Part II - Resist the Beginnings. Greek New Testament Fun and Games

Bengel's Gnomon was widely used - often quoted by Lenski.
Bengel was the first to make up his own rules for deciding on the merits of a reading.

Part II - "Resist the Beginnings!" - As Pfotenhauer Wrote

Count Tischendorf gloried in his finds - first Sinaiticus - which he named Aleph - and Vaticanus which he designated as B. Thus the two codices were the first in a row of witnesses listed in a Greek New Testament.

I believe Tischendorf's writing gives him away as a fraud, a glory seeker. I will offer examples in the Second Edition of The Bible Book.

Tischendorf's confabulations set up Westcott and Hort to turn the glory mongering into a rejection of the best text - the Majority Text (aka the Byzantine Text or Traditional Text), all of the Majority Text in agreement (with minor details that we expect in all printed or copied works).

To pull this off, Westcott and Hort spent 10 years cajoling the Revision of the KJV committee into adopting their unpublished and secretive Greek New Testament. They did not expose their wild ideas and bad text to the scholarly world but secretly fed parts to those who were working on a given section of the New Testament. 

Westcott-Hort released their own Greek New Testament (I have a copy) the moment the English revision of the KJV came out. The Revision followed the Wescott-Hort text, which they printed without any explanatory notes about the verses, phrases, and words omitted.

Although widespread rejection accompanied the KJV Revision and the W-H Greek text, it was clear they violated the instructions - To Leave the Greek Text Alone! They got away with it, and the race downhill could only gain momentum.

Seventy years later, the Revised Standard Version came out with the Virgin Birth of Christ removed from Isaiah 7.

Cool people favored the new translations, which multiplied like rabbits left alone in a big cage. Biblical apostasy gave the theologians to make up whatever they wanted while the other fakes said, "We are only building on the brilliant work of Bultmann, Graf-Welhausen, and so many great scholars. They have set us free from the primitive thinking of the ancient times and the simpletons who still think that way."

LCMS President Pfotenhauer Said - "Resist the Beginnings" And Was Not Heeded

 

Fritz Pfotenhauer said "Resist the beginnings" and was not heeded. That warning explains what happened to the text of the Greek New Testament.

Count Tischendorf was a fraud who constantly pumped up his status as a great scholar. He declared Sinaiticus (Aleph) and Vaticanus (B) to be the earliest and best manuscripts, and that was accepted with great excitement. 

Two ridiculous notions helped fuel this. 

I. John's Gospel was dismissed as being very late (300 AD or so) and therefore not from an apostle or anyone close to that era. That claim came from the Tuebingen School - and that sticks today among the apostate scholars. So nothing in John had any validity, and dropping the woman caught in adultery passage was easily accomplished (plus the Johannine Comma).

II. Mark's Gospel was held up as the earliest of the four, the simplest in concepts, and the most likely to reveal the real historical Jesus - a rabbi and nothing more.

III. There are 5,000 or more witnesses to the Majority Text, which varies only a little due to typical copyist errors. Aleph and Vaticanus must be the best because they are a tiny minority. The Majority Text was preserved in the Greek Byzantine Empire for 1100 years, so it must be loaded down with errors. 

Notice how powerful those false concepts are when considered together with these below. 

A. The oldest and best readings must be the shortest ones, because "everyone adds details" to older stories. Since Jesus was "only a man", anything suggesting His divinity was added later and a "pious fiction." But actually, a new writer's additions will stick out when inserted into the original text. even today.

B. Those who are indifferent or opposed to the Christian Faith are scholars. But those who understand the Scriptures to be inerrant and infallible are backwoods, ignorant hillbillies who cannot grasp the subtle work of Biblical "scholars" and apostate theologians.

C. The vast majority of scholars agree, so there is no alternative view. Those who favor the King James Version cannot be trusted in teaching at any seminary or university, and congregations must be encouraged to move ahead with the latest translations paraphrases, especially those with NEW! in the title: 

1. New International Version, 
2. New American Standard Bible, 
3. New Living Translation, 
4. New Revised Standard Version.
5. New Revised Standard Catholic Edition.