Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:02 am
Hiya David. Thanks for your query. Have you had a chance yet to read the three articles pertaining to this thread? You should find your query answered in Parts 2a and 2b. (I'm afraid current time constraints oblige me to limit my BB input to queries arising from my articles.)
Zach, thank you for your postings. They are a help to me.
You rightly say that "Both family A & B are detested by those on the far right and left." My question remains though. If, as you say, "The disputes are [merely] over things like spellings, city names, etc." then why on earth do some people on *both* sides of the debate detest the other side's text-type so strongly?
Of Westcott and Hort, I notice you have not withdrawn your claim that "Their knowledge on an intellectual level was acknowledged and respected by many scholars on both sides. But that is as far as it goes with the majority of most scholars of modern translations (by modern I mean those produced after Westcott & Hort)."
Here are some quotes on the matter from "mainstream" scholars in the camp to which you refer:
Frederick Kenyon: "Westcott and Hort's theory was epoch-making in the fullest sense of the term. In spite of certain criticisms and modifications, which appear to be well founded ... this theory holds the field among scholars today" [Textual Criticism of the New Testament, p. 308, emphasis mine]
Bart Ehrman: "Apart from a handful of passages, principally in Luke ..., our current printed editions (i.e., the UBSGNT4 and NA26) differ little from Westcott and Hort's of 1881" [New Testament Textual Criticism, Exegesis, and Church History, edited by B. Aland and F Delobel, 1994, p. 122, f. 16, emphasis mine]
Bruce Metzger: "[T]hough the discovery of additional manuscripts has required the realignment of certain groups of witnesses, the general validity of their [W&H's] critical principles and procedures is widely acknowledged by textual scholars today" [The Text of the New Testament, 1964, p. 137, all three quotes are taken from D.W. Cloud, The Bible version Question/Answer Database]
I can produce more of the same if you need me to. I'm afraid I also can't allow the following claim of yours to go unchallenged:
The fact is that the differences between the TR and the critical Greek are *not* minor, as I demonstrated at some length in Part 2b. In love, I do urge Zach to make sure of his ground if he's gonna post further comments on this thread before reading that article
Zach, thank you for your postings. They are a help to me.
You rightly say that "Both family A & B are detested by those on the far right and left." My question remains though. If, as you say, "The disputes are [merely] over things like spellings, city names, etc." then why on earth do some people on *both* sides of the debate detest the other side's text-type so strongly?
Of Westcott and Hort, I notice you have not withdrawn your claim that "Their knowledge on an intellectual level was acknowledged and respected by many scholars on both sides. But that is as far as it goes with the majority of most scholars of modern translations (by modern I mean those produced after Westcott & Hort)."
Here are some quotes on the matter from "mainstream" scholars in the camp to which you refer:
Frederick Kenyon: "Westcott and Hort's theory was epoch-making in the fullest sense of the term. In spite of certain criticisms and modifications, which appear to be well founded ... this theory holds the field among scholars today" [Textual Criticism of the New Testament, p. 308, emphasis mine]
Bart Ehrman: "Apart from a handful of passages, principally in Luke ..., our current printed editions (i.e., the UBSGNT4 and NA26) differ little from Westcott and Hort's of 1881" [New Testament Textual Criticism, Exegesis, and Church History, edited by B. Aland and F Delobel, 1994, p. 122, f. 16, emphasis mine]
Bruce Metzger: "[T]hough the discovery of additional manuscripts has required the realignment of certain groups of witnesses, the general validity of their [W&H's] critical principles and procedures is widely acknowledged by textual scholars today" [The Text of the New Testament, 1964, p. 137, all three quotes are taken from D.W. Cloud, The Bible version Question/Answer Database]
I can produce more of the same if you need me to. I'm afraid I also can't allow the following claim of yours to go unchallenged:
That's simply not the case with regard to Burgon. One can certainly find more extreme views than his. For instance, he wrote, "Once for all, we request it may be clearly understood that we do not, by any means, claim perfection for the Received Text. We entertain no extravagant notions on this subject. Again and again we shall have occasion to point out (eg. at pg. 107) that the Textus Receptus needs correction." [The Revision Revised, p. 21, note 3; italics his]. Until I have published the remaining articles in my series, I'm reserving my own opinion of Burgon's position here. I simply quote it to show that Zach may need to do a bit more homework"These scholars [Burgon and Hort] are on the extreme far right and left. You can't get any more extreme in their views regarding this topic."
The fact is that the differences between the TR and the critical Greek are *not* minor, as I demonstrated at some length in Part 2b. In love, I do urge Zach to make sure of his ground if he's gonna post further comments on this thread before reading that article