Tracking the Orthodox Corruption of a text back to the archtype

The author of the following text was an American politician who was born in Constantinople to Orthodox Greek parents. The archetype is among his archived personal papers. Yet, incredibly enough, three very different versions of this text have long circulated in print--and now on the internet--the second text emerging the very year it was first published, and the third sometime in the following decades, while the author was still living.

I first ran across the quote in an online publication, in which the editor (a textual critic himself) expressed bewilderment as to which of the two versions most commonly found might be the original.

I give first of all the shortest version of the text, as published in the Readers Digest of October 1952 and republished in the January 1954 number.

"I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon - if I can. I seek opportunity - not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence [n]or my dignity for a handout. It is my heritage to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. All this is what it means to be an American."


And here is the longest version, printed (as reported on the internet by the owner of the 'manuscript') on the back of an entry ticket to the Flying W Ranch in 1968 (plusses in bold):

“I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon. I seek opportunity to develop whatever talents God gave me – not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficience nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say – ‘This, with God’s help, I have done.’  All this is what it means to be an American.”

Now, were we to use the "lectio brevior potior" approach to textual criticism, the "oldest and best" reading would be that found in the Reader's Digest. But there's a problem with that approach that will be obvious to anyone familiar with the publication aims of the Reader's Digest: they deliberately shorten pieces of literature in order to make them more available to the busy reader. Thus it's inconceivable that the Readers' Digest version, being the shortest, would most accurately reflect the original.

Next, we look at the possibility that the text has undergone Orthodox Corruption. Note that all references to God are in the expanded version. Is it more likely that Orthodox scribes have deleted this material, or added it? To answer this question, we should probably find out a bit about the author, Dean Alfange Sr. 

A published biography reads as follows:

Dean Alfange was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) of Greek parents, December 2, 1897. His family migrated to the United States and settled in Utica, New York, when he was very young. He attended Hamilton College where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1922. Later he attended Columbia University Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1925.

Alfange's interests led him to pursue a career in politics as well as law. He was also deeply involved with the Order of Ahepa, a Greek-American cultural organization, acting as its national president from 1927-1929. He ran for New York State Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1942 against Thomas E. Dewey and was a strong advocate of the New Deal and a great admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

During World War II he was the Vice-Chairman of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe. He made speeches for aid to the Jews against the Nazis, and at a hearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives submitted a plan to save the Jews in Europe. After World War II he became chairman of the Committee to Arm the Jewish State, a group aimed at lifting the arms embargo on Palestine.

He was instrumental in the formation of the Liberal Party in 1944 when the American Labor Party split between pro-communist and anti-communist factions. Alfange held nominations or appointments from Democrats and Republicans as well as the Liberal and American Labor Party. As early as 1954 he expressed opposition to the American policy of military aid to the French government in Indochina, his position being one based on anti-colonialism. This position continued throughout America's involvement in the Vietnam Conflict.

Other positions held by Alfange were: Deputy Attorney General of New York State, Trustee of the Fashion Institute of Technology and New York State Quarter-Horse Racing Commissioner. Among his awards are the Freedom Foundation Award (1952) for his composition “My Creed” (included in Box 5, folder 3) and the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Award for his book The Supreme Court and the National Will (1937).

He died in New York City on October 24, 1989 at age 91.

Well, there you have it. Just in writing this piece, Alfange was expressing opinions very much out of synch with the political circles in which he moved. But is he likely to have included references to God, which his admirers edited out? It is highly unlikely for either to have happened. Alfange's interests seem to be totally secular, and his followers were unlikely to even share such sentiments as are expressed here, much less republish them. No, far more likely that people from the other edge of the political spectrum picked up the quotation and 'improved' it a little. Remember, this was the very time-frame in which "under God" was added to the American Pledge of Allegiance. 

Well, there is one more main edition of this text to consider--leaving aside such spurious editions as the one falsely attributed to Thomas Paine and ending, "This, with God's help, I have done. All this is what it means to be an Entrepreneur."  This edition has what we could call Early Patristic Support, and I give it in the context in which it was published--as a comment on the very web page where the aforementioned spurious text is found (plusses in bold):

"Although this work is certainly appropriate for the entrepreneur, it is not from Common Sense nor was it written by Thomas Paine. It was written by Dr. Dean Alfange, a Greek immigrant, who at one point ran for Governor of New York. He died in 1989. He titled the piece: MY CREED. I know this because a few years ag[o] I spoke with his son Dean Alfange Jr. to get permission to print and market this work. Below I have include the work as he wrote it." --Al Zapata

MY CREED by Dean Alfange

"I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon—if I can. I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. All this is what it means to be an American."


So. Neither the shortest, nor the longest, nor the oldest extant text (on the internet) is the most accurate. The singlemost accurate copy of the text has been tampered with in both ways--both by addition, and by subtraction. But it was, in its entirety, passed on correctly by those most interested in transmitting it exactly as it came from the author.


Should this surprise anyone?

The Juggling of Certainty vs. Science

Click to Enlarge

One obvious problem which has been a repeated barrier to both correction and progress in the field of Textual Criticism of the NT has been a basic ideological and fundamental conflict, not just between parties, but influencing individuals attempting to practice TC.

The conflict is this:

Fundamentally, the Scientific Method is tentative and agnostic.  In order to remain truly scientific, it must deal in probabilities, and ever hold the door open to new discoveries which can not only modify current ideas, but completely overthrow them.  Diagrammed as above, one can see that it forms an Endless Loop, without ever establishing any permanent, universal truth. 

Those engaged in Textual Criticism on the other hand, while desperately desiring to garner the support and also credibility of scientific method, nonetheless cling to ideas which at base are in fundamental opposition to science.  First, is the idea of a fundamental Objective Reality, a non-changing universal truth applicable to every situation, and second is the idea that science 'progresses' inevitably toward greater and greater accuracy and surety in regard to believed facts.

Neither of these ideas is really a part of Scientific Method, or a necessary ingredient of Scientific philosophy, even though both ideas have been around as long as science, and have been more often than not inextricably bound up with scientific investigation.

The growth of science in the 19th century, also saw advancing alongside it the field of mathematics.  In this field, especially the concepts of Convergence, developing from Calculus, led men to believe that almost any problem could be solved by honing and improving the appropriate method of approximation, which would naturally and result in more and more accurate statements about the world.

The New Testament Text was regarded no differently: It was believed to be only a matter of time before textual-critical methods would tighten up and produce a more and more accurate 'original text', finally as sharp and accurate as a photograph, or a scientific measurement of light-speed to 8 decimal places.



Eureka! - Hort's Innovation

Surprisingly, F.J.A. Hort was instrumental in forwarding this ideology.  Contrary to current historians and various opponents, Hort's real innovation in Textual Criticism was not "the genealogical method", or the advancement in the evaluation of various sources.  It was the innovation of what is now called in modern mathematics and computing as "iteration".

Iteration is the application of a set of instructions, a 'program' or algorithm,
 repeatedly, usually to refine or home in on a result.  Imagine for instance, a lathe that shapes table-legs.  It shapes the wood by repeated cutting away of waste, leaving the desired pattern behind. 

An Algorithm is usually fixed, but sometimes having optional paths or choices built in.  The flexibility comes through a testing, measurement or decision process (as in the flowchart above, where the 'diamond' shapes mark points in the flow where choices will be made).  

Some objects in mathematics are better and more efficiently expressed as algorithms - a group of ordered steps or instructions, meant to be applied like a recipe or prescription, and often actually acting as a description of a process or phenomenon.  Other objects can ONLY be described by algorithms.  Unfortunately, some objects cannot be expressed by algorithms at all.

When mathematicians began to notice algorithms, they discovered other sometimes disturbing properties of said 'objects', such as the fact that some mathematical objects and ideas have no algorithm at all.  (the calculation of PI or the search for Prime Numbers are examples of things that must be calculated by 'brute force' and crude testing rather than elegant formulas).

When mathematicians noticed that some problems and ideas cannot be expressed by algorithms, it became clear that some problems were by their very nature "unsolvable".

On a simpler level, it was clear that some  'formulas' simply did not and could not 'converge'; that is could not settle down and spit out one single numerical answer.   Likewise, algorithms simply did not always produce a useful or reliable result, nor could they even come to an end.  They were like run-away processes, and if left to themselves would get stuck in endless loops, or randomly wander the universe of numbers.

Hort's assumption was that by using the novel idea of "iteration", meaning the repeated application of textual-critical principles and techniques, to further and further refine the content and certainty of the text, one could arrive as close as possible to the original text as the extant data and the scientific process allowed.

Unfortunately, Hort was wrong on this entire idea:

(1)  There was nothing in the realm of science that indicated that discovering the 'original text' was even possible let alone probable.

(2)  There was nothing that suggested that text-critical methods could or should converge toward any fixed text, let alone the true original text.

(3)  Iteration itself had no magical power to force the textual variants to converge into a 'near certain' text, in spite of its allure and mathematical usefulness in certain situations.  If the applied method was flawed, or ill-defined, the opposite result was inevitable.

(4)  The success of iterative methods in other areas of science had no bearing on iteration as an intelligent or useful technique in textual criticism.   In order for iteratiion to work, the techniques to be iterated must first be sound.

Later, when men of religion attempted to apply mathematical and scientific concepts and techniques to the problem, they were inevitably biased and their work tainted by their own conviction that these methods would converge to an absolutely certain 'original text', and that this was the way God intended us to acquire this certainly established, authoritative, original text.

Nobody thought to inquire and investigate thoroughly what methods that God Himself chose to preserve and deliver the text, and what this meant for the credibility of textual criticism of the NT as a historical science.

As it turned out, God did not use the historical-critical techniques of NT Textual Criticism to preserve and supply the NT text.  God chose simpler, and quite apparently, more reliable methods than those proposed and used by modern Textual Critics to 'reconstruct' the NT text.

These facts strongly suggest that those who wish to establish, secure, or restore the NT text ought to imitate the methods used historically by God Himself for the last 2000 years.

Nazaroo

Lachmann (2) - The "Illiad" Problem

The following excerpt from Homer and His Poems, by N. M. Cohen summarizes nicely the background to Lachmann's theory regarding the Illiad:

"The first study of Homer that can really be called critical was made in the Alexandrian Age. Then arose a school of Separatists (about 170 B. C.) who believed that the Iliad and the Odyssey were by different authors. Zenodotus, the first chief of the great museum, was also the first critic of the Homeric text, and he was soon followed by Aristarchus, the greatest of ancient critics, to whom is ascribed the present division of Homer into books. Aristarchus discovered a number of spurious passages in the poems, but he had no doubt that Homer was virtually their author. 

At the end of the 18th century there was found in Venice, in the library of St. Mark, a manuscript of the Iliad, dating from the 10th century.  Around this transcription were marginal notes, called "scholia." These were textual criticisms by  Aristarchus and other learned grammarians.   The finding of the "scholia" gave a new impulse to Homeric criticism, and led to the famous Recension of the Iliad by the German scholar, Frederick Augustus Wolf, in 1795. 

Previous to Wolf, the idea that Homer was not the sole author of epics ascribed to him had been suggested by Bentley, Rousseau, and others in modern times, and, it is said, by Josephus, Cicero, and others in ancient times. But no serious attempt at proof had ever been made until Wolf, in his revolutionary Prolegomena (preface to his edition of the Iliad), shook the literary world to its foundations, and inaugurated a new era of literary criticism. 

The celebrated Wolfian theory, is in the main, as follows: 

(1)  Alphabetic writing, according to Wolf, was not known to the Greeks until about 600 B. C. There is no evidence that the laws were written until that time, and certainly a prose literature, which calls for writing, was not in existence previously. It is true that many verses were older, but verse was the original form of extemporaneous oratory or chanting, and the profession of rhapsodist was that of one who recites from memory. 

(2)  In Homer himself, there is but a single mention of a message by characters, [i.e., letters] and that is the case of Bellerophon, "who bore tokens of woe, graven on a folded tablet, many deadly things," to the King of Lydia. This was in some form a written message to the king, in which the writer requests him to slay Bellerophon, and it was not until the tenth day of Bellerophon's visit that the king asked to see "what token he bore." Now, this token on the folded tablet does not by any means imply alphabetic writing, and throughout the rest of the poems we hear of no communication as passing between any of the chiefs in Troy and their families at home. 

(3)  Even if letters were known, nobody read, and wooden or leaden tablets were unable to contain lengthy works. If the poems were not written, it is impossible that the text could have been preserved from corruption during several centuries. 

(4)  Besides, there are manifest discrepancies in the poems themselves. In one case a chief, who has been killed in an early book, is made to attend the funeral of his son in a later book, and there are other discrepancies of time, place and style. 

(5)  Then, too, the exploits of all the chiefs have nothing to do with the story of the Wrath of Achilles, and are manifestly inserted to glorify local heroes. These are the main grounds of the Wolfian theory. 

The conclusion is that the Iliad is a series of short songs put together in a later age. In regard to the Odyssey, the opinion of the Wolfian school is that it is of different authorship altogether from the Iliad. 

Wolf's theory has been violently attacked, learnedly defended, and largely elaborated. Grote, the historian of Greece, makes two distinct works of the Iliad: One he calls the Wrath of Achilles, mainly by Homer; the other the Iliad composed of floating songs. Lachmann, a celebrated German scholar, finds in the Iliad all the joints of sixteen small works. 

Mr. Walter Leaf has recently issued his edition of the Iliad, compiled by getting together twenty-six passages from different books of the poems. He, of course, has scholarly reasons for considering all the rest spurious. "The Nation," in reviewing this work, declares that 

 "in a century after the promulgation of the Wolfian idea (that is, in 1895), the number who believe in the theory of genuineness of Homer's works as traditionally received, will be so small that first-class scholars will not consider it worth while to waste time in endeavoring to convince them of its untenableness."

A singular feature in all these later criticisms is the fact that the very noblest portions of the poem are considered not Homeric. The embassy to Achilles, containing the finest eloquence of the poem; the meeting of Achilles and Priam, containing the noblest pathos–these and other passages of like significance are relegated to floating songs of unknown poets, and the Iliad becomes to the layman a Hamlet without the Prince. 

But the Wolfian theory and its progeny have not gone unchallenged by eminent scholars. The English critics are its choicest defenders. The answers to the theory are mainly these:

First. Writing may have existed at the time of Homer, for the Greeks were in close communication with the Phoenicians as early as 1100 B. C. The Phoenicians were skilled in writing, and the quick-witted Greeks would not be slow to imitate so useful an art.

Second. Even if writing were unknown, transmission by memory was not at all impossible. Rhapsodists were a professional class, trained purely for the purpose of memorizing, and the public recitations in which each might criticise the other, insured the integrity of the text. Extraordinary feats of memory are not unknown in our own times. Macaulay could, without effort, recite half of "Paradise Lost;" Dr. Bathurst is said to have known the whole Iliad in Greek when a boy. If such performances are possible by non-professional reciters in an era when writing has weakened the power of memory, they certainly were not impossible in a trained and picked class of memorizers who could not depend on writing.

Third. There are discrepancies, it is true; but they are only such as might occur in long poems by a single author, especially if not written; and while some interpolations may be granted, they are not sufficient to disturb the general integrity of the text.

Fourth. The plots are essentially bound together by an underlying unity; the style and turn of language and thought in both poems are those of the one master; and if the author of the Iliad and he of the Odyssey are not the same, then nature must have produced bountifully the supreme poetic inspiration when the world was young.

This is, in very small mold, the modern Homeric question; its bibliography is enormous, although the controversy is really in its incipiency. ..."

- N.M. Cohen, Homer And His Poems, (Chicago, 1893) p 120-121

Later dates for MSS: Codex W = 700 CE, P52 = II-III cent

H. Houghton has reported in  "Recent Developments in NT TC (2011, Early Christianity 2.2, p. 245-268:

"...There have also been developments in the dating of certain manuscripts. The Freer Gospels (032, W), famous for their unique text in the Longer Ending of Mark, were initially assigned to the fourth or fifth century. However, following the redating of the manuscripts used for the original comparison and the subsequent discovery of similar material, including the Cologne Mani Codex, Schmid has suggested that it may have been copied at least a century later. [29]  Parker and Birdsall's consideration of the palaeography and catena of Codex Zacynthius (040, Ξ) prompt them to propose a date of around 700 for the majuscule underwriting, rather than Hatch's suggestion of the sixth century. [30]   The date of the earliest surviving fragment of the New Testament, P52, has also been the subject of a recent review by Nongbri. [31]  This cautions against the uncritical adoption of the earliest suggested date of 125 CE and demonstrates that a date in the late second or early third centuries remains palaeographically possible. As more and more comparative material becomes available online, it will not be surprising if the dating of other manuscripts is reassessed. ...

---

29. Ulrich Schmid, "Reassessing the Palaeography and Codicology of the Freer Gospel Manuscript," in The Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an American Treasure Trove ed. Larry W. Hurtado (SBLTCS 6. Atlanta GA: SBL, 2006), 227–49.

30. D.C. Parker and J. Neville Birdsall, "The Date of Codex Zacynthius (Ξ): A New Proposal," JTS 55.1 (2004): 117–31 (reprinted in Parker, Manuscripts, Texts, Theology, 113–20).

31. Brent Nongbri, "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel," HTR 98.1 (2005): 23–48.

 It seems what has long been suspected by outsiders is turning out to have some substance and basis, namely that manuscripts generally have been dated too early, and more revisions are in the works, either by their over-enthusiastic discoverers, or else apologists. 

Nazaroo

The 'Schools' of Alexandria and Antioch (4th-5th c. A.D.)

Here is a short discussion of the so-called 'schools' of Antioch and Alexandria, culled from the Orthodox site  Monachos

 "...
With regard to the Christological discussions of our period (the later fourth and early fifth centuries), reference made in modern scholarship to the 'Alexandrian' and 'Antiochene' schools attempts to homogenise under two relatively coherent umbrellas two general approaches to Christological reflection centred round these great cities and sees. The Alexandrine 'school' is seen most often as the older, dating back at least to Arius, and including such notable figures as the sainted bishop Athanasius of that city, as well as the anathematised Apollinarius. The insistence of all three writers, as well as others of their converging tradition, upon the divinity of the Logos in the 'becoming' of the incarnation, and a tendency in each to see that incarnation as a 'taking on of flesh' by the Logos, has earned their 'school' the reputation of fostering another scholarly category: a 'Logos/sarx Christology'.
Those referred to as 'Antiochene'-for example Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius of Constantinople, John of Antioch-are often referred to as preferring a 'Logos/anthropos Christology'; namely, one in which the Logos is united to man, or even 'a man'. A dominant insistence upon the full humanity of the incarnate Christ characterises all those shuffled under this umbrella.
The classification of these 'schools' is rather rough-and-ready. While some cases are clear-cut (e.g. Nestorius, who is evidently a theological descendent of Theodore), others are more difficult. St Cyril is a notable example. As bishop of Alexandria and strongly influenced by the theology of his predecessor, Athanasius, the temptation is certainly to call him a member of the Alexandrian 'school'. Yet one is hard-pressed to consider Cyril's Christology of hypostatic union conformable to any definition of the Logos/sarx 'model' by which that 'school' is so often characterised. And while such a figure as John of Antioch is almost universally considered a member of the Antiochene 'school', his later Christological dialogues with Cyril, most pointedly their joint 'formula of reunion', addresses the incarnational becoming in a manner that hardly fits within the broad categories of Theodore's reflection, taken by most as the standard for Antiochene Christology.
So we must take care not to read these 'schools' not schools in any strict sense. Rather, they represent loci of converging approaches to Christological reflection centred around two great strongholds of theological activity in the fourth and fifth centuries. And despite the dangers of generalisation, which in historical analysis leads too often to a false-homogenisation, certain common characteristics of these converging traditions can be ascertained, and prove helpful in our reading of doctrinal reflection in its historical progression. In a general sense, these trends and tendencies are as follows:

Alexandrian 'school'	Antiochene 'school'
Tendency toward Platonic metaphysical approach; a desire to move beyond appearances to the 'truly real'.	Tendency toward Aristotelian stress on concrete realities, factual historicity and its analysis, and the discernable characteristics of concrete reality.
Favours an allegorical reading of scripture, first proffered in a notable way by Origen; driven here by a desire to 'get to the real meaning' of given biblical passages.	Favours an historical/factual, 'literal', reading of scripture.
With regard to Christ, a tendency to focus on inner, metaphysical composition and activity.	A tendency to focus upon the factual/historical aspects of the human life of Christ-what he did, said, accomplished, etc. Cf. Theodore's exegetical interest in the 'historical Jesus'.
Soteriological convictions driven most often by notions of sanctification/divinisation, mystical relation, etc.	Soteriological convictions driven by corrective agency of divinity on humanity.
Generally: stress laid upon the ontological oneness of Christ-the divinity and humanity form one being-wrought most often by reference to the Logos/sarx framework (though not always; cf. Cyril of Alexandria).	Generally: stress laid upon the distinction between God and man in Christ-these not only distinct in discernable attributes, but in substantive reality. Preservation of full reality and integrity of both natures. Logos/anthropos model predominates.
Key weakness lies in the routine jeopardy into which the persistent distinction of natures is cast in the maintenance of the single ontological reality of the incarnate Christ.	Key weakness lies in the difficulty in expressing the genuine union of the two natures, and indeed the true oneness or singular subjectivity of the incarnate Christ.

Our thanks to the anonymous author of that useful overview.

Nazaroo

Even Roman Catholic Scholars are dumping the UBS text

Ron Conte Jr. this summer completed an evaluation of the UBS text and its negative impact on the NV (New Vulgate) Latin edition.   He lists several key points online here:

 "I was dismayed and appalled by the decisions of the editors of the Nova Vulgata, especially to abandon the Latin scriptural tradition approved by the Council of Trent, and adopt in its place the critical Greek text of Matthew by the (Protestant) United Bible Societies. The UBS text, and the NV as well, omits over one hundred words from the Gospel, found in the Latin Vulgate, includes at least a couple of whole verses.

See the article for more critical comments about the NV.

Problems with the Nova Vulgata (NV):

1. the NV abandons the Latin scriptural tradition

2. the New Testament is simply a representation of the Protestant UBS (United Bible Societies) Greek text

3. the New Testament ignores all Latin and all Greek sources, other than the UBS text, which is mainly the work of Protestant scholars

4. the NV changes the wording in some verses out of political correctness, without any support in any manuscripts for those changes

5. the Latin scriptural tradition is supposed to be used by Bible scholars to settle any uncertain or disputed readings of the text in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. But since the NV does not represent the Latin scriptural tradition, but instead represents the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, it is not useful for that purpose

6. The Council of Trent declared that the Canon of Scripture includes all the parts of each book as found in the old Latin vulgate Bible (the Latin scriptural tradition). But the NV rejects the Latin scriptural tradition, and removes from the Canon very many words and phrases, as well as more than a few entire verses.

7. The NV relies on the Protestant Stuttgart Vulgate for its base text, ignoring the Pope Sixtus V and Pope Clement VIII Vulgate which was used by the Church for several hundred years as the official Latin Bible.

8. The only version of the NV contains hundreds of typographical errors.

9. The New Testament of the NV shows an appalling lack of editorial discretion. The Latin text is forced to conform to the Greek UBS text even when this makes the Latin text awkward or grammatically incorrect. Editorial decisions other than merely changing the Latin to conform lock step with the Greek are rare."

Its clear that some honest Roman Catholic scholars at least have noted in detail exactly what is wrong with the UBS text, and the devastating impact on Bible texts and translations it has had for the last 50 years.

Conte uses the following abbreviations:

CV - Clementine Vulgate
NV - Nova Vulgata from vatican.va
FS - Fischers Stuttgart edition (1975)
TR - Textus Receptus
MT - Majority Text (Hodges/Farstad, 1982)
UBS - 4th ed. 1993



Among the many flaws of the UBS text, Conte lists the following homoeoteleuton errors in UBS erroneously followed by the editors of the NV (new Vulgate version):


Matthew:

5:44 - NV omits 'do good to those who hate you', also omits 'and slander you', in accord with UBS, contrary to CV, FS, TR, MT.

 12:47 - NV changes 'seeking you' to 'seeking to speak with you', in accord with the Greek.

 15:6 - NV omits 'or his mother' and changes 'commandment of God' to 'word of God' in accord with UBS Greek, contrary (on both points) to CV, FS, TR, MT.

15:8 -   Again, it is clear that the NV rephrases the Vulgate to agree with the UBS Greek, even when the TR and MT agree with the Latin. There is a basis in both the Latin and Greek scriptural traditions to retain the Vulgate wording, and yet it is cast aside, making the NV a Latin version of the UBS Greek. The result is not very useful, since if a scholar wants to consult the UBS text, he would certainly prefer to look at the Greek text itself, rather than a Latin rendering of it. 

"Also, ...   the NV departs from the Latin scriptural tradition, substituting the Greek wording of the UBS text, so that the decision of Trent on the place that the Latin text has in the Church cannot be applied to the NV."

"The reader may also have noticed by now that the Stuttgart text in Latin does not usually edit the CV to conform to the Greek. Rather, the Stuttgart text (FS) is a moderate edit of the Vulgate. The editors of FS Matthew clearly had in mind to keep to the Latin scriptural tradition, or at least to recapture the essence of Saint Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Their editorial decisions in Matthew have kept the Latin text distinct from the Greek text, like two different co-equal witnesses to the truth of the Gospel. By comparison, the Nova Vulgata has subjugated the Latin scriptural tradition entirely to the Greek, like a slave to a master. The Stuttgart edit is what the Nova Vulgata should have been."

18:11 -  NV omits verse 11, in accord with UBS, contrary to CV, FS, TR, MT.

20:16 -  NV omits 'For many are called, but few are chosen' in accord with UBS, contrary to CV, FS, TR, MT.

 23:14 - NV and FS omit verse 14, in accord with UBS, contrary to CV, FS, TR, MT. ( MT has verses 13 and 14 transposed.)

 26:3 - NV changes the Latin word 'atrium' to the word 'aulam' (a Latin word derived from Greek), in accord with the Greek text.

27:35 - NV and FS omit the portion of the verse stating that this event of dividing his garments fulfills the prophecy of the Old Testament, in accord with UBS and MT, but contrary to CV and TR.

 The NV would be no worse in its text if the project had been done by the Protestant scholars at the UBS. In fact, the FS is the work of a group of mostly Protestant scholars at the German Bible Society, and even they have seen fit to retain the CV test of Matthew in the vast majority of cases. So a group of Protestant scholars has created a Latin Bible, the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate, which retains the Latin scriptural tradition and which generally follows the CV reading. But a group of Catholic monks, at a Benedictine monastery -- a monastery associated in past times with Saint Jerome---, who were given the task of updating the CV, have completely abandoned the Latin scriptural tradition, and have caused the NV to conform slavishly and unthinkingly solely to the Protestant UBS Greek text. If I did not know better, I would conclude that the monks of that monastery were Protestants, and that the editors of the FS were Catholics."

 Final Comments

" ...The Greek critical text of the United Bible Societies has the indisputable advantage of making the entire Bible thinner, lighter, and less expensive to publish. But the Latin and the other Greek texts have the advantage of not deleting words from inspired and inerrant Divine Revelation. The reader will have to decide for himself which advantage is to be preferred.

While it is certainly true that we must never add words to Sacred Scripture, we are also morally obligated not to delete words from Sacred Scripture."

 - exerpted from Problems with the NV in Matthew,  

Ronald L. Conte Jr. (June 18, 2010)

The "Godly Men" - infamous boners and frauds of Textual Criticism

The following articles will aptly begin with the documentation of some of the most ridiculous and unscrupulous frauds to have taken place in the history of textual criticism:

Unitarian Dishonesty

A Review of Shameful Acts

The posthumous takeover of Wetstein's Greek NT by Semler may have been one of the first in a series of frauds and deceptions by the Unitarians, but it was not to be the last.
At this time, we can list at least four major deceptions perpetrated by the Unitarians in their zeal to destroy the Textus Receptus and with it mainstream Christian doctrine:

1. 1765: J. Semler's Takeover and Rewrite of Wetstein's Prolegomena.
2. 1808: T. Belsham's Takeover and edit of Bishop Newcome's English NT.
3. 1856: S. Tregelles' Takeover and rewrite of Horne's Introduction.
4. 1862: C. Gregory's Takeover and ghost-write of Tischendorf's Prolegomena.

The similarities of the fraud in each case are stunning: (1) in each case, the success and reputation of the original author is capitalized on. (2) in each case, permission was either not obtained, or fraudulently obtained. (3) in each case, the author was dead or dying when the Unitarians stepped in. (4) In each case, history was rewritten, and minds diverted from what was really happening. (5) In each case, the original authors are praised but at the same time dismissed as in significant 'error' for deviating from the Unitarian/Hortian party position on the NT text.

We'll carry on from here shortly.

Peace
Nazaroo

Venn Diagrams for Evolution of Textual Criticism

New Testament Textual Criticism has changed, in method, in scope, and in perceived goals.   This can be illustrated with a series of Venn-Diagrams as follows:

The 18th Century Period (Mill, Wetstein, Bengel, Griesbach)

The early naive period is characterized by narrow concentration on collation, consensus, apologetics, with only a very crude and basic understanding of scribal habits and transmission.   The materials were scarce,  undocumented, and difficult of access.  No scientific methodology was developed, and TC was done on the basis of 'common sense' and conjectural instincts; sometimes overpowered by emotion and suspicion (e.g. RC conspiracy theories).   The Unitarian Movement began a steady ascent and became a dominant political force.

Click to Enlarge

The 19th Century Period (Lachmann, Scholz, Hort, Scrivener, Lake, Kenyon, )

 By this time crude 'canons' were being applied, based on guesstimates or opinions of scribal habits and political/religious activity influencing the transmission of the text.  Now other political and social factors also made a big impact, such as the democratic movements, Marx, and Darwin, and the rise of scientific rationalism.  The accumulated data, reasoning, and outlook was well summarized and encapsulated by the Westcott/Hort theory.   The historical-critical viewpoint was embraced and became the defacto standard for academia as universities became secularized.

 The 20th Century Period (von Soden, Hoskier, Colwell, Souter, Brown, Metzger, Aland, Hodges, Ehrman)

With stunning new discoveries, such as hoards of earlier papyri, which required a complete re-evaluation of the history and usage of the Greek language, and with thorough efforts at systematic collation, both the achievements (e.g. the WH text) and the viewpoint had to be fundamentally changed.   It became apparent that the transmission history was quite different and the complexity of the problem was greater than previously assumed.
   Goals and interests were significantly modified and expanded.   The original NT text appeared to some as a retreating mirage.   Others found new reason to return to the traditional text.   The divide became deeper and entrenched as TC split into two different factions.
At the same time, newer more scientific study was leading to completely different conclusions about textual transmission and scribal habits.  The old paradigms of Westcott/Hort and the Alexandrian priority were falling apart.

 The 21st  Century Period (Royse, Fernandez, Hurtado, Head)

Now many previous political/religious issues begin fading into history, such as the Unitarian/Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox controversies.  The greatly relaxed environment of the late 20th century causes old goals and disciplinary boundaries to be abandoned.  New ideas are pursued, in a discipline now largely dominated by secular academia.  The approach has become far more holistic and inclusive, with extensive interaction and dialogue between related disciplines.

The basic problems concerning methodology and results however, remain unsolved, and the field remains deeply divided over the fundamental issues.

Nazaroo

Flaws in Critical GNT known 100 years ago

The Westcott/Hort theory and text, based as it was on earlier work beginning with the suggestions of Wetstein, Selmer, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tregelles, & Tischendorf, was criticized and rejected almost immediately by Christian conservatives, both Protestant and Catholic.  People such as Scholz, Scrivener, Burgon, Hoskier, von Soden, & Merk did not accept the arguments, methods or results of the new "naturalistic textual-criticism".

Hort, in a cranky mood

What is less well-known, is that within a decade, many among the liberal camps in scholarly and academic circles also roundly rejected the W/H text, especially in Germany, Britain, and America.   They saw plainly that Hort's theories and reconstructions were implausible and near-worthless on scientific and historical grounds.   A good example of this penetrating insight was William Benjamin Smith, who published a series of books and articles in both German and English from 1890 to 1911.

Wikipedia gives us the following backgrounder on Smith:

William Benjamin Smith

At around the same time William Benjamin Smith (1850–1934), a professor of mathematics at Tulane University in New Orleans, argued in a series of books that the earliest Christian sources, particularly the Pauline epistles, stress Christ's divinity at the expense of any human personality, and that this would have been implausible if there had been a human Jesus.   Smith believed that Christianity's origins lay in a pre-Christian Jesus cult—that is, in a Jewish sect that had worshipped a divine being named Jesus in the centuries before the human Jesus was supposedly born.   Smith argued that evidence for this cult was found in Hippolytus's mention of the Naassenes and Epiphanius's report of a Nazaraean or Nazorean sect that existed before Jesus. On this view, the seemingly historical details in the New Testament were built by the early Christian community around narratives of the pre-Christian Jesus.   Smith also argued against the historical value of non-Christian writers regarding Jesus, particularly Josephus and Tacitus.    

The following is taken from Smith's article "Status and Drift of NT Criticism" (1890-1911): 

  "The first inquiry ...of any document concerns the text itself. ...Has it suffered any corruption...? It will perhaps be necessary to reconstruct the original from the contradictory attestations of these witnesses [MSS].  Such is the text problem of NT Criticism, one of the most highly complex that ever challenged the efforts of human understanding. 

    The [textual evidence] ...is enormous in amount, and...The problem of sifting and evaluating such a mass of evidence and striking the golden mean of truth would seem too difficult for the human intellect, especially as there is no ... sure way of testing our results... and the whole case must be left undecided.  Under such circumstances the marvel would seem to be that there should be any agreement at all, that there  should not be as many minds as critics.  However, as numerous as the [differences] are, the agreements are still far greater, where critical opinions rest harmonious...

    Now it might be thought that this agreement would be extended and perfected by the discovery of new testimony [i.e., MSS], which of late years has proceeded apace, and by the deeper and minuter study of the long familiar evidence.  But the fact is exactly the reverse:  Accumulation of depositions and profounder investigations have confirmed some critical judgments, but have shaken many others and completely overthrown not a few. The problem is indeed becoming not less but more complicated with advancing knowledge, and the textual uncertainty was never before so great as it is now.

   True it is that the last generation has witnessed the most brilliant attempts yet made to construct the most highly probable text.  Those masterly scholars, bishop Westcott and Dr. Hort, thought they might, by a certain careful study of the genealogy of the various witnesses, attach a coefficient of value to each one singly and in combination, and thereby determine the original text in the overwhelming majority of cases with a close approach to certainty.  Plausible and seductive as was their argumentation, and thoroughly accepted even now in many high quarters, it was yet fatally defective at many points and for several reasons, and can no longer command scientific assent.  

(a)  The "neutral" text which they posited, as best represented by the great Vatican Codex B, is a figment of the imagination.
(b)  The deference paid to certain 'great uncials' was unwarranted.
(c)  The testimony of the Fathers, and versions was undervalued.
(d)  The depreciation of the so-called Western text was undeserved.
(e)  The rash assumption that Codex F awas a copy of G was unfortunate. 

Closer study has shown decisively that at crucial points the witnesses upon which Westcott & Hort relied most confidently might all be misleading, and the MSS most lightly esteemed might present the older reading.  Even as the sheperd boy of old laid low the giant, so at any time may some neglected cursive or version or citation overthrow the most venerated uncial  [e.g. with  early papyrus support]. 

Romans 1:7, 15
The word  here is attested by nearly all the best authorities; nonetheless it is an interpolation (Smith, JBL 1901, Part I, p 3ff, Harnack, 'Preuschen's Zeitschrift', 1902, I, p83 f).
Doxology
So too the doxology at the end of Rom. 16 is witnessed by Aleph B C D and the best versions;  nevertheless the position at the end of ch. 14 is certainly the older.
Epilogue
The Epilogue (ch. 14 and 16) is given by nearly every authority, but, in spite of all, it is proved to be a later addendum; the Amiatinian and Fuldensian capitulations clearly point to its earlier absence.

These examples also correct very usefully a prevalent notion that textual variations are after all mere trifles, ... On the contrary, they are sometimes blinding in their illumination, in their revelation of the primitive structure of our Scriptures.   Thus the textual facts just stated involve a complete reconstruction of our notions about Romans, which now seems to be no Epistle and not addressed originally to Romans, but to be a compilation of moral and theological essays...afterwards fitted with Prologue and Epilogue as it now stands. 

So too, the extremely important F and G variant in Rom 9:22, unnoticed even by the best commentators (as Godet, Sanday, Weiss, Lipsius, Hofmann), indicates clearly the pure Judaic original of this famous chapter... (see 'the Hibbert Journal' 1, 2 pp. 328, 329). 

Still another notion must be corrected.  Let no one imagine that all or nearly all of the variants are mistakes or due to mistakes;  very many are visibly intentional.  It was the ancient habit, particularly of the Oriental, to compile and recompile, to edit and re-edit again, and with sacred books this habit became an almost inviolable rule.  No one disputes this fact in the case of the O.T. and the Apocrypha and the extra-canonical early Christian Writings (ECW).  It would be well-nigh miraculous, if the NT Scriptures should offer exceptions.  Before the establishment of the Canon no sacred awe invested the canonics; there was no apparent reason why the favorite Scriptures should not be systematically modified to keep pace with the developing Christian consiciousness, very much as our creeds are altered nowadays. 

 Wetstein's great word holds good: 

"Various readings, almost all, are due to the zeal, ingenuity, and guesswork of transcribers." 

Tischendorf admits:

"It can not be doubted that in the very earliest days of Christianity there were multifarious departures from the pure Scripture of the Apostles, wherein to be sure there entered naught of dishonesty or guile." 

Under the deeper probing of von Soden and others the original "neutral" B-text of WH turns out to be only a very learned revision;  the fault of the Vatican [MS] is that it has considered too curiously. (As Holsten was led to observe - Holsten, the matchless master of exegesis, whose imposing reconstructions of Paulinism, by their very perfection, constitute the reductio ad absurdum of the premises and methods he employs.)

It is impossible to blink at the fact that all MSS of all parts of the NT abound in readings that are plainly second thoughts.  Our most ancient and revered codices reproduce only deformed, transformed, and highly elaborated originals.  ...

 The discovery of new MSS, the collation of a few hundred more, will not bring the chaos to order but will make confusion still worse confounded.  Witness the publication of the Sinaitic Syriac palimpsest, and the turning of attention to the famous Codex Bezae (D): they have merely raised new problems, not settled old.  ...Blass no longer quotes critical editions but quotes the MSS themselves, never presuming to say what is the "true text".  Such in theory at least is the position to which criticism must finally come.  The critic's text, no matter how ingeniously or plausibly manufactured, is only the critic's text, not the "true text" after all. 

..."

_______________________________________

Such a thorough shredding of Westcott-Hort a mere decade after his final edition (1896) by a modernist and scientist delivers the death-blow to the claim that the W-H theory and text is in any way adequate or definitive, even objective in its radical editing of the traditional Christian NT. 

Nazaroo

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: Modern Evangelicals

The current fight over the text of the New Testament is one of the main battlefields in an ideological war, paradoxically fought right in the heart of the American Bible Belt and community.

It is easy to understand how this deep split has developed over time.

The Early Reformation (c. 1500-1700)

The first wave of the Reformation was a reaction to widespread sloth, dereliction of duty and corruption in the European Churches, built up through centuries of doctrinal disputes, money grubbing and power mongering , in the face of external threats, economic disasters, massive plagues and spreading illiteracy.

The 'lucky' combination of the new independence of local 'kingdoms', the importation of paper-making, the invention of efficient printing (movable type), and the deep faith of the Middle Ages made possible the mass distribution of Bibles, and a sudden increase in general literacy and interest in religion and science.

From the beginning however, the Reformation itself was plagued by inner divisions, heretical nonsense, and stubborn bigotry and ignorance.  The seeds of fracture and failure were sown from the start.   At the same time, men were inquiring and investigating issues of history and science, and knowledge of the natural world expanded rapidly.

More and more of religious thought and belief, once taken for granted, was placed in the skeptical light of human investigation and challenged by suspicion and doubt.   The Enlightenment era and the following period of Rationalism and historical inquiry seemed to leave traditional Christianity in a shambles of confusion, and opened the door to complete independence and rejection of all things religious, in favor of strict natural science.



The Second Reformation (19th - 20th cent.)

In parallel with the rising apostacy of the 19th century, large groups of people still seeking religious answers joined various cults, led by an ever increasing fountain of charismatic religious leaders.   New cults and denominations were invented as fast as men could start them.

The turn of the 19th/20th century not only saw the founding of a dozen large denominations, but also of less rigid and more vague movements, such as the Pentecostal and Evangelical and Charismatic branches of Christian thought and life.

Prior to this, in reaction to the conservativism and bigotry of the day, a significant number of Christians turned to the Unitarian movement and train of thought, in which even basic doctrines like the Trinity and the Deity of Christ were considered suspect and unimportant, and the social gospel was given higher priority.    This was often a good thing, as issues of poverty and maltreatment of children, the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, and education took center stage in political and community activity.

But the seeds of religious doubt and apostacy were deeply sown into Western culture.  The German 'rational'/skeptical approach had done immense damage to the traditional Christian worldview. 

The Attack on the Traditional Christian Bible (1830-1970)

In hand with this heavy skepticism came repeated attempts to 'renovate' the Bible, especially the New Testament, in a misguided effort to remove 'Roman Catholic alterations' and superstitious nonsense, leaving behind a supposedly reliable 'historical' core.   The various early copies and translations, and quotations were sifted for differences in wording or 'holes' indicating something might have been added later.    In a few cases (i.e., 1st John 5:7 etc.) it did indeed look as though a zealous bishop or misguided scribe had inadvertantly added something to the text.  This gave a 'smoking gun' look to the problem, and encouraged a near-hysterical suspicion of standard Christian texts and doctrines.

A few of the oldest manuscripts (c. 4th century) also presented a significantly truncated text, missing a few large sections like Jn 7:53-8:11 and the Ending of Mark (Mk. 16:9-20), and many shorter segments.   This led rational-minded critics to class these passages as deliberate "additions" or "interpolations" into the traditional text by scribes or editors.   The summit of this tendency to favor the shorter text came with Westcott & Hort (1882) and the Revised Version.

Those who favored this approach were for the most part Unitarians and fringe-Christians who had their own ideas about what early Christianity must have looked like, before the alleged accrual of 'later Romanist doctrines'.   The Unitarian movement lived on for quite a while in American Universities and Seminaries, being an attractive compromise between modern historical science and ancient religious ideas.

The new Textual Critics became stubborn and dogmatic in their own position, insisting that the 3rd and 4th century ecclesiastical texts were the 'original' readings, and the traditional text used by the majority of Christians for the last millenium was a later artificially fabricated edition.

The trouble was, these earlier texts also showed all the signs of being ecclesiastically managed and edited texts manufactured in the 3rd century for liturgical use, and subject to the activities of unknown editors and 'correctors'.   Their own credibility as 'primitive' texts was clearly shattered by their own appearance, features and their date of manufacture.



The Attack on the Christian Old Testament: (c. 1900-1970)

The academic 'attack' upon the traditional Christian Bible did not stop however, but turned with new energy to the O.T. text.   The first probable error in the early Reformation had been the uncritical adoption of the Medieval Jewish O.T. text by Martin Luther, following the example of St. Jerome (c.400 A.D.), in an attempt to convert the Jews of Europe.  When that failed, Luther became vitriolic, publishing slanderous pamphlets against the Jews, and helping to feed the growing wave of European anti-semitism which led to Hitler's insanity.

By this time however, the damage had been done, as Protestants everywhere followed Luther's example and adopted the Hebrew O.T. in preference to the ancient Greek O.T. that had been approved by the early Church and used for nearly two thousand years.  This movement began in Germany and continues to be driven from there today, in part buoyed by Roman Catholic scholarship and support.

Partly as a backlash from the disaster of World War II (i.e., guilt re: the Holocaust), Christians in the West continued in a rather futile 'dialogue' with modern Jews, toning down their dreams of 'converting the Jews', and essentially capitulating to Jewish ideas about how the O.T. should be translated and interpreted.  (The 'Dean' has blogged on this subject).

This movement to Judaize the Christian O.T. was spearheaded by Bruce Metzger and those sponsoring the Revised Standard Version (RSV), which was revised and repackaged repeatedly to disguise its source and purpose (as the NRSV).   Metzger was also heavily involved in continuing to promote the truncated and mutilated New Testament of Hort and others who had abandoned both traditional Christianity and the traditional text.


The Modern "Evangelical" Position:

Now the battle has moved to America's Christian seminaries and Christian Universities, which were formerly independent of the secular University system, but in seeking recognition and legitimacy by secular academia have adopted many of the positions and attitudes of secular Biblical scholars.

The modern "Evangelicals" are nothing like their original founders, all of whom held strong beliefs in the primacy of the Holy Scriptures, and who rejected mutilated versions of the N.T. like the RV, and similarly perverted versions of the O.T. like the RSV and NRSV.

The modern "Evangelical" Movement seeks recognition and respect from academia at large, and has essentially switched over to the secular academic position:

(1) There is no "Divine Inspiration" for the Bible entrusted to the Church.  Whether or not the 'originals' were inspired, the current copies of the Holy Scriptures are not inspired, nor are they necessarily reliable copies of the originals. 

(2) There is no "Divine Preservation" of the text.  They have been subject to the whims and random chance that all secular hand-copies of early books have been subject to.   Its full of errors, both historical and docrinal.

This sadly, is the modern "Evangelical" position.  It resembles nothing like the vision and faith of the early Reformers, and it resembles nothing like the positions of the original Evangelicals of America.

Peace
Nazaroo

What Causes LARGE Omissions?

Back in the 19th century, maverick textual critics were not afraid to confront the two biggest textual variants in the NT, namely Mark's Ending (Mk 16:9-20) and the Pericope de Adultera (Jn 7:53-8:11).   It was considered essential in those days to investigate them and have a position on such important matters.   Nowadays, flying a holding-pattern is the norm and critics rarely come in to land on either side of any issue.  Its hard to get anything except the standard Metzger quote when inquiring about either passage.

But every critic knows in his heart that the standard explanations and canons of TC simply cannot accommodate such gigantic variants.  "Prefer the shorter reading." appears absurd next to something as monumental as Mark's Ending, for no mere copyist could have invented it.  Describing John 7:53-8:11 as a "marginal gloss" is just ludicrous, when manuscripts don't even have margins that big.

Its no surprise then, that early critics gave their shot at a more plausible mechanism and account of the matter.   Mark's Ending seems to be just about the size to fit on a lost last page.  The so-called Western order Had Matthew, John, Luke and Mark last, making the ending the final page not only of a copy of Mark, but also of many a copy of the Four Gospels bound together.

As early as the 1880s, Rendel Harris posited the idea that the PA had slipped out of a quire in some early copy of John.  He supposed that it was spread  in four pieces, filling a small folded papyrus quire-sheet.    But this need not be the only arrangement in an early papyrus that could have resulted in the lost text.  It could also (perhaps with more likelihood) have covered both sides of a single folio, having been flexed or torn out of an early Gospel.

Click to Enlarge: Backbutton to return

Intriguingly, G. D. Bauscher in 2009 proposed a kind of homoeoarcton error, where two columns written in Syriac had begun with similar looking string of letters:

Click to Enlarge

  Any one of these common scenarios could have caused the initial omission, and subsequently also have caused suspicion to fall upon either passage, as confused copyists noted the absence of the verses.

It is easy to imagine how any initial error could have generated much deliberate interference later, and caused quite a complex history among at least a handful of early manuscripts, just as we seem to see now in the transmission record.

peace
Nazaroo

Undocumented Edits to the NT in modern versions

Fact or Fiction: You decide:

 

Here are some examples of completely undocumented mutilations of the NT text, which find their way readily into modern versions, also without so much as a footnote indicating text has been ripped out or drastically altered. In the following list "MV" means Modern Versions collectively, although one or two might have a note where the majority have nothing at all:

Matt. 15:8 UBS2 undocumented ΤΩ ΣΤΟΜΑΤΙ αυτων και
Matt. 20:7 UBS2 undocumented και ο εαν η δικαιον ληψεσθε
Matt. 20:16 UBS2 undocumented πολλοι γαρ εισιν κλητοι ολιγοι δε εκλεκτοι
Matt. 20:22 UBS2 undocumented το βαπτισμα ο εγω βαπτιζομαι βαπτισθηναι...
και το βαπτισμα ο εγω βαπτιζομαι βαπτισθησεσθε
Mark 11:8 UBS2 undocumented KΑI ΕΣTΡΩNNΥON ΕIΣ THN OΔON
Mark 12:33 UBS2 undocumented KΑI ΕΞ OΛHΣ THΣ ΨΥXH
Luke 4:5 UBS2 undocumented O ΔIΑΒOΛOΣ ΕIΣ OΡOΣ ΥΨHΛON
Luke 17:9 UBS2 undocumented (αυτω)
Luke 19:45 UBS2 undocumented εν αυτω και αγοραζοντας
Luke 22:68 MV undocumented μοι η απολυσητε
John 5:16 UBS2 undocumented και  εζητουν αυτον αποκτειναι
John 6:11 UBS2 undocumented τοις μαθηταις οι δε μαθηται
John 8:59-9:2 MV undocumented και διελθων δια μεσου αυτων [επορευετο] και παρηγεν ουτως
John 11:41 UBS2 undocumented ου ην  ο τεθνηκως  κειμενος
John 17:12 UBS2 undocumented εν τω κοσμω

BY THE WAY, ALL OF THE ABOVE EXAMPLES ARE KNOWN PROBABLE HOMOEOTELEUTON ERRORS.
Instead of guessing how 'unlikely' it might be for scholars to be wrong, dishonest, or have a hidden agenda, open a copy of the UBS text, and see if they deleted the half-verses or not.
Check the apparatus, and see if they documented the alterations or not.
Check for yourself, and answer the question for yourself.

These aren't just Majority Text and Byzantine text-type readings.
They are readings that have been in the NT text in both Greek and Latin for 1000 years. ( - that is, the texts used by the vast majority of Christians everywhere in the Roman Empire).

Its not that critics altered the verses: its that they altered the verses without telling the reader.
What is your definition of honest?

New Stories of Byzantine 'Recensions' from Bible.Org

An anonymous poster (identified as "Admin", i.e., 'administrator') who authoritatively answers questions at Bible.Org has begun propounding a whole new set of theories about the Byzantine Text.  In answer to a recent question about the problematic existence of thousands of discrepancies between the 'Alexandrian' manuscripts (Aleph, B,  C etc.).   Those who push the modern critical text, reconstructed mainly from Aleph/B are of course constrained to explain them.

The latest fantasy story from these parties is that there were two more definitive 'recensions' of the Byzantine text, one in the 9th and one in the 11th century!  To quote our anonymous 'expert':

"... Ironically, it is the Byzantine witnesses that, as time goes on, agree more and more. Two great periods of close agreement show strong evidence of a recension, one in the ninth century and one in the eleventh. By the time we get to the fifteenth century, the manuscripts are 98% in agreement with the printed Majority Text. The most likely explanation of this is that there was collusion—an intentional recension. It is in fact the only explanation that is based on evidence (Timothy Ralston’s doctoral dissertation at Dallas Seminary demonstrated this rather ably)." 

What evidence are we talking about?  Apparently "Timothy Ralston's doctoral dissertation", whatever that is.

Who is this anonymous 'expert'?

Well, elsewhere in the same post,  he says something else quite remarkable:

"when Aleph and B agree, their combined testimony must go back quite far. Westcott and Hort estimated that their agreement went back ten generations and must be located near the beginning of the second century."

Again in another 'expert answer':

"I would concur with Westcott and Hort that the common ancestor between these two MSS must be at least ten generations back. I hope this point is clear."

 Since Daniel Wallace personally responds to many of these inquiries with authored articles, we strongly suspect that "Admin" is simply Wallace incognito. 


Wallace himself doesn't apparently attach his name to such exact figures, for a good reason.  When his moniker is on the line, we find a much more subdued text, as in the recent book co-authored by Wallace,

"Many scholars believe that since both manuscripts belong to the same text-type yet have so many differences, their common ancestor must have been copied several generations before. ... Aleph and B are distant cousins from long after their common ancestor, which itself must go back several generations. Indeed, when they agree, their common reading usually is from the early 2nd century." (Wallace, Komoszewski, Sawyer, Reinventing Jesus (Kregel, 2006) p. 78.

Now to get to the early 2nd century, we only need an unspecified  "several generations". 

This kind of grandstanding is however extremely suspect.  TEN generations implies that someone has actually found evidence for TEN generations.  That is, they have found at least TEN identifiable layers among the differences collated between Aleph and B.  Of course if this were actually true, not only would it be published, but it would be front page textual-critical news.

The obvious elephant in the room is that this work has never been done, nobody has discovered "ten layers" or any other number of layers, in the conjectured and reconstructed line of ancestors between Aleph/B and their ancient common archetype.

Its another case of anonymous propaganda mascarading as  scientific and historical "fact". 

What about the "strong evidence of recension" claimed in the first post?  Don't hold your breath waiting for a demonstration of such an important, but so far unsubstantiated claim by the Hortian puppet-masters.

peace
Nazaroo

Ben Witherington on TC

Ben Witherington graciously put himself on the record in a video interview with Simon Smart (about 4 months ago) here: Witherington Interview.

Starting on minute 4, Ben begins to give us a sketch of his TC position:

"I agree with professor Metzger, when he says, that 'only about 2 to 5% of the textual variants are of any theological or ethical significance at all;' and, he goes on to say, 'and there are no major doctrines that are in any way compromised by these textual variants', - because, there are other texts where there is no doubt about what was the original text, or a very high degree of certainty about the original text where you find the same theological or ethical idea, - so no."

Dr. Witherington is obviously a Metzgerite, but is he a Hortian? Apparently so. He gives a description of textual criticism, which, however brief, plainly takes the standard Hortian view:

[5:55] "Well there's a whole scientific process of critical sifting that you go through to decide what the original reading is, I mean, we have a whole series of rules that we follow when you do textual criticism;

One of them which would be 'Our earliest witnesses, are likely to be our best witnesses:' the closer to the source, the more likely its going to be accurate.

Another rule would be, 'A multiply attested witness', a witness that we find in an Alexandrian text, and in the B manuscript [Vaticanus], and even in the Western text over here, in other words, geographical spread in where these manuscripts were copied: When we find the same reading in a variety of places, its more likely to be original than a 'one off' reading that came from Syria, okay?

[6:48] Or another good example would be, 'the reading that best explains the other readings' is more likely to be original because what you try to do is, you create a sort of stemma or tree, to get back to the root, and the root is going to be the one from which all these other readings could have come, - these other readings couldn't all be the root, you see, so that's another way of looking at it;

[7:14] And lastly, we have the rule of 'the more difficult reading is likely to be original', I'll give you a good example; In the vast majority of our manuscripts of Mark [Mk. 10:18] at this particular juncture, a young man comes to Jesus and says "Good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?" and Jesus just about bites his head off: - in our best text it reads "Why do you call me good? Nobody's good but God alone!" Wow! he he, you know now thats a difficult text, thats a hard reading; is Jesus denying that he's good? Is Jesus denying that he's God? The more difficult reading is likely to be original. Why? Because we know that devout pious Christian scribes were likely to wittle off the hard edges of the text.
[8:00] Some texts read: "Why do you ask me about the 'good'?" - not 'why do you call me good?', - 'why do you ask me the philosophical question about 'the good'?' Well that is definitely an ameliorating reading. Its this like "whew, we're glad Jesus wasn't denying He was good." So the scribe is sort of wiping his brow and saying 'okay I saved Jesus that faux paus.' Well yes, you do have some of that, its true that scribes were very concerned about a clear picture, uh, an orthodox picture of Jesus, and so there is some editing, ameliorating tendencies.

[8:40] That's why, um, to me one of the most exciting things I can tell you about NT studies in the past 150 years, is that we are closer now today to the original text of the Greek NT than at any time in human history since about the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.
[8:56] We now have over 5,000 whole or partial MSS of the GNT, we even have some bits of MSS from the 2nd century papyri, we are getting closer and closer to the original text. And the value textual study, textual criticism, is we are reconstructing the original text and we are becoming more and more certain about what it actually said so more and more of the variant textual readings are falling by the wayside, and uh, you know and probably not in my lifetime, but perhaps in the 21st century, we may well have a condition where we've got 99% of the original text of the Greek NT established with a high degree of certainty. Well that's exciting, you know, we're getting there but its a work in progress. "

Well, Witherington is wise enough to carefully skirt quoting the infamous canon: "prefer the shorter reading". He is well aware that this 'Canon' has been all but abandoned quietly by contemporary textual critics. See for instance Royse, here: Royse on Shorter Readings

But he has no qualms riffling off another four dubious 'canons' of NT Textual criticism, and claiming "scientific" status for the current state of the art.

- It is as if these four 'canons' simply and easily solved the majority of Variation Units, and there was no doubt or challenge to the textual emendations of the last 150 years by Unitarian and Rationalist critics.

But his handling of his four 'Canons' is itself suspect:

(1) Oldest reading: Of course the logic seems undeniable: purity increases as we get "closer to the source". But first, Witherington knows that the age of a manuscript does not coincide with the age of the text it contains, and these are often quite different. Manuscript Age is not a reliable indicator of the text. Second, there is a difference between physical distance in time and copy-generational difference. A manuscript could be 5th or 6th century (as with many Old Latin copies) but might only be a few copies away from their 2nd century source. Third,even the oldest manuscripts may be many generations away from the original text, while later copies might in fact be much closer. Codex Bezae (5th cent.) is an example, where many critics have assessed it to contain a very early (2nd cent. Western) text.

(2) Multiple Attestation: Witherington equates this to geographical spread. But the justification is weak. Copies traveled throughout the Roman Empire via traveling preachers like St. Paul and Luke. In his example, he only uses it to dismiss Syrian readings, even though the Old Syriac reaches into the 2nd century, and its a whole Version with multiple MS and Patristic support, not just a single manuscript. Why not use the same principle and argument to dismiss the peculiar readings of Aleph/B, and embrace the widely supported Traditional (Byzantine) text?

(3) The Reading that explains the others: This is in reality little more than a pipe-dream, part of the wish-list of textual critics. Most Variation Units simply don't cooperate by presenting features that account for variant readings. This would only work for accidental readings anyway, but many edits, as Witherington concedes, are deliberate. His quote of Metzger's "2-5%" is ridiculously unrealistic, and the real percentage is probably more in the 40-50% range for accidental/deliberate.

(4) The more 'difficult' reading: When originally proposed, Bengel, Griesbach etc. intended this to apply to theologically difficult, in the context of later controversies and scribal concerns. It cannot apply to accidental errors, which according to Witherington amount to some 95-97% of variants!!! What a useless rule, that can only deal with 2-5% of variants...

The rosey picture Witherington paints of "readings falling by the wayside" is in fact just a falsification of the true deplorable state of affairs.

In fact, what has been happening, is that publishers of modern critical Greek texts have been dumbing down the apparatus, and omitting hundreds of important variations, while secretly embracing the Westcott/Hort text. Its now a game of 'hide and seek', with textual critics pretending to have established the text, while covering their Hortian tracks. Textual critics have taken a cue from ethically immoral corporations, building layers of disinformation and isolation to push the consumer further and further away from discovery of the true quality of the product and their unethical standards.

His position is clear from his statement about being,
"closer...to the original text...than at any time...since about the 2nd or 3rd century"
- that is, Dr. Witherington is 90%+ Hortian, and believes the current crop of critical texts, all standing in about 90% agreement with Hort's text (against the Traditional, Byzantine, and/or TR) and based on the Aleph/B and Alexandrian papyri, are closest to the original text.