Chapter 6

The answer to this perplexing question can be found in Christ and the apostles' use of Scripture. Eighty percent of the Old Testament quotations found in the New Testament are from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) Old Testament translation (which is far from a word-to-word translation), not from the Hebrew text. These Septuagint quotations were treated as Scripture and were accepted as trustworthy. Today our translations stand in a similar place as the LXX did in the first century.

The New Testament was written in the common, ordinary language of its day so people could understand the gospel and thus believe in Christ. Paul said, "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? . . . So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:14, 17).[1] Preaching and hearing the gospel means the Bible must be in the hearer's language; there must be translations.

In summary, people must be able to understand Scripture, and to do so they must have it in their own language.

Of the many translations available, how can we know which one to use? There are some general facts to consider when choosing a version of the Bible.

Before giving further guidelines on translations, let us first review the history of the King James Version (KJV) and then review the Greek Bible texts. The KJV is based on a Greek text (Robert Stephanus's third edition published in 1550) known as the Received Text (the translation of the Latin term Textus Receptus [TR]). This text is a Byzantine type; that is, it represents a family of manuscripts that are mostly associated with the Constantinople area of modern Turkey. This text represents the majority of the existing Greek manuscripts. Its precise origin is unknown, but perhaps its source is the fifty Bibles Emperor Constantine ordered in a.d. 331. "Constantine also, committed to Eusebius, since he knew him to be most skillful in Biblical knowledge, the care and superintendence of transcribing copies of the Scriptures, which he wanted for the accommodation of the churches he had built at Constantinople.[2]

The Greek manuscript basis for the Textus Receptus (i.e. TR} is younger than the other text types. This does not necessarily mean the text itself is younger. The TR has some of the characteristics of what would be expected of New Testament writings: the text is smooth and complete, but not so smooth between the Gospels that it appears to have been harmonized. The TR generally has longer passages than the other text types in many places, but not always. Generally the TR is easier to read than some of the older manuscripts found in Egypt, where the dry climate and non-use helped to preserve them. The Greek text will be discussed later in more detail.

The KJV is the descendant of several earlier translations. John Wycliffe (1320-84), an Oxford scholar, was the first person to translate the Bible into English. Since he was unable to complete the translation before his death, others completed it. His translation is a literal rendering of the Latin Vulgate, which is largely an Alexandrian and Western text-type (these terms will be discussed later). The Wycliffe translation did not have much influence on later translations because of its Vulgate basis and Late Middle English dialect. His translation is rather poor, and today's reader would find it very difficult to read. For example, the story of the prodigal son reads: "A manne had twei sones; and the yonger of hem seide to the fadir, Fadir gyve me the porciound of cattle, that fallith to me. And he departide to hem the catel."

William Tyndale, coming at the start of a renewed interest in Greek, was the first to translate the Greek New Testament into English (1525). A Greek grammar was published in 1476 and a Greek lexicon in 1492. Greek language studies were also added to university curriculums. These tools and new studies in Greek made it possible for a Greek-based translation. Tyndale made a major contribution to the English Bible by his outstanding translation of the Greek into English idiom. His translation had a lasting influence on other English translations. His goal was to make it possible for the plowboy to know more of the Scriptures than the pope, and Tyndale went a long way in meeting this goal.

Miles Coverdale revised Tyndale's translation with the help of the German Bible in 1535. One contribution he made was to place the Apocrypha in a separate section. His translation was the first whole Bible to be printed in English. It was printed several times between 1535 and 1553.

Thomas Matthew (a pen name) combined Coverdale's and Tyndale's works together to form another translation in 1537. Coverdale then revised Matthew's Bible and printed the Great Bible in 1539, so named because of its great size, being 13 by 71/2 inches. It further removed the Apocrypha, calling it "holy writing." This Bible was the first "Authorized Version." King Henry VIII placed copies in every church and proclaimed that the clergy should read it in services and "expressly provoke, stir, and exhort every person to read the same."[3] This translation was widely accepted.

Because of the persecutions of Queen Mary in England, Bible translating moved to the continent of Europe. John Knox and a group of other English exiles produced a new revision of Tyndale's Bible in Geneva in 1560, which became known as the Geneva Bible. It contained lengthy marginal "annotation" with a strong "Calvinist" flavor. This Bible became the commonly accepted English translation in the late 1500s. It went through some 140 editions. It was the Bible of the Puritans and the common people until finally the KJV replaced it around 1640.

The Bishops' Bible (1568), named because the committee included several Anglican bishops, was a revision of the Great Bible. It was the second Authorized Version. This Bible omitted "bitter" marginal notes because of the belief that the Bible should not contain lengthy denominational commentary. It labeled genealogies and other "non-edifying" passages so the reader could jump over them. Since it was the "Bishop's Bible," it quickly replaced the Great Bible for use in churches and remained so until the KJV replaced it. It went through twenty editions between 1568 and 1606, yet it never became the Bible of the people.

At the close of the 16th century, there were two main English Bibles in use: the Geneva by the Puritans and common people, and the Bishops' in the churches. At the suggestion of Puritan John Reynolds, president of Corpus Christi College, King James I of England commissioned a new translation in 1604. This work was assigned to a committee of 54 translators from Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge universities, but only 47 did the work. This committee approach differed from the earlier works. Although this was to be a new translation, it was about 80 percent Tyndale's work (90 percent in the New Testament); thus it was the fifth revision of Tyndale's Bible. This new version officially was called the Authorized Version, but it was really the third one and is commonly known as the King James Version. Many consider the KJV as The Authorized Version, resulting in it being the "Bible" of most English-speaking Christians until recently, even though it was never "authorized" or a "version" (the title page states it was "Newly Translated out of the Originall Tongues"). It has served the church well through the years.

There has been a tendency in the church not to change versions once they are accepted; this was so with the KJV when it was first introduced. To help understand this, let us review the KJV's Reader's Introduction from the 1611 edition.

First, the Reader's Introduction recognizes "that whosoeuer attemptheth any thing for the publike (specially if it pertaine to Religion, and to the opening and clearing of the word of God) the same setteth himself vpon a stage to be glouted vpon euery euil eye, yea, he caseth himselfe headlong vpon pikes, to be gored by euery sharpe tongue. For he that medleth with mens Religion in any part, medleth with their custome, with their freehold; and though they finde no content in that which they haue, yet they cannot abide to hearde of altering." Some things have not changed; today some men cannot even think about updating the KJV's language again, as some couldn't think of bringing out a new Bible translation in 1611.

Secondly, the KJV translators knew it was still important to bring the best translation to the people in the church. "But how shall men meditate in that, which they cannot vnderstand? How shall they vnderstand that which is kept close in an vnknown tongue?" Later they wrote, "It is necessary to have translators in a readinesse. Translation it is that openth the window, to let in the light." They believed the Bible must be readable in the common language of the people so its light can enter their hearts.

Is the KJV still readable so the light can enter men's hearts? To those who have learned Elizabethan English and know the current English meaning of some of its obsolete and obscure words, it is readable. But to others--especially the young--its Elizabethan English prose puts a veil over God's Word that the KJV translators did not want in their day. They above all people certainly would stand up and object to their translation being used today.

The reader may not realize it, but the KJV used today is not the 1611 translation but one that has undergone extensive revisions. It was revised in 1629, 1638, 1653, 1701, and lastly the Cambridge edition was made by Dr. Paris of Trinity College in 1762 and the Oxford edition was made Dr. Blayney of Oxford in 1769. This 1769 revision is the King James we know today, and it has at least 75,000 changes from the 1611 edition. "The object of these private revisions was to restore the text of 1611, to modernize the spelling, to weed out references to passages not parallel and to introduce fresh ones, to make clear the allusions in Hebrew proper names by adding their English equivalents in the margin, to rectify the use of italics, and to reform punctuation."[4] The Greek text behind the translation remained unchanged. The English of the Reader's Introduction quoted earlier is not the familiar KJV English the reader may be familiar with, but it is from the 1611 edition.

Today the KJV is held in high honor. Why is it honored above other translations? The answer may be that many have such great respect and honor for God's Word and tie the KJV and the Word so closely together that they believe it is more trustworthy than all translations. It is a good translation for those who know Elizabethan English, but it may not be a good one for others. But does it put God's Word in the common language of the people? This was the goal of the King James translators, and it must be ours today. Trying to hold onto an English style of the past is not a virtue if it puts a veil over God's words.

Another reason the KJV is held in high honor is because it is based on the Greek text known as the Textus Receptus (a Latin term translated Received Text). All major translations since 1881, except the New King James Version, are based on the Alexandrian Greek text first published in 1881-82. This text is modified slightly by each group of translators. This change in the Greek text has created some variations between the King James and the newer translations. Some think this is changing the Word, which causes them to place higher honor on the KJV.

The term used to describe the effort to obtain the best Greek text, that is, the text closest to the original autograms, is "textual criticism." This is not necessary a good term to use since we often think of "criticism" as "finding fault." Since it is the term that is used in connection with the literary works, we ought try to understand its meaning. In connection with the Greek text, it means "the act of making judgment, analysis of qualities and evaluation of comparative worth, esp., the critical consideration and judgment of literary . . . work" (Webster's New World Dictionary). This effort is an important and worthwhile work, and we must be careful not to use it in a slanderous or misrepresentative way in relation to the Greek text.

Before we discuss the Greek text, let us consider the form in which the Greek New Testament has come down to us. There are over 5,300 Greek New Testament manuscripts, and they vary in length from a couple of verses to complete manuscripts. They may be classified according to the type of material they are written on. There are 25 ostraca, which are pieces of pottery inscribed with scriptural quotations; 274 "uncial" manuscripts written in capital letters, dating before the 10th century (some date as early as the 2d century); 2,795 minuscules written in a flowing cursive hand dating after the 10th century; and 2,209 lectionary manuscripts containing Scriptures for use in worship services.[5] Besides these Greek manuscripts, there are several old translations such as the Old Latin (a northern Africa translation--Rome used Greek--dating from before a.d. 200) and the Old Syriac (only the Gospel section survives). Even though these versions were subject to transmission errors, they still are a witness to the New Testament text. In addition to these manuscripts, the New Testament is quoted by many early church writers. Almost every verse can be found in their writings. Although these early leaders often quoted freely from memory and did not intend to quote verbatim, their writings can still witness to the original text when it involves larger text details.

The differences found in the Greek manuscripts are not great and do not in anyway affect the Bible's message. Although there are over 5,000 differences (not including spelling variants) in the Greek texts, these mainly involve a few words and phrases, sentence structures, etc. Only occasionally is a whole verse or more involved. Schaff wrote that "only about 400 of the . . . variations materially affect the sense. Of these, again, not more than about fifty are really important for some reason or other; and even of these fifty not one affects an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teachings."[6] Robertson wrote that "the real conflict in the textual criticism of the New Testament is concerning this 'thousandth part of the entire text.'"[7] Metzger stated that out of the 20,000 lines of the New Testament, only 40 lines or 400 words are uncertain and have no significant effect on the meaning.[8] Only the Received Text's I John 5:7 is acknowledged as incorrect by all. Some of the 40 lines involve lines found in the King James generally acknowledged as being incorrect by the "Egypt" or Alexandria text-type supporters. The two largest texts of this group are Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11. It is now acknowledged that the John passage has very early support; there is evidence it may have been in this gospel as early as the second century, or at least by the third.[9] These differences, and other minor wording or word-order changes, have affected modern translations and caused much controversy. Let us examine the text issue in more detail, starting with the first Greek text.

The Received Text finds its beginning in Desiderius Erasmus's editing work. He was a Dutch scholar who taught at Cambridge University. He sold the first published Greek New Testament in 1516. His Greek text was prepared for the well-known publisher Johann Froben of Basel, who wanted it to be the first on the market. Cardinal Ximenes was the first to print a Greek New Testament, but Pope Leo X did not approve of its sale until March 1520.[10]

Erasmus's first edition was based on six Greek manuscripts, and he relied mainly on a tenth- and a twelfth-century manuscript for the Gospels, a thirteenth-century one for Acts and Paul's letters, and a twelfth-century manuscript for Revelation. Since his Revelation manuscript was defective, he confessed to translating the last six verses of the Latin Vulgate into Greek. As might be expected, this first edition contained misprints and other errors. Most were corrected in his four later editions, printed between 1519 and 1535. He used a couple more manuscripts in these later editions.

Erasmus's text was opposed because it did not contain every verse found in the Latin Vulgate. As Wenger wrote,

The second editor who worked on the Greek New Testament was Robert Estienne (Stephanus) who published several editions in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551. The 1550 edition became the dominant text in England and is the basis of the 1611 KJV translation. The 1551 edition was the first to use verse divisions. They were prepared while he was on a horseback journey from Paris to Lyons, and it has been suggested that some of its poor verse divisions must have resulted from an uneven horseback ride that shook his pen.

The third editor, Theodore Beza, the successor to John Calvin, produced nine Greek texts between 1565 and 1604. His work was based mainly on the Erasmus 1516-35 text and Stephanus's edition. Beza followed the Erasmus second edition when he included the I John 5:7 passage. Beza's Greek text had a great influence on the KJV. Beza had a fifth- and a sixth-century manuscript, but because they differed from the others, he made only limited use of them.

Two Dutch printers, Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir, printed seven editions of the Greek New Testament based on the Beza and Stephanus editions between 1624 and 1678.

Although only a few Greek manuscripts were used in the above New Testaments, these manuscripts were in general agreement with one another. There were some basic weaknesses in them as mentioned earlier, but these few manuscripts were fairly representative of what is now known as the Byzantine Text. Robertson wrote, "The Textus Receptus is not a bad text. It is not a heretical text. It is substantially correct."[12]

Some today refer to the TR as the "Majority Text" since it represents the majority of the existing Greek manuscripts. Others prefer using the term "Traditional Text" to avoid the impression that this text is based solely on "number" and "counting." This text was used by the Greek-speaking Christians in the Constantinople area of modern Turkey. This area continued to use Greek after other areas of the church changed. This is the area where most of the New Testament books were sent, which means it had an advantage within the church to produce accurate copies of these books. The copies could be checked against the originals or "certified" accurate copies of the originals. The oldest Byzantine texts of the Gospels are found in the Codex Alexandrinus (A) (c. 450); the rest of this codex is an Alexandrian text.

The printing of the first Greek New Testament created renewed interest in the Greek text and resulted in a continuing effort to improve it. As mentioned earlier, Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza made successive improvements to the text between 1519 and 1535. These efforts were culminated with the two Elzevir brothers printing seven editions between 1624 and 1678. The second edition (1633) claimed it was the Greek text "now received by all, in which nothing [is] changed or corrupted." This comment gave the church the Textus Receptus, a Latin term meaning "Received Text" in English.

Work on improving the text then almost stopped until it was renewed in the nineteenth century. There were several individuals who quietly continued to work on the text, but their work did not find popular support.

One of the first textual editors was John Mill (1645-1707), a fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, England. He collected variant readings obtained from nearly 100 Greek manuscripts, early versions, patristic citations of the early church fathers, and thirty-two published Greek New Testaments. He published them in an edition of the Greek New Testament that also contained lengthy preliminary remarks (i.e., a prolegomena) dealing with the canon and transmission of the New Testament. The index of the verses contain 3,041 entries discussed in the prolegomena. His text listed some 30,000 variant readings. He did not use his study of variants to develop a new Greek text; he reprinted Stephanus's 1550 text.[13]

Edward Wells (1667-1727), a mathematician and theologian, published a Greek New Testament that was the first to abandon the Elzevirs' Textus Receptus, making 210 changes. Many of these changes agree with the late nineteenth-century developed text. His text was ignored by the church.[14]

While a student at Tubingen, Johann A. Bengel (1687-1752), disturbed by the 30,000 variants found in Mill's Greek New Testament, made a study of the Greek text's transmission. "He came to the conclusion that the variant readings were fewer in number than might have been expected, and that they did not shake any article of evangelic doctrine."[15] He proposed classifying manuscripts by "families, tribes, and nations" and was the first to see the two great nations (now known as text-types), the "Alexandrian" and Byzantine. He said the manuscripts should not be counted but "weighed" to evaluate them, and by such a procedure he claimed the Byzantine was an inferior text. He also stated that the harder reading should be favored.

J. J. Griesbach (1745-1812) is the one who really began the modern period of textual study. He collated many manuscripts and investigated their transmission. The end result of his work was to group them into three families (i.e., text-types): the Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine. He also believed no one manuscript preserved any one of the text-types, thereby they could be recovered only by examining all the manuscripts of a given type. He preferred shorter readings, believing "scribes were much more prone to add than to omit." In evaluation of his work, Metzger wrote, "The importance of Griesbach for New Testament textual criticism can scarcely be overestimated. For the first time in Germany a scholar ventured to abandon the Textus Receptus at many places."[16]

The before-mentioned work, along with other efforts, opened the door for Carolus Lachmann (1793-1851) to completely break away from the TR. The first edition of his Greek New Testament was published in 1831 and the second in 1842-50. It was based on textual criticism principles he first used to recover ancient classical manuscripts. His aim was not to recover the original New Testament texts but to reproduce the text used in the late fourth century. His central thought was that the "best" text comes from the oldest witness; thus he boldly disregarded the "late" Byzantine manuscripts. This statement may or may not be true depending on the quality of the witness, but his work did begin "what may be called the recension and rejection of the Textus Receptus."[17]

J. M. A. Scholz (1794-1852) published a Greek Testament in 1830-36 that was based on the TR. Later, in 1845, "Scholz retracted his preference for the Byzantine text, and declared that, if a new edition of his Greek Testament were called for, he would receive into the text most of the Alexandrian readings which he formerly placed in the margin."[18]

Samuel P. Tregelles (1813-75), while in his early twenties, became dissatisfied with the TR after seeing how Griesbach kept with it and how Scholz rejected early manuscript evidence, and he planned to work on a new Greek text based only on early manuscripts. The result of his work was the publication of only one Greek New Testament late in his life. He did not publish his work until he considered it "mature."[19]

Henry Alford's (1810-71) main works were his commentaries that contained a Greek text he considered the earliest and "best" Greek Text. He also published a Greek New Testament with various readings. His early works used the TR, but for his sixth edition (1868) he used Tishendorf, Tregelles, and made much use of the Codex Sinaiticus. Alford shows his support for a new Greek text when he commented on Lachmann's work: "His real service to the cause of sacred criticism has been, the bold and uncompromising demolition of that unworthy and pedantic reverence for the received text, which stood in the way of all chance of discovering the genuine work of God."[20] Later Alford writes that the real progress of textual criticism "has been made in all those places where the ancient MSS. are unanimous against our received text."[21]

L. F. Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-74) made a major contribution to the Greek New Testament by finding over twenty uncials, including the great Codex Sinaiticus (known by the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, À [Aleph]) he discovered in the St. Catharine Monastery library located near Mount Sinai. The discovery of this text is an interesting story. In 1844, Tischendorf, while searching for old manuscripts at St. Catharine, by chance found part of an old manuscript in a wastepaper basket holding papers being used to light fires. He was not allowed to spend much time studying it because of the excitement he showed towards it. In 1859, when he returned again to try to study this old manuscript, he gave the steward of the monastery a copy of his recently published Septuagint. The steward responded with a remark that he had a copy of it and showed it to him. What he was shown was not only a copy of the Septuagint but a copy of the complete Greek New Testament, the Sinaiticus uncial.[22]

Tischendorf's contributions also include efforts to bring the Codex Vaticanus (B) to the church. This manuscript was known as early as 1448 but was kept from Protestant scholars until Napoleon brought it to Paris in 1810. It was returned to Rome in 1815, and scholars were kept from studying it for many years. Only later in 1843 was Tischendorf allowed to examine it for six hours. Finally in 1857 it was published in five volumes, but the printed copy contained many errors that took away from its value. In 1866 Tischendorf finally received permission to study it in more detail. He then published an improved edition that was soon followed by other editions, and the Codex Vaticanus was opened to the whole church.

Tischendorf also produced a widely used edition of the Greek New Testament. It was first printed in an eleven-volume set starting in 1864 and reprinted in two volumes in 1869-72. His collation was composed of the 64 uncials (the Vaticanus became available too late to be used) and a few miniscularles known to him. The high place his Greek text held is shown by its use in preparing the Nestle text and its reprinting in 1965, one hundred years after being first published.

Miller's description of Tischendorf's various Greek Texts is given below:

There were several attempts to replace Tischendorf's text by collations containing more recently found manuscripts, but these never received the acceptance Tischendorf's works had. One of his work's weaknesses was its over reliance on Sinaiticus (À). As Aland points out, this "text with numerous singular readings (and careless errors) was highly overrated by Tischendorf."[24] The Vaticanus (B) became available too late to be used in his collation.

The text of F. H. A. Scrivener (1813-91) stands in contrast to many of the other recently published Greek texts. His work (published in 1887) contained the Stephanus text with variations shown from Beza, Elzevir, Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Westcott and Hort's Greek texts. He edited the Bezae Cantabrigiensis (Dea) and Augiensis (Fp) codices and collated around 70 Greek manuscripts. He was one of the 1870-81 English Version revisers. Scrivener's two-volume book, Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament[25] (four editions were published in 1871, 1874, 1883, and 1894--the latter one, published after his death, was edited by Edward Miller) is a valuable study of the minuscule manuscripts and is a defender of the TR.

As shown there was a whole line of men who worked to undermine and replace the TR. But it was Westcott and Hort who caused it to fall in the eyes of the scholars and translators.

Two divinity professors at Cambridge, Bishop Brooke Fost Westcott (1825-1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-92), had a major influence on the Greek New Testament. They published their completely new Vaticanus-Sinaiticus based Greek text under the title The New Testament in the Original Greek[26] and Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek,[27] which described their critical principles and efforts. Their text was the one behind the English Version published in 1881-85. Westcott and Hort's presence on the revision committee influenced the selection of their new Greek text. This selection, along with Eberhard Nestle's publication of an inexpensive version of their Greek text in 1898, helped to establish the Westcott-Hort text as The Greek Text. Those who advocated staying with the TR had little long-term influence against the concentrated efforts of these two professors and the scholars that followed them.

Many scholars seemed to have developed a personal animosity against the TR. Earlier we mentioned Tregelles planned a new text when in his early twenties. Hort did the same thing. This can be seen in a letter he wrote at the age of 23 to a friend about the "villainous" and "vile Textus Receptus leaning entirely on late MSS; it is a blessing there are such early ones."[28] Westcott and Hort worked long and hard against the TR, spending nearly thirty years to construct a theory that answered many of the objections that could be raised against their case and text. As Colwell wrote,

Colwell summarizes Hort's work in a short statement: "Hort organized his entire argument to dispose the Textus Receptus."[30] Pickering wrote that Hort "deliberately set out to construct a theory that would vindicate his preconceived animosity for the Received Text."[31] Knowing they had predetermined results in mind, one cannot have high confidence in Westcott and Hort's results unless they are closely reexamined.

In Some Thoughts on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, George Salmon gave some valuable insights into Westcott and Hort's textual criticism and on the whole English Revision Bible project. The reason for his book, Salmon writes, was that he knew Westcott and Hort had a predominating influence on the Revised Version Committee choice of various Greek text readings. Since more than half of the Committee had given little interest in the Greek text, they could not evaluate Westcott and Hort's views so they gave little dissent. Salmon writes that Hort "held his opinions with an intensity of conviction which he could not fail to communicate to those who came in contact with him, while his singular skill as an advocate enabled him with small difficulty to dissipate all objections to his views."[32]

Salmon writes that he was hesitant in following Hort's understanding because of his "exaggeration of judgment. When he has satisfied himself that of two alternative views one is much more probable that the other, he dismisses the less probable as absolutely unworthy of consideration." This enabled him to imply that his theories were building a firm foundation and prevented others from getting a foothold.[33] In doing this, Salmon thought that when Hort's probable propositions where combined, "the resulting conclusion has but a lower degree of probability." Salmon knew expert conclusion would not always bear-up when examined by another following strict rules of logic. He also knew that an expert who has confidence in certain conclusions, "when he tries to give an account to an outsider," they may fall far "short of logical proof." Because of this, Hort's conclusions cannot be "overthrown until they have been tested by another expert who shall have devoted to the study an equal amount of skill."[34]

The results of Hort's approach was that Salmon had "never been able to feel that [Hort's] work was final, and I [Salmon] disliked the servility with which his history of the text has been accepted, and even his nomenclature adopted, as if now the last word had been said on the subject of New Testament criticism."[35] Salmon's opinion was that Westcott and Hort's "work has been too readily accepted as final, and that students have been too willing to accept as their motto, 'Rest and be thankful.' There is no such enemy to progress as the belief that perfection has been already attained."[36] Salmon was right--Westcott and Hort have slowed progress to an improved Greek text, and their influence is still felt over 125 years after their "great" work.

The revision Committee was "privately supplied with installments of Westcott and Hort's Greek text as their work required them. But that text did not come into the hands of the public until" after the Revised English New Testament appeared.[37] When Westcott and Hort's "original" Greek text did appear, it lacked critical notes, so readers could not easily evaluate it. Salmon wrote that Westcott and Hort's "system [is] buried out of sight of ordinary readers of their work."[38] Salmon writes about the two authors' theories being based on "immense induction . . . enormous labour . . . tabulated comparative lists of the peculiarities of MSS., or groups of MSS. These tables no doubt have been preserved, and will probably be available for use by any competent person."[39]

These "tables," i.e., collations, never existed. Westcott and Hort never "collated a single manuscript but worked completely from published material, i.e., critical editions (viz. Tischendorf)."[40] Since detailed critical notes on their work never became available, a critical evaluation of their work has been slow in coming. Through the years bits-and-pieces of their work has been evaluated and the weaknesses of the Westcott-Hort text has come to light. But among many, Hort's "singular skill as an advocate" has caused their text to be still accepted by many today.

Are there other reasons why Westcott and Hort's work was quickly accepted? Yes, the times were right for a new Greek text. There were other factors that had a major effect on the acceptance of the Westcott-Hort text. Many wanted improvements in the biblical text. The nineteenth century was a period of change--scientific and engineering advances, along with new historical discoveries, scholarship, politics, and economic changes and invocations, etc., all had an effect on the Bible. These factors were changing the lifestyle of man and resulted in a mind set for progress that spread over into religion in general and to the biblical text in particular.

The Westcott-Hort text was not based on their original criteria but on their modification of criteria developed by earlier scholars. Bengel, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, et al. laid the ground foundation that Westcott and Hort built upon. Some of these criteria are briefly described below.

There are two general types of evidence used to find the best text: external and internal. We will begin by looking at external evidence. This type of evidence exists separate from the text itself. It generally involves the study of text history. This is a simple group of evidence but a very difficult one to apply. General principles of this are given below.

1. Early manuscripts

The text-type behind the older manuscripts--and not necessarily the manuscripts--is considered the best. The oldest text-types can be determined by genealogy, that is, family relationship.

2. Wide early support

The readings with the widest circulation, that is, geographical, translation, etc., support are considered the best.

3. Early Church Father witness

The best text-type would have been used by the early church fathers, so their quotations should be helpful in identifying the early text.

4. Best readings explain the variations

The best reading will explain the origination or cause of other manuscripts and/or text-type variations.

We will discuss the Westcott-Hort's application of external evidence, but let's first consider text-types.

There are some 5,000 Greek New Testament manuscripts, and since it would be a hopeless task to look at them individually, they are grouped according to their general text-types. As other earlier textual scholars had done, Westcott and Hort's method begins too by grouping the various New Testament manuscripts. The number of manuscripts available to them was much less than available today. They wrote about "the wealth of documentary evidence now accessible," but their table lists only 19.[41] This includes the great uncials--À, A, B, C, D--and other fragmented ones. They had the Gospels available in nineteen MSS, Acts in nine, Catholic Epistles in seven, Pauline Epistles in nine, and the Apocalypse in five. À and B, the oldest, date to the mid-fourth century. Westcott and Hort believed their available uncials were all that was needed. They asserted these were "a true representation of uncial evidence."[42]

Hort mentioned 800 to 1000 cursive MSS available from the ninth to nineteen centuries,[43] but they had available only about 150 of these, and they were generally ignored.[44] Hort wrote about the "present ignorance respecting contents of cursives is much to be lamented. Valuable texts may lie hidden among them." Westcott and Hort were not concerned about this because they thought "nothing can well be less probable than the discovery of cursive evidence sufficiently important to affect present conclusions in more than a handful of passages, much less to alter present interpretations of the relations between existing documents." They were confident they understood the evidence, yet we will see they were so wrong.

The text-type classification of the biblical manuscripts is based on a company of errors or differences. This is necessary since 90 percent plus of the Greek text is the same for all text-types. Westcott and Hort's four text-types, according to their view the descending order of value, are the Neutral, the Alexandrian, the Western, and the Syrian (now known as the Byzantine). Today the Neutral and Alexandrian texts are grouped together and are known by the latter name (it was just too much to call one of the types a "Neutral" text). Let us look at Hort's description of these text-types.

Westcott and Hort believed the Neutral text was the oldest and best text. They asserted this text was associated with the early Christian center of learning located in Alexandria, Egypt. There is no evidence these manuscripts were ever associated with Alexandria. Since they were found in a dry desert area located in the upper Nile, far from this city, it is more likely they were inperfect copies used by individuals or smaller churches. The main representative of this text is Vaticanus (c. a.d. 325-350), and a close relative is the Sinaiticus (a.d. 340). Vaticanus is considered the best text, although it lacks text after Hebrews 9:14. Sinaiticus is the only complete Greek uncial, but it is not as "pure" since it contains some Western mixture.

Salmon writes that Westcott and Hort used "question-begging nomenclature. A scientific nomenclature ought to be neutral; it ought to aim at simply representing the facts without assuming the truth of any theory about them."[45] Westcott and Hort used the term "neutral" since they considered it dishonoring to the Vaticanus text to give it a geographical name, and the term carried the notation of "originality" too. Hort writes about the neutral text: "Not only were these readings not confined to Alexandria, but a local name suggests erroneous associations when applied to a text which owes its comparative isolation to the degeneracy of its neighbours."[46] Thus the neutral name slanted any discussion associated with this text and the Syrian or Western text-type. The Syrian name too tended to create an erroneous view of the Byzantine text, but this was what Westcott and Hort wanted because it fitted into their goals of downgrading this text-type. Salmon was right; scientific nomenclature should simply represent the facts associated with a text-type without stereotyping it.

Westcott and Hort considered the Alexandrian text-type to be those early Non-Western and Pre-Syrian uncial manuscripts that preserved the text used by Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, and a few other Alexandrian Fathers, and the two Egyptian Versions used in Lower Egypt. They considered its chief representative to be the Vaticanus manuscript.

Westcott and Hort considered the Western to be an early text and the most widely used in the anti-Nicene period. The term came from its main representative being a Greek-Latin "bilingual" manuscript. Since Latin was used in northern Africa and Greek in Rome, it should not be thought of having a western/Rome origin. They write, "The chief and most constant characteristic of the Western readings is a love of paraphrase. Words, clauses, and even whole sentences were changed, omitted, and inserted with astonishing freedom, wherever it seemed that the meaning could be brought out with greater force and definiteness. They often exhibit a certain rapid vigour and fluency which can hardly be called a rebellion against the calm and reticent strength of the apostolic speech."[47] Another feature is harmonizing changes. But these generalizations are not always true. As Hoskier writes, "Upon many occasions this "Western" text is the one which furnishes the shortest text (against B)."[48] The Western text's chief representative is the Bezae (D) manuscript.

Westcott and Hort considered "the Syrian [Byzantine] . . . [a] chief monument of a new period of textual history. . . . The three great lines were brought together [to form a new text]. . . . The Syrian text must in fact be the result of a 'recension' in the proper sense of the word, a work of attempted criticism, performed deliberately by editors."[49] "The qualities which authors of the Syrian text seem to have most desired to impress on it are lucidity and completeness."[50] Note that Hort uses "authors" here to downplay its value.

In summary, Westcott and Hort consider only one text-type "the original"; it was the Neutral text. Most of the above are observations and assertions given without supporting evidence. Let us now examine some of the external evidence Westcott and Hort used to retrieve their "original" text. External evidence will be discussed under different names than given in the earlier outline--genealogy, conflation, papyri and text-types age, early church fathers--and then the text-type issue will be discussed again in light of this data.

The number one criteria to "recover" the original New Testament text, according to Westcott and Hort, was the genealogy or family-tree method. They claimed to have applied it to recover the original text. Hort defined this approach:

Although Westcott and Hort placed great emphasis on the genealogical principle, the result of their work was not the construction of a family tree showing successive ancestors leading back to the original New Testament text. There is no family tree with identified Greek texts in their Introduction to The New Testament in The Original Greek. The use of this principle is open to question when applied to the Greek New Testament, despite Westcott and Hort's claim.

Two early critics of Westcott and Hort pointed this out. Burgon writes that Hort implied "if we did but know the genealogy of MSS, we should be in a position to reason more confidently concerning their Texts," and Hort himself writes, "All trustworthy restoration of corrupted Texts is found on the study of their History." Burgon points out that "Dr. Hort produces no instance. He merely proceeds to 'suppose' a case (§ 50), which he confesses (§ 53) does not exist. . . . He furnishes us with no evidence at all."[52]

Scrivener makes the same point: "Dr. Hort's system, therefore, is entirely destitute of historical foundation. He does not so much as make a show of pretending to it: but then he would persuade us, as he has persuaded himself, that its substantial truth is proved by results."[53] Later Scrivener concludes, "With all our reverence for his genius, and gratitude for much that we have learnt from him in the course of our studies, we are compelled to repeat as emphatically as ever our strong conviction that the hypothesis to whose proof he has devoted so many laborious years, is destitute not only of a historical foundation, but of all probability resulting from the internal goodness of the text which its adoption would force upon us."[54]

Later textual critics picked up on the same lack of evidence. Ernest Colwell, a leading North American New Testament textual authority at the University of Chicago in the 1950-60s, wrote that Hort

In other words, Hort wrote only an Introduction to textual criticism without a sequential book showing its use.

Colwell wrote:

After discussing Westcott-Hort's definition of genealogy and their examples of it, Colwell wrote:

Since the genealogy principle is so important for the case against the TR, why didn't Westcott and Hort apply it? The answer to this question is simple: they couldn't use genealogy. There are several reasons they couldn't.

First, the genealogy method could not be applied since only a limited number of copies of the 5,000 plus Greek New Testament texts have an early date, and Westcott and Hort had none of them. There are only a few papyri earlier than the fourth-century Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts, and these have been discovered after Westcott and Hort's time. Most of these papyri are very fragmented. The two main groups were acquired by Chester Beatty in 1930-31 and by M. Martin Bodmer in 1955-56. The largest Beatty papyri (P45) containing the Gospels dates from the first half of the third century and the one (P46) dates from about 200. Beatty's P66 is a codex of John and dates from around 200; it is a mixed Alexandrian and Western text. The Bodmer P75 papyrus is a single codex of Luke and John and dates from 175 to 225. There are also a few other smaller fragments.

These papyri represent only a small minority of the manuscripts that were once in use, and little is known about their age and almost nothing about their history except they were found in Egypt. There are many generations between the autograms and the papyrus, and between the papyrus and the earliest uncial codices.

Second, genealogy is limited by the time span of the manuscripts being examined. Colwell concluded that

A third limit to this method is that only one manuscript has been found with known parents; therefore one cannot construct a family tree. This lack of genealogy relations between the few old texts has been noted by researchers. Pickering wrote that "scholars have so far isolated only one parent-child set among all 5,000 plus manuscripts. How then did Hort go plotting the genealogical descent of the extant MSS? M. M. Parvis answers: 'Westcott and Hort never applied the genealogical method to the NT MSS'."[59]

The few existing papyri leave such large gaps in the family tree that it is impossible to establish relationships between them, and therefore it is impossible to make genealogical descent back to the autograms. Colwell writes, "It is clear that in a field where no manuscripts have parents, where centuries and continents separate witnesses, the genealogical method is not of primary importance."[60]

Kirsopp Lake, R. P. Blake, and Silva (Lake) New, writing about the Caesarean Gospel of Mark manuscripts found at Mt. Sinai, Patmos, and the Partriarchal Library, and the collection of St. Saba at Jerusalem, stated:

The fourth reason the genealogical concept cannot be applied is the presence of much mixture between the old texts; mixture makes it difficult to know family lines and clear-cut family relations. Thus mixture makes it nearly impossible to build family trees. Price wrote that

Metzger wrote after giving a simple example of genealogy:

Another weakness of genealogy is that it cannot identify the parent when the family tree has two branches. Colwell wrote that the "genealogical method can trace the tree down to the last two branches, but it can never unite these last two in the main trunk--it can never take the last step."[64] He then quoted Westcott and Hort to support his statement: "Where the two ultimate witnesses differ, the genealogical method ceases to be applicable, and a comparison of the intrinsic general character of these two texts becomes the only resource."[65]

In summary, the application of genealogy to the New Testament manuscripts is open to serious question because of the limited number and wide time-space between the text-types and the autograms, the lack of parents among manuscripts, and because of mixture between the text-types. Today most acknowledge that genealogy was not used and speak of its rejection. Fee sums up current opinion of the method when he writes about "the rejection of Hort's genealogical method."[66]

Even with the general rejection of genealogy, some still hold on to it. As recently as 1992 Metzger, a defender of Westcott and Hort's work, still uses its "broad features" to reject the Byzantine text:

Another method to determine age relations of the text-types is conflation. Conflation is a special type of mixture. It is produced when a scribe or editor combines readings of two manuscripts to form a third. The goal of conflation is the same as genealogy, that is to rank manuscripts into text-types, thus identifying the better manuscripts to base the Greek text on.

The last verse in Luke is considered an example of conflation of the Alexandrian and Western text to form the Byzantine text, as shown below:

Alexandrian: "blessing God"

Western: "praising God"

Byzantine: "praising and blessing God"

Hort pointed out that such text as the "conflated" Byzantine must be younger than the Alexandrian and Western manuscripts it comes from, which is correct. This is not necessary a truism since, as we will see, the Alexandrian's and Western's wording could be due to dropping out words.

After thirty years of study, Hort was able to give eight examples from Mark (6:33; 8:26; 9:38, 39) and Luke (9:10; 11:54; 12:18; 24:53) to show that the Byzantine text had combined Neutral and Western readings. He claimed that the other Neutral and Western text-types never combined the Syrian text, thus proving the Syrian was the youngest.

Hort's eight examples are from Mark and Luke. Others have said more could have been given, but only a few, such as Matthew 27:41, John 18:40, Acts 20:28, and Romans 6:12, have been added to the lists.[68] This is a very short list considering all the mixture that exists in the Greek text.

Burgon challenged such lack of evidence for such far-reaching conclusions. He said, for instance, that the last chapter of Luke has 837 words, and 121, or one out of seven words, are omitted by codex D (i.e., Bezae, the principle Western manuscript). With this is mind, he asks, "What possible significance therefore can be supposed to attach to its omission of the clause kai eulogou teV ['and blessing' in Luke 24:53]? . . . The same remarks apply to the 6 remaining cases,--(for one, viz. The [7^th], is clearly an oversight,)--. . . we reject the assumed 'conflation' unconditionally."[69] With this in mind, is the above "praising and blessing God" example a conflation, or did the Western drop out "and blessing" and the Alexandrian drop out "praising and"? As mentioned earlier, the reason the Alexandrian text is generally a shorter text may be due to omissions.

Salmon could not follow Hort's conclusion without misgivings. He writes: "We ought to have evidence that the supposed revisers had the material to mix; and, in [this case], there is no evidence that the reading ['praising God'] by itself was ever known in the East, the witnesses to it all being Latin." His second remark was: "The true solution is that which will account for all variations. In the case of a supposed conflation, if the full reading be the right one, the two defective forms are at once explained. . . . due to accidental omissions by different scribes. But if [praising] be right, how came any one to write [blessing and]?"[70] Salmon speculates at the end of a book the copyists might have been tempted to omit words to get everything on the page.[71]

Pickering in his Appendix D, titled "Conflation or Confusion," allotted 29 pages to this question, giving 103 examples showing conflation of Syrian with Western and Alexandrian texts. At the end of the first 39 examples, those showing clear true or simple "conflation," he wrote:

At the end of giving the rest of the 103 examples, those "complicated by substitution, transposition, moderate internal changes, or omissions," he wrote:

Pickering's overall conclusion was:

A more recent book by Harry Sturz contains another major study of conflation. Sturz writes:

Sturz makes seven points to support this conclusion. They are summarized below.

1. "Some Byzantine 'conflates' and 'longer readings' are now demonstrably early." John 10:19 is as clear an example of conflation as Hort's eight examples, but P66 gives it early papyri support. John 10:31 is another example of Western and Alexandrian conflation. The "conflate" reading has early P66 support and the shorter Caesarean reading has P45 support. "While it may be true that conflation has taken place in one or more of these instances, it is not logical to continue to hold that such readings are a proof of lateness. These readings were in existence before the end of the second--before the earliest manuscripts we process. Though these 'conflate' readings were unsupported by early patristic evidence, their early existence has been accurately attested all the while by the Byzantine text."[77]
2. Conflations are also found in non-Byzantine texts. Sturz gives examples found in John 5:15; 11:41; and Colossians 3:17.
3. Conflations are found in the Vaticanus. Colwell notes that "Codex Vaticanus lacks the conflate readings of the 'Syrian text,' but it has it own conflate readings."[78] Examples of these are Mark 1:28; Luke 10:41, 42; John 7:39; Philippians 1:14; Colossians 1:12. Neither Westcott-Hort, Nestle, nor the USB texts give any indications of these Alexandrian text conflates.
4. Conflations do not appear in the Byzantine text where it would have been a natural tendency for scribes to make them.
5. Papyrus-supported longer Byzantine readings show their early age. The Byzantine text also has readings shorter than the Alexandrian text. "Instead of finding (as was anticipated) the greater number of papyrus-confirmed variants in K where the Byzantine reading was the shortest, the greater proportion was of longer papyrus-supported Byzantine readings. This underscores the danger of making it a rule 'to prefer the shorter reading . . . .' long readings are old and short readings are old. Both are attested by manuscript evidence that places them deep in the second century. The criteria for judging between them must be something other than their respective lengths. Since 'long' readings are so early attested, and since such readings are not confined to K but also include H, WH's basic argument from conflation would appear to be disannulled."[79]

Some scholars have challenged Sturz's findings. Fee reduced Sturz's finding by claiming (1) it involved a questionable use of "distinctively Byzantine"; (2) some variants are textual trivia--"stylistic idiosyncrasies of [scribe's] own, not relationships with the Byzantine text-type"; (3) "few genuinely genetically significant readings" are found.[80] After reviewing Sturz's study and Fee's review, Wisselink[81] writes "Sturz has collected exactly those readings in his list, that are distinctively Byzantine according to Hort." Wisselink agrees with Fee that some of Sturz's readings have "minimum differents," but finds Fee's second and third point more an "excuse than to [be] an argument." Wisselink write, "If these points are handled consistently, what then is the value, for instance, of the investigation published" by Fee ("Codex Sinaiticus in the Gospel of John: A Contribution to Methodology on Establishing Textual Relations," New Testament Studies, 15, 1968-69). After this Wisselink writes, "Not a single Byzantine reading for which support can be found in the early papyri, can be rejected any longer as being young. In that respect it is of no importance if the support is casual or not." Wisselink did conclude that Fee might make the Sturz's number of readings with early papyri support shorter, but he cannot eliminate them. Sturz did find distinctive Byzantine readings with third century papyri support. "This conclusion is shared by a great many textual critices of divergent signatures."[82] He gives Fee's findings that P⁶⁶ is "not recension of a kind that produced the Neutral texttype, but rather of a kind that culminates at a later date in the process of transmission called the Byzantine texttype." Hurtado writes, "in P⁴⁵, a papyrus too early (third century) to have been revised by a Byzantine standard text, scholars found numerous readings previously regarded as Byzantine readings." Wisse writes, "P⁶⁶ serves as a warning here for it contains some variants which had been considered late and thus secondary." Aland concluded that papyri cannot be fixed into text-types. From these, Wisselink concludes, "It is clear from all these quotations that the way in which Hort divided the manuscripts, does not satisfy any longer since the discovery of the papyri."[83]

In summary, conflation is not the most important tool in establishing the age and value of the New Testament. Metzger's conclusion that "the clearest evidence in tracing the genealogy of witness is the presence of conflate readings" may be wrong in many instances.[84 The presence of Hort's eight conflate readings in the Byzantine text is not enough to establish it is a conflated text-type. Pickering gave evidence that six of these have early papyrus support, many examples of the Byzantine being conflated by others. As Sturz has shown, conflation is not as strong a case against the Byzantine text as Hort once thought. Since conflate does not support Westcott-Hort's text as claimed, this has a major undermining effect on their text as being the genuine one.

Our understanding of the early New Testament text has greatly improved in the twentieth century, making many of Westcott and Hort's ideas obsolete. Gregory's third volume of his Prolegomena published in 1884 mentions only one papyrus (Q) containing fragments of I Corinthians,[85] so it is understandable why Westcott and Hort made no mention of any papyrus. The time of papyri was still in the future. The papyri discovered since the 1890's are the Oxyrhynchus papyri in 1896ff., Chester Beatty papyri in 1930-31, and Bodmer papyri in 1956ff. They represent a 600 percent increase,[86] and 31 are pre-300 a.d.[87] The more important ones (P45, 46, 47, 66, 72, and 75--these are equivalent to one-third B text and represent every New Testament book except 1 and 2 Timothy)[88] represent a several thousand percent increase as far as their importance. They give important evidence that was not available to Westcott and Hort. Actually, they never mentioned papyri in their Introduction book. In summarizing the importance of these papyri, Colwell wrote in 1961:

The finding of many early papyri New Testament texts in the twentieth century has shown that the Byzantine, the text behind the Textus Receptus, has very early support. Colwell wrote:

Zuntz also found P46 to be a witness to the existence of Byzantine readings in the second century. Zuntz wrote:

Later Zuntz writes:

Zuntz is not a defender of the TR but still writes:

Zuntz concludes his study of the epistle's text by stating that after around 150 b.c. the oldest papyri "rather suddenly . . . give a text which substantially agrees with that of the extant Byzantine manuscripts."[95] Thus Zuntz acknowledges that the Byzantine readings "are far older than the manuscripts which attest them."

Pickering[96] discussed the papyrus evidence, stating there was no entire papyrus for either the Western or Alexandrian text-types; they may share peculiarities, but there are still substantial differences. He gave data showing that P66 and P75, which are generally considered Alexandrian, agree more often with the Traditional Text than with Aleph or B. He then quoted Birdsall:

Colwell noted that different scholars tried to avoid giving certain text-types a date-of-origin, making it appear they date back close to the New Testament autograms. He wrote:

As mentioned earlier, text-types began earlier than first assumed and the Bodmer Luke-John (P75) and John (P66) have many readings that witness to the Byzantine text. It is true that P66 is not a fully Byzantine text, yet it is true it is not fully Alexandrian or Western either.[99] All three of the text-types existed side-by-side in the papyrus. Epp also finds support for the Byzantine text in later papyri (P42, P68, P74[?], P84).[100] One should not be surprised that a full Byzantine text was not found in Egypt if a local text was widely used there. Others, in contradiction to Epp, have found support for the Byzantine text in early papyri.

Sturz's List I shows 150 "distinctively Byzantine readings . . . those supported by the bulk of the later manuscripts but which at the same time are opposed (or not supported) by the principle manuscripts and witnesses to the Alexandrian and Western text"[101] that have early papyri support. He emphasizes that these papyri are from the second century, preceding the time of Lucian (the "acknowledged" editor of the Byzantine text) by one hundred years, and thus they are not a fourth-century recension. "It is startling from the standpoint of the WH theory to find that so-called 'Byzantine' readings not only existed early but were present in Egypt before the end of the second century." Sturz makes a third point that "the Old Uncials have not preserved a complete picture of the second century. . . . have not retained all of the second-century tradition. . . . [This] is underscored further when P45, P66, P72, and P75 are also seen to confirm early and wide-spread existence of [Byzantine] readings which are neither Alexandrian nor Western." Sturz concludes that Westcott and Hort were "mistaken in regard to their insistence that all the pre-Syrian evidence for readings was to be found in the Alexandrian, Neutral, and Western texts, i.e., that these three text-types and their chief witnesses preserved the complete second-century picture of the textual tradition on which the Syrian editor(s) built. . . . The Byzantine text-type has preserved second-century tradition not preserved by the other text-types."[102]

The early papyri Byzantine readings give additional evidence that Hort's conclusion that the Syrian text was a revision is wrong. Pickering stressed this when he wrote:

Colwell quoted Zuntz to support that.

Birdsall in the conclusion of his study "An Eclectic Study of the Texts of Acts" wrote:

When one considers that there are only a minority of the various text-types that vary, they all must have a common ancestor. Thus those who reject the Byzantine text do not have an easy task to prove their position. Their position is much more difficult than Hort thought.

Actually, early papyri evidence indicates that the common text-types did not exist very early. Aland writes, "The text of the early period prior to the third/fourth century was, then, in effect, a text not yet channeled into types, because until the beginning of the fourth century the church still lacked institutional organization required to produce one."[106] Only one of the papyri, P75, with a third-century date, closely transmits the Vaticanus (i.e., Alexandrian) text.[107] This suggests that the early papyri do not give full support to any text-types, even those types found in Egypt, unless they come from the same time period, then they may give close support. Thus papyri should not be labeled as an Alexandrian, Byzantine, or Western type. They may be proto-Alexandrian (i.e, pre-). If full papyri support is not found for an Alexandrian text-type in Egypt, one cannot necessary expect to find Byzantine-papyri support there.

Colwell proposed the following "sharp" statements for discussion in the 1960s. Some of these statements have found general support today. Let us use brief summaries of four of his ten statements as a summary of text-types:

In our studies so far, we have found that both geneology and conflation failed to identify clearly the best Greek text. Let us look at another external evidence, the Church Fathers, to see if they can help.

Hort, in order to get rid of the Byzantine text, sought to show it was dated after the middle of the third century by claiming no Church Father used it before John Chrysostom (345-407), a native of Antioch and later bishop of Constantinople. If this is true, it would be important evidence against the Byzantine text.

Before we discuss the Early Church Fathers' witness to the Greek text, let us first comment about the use of their writings. There is a long list of problems associated with this. These involve first, the author's use of the New Testament Scripture and, second, the transmission of the Father's texts to us.

When we read in the Fathers, we are not sure if they are quoting a passage directly from the New Testament, or by memory, or paraphrasing it, or if it is just an allusion. If the quote is from a gospel, we are often uncertain which gospel is being quoted if parallel passages exist.

These problems do not exist if the Church Father's work is a commentary with the Scripture text at the top of the page. This at least eliminates the uncertainty of the text being a quote, which gospel is being quoted, etc. But we cannot be certain that the text we have was written by the author. It may have been changed during translation; scribes may have updated it to the text they use. The uncertainty of transmission can create problems even if, for instance, the text is an exact match to the Vaticanus. Did the author quote from the Vaticanus or did a scribe correct the text to it? We know scribal revision of the text may be done unevenly since there is a large amount of mixture in these texts.

The care involved in the transmission of the Fathers' quotes generally would be much less than that given to the Greek text. The Church Fathers' writings were not considered Scripture and thus were not as carefully copied, so the Scripture citations may have been updated to the local text, etc. When we consider the variation existing in some scriptural manuscripts, we recognize we cannot have high confidence in the Church Fathers' writings. We should therefore be very careful in drawing textual conclusions from their works.

Let us now look at what we can learn about the Greek text from Chrysostom's writings. Before we begin, we should recognize that Westcott and Hort had no critical edition of his writings; therefore we should carefully examine the weighty conclusion they place on Chrysostom's writings.

As Kenyon writes about the text-types, "The crux of the controversy lay in the testimony of the ancient Fathers. . . . Before [a.d. 350] we find characteristically 'Neutral' and 'Western' readings, but never 'Syrian.' This argument is in fact decisive; and no subsequent discovery of new witness, and no further examination of the old, has invalidated it."[109] This was written in 1932, and before this date Kenyon writes, "Little has been done to rectify this by the critical study of the best manuscripts of the Fathers." Hort's argument was decisively answered the same year Kenyon wrote.

Geerlings and New's study of "Chrysostom's Text of the Gospel of Mark" concludes, "The number of variants from the Textus Receptus is not appreciably smaller than the number of variants from Westcott and Hort's text. This proves that it [Chrysostom's text] is no more a typical representative of the late text (von Soden's K [Byzantine]) than it is of the Neutral text. . . . With reference to the subdivisions of K-text, there is no evidence for either von Soden's K^x-text (EFGH etc.) or his K¹-text (W V etc.), nor are there any readings peculiar to the K^a-text."[110]

Birdsall also writes about Chrysostom:

Let us give a proof from early Church Fathers showing the Byzantine text-type is very old. The Byzantine text of Matthew 27:34 uses the Greek term oxo, translated vinegar: "They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink." The Alexandrian text uses the term oinon translated wine, in this passage. The parallel passage found in Mark 15:23 uses oivnon and the near v. 36 passage uses o[xoV ; Luke uses oxoV in the near 23:36 passage; and John uses oxouV in the near 19:29 passage. Because of these uses some critics claim the Church Father quotations using oxouV (vinegar) may not come from Matthew but one of the other Gospels. But as Pickering and Robinson have pointed out, the term gall makes it possible to identify the Church Fathers' quotations as coming from Matthew 27:34 since gall is used in only one other New Testament Scripture (Acts 8:23).[113] Therefore we can have confidence these Church Father quotations come from Matthew, even though the Fathers made no statement to this affect. Following is a list of Church Fathers who use vinegar and gall in these same "quotation."

 Barnabas, Barnabas, 100 a.d.: "had given him to drink vinegar and gall" ( 7:5).

 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, c. 130-202: "He should have vinegar and gall given Him to drink" (Book IV:XXXIII:12; cf. XXXV:3).

 Revelation of Esdras: "Vinegar and gall did they give me to drink."

 Apostolic Constitutions, late 200s: "they gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall" (V:3:14).

 Tertullian, Reply to Marcion, d. 220: "and gall is mixed with vinegar" (Appendix, V:232).

 Gospel of Nicodemus, 4^th century: "and gave him also to drink gall with vinegar" (Part II, 4).

 Gregory of Nyssa, d. 394: "coln tekai oxei dixbrox" (Orat. X:989:6).

 Gregory Nazianzus, d. 396, "Taste gall for the taste's sake; drink vinegar" (Oratio XXXVIII:18).

The above shows the Byzantine text of the Gospel of Matthew existed very early, even in the first century.

There is another factor to consider about the Hort claim. Sturz writes that those making such a claim "customarily neglect to mention that there are no earlier Antiochian Fathers than Chrysostom whose literature remains are extensive enough so that their New Testament quotations may be analyzed as to the type of text they support."[114]

The lack of Byzantine quotation before Chrysostom may also be in part due to the northern, damp climate causing decomposition of early northern Church Fathers' writings. Most early Church Fathers' writings are from areas outside the Byzantine and other northern areas. Souter wrote,

Aland sheds further light on this climate, writing,

The change from uncial (writings only in capital letters) to minuscule (a flowing cursive handwriting dating after the 10th century) writing is another factor that caused the loss of early Byzantine manuscripts. As readers became accustom to the minuscule they put aside the uncial manuscripts and they were discarded. The latter factor not only accounts for the few early Byzantine manuscripts, but also for the few Byzantine ones that exist today dating before the ninth century.

Early Church Fathers' quotations do not support Westcott-Hort's text either. This is even recognized by those who do not support the TR. Price, who does not support the TR, when writing about recent progress in textual criticism, said, "The Westcott-Hort 'Neutral' text was found to be practically without support in the earliest fathers."[117] The Coptic versions (the Egyptian versions) and Clement and Origen (early Alexandrian church leaders), as can be expected, do support the Alexandrian texts.

In summary, Hort's often repeated statement about no Byzantine text-type being found in Church Fathers' writings before Chrysostom proves nothing except that support for the Alexandrian text comes from dry climate areas.

As we have seen, Westcott and Hort thought the descending order of value of the text-types were the Neutral, the Alexandrian, the Western, and the Syrian (now known as the Byzantine). They believed the Neutral text was the oldest and best text and the Byzantine a later edited text. But as we have seen, neither genealogy or conflation show the Byzantine text to be younger that the Alexandrian, and the Byzantine does have some early Church Father support.

We should respect Westcott and Hort's desire to find the best text. It is a worthy goal, but we need not accept their conclusion that they found the "Neutral" text. And as Scrivener wrote, "let us be so illogical as to conclude, because À and B are sometimes right, that therefore they never are in the wrong."[118]

Fifty years after Westcott and Hort's new Greek text, Kenyon wrote three important observations about their work:

Aland writes:

Metzger also states that "most scholars have abandoned Hort's optimistic view that Vaticanus (B) contains the original text almost unchanged except for slips of the pen."[124] Thus today the "neutual" is rejected, and, as we will see, apparently this is the second time this has happened.

Apparently the "neutral" text was rejected by early Christians because it existed mainly in Egypt from around 350 to 500. It did not received wide circulation; if it had, it would have become the majority text. The early Christians treated the New Testament books as Scripture and would have naturally copied and passed on the purest copies; they would have gotten rid of poor copies. As Pickering pointed out, "Many of the first believers had been devout Jews who had an ingrained reverence and care for the Old Testament Scriptures which extended to the very jots and tittles. This reverence and care would naturally be extended to the New Testament Scriptures."[125] The early believers who lived in Asia Minor (the region where the Byzantine text existed), and were thus close to many of the original manuscripts, surely would have been careful to make good copies of the New Testament books. Thus the lack of transmission of the Alexandrian text shows lack of respect for it through the whole church.

Some hold such high opinion of these two texts that they believe they are two of the fifty Bibles Emperor Constantine authorized Eusebius to produce. There is no evidence to support this view, and their inclusion of non-biblical books suggests otherwise. It makes more sense to believe these fifty Bibles had a Byzantine text-type since Constantinople was the capital the Byzantine Empire, and the Byzantine text became the dominant text of the area. Bruce's "guess" supports this conclusion. He writes, "If a guess may be hazarded, it is more likely that the fifty copies exhibited the text of the . . .[126] Byzantine or 'majority' text. If they did, this would help to explain the popularity of this form of the text in Constantinople."[127]

Although many hold a high view of the Alexandrian text, it should be mentioned that the quality of the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus codices is far from perfect. These two texts are similar, but Hoskier points out they do differ in well over 3,000 places just in the Gospels (not including spelling and synonym differences).[128] Since these two manuscripts do not give a united witness, and since many of their differences are serious, they are not as good witnesses to the Greek New Testament as was once claimed.

Only a few Alexandrian manuscripts survived, and they are older than the Byzantine manuscripts. As mentioned earlier, their survival is due to (1) the Egyptian dry desert climate, which slowed their decomposition, (2) the Egyptian church dropping the Greek language and therefore not wearing out these manuscripts, and (3) the Muslims wiping out much of Christianity in Egypt, causing these Greek manuscripts to be set aside. The early Byzantine manuscripts probably wore out quicker because of more use, and the Byzantine region's damper climate no doubt speeded up their decomposition. And, as mentioned earlier, it is impossible to demonstrate Asia Minor and Greece influence on the New Testament text "because the climate in these regions has been unfavorable to the preservation of any papyri from the early period."[129]

The question that should be asked is, Does the chance preservation of these manuscripts caused by their being located in Egypt make them the best texts? Although we have followed the current name practice and used the "Alexandrian" term, there is no evidence the great Uncials or papyrus were ever associated with the learning center and libraries at Alexandria. Since they were found in dry desert areas located in the upper Niles, far from this city, it is more likely they were copies used by individuals or in smaller churches.

Pickering asked, "But what are Egypt's claims upon our confidence? And how wise is it to follow the witness of only one locale?"[130] We should also remember as Van Bruggen writes, "Egypt was not the most flouishing part of the Church at that time [2nd-3rd centuries]. Centers like Syria, Asia-Minor, Greece, Italy have left us no Greek manuscripts from these centuries."[131]

In writing about Egypt and papyri, Epp also asks several questions:

Epp's implied answers to these questions weaken the case for the Alexandrian text-type being the best Greek text. Two years later Epp tried to weaken the importance of the Egyptian connection. He claimed that rapid movement of people, merchants, and non-Christian papyrus between Greco-Roman world and Egypt meant the Alexandrian text-type might not be a local text after all, but the text-type that existed throughout the Mediterranean region.[133]

This conjecture is an assertion given without supporting facts. Epp admits this when he writes, "This analysis [of movement of non-Christian commerce], moreover, permits another assertion--though one that cannot be proved--. . . . in contrast to the common view that the papyri represented 'only' the text of 'provincial Egypt,' is much more likely that they represent an extensive if not the full textual spectrum of earliest Christianity."[134]

There are several reason to question his assertion. First, the movement of papyri of respected Roman citizens and merchants, and persecuted Christians can hardly be compared. The Romans had much freer movement throughout the empire than the persecuted Christians. Second, since papyri were produced in Egypt, would the Byzantine Christians buy expensive Egypt papyri and make many copies of Scripture to send back to them? Would it not be much more logical for them to send only a few copies and let the Egyptians make their own copies for their brethren and churches? Third, it would be more likely that Egyptians would make copies of Scripture and send them north, yet there is no evidence the Alexandrian text was in the Byzantine area. This doesn't mean their Alexandrian manuscripts were not there; just as early Byzantine copies disappeared because of the damp climate, so would have the Alexandrian ones disappeared.

Contrary to Epp's assertion, we should continue to consider the Alexandrian text-type an Egyptian one until it can be proven otherwise. We do not need to stack another unproven assertion on top of that monotonously repeated one that Lucian was the "editor" of the Byzantine text-type. Surely the best text-type does not need to rest upon such unproven conjectures.

The likely lack of northern papyri movement to Egypt means that the papyri found there bears little witness to the text-type in existence throughout the world; it only indicates the distribution of the Greek text-types in Egypt. This plus the low numbers of papyri now known, with all three main text-types, indicated the text-type found in Egypt is a statistically insignificant witness to the question of Alexandrian-Byzantine text-types. Therefore Wallace's claim that "the Majority text did not exist in the first four centuries" and that the Byzantine text did not become the majority text until the ninth century is based on statistically flawed data.[135]

Text-types are not clear and distinctive identities. There is variation in all of them, even in the Byzantine text. Hort claimed there is "but few and unimportant modifications of the Antiochian text by the influence of other ancient texts."[136] But Pickering quoted several sources to show this is not true. He quoted Clark, stating, "The main conclusion regarding the Byzantine text is that it was extremely fluid. Any single manuscript may be expected to show a score of shifting affinities."[137] He wrote that Lake found the "Byzantine" text was not homogeneous. He wrote that the Byzantine text of Mark 9 found in the Sinai, Patmos, and Jerusalem libraries had "somewhat less variation 'within the family' than would be found in a similar treatment of the Neutral [Alexandrian] or Caesarean texts. . . . There is extraordinarily little evidence of close family relation between MSS even in the same library. They have essentially the same text with a large amount of sporadic variation."[138] Burgon wrote,

Today some have gone so far as to even question the existence of text-types.[140] There is so much variation in the Western and the Caearean that these can hardly be considered text-types.

The Western is considered the common man's Bible, and this is the reason there is much reaction against it. But this view may be in part due to Hort prejudicing many textual critics against the Western text with such statements as:

Today the Western is held in higher respect than it once was. Hort admitted that "the earliest readings which can be fixed chronologically belong to it."[142] Klijn believed it existed in Egypt alongside the Alexandrian type.[143] Sturz writes, "Many textual critic's dismissal of the Western text is unjustified, some even holding the Western is closer to the original that the Alexandrian."[144]

The uniformity of the Alexandrian and Byzantine types is much less than once seen. Early papyri have shown it might be anachronistic to group early MSS in groups determined by their own characteristics.[145] Aland wrote that only the Alexandrian and Byzantine are certain after the fourth century, and "It is impossible to fit the papyri, from the time prior to the fourth century, into two text-types. . . . The simple fact that all these papyri . . . did exist side by side . . . is the best argument against the existence of any text-types, including the Alexandrian and the [Byzantine]."[146]

In summary, there is a lack of proof (genealogy, conflation, and Chrysostom being the first to use Byzantine text-type) that the Byzantine text-type is younger than the other text-types. If the scholars continue to view the Byzantine text as a fourth-century conflated and edited text, they will miss a valuably witness to the Greek New Testament, and perhaps the best text. Let us examine the Byzantine text in more detail.

As mentioned, Westcott and Hort believed the Byzantine text was an edited text that represented a new period of textual history. They wrote:

Some of the obvious features of the Byzantine texts are their similarities and their smooth and good grammar. The Gospels show a greater degree of harmony than the other text-types. Westcott and Hort's explanation is that this text was edited and standardized in the fourth century. They considered the other texts as being older and showing more diversity, and thus were unedited, prestandardized texts.

Where is Westcott-Hort's proof that the Byzantine was an edited text? The academic world has accepted the editing of the Byzantine text by Lucian of Antioch as a "truism" without Westcott or Hort or anyone giving historical evidence to support this assertion. Records tell that Lucian produced "an edition of the Septuagint, and if he also produced an edition of the New Testament it is extremely unlikely that this should not have been recorded."[148] The reason for this is simple: There is apparently no evidence it was edited. Records of such a major accomplishment would surely had been preserved in historical records. As Birdsdall writes, "[The Byzantine] original recension . . . is frequently ascribed to Lucian of Antioch, and the ascription is turned to fact by frequent repetition, but as we shall see there is no direct evidence of any philological work by him upon the New Testament text."[149] And as Scrivener wrote, "The scribes of the fourth and fifth centuries began their happy task, as simple and honest copyists of the older records placed before them. Let their testimony be received with attention at all times; let it be accepted