The Battle over Versions of the Bible
Lesson 4: Examination of the Critical Text

In the effort to determine which text-type, if any, is closest to the original, scholars can refer to various kinds of evidence.

  1. They might search ancient manuscripts to determine which text-type has the oldest readings. It is reasonable to presume that the text-type with the oldest readings is the oldest and most authentic. But the exhaustive work which has given us full attestation of every individual variant has, from one point of view, led down a blind alley. It now appears that all or nearly all of the principal variants distinguishing the various text-types existed before AD 200. We therefore have no basis in this kind of evidence for assigning priority to any one text-type.
  2. Scholars might investigate which text-type has the earliest exemplars. Again, it would be reasonable to treat the oldest as most authentic. But, as we argued in the previous lesson, historical circumstances might easily have suppressed circulation of the true text while favoring the circulation of inferior texts.
  3. Scholars might look for information concerning the origins of each text-type. But history is virtually silent about their origins.
  4. The last recourse is internal evidence, which in fact has figured most prominently in the textual debate. By general consent, the text-type showing the fewest signs of secondary process must be the oldest. But what are these signs, and which deserve most weight in assigning priority?
    1. Westcott and Hort attached considerable weight to conflation. But the argument that BT must be late because it contains conflates has been laid to rest.
    2. The same scholars regarded other features of BT as secondary also—especially its greater fullness, smoothness, and internal harmony. But it is impossible to know a priori whether the perfection of BT is the original state of the text, before corruption set in, or the final state after editorial improvement.

The position I espouse rests on two theses.

  1. Several kinds of variants are indisputably scribal changes. These include the following.
    1. Manifest corruptions. A corruption can be confidently marked as such if it is a misspelling, an error (since we can assume that the original was inerrant), a garbled version of meaning found in other variants, or pure nonsense.
    2. Elucidations. If one reading is hard to understand because it is subtle or obscure, while an alternative reading is clear and plain, there can be little doubt as to which came first. The second must be someone's attempt to remove a difficulty, so that the reader would have easier sailing.
    3. Attempts at updating. This kind of variant includes the Atticisms Sturz cites as evidence that AT exhibits a later form of Greek.
    4. Expressions of personal bias. If a reading shows a mind other than the mind of Scripture, it can be discarded as false. As a practical matter, a single variant is insufficient to establish editorial bias. Rather, definite proof that scribes were seeking to make Scripture conform to their own thinking or agenda requires a set of variants with the same tendency.
  2. Final judgment as to whether AT or BT is closer to the original should depend on which text-type displays fewer variants in these categories


    The Evidence That AT Includes Corrupt Readings

Names in degenerate form

Errors (See also #20)

Garbled readings

Acts 19:16

Interpretive changes

2 Thessalonians 2:8

Removal of an archaism


    The Evidence That AT Includes Biased Readings

The ancient text with the most obvious earmarks of revision is not BT, but AT. My view is that AT appears to have been shaped by editors who were wary how the text would be received when read in public. We must posit some such origin to explain why AT often seems to shy away from material that might provoke controversy or unbelief, to wink at emerging superstitions, and in many other ways to promote the interests of the clergy. In many readings, such as those itemized below, AT shows the clear imprint of minds swayed by political considerations.

Possible rationalistic changes

Possible accommodations of emerging superstitions

Some of these readings are undoubtedly older than the superstitions they support. But we must understand that the devil was working to introduce these superstitions (and to corrupt the Scriptures so that they would be a less effective hindrance) long before they were generally accepted. So, whether a reading reflects man's effort to bolster an existing superstition or Satan's effort to prepare the way for one in the future, such accommodation is valid evidence that the reading is not original. Moreover, the concurrence of all the following readings in Alexandrian codices from the fourth century, after the superstitions which they support had emerged, suggests bias in editorial selection.

Possible retreats from categorical statements

Possible antisemitic deletions

Acts 24:6-8

Acts 28:28-29

Possible prudish deletions

Possible changes to protect the status and authority of church leaders

Acts 15:32-34

Possible changes to avoid antagonizing solid citizens in the church

Possible changes to avoid antagonizing civil authority

We have found four categories of readings in AT that savor strongly of being derived from the rival readings in BT. We are excluding from consideration all the stylistic evidence that Sturz (relying on Kilpatrick) accumulates in favor of recognizing BT as the older text-type. We are also excluding some of the evidence which a long line of critics, including Burgon and Hills (3), have brought forward to show that AT is polluted with heretical changes.

  1. Twelve readings in AT (not counting the repetitions of "Beezeboul") seem to be corruptions (1-11).
  2. Two readings in AT seem to be elucidations (12-13).
  3. One reading in AT seems to be an attempt at updating (14).
  4. Thirty-three readings in AT seem to express ecclesiastical biases.
    1. Eight seem to be rationalistic excisions or emendations (15-22).
    2. Twelve seem to support emerging superstitions (23-32).
    3. Thirteen seem to express other ecclesiastical biases (33-45).

I am unaware of any readings in BT that we could justly place in any of these categories. If any reader can furnish me with more examples of secondary readings in AT (or any in BT, for that matter), I would welcome them. In my judgment, the examples cited offer enough of a pattern to warrant the conclusion that AT is the later text.

If the New Testament was a secular work rather than the Word of God, and if Westcott and Hort had not established AT as the choice of scholars over against simple believers, scholars would have rejected AT long ago. Over the years, the editors of CT have moved away from unreserved acceptance of AT, and now they give greater weight to readings with support from other traditions. But with every step of retreat from AT, they undermine their fundamental allegiance to AT as the most reliable text.

I am not alleging that AT is a systematic overhaul of the original. The changes appear to be clustered rather than evenly distributed. Also, they have widely varying manuscript support, and a particular change may not appear in all texts expressing the same idea. Thus, the process yielding AT was probably haphazard. For whatever reasons, a particular copyist made particular changes. In time, as novel readings were circulated, copyists could pick and choose according to their own liking. The earliest exemplars of AT must have been the work of copyists who, in their selection of variants, acquiesced to the biases we have described.

Footnotes

  1. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 242.
  2. Edward F. Hills, The King James Version Defended, 4th ed. (Des Moines, Iowa: The Christian Research Press, 1984), 138.
  3. Ibid., 126-38.