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. 

How the Germans perverted the Bible

I'm reposting this short article on Kittle, because to this day modern translations use his text of the Hebrew O.T. as a basis for the Protestant Bible, including his translational suggestions through his "Hebrew Lexicon":

Monday, April 4, 2011 (Elizabeth K. Best, PhD)

Kittel a 'Minor Nazi'? Think Again: Kittel as the 'author' of 'Alien Status' for the Jews.



In Robert Ericksen's book, Theologians Under Hitler part of his delineation of Gerhard Kittel's role in the war and assessment of culpability in war crimes is his role in establishing the concept in National Socialist policy/law of the status of 'guest-citizenship' or 'alien-status'. While many in holocaust education are aware of the 'guest status' of the Jews in German Society from 1933 on, ,many are not aware of its doctrinal or theological underpinnings, nor that it was Gerhard Kittel, the editor of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, who founded doctrinal anti-Semitism in the Third Reich, who was primarily responsible for the theological basis of 'alien status' for the Jews.

The reason Kittel's role in the establishment of 'guest-citizenship' is important is

1. It establishes Kittel's primary role as a Nazi Theologian and not just a bystander.

2. It establishes Kittel's culpability in war crimes, in subterfuge and sedition against the German Church,

3. It establishes Kittel's ideological commitment to Nazism and not merely perfunctory party membership.

4. It demonstrates the extent of doctrinal anti-Semitism which was vital to Reich Policy, and

5. It establishes at least part of the war upon the Jews as clearly doctrinal and ideological.

That it is important to establish Kittel as a loyal Nazi and not merely among the thousands who joined the ranks to keep the peace or their employment, can be seen in the role of Kittel during and following the war: though arrested at the end of the war and imprisoned for war crimes, Kittel's Dictionary of the New Testament and his father Rudolf's Biblia Hebraica, have established themselves as the primary ground for translation of all modern English bibles.To believe that translations made with the Old Testament and the accompanying lexicon by ardent anti-Semites would not produce a tainted text, with at least underpinnings of the broad stream of dejudification, would seem far more ludicrous than to take the stand of most modern bible translators, that Kittel either wasn't a Nazi, or that it had no affect on his scholarly work. That aside, though, one need consider the 'exegesis' of the platform of guest-citizenship which Kittel refers in his writing to as 'alien status' to understand that the war against the Jews was indeed a religious and ideological one and not merely a political one as many scholars would prefer to avoid being labeled 'reactionary'.

The Concept of Guest Citizenship (Alien Status).

To understand why there would even be a question of 'guest citizenship' necessitates understanding the concept of the 'Volk', the concept of 'blut und boden' or 'blood and soil' and the construct of national identities and a 'nation within a nation'.

The Volk was the German concept of the 'gestalt' or whole of the people, the german people, consisting of the conglomerate 'soul' of the people, their culture, religion, politics, society, etc as something that was a sum of the parts and yet greater than the parts. 'Volk' may be translated akin to 'folk' or people, and the concept was used throughout Nazi policy and thought. It was not a group of individuals, but the 'Volk' that would rebuild Germany and lead it to a new day and age,; it was the 'volk' that would triumph victoriously over other nations which had left Germany desolate, it was the 'Volk' which would see a restored Germany, with they as her people.

The idea of 'blut und boden' or 'blood and soil' was that a people to be a people belonged in a real and mystical sense to the land from which they hailed and in which their ancestors had lived. The tie between the German people and their land or soil was foundational in much of the thought that pervaded influential belief systems such as those of armarten society tying Germans to lineage and the land, or the 'oceanic' views of such as Gobineau and other racial scientists in which certain evolved peoples lived in certain regions: he posited that nations bordering the oceans had certain characteristics, while even Nietzsche in his formulations of the the 'Hyperboreans' posited that more evolved or racially superior peoples lived 'above Boreas' or rather in the winter climes. (Taha) Kittel would use this theme of a people and a land prominently in several writings.

The third concept is that of a 'national identity' or a nation within a nation. This is somewhat more complex than merely the concept of the 'Volk' because it entails the nature of persons of multiple nationalities living together 'under one roof', so to speak. Today, that is not a great difficulty to many, especially in the US and Great Britain as many nations have become multicultural, with those of many nationalities living side by side. The National Socialists though saw the Jews, as a separate nation, living within their nation, although many Jews, especially more liberal Jews saw themselves as German citizens, and Jews. This conflict was the issue that Kittel would take and make 'theologically acceptable' as he had with other aspects of anti-Semitism.

Kittel and 'Alien Status'

Kittel based his writings on a doctrinal treatise he had proposed even before the war. He saw the Jews as also a people characterized by 'blut und boden' and he built a biblical argument: since the Bible clearly shows God as designating the Jews as 'chosen' and 'Israel' as their promised homeland (there are a multitude of passages), the Jews, ergo, are tied to Israel. They are a people with a land, and they are so 'identity-bound' to Israel that the two are inseparable, and remained inseparable in the various exiles (e.g. the Babylonian/Assyrian exile, or the dispersion in 70ad, with a minor reign of Babylon of 8 years in Judges).
Likewise, Kittel argues, the German people are 'bound' to the 'Deutschland' , the 'Fatherland' and are not entirely the same people without being there, so that even in "Lebensraum" as Germans were sent out to 'colonize' occupied territories, they carried with them their music, culture, food, customs etc like soil in the coffin.

Kittel also argued though, that the 'Volk' and the 'Jews' could never share the same citizenship, so bound up was citizenship in their thinking with 'native land'. Kittel attempted to place the Jews as bound to Israel, and claimed later that it was a tolerant attitude, but the application was clear that it was a clever but sinister exegetical foundation for the Jews having 'alien-status' which would rob them of their German Citizenship, allowing deportation, denial of the court system, education benefits, and even already paid retirement funds and pensions. They were argued as a 'nation' within a nation, and an 'alien' one at that. While the argument bore some biblical foundation, i.e. the Jews with Israel as their homeland, it was cleverly used to create a doctrinal reason tied to other Reich philosophies which allowed the segregation, robbery, deportation and later mass killing of the Jews. It also indicates Kittel's eminent role.

Martin Buber the foremost Jewish theologian of the Shoah years, took his colleague to task over his vile rendering of the policy of 'alien status' for the Jews. The following letter shows Buber's rebuke of Kittel:

An Open Letter to Gerhard Kittel
Martin Buber


You have sent me your essay on the Jewish question, werser Herr Kollege. From the accompanying letter and from the text itself I conclude that you believe yourself to be in agreement with me; not to be sure, on your specific judgments about Judaism and your suggestions on how to treat it but on the essential issue: our basic religious commitment.
Since your statements were made publicly, I must contradict them publicly.
I need say nothing of your judgments an demands; they are the prevailing ones. I learned from your essay that which I neither knew nor suspected: that they are yours as well: that you maintain that “a member of a foreign people” has “no business in German literature.” That “if he wants to be a writer,” he should “work in a literature which is clearly marked as Jewish and which is intended for his coreligionists and Volksgenossen:” that “if his book is of general literary value and transcends that particular Volkstum,” there would be “nothing to prevent its being read by Germans in the same way that Swedish and French literature is translated and read by us.” You and the public will, I hope, understand that I have nothing to say to this or to anything of this sort in your essay: especially since you make your intention of “lending a Christian meaning to the struggle against Judaism” clear in your introduction.


Yet it is incumbent upon me to object, especially since you welcome in this lending the participation of Jews, namely those Jews who, as I, look forward to a religious renewal of Judaism. According to you the problem is whether it will be possible to arouse a living religion in that part of Jewry which says yes to alien status” The “authentic alien status”. But what you understand by “alien status” is clarified by the answer to the question of what should happen to Jewry. There you have stated that one should “resolutely and consciously preserve the historical fact” of “alien status” among nations. You explained your understanding of this in this fashion: the “right of the guest” must be sharply set off from that of the citizen; the Jew must give up “all claims to civil equality.” If he proves a “decent guest, “ “there may then come a time” when he appears only “relatively unequal” and no longer “absolutely inferior.” You take “obedience under alien status,” which according to you belongs to a pious Jewish attitude to mean that discrimination against and defamation of Judaism must be accepted in faith; that it must therefore be viewed as God’s just dispensation and as the just action of men. Hence you presuppose the identity of that which you mean by alien status with that which God, to whom we owe obedience, means by alien status with that which God, to whom we owe obedience, means by alien status, But this is not so.
That which the God of the Bible means by alien status, more correctly guest status (a ger is one who is a guest in a land), can be learned from the Pentateuch. In an extraordinary appeal, the community is admonished (Num. 15:16; Lev 24:22) “Congregation”! There shall be one law for you and for the resident guest; it shall be a law for all times throughout the generations. You and the guest shall be alike before YHVH (the LORD); the same instruction and the same rule shall apply to you and to the guest who resides among you.” Thus no discrimination! But it is not only a question of law; it is a question of love. “When a guest resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The guest who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens. You shall love him as yourself for you were guests in the land of Egypt” (Lev. 19.33f.). In Deuteronomy, with even greater emphasis, love is not only found with the dative [showing love to him] but with the accusative [loving him] in a way at once holy and paradoxical. “For YHVH your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, who loves the guest and gives him food and clothing. You too must love the guest for you were guests in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:17ff.). Love of the guest is an aspect of biblical imitation Dei: As God loves the unprotected, so must you love him! The acceptance of this stance has consequences which extend to redemption and a mystery that unties all. It is said of the peace-offering which is offered by the community because of an error (Num. 15:26): “The whole Israelite community and the guest residing among them shall be forgiven for it happened to the entire people through error.”
Yet, Herr Kollege, although you quote a passage from Deuteronomy in which we read that one may not subvert the rights of the alien [Deut. 24:17] , you quote none of those passages in which we read that this right of the alien is not separate from that of the natives of the land but that both rights are the “same right.” Only if you start from this Magna Carta of biblical faith, which should be binding not only upon Israel but upon all nations among whom guests reside (or is it your belief that God no longer asks this justice and love from nations), and only if you believe that this was not abrogated by the New Testament (for how could the gospel intend a diminishing of justice and love between nation and nation?). , only then is it possible to talk in an attitude of faith of an “alien status” and of an “obedience under alien status.” However, if one does this in the seriousness of faith as a believer among the nations, then surely one must first of all inquire into the obedience of the nations.
However, an obedience under alien status as you understand it (but as God does not understand it) God does not order us to give. It does not become us to rebel against it but it does not become us either to yield to the will of a Volk as if it were the will of God. Psalm after psalm of our Book, adopted by the Church, utters an appeal to the liberator from oppression. Psalm after psalm would be blasphemy if God not only demanded of us that we should endure, but also that we resign ourselves without appeal to whatever He has ordained. We pray today as well,. The “enemy” against which the psalmist inveighs means, as we utter the psalm in prayer, not men of human powers but the original tempter, who hinders redemption in history.
“Authentic Jewry,” as you say, “remains faithful to the symbol of the restless and homeless alien who wanders the earth.” Judaism does not know of any such symbol. The “wandering Jew” is a figure of Christian legend, not a Jewish figure. Authentic Jewry is ever aware that in the very next moment the promise may be fulfilled and its wandering may end. It does not believe that is its ordered to affirm the dispersion but believes that it must prepare itself in the dispersion for the ingathering. It knows of no “tragedy willed by God” which it must needs recognize but knows only the mercy which calls man to His work.
History is no throne speech of God but His dialogue with humanity. He who does not wish to miss everything must be mindful to discern the voice of the Partner. The “historical fact” of “alien status,” the reinstatement of which you, Herr Kollege, hold to be the “solution of the Jewish question,”* is partly the question itself---God’s question to the nations and to Israel which He poses in history; partly it is the lack of an answer. TO be sure, emancipation as it took place was not the true answer either. But it does not follow from this that one must go back to that lack.


July 1933
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Of the other three “attempts at solution” which you mention, extermination, assimilation and Zionism, we wish to touch upon the last only. The arguments which you put forward against Zionism are partly exaggerated. (As one who has constantly fought for a more serious consideration of Arab claims. I have the right to say that there is no ground for speaking of a “frightful violation of the fellahin) Partly they are false. I am hardly able to understand how you can hold “unemployment and need” to be prevalent in Palestine of today or how you can see in residential and agricultural cooperatives----a witnessing to collectivity and sacrifice---communistic tendencies which reflect back into “lands of culture and which wish to penetrate and poison those countries.” Finally, the the growing reality of faith within Zionism is totally unknown to you. [MARTIN BUBER]
1. In a later reply to Kittel, Buber observed that the failure of emancipations was that Jews were emancipated individually but not collectively (F.E.T.)




From: Talmadge, F.E. Disputations and Dialogue: readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter, (1978) KTAV Publishing House,

The grave rebuke by Buber is both poignant and ironical, in that he rebukes Kittel based upon the tenets of Christ and Christianity: he holds that it is a sinister twisting of the Holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testament. Buber could see from the outset the path the reasoning of Kittel would follow, and hence targeted Kittel as the 'theologian that made anti-Semitism theologically acceptable'.

Guest Citizenship and the Jews

While this discussion and others seems rather 'theological' or philosophical, the effect of the status 'guest citizen' had very real consequences for the German citizens who were Jews. A narrative of one account is of a retired man and his wife who had juvenile delinquents damage portions of his property during the Reich. The man was a war veteran of WWI in Germany, and had retired from university teaching. After changes were made, he called the local police who would do nothing about the incident and was bewildered. The police informed him that since he was no longer considered 'of aryan descent', he had no citizenship rights, and therefore they did not have to respond to his call at all. When he sought remedy in the courts, he found that the courts had the right to refuse the case, and that after years of work and loyalty to Germany, his mortgage and property ownership were also in question, as only aryans could own property. They were forced to flee the Berlin area. But 'guest-citizen' or 'alien-status' had other dire consequences: soon no Jewish child could attend an aryan school. No Jewish attorneys or physicians could treat any but Jewish clients. Geographical restrictions were levied and soon no Jewish person could sit on park benches or even frequent public parks. Bus riding became prohibited for all but those employed in the armaments industry, and pet ownership, and the hiring of maids and cooks was forbidden. As time wore on, there were even odd restrictions such as not allowing women to attend hairdressing salons partly in an effort to increase the separation between Jew and gentile, and partly to keep the Jews from appearing groomed and therefore appealing to their counterparts. If Jews wished to leave Germany, they had to receive permission from police departments now largely staffed by Gestapo and National Socialist party members. Church congregates who had converted to Catholicism and Protestantism from Judaism were not allowed to receive communion at the same time, and large 'tarriffs' were levied allowing the Jews to carry out of the country only about 10-15% of earnings and savings, the rest going to the Reich. In short, the 'doctrinal' base for the Reich policy turned into civil rights violations for the Jews, and untold suffering and humiliation, even before deporation to work and death camps. This is why Kittel was found guilty of war crimes, in that he had aided in the 'production' and strategy of war as well as undermining of the institution not only of the church but of the courts, universities, theological schools and other mainstays of German life.
The doctrinal argument for the Jews tied to Israel not Germany, the Jews with a different God (Marcionism), the Jewish OT scriptures as foreign and unnecessary for Christian study and practice, gave the Nazis inroads into the church on the back of one of their most notable theology professors. Kittel was clearly guilty of the subterfuge of both the citizenship rights of the Jews and of Church doctrine using it as servant to the expulsion of the Jews and denial of their civil rights. His role as a doctrinal juggernaut in the exegesis of Nazi policy cannot be denied-it lay dormant for many years as many of Kittel's writings remained unavailable and in German while his lexicon and his fathers Hebrew Bible sold worldwide.


Kittel would go on later to defend other social/political platforms of the Nazis with a doctrinal base. His integration of racial science with biblical and theological concepts would eventually come forefront. His dismissal with others of a requirement in theological education for Hebrew, placing it instead with other ancient languages, undergirds his lack of regard for anything Jewish. While Kittel argued that his was a 'non-vulgar' anti-Semitism (he held himself distinct from the type of Rosenberg and Spreicher) (Eriksen), he nonetheless provided an intellectual platform for the 'Judenrein' of Germany. The arguments that Kittel was not an ideological Nazi should fall on deaf ears, as any lay person, much less any scholar upon reading Kittel, will eventually find him to be anything but objective where the Jews are concerned.

A Few 100 reasons why Hort's 'Syrian Recension' didn't happen

Below is a map showing the known existing foundational churches at the time of the Diocletian Persecution (304 A.D.):

Click to Enlarge

 Map adapted from A Short History of the Middle Ages, (U of T press, 2009, 3rd ed.) by Barbara Rosenwein.

Most of the Western Churches were already preaching, teaching and reading the New Testament in Latin by the time of Constantine.  The Greek-speaking churches remained in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire.

Popular Editions or Recensions of the Greek text did take place, according to Jerome, at Alexandria under Hesychius, at Caesarea under Origen, and at Antioch by Lucian.  But Jerome claims to have avoided all those popular local editions, and resorted only to "ancient Greek copies", which can only mean manuscripts at least 60-100 years older than himself (c. 392 A.D.) and hence contemporary with manuscripts perhaps 30 or more years older than Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

It is possible that Jerome used manuscripts which reflected Origen's or Pamphylus' preferences.  Or his chosen copies might reflect the type of text found in papyrus P45 or P66.  But this is only a side-issue.

From the map, it can be seen just what groups of churches would be under the sway of the various editors and their recensions.   The Alexandrian, Caesarean, and Antiochian areas all lay outside, on the periphery of the main bulk of the church communities spread across the Empire.   Its not surprising that these independent communities had their own texts.

But it is highly implausible that the rest of the Empire would be significantly affected by their textual choices.  The Latins would hardly embrace textual novelties, as the long resistance to Jerome's new Latin Vulgate demonstrates.  In the process of assimilating Jerome's text, the Latins reversed many of his textual decisions, restoring the Latin text back to familiar readings.

The same would be expected from the central Greek Byzantine community, were a text like that of Lucian brought from the outside, i.e., Antioch.  The Byzantines might indeed assimilate some of the readings of a popular preacher like Lucian, or Chrysostom, but any wholesale alterations would meet strong and vocal resistance, and a new text would only be adopted once older accepted and long familiar readings were restored to their traditional places.   Lucian's text would have undergone a restoration process, conforming it to the proto- or early Byzantine text as recognized and venerated by the Greek-speaking Christian world.

This textual inertia would have resisted textual innovations and would have tended to preserve stability in the text-form copied by Greek scribes.

Chronology of Printed GNTs: 1500 - 1600

This is the first part of a series that deals with the history of printed texts of the New Testament. Consider if you will the following diagram:

Click to Enlarge

1500 - 1600 (16th century)

The 16th century was the beginning of printed critical Greek New Testaments, because even the very first, that of Erasmus, was made by the careful collation of as many manuscripts as could be readily available, and both critical judgement and comparison with the standard Latin text was used. The first three editors/printers of the Greek NT laid the foundation for the Great Protestant translations which quickly followed.

Erasmus (1516-22): The first printed Greek NT, with a fresh translation into Latin from it in parallel columns. Although he only had a half-dozen MSS available later, he must have also accessed various MSS while in England preparing his new translation (1505-6). It is estimated that he consulted about a dozen MSS, mostly later Byzantine copies, as well as the Latin Vulgate. Even at this early time, Erasmus was aware of the issues surrounding the four most serious variants,

(1) Mark's Ending: Mk 16:9-20,
(2) Pericope de Adultera: Jn 7:53-8:11,
(3) The Johannine Comma: 1st Jn 5:7, and
(4) The Great Mystery: 1st Tim 3:16.

In fact, Erasmus had left out the Johannine Comma in the first 2 printings. He also discussed variants like The Lord's Prayer (Matth 6:13), The Rich Young Man (Matt. 19:17-22), The Angelic Song (Lk 2:14), and The Bloody Sweat (Lk 22:43-44). It is said that copies of Revelation available to him at Basel lacked the final verses, and so he back-translated those from the Latin Vulgate, but Hoskier doubts this, and thinks he followed Codex 141.

Erasmus on several occasions preferred the Latin Vulgate reading, where the Byzantine texts seemed deficient, the most important being:

(1) Matt. 10:8 'raise the dead', as in א B C D 1, Latin Vulg.
(2) Matt 27:35 'that it might be fulfilled..' - MS 1, Caes. MSS, Syr-Hark., OL/Vulg. Euseb.
(3) John 3:25 '...the Jews about purification' - MS 1, P66, א , Caes. MSS, OL/Vulg.
(4) Acts 8:37, - MS F, Iren. Cypr. OL/Vulg.
(5) Acts 9:5,6 - MS E, 431, OL/Vulg.
(6) Acts 20:28 'Church of God' - Vulgate, א B etc.
(7) Rom 16:25 - placed at end of chapt 16 as in א B C D etc.
(8) Rev 22:19 - 'book' MS F, Vulgate, Boh. Ambrose, Prim. Haym.

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Robert Stephanus, 'Estienne', (1550): The third and most important of R. Stephanus’ editions, known as the Editio Regia, substantially based on the final lifetime recension of Erasmus. A collation against the first edition of Stephanus, 1546, reveals that in 38 passages the editor here rejected the Complutensian reading in favor of that if Erasmus, whereas the converse occurs only twice. This edition is the important 1550 printing in Paris by Estienne (Robert Stephanus) of the Greek NT, based on the final lifetime edition of Erasmus of Rotterdam. This was this printing that Stephanus used to divide the text into numbered verses which he first put into print in the 1551 edition. These two Stephanus printings (1550, 1551) were utilized by the translators of the New Testament for the 1611 King James Bible and became cited as the fundament of the 1633 “Textus Receptus” Greek New Testament printed by the Elzeviers in Amsterdam (DM 4679) – “Est haec ipsa editio ex qua derivatur quem nostri textum receptum vulgo vocant, nomine rei minus bene aptato”.

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Theodore Beza (1565, 1582): - was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the early Reformation. A member of the monarchomaque movement who opposed absolute monarchy, he was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Switzerland.

In 1565 he issued an edition of the Greek New Testament, accompanied in parallel columns by the text of the Vulgate and a translation of his own (already published as early as 1556). Annotations were added, also previously published, but now he greatly enriched and enlarged them.

In the preparation of this edition of the Greek text, but much more in the preparation of the second edition which he brought out in 1582, Beza may have availed himself of the help of two very valuable manuscripts. One is known as the Codex Bezae or Cantabrigensis, and was later presented by Beza to the University of Cambridge; the second is the Codex Claromontanus, which Beza had found in Clermont (now in the National Library at Paris).

It was not, however, to these sources that Beza was chiefly indebted, but rather to the previous edition of the eminent Robert Estienne (1550), itself based in great measure upon one of the later editions of Erasmus. Beza's labors in this direction were exceedingly helpful to those who came after.

"Beza’s name will ever be most honorably associated with biblical learning. Indeed, to many students his services in this department will constitute his only claim to notice. Every one who knows anything of the uncial manuscripts of the Greek New Testament has heard of the Codex Bezae, or of the history of the printed text of the New Testament has heard of Beza’s editions and of his Latin translation with notes. The Codex Bezae, known as D in the list of the uncials, also as Codex Cantabrigiensis, is a manuscript of the Gospels and Acts, originally also of the Catholic Epistles, dating from the sixth century.1310 Its transcriber would seem to have been a Gaul, ignorant of Greek. Beza procured it from the monastery of St. Irenaeus, at Lyons, when the city was sacked by Des Adrets, in 1562, but did not use it in his edition of the Greek Testament, because it departed so widely from the other manuscripts, which departures are often supported by the ancient Latin and Syriac versions. He presented it to the University of Cambridge in 1581, and it is now shown in the library among the great treasures.

Beza was also the possessor of an uncial manuscript of the Pauline Epistles, also dating from the sixth century. How he got hold of it is unknown. He merely says (Preface to his 3d ed. of the N. T., 1582) that it had been found at Clermont, near Beauvais, France. It may have been another fortune of war. After his death it was sold, and ultimately came into the Royal (now the National) Library in Paris, and there it is preserved.1311 Beza made some use of it. Both these manuscripts were accompanied by a Latin version of extreme antiquity.

Among the eminent editors of the Greek New Testament, Beza deserves prominent mention. He put forth four folio editions of Stephen’s Greek text; viz. 1565, 1582, 1589, with a Latin version, the Latin Vulgate, and Annotations. He issued also several octavo editions with his Latin version, and brief marginal notes (1565, 1567, 1580, 1590, 1604).1312

What especially interests the English Bible student is the close connection he had with the Authorized Version. Not only were his editions in the hands of King James’ revisers, but his Latin version with its notes was constantly used by them. He had already influenced the authors of the Genevan version (1557 and 1560), as was of course inevitable, and this version influenced the Authorized. As Beza was undoubtedly the best Continental exegete of the closing part of the sixteenth century, this influence of his Latin version and notes was on the whole beneficial. But then it must be confessed that he was also responsible for many errors of reading and rendering in the Authorized Version." *

* Ezra Abbot, the biblical textual critic, at Dr. Schaff’s request, made a very careful collation of the different editions of Beza with the Authorized Version, and found that "the Authorized Version agrees with Beza’s text of 1589 against Stephen’s of 1550 in about 90 places; with Stephen’s against Beza in about 40; and in from thirty to forty places, in most of which the variations are of a trivial character, it differs from both." - Schaff: The Revision of the English Version of the New Testament, New York, 1873 (Introd. p. xxviii). Cf. Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 342, note 3.

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mr.scrivener

Majority Text: The True Power of Probability (pt VII)

 The 'Catastrophe' Model

Now that we have the only viable genealogical stemma for a "catastrophe", it still isn't enough:  All the stemma does is provide an opportunity for a disaster to take place.



Its not a disaster by itself.  For we have presumed ordinary copying at every step.  Some copyists will make more mistakes than others, and some copies will be better proof-read than others.  But these variations do not create any kind of catastrophe.   The text will accumulate normal errors generation by generation, and the errors will be mostly among minority readings in the early copies.

In fact, if the copyists have done an honest job, the final copy will be as good or better than any other late copy we might have chosen as a master-copy for future copies.  

It won't be until the final 'flowering' and rapid expansion of the last copy that we'll have the particular errors of this copy-line become a permanent feature of our 'majority text'.  

But that's no real problem at all.  When we examine the text recreated from this final exemplar, it will only be slightly different in flavor from a text based on some other copy, or even a large group of other copies.  The overall error count will not be significantly higher from a practical point of view.

Planning a Disaster

 For our disaster we still need one more thing: A  massive alteration of the text all at one sitting is needed as it were, so that the new false readings become majority-readings.  The most likely scenario will have this happening all at one time, since it is a rare and unusual event. 

 Since errors can only be injected in packets, the opportunity for a real disaster only occurs once per generation in this 'catastrophe' model.   In the example above, there are only three chances: Copy #10 (1st gen), copy #1 (2nd gen), and copy #253 (3rd gen).   Once mass-copying begins, the opportunity is gone.

This is exactly what the modern critics who follow Hort and the text of Aleph/B propose.  Hort claimed,

"An authoritative Revision at Antioch..was itself subjected to a second authoritative Revision carrying out more completely the purpose of the first.  At what date between 250 and 350 the first process took place is impossible to say...the final process was apparently completed by 350 A.D. or thereabouts." (Intro, p.137)

Hort tentatively suggested Lucian (c 300 A.D.) as the leader and some scholars subsequently became dogmatic about it.
 Thiessen claimed:

"...the Peshitta [Syriac] is now identified as the Byzantine text, which almost certainly goes back to the revision made by Lucian of Antioch about 300 A.D." (H. C. Thiessen,  Introduction to the NT, (Eerd. 1955) p. 54-55. 

All that we really know of Lucian was provided by Eusebius (c. 310 A.D.), and Jerome (c. 380 A.D.).  But the picture painted by this evidence is quite different from that proposed by modern critics.   Eusebius praises Lucian as virtuous, and Jerome later calls him talented; but James Snapp Jr. explains:

"...in his Preface to the Gospels, Jerome had described the manuscripts which are associated with the names of Lucian and Hesychius without any sign of admiration. Specifically, Jerome had written:

"It is obvious that these writers [Lucian and Hesychius] could not emend anything in the OT after the labors of the Seventy [i.e., they could not improve upon the LXX]; and it was useless to correct the NT, for versions of Scripture already exist in the languages of many nations which show that their additions are false."

 Jerome suggests at least three popular 'revisions', each however being a regional text favored at its own major city-center.  Again James notes:

"Notice the setting of Jerome's comments. Jerome was, in 383, making a case for the superiority of the text-base which he has used as the basis of his revision of the Gospels. He had, he explained, supplemented [and corrected] the wildly-varying Latin copies by appealing to ancient Greek MSS, and he noted that he did not rely on MSS associated with Lucian and Hesychius. This implies that there were, at the time Jerome wrote, copies of the Gospels which were associated with Lucians name.

Jerome does not here deny consulting Origen's copies of the NT.  But it is known he went to Constantinople to use the oldest and best Greek copies there.  He has here specifically stated that he avoided using Lucian or Hesychius prefering older copies.

In Jerome's Introduction to Chronicles, he mentioned three popular forms of the Greek OT text:

"Alexandria and Egypt in their  LXX [copies] praise Hesychius as author; Constantinople to Antioch approves the copies of Lucian the martyr; the middle provinces between them read the Palestinian books edited by Origen, which Eusebius and Pamphilus published."

Also, addressing variants in Psalms, Jerome stated in his Epistle to Sunnias and Fretela (c. 403),

"You must know that there is one edition which Origen and Eusebius and all the Greek commentators call koine, that is common and widespread, and is by most people now called Lucianic; and there is another text, that of the LXX, which is found in the MSS of [Origen's] Hexapla, and has been faithfully translated by us into Latin."

Here Jerome clearly indicates that for the OT, he has avoided the Koine/Lucianic text, and used the text-critical work of Origen instead.

The historical data tells us two things:

(1) There was no wholesale destruction of MSS or competing texts.  At the time of Jerome's Vulgate (400), at least three major text-types were readily available, each being used and copied over wide regions and distributed from independent centers.  Additionally, Jerome was able to travel to centers like Constantinople to access even older copies, predating the 'recensions' known to him around 400 A.D.   Those manuscripts would have been older than Origen's copies (c. 250), Lucian's (c. 300), or Hesychius (c. 250-300).

(2)  Official Recensions were not readily accepted, and did not displace current texts.   Jerome's Latin Vulgate (a new translation of the Greek into Latin), meant to replace the Old Latin copies which were too varied, was strongly opposed regarding his attempt to conform the OT with the Hebrew text.  It was finally adopted after many readings Jerome had introduced had been restored back to the traditional text!

(3)  The Latin Vulgate conforms strongly to the Byzantine text-type, sharing most readings.  This tells us that the ancient manuscripts Jerome consulted must have had the Byzantine text.  Jerome thought this was older than both the Lucianic and Hesychian recensions, and avoided those.  This can only imply that the Lucianic Recension cannot be the Byzantine Text-type, or its source.  Jerome was able to distinguish it quite plainly from the Byzantine, which he adopted.

(4)  The NT Takeover by the Lucianic Recension simply did not take place.  The association of the Lucianic text with the 'Koine' is in reference to the Old Testament versus Origen's version of the LXX.

(5)  The conditions for a 'Catastrophe' of the type proposed by Textual Critics did not exist, and no such drastic alteration to the text could have happened.  The Byzantine text is probably the result rather of a 'normal' transmission process.

(to be continued...)

Nazaroo

The Sabotage of the Christian O.T.: (1550-1700) The Hebrew text

We noted that the sabotage of the Christian O.T. began with Martin Luther, adopting the medieval Hebrew text taken from European Jews, in a misguided and botched attempt to convert them to Christianity.

This competition between the Greek O.T. used by the early Christians (later to be translated into Latin) and the Hebrew texts preferred by Jews really began in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., when Christians (many of whom were Jews) were actively engaged in debating with Jews and establishing their own legitimacy.   But that initial confrontation went nowhere, and Christians and Jews each went their own way, with the Jews rejecting as "cursed" the ancient (pre-Christian)  translation into Greek which was originally viewed as "blessed".   At first, several Jewish scholars tried to publish new Greek translations, but this also went nowhere, as the early Church stuck to the now traditional Greek O.T. text of the Septuagint (LXX).

The Reformation however, offered a new opportunity for Jews to 'correct' the Christian text, and they lost no time in providing help with both the Hebrew text and its translation.

Medieval Hebrew Scroll

Jews suffering from persecution by the Roman Catholic Church and previous European governments were initially open to assisting the Reformers like Luther in securing their own independent O.T., more in conformity with their own texts (and interpretations).   So in Protestant jurisdictions, many Jewish scholars began to help the Reformers translate directly from Jewish copies into their local languages.

The naive position the Reformers put themselves in became rather apparent by the end of the 19th century, and many Protestants wanted to see some correction of this undesirable alliance.   The situation as to the English O.T. was described succinctly in the Dictionary of the Bible, (Ezra Abbot, Hackett, Smith, NY, 1872) vol. 4, p. 3441:

"Still less had been done at the commencement of the 17th century for the text of the O.T.  The Jewish teachers, from whom Protestant divines derived their knowledge, had given currency to the belief that in the Massoretic text were contained the ipisisima verba, of Revelation, free from all risks of error, from all casualties of transcription.   The conventional phrases, "the authentic Hebrew", "the Hebrew verity", were the expression of this undiscerning reverence. ¹  They refused to apply the same rules of judgement here which they applied to the text of the N.T.   They assumed that the Masoretes were infallible, and were reluctant to acknowledge that there had been any variations since.  Even Walton did not escape being attacked as unsound by the great Puritan divine, Dr. John Owen, for having called attention to the fact of discrepancies (Proleg. cap vi.).   The materials for a revised text are, of course scantier than with the N.T.; but the labors of Kennicott, De Rossi, J H. Michaelis, and Davidson have not been fruitless, and here, as there, the older versions must be admitted as at least evidence of variations which once existed, but which were suppressed by the rigorous uniformity of the later Rabbis.  Conjectural emendations, suchas Newcombe, Lowth, and Ewald have so freely suggested, ought to be ventured on in such places only as are quite unintelligible without them."

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1. The Judaizing spirit on this matter culminated in the Formula Helvetici Consensus, which pronounces the existing O.T. text to be "tum quoad consonas, tum quoad vocalia, sive puncta ipsa, sive punctorum potestatem, tum quoad rea, tum quoad verba, θεοπνευστος."

sincerely,
The Dean

Majority Text: True Power of the Probability Argument (pt V)

Some people may think that the argument in favor of the Majority text is simply this:  That errors, being introduced later in the stream, will almost always be stuck in the minority of manuscripts. 

This however, is not the actual argument at all.  The possibility that a manuscript with a given error (or set) could be copied more often than manuscripts without the error(s), is actually a given.   As Hodges notes:

"...of course an error might easily be copied more often than the original in any particular instance." (Pickering, Identity..., Appendix C p 165).  

 But the point is, this only works once.   Errors can't accumulate gradually in such a manner.  Lets see why.   We start with Yellow Packet copies getting copied more often, and this gives as an initial false majority for the Errors introduced by the Yellow master-copy:

Errors do indeed accumulate.   In the above diagram, all manuscripts copied from the first copy with the Yellow Packet will have its errors.  Further down, an Orange, Red, and Purple Error Packet are added.   But the effect is obvious:

White (Pure)     - 10 / 25  = 40% minority reading (unfortunate)
Yellow Packet   - 15 / 25  =  60% majority - false ('lucky break')
Orange Packet  -  8 / 25  =  32% minority 
Red Packet        -  3 / 25  =  12% minority
Purple Packet   -   1 / 25  =   4% minority

It doesn't take a genius to see that again, the natural tendency pins down most subsequent errors as minority readings.  This doesn't bode well for the Purple text.   The very manuscripts that support the Yellow Packet readings testify strongly against the Purple Packet readings. 

(Secondly, although the 'White text' (pure text) as a unit is in the minority of MSS, its readings remain in 99% of cases perfectly safe, still vouchsafed by majority readings. )

Even wiping out all earlier generations doesn't help.   This only stabilizes the percentages for each group of readings, once normal or average copying is resumed:

White   Packet   -  2 / 8  =  25% - minority   (in present / future)
Yellow  Packet   -  6 / 8  =  75% - majority  - 1 false reading set 

Orange Packet  -  4 / 8   =  50% - neutral     / uncertain

Red       Packet  -  2 / 8   =  25% - minority   / true reading
Purple  Packet   -  1 / 8   =  12% - minority    / true reading

Although this extreme case seems to undermine the reliability of majority readings, this simply isn't the case.  Probabilities remain strongly in favor of Majority readings.  Lets see why.   We need to remember that only a very small number of early and frequently copied readings will have a false majority rating (e.g. Yellow Packet). 
The majority of errors in the extreme texts (e.g. the Purple Text) will have their reading-support all over the map, and with very few false-positives (e.g. Yellow); but the bulk of errors will remain graduated minority readings.
Error Packets (and real errors) will still be identifiable because:

(1) These minority readings will however, still be strongly associated with the most corrupted and generationally later texts (e.g. Orange, Red, Purple).  

(2) These texts will be easily identified, because (a) as texts or composite groups of error-packets they will remain minority texts. (b) The differently supported packets allow us to use genealogical methods.

 Typically, opponents of the Majority of MSS Model will reason that a process of uneven copying could occur repeatedly, boosting minority readings into majority readings on a larger scale.   Hodges showed the failure of this argument by showing that cumulatively speaking, the probabilities for multiple accidents favoring a bad text quickly skyrocket downward.  In discussing the case of a second error (or error packet) in a following generation, Hodges has stated:

"Now we have conceded that 'error A' is found in 4 copies while the true reading is only in 2.  But when 'error B' is introduced [in the next generation], its rival is found in 5 copies.  Will anyone suppose that 'error B' will have the same good fortune as 'error A', and be copied more than all the other branches combined?...but conceding this far less probable situation, ...will anyone believe the same for 'error C'? ...the probability is drastically reduced.  " (Append. p. 167)

These 'errors' would be equivalent to our Yellow, Orange, Red Packets respectively. 

Compounding Unlikely Events: Rapidly Decreasing Probability

We allowed for one catastrophe: over-copying of the Yellow Packet.  Hodges' argument here is actually so powerful, its clinching:


Probabilities are calculated by multiplication, with the probability of each event represented by a fraction less than 1.  A 50% chance of an error being over-copied (as an example) means 1/2 the time it could happen.  But the second error also being over-copied at the same time is (1/2) times (1/2), = 1/4, only a 25% chance.   The chance of three equally probable events in a row happening is 12.5%.   This is the same as flipping a coin.  For a fair and random coin-toss, the chances of tossing 7 'heads' in a row is less than 1%!:

Likewise, even with 50/50 odds, seven generations of errors have almost no chance of ever being consistently copied more often than their rival readings in a random undirected process.

But our observations here go far beyond even this argument:  Its a case of the experiment being poisoned before it can even get off the ground.  


The Defocussing Effect of Noise on Transmission

What is not being mentioned so far in any of the discussions is the fact that ALL scribes introduce errors, in every single copy.  Contrary to intuition, this actually also assists the Majority Reading Model, by sabotaging false positives further.

   The scheme above isolates four Error-Packets for discussion, and the analysis is valid because they are 'independent' in the sense that normally errors won't overlap or interfere with each other in the early transmission.  Its like a needle in a haystack:  The chances of two errors bumping into each other is nearly zero.

But with errors being added randomly and on average roughly equally with each copy, we have now introduced random noise into the signal at all points.  This random noise acts to mask the false signals as effectively as the true signals.

   One can think of injected random noise as a 'damping factor':  A bell rings clearly and long in the air.  But a mute, or mask attenuates both the loudness of the bell and the duration of the note.   Imbalances (spikes and dips) in the transmission process are softened, evened out and muted in a variety of ways, randomly.   This impedes the efficiency of transmission; the clarity, and the duration of false signals (errors) as well as true ones are attenuated.

However, the true signals have an enormous starting-advantage:  They are already 100% Majority readings, and it takes a lot of accumulated noise in the transmission to disturb the original text enough to actually supplant a majority reading.  These are modern considerations now well analyzed by engineers, but which were unknown to 19th century textual critics relying on 'common sense' or intuitive guesses. 
Although both true and false signals are attenuated and masked by noise, the much smaller error signals suffer the most relative damage from further random noise.  Anomalies in the error transmission are smoothed, masked, and truncated by random processes, which defocuss unique and unusual signals in the mix.

peace
Nazaroo

Majority Text: True Power of the Probability Argument (pt IV)

Going Deeper into the 

Probability Argument

Our simple copying tree can illustrate a lot of other interesting questions regarding the probability argument.    One observation which has been bypassed so far in vague protests and discussions is exactly what kind of catastrophe could result in a false majority text, and what combination of features it would have to have.

For instance, an obvious objection would be that the Majority model presumes that all manuscripts are actually available to be counted.  In fact it does not require this at all.  However the question of adequate sampling of the copying stream is a legitimate issue, and poor sampling would naturally be expected to skew results and their confidence factor as well.

 Taking our copying tree, it is reasonable to assume the earliest copies would gradually be lost, not just for counting, but also for collating.

First two and a half generations lost...

 One immediate observation is that the loss of the earliest manuscripts will indeed benefit the % score of an Error Packet.  Here the Yellow Packet now holds 8/25 or 32%, up from 26%, for a gain of 6%.   The Red Packet however, goes from 3/31 (10%) to 3/25 (12%) and only gains about 2%.   Not only is the payoff low, but such a moderate loss only significantly benefits the earliest minority readings, those with the highest initial percentage. 

How big a catastrophe is needed to flip a minority reading into a majority?

Three and a half generations lost...

 The score is now 6/18 = 33% for Yellow (only +1%!), and 17% for Red (+7%).   A minor surprise.  What is happening is that now the earlier Error Packet is losing votes along with the original readings, while the Red Packet is still gaining in voting power, because none of its voters has been affected by the catastrophe.   Yet it doesn't take much to see that no minority reading can really get much further ahead simply by the loss or destruction of earlier manuscripts.


Textual Disasters:

What we need is a REAL catastrophe.  The good manuscripts need to be specifically targeted, and with ruthless efficiency.   With those eliminated, at least some errors end up in a majority of surviving MSS.  The Yellow Packet readings are now in 6 out of 9 MSS (66%) with a comfortable majority. 

But the Red Packet remains a reading-block with only minority support.   What happened?  Even though every good manuscript has been eliminated, the good readings in each of the remaining groups ensure that most readings, namely the later ones, are stuck with only minority support.  Remember that these Error Packets are not directly competing, but are independent groups of errors in different areas of the text. Any overlap will be very small, and the chances of the scribes making the exact same errors are smaller still.
Its clear that even the loss of the best early MSS alone cannot cause the dominance of any but a few of the very earliest errors.  This means generally, that no amount of destruction of earlier manuscripts by itself could cause a minority text to become a majority text. That is, the errors in the manuscript will include early , middle, and late errors.  All types of errors will be confined to this group, but not all can make it into a majority of surviving manuscripts.  Some must remain minority readings, even though they uniquely characterize the text-type and may be exclusive to it.

We need a very special kind of disaster, to pull off the kind of coup which is claimed for the Textus Receptus (TR, = Byzantine text-type).    Remember that almost ALL the readings unique to this text-type are rejected by critics, and ALL are claimed to be 'late' (not existing before the text-type).   Only a very small number of important readings are admitted to be ancient by critics, and these are said not to be unique or characteristic of the TR (or the Byzantine text). 

But this claim flies against the mechanics of transmission.  If this small group of readings really were ancient, they would be majority readings and characteristic of the Byzantine (Majority) text-type, not mere peripheral readings.  And if the bulk of the Byzantine readings really were late, they would mainly be minority readings within the text-type, and would not saturate every Byzantine manuscript.

(to be continued...)

Nazaroo

Majority Text: The True Power of the Probability Argument

While as far back as the mid-1800s, textual critics had a natural sense of the value of the quantity as well as the quality of witnesses to the text, the concept wasn't put on firm mathematical ground until it was faced squarely by Wilber F. Pickering in his book, The Identity of the NT Text (Nelson, 1977/80), in an Appendix C, "The Implications of Statistical Probability...", actually written by Zane/David Hodges.   This book is freely available for viewing and download on Pickering's site here.  - (click to read).

There, Hodges argued that probability was decidedly in favor of the Majority text (the readings found in the majority of surviving manuscripts).
This was almost immediately challenged by D. A. Carson in his own appendix to The KJV Debate (Baker, 1979/80), a review of Pickering's book.

Although the original diagrams and equations are complex for ordinary readers, the gist of the argument can be simply illustrated as follows:

(1)  If each manuscript is copied more than once, then there will always be more copies in each following generation.   In the picture above, each row represents a copying generation, and the number of manuscripts doubles each generation.   The copies form a simple, ever expanding genealogical tree, as in the diagram above.

(2)  An error cannot be copied backward in time, so each error can only influence the copies which come after it, not those already written.  Even the act of mixture cannot change this fundamental fact.

(3)  The manuscripts with the given error will be in the minority.   The later the error, the smaller the minority.  Even just 2 or 3 generations later, errors quickly become clear minority readings.   (The diagram above poses minimal reproduction, and a 3rd generation error is stuck with about 25% attestation. )

(4)  Error accumulation is a self-limiting process, and later errors have little chance of influencing the text at all, even when preferred and adopted.  For instance, by the 10th generation, it is impossible to introduce significant errors into the copying stream, even with minimal reproduction rates.

The Assumptions of the Model:

The basic assumptions of this model are that it is a reasonably "normal" copying process.  Very little regulation is required for the model to be overwhelmingly accurate regarding the basic process of error accumulation.    To be functional and predictive, the model only makes a few assumptions:

a)  Most manuscripts should be copied more than once.  It is not even necessary that all manuscripts be copied.  The process is very robust and allows for a wide variation in rates and numbers.

b)  The relative rates of copying should be moderately equal in each generation, for most branches.  That is, one manuscript should not be copied too many more times than the others.  Again the process is robust, and difficult to skew or break.

It is important to understand that this model of manuscript reproduction is just a scientific physical description, and completely neutral as to the causes of errors in the transmission stream.  For this discussion, "error" does not signify any intent or lack of same on the part of the copyist or editor.   It only signifies physical variance from the original text.   The model is not influenced in the least by the motives of copyists or editors, and does not concern itself at all with how a variation in the text is introduced.  It only makes universal assumptions about the mechanics of copying and errors in transmission.

Critiques and objections to this model center around whether or not the transmission of the NT text really was "normal" in the sense described by the model.   D. A. Carson's objection for instance, is based on three points:

(a) Historical factors skewed the results, allowing the dominance of a less accurate text (the Byzantine).  He cites (1) the influence of Chrysostom, (2) the restriction and displacement of the Greek language.   Because of this he argues, the Byzantine text probably doesn't represent the original text.

(b)  The 'generational' argument fails because errors were not introduced "generation by generation, but wholesale, in the first 2 centuries".  Additionally, pressures to make the text uniform make the argument about most errors being minority readings null.

(c)  Catastrophes during transmission negate the predictions.  Carson uses the "flood" analogy to say that transmission trees can be 'restarted' from bad copies and previous evidence lost.   Presumably then, observations cannot be extrapolated back to pre-catastrophe conditions.

(d)  Early Christian copyists were inferior to Jewish scribes.  Carson argues that therefore they were careless with the text.   The majority of variants were early and accidental. 

Carson's objections however, are essentially a failure.

(1)  The probability argument, as already stated, is independent of the motives or causes of corruption.  It is only a statement about the physical process itself.
  This fact eliminates the basic objections found in (a).

(2) Far from contradicting the fact that most errors with significant attestation are early, the model actually predicts this.   Scrivener and Colwell may have found it (psychologically) 'paradoxical' but a mathematician doesn't.   The model is independent of objection (b) and (d).  Even if more than one error at a time is introduced in each copy (very likely), this only means that each group of errors can be treated as a single corruption event or 'variation unit'.  It makes no difference to the model, or its general predictions.

(3)  If Carson is going to posit a 'catastrophic event' (like a major recension, and an accompanying slash and burn of all other contemporary copies), then he has to actually show historical evidence of such a historical event.  Even a major recension cannot significantly alter the model, unless we add the destruction of most other unedited copies, and add the cooperation of all parts of Christendom (in the 4th century, the time when presumably this must placed), and also the large scale reproduction of the new substitute text.   Neither Hort nor Carson have ever produced the historical evidence that such a catastrophic event took place.

(4)  As to the 'carelessness' or lack of talent of early Christian scribes, this also has no effect on the model; it only affects the average rate of errors introduced to the text per generation.   Carson has failed to grasp the essential features of the model of normal transmission, which is unaffected by varying rates of error.

We will show the true problems, and limits of the probability model in a second post.

(to be continued...)

peace
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