Modern New Testament Text
Criticism
The same Majority Text manuscripts were used for the New
Testament until a revolution, marked by two discoveries, took place. The
Vatican published Codex Vaticanus officially in 1889-90. Vaticanus was
catalogued in 1481 but has no history before that date. Erasmus knew of it and
Napoleon carried it off to Paris for a time. Konstantin von Tischendorf
(18151874) got to see the manuscript in 1843. He got into trouble for not
obeying the Vatican’s rules about copying, but he was finally able to produce
an edition in 1867. In 1844 at a monastery on Mt. Sinai, Tischendorf found
another manuscript, which came to be named Codex Sinaiticus. The two
manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) are sometimes called the Egyptian texts
because of their origin. Codex means that the text was bound more like a book
rather than rolled up as a scroll. Although the two codices disagree with each
other in many readings, they were hailed as superior to the Majority Text. The
differences between the Majority Text and the newly discovered codices are
illuminating when examined in the cool light of reason.
1.
The Majority Text manuscripts were dominant and
in agreement with one another, but the Egyptian manuscripts were not used
throughout the ancient church and were not in agreement with each other. Very
few manuscripts agree with Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, and the Egyptian texts do
not always agree with each other.7
2.
The Majority Text manuscripts were used in
worship for centuries, establishing their acceptance in the early Christian
Church, which was closer to the original events than we are. In contrast, the
two Egyptian texts popped up rather mysteriously and were not distributed and
used in a huge family of copies within the Christian Church.
3.
Many strange, arbitrary, and subjective rules
were made up to promote the new readings of the codices, but the Majority Text
has authority based upon vast use throughout the ages. Some call tradition the
“democracy of the dead,” meaning that we should pay attention to the reasons
why faithful Christians favored one manuscript family for almost two thousand
years.
The two Egyptian manuscripts did not by themselves change
the New Testament text used by modern translators. B. F. Westcott and F. J. A.
Hort, both from Cambridge University, accomplished this by publishing a two
volume work in 1881. They rejected the Majority Text in favor of the Egyptian
manuscripts, especially Vaticanus. Their work vastly influenced the English
Revised Version of 1881 and all subsequent translations. All the modern New
Testament translations follow Wescott and Hort to a great extent, except for
the revisions of the King James Version.
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“The Westcott Hort text, along with the new translation,
dealt the final blow to the old type of text (Received Text) upon which the
King James Version is based.”
~Neil Lightfoot, How
We Got the Bible, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1963, p. 80.
The Rules
Many a novice text critic has been initiated in the rules of
the science. It could be a science. The actual text does not need to be a
philosophical issue, but we can see that people refuse to keep their skeptical
agendas out of the issue. We should only ask, “What is the purest form of the
original text?” Various rules of doubtful value have been promoted to determine
whether one reading is better than another:
a. The shorter reading is preferred.
b. The more difficult reading is preferred.
c. When in doubt, favor tradition.
When we examine these
rules, we can see that they are infinitely flexible and no more scientific than
examining the entrails of sacrificial animals. The rules were first applied
during a time when all ancient works were considered a patchwork by many
different authors and editors.
The Shorter Reading Is Preferred
One can guess the attitude behind this rule. Some people
make their stories longer and longer, the more they tell them. Others
abbreviate a story they have heard before, depending on the circumstances. As
far as being a reliable guide for one reading or another, determining the
better reading by length is no better than walking to the hardware store with
arms outstretched and saying, “I need a door this wide.”8
We should think over the implications of this single rule.
It suggests an arbitrary attitude setting itself against the data. Implied in
this rule and others is the notion that the Christian Church suppressed the
true text, changing it with additions to express a Trinitarian orthodoxy
foreign to Jesus and the apostles. It is more likely that heretics edited their
manuscripts to fit their pet doctrines, introducing some variant readings
easily detected. For example, one man was trying to prove his case at a church meeting.
He read from a document in a loud and outraged tone of voice, but when he came
to a section that reflected poorly on him, he skipped it entirely. Later, his
friend read a transcript from an audio tape. Once again, when material came up
not supporting their cause, it was omitted. In these two cases, the shorter
version was the corrupt version.9
The More Difficult
Reading Is Preferred
This rule abandons all pretensions of science, when
considered thoughtfully. One question we must ask is, “Difficult for whom?” The
answer is, “Difficult for believers.” This rule is a formula for replicating
false doctrine. The Christian Church has determined through the study of the
Scriptures that dozens of heresies are misinterpretations of God’s Word. One
example would be an attack upon the hypostatic union of the two natures (divine
and human) of Christ. Some deny the human nature of Christ. Others deny His
divine nature. Still others are confused about the union of the two natures, as
Zwingli and Calvin were. Applying this rule would mean that a reading denying
the divine nature of Christ would be preferred to one affirming it.
The arrogance of this rule is amazing. It simply assumes
that the very first Biblical texts taught the favorite heresies of the
liberals. Then, they think, over a period of time, the copyists inserted a
newly minted orthodoxy into the pure text. If we choose to believe this liberal
fantasy, this plan must have been a massive and overwhelming conspiracy. Only a
few manuscripts preserved the original, mixed up, heretical Christianity.
Liberals can pick those few examples out, elevate them to a new status, and
create another New Testament based upon them. That is exactly what Wescott and
Hort did in England. They were asked to modernize the King James Version to
some extent. They created a different Greek New Testament, a two-volume work so
massive that no one could easily supplant it with another. A country raised on
Shakespeare, Milton, and the King James Version rejected the new translation based
upon their text, but their Greek New Testament persisted. Today, all modern
translations of the New Testament reject the Majority Text and follow the
trends of Wescott and Hort.
All modern translations, not some of them, but all of them,
favor the Egyptian manuscripts and reject the Majority Text. The New King
James Version, which is really a modest revision rather than
a new translation, does not follow the Egyptian texts and argues against them.
The NewKJV does provide variations in footnotes, but these actually help the
reader see where the RSV and NIV omit verses. The omission of words and entire
verses is the issue. The new editions edit out a significant amount of the New
Testament. The omissions are seldom noted in the modern translations, so the
verses and words are forgotten. In time they seem foreign.
When in Doubt, Favor Tradition
This rule may or may not be applied. The radical scholars
generally work against tradition. For instance, they dismiss the reliability of
the New
Testament, but they anchor all their dates in the Acts of
the Apostles. This is a contradiction. However, if a scholar cannot fix a
particular date in time, such as the trial of Paul, then he cannot date
anything else in New Testament history.10
What does “in doubt” mean? What does “tradition” mean?
Obviously, if all three rules are applied at the discretion of the scholar, the
resulting text may become anything he imagines it must have been. Because the
Bible is ancient, many contradictory traditions exist about many different
subjects. We have very late traditions (5th century) about the
Assumption of Mary. Does that mean that the silence of the New Testament about
the death of Mary implies her Assumption? The Church of Rome has read the
Assumption of Mary into the “First Gospel” (Genesis 3:15), making Mary’s the
foot that will crush Satan. The Church of Rome has used the text of Genesis
3:15 that says, “She will crush his head.” Thus, Catholic art often shows Mary
trampling the serpent. The Church of Rome has admitted the error in the
translation, but I can go to any major theological library and still find the
error in print.
Liberals will argue correctly that there are almost no
complete New Testament manuscripts. Every Greek New Testament published is a
composite of the ancient witnesses. However, if the available manuscripts
overlap, the complete New Testament is easily assembled. The composite argument
works both ways. Every single printed Greek New Testament today is also a
composite. It is not simply Vaticanus or Sinaiticus, but some of each, plus
Majority Text readings. Various readings are voted upon and graded, introducing
even more subjective opinion into the discussion. Please note that all ancient
works and many modern works have also been gathered and edited from various
manuscripts with gaps, contradictions, and misspellings. The difference is that
the Biblical texts are far more numerous, reliable, and precise.
Textual
Work: The Ending of Mark’s Gospel
Let us look at one text in Mark and see what the manuscript
evidence is. An ordinary Bible will not help. Footnotes mention some ancient
witnesses, as if they were people. The witnesses are manuscripts. Details
explaining the changes are missing. No explanations are offered. And yet, this
is not a difficult matter to discuss.
I was told by my Harvard trained college professor, a
Lutheran Church in America pastor, that the early Church noticed that the
ending of the second Gospel was rather abrupt, stopping at Mark 16:8, so they
made up another ending, Mark 16:9-20. Liberals said, “Thank God we now have
better manuscripts than the King James Version had, so we can get rid of the
manufactured ending and stop the Gospel at 16:8.” The liberals could not
explain why anyone would end a Gospel with the word “for.” The Greek word gar (“for”) is never found at the end of a sentence, let alone at the end of a
book. This adverb gar is
post-positive, meaning that it is not used as the first word in a phrase. Like
the contemporary question, “And?” it assumes completion.
KJV Mark 16:8 And they went out quickly, and fled from the
sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to
any man; for they were afraid.
One theory held that
the Gospel was mysteriously broken off at Mark 16:8, letting people imagine
death or persecution. Given the value of written texts in the early Church, the
abrupt ending is difficult to explain adequately. According to Bruce Metzger, the
best known textual expert in America, one 12th century manuscript of
Mark broke off at Mark 16:8 with the Greek letter tau indicating the end of a lection and more text following.11
For this reason he rejects that particular manuscript as evidence for the
abrupt ending. Nevertheless, Metzger argues very strongly for excluding the
traditional ending of Mark, giving little evidence against his view, but he
offers three alternative explanations for the ending at Mark 16:8 –
1.
The author intended to end his work with “they
were afraid.”
2.
The Gospel was not finished.
3.
The Gospel lost its last leaf before it was
copied. (The most probable in his opinion.)12
Justin Martyr used
vocabulary from the traditional ending in his Apology, written about 155 AD.
Although we do not know exact dates for the New Testament Gospels, it is likely
that the entire New Testament was completed before 100 AD. That makes the
possible allusion to the traditional ending extremely early. A website about
Justin Martyr and other saints made the observation that the early Roman
emperors persecuted the Christian Church because they were trying to preserve
the old Roman ways. The active persecution of an impoverished and illegal
religion might explain the problem with the ending. Justin Martyr was beheaded
with six of his students, one of them a woman.
My United Bible Society Greek New Testament (Aland third
edition) has notes for the variant readings. Similar decisions about which
words or sections to include or exclude are made about Shakespeare and all
important authors, but most people are not aware of it. The Shakespeare Variorum is an enormous work with
variant readings of the dramas. The Yale Shakespeare, in one volume, is the
result of many different editorial decisions. Although Shakespeare belongs to
the modern age, scholars still argue about the authorship of the plays. Did he
write some or all of them? Or did the Earl of Oxford? Or Bacon? If a
Shakespeare play began with as much uncertainty as many sermons, no one would
pay attention to Shakespeare either. The actor would begin, “Scholars are not
sure whether William Shakespeare wrote this play. We chose which lines we would
use in performing the play, but no one agrees which words are actually his, or
Oxford’s, or Bacon’s, depending on which book you read.”13
The Aland edition of the New Testament omits the traditional
ending of Mark, supporting this reading with Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and a few
additional witnesses. The traditional ending is supported by Alexandrinus,
Epraemi Rescriptus, Bezae Cantabrigiensis, and many others. The position of
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus looks very lonely, but aha, do not they agree with
each other? Are they not better and earlier? Can we not find it in our hearts
to forgive that forgotten scribe who added a few verses to Mark, just to
improve the Gospel?
Vaticanus does not include the traditional ending of Mark,
but the copyist left more than a column of space blank. That was long before
the days of “this page intentionally left blank.” At the very least we can
assume that the scribe knew of the traditional ending. That leaves Sinaiticus
stranded. It is one thing to say that Mark’s Gospel ended abruptly, for no
known reason, and that an ending was added. But, if two major witnesses against
the traditional ending do not even agree completely with each other, then
snipping off verses nine through twenty seems arbitrary, arrogant, and
deceitful. St. Jerome knew about manuscripts omitting Mark 16:9-20, but he was
convinced of the authenticity of the traditional ending. W. R. Farmer
concluded: “In fact, external evidence from the second century for Mark 16:9-20
is stronger than for most other parts of that Gospel.”14
Now we have a great dividing line on this subject. Most of
the conservatives have surrendered to Westcott and Hort, abandoning the
Majority Text. And yet, an author who accepted the modern theories about the
New Testament text, said this about the ending of Mark:
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“In favor of Mark 16:9-20 there are a host of witnesses: the
Alexandrian Manuscript, the Ephraem Manuscript, Codex Bezae, other early
uncials, all late uncials and cursives, a number of old Latin authorities plus
the Vulgate, one Old Syriac manuscript, the Syriac Peshitta version, and many
other versions. Besides, there is a plain statement from Irenaeus (early
Christian writer) which clearly shows the existence of Mark 16:9-20 in the
second century and the belief that Mark was its author. In brief this is the
negative and positive data on the question. On one hand is the unparalleled
reliability of the Vatican and Sinaitic Manuscripts; on the other hand is
almost all of the other evidence. J. W. McGarvey wrote a capable defense of
Mark 16:9-20 in his Commentary on Matthew
and Mark. It was first published, however, in 1875, before the great work
of Westcott and Hort on the Greek text was completed. Yet McGarvey’s, with a
few minor modifications, can stand with credit today.”
~Neil Lightfoot, How
We Got the Bible, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1963, pp. 74f.
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus have “unparalleled reliability,”
except in one of the most important passages of the New Testament—the ending of
Mark. If the claim does not match up with the data, then the claim is wrong.15
In light of the concessions made by Lightfoot above, the treatment of the
traditional ending of Mark in the New International Version is worth noting.
After Mark 16:8, a line appears in the text, indicating a break. The following
heading appears above Mark 16:9-20:
“[The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient
witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.]”16
Someone who has not read the research on the ending of
Mark—and this material is fairly difficult to find—would conclude from the NIV
that Mark 16:9-20 does not belong in the Bible. He would not know that the only
major manuscript unambiguously omitting the ending is Sinaiticus and that this
“most reliable manuscript” suddenly appeared without a so-called family of
copies to back it up. Since Missouri Synod and Wisconsin Synod professors
participated with the liberals and tongue-speakers of the NIV translation team,
a conservative Lutheran would assume that the bracketed information is in
harmony with orthodox Lutheran doctrine. In fact, no other Bible translation is
so brassy in disdaining the traditional ending of Mark.
If a modern scholar’s training goes against the traditional
ending of the Second Gospel, and he still supports the Majority Text conclusion
of Mark, then the untrained person can see that the case against Mark 16:9-20
is very weak indeed. For the sake of comparison, consider what Westcott and
Hort have done to millions of Christians. The Beck Bible published by Christian News has also omitted the
traditional ending of Mark with a footnote, following Westcott and Hort.17
When a faithful Lutheran reads this Bible, after being exposed to the King
James Version, he is led to believe that the Christian Church was deceived for
centuries. Luther was wrong. Tyndale was wrong. All the Reformers were wrong.
How can the average Christian check the facts? In front of him is the latest
Bible printed by a conservative Lutheran. He has no way of discovering, apart
from a theological library, that the manuscripts favored in the new edition
have no history at all. If a farmer bred cattle or pigs without knowing their
genetic heritage, he would be considered lazy or foolish. The ultimate result
of Westcott and Hort enthusiasm has planted doubt about the entire New
Testament text.18 Ironically, the Majority Text is rejected by
liberals today because of its heritage, its careful preservation in the
Christian Church, its thousands of manuscript witnesses, its consistency, its
harmony in many different forms. Even the mysterious Vaticanus tips its hat to
the Majority Text, by making room for the traditional ending of Mark.
“We must conclude that fidelity to the New Testament text
has been abandoned since the publication of the Revised Version in 1881.”19
