Page 85 - Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible Christianity. Based on the King James Bible

BIBLE VERSIONS

that is backed by no evidence but was devised We would also point out that the principles of
specifically to support the Alexandrian text. modern textual criticism are very complicated. They
Bengel developed this principle because he believed involve such things as conflation, recension, inversion,
orthodox Christian scribes tended to simply difficult eclecticism, conjectural emendation, intrinsic and
texts. Thus he believed that orthodox Christians transcriptional probability, interpolation, statistical
corrupted their own New Testament! This flies in the probability, harmonistic assimilation, cognate groups,
face of the love that Bible-believing Christians have for hypothesized intermediate archetypes, stemmatic
the Scriptures and their fear of tampering with God’s reconstruction, and genealogical methods. It is
Word (De. 4:2; Pr. 30:6; Is. 66:2; 2 Th. 2:17; Re. impossible to reconcile this scholarly complexity with
22:18-19). the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Co. 11:3) and with the
The Bible warns that it is the devil that corrupts the scriptural fact that God has chosen the weak of this
simplicity of God’s truth (2 Co. 11:3). world to confound the mighty (Mt. 11:25; 1 Co.
This theory ignores the fact that there were countless 1:20-29).
heretics tampering with manuscripts and creating Modern textual criticism has resulted in uncertainty in
spurious ones in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Wilbur the Biblical text.
Pickering observes, “In any case, the amply documented Whereas prior to the late 19th century the vast
fact that numerous people in the second century made majority of Bible-believing Christians were confident
deliberate changes in the text, whether for doctrinal or that the Masoretic Hebrew and the Greek Received texts
other reasons, introduces an unpredictable variable were the preserved Word of God, today there is no real
which invalidates this canon. Once a person arrogates to certainty where textual criticism has been accepted. The
himself the authority to alter the text there is nothing in Masoretic Hebrew has been challenged by the Dead Sea
principle to keep individual caprice from intruding or Scrolls, the Septuagint, and other sources, so that some
taking over--we have no way of knowing what factors twenty to thirty thousand textual changes have been
influenced the originator of a variant (whoever he was) suggested for the Old Testament. The Greek Received
or whether the result would appear to us to be ‘harder’ Text has been replaced with a constantly changing so-
or ‘easier.’ This canon is simply inapplicable” (Pickering, called “eclectic” text. Note the following statements by
The Identity of the New Testament Text, chapter 4). prominent textual critics of the last 100 years testifying
This theory ignores the fact that many Egyptian to the gross uncertainty produced by modern textual
manuscripts contain nonsensical readings created by the criticism. For more of these see Faith vs. the Modern
carelessness and ineptitude of the scribes. The papyri Bible Versions.
are notorious for this. A nonsensical reading would be “[The New Testament text is more unsettled] than ever,
the harder reading, but it is foolish to think that it is and PERHAPS FINALLY, UNSETTLED” (Rendel Harris,
correct. Side Lights on New Testament Research, 1908, p. 3).
We see that the principles of modern textual criticism “The ultimate text, if there ever was one that deserves
to be so called, IS FOR EVER IRRECOVERABLE” (F.C.
are strange and unscriptural. Conybeare, History of New Testament Criticism, 1910, p.
Note that the modern textual critic’s rules are loaded 129).
in favor of his theories. “In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort and of von
“You will not have to look at these ‘rules’ for long Soden, WE DO NOT KNOW THE ORIGINAL FORM OF
before realizing that they are ‘weighted’ in the THE GOSPELS, AND IT IS QUITE LIKELY THAT WE
direction of their own pre-determined preference for NEVER SHALL” (Kirsopp Lake, Family 13, The Ferrar
the Alexandrian Text. For example, if the Alexandrian Group, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
Text is shorter than the Traditional, then one firm rule 1941, p. vii).
is ‘The shorter reading is to be preferred.’ And, if “... it is generally recognized that THE ORIGINAL TEXT
ninety percent of the manuscripts support the OF THE BIBLE CANNOT BE RECOVERED” (R.M.
Traditional Text and the remaining ten percent must be Grant, “The Bible of Theophilus of Antioch,” Journal of
divided between the Alexandrian, Western and Biblical Literature, vol. 66, 1947, p. 173).
Caesarean texts, then of course, ‘numerical “...the optimism of the earlier editors has given way to
preponderance counts for nothing, the Traditional Text that SKEPTICISM WHICH INCLINES TOWARDS
is merely one of four competing text types.’ And, REGARDING ‘THE ORIGINAL TEXT’ AS AN
should it be pointed out that the Alexandrian Text is UNATTAINABLE MIRAGE” (G. Zuntz, The Text of the
less distinct doctrinally: then it is an established fact Epistles, 1953, p. 9).
that ‘there are no signs of deliberate falsification of the “The primary goal of New Testament textual study
text for doctrinal purposes during the early centuries.’ remains the recovery of what the New Testament
And on it goes!” (Jack Moorman, Early Manuscripts writers wrote. We have already suggested that TO
and the Authorized Version, A Closer Look, 1990, p. 6).

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