Grace
Theological Journal 12.1 (1992) 21-50.
Copyright © 1992 by Grace Theological
Seminary.
Cited with permission.
INSPIRATION, PRESERVATION,
AND NEW TESTAMENT
TEXTUAL CRITICISM
DANIEL B.
WALLACE*
INTRODUCTION
THE
Bible has always been of central importance to evangelicals. It
not
only defines what we are to believe; it also tells us how we are
to
behave. A clear and faithful exposition of the scriptures has, histori-
cally, been at the heart of any relevant pastoral
ministry. In order for a
particular
passage to be applied legitimately, it must first be understood
accurately.
Before we ask "How does this text apply to me?" we must
ask
"What does this text mean?" And even before we ask "What does
this
text mean?" we must first ask, "What does this text say?" Determin-
ing what a text says is what textual criticism is
all about. In other words,
textual
criticism, as its prime objective, seeks to ascertain the very
wording
of the original. This is necessary to do with the books of the
Bible--as
with all literary documents of the ancient world-because the
originals
are no longer extant. Not only this, but of the more than five
thousand
manuscript copies of the Greek New Testament no two of
them
agree completely. It is essential, therefore, that anyone who
expounds
the Word of God be acquainted to some degree with the sci-
ence of textual criticism, if he or she is to
expound that Word faithfully.
The
relevance of textual criticism, however, is not shut up only to
those
who have acquaintance with Greek, nor only to those in explic-
itly expository ministries. Textual criticism is
relevant to every Chris-
tian, precisely because many of the textual
differences in Greek can be
translated
into another language. Thus the differences between the New
*Danie1
B. Wallace (B.A.,
logical
Seminary) is Assistant Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological
Seminary,
This article is a reprint of the
author's chapter by the same title in New
Testament
Essays in Honor of Homer
A. Kent, Jr.,
edited by Gary T. Meadors (Winona Lake, IN:
BMH,
1991). The Grace Theological Journal editorial committee felt that Professor
Wallace's
article was worthy of wider circulation and that it would benefit the
readership
of
the Journal.
22 GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
Testament
of the King James Version, for example, and that of the New
American
Standard Version are not just differences in the English; there
are
also differences in the Greek text behind the English-in fact, over
5,000
differences! And with the publication of the New King James New
Testament
in 19791 (in which the KJV was rendered in modern English),
the
translational differences are diminished while the textual differences
are
heightened. The average modern American Christian who lacks the
requisite
educational background to read Elizabethan English now has
no
excuse for not reading the (new) King James Version. In light of the
heavy
promotion by Thomas Nelson Publishers,2 that oft-asked ques-
tion, "What is the most accurate New
Testament?," is increasingly a
question
about a version's textual basis as much as it is of the transla-
tional philosophy behind it.
What is the textual difference, then, between
the (new) KJV NT and
other
modern translations? In a nutshell, most modern translations are
based
on a few ancient manuscripts, while the (new) KJV NT is based on
a
printed edition of the Greek New Testament (called the Textus
Recep-
tus or TR) which, in turn, was derived from the
majority of medieval
manuscripts
(known collectively as the majority text [MT] or Byzantine
text).
In one respect, then, the answer to the question "What is the most
accurate
New Testament?" turns on the question, "Which manuscripts
are
closest to the original-the few early ones or the many late ones?"
In this paper it is not my objective to answer
that question.3
Rather,
I wish to address an argument that has been used by TR/MT
advocates-an
argument which is especially persuasive among lay-
men.
The argument is unashamedly theological in nature: inspiration
and
preservation are intrinsically linked to one another and both are
intrinsically
linked to the TR/MT. That is to say, the doctrine of ver-
bal-plenary
inspiration necessitates the doctrine of providential preser-
vation of the text, and the doctrine of providential
preservation
necessarily
implies that the majority text (or the TR)4 is the faithful
1 The
New King James Bible, New Testament (
ers, 1979).
2 One of the promotional means of the
publisher is the sponsoring of concerts. On
approximately
18,000 people were in attendance. At the end of the concert, Dr. Arthur L.
Farstad, editor of the NKJV, promoted this
Bible. His chief "sales pitch" was text-critical
in
which he argued that Mark 16:9-20 was authentic and that modem translations, by
de-
leting it (or at least by casting doubts on its
authenticity), delete Christ's resurrection
from
Mark's gospel. His statement, however, was not altogether accurate, for although
there
is no resurrection appearance by Christ if the gospel ends at v 8, there is
still a res-
urrection! Whether intentional or not, the
impression left on the audience was that the
NKJV
is a more orthodox translation than other modem versions.
3 For a discussion of
this, see my article, "The Majority Text and the Original Text:
Are
They Identical?," BSac
148 (1991) 151-69.
4 This statement is not meant to imply
that MT = TR, but that within this school of
thought
are two divisions-those who hold that the printed edition of Erasmus (TR) is
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 23
replica
of the autographs. Inspiration (and inerrancy) is also used for
the
Byzantine text's correctness in two other ways: (1) only in the Byz-
antine text do we have an inerrant New Testament; (2)
if any portion
of
the New Testament is lost (no matter how small, even if only one
word),
then verbal-plenary inspiration is thereby falsified.
If
inspiration and preservation can legitimately be linked to the
text
of the New Testament in this way, then the (new) KJV NT is the
most
accurate translation and those who engage in an expository min-
istry should use this text alone and encourage their
audiences to do the
same.
But if this theological argument is not legitimate, then New Tes-
tament textual criticism needs to be approached on
other than a theo-
logical
a priori basis. And if so, then perhaps most modern translations
do
indeed have a more accurate textual basis after all.
Our
approach will be to deal first with the arguments from preser-
vation, then to deal with the arguments related more
directly to inspi-
ration
and inerrancy.5
I. PRESERVATION
A.
The Statement
On a popular level, the TR-advocating and
"King James only" fun-
damentalist pamphleteers have waged a holy war on
all who would use
any
modern version of the New Testament, or any Greek text based on
the
few ancient manuscripts rather than on the many late ones.6 Jasper
James
Ray is a highly influential representative of this approach.7 In his
the
original and those who hold that the reading of the majority of extant Greek
wit-
nesses
is the original.
5 This breakdown is somewhat artificial,
since the arguments from inspiration and
inerrancy
are closely tied to preservation as well. However, our organization is due
chiefly
to the fact that the arguments from preservation are more traditional and univer-
sal among TR/MT advocates, while the arguments from
inspiration/inerrancy are of
more
recent vintage and are more idiosyncratic.
6 In passing, Peter Ruckman
could be mentioned as the most extreme "King James
only"
advocate, going so far as to argue that even the Greek and Hebrew text need to
be
corrected
by the KJV! Cf. his The Christian's
Handbook of Manuscript Evidence (Pensa-
cola:
Pensacola Bible Institute, 1970) 115-38; Problem
Texts (
Bible
Institute, 1980) 46-48.
7 Not only has he influenced many laymen,
but David Otis Fuller dedicated the
book,
Counterfeit or Genuine[;] Mark 16? John
8?, of which he was the editor (2d ed.;
Missionary
Scholar of Junction City, Oregon, whose book, God Wrote Only One Bible,
moved
me to begin this fascinating faith-inspiring study" (p. v). Further, even
Zane C.
Hodges,
formerly professor of NT at Dallas Theological Seminary, and arguably the
prime
mover in the modern revival of the "Traditional Text," "admits
that it was the
reading
of Ray which began his investigation of textual criticism" (David D.
Shields,
"Recent
Attempts to Defend the Byzantine Text of the Greek New Testament" [Ph.D.
24
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book,
God Wrote Only One Bible,8
Ray says that no modern version
may
properly be called the Bible,9 that salvation and spiritual growth
can
only come through versions based on the TR,10 and that Satan is
the
prime mover behind all versions based on the more ancient manu-
scripts.11
If Ray's view is correct, then those who use modern transla-
tions or a Greek New Testament based on the few
ancient manuscripts
are,
at best, dupes of the devil and, at worst, in danger of forfeiting
their
immortal souls.
Ray's chief argument on behalf of the TR is
based on preservation.
In
the following statements, notice how closely inspiration and preser-
vation are linked-and how both are linked to the Textus Receptus.
dissertation,
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary,
1985]
26. This is based on an interview Shields had with Hodges on
8
9 " A multiplicity of differing Bible
versions are in circulation today, resulting in a
state
of bewildering confusion. Some versions omit words, verses, phrases, and even
chapter
portions. ...Among these [versions] you'll not find the Bible God gave when
holy
men spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. . ."
(ibid., 1).
10 The following are representative statements:
"... the TEXTUS RECEP-
TUS
. . . is God's sure foundation on which to rest our eternal salvation"
(32). "It is im-
possible
to be saved without 'FAITH,' and perfect-saving-faith can only be produced by
the
'ONE' Bible God wrote, and that we find only in translations which agree with
the
Greek
Textus Receptus refused by
Westcott and Hort" (122). "Put poison
anywhere in
the
blood stream and the whole becomes poisoned. Just so with the Word of God. When
words
are added or subtracted, Bible inspiration is destroyed, and the spiritual
blood
stream
is poisoned. In this respect the revised Bibles in our day seem to have become
spiritual
guinea pigs [sic], with multiple hypodermic shots-in-the-arm by so called Doc-
tors of Divinity, who have used the serum of
scholasticism well mixed with modern free-
thinking
textual criticism. When the Bible words are tampered with, and substitution is
made,
the Bible becomes a dead thing with neither power to give or sustain life. Of
course,
even under these conditions, it is possible to build up church membership, and
report
many professions. But what about regeneration? Are they born again? No person
can
be born again without the Holy Spirit, and it is evident the Holy Spirit is not
going
to
use a poisoned blood stream to produce healthy christians.
Therefore, beware, beware,
lest
your faith become marred through the reading of corrupted Revised Versions of
the
Bible"
(9).
11 In his introduction, Ray states that he
"knows that the teaching of this book, re-
garding Textual Criticism, goes contrary to what
is being taught in almost every college,
seminary,
and Bible school. ...The reader may say, 'How can so many good, sincere ed-
ucated people be wrong?' Herein lies the 'mystery of
iniquity' (2 Thess. 2:7)" (ii). Later
he
argues: "Many of these men [who use modern versions] are true servants of
the Lord,
and
we should; with patience and love, try to reveal the truth to them. They have
been
'brain-washed'
by their teachers; who were 'brain-washed' by other teachers in a 'chain-
reaction'
on back to Westcott and Hart who, in 1881, 'switched' most of our seminaries
and
Bible schools from the dependable TEXTUS RECEPTUS to inferior manuscripts,
such
as codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.
Of course this 'chain-reaction' could be
traced
on back to its beginning in Genesis 3:1, where (Satan) the serpent said unto
the
woman,
'Yea, hath God said?' In the humanistic theology of today we would hear some-
thing
like this: 'These words are not in the best manuscripts'" (101).
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 25
Ray
says, for example, that "the Textus Receptus . . . was given by the
inspiration
of God, and has been providentially preserved for us
today.12
He further adds that "the writing of the Word of God by
inspiration
is no greater miracle than the miracle of its preservation in
the
Textus Receptus.13 Preservation, then,
for Jasper James Ray, takes
place
on the same level as inspiration--i.e., extending to the very
words.14
Even in works which are dressed in more
scholarly garb, this
theological
presupposition (along with the witch-hunting invectives15)
is
still present. David Otis Fuller, for example, has edited several vol-
umes in which professors and Bible scholars have
contributed-all for
12 Ibid., 102.
13 Ibid., 104.
14 Further, inspiration and preservation
are linked to tradition-especially the tradi-
tion of the English Bible, for Ray argues: "The
Bible God wrote has been providentially
preserved
for us in the Greek Textus Receptus,
from which the King James Bible was
translated
in 1611. Any version of the Bible that does not agree with this text, is cer-
tainly founded upon corrupted manuscripts"
(ibid., 106). j
15 David Otis Fuller, for example, in Counterfeit or Genuine, speaks of
"bastard "
Bibles"
(10) and echoes J. J. Ray in condemning virtually all evangelical institutes of
higher
learning for using other than the Textus Receptus or the King James Version:
"This
is a David and Goliath battle with practically all of the evangelical
seminaries and
colleges,
Bible institutes, and Bible schools slavishly following essentially the
Westcott
and
Hort Greek Text and the Westcott and Hort theory, both of which are fallacious in
every
particular" (12). He adds further, as did Ray, that Satan is the
mastermind behind
this
defection from the King James and TR: "born-again Christians in this
twentieth cen-
tury are facing the most malicious and vicious
attack upon God's inspired Holy Word
since
the Garden of Eden. And this attack began in its modern form in the publication
of
the
Revised Version of the Scriptures in 1881 in
Donald A. Waite, a Dallas Seminary graduate,
argues in his The Theological Here-
sies of Westcott and Hort (Collings
wood, NJ: Bible for Today, 1979), that the two
bridge
dons were unregenerate, unsaved, apostate, and heretical (39-42). David D.
Shields
in his dissertation on "Recent Attempts to Defend the Byzantine Text of
the
Greek
New Testament," points out that "the evidence on which [Waite] bases
these con-
clusions often would indict most evangelical
Christians. Even in the author's perspective,
Westcott
and Hort have theological problems, but the extreme
severity of Waite's ap-
proach would declare anyone apostate and heretical who
does not hold to his line" (55).
Wilbur Pickering, another alumnus of Dallas
Seminary, and the president of the
Majority
Text Society, although normally not as prone as many others to such language,
does
sometimes imbibe in vitriolic speech. For example, in :his master's thesis,
"An Eval-
uation of the Contribution of John William Burgon to New Testament Textual Criticism"
(Dallas
Theological Seminary, 1968), he declares that the most ancient manuscripts
came
from a "sewer pipe" (93). In his book, The Identity of the New Testament Text
(Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 1977)-a book which has become the standard text in sup-
port
of the majority text-Pickering states, for example, that "Aleph and B have
lied"
and
that "Aleph is clearly a bigger liar than B" (126), and that all the
ancient manu-
scripts
on which modern critical texts are based are "convicted liars all"
(135).
has
toned down his language in his second edition (1980), perhaps due to book reviews
such
as R. A. Taylor's in JETS 20 (1977)
377-81, in which such "emotionally-loaded
language"
is seen as clouding the issue (379). (In this second edition he says that
"Aleph
26
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THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
the
purpose of proving that the TR or MT is the best Greek New Tes-
tament. In Which Bible? he declares:
Naturalistic New Testament critics seem at last
to have reached the end
of the trail. Westcott and Hort's
broad highway, which appeared to lead
so quickly and smoothly to the original New Testament
text, has dwin-
dled down to a narrow foot
path and terminated finally in a thicket of
trees. For those who have followed it, there is
only one thing to do, and
that is to go back and begin the journey allover
again from the consis-
tently Christian starting
point; namely, the divine inspiration and provi-
dential preservation of Scripture.16
The sequel to Which Bible?, entitled True or
False?, is "DEDI-
CATED TO All lovers of the Book; who believe in the Verbal, Plenary
Inspiration
of the Scriptures; and who, of necessity [,] must believe in
the
Providential Preservation of the Scriptures through the centuries;
and
who hold that the Textus Receptus
(Traditional Text) is nearest to
the
Original Manuscripts."17
This theological refrain-the linking of
inspiration to preservation,
and
both to the majority text-got its major impetus from John William
Burgon. Burgon, a high
Church Anglican, Dean of Chichester, toward
the
end of the nineteenth century was both prolific and vituperative in
his
attacks against Westcott and Hort (the
duced the Greek text which stands, more or less,
behind all modern
and
B have . . . mistakes, . . . Aleph is clearly worse than B" [135], and the
ancient
manuscripts
are "blind guides all" [145].)
Theodore P. Letis,
editor of The Majority Text: Essays and
Reviews in the Continu-
ing Debate (Fort Wayne, IN: Institute for Biblical Textual Studies,
1987), seems to use
fulminatory
language against everybody, for he is in something of a theological no man's
land:
his volleys are directed not only at modem textual criticism, but also at
majority
text
advocates (since he advocates the TR)-and even against inerrantists!
He speaks, for
example,
of "the idolatrous affair that evangelicals are having with the red
herring of in-
errancy" (22); those who advocate using
modem-language Bibles (including the transla-
tors of the New King James Version) are "in
pragmatic league with the goddess of
modernity-Her
Majesty, Vicissitude" (81); virtually all modem translations imbibe in
Arianism (203); ad hominem arguments are everywhere to be
found in his book.
16Which
Bible?, 5th ed. (
1975)
8-9.
17 True
or False? The Westcott-Hort Textual Theory Examined,
ed. D. O. Fuller
(Grand
Rapids: Grand Rapids International Publications, 1973) 5. This linking of inspi-
ration
and preservation is also seen most clearly in Fuller's statement that "The
Scrip-
tures make it quite clear that He [God] is also well
able to insure the providential
preservation
of His own Word through the ages, and that He is the Author and Preserver
of
the Divine Revelation. The Bible cannot be accounted for in any other way. It
claims
to
be 'Theopneustos,' 'God-breathed' (II Timothy
cant
that Fuller gives no proof-text for preservation here, for to him if the Bible
is in-
spired it must be providentially preserved.
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 27
translations).
There is no question that Burgon is the most
influential
writer
on behalf of the TR-indeed, that he is the father of the majority
text
movement-for he is quoted with extreme approbation by virtually
every
TR/MT advocate.18 He argued that "there exists no reason for
supposing
that the Divine Agent, who in the first instance thus gave to
mankind
the Scriptures of Truth, straightway abdicated His office; took
no
further care of His work; abandoned those precious writings to their
fate."19
Wilbur Pickering, president of the Majority Text
Society, has con-
tinued this type of argument into the present debate.
In his 1968 master's
thesis
done at Dallas Seminary (" An Evaluation of the Contribution of
John
William Burgon to New Testament Textual
Criticism") he argued
that
this doctrine is "most important" and "what one believes does
make
a
difference.20 Further, he linked the two together in such a way
that a
denial
of one necessarily entails a denial of the other: "the doctrine of
Divine
Preservation of the New Testament Text depends upon the inter-
pretation of the evidence which recognizes the
Traditional Text to be the
continuation
of the autographa.21 In other words,
saying:
"if we reject the majority text view, we reject the doctrine of
preservation.22
E. F. Hills, who wrote his doctoral dissertation
on NT textual
criticism
at
If the doctrine of the Divine inspiration of the
Old and New Testament
scriptures is a true doctrine, the doctrine of
providential preservation of
the scriptures must also be a true doctrine. It
must be that down through
the centuries God has exercised a special
providential control over the
18 In Shields' dissertation ("Recent
Attempts"), the first three chapters are entitled
"The
Popular Defenders of the Textus Receptus,"
"The Scholarly Defenders of the
tus Receptus," and
"The Defenders of the Majority Text." In each chapter there is a sec-
tion (or two) on Burgon
and the impetus he provided for the various groups (there is
even
a Dean Burgon Society which quite explicitly promotes
his views). One may, with
some
justification, feel that very little new has been said by MT/TR advocates after
Burgon.
19 J. W. Burgon,
The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Vindicated and Estab-
lished (arranged, completed, and edited by E. Miller;
1896)
12.
20
Testament
Textual Criticism," 86.
21 Ibid., 91.
22 More recently,
he
argued that a denial of one was a denial of the other: "Are we to say that
God was un-
able
to protect the text of Mark or that He just couldn't be bothered? I see no
other alter-
native-either
He didn't care or He was helpless. And either option is fatal to the claim
that
Mark's Gospel is 'God-breathed'" ("Mark 16:9-20 and the Doctrine of
Inspiration"
[a
paper circulated to members of the Majority Text Society, September, 1988] 1).
28
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copying of the scriptures and the preservation
and use of the copies, so
that trustworthy representatives of the original
text have been available
to God's people in every age.23
Hills
adds that "all orthodox Christians, all Christians who show due
regard
for the Divine inspiration and providential preservation of
Scripture,
must agree with Burgon on this matter.24
These writers are just the tip of the iceberg.
Indeed, so universal is
the
doctrinal underpinning of preservation found among MT/TR advo-
cates that Bart Ehrman
could say:
One cannot read the literature produced by the
various advocates of the
Majority text without being impressed by a
remarkable theological con-
currence. To one degree or
another, they all (to my knowledge, without
exception) affirm that God's inspiration of an
inerrant Bible required His
preservation of its text.25
And
even Theo Letis, a TR advocate himself, flatly
states, "The only
reason
that the Majority Text proponents even argue for the Byzantine
text
is because theologically they have both a verbal view of inspira-
tion-and as a hidden agenda an unexpressed (at least
as part of their
present
method) belief in providential preservation.26
23 E. F. Hills, The King James Version Defended! (4th ed.;
Research,
1984) 2.
24 "The Magnificent Burgon," in Which
Bible?, 90.
25 Bart D. Ehrman,
"New Testament Textual Criticism: Quest for Methodology"
(M.Div. thesis, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1981) 40.
Shields echoes the same
viewpoint
in his dissertation ("Recent Attempts") where in each of his first
three chapters
in
which he interacts with various proponents of MT/TR, there is extensive
material on
"theological
perspective," including inspiration and providential preservation. He sum-
marizes that "the strong theological basis
from which all advocates for primacy [of the
Byzantine
text-type] argue is a poor starting-point for determining the text of the New
Testament
and creates a history of the text which contradicts known facts" (p. 3 of ab-
stract). Since Ehrman wrote
his thesis and Shields his dissertation, Theo Letis
has altered
this
picture to some degree: he is the first member of the MT/TR school (as far as I
am
aware)
who, though affirming providential preservation, denies inerrancy (see n. 15).
26 Letis, Continuing
Debate, 9. One might argue that Zane Hodges does not have
such
an agenda and that therefore he is an exception to the rule. At one point, in
fact,
Hodges
himself seems to say this. In his interaction with Gordon Fee over this issue,
Hodges
states: "To speak of 'all modem advocates of the TR' as having a 'hidden
agenda'
is
an impermissible argumentum ad hominem. It also is not true. I, for one, would be
quite
happy to accept the Westcott-Hort text as it stands
if I thought that the grounds on
which
it rested were adequate. . . . My agenda at least-and I speak here only for my-
self-is
precisely what I have expressed it to be-namely, a call to re-examine the
claims
of the majority text in the light of increasingly perceived deficiencies of the
the-
ory that underlies today's editions. I happen to
think that a man's theology can affect
his
textual theories, but I am perfectly willing to entertain sensible arguments
from any
NEW TEST AMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 29
To sum up: on a lay level, as well as on a
pseudo-scholarly level,
and
even on a scholarly level, inspiration, preservation and the TR/MT
are
linked intrinsically. According to Byzantine text advocates, you
cannot
have one without the other.
B.
The Critique
There are a number of serious problems with the
theological
premise
of Byzantine text advocates. Generally speaking, however,
they
all fall into one of three groups: (1) a question-begging approach,
(2)
faulty assumptions, and (3) a non-biblical doctrinal basis. As will be
readily
seen, there is a great deal of overlap between these three areas.
1.
Question-Begging Approach
Majority text proponents beg the question for
their view on at
least
three fronts.
a. What do you count? First, they only count
Greek manu-
scripts.
Yet, there are almost twice as many Latin NT manuscripts as
there
are Greek (over 10,000 to approximately 5,500). If the Latin
quarter
no matter what theology they may be associated with" ("Modern Textual
Criti-
cism and the Majority Text: A Response," JETS 21 [1978] 145-46).
As Ehrman points out,
however, there are two objections to Hodges' alleged neutral
stance:
(1) "While Hodges is right that some theological presuppositions may have
no
effect
on one's approach toward textual criticism, it is equally clear that others
certainly
will.
If one affirms as a theological 'given' that God would not allow a corrupted
form of
the
New Testament text to be widely accepted, then, despite disclaimers, any
argument to
the
contrary must be rejected out of hand. For the sake of personal integrity an
individual
such
as Hodges may adduce strictly historical arguments for his position; but if one
as-
sumes this doctrine to be true and refuses to
reconsider, then any textual method that
does
violence to it will be automatically rejected. For this reason, Hodges cannot
'enter-
tain sensible arguments from any quarter no matter
what theology they may be associated
with'"
(49-50). (2) "The other problem with Hodges's position is that he himself
does
not
hold to it consistently. In another work ["A Defense of the Majority
Text,"
Seminary,
n.d., p. 18], Hodges openly states that his
historical (note, historical, not theo-
logical)
arguments for the superiority of the Majority text will appeal only to those of
similar
theological conviction. . . ." (50). Not only this, but elsewhere Hodges
rejects
Hort's views because of their rationalistic
presuppositions, arguing that the "New Testa-
ment text is not like any other ancient text"
and that "the logic of faith demands that
documents
so unique cannot have had a history wholly like that of secular writings"
(Hodges,
"Rationalism and Contemporary New Testament Textual Criticism," BSac 128
[1971]
29-30). Ehrman concludes from this that "apart
from the fact this amounts to
little
more than rhetoric, a paradigmatic argumentum ad hominem,
it is clear that Hodges
chooses
to reject the principles of Wes[t]cott and Hort simply because they do not accept
his
doctrine of revelation and preservation. Under such circumstances, to turn
around and
say
that all arguments for the contrary position will be given rational
consideration is
nothing
short of misleading" (51).
30
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JOURNAL
manuscripts
were to be counted, then modern translations would be
vindicated
rather than the King James, because the early Greek manu-
scripts
which stand behind the vast bulk of Latin manuscripts and
behind
modern translations are quite similar.27 At one point, E. F.
Hills
argued that "God must preserve this text, not secretly, not hidden
away
in a box for hundreds of years or mouldering unnoticed
on some
library
shelf, but openly before the eyes of all men through the contin-
uous usage of His Church.28 Preservation
is therefore linked to public
accessibility.
It is precisely at this point that the argument for counting
only
Greek manuscripts begs the question. As Ehrman points
out:
[According
to Hills,] the subsequent preservation of the New Testament
text
did not extend to guaranteeing the accuracy of its translation into
other
languages, but only to protecting the relative purity of the Greek
text
itself. Here, of course, his prior argument that God preserved the
text
for the sake of His church becomes irrelevant-since only a select
minority
in the church has ever known Greek.29
b. When do
you count? Majority text advocates tacitly assume
that
since most Greek manuscripts extant today belong to the Byzan-
tine
text, most Greek manuscripts throughout church history have
belonged
to the Byzantine text. But this assumption begs the question
in
the extreme, since there is not one solid shred of evidence that the
Byzantine
text even existed in the first three centuries of the Christian
era.30
Not only this, but as far as our extant witnesses reveal, the Byz-
antine text did not become the majority text until the
ninth century.
Furthermore,
for the letters of Paul, there is no majority text manu-
script
before the ninth century. To embrace the MT/TR text for the
corpus Paulinum, then, requires an 800-year leap of faith. Not
only is
this
a severe instance of petitio principii,
but it also is a cavalier treat-
ment of historical evidence unbecoming of those who
boast a faith
which
cannot be divorced from history. No majority text advocate
would
tolerate such a fideistic leap regarding the person
and work of
Christ;31
how then can they employ it when it comes to the text?
c.
Where do you count? Suppose we were to assume that only
Greek
manuscripts should be counted. And suppose further that public
27 B. M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin. Trans-
mission and Limitations (Oxford: Clarendon,
1977) 359.
28 E. F. Hills, The King James Version Defended!, 31.
29 Ehrman,
"Quest for Methodology," 43.
30 See Wallace, "The Majority Text and
the Original Text," 159-66.
31 Ironically, in this instance majority
text advocates-all of whom are theologi-
cally conservative-share by analogy some similarities
with Bultmann's separation of
the
Christ of history and the Christ preached by the early church (i.e., the Christ
of faith
or
Kerygmatic Christ).
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 31
accessibility
is a legitimate divine motive for preservation. Given these
two
assumptions, one would expect the Byzantine text-type to be
readily
accessible in all pockets of the ancient Greek-speaking world.
But
that is demonstrably not true. For example, it was not readily
available
to Christians in
fully
investigating the Gospel quotations of Didymus, a
fourth-century
Egyptian
writer, Ehrman concludes, "These findings
indicate that no
'proto-Byzantine'
text existed in
least
if it did, it made no impact on the mainstream of the textual tra-
dition there.32 What confirms this further
is that in several places Ori-
gen, the great Christian textual scholar, speaks of
textual variants that
were
in a majority of manuscripts in his day, yet today are in a minor-
ity, and vice versa.33 Granting every
gratuitous concession to majority
text
advocates, in the least this shows that no majority text was readily
available
to Christians in
they
argue for a majority on the basis of public accessibility?
2.
Faulty Assumptions
More serious than a question-begging approach
are several decid-
edly faulty assumptions made by MT/TR advocates.
These assumptions
are
shown to be faulty either by the force of logic or empirical
evidence.
a.
Preservation is a necessary corollary of inspiration. E. F.
Hills
argued:
If the doctrine of the divine inspiration of the
Old and New Testament
Scriptures is a true doctrine the doctrine of
the providential preservation
of these Scriptures must also be a true
doctrine. It must be that down
through the centuries God has exercised a
special providential con-
trol God must have done
this. . . . 34
In
other words, preservation proceeds from and is a necessary conse-
quence of inspiration. Or, in the words of Jasper
James Ray, "the writ-
ing of the Word of God by inspiration is no greater
miracle than the
miracle
of its preservation. . . . 35 Ehrman has
ably pointed out the
logical
consequences of such linkage:
Any claim that God preserved the New Testament
text intact, giving His
church actual, not theoretical, possession of
it, must mean one of three
things-either 1) God preserved it in all the
extant manuscripts so that
32 B. Ehrn1an, Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels (
Press,
1986) 260 (italics added).
33 See Wallace, "The Majority Text and
the Original Text," 166.
34 Hills, King James Version Defended!, 8.
35 Ray, God
Wrote Only One Bible, 104.
32
GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
none of them contain any textual corruptions, or
2) He preserved it in a
group of manuscripts, none of which contain any
corruptions, or 3) He pre-
served it in a solitary manuscript which alone
contains no corruptions.36
The
problem with these first and second possibilities is that neither one
of
them is true: no two NT manuscripts agree completely-in fact,
there
are between six and ten variations per chapter for the closest two
.manuscripts.
Is it possible that the NT text was preserved
intact in a single
manuscript?
No one argues this particular point, because it is easily
demonstrable
that every manuscript has scribal errors in it. However,
one
group does argue that a particular printed edition of the NT has
been
providentially preserved. Proponents of the Textus Receptus (as
opposed
to those who argue for the majority text37) believe that the TR
satisfies
this third requirement. There are numerous problems with
such
a view,38 but it should be noted that TR advocates are at least
consistent
in putting preservation on the same level with inspiration.
Nevertheless, there seems to be one major flaw
in their approach,
from
a biblical standpoint: If the TR equals the original text, then the
editor
must have been just as inspired as the original writers, for he not
only
selected what readings were to go in this first published edition,
but
he also created some of the readings. To be specific, the last leaf of
Erasmus'
copy of Revelation was missing, so he "back-translated"
from
Latin into Greek and thereby created numerous readings which
have
never been found in any Greek manuscript. This should cause
some
pause to those conservative Protestants who hail Erasmus' text as
identical
with the original, for such a view implies that revelation con-
tinued into at least the sixteenth century. Not only
this, but Erasmus
was
a Roman Catholic who battled papists and Protestants alike-the
very
man against whom Martin Luther wrote his famous Bondage of
the Will. Are conservative
Protestants willing to say that this man was
just
as inspired as the apostle Paul or John? What is especially ironic
about
this is that most TR advocates reject the text of Westcott and
36 Ehrman,
"Quest for Methodology," 44.
37 These two text deposits are not identical:
there are almost 2,000 differences be-
tween them.
38 E.g., which TR? One of the editions of
Erasmus, or Beza, or the Elzevir
broth-
ers? The TR has gone through numerous changes, not
the least because Erasmus did a
rather
poor job of editing the text. Further, once one argues for the infallibility of
the
TR,
any arguments drawn from public accessibility must be limited to the time of
the
Reformation
and beyond, since the TR has scores of readings which not only were not in
the
majority beforehand, but were also nonexistent.
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 33
Hort because (in Eart), as
high church Anglicans, they had Roman
Catholic
leanings!39
b. Preservation must be through "majority
rule." To be sure,
most
scholars who employ the doctrine of preservation as a text-critical
argument
do not embrace the TR as equal to the original text. In this,
they
are not as consistent about the corollary between inspiration and
preservation,
but they are certainly more rational in other ways. Never-
theless, there are four serious objections to
the argument that presera-
tion must be through majority rule." First, no
where does the Bible
state
how God would preserve the NT text. Thus their argument is based
squarely
on silence.
Second, as Sturz
points out,
. . . the Bible tself
reveals that there have been occasions when there
has been a famine or dearth of the Word of God.
One thinks, for ex-
ample, of the days of Josiah (II Kings 22:8ff.)
when apparently the
Scriptures were reduced to one copy.
Nevertheless, it still could be said
that God's Word was preserved.40
Third, in light of this biblical precedent of
how God preserved a
portion
of the Old Testament, can we not see the hand of God guiding a
man
such as Constantin von Tischendorl
to St. Catherine's monastery at
the
base of
complete
NT known to exist--before it met an untimely demise as kin-
dling for the fumace?4l There are, in
fact, countless stories of manuscript
39 Not infrequently MT/TR advocates quote
from the Life and Letters of Fenton
John Anthony Hort, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1896). A favorite passage is
where Hort
writes
to Westcott on
Mary-worship
and 'Jesus'-worship have very much in common in their causes and their
results
(
Bible?, 279; D. A. Waite, The Theological Heresies of Westcott and Hort, 39-42.
In passing, it could, with equal justification,
be mentioned that not only was Eras-
mus more Catholic than either Westcott or Hort, but even Burgon had a
hidden agenda in
his
vigorous defense of the longer ending of Mark: he held to baptismal
regeneration and
Mark
writes
that he was "strenuously upholding the doctrine of baptismal
regeneration" ("The
Magnificent
Burgon," in Which
Bible?, 87). That this is not an argumentum ad hominem
is
evident by the fact that his personal beliefs directly affected his
text-critical approach.
(It
is perhaps not insignificant that when Hills' essay was reproduced in True or False?
[in
Fuller's introduction], this line about Burgon's
beliefs was dropped.)
40 H. A. Sturz, The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament
Textual Criticism
(Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 1984) 41-42.
41 Contrary to popular belief, although the
monks were indeed burning old biblical
manuscripts
to keep warm, codex Sinaiticus was not the next in
line. (Cf. B. M. Metzger,
The Text of the New
Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 3d, enlarged
34
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JOURNAL
discoveries
which seem to speak quite eloquently for God's providential
preservation
of the text.42 A more biblically based view of God's provi-
dential ways would not argue that God's hand is
only seen or always seen
in
"majority rule."
Fourth, theologically one may wish to argue
against the majority:
usually
it is the remnant, not the majority, that is right. If the history of
Christianity
teaches us anything, it teaches us that the majority is
rarely
right.
. . . Hills' understanding of God's providential
dealings in history fails
to account for greater problems than the
comparatively minor differences
between the Textus Receptus and its modern rival. For example, God in
His providence allowed in the medieval ages the
doctrine of justification
by faith to be almost eclipsed from public
understanding until the Refor-
mation leaders again called
attention to that doctrine. Would Hills have
God concerned that an exact form of the New
Testament text be avail-
able but unconcerned about serious and
widespread soteriological mis-
understandings?43
The
weight of this argument is especially felt when one considers that
the
variations between the majority text and modern critical texts are
qualitatively
very minor; most would say that no doctrine is affected
by
such differences.44 If God did not protect a major doctrine like
jus-
tification, on what basis can we argue that he
would protect one form
of
the text over another when no doctrinal issues are at stake?45
ed.
[
manuscript
was out of harm's way, in light of the midwinter practice at the monastery.
42 0ne thinks, for example, of C. H.
Roberts rummaging through the basement of
the
John Rylands Library of
scrap
of papyrus which included portions of five verses from John's gospel (
37-38),
and was dated in the first half of the second century. In light of the radical
Ger-
man
view of the date of John as c. A.D. 170 (harking back to F. C. Bauer a century
ear-
lier), this small fragmentary copy of John's gospel,
as one scholar put it, "sent two tons
of
German scholarship to the flames."
43 R. A. Taylor, "The Modem Debate
Concerning the Greek Textus Receptus:
A
Critical
Examination of the Textual Views of Edward F. Hills" (Ph.D. dissertation,
Bob
44 Cf., e.g., D. A. Carson, The King James
Version Debate: A Plea for Realism
(Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1979) 56.
45 Sturz gives
some further helpful analogies (Byzantine Text-Type, 38): "Preserva-
tion of the Word of God is promised in Scripture,
and inspiration af1d preservation are
related
doctrines, but they are distinct from each other, and there is a danger in
making
one
the necessary corollary of the other. The Scriptures do not do this. God,
having
given
the perfect revelation by verbal inspiration, was under no special or logical obliga-
tion to see that man did not corrupt it. He created
the first man perfect, but He was under
no
obligation to keep him perfect. Or to use another illustration, having created
all things
perfect,
God was not obligated to see that the pristine perfection of the world was
main-
tained. In His providence the world was allowed to
suffer the Fall and to endure a de-
facement of its original condition."
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 35
c. Public
accessibility of a pure text is a theological necessity. We
have
touched on this to some degree already-at least by way of anal-
ogy. But the argument is also contradicted by
direct evidence.
believes
that "God has preserved the text of the New Testament in a very
pure
form and it has been readily available to His followers in every
age
throughout 1900 years.46 There are two
fundamental problems with
this
view.
First, assuming that the majority text (as
opposed to the TR) is the
original,
then this pure form of text has become available only since
1982.47
The Textus Receptus differs
from it in almost 2,000 places-
and
in fact has several readings which have "never been found in any
known
Greek manuscript," and scores, perhaps hundreds, of readings
which
depend on only a handful of very late manuscripts.48 Many of
these
passages are theologically significant texts.49 Yet virtually no
one
had access to any other text from 1516 to 1881, a period of over
350
years. In light of this, it is difficult to understand what
means
when he says that this pure text "has been readily available to
[God's]
followers in every age throughout 1900 years.50 Purity, it
seems,
has to be a relative term-and, if so, it certainly cannot be mar-
shaled as a theological argument.
Second, again, assuming that the majority text
is the original, and
that
it has been readily available to Christians for 1900 years, then it
must
have been readily available to Christians in
centuries.
But this is demonstrably not true, as we have already
shown.51
luted" and as coming from a "sewer
pipe.,,52 Now if these manuscripts
46 Pickering, "Burgon,"
90.
47
and
the Textus Receptus have
been the best available up to now. In 1982 Thomas Nelson
Publishers
brought out a critical edition of the Traditional Text (Majority,
"Byzantine")
under
the editorship of Zane C. Hodges, Arthur L. Farstad,
and others which while not
definitive
will prove to be very close to the final product, I believe. In it we have an
ex-
cellent interim Greek Text to use until the full
and final story can be told" (Identity, 150).
48 Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, 100.
49 Cf., in particular, 1 John 5:7-8 and
50 To be sure,
tween the TR and Majority Text when he wrote this
note. Originally, his estimate was
between
500 and 1,000 differences ("Burgon," 120).
But in light of the 2,000 differ-
ences, "purity" becomes such an elastic
term that, in the least, it is removed from being
a
doctrinal consideration.
51 Literally scores of studies have been
done to prove this, none of which
seems
to be aware. Gordon Fee speaks of
scholarly
studies that contravene his assertions" and "The overlooked
bibliography here
is
so large that it can hardly be given in a footnote. For example, I know eleven
different
studies
on Origen alone that contradict all of
is
even recognized to have existed" ("A Critique of W. N. Pickering's
The Identity of the
New
Testament Text: A Review Article," WTJ
41 [1978-79] 415).
52 "Burgon,"
93.
36
GRACE THEOLOGICAL
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are
really that defective, and if this is all
four
centuries, then this peculiar doctrine of preservation is in serious
jeopardy,
for those ancient Egyptian Christians had no access to the pure
stream
of the majority text. Therefore, if one were to define preservation
in
terms of the majority text, he would end up with a view which speaks
very
poorly of God's sovereign care of the text in ancient Egypt.53
d. Certainty
is identical with truth. It seems that the underlying
motive
behind MT/TR advocacy is the equation of certainty with truth.
For
TR advocates, certainty is to be found in a printed edition of the New
Testament.
Hills' despair of finding absolute textual certainty through the
standard
means of textual criticism ultimately led him to abandon textual
criticism
altogether and replace it with a settled text, the Textus
Recep-
tus. Theo Letis, the
self-proclaimed heir of Hills' mantle, argues that
"without
a methodology that has for its agenda the determination of a
continuous,
obviously providentially preserved text. . . we are, in prin-
ciple, left with maximum uncertainty, as
versus
the maximum certainty afforded by the methodology that seeks a
providentially
preserved text.54
For MT advocates, certainty is found in the
majority of manu-
scripts.
been
preserved then the doctrine of Inspiration is a purely academic
matter
with no relevance for us today. If we do not have the inspired
Words
or do not know precisely which they be, then the doctrine of
Inspiration
is inapplicable."55 At one point Pickering even states that
uncertainty
over the text also makes inspiration untrue.56
In response, several things can be mentioned.
First, it should be
noted
that in one respect TR advocates are much more consistent than
MT
advocates: not only do they put preservation on exactly the same
level
as inspiration, but they also can be more certain about the text,
53 We could add here an argument concerning
the early versions. None of the ver-
sions produced in the first three centuries A.D. was
based on the Byzantine text. But if the
majority
text view is right, then each one of these versions was based on polluted Greek
manuscripts-a
suggestion that does not augur well for God's providential care of the
NT
text, as that care is understood by the majority text view. But if these
versions were
based
on polluted manuscripts, one would expect them to have come from (and be used
in)
only one isolated region (for if only some Christians did not have access to
the pure
text,
God's sovereignty might be supposed still to be left intact). This, however, is
not
the
case: the Coptic, Ethiopic, Latin, and Syriac
versions came from allover the Medi-
terranean region. In none of these locales was the
Byzantine text apparently used. (For
further
discussion and documentation, see Wallace, "The Majority Text and the
Original
Text,"
161-62.)
54 Letis, Continuing Debate, 200.
55 Pickering, "Burgon,"
88.
56 W.
paper
distributed to members of the Majority Text Society, September, 1988) 1.
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 37
since
they advocate a printed edition. But their argumentation is so
palpably
weak on other fronts that we will only make two observations
here:
(a) since the TR itself went through several different editions by
Erasmus
and others, TR advocates need to clarify which edition is the
inspired
one; (b) one simply cannot argue for the theological necessity
of
public accessibility throughout church history and for the TR in the
same
breath-for the TR did not exist during the first 1500 years of the
Christian
era. (Rather inconsistent, for example, is the logic of Theo
Letis when he, on the one hand, argues that God must
have preserved
the
pure text in an open, public, and accessible manner for Christians
in
every generation57 and, on the other hand, he argues that "the
Latin
and
non-majority readings [of the TR] were indeed restorations of
ancient
readings that fell out of the medieval Greek tradition"!58)
Second, regarding MT proponents, several
criticisms can be lev-
eled, two of which are as follows. (a)
Pragmatically, there is in reality
less
certainty in their approach than there is among reasoned eclectics.
In
the Byzantine text, there are hundreds of splits where no clear
majority
emerges. One scholar recently found 52 variants within the
majority
text in the spaces of two verses.59 In such places how are
majority
text advocates to decide what is original? Since their method
is
in essence purely external (i.e., counting manuscripts), in those
places
the majority text view has no solution, and no certainty. At one
point,
presently
unable to specify the precise wording of the original text, but .
it
will require considerable time and effort before we can be in a posi-
tion to do so.60 Ironically, therefore,
according to
theological
construct, inspiration for him must be neither relevant nor
tnie. (b) Logically/theologically, the equation of
inspiration with man's
recognition
of what is inspired (in all its particulars) virtually puts God
at
the mercy of man and requires omniscience of man. The burden is so
great
that a text critical method of merely counting noses seems to be
the
only way in which human beings can be "relatively omniscient." In
57 Letis, Continuing Debate, 192-94.
58 Ibid., 17,
59 K. Aland,
"The Text of the Church?" (TrinJ 8 [1987] 136-37), commenting on
2
Cor 1:6-7a. To be fair, Aland
does not state whether there is no clear majority 52
times
or whether the Byzantine manuscripts have a few defectors 52 times.
Nevertheless,
his
point is that an assumption as to what really constitutes a majority is based
on faulty
and
partial evidence (e.g., von Soden's apparatus), not
on an actual examination of the
majority
of manuscripts. Until that is done, it is impossible to speak definitively
about
what
the majority of manuscripts actually read.
60 Identity of the New Testament Text, 150. In
then,
the doctrine of inspiration has no significance, for elsewhere he argued
"If we do
not
have the inspired Words or do not know precisely which they be, then the
doctrine of
Inspiration
is inapplicable" ("Burgon," 88).
38
GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
what
other area of Christian teaching is man's recognition required for
a
doctrine to be true?
Finally, a general criticism against both the MT
and TR positions:
the
quest for certainty is not the same as a quest for truth. There is a
subtle
but important distinction between the two. Truth is objective
reality;
certainty is the level of subjective apprehension of something
perceived
to be true. But in the recognition that truth is objective
reality,
it is easy to confuse the fact of this reality with how one knows
what
it is. Frequently the most black-and-white, dogmatic method of
arriving
at truth is perceived to be truth itself. Indeed, people with
deep
religious convictions are very often quite certain about an
untruth.
For example, cultists often hold to their positions quite dog-
matically and with a fideistic
fervor that shames evangelicals; first-
year
Greek students want to speak of the aorist tense as meaning
"once-and-for-all"
action; and almost everyone wants simple answers
to
the complex questions of life. At bottom this quest for certainty,
though
often masquerading as a legitimate epistemological inquiry, is
really
a presuppositional stance, rooted in a psychological
insecurity.61
To sum up so far: The TR/MT advocates get
entangled in numer-
ous question-begging approaches and faulty-even
contradictory--
assumptions
in their arguments concerning the providential preserva-
tion of the text. That is not the worst of it,
however. Their view also is
non-biblical.
3.
Non-Biblical Doctrinal Basis
We are often told that the consistently
Christian view, or the only
orthodox
view of the text is one which embraces the Byzantine text-
type,
and that to embrace a different form of the text is to imbibe in
heresy.
Although this charge is vigorously denied by non-MT/TR
evangelicals,
the tables are rarely turned. It is our contention, however,
that
to use the doctrine of preservation in support of the MT/TR is to
have
a non-biblical view which cannot consistently be applied to both
testaments.
The majority text-preservation connection is biblically
unfounded
in four ways, two of which have already been touched on.
a. Biblical
silence. As we have argued concerning the faulty
assumption
that preservation must be through "majority rule," the
scriptures
nowhere tell us how God would preserve the NT text. What
61 Along this line is a significant
corollary: those Christians, who must have cer-
tainty in nonessential theological areas have a
linear, or "domino," view of doctrine: if
one
falls, all fall. A more mature Christian, in our view, has a concentric view of
doc-
trine:
the more essential a doctrine is for salvation (e.g., the person of Christ),
the closer
it
is to the center of his theological grid; the less essential a doctrine is
(e.g., what he be-
lieves about eschatology), the more peripheral it is.
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 39
is
ironic is that as much ink as MT/TR advocates spill on pressing the
point
that theirs is the only biblical view, when it comes to the pre-
served
text being found in the majority of witnesses, they never quote
one
verse. Although they accuse other textual critics of rationalism,
their
argument for preservation via the majority has only a rational
basis,
not a biblical one. "God must have done this62--not because
the
Bible says so, but because logic dictates that this must be the case.
b. Old
Testament examples of preservation. Again, as we have
already
pointed out, the few OT examples of preservation of scripture
do
not herald the majority, but only the mere existence of a written
witness.
This fact leads to our third point-that the argument from
preservation
actually involves bibliological contradictions.
c. A Marcionite view of the text. Marcion
was a second century
heretic
whose literary remains are found only in essays written against
him.
Metzger points out that
The main points of Marcion's
teaching were the rejection of the Old Tes-
tament and a distinction
between the Supreme God of goodness and an
inferior God of justice, who was the Creator and
the God of the Jews. He
regarded Christ as the messenger of the Supreme
God. The Old and New
Testaments, Marcion
argued, cannot be reconciled to each other.63
It
is our contention that majority text advocates follow in Marcion's
train
when it comes to their doctrine of preservation because their
theological
argument does not work for the Old Testament. If our con-
tention is true, then the dogmatic basis for the
majority text is biblio-
logically
schizophrenic. The evidence is of two kinds.
First, the argument that the divine motive for
preservation is pub-
lic availability-as poor an argument as it is for
the Greek text-is
even
worse for the Hebrew. Not only is it alleged that "God must do
more
than merely preserve the inspired original New Testament text.
He
must preserve it in a public way. . . through the continuous usage of
His
Church",64 but that "down through the ages God's
providential
preservation
of the New Testament has operated only through believ-
ers . . . .65 But the Hebrew scriptures
were neither preserved pub-
licly-on display through the church as it were nor
only through
Christians.
In light of this, how can majority text advocates escape the
charge
of Marcionism? In what way can they argue that a bibliological
doctrine
is true for the NT but is not true for the OT?
62 Hills, King James Version Defended!, 8.
63 B. M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin. Development. and
Significance (Oxford: Clarendon,
1987) 91-92.
64 Hills, King James Version Defended!, 29.
65 Ibid., 26.
40
GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
Second,
it is demonstrable that the OT text does not meet the cri-
teria of preservation by majority rule. Although the Masoretic textual
tradition
(which represents almost the entirety of the extant Hebrew
manuscripts)
is highly regarded among most OT textual critics, none
(to
my knowledge) claim that it is errorless.66 Most OT scholars today
would
agree with Klein that "Samuel MT is a poor text, marked by
extensive
haplography and corruption-only the MT of Hosea and
Ezekiel
is in worse condition.67 In fact, a number of readings which
only
occur in versions (i.e., not in the extant Hebrew manuscripts at
all),
or are found only in one or two early
indisputable
claim to authenticity in the face of the errant majority.68
Furthermore,
in many places, all the extant Hebrew manuscripts (as
well
as versions) are so corrupt that, scholars have been forced to
emend
the text on the basis of mere conjecture.69 Significantly, many
66 E. Wurthwein, The Text of the Old Testament (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979),
for
example, argues that "an arbitrary procedure which hastily and
unnecessarily dis-
misses
the traditional te;xt . . . can lead only to a
subjective form of the text which is un-
certain
historically and without any claim to theological relevance" (
argues
that the Masoretic text "has repeatedly been
demonstrated to be the best witness
to
the text. Any deviation from it therefore requires justification" (113).
Yet, as conser-
vative as he is, he hastens to add, "But this
does not mean that we should cling to [the
Masoretic text] under all circumstances, because
it also has its undeniable faults. .."
(ibid.).
For similar statements regarding the value, but not inerrancy, of the Masoretic
textual
tradition, see F. E. Deist, Toward the
Text of the Old Testament (
boekhandel
ment: The Septuagint after
Second Thoughts on the
67 Klein, Textual Criticism of the Old Testament, 70. Cf. also F. M. Cross, The An-
cient Library of
179-81;
Proceedings: IOSCS and Pseudepigrapha, ed. R. A. Kraft (
Press,
1972) 3; and especially E. C. Ulrich, The
Qumran Text of Samuel and Josephus
(Missoula,
MT: Scholars Press, 1978) 193-221.
68 Cf. the discussions (and demonstrations)
to this effect in D. Barthelemy, Critique
Textuelle de l'Ancien Testament: 2. Isai.e, Jeremie, Lamentations (
hoeck & Ruprecht, 1986)
361-62 (Isa 49:12),403-7 (Is a 53:11); Wurthwein, Text of
the
Old Testament, 106-10 (on 108 he
argues that Qumran MS lQIsaa at Isa
to
MT); J. A. Sanders, The
17;
E. Tov, The
Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research (
mor, 1981) 70-72, 288-306; W. H. Brownlee, The Meaning of the
the Bible (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1964) 216-35; G. Vermes, The
Scrolls:
Ancient
Library, 169, 189, 191; Bruce, Second
Thoughts, 61-62, 66-69; Klein,
Textual
Criticism of the Old
Testament,
62, 71, 74-76; C. E. Pfeiffer, The Dead
Sea Scrolls and
the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1969) 101-9.
69 Cf. especially J. Kennedy, An Aid to the Textual Amendment of the Old Testa-
ment (Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1928). In the editorial note N. Levison
comments that
"Dr.
Kennedy was very conservative theologically. . . . [yet] he was possessed with
an
intense
passion for the correction of the Massoretic Text,
and, as will be seen from the
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 41
such
conjectures (but not all) have been vindicated by the discovery of
the
with
these OT textual phenomena. And if they were to do so and were
even
to prove many minority text readings or conjectures false, our
point
would still stand. Only if they could demonstrate that all minor-
ity text readings and all conjectures were inferior
(or at least probably
so),
could their argument hold water. The indisputable fact is that OT
textual
criticism simply cannot be conducted on the basis of counting
noses.
Since this is the case, either majority text advocates must aban-
don
their theological premise altogether, or else be subject to the
charge
of a bibliological double standard.
d. The
biblical doctrine of preservation. In light of the occasional
necessity
of conjectural emendation for the OT text, it is our contention
that
not only is the majority text argument for preservation entirely
wrong-headed,
but so is any doctrine of preservation which requires that
the
exact wording of the text be preserved at all. In spite of the fact that
even
opponents of the MT/TR view embrace such a doctrine,71 it simply
does
not square with the evidence. Only three brief points will be made
here,
in hopes of stimulating a dialogue on this issue.
First, the doctrine of preservation was not a
doctrine of the ancient
church.
In fact, it was not stated in any creed until the seventeenth
contents
of this book, it was no mere speculation but considered and conscientious study
that
led him to his conclusions" (p. vii). But note also Brownlee, Meaning of
the
Scrolls,
231 (where he accepts an emendation by C. C. Torrey
for Isa 53: 11, since "if the
verse
is to be scanned as poetry at all, some such alteration is necessary");
Klein, Textual
Criticism of the Old
Testament,
76 (on 1 Sam
ment, 108 (on Jer
Deist,
Towards the Text of the Old Testament,
247-49, 260; D. M. Fouts, "A Suggestion
for
Isaiah XXVI 16," Vetus Testamentum
41 (1991) 472-74.
70 UIrich notes
that Josephus preserved "at least four genuine Samuel readings
which
were preserved by no other witness until 4QSama was recovered" (Samuel and
Jo-
sephus, 2). Cf. also Cross, Ancient Library, 189
("4QSama and I Chron.
verse
[2 Sam. 24:16b] which has dropped out of MT by haplography ..."); Wurthwein,
Text of the Old
Testament,
142 (lQIsaa confirms conjectures at Isa 40:6 and 40:17); Bar-
thelemy, Critique
Textuelle, 361-62 (IQlsaa
at Isa 49:12) 403-7 (Isa
53:11); Brownlee,
Meaning of the
53:11).
71Taylor's comments in "Modern
Debate" are representative: "It is essential, then,
that
this distinction be maintained between the concepts of inspiration, which
insures the
reliability
of the divine revelation, and preservation, which insures the availability of
the
divine
revelation" (148); "It is certain that if God took such pains to
insure by inspira-
tion the accuracy of the original manuscripts, He
would not leave to an undetermined
fate
the future of those writings" (154); "Nothing of the inspired
writings has been lost
as
a result of the transmission of the text. This, too, is in keeping with God's
preservation
of
the Scripture" (163). Cf. also Sturz, Byzantine Text-Type, 37-49, et al.
42
GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
century
(in the Westminster Confession of 1646). The recent arrival of
such
a doctrine, of course, does not necessarily argue against it-but
neither
does its youthfulness argue for it. Perhaps what needs to be
explored
more fully is precisely what the framers of the
Confession
and the Helvetic Consensus Formula (in 1675) really
meant
by
providential preservation.
Second, the major scriptural texts alleged to
support the doctrine of
preservation
need to be reexamined in a new light. I am aware of only
one
substantial articulation of the biblical basis for this doctrine by a
majority
text advocate. In Donald Brake's essay, "The Preservation of
the
Scriptures," five major passages are adduced as proof that preserva-
tion refers to the written Word of God: Ps 119:89, Isa 40:8, Matt
18,
John 10:35, and 1 Pet 1:23-25.72 One of the fundamental problems
with
the use of these passages is that merely because "God's Word" is
mentioned
in them it is assumed that the written, canonical, revelation
of
God is meant.73 But 1 Pet 1:23-25, for example, in quoting Isa 40:8,
uses
r[?ma
(not lo<goj)-a term which typically
refers to the spoken
word.74
Brake's interpretation of Ps 119:89 ("For ever, 0 Lord, your
word
is settled in heaven") is, to put it mildly, improbable: "The Word
which
is settled in heaven was placed there by a deliberate and purpose-
ful act of God Himself.75 It seems that
a better interpretation of all
these
texts is that they are statements concerning either divine ethical
principles
(i.e., moral laws which cannot be violated without some kind
of
consequences) or the promise of fulfilled prophecy.76 The assump-
tions that most evangelicals make about the doctrine
of preservation
need
to be scrutinized in light of this exegetical construct.
72 Donald L. Brake, "The Preservation
of the Scriptures," in Counterfeit
or Genu-
ine?,
175-218, This essay is a modification of Brake's Th.M.
thesis (Dallas Seminary,
1970),
"The Doctrine of the Preservation of the Scriptures,"
73In
passing, it should be noted that all these proof-texts, if they refer to the
written
word
at all, refer to the OT. The bibliological
inconsistency is thus heightened, for MT/
TR
advocates apply this doctrine only to the NT.
74 BAGD, 735 (1).
75 Brake, "Preservation," 181-82.
Apparently Brake means by this that an exact
written
copy of the originals was brought to heaven. Not only is this difficult to
believe,
but
it renders the "public accessibility" idea absolutely worthless.
76 "The scripture cannot be
broken" (John
fulfilled"
or "all of it is true" rather than "we must have every word
preserved." "Not
one
jot or tittle from the law will pass away until all
is fulfilled" (Matt
fers either to the ethical principles of the law or
the fulfillment of prophecy, or both,
(The
validity of each of these options turns, to some degree, on how plhro<w is used else-
where
in Matthew and the weight given to those texts-e.g.,
are Matthew's aT quotation
introductory
formulae [i!na
plhrwq^? in 1:23; 2:15; 4:14, etc., connecting the term
toes-
chatological fulfillment] more
significant or is Jesus' own use of plhro<w [in
necting it to ethical fulfillment] more
significant?) Either way, the idea of preservation of
the
written text is quite foreign to the context.
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 43
Third, if the doctrine of the preservation of
scripture has neither
ancient
historical roots, nor any direct biblical basis, what can we
legitimately
say about the text of the New Testament? My own prefer-
ence is to speak of God's providential care of the
text as can be seen
throughout
church history, without elevating such to the level of doc-
trine.
If this makes us theologically uncomfortable, it should at the
same
time make us at ease historically, for the NT is the most remark-
ably
preserved text of the ancient world-both in terms of the quantity
of
manuscripts and in their temporal proximity to the originals. Not
only
this, but the fact that no major doctrine is affected by any viable
textual
variant surely speaks of God's providential care of the text. Just
because
there is no verse to prove this does not make it any less true.77
C.
Conclusion on the Arguments concerning
Preservation
In conclusion, MT/TR advocates argue from a
theological vantage
point
which begs the question historically and logically. More serious
Occasionally
Matt 24:35 ("Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not
pass
away") is used in support of preservation. But once again, even though
this text has
the
advantage of now referring to Jesus' words (as opposed to the OT), the context
is
clearly
eschatological; thus the words of Jesus have certainty of fulfillment. That the
text
does
not here mean that his words will all be preserved in written form is
absolutely cer-
tain because (I) this is not only foreign to the
context, but implies that the written gos-
pels were conceived at this stage in Heilsgeschichte-decades before a need for them
was
apparently felt; (2) we certainly do not have all of Jesus' words
recorded-either in
scripture
or elsewhere (cf. John
77 A possible objection to this statement
might be that, on the one hand, we criticize
MT
advocates for their rational leap of linking preservation to the majority,
while on the
other
hand, here we argue for providential care without having a biblical basis. Is
this
not
the same thing? No. That preservation is to be seen in the majority is an a
priori as-
sumption turned into a doctrine; that the
doctrinal content of the Bible is not affected by
the
variants is an a posteriori demonstration which stops short of dogma. Thus if a
via-
ble variant were to turn up that affected a major
doctrine, our view of God's providential
care
would not be in jeopardy, though it would be reworded. An analogy might be seen
in
two twentieth century wars: One could say that God's hand was seen in the
Allies' de-
feat
of the Axis in World War II, as well as the Coalition's defeat of
Gulf
War. But on occasion, a given battle in which the weather conditions had previ-
ously been reported as quite favorable to the
Allies'/Coalition's cause turned out to be
unfavorable,
this would not alter our overall picture of God's sovereignty. Rather, we
simply
could not appeal to that battle in support of our view. Similarly, our view of
God's
providential care of the text does not depend on the nonexistence of viable vari-
ants
which teach heresy precisely because we are not affirming such on a doctrinal
level.
Our
statement is made solely on the basis of the evidence. And just as historical investi-
gation might uncover certain environmental conditions,
or mechanical failures, etc.,
which
were unfavorable to the Coalition forces for a given battle, still the outcome
of the
Persian
Gulf War is not at all altered by such evidence-even so any new discoveries of
manuscripts
may cause us to reshape how we speak of God's providential care of the
text,
but the overall fact derived from empirical evidence is still the same.
44
GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
than
petitio principii,
they make several faulty assumptions which not
only
run aground on rational and empirical rocks, but ultimately backfire.
The
most telling assumption is that certainty equals truth. This is an
evangelical
disease: for most of us, at some point, the quest for certainty
has
replaced the quest for truth. But even for majority text advocates, this
quest
must, in the last analysis, remain unfulfilled. The worst feature of
their
agenda, however, is not the faulty assumptions. It is that their view
of
preservation not only is non-biblical, it is also bibliologically
schizo-
phrenic in that it cannot work for both
testaments. And that, to a majority
text
or Textus Receptus
advocate-as it would be to any conservative
Christian--is
the most damaging aspect of their theological agenda.
II. INSPIRATION
Under the general topic of inspiration are two
arguments: (1) if
any
portion of the NT is lost, then verbal-plenary inspiration is thereby
falsified;
and (2) only in the Byzantine text-type do we have an inerrant
NT.
This first argument is really the converse of the argument from
preservation,
while the second argument is a corollary of a corollary.
A.
Does Loss of Text Falsify Inspiration?
In his paper, "Mark 16:9-20 and the
Doctrine of Inspiration",78
Wilbur
Pickering argues that if any portion of the NT is lost, then
inspiration
is not only irrelevant-it also is not true:
Among those who wish to
believe or claim that Mark's Gospel was
inspired by the Holy Spirit, that it is God's
Word, I am not aware of any
who are prepared to believe that it could have
been God's intention to ter-
minate the book with efobount gar.79
Are we to say that God
was unable to protect the text of Mark or that
He just couldn't be bothered? I see no other
alternative-either He didn't
care or He was helpless. And either option is
fatal to the claim that
Mark's Gospel is "God-breathed."80
. . . if God was powerless to protect
His Word then He wouldn't really be God and it
wouldn't make all that
much difference what He said.81 . . .
If God permitted the original ending
of Mark to be lost then in fact we do not have
an inspired text.82
Anyone who denies the
authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 cannot consis-
tently affirm the Divine
Inspiration of Mark 1:1-16:8. I now submit the
question to the reader: have I not demonstrated
that to reject Mark 16:9-
20 is to relinquish the doctrine of Divine
Inspiration-for Mark, cer-
tainly, -but by extension for
the rest of the Bible?83
78 A paper circulated to members of the
Majority Text Society, September, 1988.
79 Pickering, "Mark 16:9-20 and the
Doctrine of Inspiration," 1.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid., 4.
NEW TEST AMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 45
Majority text advocates, as we have seen, argue
that if there is
uncertainty
over the wording of the text, inspiration becomes irrele-
vant.
lost,
then "we do not have an inspired text."
This argument seems flawed on five fronts.
First, it is special
pleading.
One has to accept
to
be true: if God was not able or did not care to protect the text, then
inspiration
is not true. Why is it not possible for the text to be origi-
nally inspired but now lost? Apparently, once again,
inspiration neces-
sitates preservation. Further, why is it
necessary to impugn either
God's
power or his goodness if part of the NT is lost? Analogously,
would
anyone argue that if Christians-who are born of God-sin,
then
God is either powerless or not good enough to prevent them from
sinning?
Second, as we have already mentioned in the
first section of this
paper,
Yet,
if our arguments against this supposition are correct, then this new
argument
(viz., lack of preservation implies non-inspiration) carries no
weight.
Third, this approach is also Marcionite
if there is ever a need for
conjectural
emendation for the Old Testament. Since that is .the case,
the
loss of text. (whether it. be one word or a whole chapter) in prin-
ciple cannot be used as a theological argument for a
text critical view-
point-otherwise
proponents of such a view have to say that the OT is
not
inspired.
Fourth, there is a tacit assumption on the part
of
everything
a biblical author writes is inspired. But this is almost cer-
tainly not true, as can be seen by the lost epistles
of Paul and the
agrapha of Jesus. The argument is this: there
seem to be a few, fairly
well-attested
(in patristic literature), authentic sayings of Jesus which
are
not found in the Gospels or the rest of the New Testament. Of
course,
evangelicals would claim that they are inerrant. But they would
not
be inspired because inspiration refers strictly to what is inscriptur-
ated within the canon. Further, Paul seems to have
written three or four
letters
to the Corinthians, perhaps a now-lost letter to the Laodiceans,84
and
apparently more than a few letters before 2 Thessalonians.85 If
some
NT epistles could be lost, and even some authentic sayings of
84
This
is either now lost (the known "Letter to the Laodiceans"
is forged) or is the letter to
the
Ephesians which circulated counterclockwise through
sus, to
85 The statement in
in
every letter [of mine]") seems to imply a well-known practice. Yet, most
NT scholars
would
date only Galatians and 1 Thessalonians as coming prior to this letter-i.e.,
among
the known letters of Paul.
46
GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
Jesus
could show up outside the NT, then either they were not inspired
or
else they were inspired but not preserved. Assuming the former to be
true,
then the question facing us in Mark's Gospel is whether an
inspired
writer can author non-inspired material within the same docu-
ment-material which is now lost. Such a possibility
admittedly opens
up
a Pandora's box for evangelicals, and certainly deserves critical
thought
and dialogue. Nevertheless, the analogies with the lost epistles
of
Paul and the authentic, non-canonical agrapha of
Jesus seem to dam-
age
lost,
then inspiration is defeated.
Finally, although
thinks
Mark ended his Gospel at verse 8, there does indeed seem to be
an
increasing number of scholars who believe this, evangelicals
included
among them.86 Ernest Best states, for example, that "It is in
keeping
with other parts of his Gospel that Mark should not give an
explicit
account of a conclusion where this is already well known to
his
readers.87
Further, he argues that "it is not a story which has been
rounded
off but an open story intended to draw us on further.88 At
one
point he makes a rather intriguing suggestion:
Finally it is from the point of view of drama
that we can appreciate most
easily the conclusion to the Gospel. By its very
nature the conclusion
forces us to think out for ourselves the
Gospel's challenge. It would have
been easy to finish with Jesus' victorious
appearances to comfort the dis-
ciples: they all lived happily
ever after. Instead the end is difficult. . . .
86 So much so that W. R. Telford could
argue, "While a number of scholars would
still
adhere to the view that the Gospel originally extended beyond 16:8, more and
more
are
coming to the opinion that it was intended to end at 16:8, and that it does so
indeed,
in
literary terms, with dramatic appositeness" ("Introduction: The
Gospel of Mark," in
The Interpretation of
Mark,
ed. W. R. Telford [
also
C. S. Mann, Mark: A New Translation with
Introduction and Commentary, Vol. 27
in
the Anchor Bible (Garden City: Doubleday, 1986) 659 ("Mark did indeed
finish his
gospel
at v. 8, and . . .he had a specific and well-defined purpose in doing
so"); R. P.
Meye, "Mark 16:8-The Ending of Mark's
Gospel," BibRes
14 (1969) 33-43; H. Ander-
son,
The Gospel of Mark, in the New Century Bible Commentary (
mans,
1976) 351-54; H. Paulsen, "Mark xvi. 1-8," NovT 22 (1980) 138-70; N. R.
Petersen,
"When Is the End Not the End? Literary Reflections on the Ending of Mark's
Narrative,"
Interp 34
(1980) 151-66; T. E. Boomershine and G. L.
Bartholomew, "The
Narrative
Technique of Mark 16:8," JBL 100
(1981) 213-23. Among those who are
evangelicals
(in the strictest sense of the word-i.e., inerrantists) , a number of authors
antedating
Matthew and Mark to
Christ
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1944) 86-118;
The Gospel of Mark in the New International
Commentary on the New Testament (Grand
Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1974) 582-92; J. D. Grassmick
also seems to lean toward this view
(Mark
in the Bible Knowledge Commentary
[Wheaton: Victor Books, 1983] 193-94).
87 E. Best, Mark: The Gospel as Story (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1983) 73.
88 Ibid., 74.
NEW TEST AMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 47
The readers or hearers of Mark know the
disciples did see Jesus. . . . Lis-
ten to the story as a believer and work it out
for yourself. It is like one of
Jesus' own parables: the hearer is forced to go on
thinking.89
Although one would not say that Ernest Best is
an arch-conserva-
tive, his overall interpretation of the reason for
the shorter ending
should
cause no offense to evangelicals, as is evident by the fact that a
number
of evangelicals do believe that the Gospel was intended to end
at
verse 8.90
The argument that loss of text invalidates
inspiration is, therefore,
seen
to be logically fallacious, bibliologically
inconsistent, and irrele-
vant for those evangelicals who believe that Mark
intended to end his
Gospel
at the eighth verse of chapter sixteen.
B.
Does the Byzantine Text-type Have Sole
Claim to Inerrancy?
Occasionally, MT/TR advocates appeal to
inerrancy in support of
the
Byzantine text-type's superiority. The argument is not new,91 but it
has
received a clear articulation recently by James A. Borland. In his
article,
"Re-examining New Testament Textual-Critical Principles and
Practices
Used to Negate Inerrancy",92 Borland argues that the Alex-
andrian readings of ]Asa<f in Matt 1:7, ]Amw?j
in
e]klipo<ntoj;
in Luke
rejected
(for otherwise they impugn the character of the biblical
authors
and thereby falsify inerrancy). The reason such are errors,
according
to Borland, is that, with regard to the Matthean
passage,
Asaph and Amos were not kings (thus, spelling errors
on the part of
early
Alexandrian scribes); and with regard to the Lukan
passage, since
"a
solar eclipse is impossible astronomically during the full moon of
the
Passover when sun and moon are 180 degrees apart in relation to
the
earth93 and since the verb e]klei<pw, when used with h!lioj,
89 Ibid., 132.
90 See n. 86. Besides literary criticism,
another argument could be used to support
the
view that the gospel ended here: only if Mark's Gospel were originally
published in
codex
form (in which case the last leaf could have possibly fallen off) could one
argue
that
the ending of Mark was lost. But if, as extrabiblical
parallels are increasingly show-
ing to be more likely, the Gospel was originally
written on a scroll, then the last portion
of
the book, being at the center of the scroll, would be the least likely portion
of the
book
to be lost.
91 Cf., e.g., G. Salmon, Some Thoughts on the Textual Criticism of
the New Testa-
ment (London: John Murray,
1897) 26; H. C. Hoskier, "Codex Vaticanus and Its Allies,"
in
Which Bible?, 143.
92 J. A. Borland, "Re-examining New
Testament Textual-Critical Principles and
Practices
Used to Negate Inerrancy," JETS
25 (1982) 499-506; reprinted in Letis, Con-
tinuing Debate, 46-57. All references in this paper are to the original
article in JETS.
93 Borland, "Negate Inerrancy,"
504.
48 GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
normally
indicated an eclipse,94 Luke would err if he had written this.
In
both the Matthean texts and the Lukan
passage, the Byzantine text-
type
has readings which do not involve such errors (respectively, ]Asa<,
]Amw?n, kai> e]skoti<sqh o[ h!lioj ["and the sun was darkened"]). Borland's
conclusion
is that (1) only in the Byzantine text-type do we have an
inerrant
Bible and (2) we must pour our text-critical methodology
through
the doctrinal grid of inerrancy.95
Our critique of Borland's linking of inerrancy
to the Byzantine
text-type
is fourfold. First, his argument seems to question either the
intelligence
or the doctrinal conviction of virtually all members of the
Evangelical
Theological Society as well as any other non-MT/TR iner-
rantists-stretching from B. B. Warfield to D. A.
Carson.
so
far as to say: "I cannot think of a single great theological writer
who
has given his energies to defend a high view of Scripture and who
has
adopted the TR, since the discovery of the great uncials and, later,
the
papyri and other finds.96
Second, Borland's view suffers from historical
myopia. That is to
say,
he is superimposing his modem-day, twentieth-century definition
of
inerrancy on the text. But should not our definition of inerrancy be
shaped
by both the biblical statements which imply this doctrine as
well
as the phenomena which indicate how the biblical authors under-
stood
it? One is reminded of a typical layman's understanding of iner-
rancy: the events of the Gospels must be in strict
chronological
sequence,
the red letters in the Bible refer to the ipsissima verba (exact
words)
of Jesus, etc. Faced with the contrary evidence, would it be
appropriate
to change the text to suit one's doctrine? More analogous
still
is the Purist controversy in the seventh century.
The beginning of the seventeenth century was
marked by the rise of the
Purist controversy. The Purists maintained that
to deny that God gave
the New Testament in anything but pure classical
Greek was to imperil
the doctrine of inspiration. The Wittemberg Faculty, in 1638, decreed
that to speak of barbarisms or solecisms in the
New Testament was blas-
phemy against the Holy Ghost.
Hence, a correct conception of the pecu-
liar idiom of the Apostles was impossible, and
the estimate of different
readings was seriously affected by this cause.
tions were arbitrarily
mingled, the manuscripts employed and the
sources of variants adopted were not properly
specified, and a full sur-
vey of the apparatus was
impossible.97
94 Ibid., 505, n. 22.
95 Ibid., 506.
96 D. A.
ids:
Baker, 1979) 71.
97 M. R. Vincent, A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (New
pointing
out this quotation to me.
NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM 49
In
other words, in the seventeenth century many evangelicals argued
that
the Textus Receptus was not
inspired and that many of its readings
were
even "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." They too had a myo-
pic view of inerrancy, and they too poured their
text-critical method
through
a dogmatic grid-but their conclusions were exactly the oppo-
site
of Borland's!
Third, in letting his doctrinal position dictate
the outcome of his
textual
criticism, Borland proves his own position wrong. There are
plenty
of passages far more troublesome to inerrancy than Matt l:7 or
Luke
23:45. In fact, these passages hardly constitute a serious
difficulty.98 To be consistent,
Borland ought to advocate conjectural
emendation
wherever inerrancy seems to be in jeopardy. Who would
not
like a clean harmony between the two records of Judas' demise,
uniform
parallel accounts of Peter's threefold denial of Jesus, or an
outright
excision of the census by Quirinius? If Borland is
unwilling to
perform
such radical surgery to the text under the guise of inerrancy,
then
why does he wave this doctrinal stick at significantly lesser prob-
lems? One can only suspect that inerrancy is not
driving his decisions;
rather,
a preservation-majority connection is.99
Finally, we question whether it is an
epistemologically sound
principle
to allow one's presuppositions to dictate his text-critical
methodology.
It is our conviction that this is neither honest to a his-
torical investigation nor fair to one's
evangelical heritage. If our faith
cannot
stand up to the scrutiny of rigorous investigation, then our
beliefs
need to be adjusted. But if we always jerk back the fideistic
reins
when the empirical horse goes too fast for us, then the charges of
obscurantism,
scholasticism, even pietistic dribble are well deserved.
Borland
believes that "unhappily our widely accepted textual-critical
principles
and practices may help to accommodate them in their jesting
against
the inerrancy of Scripture."100 But surely the jesting will be
louder
and stronger if we change the rules of the game because the
other
team is winning!
98 All that needs to be noted is that
variant spellings of proper names were in exis-
tence in the first century, as well as in the LXX
(thus, "Asaph" and "Amos," though
un-
usual
spelling, are hardly to be classified as errors); and, as Borland himself admits,
e]klei<pw with
h!lioj, though usually meaning
"to eclIpse, does not always have this tech-
nical nuance. Nevertheless, Borland is quite right
that both passages strike one as a bit pe-
culiar. But if they strike us a little odd, then
surely they did the same for the ancient
scribes-who
would have changed the text out of their own pietistic motives. What Bor-
land
simply cannot explain is how the Alexandrian readings arose in the first place,
ren-
dering them more probably original.
99 Throughout his article Borland speaks of
"the vast numerical superiority" of his
.preferred
reading ("Negate Inerrancy," 504). He concludes the article by
saying, "In our
quest
for the true reading we must not confine ourselves to a few early MSS while
forget-
ting
the thousands of MSS that each bear an independent testimony to the text"
(ibid., 506).
l00 Ibid., 506.
50
GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
CONCLUSION
In many respects, the theological premise of the
TR/MT propo-
nents is commendable. Too many evangelicals have
abandoned an
aspect
of the faith when the going gets tough. That certain students of
the
NT have held tenaciously to a theological argument concerning the
text
of the NT speaks highly of their piety and conviction. If their view
were
biblically founded, it would also speak highly of their orthodoxy.
But,
as we have seen, their theological a priori is neither biblically,
nor
logically, nor historically sound.
Concerning preservation, their underlying motive
that the quest
for
certainty is identical with the quest for truth speaks volumes about
their
method. Their most self-defeating argument is that truth must be
found
in the majority--for not only does this contradict God's normal
modus operandi, but it does not at all
work for the Old Testament.
Thus
those who practice textual criticism by "majority rule" end up
with
a doctrine which promotes a bibliological double
standard. At
precisely
this point they are out of step with orthodoxy, resembling
more
the ancient heretic Marcion in their view of the
text.
Byzantine text advocates' arguments which are
related more
directly
to inspiration and inerrancy also falter.
that
loss of text falsifies inspiration is, once again, Marcionite
(for
there
is loss of text in the OT), and his lone example-the longer end-
ing of Mark-is irrelevant to anyone who thinks that
the evangelist
intentionally
ended his Gospel at 16:8. Borland's argument is that the
presuppositions
of inerrancy must drive our text-critical methodology
and
that, consequently, only in the Byzantine text-type do we hav_e
an
inerrant
text. This view was found to be not only isolationist (in which
inerrancy
is defined only in twentieth century terms which are, more-
over,
not shared by the vast bulk of twentieth century inerrantists),
not
only
inconsistent (otherwise he would have to appeal to conjectures
wherever
he felt the text erred), but also epistemologically, histori-
cally, and evangelically unsound.
In sum, there is no valid doctrinal argument for
either the Textus
Receptus or the majority text. A theological a
priori has no place in
textual
criticism. That is not to say that the majority text is to be
rejected
outright. There may, in fact, be good arguments for the major-
ity text which are not theologically motivated. But
until TR/MT advo-
cates make converts of those who do not share with
them their peculiar
views
of preservation and inspiration, their theory must remain highly suspect.
This material is cited with gracious
permission from:
Grace Theological Seminary
www.grace.edu
Please report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt
at: thildebrandt@gordon.edu