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Bible Study Resource 3a. The Greek Text of the New Testament The heat of the debate over the Bible versions has to do primarily with the Greek Text. The KJV is based on the Traditional Text, while most modern versions are based on the Critical Text. Till today, there are two clear-cut attitudes toward the Greek Text: (1) the Pro-Critical/Westcott-Hort Text attitude, and (2) the Pro-Traditional/Received Text attitude. There are a lot of differences between these two texts and attitudes. Which Greek Text best represents the apostolic autographs? Is it the Traditional Text or the Critical Text? Which attitude faithfully promotes a reverent and faithful study of the Scriptures? 1b. The Manuscript Text-type Generally speaking, the extant NT manuscripts fall into 2 broad categories: 1c. Byzantine Text-type This Text-type is also called the Traditional Text or the Majority Text. It is called perjoratively the Syrian Text by Westcott and Hort. This text family is found in the majority of the manuscripts. It is the text-type on which the Textus Receptus or Received Text is based. More than 90% of extant manuscripts agree with the TR. This is the text which underlies the KJV. 2c. Alexandrian Text-type The text family is numerically small. Chiefly represented by the Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus which are allegedly the earliest and most reliable manuscripts we have today. This is the text on which the modern translations, like the NIV, are based. 2b. The Critical Text This Text is also called the Westcott-Hort Text, the Neutral Text, or the Eclectic Text, and is represented in published form by the United Bible Societies” Greek New Testament edited by Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M Martini, Bruce Metzger, and Allen Wikgren (UBSGNT), and the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (NA). How did this Text come about? G W Anderson offers a succinct introduction: "During the 19th and 20th centuries . . . another form of Greek New Testament has come into the forefront and is used for most modern New Testament translations. This Critical Text, as it is called, differs widely from the Traditional Text in that it omits many words, verses and passages which are found in the Received Text and translations based upon it. "The modern versions are based mainly upon a Greek New Testament which was derived from a small handful of Greek manuscripts from the 4th century onwards. Two of these manuscripts, which many modern scholars claim to be superior to the Byzantine are the Sinai manuscript and the Vatican manuscript (c. 4th century). These are derived from a text type known as the Alexandrian text (because of its origin in Egypt); this text type was referred to by the textual critics Westcott and Hort as the ‘Neutral Text”. These two manuscripts form the basis of the Greek New Testament, referred to as the Critical Text, which has been in widespread use since the late 19th century. In recent years there has been an attempt to improve this text by calling it an ‘eclectic text” (meaning that many other manuscripts were consulted in its editing and evolution), but it is still a text which has as its central foundation these two manuscripts" (The Greek New Testament, [London: Trinitarian Bible Society, 1994], 2). 1c. The Alexandrian Manuscripts These manuscripts originate from the Egyptian capital city of Alexandria. Alexandria is mentioned in Acts 6:9 where Stephen debated with the Jews from Alexandria who questioned the deity of Christ, and in Acts 18:24 we are introduced to Apollos who, though highly educated and knowledgeable of the OT, had a very shallow understanding of who Christ really was, and had to be taught and corrected by a Christian lay couple—Aquilla and Priscilla. The Scripture seems not to place Alexandria in a good light. In the 4th century, Arius, a pastor in Alexandria, denied the eternality of Christ, and taught that Jesus had a beginning by misinterpreting the term "only begotten" (John 1:14,18, 3:16). There was at least one shining testimony in Alexandria, namely, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, who opposed Arius and his heresy.
1e. "In the year 1844, . . . in quest of manuscripts, Tischendorf reached the Convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai. Here observing some old-looking documents in a basketful of papers ready for lighting the stove, he picked them out, and discovered . . . a complete New Testament, a large portion of the Septuagint, the Epistle of St. Barnabas, and a fragment of the Shepherd of Hermas. After this, he was allowed to copy the manuscript, and the Codex was in course of time presented to the Emperor. . . . "Before the discovery of this [so called] important manuscript, Tischendorf had issued seven editions of his Greek Testament. . . . The eighth edition was constructed with the help of the newly discovered Sinaitic manuscript (Aleph) and his attachment to the treasure that he had rescued proved too much for him. He altered his seventh edition in no less than 3,369 instances, generally in compliance with the Sinaitic copy, ‘to the scandal,” as Dr. Scrivener justly remarks, ‘of the science of Comparative Criticism, as well as his own discredit for discernment and accuracy.” . . . we cannot regard him [Tischendorf] as a man of sober and solid judgment. His zigzag course does not impress us with the soundness of any position upon which he found himself throughout it" (Edward Miller, A Guide to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament [Collingswood NJ: Dean Burgon Society, 1979 reprint], 24-5). 2e. "Note that this manuscript, which has so powerfully influenced the men who developed modern textual critical theories, was discovered in a waste paper basket in an Orthodox monastery. Even the benighted monks dwelling in this demonically oppressed place counted it only worthy of burning! Dr. James Qurollo observes, ‘I don”t know which of them had the truer evaluation of its worth—Tischendorf, who wanted to buy it, or the monks, who were getting ready to burn it!” "It is important to note that the Sinaiticus shows plain evidence of corruption. Dr. F.H.A. Scrivener, who published in 1864 A Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus, testified: ‘The Codex is covered with alterations of an obviously correctional character—brought in by at least ten different revisers, some of them systematically spread over every page, . . . many of these being contemporaneous with the first writer" (David W Cloud, Modern Versions Founded Upon Apostasy [Oak Harbor WA: Way of Life Literature, 1995], 17).
1e. "As its name shows, [the Vaticanus] is in the Great Vatican Library at Rome, which has been its home since some date before 1481. . . . A correspondent of Erasmus in 1533 sent that scholar a number of selected readings from it, . . . Napoleon carried the manuscript off as a prize of victory to Paris, where it remained till 1815, when the many treasures of which he had despoiled the libraries of the Continent were returned to their respective owners. . . . In 1843 Tischendorf, after waiting for several months, was allowed to see it for six hours. . . . In 1845 . . . Tregelles was allowed indeed to see it but not to copy a word. His pockets were searched before he might open it, and all writing materials were taken away. Two clerics stood beside him and snatched away the volume if he looked too long at any passage! . . . In 1866 Tischendorf once more applied for permission to edit the MS., but with difficulty obtained leave to examine it for the purpose of collating difficult passages. . . . Renewed entreaty procured him six days” longer study, making in all fourteen days of three hours each; and by making in all fourteen days of three hours each; and by making the very most of his time Tischendorf was able in 1867 to publish the most perfect edition of the manuscript which had yet appeared. An improved Roman edition appeared in 1868-81. . ." (Frederic Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, 4th ed [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939], 138-9). 2e. "Kenyon”s idea that Tischendorf could publish a satisfactory edition of Vaticanus after having examined it for only 42 hours under the above conditions must be some sort of joke! Even the so-called improved edition was carelessly produced, as a number of textual scholars have pointed out" (Cloud, Modern Versions Founded Upon Apostasy, 19). 3e. "B and Aleph, have within the last twenty years established a tyrannical ascendency over the imagination of the Critics, which can only be fitly spoken of as a blind superstition. It matters nothing that all four are discovered on careful scrutiny to differ essentially, not only from ninety-nine out of a hundred of the whole body of extant MSS. besides, but even from one another. This last circumstance, obviously fatal to their corporate pretensions, is unaccountably overlooked. And yet it admits of only one satisfactory explanation: viz. that in different degrees they all exhibit a fabricated text. Between the first two (B and Aleph) there subsists an amount of sinister resemblance, which proves that they must have been derived at no very remote period from the same corrupt original. . . . And be it remembered that the omissions, additions, substitutions, transpositions, and modifications, are by no means the same in both. It is in fact easier to find two consecutive verses in which these two MSS. differ the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree." "Aleph B . . . are . . . most scandalously corrupt copies extant:--exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with:--have become by whatever process (for their history is wholly unknown), the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional perversions of Truth,--which are discoverable in any known copies of the Word of God" (J W Burgon, The Revision Revised [Collingswood NJ: Dean Burgon Society Press, 1883], 12,16).
1f. Let me just cite one demonstration by Dean Burgon of the corruption in the 5 uncials Westcott-Hort considered to be most reliable. These 5 uncials are codices: (1) Sinaiticus (Aleph), (2) Alexandrinus (A), (3) Vaticanus (B), (4) Ephraemi Rescriptus (C), and (5) Bezae Cantabrigiensis (D). The passage being examined is the Lord”s Prayer in Luke 11:2-4. The results are as follows: 1g. D inserts Matt 7:7, "Use not vain repetitions as the rest: for some suppose that they shall be heard by their much speaking. But when ye pray . . .". 2g. B and Aleph removed 5 words "Our," and "which art in heaven." 3g. D omits the definite article "the" before "name," adds "upon us," and rearranges "Thy Kingdom." 4g. B removes the clause, "Thy will be done, as in heaven, also on the earth." Interestingly, Aleph retains these words, but adds "so" before "also," and omits the article before "earth" agreeing for once with A, C, and D. 5g. Aleph and D changed the form of the Greek word for "give." 6g. Aleph omits definite article before "day by day." 7g. D, instead of the 3 last-named words, writes "this day" (from Matt), substitutes "debts" for "sins" (also from Matt), and in place of "for we ourselves" writes "as also we" (again from Matt). 8g. Aleph shows great sympathy with D by accepting two-thirds of this last blunder, exhibiting "as also [we] ourselves." 9g. D consistently read "our debtors" in place of "every one that is indebted to us." 10g. B and Aleph canceled the last petition "but deliver us from evil," going against A, C, and D. 2f. Dean Burgon wrote, "So then, these five ‘first-class authorities” are found to throw themselves into six different combinations in their departures from S. Luke”s way of exhibiting the Lord”s Prayer,—which, among them, they contrive to falsify in respect of no less than 45 words; and yet they are never able to agree among themselves as to any single various reading: while only once are more than two of them observed to stand together,—viz. in the unauthorized omission of the article. In respect of 32 (out of the 45) words, they bear in turn solitary evidence. What need to declare that it is certainly false in every instance? Such however is the infatuation of the Critics, that the vagaries of B are all taken for gospel. Besides omitting the 11 words which B omits jointly with Aleph, Drs. Westcott and Hort erase from the Book of Life those other 11 precious words which are omitted by B only. And in this way it comes to pass that the mutilated condition to which the scalpel of Marcion the heretic reduced the Lord”s Prayer some 1730 years ago, (for mischief can all be traced back to him!), is palmed off on the Church of England by the Revisionists as the work of the Holy Ghost!" (Revision Revised, 34-6). 2c. The Westcott-Hort Text
"The year 1881 was marked by the publication of the most noteworthy [untrustworthy] critical edition of the Greek Testament ever produced by British scholarship. Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-92) issued two volumes entitled, The New Testament in the Original Greek. [By] utilizing previous collections of variant readings, they refined the critical methodology developed by Griesbach, Lachmann [German modernists], and others, and applied it rigorously, but with discrimination, to the witnesses to the text of the New Testament. . . The [so-called] Neutral Text is, in the opinion of Westcott and Hort, most free from later corruption and mixture, and comes nearest to the text of the autographs. It is best represented by codex Vaticanus (B), and next by codex Sinaiticus (Aleph). [According to them] the concurrence of these two manuscripts are very strong, and cannot be far from the original text" (Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, 2d ed [New York: Oxford University Press, 1968], 129, 133; words in parenthesis mine).
1f. Many verses and passages found in the writings of the Church Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries are missing in the Alexandrian manuscripts of the Critical Text. What is significant is that these readings absent in the Alexandrian manuscripts are found in the majority of manuscripts which date from the 5th century onwards. One example is Mark 16:9-20. This passage is cited by early Church Fathers Irenaeus and Hippolytus (2nd century), and is in almost every manuscript of Mark”s Gospel from AD 500 onwards, but missing in the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. 2f. The Critical Text differs from the Traditional Text in over 5,000 places. The Vaticanus omits 2,877 words in the gospels, and the Sinaiticus, even more, 3455. "Westcott and Hort, published their Greek text that rejected the Textus Receptus in 5,604 places. . . . This included 9,970 Greek words that were either added, subtracted, or changed from the Textus Receptus. This involves, on the average, 15.4 words per page in the Greek New Testament, or a total of 45.9 pages in all. It is 7% of the total of 140,521 words in the Textus Receptus Greek New Testament (Waite, Defending the King James Bible, 40). These omissions do affect doctrine and faith. For example, the Critical Text omits the deity of Christ in 1 Tim 3:16: WH: Hos ephanerôthê en sarki (NIV: "He appeared in a body"); TR: Theos ephanerôthê en sarki (KJV: ______________). Dean Burgon has convincingly proven that the manuscripts Westcott and Hort hailed to be almost like the autographs are among the most corrupt copies of the NT in existence (for in-depth study, read J W Burgon, The Revision Revised: A Refutation of Westcott and Hort”s False Greek Text and Theory [Collingswood NJ: Dean Burgon Society Press, nd], 1-110). The Revised Version (1881) was substantially based on the Westcott-Hort Text. The RV has not stood the test of time. Although still printed by Cambridge University Press, it is no longer popular.
The basic premise of Westcott and Hort”s theory of textual criticism is that the oldest manuscripts are the most accurate or reliable. "In the 1860”s the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus became available to Biblical scholars, and in 1881 Westcott and Hort advanced the theory that the New Testament text was preserved in an almost perfect state in these two fourth century manuscripts. . . . "Westcott and Hort devised an elaborate theory, based more on imagination and intuition than upon evidence, elevating this little group of MSS to the heights of almost infallible authority. Their treatise on the subject and their edition of the Greek N.T. exercised a powerful and far-reaching influence, not only on the next generation of students and scholars, but also indirectly upon the minds of millions who have had neither the ability, nor the time, nor the inclination to submit the theory to a searching examination" (The Divine Original [London: Trinitarian Bible Society, nd], 4). In their own words, Westcott and Hort theorised, "it is our belief (1) that readings of AlephB should be accepted as the true readings until strong internal evidence is found to the contrary, and (2) that no readings of AlephB can safely be rejected absolutely, . . . especially where they receive no support from Versions or Fathers" (B F Westcott and F J A Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek [New York: Harper and Brothers, 1882], 225). Based on their theory that Aleph and B are superior, they omit such precious passages as the pericope de adultera (John 7:53-8:11), the last twelve verses of Mark, and the Johannine comma (1 John 5:7f). In fact, the number of verses taken out of the Bible amounts to that of 1-2 Peter.
There is a fundamental error in Westcott and Hort”s textual critical theory. The error lies in "the assumption that the reliability of these 4th century documents was in proportion to their age. There were no doubt bad copies in every age, some corrupted by accident, some by ignorance and some by design. These two exhibit the most amazing number of incorrect readings. "These two MSS and a few others containing a similar text present in a weakened form many of the passages of Holy Scripture which speak most plainly of the deity of the Son of God. The trend of Biblical scholarship in the 19th and 20th centuries has been towards a ‘humanitarian” view of the person of Christ. It does not surprise us that many modern scholars should welcome the support of these two ancient documents, but it saddens us to see so many earnest evangelical Christians ready to accept without question a theory so destructive of the faith once delivered to the saints. "In the words of a great 19th century scholar, ‘To cast away at least nineteen-twentieths of the evidence, and to draw conclusions from the petty remainder is not less than a crime and a sin, not only by reasons of the sacrilegious destructiveness exercised upon the Holy Scriptures, but because such a treatment is inconsistent with conscientious exhaustiveness and logical method.” "The Sinai and Vatican manuscripts represent a small family of documents containing various readings which the Church as a whole rejected before the end of the 4th century. Under the singular care and providence of God more reliable MSS were multiplied and copied from generation to generation, and the great majority of existing MSS exhibit a faithful reproduction of the true text which was acknowledged by the entire Greek Chruch in the Byzantine period A.D. 312-1453. This text was also represented by the small group of documents available to Erasmus, Stephens, the compilers of the Complutension edition of other 16th century editors. This text is represented by the Authorised Version and other Protestant translations up to the latter part of the 19th century" (The Divine Original, 5).
1f. Hort supported Darwin”s theory of evolution: "But the book which has most engaged me is Darwin. Whatever may be thought of it, it is a book that one is proud to be contemporary with. I must work out and examine the argument in more detail, but at present my feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable" (Hort, Life, I:416). 2f. Westcott believed the first 3 chapters of Genesis to be mythical: "No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of Genesis, for example, give a literal history. I could never understand how any one reading them with open eyes could think they did" (Westcott, Life, I:78).
1f. Hort acknowledged the worship of Mary is legitimate: "I have been persuaded for many years that Mary-worship and ‘Jesus”-worship have very much in common in their causes and their results" (Hort, Life, II:50). 2f. Westcott took delight in Mary-worship and idolatry: "After leaving the monastery, we shaped our course to a little oratory which we discovered on the summit of a neighbouring hill. . . . Fortunately we found the door opened. It is very small, with one kneeling place; and behind a screen was a ‘Pieta” the size of life (ie a Virgin and dead Christ]. . . . Had I been alone I could have knelt there for hours" (Westcott, Life, I:81). 3c. The Eclectic Text With the entrance of the Westcott-Hort (WH) edition of the Greek NT, the foundation of the systematic corruption of the Bible has been laid. Since that time, Bible scholars echo Westcott and Hort. [Sad to say, among them are evangelicals, even fundamentalists. They may have done so unwittingly. I trust they will turn around if they will carefully evaluate what Dean Burgon, hitherto neglected, had written, and humbly allow the Spirit to guide them to know which is really God”s Word kept intact.] They say that the TR/KJV is unreliable and outdated. We need new translations of the Bible. Among other lesser known ones, the Revised Standard Version (RSV, 1952), New American Standard Bible (NASB, 1971), and New International Version (NIV, 1978) have been the key players in following the WH philosophy of textual criticism and Bible translation. Now, on which Greek NT edition was the RSV, NASB, and NIV based? Were they based on the WH tradition or on the TR?
1e. Harold Greenlee commented, "All things considered, the influence of W-H upon all subsequent work in the history of the text has never been equalled. . . . With the work of Westcott and Hort the T.R. was at last vanquished . . . [and] the textual theory of W-H underlies virtually all subsequent work in N.T. textual criticism" (Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism [Grand Rapids MI: Wm B Eerdmans, 1964], 77-8). 2e. D A Carson confessed, "the vast majority of evangelical scholars . . . hold that in the basic textual theory Westcott and Hort were right, and that the church stands greatly in their debt" (The King James Version Debate [Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1979], 75).
Unable to refute the arguments leveled against the WH text and theory, anti-KJVists attempt to distance themselves from WH by arguing that modern English translations are not based on WH. One NIV-advocate for instance pointed out that the NIV is not based on the WH text but an "eclectic" text. It is true that the NIV claims to be based on a so-called eclectic text: "The Greek text used in translating the New Testament was an eclectic one. . . . Where existing manuscripts differ, the translators made their choice of readings according to accepted principles of New Testament textual criticism. . . . The best current printed texts of the Greek New Testament were used" (NIV "Preface"). The NIV translators say they use an eclectic text, and then a few sentences down, they say that the best current printed Greek NT texts were used. Questions: (1) What is the eclectic text? Who edited and published this text? (2) Which are the best current printed texts of the Greek NT? (3) Is the eclectic text actually the best current printed texts of the Greek NT? And (4) what "accepted" principles of NT textual criticism did they employ? It will be seen that the NIV (representative of the modern versions) has its roots in the WH text and textual critical theory. As admitted in the NIV preface, the best printed editions of the Greek NT available today were used; the "best ones" in their view being those published by the United Bible Societies and Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. These are the "scholarly" editions. The other printed edition of the Greek NT is none other than the venerable Textus Receptus which modern scholars, parotting WH, consider inferior.
The UBSGNT is founded on the WH text. The preface to its first edition states, "The Committee carried out its work . . . on the basis of Westcott and Hort”s edition of the Greek New Testament." It is significant to note that the 1st and 2nd editions relegated John 7:53-8:11 from its original and traditional place, to the end of the Gospel. This to show that the passage is considered non-authentic. This clearly reveals a WH attitude in accepting without question the testimony of Aleph and B which do not have the pericope of the woman taken in adultery. The 3rd edition however transposed "the pericope John 7.53-8.11 from the end of the Gospel to its traditional location, with the double brackets retained." Perhaps the editors are now admitting their error in rejecting the pericope. In any case, the double brackets are retained. What do these double brackets mean? "Double brackets in the text indicate that the enclosed passages which are usually rather extensive, are known not to be a part of the original text" (Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Matthew Black, Carlo M Martini, Bruce M Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, eds, The Greek New Testament, 4th rev ed [Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1994]). They still refuse to accept the authenticity of the pericope.
The NA is exactly the same as the UBSGNT except for its fuller critical apparatus. It is said the UBSGNT is meant for the translator, while the NA for the exegete (NA27, 45*). The NA like the UBSGNT owes a great deal to the WH text: "It is well known how he [Eberhard Nestle] compared the editions of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and Weymouth" (Ibid, 44*). Nestle himself admits that his text is heavily influenced by Westcott and Hort. The "origin of the text itself was clearly traceable . . . particularly in passages where the special theories of Westcott-Hort had dominant influence in its formation" (NA26, 39). It is thus no surprise that Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 are also assigned double brackets to indicate their non-genuineness as in the UBSGNT.
1e. NIV-advocates say that it is erroneous to connect the NIV with Westcott and HoHort. To do so invites the ridicule of engaging in scholarship of the "Steamship Age." Are KJV supporters really so out of touch with the so-called advances of Biblical scholarship? Actually, to say that the NIV is not influenced whatsoever by Westcott-Hort is denial at its height. Gordon Fee, though a TR/KJV opponent, honestly confessed that "all subsequent critical texts [ie UBSGNT, NA] look far more like WH than like the TR" ("The Textual Criticism of the New Testament," in The Expositor”s Bible Commentary, ed Frank E Gaebelein [Grand Rapids MI: Regency Reference Library, 1979], I:428). And it is on such critical texts that the modern versions are based. G W Anderson of The Trinitarian Bible Society in his booklet—The Greek Text of the New Testament—has rightly observed, "In recent years there has been an attempt to improve this text by calling it an ‘eclectic” text (meaning that many other manuscripts were consulted in its editing and evolution), but it is still a text which has as its central foundation these two manuscripts [ie, Aleph and B]." 2e. In actual fact, the usage of the term "eclectic" to apply to a text is a misnomer. Actually there is no such thing as an Eclectic Text, but an Eclectic Method. What is this method all about? Harry A Sturz explains and critiques, "This method endeavors to have no favorite manuscript and no preferred type of text. . . . [However] the eclectic approach, though quite objective in the sense of being willing to consider all readings, is admittedly very subjective in that much depends on the personal element in the evaluation of the evidence. . . . textual scholars have given lip-service . . . but in practice they do not appear to carry out the theory or the method with consistency, especially with regard to the consideration of Byzantine [Majority Text] readings. Therefore, for all practical purposes, because of the low esteem in which the text is still held by most critics, a Byzantine reading does not generally receive much consideration even under the eclectic method" (The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Criticism [Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson, 1984], 16-8). 3e. Gordon Fee, who is anti-TR/KJV, himself corrected this confusion: "[In] Modern textual criticism, the ‘eclecticism” of the UBS, RSV, NIV, NASB etc., . . . recognizes that Westcott-Hort”s view of things was essentially correct, but it is not nearly so confident as they that the early text of Alexandria is ‘neutral”." It is thus clear that Westcott and Hort continue to have an hynoptic hold on modern-day textual critics and Bible translators in terms of their textual critical thinking. Following the lead of Westcott and Hort, the NIV translators took a low view of the Traditional Text having scissored out many precious verses of the Bible. Such an attitude is reflected by J Harold Greenlee who wrote, "the general impression which is given by readings which are characteristically Byzantine is that they are inferior and not likely to be original" (Introduction to New Testament Criticism, 91). 4e. Although later editions of the critical text did attempt to move away from the WH text toward an "eclectic" text, it is evident that the vestiges of WH remain. The textual critical methodology of WH for the most part are still being employed by these modern editors. For example, the UBSGNT editors are absolutely certain that the pericope de adultera (John 7:53-8:11) is not a part of the Gospel. What is their basis? They say, "the passage is absent from the earlier and better manuscripts" (ie Vaticanus and Sinaiticus among other like ones). Note that the same comment against the authenticity of John 7:53-8:11 is found in modern versions like the NIV: the NIV has this note above the passage, "[The earliest and most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11.]" So how can it be concluded that the NIV for instance is not based on WH? Other examples are the last 12 verses of Mark, and 1 John 5:7-8. All decisions made have been consistently against the TR and KJV. We will discuss more about the authenticity of the above passages later on. 4c. The Editors of the Critical Text It is unfortunate that evangelical and fundamentalist scholars have fallen prey to the views of Westcott and Hort. The masters of the WH tradition were primarily the liberal scholars. Alfred Martin, former vice-president of Moody Bible Institute, wrote, "At precisely the time when liberalism was carrying the field in the English churches the theory of Westcott and Hort received wide acclaim. There are not isolated facts. Recent contributions on the subject—that is, in the present century—following mainly the Westcott-Hort principles and method, have been made largely by men who deny the inspiration of the Bible" ("A Critical Examination of the Westcott-Hort Textual Theory," ThD diss, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1951, 70). It is surprising then that evangelicals and fundamentalists are so gullible as to become their disciples. Men like A T Robertson, and B B Warfield have unwittingly fallen into the Westcott-Hort trap, leading many of their students into the same. Terence Brown, ex-secretary of the Trinitarian Bible Society, said, "Many liberal and evangelical scholars alike embraced the basic theory of Westcott and Hort and in a very short period, through the colleges, schools and pulpits of the English-speaking world, the theory became embedded in the minds of many, as if it were a proved and demonstrated fact" ("What is Wrong with the Modern Versions of the Holy Scriptures?, Trinitarian Bible Society, article #41). David Cloud tells us of the unbelief and apostasy of the editors of the critical/eclectic text in his book—Modern Versions Founded Upon Apostasy (Oak Harbor WA: Way of Life Literature, 1995), 42-50.
Martini is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Milan. He is Professor of NT Textual Criticism at the Pontifical Bible Institute in Rome. TIME Magazine (Dec 26, ”96) listed him as a possible candidate in line for the papacy. Another TIME article reported that Martini brought together 100 religious leaders from around the world to promote a new age, one-world religion.
Nida is the father of the dynamic equivalency theory of Bible translation. As to his view of Bible inspiration. Nida says, ". . . God”s revelation involved limitations. . . . Biblical revelation is not absolute and all divine revelation is essentially incarnational. . . . Even if a truth is given only in words, it has no real validity until it has been translated into life. . . . The words are in a sense nothing in and of themselves. . . . the word is void unless related to experience" (Message and Mission, 222-8). Nida”s view on the inspiration of the Bible is Barthianistic.
Metzger is Professor of NT at Princeton Theological Seminary. He serves in the board of the American Bible Society and is the head of the ecumenical RSV/NRSV translation committee of the apostate National Council of Churches in USA. Metzger was also the chairman for the Reader”s Digest Condensed Bible or "the Butcher”s Bible" because 40% of the Bible has been "chopped off." It is no surprise that the warning of Rev 22:18-19 has also been conveniently deleted in this Bible. Metzger is a modernist who denies the historicity of the book of Genesis, and the uniqueness of the Synoptic Gospels. [Testimony: Metzger is looked up to by many evangelicals. I must say that I had a good dose of Metzger when I was a student at FEBC. One ex-FEBC lecturer in a course on NT Introduction used Metzger”s book on textual criticism as his text, and another who taught the Gospels and Acts quoted him favourably concerning the origin of the gospels. Grace Theological Seminary was where I earned my Master of Divinity degree. Looking at Grace, it was unfortunate that the Seminary in the late ‘80s invited Metzger to lecture to its students. Where is Grace Seminary today? It is no longer respected as a conservative/fundamentalist institution. Grace has done away with its highly prized ThM and ThD programmes. Its revised MDiv programme reflects a less stringent academic curriculum. The seminary has not enjoyed as much endorsement from fundamentalists as it once did, and things have not been looking up. There is a lesson to be learned!]
Kurt Aland and his wife Barbara are chief editors of the NA Greek NT. Aland has an extremely low view of the TR and of the doctrine Biblical inspiration. He said, "This idea of verbal inspiration (i.e., of the literal and inerrant inspiration of the text), which the orthodoxy of both Protestant traditions maintained so vigorously, was applied to the Textus Receptus with all of its errors, including textual modifications of an obviously secondary character (as we recognize them today)" (The Problem of the New Testament Canon, 6-7). 3b. The Traditional Text What do we mean by the term "traditional text?" The Trinitarian Bible Society explains: 1c. The Byzantine/Majority Text "During the first century following the resurrection of Christ, God moved men to pen His Word (2 Peter 1.21). The result was a group of letters and books, written in Koine Greek (called the ‘original autographs”). These letters and books were copied and recopied through the centuries and distributed throughout the world. These copies comprise the manuscripts of the New Testament. Over 5,000 of these Greek manuscripts have survived to this day. The great number of these Greek manuscripts supports what is called the Byzantine textual tradition, Byzantine because it came from all over the Greek-speaking world at that time. These Byzantine manuscripts make up what is called the Traditional Text of the New Testament" (G W Anderson, The Greek New Testament [England: Trinitarian Bible Society, 1994]). 2c. The Textus Receptus/Received Text "The best printed representation of this Byzantine Text type is the Textus Receptus (or Received Text). In addition to the manuscripts, we also have available many works in which numerous Church Fathers quoted from the manuscripts. The work of John Burgon has established that the basic text used by numerous Church Fathers is the same as the text now known as the Byzantine Text. "The Textus Receptus was compiled from a number of Byzantine manuscripts by numerous editors from the early 1500s. There were editions from textual editors such as Erasmus, Stephens, Beza, the Elzevir brothers, Mill and Scrivener. These editions differ slightly from one another but still are regarded as the same basic text. Certain editions were popular in different countries and provided the basis for New Testament translations. The Textus Receptus (as it later became known) was the text used by Tyndale and in turn by the translators of the English Authorised (King James) Version of 1611 and other Reformation era translations" (Ibid). 3c. The Preserved Text In summary, the Traditional Text is called the Byzantine Text or the Majority Text. It is "Byzantine" because most of the manuscripts originate from the Byzantine empire (ie the empire that succeeded the Roman in about AD 300). Moreover, the majority of the extant manuscripts are of the Byzantine text-type. There are slightly over 5,000 extant Greek NT manuscripts, and 90% of them belong to this text-type. The Byzantine text finds "its chief representative: the Textus Receptus (TR). Most textual students of the New Testament would agree that the TR was made from a few medieval manuscripts, mostly Byzantine" (Sturz, The Byzantine Text-Type, 14). That is why Dean Burgon called it the "Traditional" text. Hills who took the same line as Burgon concluded, "therefore the Byzantine text found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts is that true text. To reject this view is to act unreasonably. It is to fly at the facts." Hills continued by chiding those who reject the Majority Text, "Those who reject this orthodox view of the New Testament text have rejected not merely the facts but also the promise of Christ always to preserve the true New Testament text and the doctrines of the divine inspiration and providential preservation of the Scripture implied in this promise" (quoted by Sturz, ibid, 16). The Traditional Text is the text that was used by most of the churches for 1800 years till Tischendorf, Westcott, and Hort came into the picture with their minority text. It can thus also be called the Preserved Text. The Traditional or Preserved Text is superior because it (1) has been accepted by the churches at large, and (2) can be retraced in history to go all the way back to the original manuscripts of the Greek NT (Waite, Defending the King James Bible, 40). D A Waite provides the following historical links of the Traditional/Preserved/Received Text (Ibid, 44-8): (1) All of the Apostolic Churches used the Received Text. (2) The churches in Palestine used the Received Text. (3) The Syrian Church at Antioch used the Received Text. (4) The Peshitta Syriac Version (150 AD) used the Received Text. (5) Papyrus #66 used the Received Text. (6) The Italic Church in Northern Italy (157 AD) used the Received Text. (7) The Gallic Church of Southern France (177 AD) used the Received Text. (8) The Celtic Church in Great Britain used the Received Text. (9) Church of Scotland and Ireland used the Received Text. (10) The Pre-Waldensian churches used the Received Text. (11) The Waldensians (120 AD and onward) used the Received Text. (12) The Gothic Version of the 4th century used the Received Text. (13) Codex W of Matthew in the 4th and 5th century used the Received Text. (14) Codex A in the Gospels (in the 5th century) used the Received Text. (15) The vast majority of extant New Testament manuscripts all used the Received Text. This includes about 99% of them, or about 5,210 of the 5,255 manuscripts. (16) The Greek Orthodox Church used the Received Text. (17) The present Greek Church still uses the Received Text. (18) The churches of the Reformation all used the Received Text. (19) The Erasmus Greek New Testament (1516) used the Received Text. (20) The Complutension Polyglot (1522) used the Received Text. (21) Martin Luther”s German Bible (1522) used the Received Text. (22) William Tyndale”s Bible (1525) used the Received Text. (23) The French Version of Oliveton (1535) used the Received Text. (24) The Coverdale Bible (1535) used the Received Text. (25) The Matthews Bible (1537) used the Received Text. (26) The Taverners Bible (1539) used the Received Text. (27) The Great Bible (1539-41) used the Received Text. (28) The Stephanus Greek New Testament (1546-51) used the Received Text. (29) The Geneva Bible (1557-60) used the Received Text. (30) The Bishops” Bible (1568) used the Received Text. (31) The Spanish Version (1569) used the Received Text. (32) The Beza Greek New Testament (1598) used the Received Text. (33) The Czech Version (1602) used the Received Text. (34) The Italian Version of Diodati (1607) used the Received Text. (35) The King James Bible (1611) used the Received Text. (36) The Elziver Brothers” Greek New Testament (1624) used the Received Text. (37) The Received Text in the New Testament is the [Traditional] Text—the text that has survived in continuity from the beginning of the New Testament itself. It is the only accurate representation of the originals we have today! 4c. The "Jesus Papyrus" (Magdalen GR 17) We have been repeatedly told that the oldest and most reliable manuscripts are the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus codices. They are the best representives of the autographs. The falsity of this claim is evinced in the recent discovery of a papyrus called Magdalen GR 17 kept in Magdalen College, Oxford University. This is reported in the December 1996 issue of the Baptist Reformed Fellowship Journal. In his book—The Jesus Papyrus—published by Weidenfield-Nicolson (England) and Doubleday (New York) Dr Carsten Peter Thiede wrote that the Magdalen GR 17 "is to be dated to a point within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses to Christ. . . . This makes the ‘Magdalen” papyrus one of the oldest known fragments of the new Testament, and ‘one of the most important documents in the world.”" In other words, the papyrus can be dated to about AD 60 or earlier. He concluded this to be so based on the style of handwriting which was that of the mid-first century, similar to the manuscripts found at Qumran. Further, the papyrus was printed on both sides (ie front and back), a common printing-form of the 1st century AD. The Magdalen GR17 consists of 3 small fragments, and is a portion of Matthew”s Gospel (Matt 26:7-8, 26:10, 14-15, 22-23, 31-33). Among other things, what is significant is the Magdalen”s bearing on the identification of the traditional text. Hereunder is the BRF report on "Papyrus Magdalen GR17 and the Textus Receptus:" "In the analysis of GR17 undertaken under the laser-scanning microscope, certain definite results concerning particular Greek letters that had originally been written on the GR17 were obtained which enabled the researchers to conclude that the papyrus followed a certain form of textual reading. A comparison of this reading with the ‘Post-Westcott-Hort” text of the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece indicated a salient difference. "Authors Thiede and D”Ancona . . . point out that GR17 has, on the last 4 words of Matthew 26:22 a reading which is disparate from modern standard critical editions of the Greek New Testament which are of course, all ‘Westcott-Hort” based eclectic text, the basis of all modern translations. "It is apposite therefore at this point to compare GR17 with a ‘Westcott-Hort” reading, and juxtapose both in parallel against the old Textus Receptus."
There is no need for you to know Greek in order to see the difference, and to note the significance. We have here a very early 1st century manuscript which agrees with the Textus Receptus over against the Westcott-Hort Text! This confirms Burgon”s observation all along—the Westcott-Hort Text is a corrupted text, the early age of its primary manuscripts notwithstanding. |