Featured Does the Greek Text Matter?

Wrong. For example, see Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament, by Ernest Colwell, where he examines p45: "As an editor the scribe of p45 wielded a sharp axe. The most striking aspect of his style is its conciseness. The dispensable word is dispensed with. He omits adverbs, adjectives, nouns, participles, verbs, personal pronouns--without any compensating habit of addition. He frequently omits phrases and clauses. He prefers the simple to the compound word. In short, he favors brevity. He shortens the text in at least fifty places in singular readings alone" (pp. 118-119, emphasis in the original).

See also Dr. Maurice Robinson's PhD dissertation, "Scribal Habits Among Manuscripts of the Apocalypse." The abstract states, "Early Egyptian scribes (MSS aleph, A, C) plus a very few Byzantine-era scribes were extremely careless and highly 'editorial'" (p. 2).

These are well known scholars who have actually examined the Alexandrian mss and found that they omit quite often, even when compared to other Alexandrian mss.

Prove it.

 

See the quotes I give from Colwell and Robinson.

 

It proves that earlier mss are not ergo better.

It was not opinion but original research and genuine scholarship at Southwestern BTS, hardly a Byz/Maj stronghold. He got the PhD on the basis of his original research.

Robinson was originally an eclectic, and Colwell is still an eclectic.--Unless he's dead, in which case he is now Byz.-pri. :smilewinkgrin:

 

Sorry. I ignore Van. :smilewinkgrin:

 

The TR position is usually that God has preserved His Word only in the TR of Scrivener.

My position is Byzantine-priority, which is that the Byzantine family of mss most closely reproduces the autographs. It is based on solid scholarship, and its main proponent is Dr. Maurice Robinson, research prof at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Robinson has had many articles published about the method in scholarly journals and books. The New Testament in the Original Greek (aka Byzantine Textform Greek NT) was edited by Dr. Robinson and William Pierpont, and is a very nice volume with a good format, easily readable typeface and two essays on Byz.-pri. You might consider it as an addition to your favored NA Greek NT.

The methodology is even different from that Zane Hodges and Arthur Farstad in their The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text. For example, Byz-pri. uses the genealogical method of Westcott and Hort while Hodges/Farstad does not.

 

I'm really not sure what double standard Rippon thinks I'm using. He didn't explain.

Concerning the debate at hand, the main difference between the eclectic method and Byzantine-priority is the eclectic canon (going back at least to Griesbach and from him to Westcott/Hort) is that the shorter reading is better. See for example A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.) by Metzger: "In general the shorter reading is to be preferred" (p. 13). He gives several caveats, but in practice the UBS/Nestles rarely gives the longer reading.

So it's not just a matter of opinion, it's a matter of a basic canon of textual criticism. If it can be proven that the scribes routinely dropped words or phrases, then the "shorter is best" canon drops by the wayside, and Byzantine-priority deserves a close look by eclectics. And I believe that Colwell and Robinson, among others, have both proven that scribes often omitted words and even phrases.

So, it is not simply a matter of "he said she said." It is a matter of ongoing scholarly research. Did you see my quote from Epp, an eclectic, in post #14? Here it is again: "“It is the shorter reading argument that has received the most vigorous reassessment in the past three decades or so.” (Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism, ed. by David Alan Black, 2002, p. 27)

 

First of all, Rippon gives no source. So how do you know he is right about p45?

Here is an actual living scholar (not Wikipedia) on p45: "The manuscript is dated by the editor in the first half of the third century. The type of New Testament text that it preserves in Mark is nearer to the Caesarean family than to either the Alexandrian or the Western test types. In the other Gospels...it is also intermediate between the Alexandrian and the Western. In Acts, it is decidedly nearer the Alexandrian and has none of the major variants characteristic of the Western text of this book, though it has some of the minor ones" (The Text of the New Testament, 4th ed., by Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman, p. 54).

Therefore, it is a very early mss which is Alexandrian in Acts, making it quite relevant to this discussion. The bearing of Colwell's comment is the "oldest is best" canon (rule) of eclectic textual criticism. In the case of p45 this is manifestly not true, which brings into question other mss where "oldest is best" is assumed.

I believe I've shown clearly what is at stake in the argument: the eclectic canon (rule) that "shorter is better." The opposite is not true. I do not say, "longer is better," because then we would end up with the Western text type, which almost no one advocates.

Just to repeat, Dr. Robinson's Byzantine-priority method is being taken seriously by textual critics. Note that he has an essay on it in Translating the New Testament, ed. by Stanley E. Porter and Mark Boda. No less than Barbara Aland was chosen to comment on Robinson's article, and she wrote, "First of all, I agree with Dr. Robinson that the Byzantine text is by far not as bad as former generations thought" (p. 93).

 

Of course it's more than "shorter is better." There are a number of other canons of eclectic textual criticism, depending on whose list you read. A number of the canons are agreed on by all textual critics. But the "shorter is better" canon is the one that makes the most difference, IMO, and one of the main ones where the Byz.-pri. method disagree with the eclectic method.

So does the Byzantine textform. :thumbs:

 

Ouch. Help, somebody.

 

Any good book on textual criticism will list this as one of the rules of the eclectic method. However, it is not generally known by the typical Internet denizen. Just sayin'. :smilewinkgrin:

J. Harold Greenlee has it on p. 114 of his textbook, Introduction to New Testament Textual Textual Criticism. Bruce Metzger has it on p. 13 of his textual commentary 2nd ed. (mentioned above). I could give other examples.

 

You did note that it is Alexandrian in Acts, right? So it has definite bearing on the discussion of Alexandrian vs. Byzantine. Here is an Alexandrian text of Acts with many sloppy errors. So to say it again, the oldest text is not ergo automatically the best one.

 

James White is not a textual critic by training or practice. He wrote a book on the KJV-only position, period.

Kenyon is way out of date, since even the revision (which I have) is from 1939. No modern scholar that I know of presents p45 as strictly Caesarean. If fact, some nowadays deny the existence of a Caesarean text type.