Hi there Zach. Thanks for your latest - patently heartfelt - messages. Below I have attempted to answer every significant point you made in your two main postings. If I have missed any issues, don’t hesitate (I’m sure you won’t
) to let me know.
*MANY* IMPORTANT ERRORS?
You begin by saying, “Hort did
not believe that the Byzantine … texts contained many errors that were ‘of great importance’”. Firstly, would it be possible for you to point out to me where I have ever claimed that Hort
did believe there are
many errors “of
great importance” in family A? Next, surely Part 2b in my series showed that a text does not need *lots* of important errors for it to be a dangerous text?
You then argue that “[Hort] only believed that the differences were ‘minor’”, yet you go on to quote Hort himself admitting that
not all the differences were unimportant and that there is indeed some “substantial variation” among the thousands of readings that differ between the two “text-types”.
Incidentally, you appear to be very trusting of Hort over this whole question. This seems odd for two reasons…
(1) Hort’s own figures do not stack up. He claimed that only a
thousandth of the NT involves differences that “can in
any sense be called substantial variation”. The NT contains about 140,000 words - the exact figure depending on which Greek text one supports. One thousandth of that amount is 140 words, yet
(a) just the sum of the examples in
Part 2b in my series proves this figure to be unjustified,
(b) the two lengthy passages Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 are not present in either of Hort’s favourite MSS. They alone involve 24 entire verses between them - and thus involve a very large number of words,
(c) you yourself quote Kenyon giving a figure of 1447 (i.e. one quarter of 5788) readings where the differences “notably … modify the subject matter” (note that this is 1447
readings, not just 1447
words). This is very different from Hort’s figure!
(2) The question of what does or does not constitute a “substantial variation” in God’s Word is patently a *spiritual* matter and therefore requires a Christian perspective, yet you have claimed in this very thread that Hort didn’t even believe in God, so it is unclear to me why you keep relying on him over this issue.
HORT’S VIEW OF THE BYZANTINE TEXT (aka FAMILY A)
You insist that my simplification regarding Hort’s “vile” reference “further shows the misleading nature” of my article. The first point to make is this: Hort may not have specifically called the family A text-type “vile”, but he certainly didn’t believe “the differences were ‘minor’” (as you word it) either. Even when he was trying to avoid being offensive about this text (undoubtedly so as keep the public from becoming suspicious of his deep opposition to the text in case they started looking into these matters in detail for themselves), he said that the family A text was “appreciably impoverished in sense and force” [
Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek, pp. 134-5, emphasis mine]. He also said of this text that "interpolations ... are
abundant ... [and]
capricious" in it [
Ibid, emphasis mine].
Did Hort believe the family A text-type to be vile? Well, his extreme zeal to wipe it completely off the map assurecdly indicates that he did. Furthermore, from his earliest days he believed the TR to be “vile” and “In Hort’s biography the writer found
no evidence that this animosity was
ever reconsidered” [Wilbur Pickering,
John William Burgon and the New Testament, Part II]. Since, as I keep pointing out (and as I demonstrate below), the TR is a very representative distillation of the text among members of Family A, it is only reasonable to infer that Hort did indeed believe family A to be vile.
RELEVANCE?
Far from showing the “misleading nature” of my article, your entire line of reasoning here actually has no relevance whatever to the arguments made in the rest of Part 2a. The issue, as I have explained before, is that there exists a wide gulf even today between the scholars on each side of the debate. (Certainly there exists a range of views *within* each of the two sides of this gulf, but this huge gulf in the middle remains.) This gulf can be traced back to Hort’s claim that family A (or the “Syrian” family as he disparagingly called it) was worthless...
Hort said that this text shows “
no marks of either critical
or spiritual insight” [
Ibid, emphasis mine]. He believed that NONE of the readings unique to that text-type should be regarded as being the true readings [see
The New Testament in the Original Greek, pp. 115-116]. Let me reiterate this so as to ensure we are both crystal clear. My article is
not founded on whether or not Hort believed family A to be vile. It is founded rather on the fact of the fundamental gulf in attitude towards family A that exists among scholars today and which derives from Hort’s belief that this family was absolutely valueless for the purposes of textual criticism.
(BTW If you are honestly claiming that Hort
wasn’t fundamentally opposed to family A then any scholars - on
either side of the gulf - reading this thread will just be laughing at you right now.).
OVER FIVE THOUSAND
You say I am again “deceiving” merely because I have tried to find a simple way of communicating the number of places where the text differs between the two families. Since no two MSS are identical, it is hard to decide on a representative figure. As the solution to this problem, I chose to give the number of differences between the two most famous (and most revered by their respective camps) representatives of these text-types. Why is this not a valid approach in such an article? What better option was open to me (apart from adding a clarifying note beyond the unambiguous one I already provide, that is)? Besides, in what way does this simplification of mine alter the outcome of Part 2a one jot?
TR VERSUS FAMILY A
You term as “very deceiving” my decision to relate a few select statements about the TR to family A as a whole. I will point out once again that the TR is extremely representative of the family A text-type. Even your Wikipedia article accepts that the TR is “Byzantine”. In his book
Revision Revised, Burgon described the family A text as “virtually
identical with the
Textus Receptus”. I have given you repeated opportunities to check if the TR is a fair example to use when needing to make general statements about the family A text-type. You have so far produced
no evidence that it is not. (Just because Burgon didn’t see the TR as *perfect* in no way implies he thought it unrepresentative of family A, as the preceding quote proves!)
As I have tried to point out before, a key reason why the TR is called the “received text” in the first place is because it agrees incredibly closely with the traditional text – i.e. the text-type present in the great bulk of extant MS evidence at the time the TR was being published, and the text -type generally received among God-fearing people at that time as the godly family. (In passing, I will also observe that the W&H Greek is similarly representative of the most revered members of family B. In other words, all my simplifications have been entirely fair.) Please can you tell me what you think the TR
is based on, if it is not actually rooted in the family A type of evidence (including ancient translations of family A MSS etc)?
TWO ASIDES ABOUT FAMILY A
BTW1: It was in a
private letter that Hort called the TR “vile” (and also “villainous”). Why was he more measured in his language (at least to the
public) subsequently? By far the most probable reason is that he wanted to avoid offending the populace who had been brought up on a translation based on family A and who would have been much more likely to question his profound opposition to that text-type if he had been too rude about it. He well knew that, if they looked into this whole matter closely enough, they would find plenty of reasons to reject his work
BTW2: You may be interested to learn that, as recently as 1989, the Alands claimed that the Family A manuscripts, are "
irrelevant for establishing the original text". They also said that family A's readings have caused "
corrosive effects" on what they call the "normal" text. Hort’s thorough opposition to family A has evidently had a corrosive effect on high-profile scholars since his day
DECEPTION OR SIMPLIFICATION?
In view of all the above, it is patently valid for my article to take the approach it has. If you disagree, please could you spell out why? What difference does my approach actually make to the logical progression of the article? I think the problem may lie with your interpretation of the purpose of the article. You write, “Your article if I understand you correctly is to show that there are two sets of texts … [and that] one is corrupt and the other isn't.” I’m afraid you have viewed the article the wrong way around. As I have stated previously, the purpose of the article is to explain
why the gulf exists between the two parties. The side-effects, or resultant finds, from that investigation are something you'll simply have to come to terms with. But even if I
had had other motives for writing the article, you have still not explained why the simplifications I have employed change the outcome of that article.
Please Note: I am horrified that you have called my articles “very deceiving”. They are not! But even if, regardless of all that I have written above, you are determined to believe I have employed deception, this
still doesn’t necessarily invalidate the key arguments used in the article (let alone its overall conclusions) - despite what you claim. If all deception used during an activity automatically invalidates that activity then you are going to have to rebuke a lot of God’s People when you get to heaven. The number of them who were
blessed by God for deceiving people for righteous reasons is legion. Among the many I could cite are Rahab, Jael, Joseph, the Hebrew midwives, David, Ehud, and Solomon. (I am assuming you have a reasonable working knowledge of God’s Word, but please don’t hesitate to shout if you need specific verses to prove my observation here.)
UPFRONT ENOUGH?
You suggest I have not been suitably upfront about my simplifications, yet you yourself have previously quoted the section in my article where I unambiguously state
(a) that some simplification has been necessary, and
(b) that “I sometimes relate comments made specifically about manuscript ‘B’ simply to family B, and likewise I sometimes relate comments about the
Textus Receptus (a Greek text derived from family A ...) to the whole of family A”. I suppose one could argue that this has not been upfront
enough, but since
(i) the simplifications are entirely reasonable and do not alter the outcome of the piece, and
(ii) inserting notes whenever I used a simplification would have made the document significantly more complicated than it already is, I still believe I was suitably upfront. (However, I have never claimed the document is perfect so I’ll happily revisit the text in this regard in order to help keep folks like yourself onboard in the future.)
TO SUM UP
In order to show my goodwill, I have decided to let a number of obvious and non-trivial errors in your latest posts go unmentioned at this stage. (If you’d like details just say the word.) But there are a couple of things I feel I
can’t ignore…
You quote Kenyon declaring that “No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading”. You appear to be ignoring the
whole of Part 2b when you do so!
Please can we stick to questions directly relevant to my articles as per the title of this thread? Not only does it help to make the thread intelligible to others, it also helps me to keep up
You remark that you are “not a scholar” and I presume you say this in order to explain your errors and to encourage me to be patient with you. However, I ought to point out with all due respect that if someone isn’t a scholar it is very important for them to be extra careful in the reasoning they offer. It is also crucial for such people to avoid making bold assertions until they’ve done the necessary homework.
Finally, please can I also ask you to fight the temptation to come to my articles with any preconceptions? Such will only make this thread even more painful than it already is for everyone concerned
Thanks muchas.