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 | | From: | admin | | Subject: | THE HORTIAN-ECLECTIC THEORY REFUTED #2 | | Date: | Thu, 18 Nov 2004 05:33:25 GMT |
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 | following is a continuing post from the Book "Which Version is the
Bible" by Floyd Nolen Jones. Chapter 7, pages 83-112
Which Version is the Bible?
Copyright 1995 · Floyd Jones Ministries, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. This book may be freely reproduced in any form as long
as it is not distributed for any material gain or profit
THE TEXT TYPE "FAMILIES" ARE ARTIFICIAL FABRICATIONS
Many modern scholars now admit that text type "families" are "artificial"
inventions and do not actually represent "science". Merrill M. Parvis
acknowledges:
"We have reconstructed text-types and families and sub-families and in so
doing have created things that never before existed on earth or in heaven.
...... when we have found that a particular manuscript would not fit into any
of our nicely constructed schemes, we have thrown up our hands and said that
it contained a mixed text."
Colwell asserts:
"The major mistake is made in thinking of the 'old text-types' as frozen
blocks, even after admitting that no one manuscript is a perfect witness to
any text-type. If no one MS is a perfect witness to any type, then all
witnesses are mixed in ancestry (or individually corrupted, and thus parents
of mixture)."
A.F.J. Klijn, after doubting "whether any grouping of manuscripts gives
satisfactory results", continued:
"It is still customary to divide manuscripts into the four well known
families: the Alexandrian, the Caesarean, the Western and the Byzantine.
This classical division can no longer be maintained. ... If any progress is
to be expected in textual criticism we have to get rid of the division into
local texts."
Hence, neither "Syrian", "Alexandrian", "Neutral" nor the "Western"
testimony as an entity actually exists. These so-called families are merely
the synthetic, artificial products of Westcott's and Hort's imaginations
which were fabricated in order to utilize the genealogical method - which
allowed them to lump 80-95% of all individual witnesses as one voice. The
reality is that there is only the testimony of individual manuscripts,
"Fathers", and versions - not the voice of four families.
Thus the Byzantine or Syrian is not merely one witness. In any given verse
it represents the voice of hundreds or even several thousand testimonies as
to the true text. Furthermore, the evidence is that only few of the
Byzantine mss have been copied from any of the remainder. They differ
amongst themselves in many unimportant particulars. In other words, all read
so nearly alike that one can tell they are copies from the same text; yet
the number of unimportant differences proves they were not copied from one
another. Modern scholars acknowledge the truth of this.
In other words, the Byzantine mss are all orphans, and as such are
independent witnesses. By "orphans" we mean that, as with the Old Testament,
the originals and old copies were burned or buried and thus committed to the
earth for decay (as with a body) after they were copied. That is why we do
not have any originals today. As they have neither brothers, sisters nor
surviving parents, the term "orphan" is therefore applicable to the extant
mss. As orphans, they are independent witnesses to the true text of the New
Testament.
In addition, papyri with very distinctive readings existed side by side in
the same "ecclesiastical" province. This further argues that no text types
existed as proposed by the W-H Theory. So, as genealogy has not and cannot
be applied to the problem, it would seem the individual witnesses must be
counted after all. We agree with Westcott and Hort that they should also be
weighed and this matter will be discussed presently.
Much is made over the fact that Erasmus used "late manuscripts", but this
fails to recognize that all of our Old Testament manuscripts are "late". The
oldest are dated around 900 A.D., and yet conservative Bible believers do
not question their authenticity or that the text contained therein is not
God breathed. Then why not trust the late mss of the New Testament which
Erasmus used? It does not matter that they were late. The real issue is,
were they actual copies of the original autographs or copies of copies of
the originals (called "apographa").
Regarding conflation - as Dean Burgon adeptly pointed out - why, if the
Traditional Text were created by 4th-century Antiochian editors whose
regular practice had been to conflate (combine) Western and Alexandrian
readings, could Westcott and Hort after nearly thirty years of searching
throughout the Gospels find only eight supposed instances to offer as proof
of their thesis? Why could they find only eight verses out of nearly eight
thousand? Only a few more have been offered since by their followers.
Wilhelm Bousset, a noted liberal German critic, agreed with Westcott and
Hort on only one of the eight. He totally disagreed with them on five and
was not sure about the other two. This German critic's final conclusion was
that Westcott and Hort's principal proof, the eight examples, turned out to
be the irrefutable proof that what they proposed was not correct. Like
Burgon, Bousset astutely pointed out that if conflation had been the
customary practice of the early church, Westcott and Hort should have found
hundreds of examples to bolster and confirm their conflate theory. Besides -
as Pickering asked in 1977 - if the "Syrian" text is the result of
conflating (combining) Western and Alexandrian readings, where did the
material come from which is only found in the Syrian readings?
Indeed, the fact is that inversions do exist. Furthermore, of the few
passages which they offered, Mark 8:26, Luke 11:54 and Luke 12:18 are not
conflate readings of a Neutral and Western tradition, and it is doubtful
that Mark 6:33 and Luke 9:10 are. Moreover, it is just as reasonable that
the truth is the reverse of their explanation - namely, that the longer
Syrian is the original text and that the shorter readings resulted from
omissions made in copying that original.
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