Bibliolatry, Idolatry

Daniel,
This is typically where I would jump in and ask "How do you know Christ lives inside of you?" or something to that effect because your position begs that question. Thus far, when this question has been answered, it has been answered in a circular logic type fashion. Do you not think this is one of the weaknesses of your view? (I ask this to give Gina an example of circular arguments)


[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: TomVols ]

 

I have no problem saying that I know Christ lives in me because I have experienced Christ living in me - and do experience him living in me. Having said that, I concede that I would most likely not know that Christ could live in me were it not for the witness of Scripture. I'm sure many of you think I hate the Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love Scripture. It guides me; it humbles me; it comforts me; it corrects me. But it does not save me. It is not my lord. I am not under its authority. I am under the authority of Christ.

Daniel Payne

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: paynedaniel ]

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dr. Bob Griffin:
I simply asked why we are to assume that the TR is correct and others are not.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>The Byzantine textform, which the TR is one example, is superior to the Alexandrian textform due to the following textual critical reasons:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Numerical superiority (by a ratio of about 10 to 1).<LI>Contextual superiority (the Byzantine textform displays a consistancy far above the Alexandrian textform).<LI>Historical superiority (the Byzantine textform has been historically accepted by the Lord's church all down through the ages of ecclesiastical history).<LI>Qualitative superiorty (the quality of the Byzantine textform is superior to the quality of the Alexandrian textform)<LI>Superior cross textual affinities (there are more Byzantine readings in Alexandrian MSS than vice versa).[/list]Even the most of the proponents of the Alexandrian textform admit the above. Anyone who has actually studied the MSS (not the printed texts based on the MSS, but the MSS themselves) can attest to these facts.

 

Daniel,

I don't think you hate Scripture, I just think you have an incorrect view of its inspiration and authority.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I have no problem saying that I know Christ lives in me because I have experienced Christ living in me - and do experience him living in me. Having said that, I concede that I would most likely not know that Christ could live in me were it not for the witness of Scripture. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But you have argued before that not all Scripture can be trusted. If that's the case, how can you trust the Scripture's witness to Christ?
You also seem to argue that the authority of Christ is different (almost adverserial to) the authority of Scripture. Why?

 

The witness to Christ from scripture is verified in the personal relationship a believer has with Christ.

Daniel

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by paynedaniel:
The witness to Christ from scripture is verified in the personal relationship a believer has with Christ.

Daniel<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is a circular argument.

 

Thomas wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Qualitative superiorty (the quality of the Byzantine textform is superior to the quality of the Alexandrian textform)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Care to elaborate?

 

If by circular argument, you mean something that cannot be verified scientifically, then yes, it is a circular argument. The experience of Christ is central to being Christian, and I cannot help if it is circular to say so.

Daniel

 

By circular reasoning, I mean you are validating your personal experience with Christ apart from Scripture based on your personal experience with Christ.

 

Ok. I suppose we're at an impasse, then. It's not the first time

Daniel

 

Thomas:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Numerical superiority (by a ratio of about 10 to 1).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As I have said before, so what? All this proves is that at some point in time the Byzantine text became the majority. The evidence shows that it was not in
the majority until the ninth century--and never in the majority for all
witnesses to the Greek New Testament (including versions). Furthermore, the
exact form that is found in the Hodges-Farstad or Robinson-Pierpont texts
did not become the majority until the 15th century--as demonstrated by the arguments of
Timothy J. Ralston's doctoral dissertation at Dallas Seminary (1994).

Thomas:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Contextual superiority (the Byzantine textform displays a consistancy far above the Alexandrian textform).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The last time you brought this one up, I had someone I know ask Dan Wallace personally about this, and here was his reaction to your argument, "I am amazed that majority text advocates still use this argument. It is, indeed, the very argument that Hort himself used--to show that the agreement of Aleph and B must go back several generations, because they disagreed so often! Further, how is it possible to argue on the one hand that there is uniformity in the Byzantine text and a lack of such in the
Alexandrian, yet on the other hand to argue that the Byzantine text was not the product of a recension but the Alexandrian text was? There seem to be significant internal contradictions within MT thinking on these issues. Also, why is the agreement of P75 with B not mentioned? The important
studies by C. L. Porter and G. D. Fee on this agreement show two things:
(1) these two MSS agree with each other virtually as much as any two witnesses to the text; (2) yet B was not a copy of P75 or any of its descendants. B, in fact, has more primitive readings than P75 in several
places. Since that is the case, then the agreement of P75 and B must go
back prior to the date of P75. And this shows that the recensional theory
for the Alexandrian text won't hold water."

Thomas:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Historical superiority (the Byzantine textform has been historically accepted by the Lord's church all down through the ages of ecclesiastical history).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This cannot be proven. For instance, If I was a beliver in Alexandria, Egypt in 400 A.D. what text-form would by NT Bible have been? It would not have been the Byzantine! There is also the vast array of Western mss. which are other than Byzantine that were used historically, along with Alexandrian mss. like 1739 which are dated during the Byzantine era. Don't forget about the versions which follow an Alexandrian text-form which were used down through church history. Furthermore, even if your proposal was true, just because fallible humans believe something does not make it true. There have been many things that the church has believed and done throughout the ages that have proven to be incorrect. If some scribe in 1000 A.D. made a copying error, and then thousands of copies of that error were made, and the church officially sanctioned that error, it does not make the error genuine!

Thomas:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Qualitative superiorty (the quality of the Byzantine textform is superior to the quality of the Alexandrian textform)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is simply a statement of your bias. The consensus of Evangelical scholarship has concluded the Byzantine textform to be late, more conflated, and so numerous due to the stable conditions in Byzantium for 1000 years that allowed so many of these manuscripts to survive.

Thomas:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Superior cross textual affinities (there are more Byzantine readings in Alexandrian MSS than vice versa).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This statement has nothing to do with textual criticism. The task is to reconstruct the original, not to see how many readings from one textform can be found in another textform. Textual criticism looks at disputed readings, one reading at a time, and builds a case based on evidence against all but one reading--the one most likely the original, the one that best explains the existence of the other readings.

We already hashed all this out on the thread started by Dr. Bob,
Is the Byzantine Text form Inferior?

Best wishes,

Chick

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TomVols:
Care to elaborate?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Sure. The quality of the Byzantine MSS is superior to the quality of the Alexandrian MSS. The Alexandrian MSS, generally speaking (there are always exceptions) tend to be less "clean" than the Byzantine. That is to say there are fewer corrections, strike-outs, over-writes, and orthographal differences in the Byzantine textform as a whole than the Alexandrian. Look at a facsimile of B for a good example of such.

 

Thomas,
Ah, now I see what you mean by quality. Not that I agree with your conclusion, mind you, but I at least see your post more clearly

 

Here are links to facsimile copies of sample pages from some of the major manuscripts. Sometimes the age and heavy usage of a manuscript may account for a larger amount of writing on a manuscript. Look at anyone today who has used the same Bible for 20 years. It is usually very marked up. Many of the marks on early uncials like Sinaiticus and Vaticanus can be attributed to later editors who tried to introduce errors into it. This doesn't take away from the accuracy of the original document. Luke 9:23 and Sinaiticus is a good example of this. But Thomas has rightly suggested that the issue of later markings on manuscripts does not suggest that the number of markings are consistent along textforms. There are a good number of sloppy miniscules. I have seen a facsimile copy of Codex 2, the Byzantine manuscript used by Erasmus for his first printed edition. It looked much more sloppy than Vaticanus. Erasmus himself was responsible for much of the scribbling. On a whole, I am not sure that the amount of editing done on manuscripts says a whole lot about the text type as a whole. This is because the text type is based on patterns of variation, not necessarily how many times a manuscript has been edited.

Vaticanus (Alexandrian)

Vaticanus

Sanaiticus (Alexandrian)

Sanaiticus
Sanaiticus

Alexandrinus (Byzantine in gospels, the rest is Alexandrian)

Alexandrinus

Bezae (D) (Western textform)

Bezae

W (032) (part of Luke and all of John Alexandrian, the rest is Byzantine except Mark 1:-5:30, which is Western)

W (032)

Here is a papyrus fragment of the Lord's Prayer:

Matthew 6:9-13

P75 (Alexandrian, 175-225 A.D.)

P75

P66 (200 A.D.)

P66

Codex 666 (12th or 13th century)

Codex 666

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: Chick Daniels ]

 

Excellent point Dr. Bob. As a result of studying this type of evidence and this subject, we should be driven to praise God for His Word. To me, that is the ultimate goal of faithful Biblical scholarship.