimated the value of readings according to their number. (3)  

"In consequence of the astonishing number of copies which appeared at the very beginning, (4)  in a long series of manual editions, mostly from one and the same recension, the idea grew up spontaneously very early that in the manuscripts also the text was tolerably uniform, and that any thorough revision of it was unnecessary and impertinent. The Oriental Versions were closed to most; the importance of the Church Fathers was scarcely suspected; but the greatest lack of all for the purification of the text (2)  was the indispensable knowledge of the process of its corruption" (5)  (Reuss).  

The Purist Controversy

Moreover, the beginning of the seventeenth century was marked by the rise of the Purist controversy. The Purists maintained that to deny that God gave the NT in anything but pure classical Greek was to imperil the doctrine of inspiration. The Wittemberg Faculty, in 1638, decreed that to speak of barbarisms or solecisms in the NT was blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Hence, a correct conception of the peculiar idiom of the Apostles was impossible, and the estimate of different readings was seriously affected by this cause.  (6)

Readings of existing editions were arbitrarily mingled, the manuscripts employed and the sources of variants adopted were not properly specified, and a full survey of the apparatus was impossible. (7)   

The number of uncial sources [MSS], (1)  however, gradually increased; the existence of various readings was recognized, but they were merely registered, and not applied to the construction of a purer text. (2)  There began to be signs of revolt against the authority of the Textus Receptus, and [also] attempts to restore the text (2) on the evidence of manuscript readings. (8)

Signs of Improvement

There arose a growing distrust of the numerical basis of evidence.  Manuscripts began to be weighed instead of counted. (9)  There was a dawning recognition of the value of ancient documents and a corresponding effort to formulate principles of classification. A large mass of material relating to MSS, Fathers and Versions was collected, which awaited thorough sifting  and arrangement, and the doctrine of families of texts was broached. Through all this the Received Text substantially maintained its supremacy, (10) though its pretensions were boldly challenged by individual critics; its chain (2)  was rudely shaken and more than once broken, and its authority began to be visibly weakened. (11)
...
The superstitious hesitancy (2) about departing from the Received Text still prevailed, and the critical valuation of the older uncials was suffering seriously from Wetstein's sweeping charge of latinisation (1751).' (12)  (Vincent, p.93-95)

 Those already inclined in the Lachmann-to-Hort direction might find Vincent's banter satisfactory, as he attempts to build a platform to support the W/H critical text.  But others who differ from this view will note some serious flaws and distortions in the presentation, exposing Vincent's bias.

(1)  Vincent claims the period begins with only a 'small number of MSS', but this is patently untrue.  Even Erasmus (1516), who made use of only a handful for his first edition, had already collated dozens of MSS in England and Europe for his fresh Latin translation.    Early editors quickly gained access to dozens more independent copies, and Vincent seems oblivious to the contradiction here brought in by his own quotation of Reuss [!]:  "the astonishing number of copies which appeared at the very beginning," ...

(2)  Vincent begins liberally using suggestive language ("purification of the text" etc.) that begs the question regarding the relative purity and value of the TR in comparison to subsequently reconstructed 'critical texts' cobbled together from Uncial readings.  It has yet to be established that the TR is "impure" in any significant way, even if one or two readings are legitimately open to challenge, such as 1st John 5:7 etc.  The suggestion of course is that the Traditional Text (TR) is in desperate need of 'restoration', but convincing case has yet been made.

(3)  Of course scholars indeed rightly 'estimated the value of readings according to their number', since this is a legitimate indicator of the spread and antiquity of a reading.   It was never the only criterion, as review of the period literature (Mill, Bengel, Wetstein, Michaelis) shows.  Vincent implies that this was an incorrect methodology, or that it was naively applied and led to bad results, but this has never been shown.  Indeed, the very same criterion is applied enthusiastically without qualification to passages like 1st John 5:7 etc. by the same critics who avoid the criterion in other cases.  This inconsistency is far more glaring in the W/H position (with its rejection of countless majority readings) than in the TR position, which with few exceptions values this criterion.  In no case can estimating readings by MS count be found as the sole or main methodology anywhere in the literature of the period, or subsequently up until the 1880s.  Even Burgon and Miller did not articulate or elevate such a criterion to preference over all other considerations.

(4)  Here 'the astonishing number of copies' (Reuss) refers in the main to later cursive (minuscule) copies, ranging from the 8th century to the 15th.  It appears that Vincent's contradiction can be traced to the fact that he only considers Uncial MSS to be of any value for textual reconstruction.

(5)  It is true that 'knowledge of the process of corruption' is indispensable.  The majority of variants are in fact accidental errors, or minor linguistic updates.  However, understanding this process better in the 20th century has resulted in the reversal of TC canons taken for granted in the 17th to 19th centuries, such as "Prefer the Shorter Reading" (Griesbach, 1805).  But such knowledge remained virtually unknown in Vincent's day, or else was wilfully ignored (e.g., Westcott/Hort).

(6) The Purists did not influence 17th century textual criticism, at least as significantly as claimed here.  Very few important variants turn on questions of classical vs. Koine grammar, or new knowledge from a study of the papyri.  This controversy had more relevance to translational issues and  interpretation.   Few textual critics can be shown to have made errors in judgment because of a lack of knowledge of 1st century Greek.  The concern is unsubstantiated.

(7)  Access to the basic apparatus was hardly 'impossible'.  Between John Mill, Bengel, and Wetstein, one had a very clear picture of what had been collated by the end of the 17th century, and also access to quite thorough discussions of most important variants.   Michaelis considered Mill and Wetstein indispensable, but certainly adequate for purposes of research.  Even after many more MSS were collated, as accomplished later by Griesbach and Scholz, most experts acknowledged that the textual situation had not greatly been altered.  It was more of the same.

(8)  Here Vincent implies that all the texts so far published (Erasmus, Mill, Wetstein, Griesbach) were somehow not constructed on the basis of MSS evidence.  But this is ridiculous.   Every textual critic was concerned with the same question, and used the same approach: MSS readings.

(9)  No distrust of the weight of numerical evidence for this period can really be shown.  What instead appears is rather a lack of a solid grasp of the value of any criterion or aspect which could be used to evaluate readings.  Textual critics of the period were making guesstimates, and trying to construct a methodology.  They confronted a complex situation, but had no solid grounds or technique for weighing conflicting evidences. 

(10)  As Vincent here confesses, most critics understood well the preliminary stage they were in, and exercised due caution as to any alterations in the traditional text at hand.   He calls this reasonable caution a 'superstitious hesitancy', but this is an anachronistic back-projection, due to his impatience with earlier scholarship. 

(11)  The essential text, the 'Received Text' continued to 'prevail', well into the 1870s, almost a hundred years beyond Vincent's suggestion as to when it was 'visibly weakened'.  The subsequent critical texts of Griesbach and Scholz continued well into the 19th century, and are essentially the same as the TR.  What is visibly weakened, is Vincent's credibility as a historian, due to his bias in favor of the W/H type text.

(12)  Wetstein did make some strong statements against using the early Uncials, which he had observed were alarmingly at variance with both the Traditional Text, and each other.  He also was highly suspicious of key Uncial readings which conformed to the Latin Vulgate.  But the prevalent opinion (cf. Michaelis and others), was that here Wetstein was acting in an overly paranoid fashion toward both the Latin text(s) and Uncials sourced from Roman Catholics.  It seems clear that Wetstein's views here actually had in fact very little influence upon other textual critics of the period.  Like the opinions of the "Purists" 100 years earlier, Wetstein was hardly able to affect the progress of TC.   Such claims appear to be  ad hoc  but inadequate explanations for why most textual critics up until 1830 (Lachmann) strongly disagree with the results of modern TC.


Nazaroo

Majority Text: (XVI): Flawed Logic against Majority Readings - T.S. Green

One cannot probably fully understand how the anti-Majority Text position has come to dominate Textual Criticism, without tracing a little bit of its history.

Although cautions against simply 'counting MSS' began to be vocalized as early as Wetstein (1700s), truly articulate arguments probably begin with Tregelles, Tischendorf and Alford.  These men first advanced the argument in favor of the oldest manuscripts.  Reasoning against the Majority Text was merely a corollary, but a necessary step to clear a path for consideration of the oldest texts.  So early arguments against the the Majority Text were crude and usually minimal in content.

One of the better popular arguments was offered by T.S. Green, in his A Course of Developed Criticism, (London, 1856) Intro.  Here for the first time we get a window into the thinking behind the rather rash and easy rejection of the traditional (majority) text:

"The work to which the critic of the NT is called, must consist to a considerable extent in disentangling the text from intrusive and usurping matter, having its origin in the margin ; in detaching accretions, and replacing whatever may have been dislodged by a spurious rival : and with this view one leading principle must be especially noticed. (1) 

Corruption of this particular kind must be the work of time, because the growth of such matter itself would be gradual,  (2)  and its sliding into the text by the agency of reckless, ill-taught, and foolish hands, and through the general propensity of copyists for amplification, (3)  would be likewise gradual : the evil, too, unchecked in its earlier stages by due watchfulness or control, would go on spreading with the advance of time. (4)

It follows of necessity from this, that the more ancient documents will in general exhibit a greater approach to purity in this particular respect than those of later date, and, as a practical consequence, that the adverse testimony of but a few witnesses of high antiquity, in the case of matter of questioned genuineness, must receive the first and foremost regard, even though it were certain that their text was unsound in certain other respects, as, for instance, in the touches of critical hands. (5)

Fewness must not discourage a reliance on their testimony, because, if an intrusion took place at a particular point at a remote date and there is sufficient proof that such mischief was very early at work such a numerical disparity is precisely the state of things to be encountered in the body of surviving documents, where the really ancient must, from the very nature of things, form but a small minority, and even of these all cannot be expected to have escaped intrusive influence. (6) 

This canon, as it may be called, does not rest on an unreasoning prepossession in favour of antiquity, but is a logical consequence from unquestionable premises.

Since in citing the MSS  which exhibit a certain reading, a great preponderance of mere numbers is imposing in appearance, and may seem to be a circumstance that cannot lightly be set aside or countervailed by other considerations, it will be well to state fairly and precisely how much may be concluded from the circumstance:

Out of the entire body of existing copies, as has already been remarked, those of high antiquity form a very small portion ; and, accordingly, any great majority of the whole must be almost entirely composed of those of later date. Whenever, therefore, a particular reading is supported by a greatly preponderating part of the mass in contrast with a group of distinctively ancient copies, all that can be at once concluded from this bare fact is, that the reading in question had a settled currency in later times. This narrow conclusion is all that in such a case can be taken into account from MSS. alone in a discussion of the claims of a reading; without any prejudice, however, to arguments for antiquity and genuineness which may be derivable from other quarters notwithstanding. (7)

In one particular way mere numbers would be important evidence of genuineness, namely, in case there were something in the character of the reading itself adverse to its acceptance in the presence of rivals, and, therefore, to that currency which those numbers indicate. (8)
Mere numerical considerations do not therefore possess that prime importance which they might at first sight seem to claim, and which they have too frequently been allowed to exercise.

...

In a review of authorities special regard will reasonably be paid to antiquity: but this must not be overstrained into a summary neglect of more recent witnesses, as necessarily offering nothing worthy of notice.
The critic should not suffer himself to be encumbered by prepossessions or assumptions, nor bind himself to the routine of a mechanical method of procedure. If he allows himself to be thus warped and trammelled, instead of ever maintaining the free employment of a watchful, calm, and unfettered mind, he abandons his duty and mars his work. "

Unfortunately, this basic argument, as reasonable as it sounds at a glance, has several fatal flaws, which we will analyze shortly.

(1)  It is remarkable that Green's sketch poses that the main problems 'to a considerable extent' consist of insertions, substitutions, and absorbed marginal glosses.  He skips over completely the other glaringly common error, accidental omissions by homoeoteleuton (h.t.).  Its as if these errors, though they comprise a large chunk of significant variants in both individual manuscripts and text-types, were an insignificant aspect of a critic's work.   That Green is fully aware of the existance of h.t. errors, is clear from other statements.
Hort likewise gave lip-service to h.t. errors, while failing to discuss the possibility of same among the hundreds of probable omissions he adopted.  The unspoken assumption is that the antiquity of a reading somehow makes it exempt from being an h.t. error, even though h.t. errors are rampant in even the most ancient of manuscripts.  That assumption is blatantly false however, and this casts all such omissions in the critical text under grave suspicion.


Error Rate vs. Error Accumulation Rate:

(2)  Green says the accumulation of errors would be gradual.  This much is true, in that errors will occur at different places in the text, and in all ages.  Thus errors will be spread through the text and across time fairly randomly and evenly.

But Green and all early critics fail to distinguish between the raw error-rate, and the rate of accumulation of errors.   Because there is no awareness of the difference between these two rates, there is no awareness of the independence of these two rates.

For example, say the error-rate is 1 error per verse in each copy.  Without error-checking, a 3rd generation copy would have about 3 errors per verse.  We could estimate the error accumulation rate at about 1 error per verse per generation.
But now suppose each copy is proof-read, and about half the errors are caught.  The raw error-rate is the same, but the error accumulation rate is now only 1 error per verse for every two generations, or half that of the raw error rate.
A simple checking procedure has drastically altered the accumulation rate, without any change in scribal skill or raw error rate.

Suppose now that about every 10 generations, a copy is checked against a much older copy (10 generations earlier).  Again half the errors are caught.  But this time, ALL the errors accumulated over 10 generations will be open to checking.  The new copy, which would have had 10 errors per verse, now has about 5 per verse (given the same quality of proof-reading as before).  The 10th generation corrected copy is the equivalent of a 5th generation copy.   Again the error accumulation rate has been halved, with a simple, occasional procedure. 

But more importantly, the same reduction in errors was accomplished this time by the same procedure performed only 1/5 as often!   Checking a much older copy is potentially an order of magnitude more effective than using the same technique on every copy in every generation!
While the Tortoise can certainly achieve the same purity with thorough hard work, the Hare can effectively skip doing any error-checking at all for many generations, and yet achieve the very same purity, with only the same mediocre skill and effort case by case as the tortoise.


This shows us a few revealing things:

(a)  The raw error-rate is effectively independent of the error accumulation rate.  
(b)  The error accumulation rate can be drastically attenuated by simple techniques, without needing to increase scribal skills.
(c)  Most importantly, longer-term procedures can effectively bypass accumulated errors and virtually 'reset' the error count to near-zero repeatedly, causing the error accumulation rate to slow to a virtual crawl.

Simple proof-reading methods effectively telescope generational copying effects, reducing real generations to a fraction of their potential handicap for practical purposes.  These methods can even be inconsistent and sporadically applied, with the very same results in quality control.

(3)  Green mentions "the general propensity of copyists for amplification".  That is, he assumes copyists were more likely to add than to omit material, emphasizing Griesbach's canon, 'Prefer the Shorter Reading'.  This was not however a general tendency, and the rule could only be applied in a restricted set of situations with caution.  For a modern critique of this idea, see Royse.
Such opinions in Green's time were based on impressions and guesstimates; but modern studies have made clear that scribes were far more often prone to omissions than additions.   This has major consequences for the credibility of 19th century critical reconstructions of the text.

(4)  Green's claim about the continual spread (accumulation) of errors is also based on a failure to grasp the dramatic impact of error-correction using earlier copies.  We have explored above what even occasional use of early manuscripts can do.  But mixture effectively demolishes skeptical arguments regarding generational corruption.  Significantly, the majority of 'mixture' (cross-correction of a MS with another text) will occur using older manuscripts as a guide.  This has a devastating effect on the accumulation of errors, effectively wiping out whole clusters of error and continually purging the text.

(5)  Green's argument here is that his previous observations inevitably lead to the idea that a few older manuscripts will outweigh a large number of later manuscripts.  But this is a serious non-sequitor.   His model assumes there is no significant error-checking, proof-reading, and so the age of a manuscript also indicates its genealogical relationship in regard to an accumulating error-pool.

But this is an absurdity, given that the majority of copies cannot be placed in a sequential copying line.  Rather, they are individual copies of independent lines of transmission reaching back to early times.  The diversity of both texts, geographical origins, and community heritage of these texts indicates they are not direct descendants of the earliest surviving manuscripts, or even close relatives in a common copying stream.

Furthermore, some copies clearly 'jump the que', being direct copies of much earlier texts which are independent of surviving older copies.

Since there is no way to intelligently group late manuscripts all together in contrast to early ones, we must deal with each manuscript or small family independently.  They cannot be crudely separated from early copies, placed together and de-valued en masse.

(6) Now Green imagines that an 'early interpolation' enhances his argument that a few early MSS would have the true reading against a mass of late ones.   For if the interpolation were early enough to be the landslide majority reading in the great remainder of later MSS, this would automatically place the alteration earlier in time than the relatively late 4th century date of the extant Uncials.   But if so, then the question of whether it is an omission in the Uncials or an addition in the later MSS must be settled on other grounds.  The 4th century Uncials are just as secondary to the early corruption of the text as other lines of transmission.
  It would be more convincing if the omission were found in a significant number of independent later MSS as well as a few early Uncials.  Then the addition would clearly be 'late' relative to the Uncials.  Such nonsense has the appearance of reasonableness but is really just another case of naive, simplistic, oversimplification so rampant in the 19th century.

(7)  Green's argument here runs essentially thus:  (a) By the nature of the case, there will always be a large number of later MSS, and few early ones, therefore (b) a majority reading by itself only means it was settled in later times.

The argument here is again a non-sequitur and false.  When the mass of later MSS are closely examined, it becomes clear that they represent such a wide  diversity of transmission-lines, and variety of ages of for their texts,  that any overwhelming agreement must drive the reading back to the 4th century and earlier, contemporary with the surviving most ancient MSS.

The false assumption of relative lateness of text for an overwhelming majority reading found in the mass of later MSS must be dismissed.  But we were never in the predicament that this would be the only available evidence in any case.  Most majority readings can also be found to be supported by early versions, and most importantly early quotations from the large numbers of early Christian writers (ECWs).   The claim that 'later MSS always outnumber early ones, therefore their testimony is worthless' is a ridiculous argument.
The correct conclusion is, the mass of later evidence must be carefully considered alongside earlier evidence, especially since early evidence is fragmentary and unreliable.

(8)  Now Green suggests that (internal) evidence of the difficulty of,  or hostility to a reading comes into play to give added weight to a majority reading.  Thus for Green and friends, a majority reading can be valued if its somehow difficult, adverse, or offensive.

We need hardly comment on the subjectivity of this 'exception' that Green proposes to reinstate a majority reading to respectability.   In comparison to textual evidence, all such personal conjecture and opinion must be secondary, and considered on its own merits, but hardly at all, next to overwhelming textual evidence in the form of landslide majority support.


Nazaroo

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 versus Byzantine Priority

Erasmus retranslating the Latin NT

Here are my comments on the recent exchange between Steven Avery and James Snapp Jr. over on TC-Alt List:

Steven: "The irony here is that this one-dimensional aspect of the
Byzantine Priority position is precisely what is addressed in the scholarship of the Reformation Bible, the superb handiwork of
Desiderius Erasmus & Robert Estienne (Stephanus) & Theodore Beza."

Translation: 'Editors occasionally adopted minority readings
on the basis of internal evidence, over and against majority readings,
because they suspected some corruption in the Byzantine text.'

James: "That is actually a pretty good point against the Byzantine Priority position:  even in the 1500's, thoughtful analysis of the available evidence led scholars such as Erasmus to favor some minority readings."

Adjustment:  ''That is actually a point against an exclusive Majority Text position:  other evidence naturally allows the possibility that the Majority Text will not be a perfect reproduction of the original.'

Nazaroo:  "But this scores no points against Byzantine Priority,
because the Majority Text Probability Model (MTP, Hodges etc.)
already allows for a minority of early readings to attain false positives. 
The internal evidence therefore actually supports the Majority Text model,
because only a small minority of majority readings can be tagged false on internal grounds.   The data gives the expected results for the Majority Text Probability Model.  This model remains intact, because it does not claim the Majority Text is perfect. The MTP position is necessarily a 'softer' claim, because it is based on probability arguments.

Majority Texters:

Moderate Majority Text proponents would simply insist upon the Majority text as a base, because the Majority Text will still be correct most of the time, and no other choice of base can guarantee a higher percent-score of probable correctness.
Extreme Majority Text proponents would insist on the Majority Text as the main text, with the few minority readings that have other strong support (i.e., versions, ECW, internal evid.) being left in footnotes or an apparatus .
Both proponents would have to use other evidence to settle the few split-readings having approx. 50/50 support in terms of relatively equal witness-counts.

 Byzantine Priorists:

Byzantine Priority (BP) is a distinct position, also making use of the MTP Model.  It is similar to the Greek Priority model, (GP) in that it would insist on giving one part of the evidence priority over other parts.  It is more specific than simple Greek Priority, but less so than the MTP position.
Byzantine Priorists would likely be open to credible non-Majority readings that had strong secondary support, (i.e., versions, ECW, internal ev.) and might occasionally include them in the text as preferred readings. Byzantine Priorists will hardly be disturbed by Reformer-editors choosing occasional minority readings, since their own position is very similar, and yet softer than Majority Text proponents are expected to be.  If the Majority Text position is not seriously affected by the choices of early editors (since the MTP position is based on probability, not reputations), the milder Byzantine Priorist position is affected even less so.

James Snapp Jr.'s perception of a significant point against Byzantine Priority seems a tad misdirected, and perhaps he really means a point against the Majority Text position.  Yet even here I think the point is based more upon James' own respect for the editing abilities of Reformers, and not based upon real views shared by Majority Texters.  These people after all, base their position on probability arguments, not on the opinions of editors from any group or era.

James also makes the following clarification of his own position:

"Well, I like Nazaroo's diagram of Hort's text-type genealogy. But nothing he says in that post undoes anything I wrote; he just says that he disagrees with my idea and that 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.

What I was arguing for is not a "majority-minority flip," as such, but simply the nullification of the idea that a majority of extant MSS necessarily attests to the original text."

Yours in Christ,

James Snapp, Jr.

In this case, those who still advocate for a reversal of majority/minority readings "still have some splainin' to do, Lucy!"   At the moment there is no credible mechanism which could cause minority and majority readings to switch places en masse.

Peace
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

Majority Text: (XI): What Jerome described

Jerome (c. 390 A.D.) described succinctly the textual situation and the state of the Greek NT text in his time:

"...when Jerome is comparing his own work as reviser of the Old Latin text with similar work by others in Greek, he is rather severe in his judgment of Lucian. Thus in his Preface to the Four Gospels, which takes the form of an open letter addressed to Pope Damasus and which was composed perhaps about the year 383, he refers somewhat contemptuously to the "manuscripts which are associated with the names of Lucian and Hesychius, the authority of which is perversely maintained by a few disputatious persons."  

Continuing in the same vein Jerome condemns the work of Lucian and Hesychius as infelicitous:  

"It is obvious that these writers could not emend anything in the Old Testament after the labors of the Seventy; and it was useless to correct the New, for versions of Scripture already exist in the languages of many nations which show that their additions are false." (1a)

 Subsequently, in the Preface to his translation of the books of Chronicles, Jerome makes a more temperate allusion to the work of Lucian and other Biblical scholars. In referring to the diversity of the editions of the Greek Old Testament, he declares that three are current in various parts of the Empire:

"Alexandria and Egypt in their [copies of the] Septuagint praise Hesychius as author; Constantinople to Antioch approves the copies [containing the text] of Lucian the martyr; the middle provinces between these read the Palestinian codices edited by Origen, which Eusebius and Pamphilus published."(1)

(Metzger, Chapters in the History of NT TC,
"The Lucianic Recension" (1963) p. 3 - 8)

In the diagram below, we illustrate the situation Jerome has described.  The three popular regional texts probably came into existence around 300 A.D. -- their authors seem to have lived at this time.  These "recensions" or corrected, standardized texts referred to by Jerome are whole Bibles (including the O.T.), so the editing/correcting and the differences for the most part probably refer  to the O.T. text, which in the 2nd century A.D. suffered a series of disputes and revisions (see Origen etc.).

It is likely that the NT portions of these three popular regional texts did not differ as much as the most extreme texts do today.   Their editors had the same basic goals, i.e., correcting errors and restoring the best possible text.   Already these recensions would present "mixed texts", with readings taken from various sources.

  There are some key observations that can be extracted from Jerome's testimony:

(1)  There was no single dominant text, even at the beginning of the 5th century.   Rather, there were various popular regional texts. 

(2)   Jerome tells us that the Old Latin translations were in a similar state, with many variations and errors having accumulated between copies.  (Hence the need for a new standardized translation into Latin).

(3)  Jerome specifically tells us he avoided all three of these popular Greek recensions, when making his fresh Latin translation.  He went to the East,  (Constantinople etc.) to secure the oldest and most reliable manuscripts he could.

Just as importantly, we can add several other observations and historical facts to the picture subsequent to Jerome:

(1)  Jerome's text was not based on any later recension, but rather on early independent texts closer to the originals.

(2)  Jerome's Latin Vulgate was later corrected from the Old Latin (older readings were restored), because many preferred the established text and older readings.   The final result was a mixed text but with both of its sources predating Greek recensions (c. 300 A.D.).

(3)  The Greek text in the East was never corrected using Western Latin copies, but was a regional text independently copied at the core of the Greek speaking center of the Eastern Empire.

(4)  Most of the later Greek copies originated in the East.  The Greek copies and Greek-speaking monks did not flee West until very late, at the fall of the Eastern Byzantine empire.  

(5)  The divergences and mixture present in the later Greek copies shows they were not the result of an official text-type imposed upon the copyists.  The close conformity of the Byzantine copies is a result of random processes and careful copying.

(6)  It is unlikely that all the later independent Greek copies descended exclusively from the recension of Lucian.   Rather, the obvious mixture and divergence suggests multiple lines of descent. 

In this wide and diverse transmission path, there is no physical mechanism or plausible process by which minority readings and majority readings could switch places and reverse themselves.   No single text or recension could be imposed by individuals or groups upon the textual stream.

The argument that the decrease of the spread and influence of the Greek language allowed a late and erroneous text to become dominant is a logical fallacy: 

(1)  The decrease in influence of the Greek language did allow for its replacement by the Latin texts, but the so-called "Western" text (the Latin) is older than the Byzantine text and actually more primitive.   The majority of  "Byzantine readings" finding support from the Latin must themselves be primitive and original, and not distinctively "Byzantine" (i.e., 'late').

(2)  The Muslim and Arabic hordes certainly did destroy some lines of transmission in Egypt, Palestine and Turkey, but these churches were Monophysites (Coptic, Jacobite, Armenian), and their textual traditions are known.   They did not use the Alexandrian text-type, and their destruction cannot account for the dominance of the Byzantine text.

(3)  Alexandria and its texts were abandoned within the Empire, and this may simply have been as a result of the adoption of more accurate texts from the Byzantine and Palestinian traditions.

(4)  The Syriac texts often support Byzantine readings, and show the antiquity and purity and preference of that text-type.

When all is said and done, there remains no mechanical possibility, nor any historical force, which could cause the majority and minority readings to switch places.


Nazaroo