David Otis Fuller
In many important matters everyone recognizes the need for an authority — a supreme “court of appeal” higher than which no one can go. In the realm of supernatural things there is only One Authority recognized by Christian people. This is not the church, nor the “infallible” words of men, nor one’s own ego, nor a hierarchy of Roman “priests,” Protestant ministers, or Jewish rabbis. All such are fallible and prone to error and prejudice. The Bible makes high claims to Divine inspiration, inerrancy and authority; and if it is true that the Sovereign God of the universe has condescended to reveal Himself supernaturally in His Book, even as He has revealed Himself naturally in the material universe, then man — even in a world ruined by sin — has a firm foundation on which to build for time and eternity.
That the Sovereign God of creation has done this in the Holy Scriptures is acknowledged by many earnest Christians, but a question arises which demands a clear answer: “Which Bible do you mean?” A generation or two ago this question would have had but one answer — the King James Version; but now many new translations demand recognition and prominence — the Revised Version, the American Standard Version, the Revised Standard Version, the New English Bible, the Knox Version, the Anchor Version, the Berkeley Version, etc., etc.
Jasper James Ray, missionary and Bible teacher, in the splendid book, God Wrote Only One Bible, says — “A multiplicity of differing Bible versions are in circulation today, resulting in a state of bewildering confusion. Some versions omit words, verses, phrases and even chapter portions which are well known to be included in a number of the ancient manuscripts. In some of these new versions words and phrases have been added which have no corresponding basic expression in authentic copies of the Hebrew and Greek. Among these you will not find the Bible which God gave when “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Peter 1:21; II Timothy 3:16).
Those who favor the modern versions claim that they are based upon the oldest and best manuscripts, but oldest and best do not necessarily go hand in hand. Mr. Ray’s book makes this clear — “Within the first hundred years after the death of the Apostles, Irenaeus said concerning Marcion the Gnostic, ‘Wherefore also Marcion and his followers have betaken themselves to mutilating the Scriptures, not acknowledging some books at all, and curtailing the gospel according to Luke and the Epistles of Paul, they assert that these alone are authentic which they themselves have shortened.’”1 Epiphanius in his treatise the Panarion describes no less than eighty heretical parties, each of which planned to further its own ends by the misuse of the Scriptures. 2
1 Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, 1953), V0L 1, pp. 434435־.
2 G. T. Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine, p. 19.
Those who were corrupting Bible manuscripts said that they were correcting them, and corrupted copies were so prevalent that agreement between them was hopeless. The worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected originated within a hundred years after it was composed. The African fathers and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Erasmus or Stephanus thirteen centuries later when molding the Textus Receptus. Many of the important variations in the modern versions may be traced to the influence of Eusebius and Origen — “the father of Arianism.”
Eusebius was a great admirer of Origen and a student of his philosophy. J. J. Ray quotes from Dr. Ira Price’s Ancestry of the English Bible,3 “Eusebius of Caesarea, the first church historian, assisted by Pamphilus, or vice versa, issued with all its critical remarks the fifth column of Origen’s Hexapla with alternative readings from the other columns, for use in Palestine. The Emperor Constantine gave orders that fifty copies of this edition should be prepared for use in the churches.” It has been suggested that the Codex Vaticanus may have been one of these copies. Many modern textual critics regard this document as the oldest and best representative of the original text of Holy Scripture. The object of the following chapters is to demonstrate that this appraisal is fundamentally wrong, and that the Majority Text or Traditional Text — sometimes called the Received Text — underlying the King James Version more faithfully preserves the inspired revelation.
3 J. J. Ray, God Wrote Only One Bible, p. 70.
There have been many attempts to adulterate and to destroy the Holy Scriptures, and every age has witnessed such assaults. As early as the second century such writers as Irenaeus describe the attempts of heretics to corrupt the inspired records, and during periods of Roman persecution imperial decrees demanded the surrender and destruction of the copies cherished by many of the Lord’s people.
In the Reformation period the Church of Rome sought to maintain its dominant position by burning not only the copies of the Bible, but also those who recognized the supreme authority of God’s Word. Tyndale was burned at the stake at Vilvorde outside Brussels in Belgium on August 6, 1536. His great offense was that he had translated the Scriptures into English and was making copies available against the wishes of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. His prayer was heard before he died, - “O Lord, open the eyes of the King of England.” His prayer was heard and answered; and in less than a year King Henry VIII, who had ordered Tyndale’s death, gave his permission for the Bible to be placed in the parish churches, and the people of England rejoiced to have the Word of God in their own tongue.
Ray asserts that while the true Christian religion puts the inspired Word of God above everything else, the false system puts something above the Bible or places human tradition in a chair of equal authority with it. At the Council of Trent in 1546 fifty-three prelates made a decree declaring that the apocryphal books together with unwritten tradition are of God and are to be received and venerated as the Word of God. In the primitive church the only authentic Scriptures recognized were those given by the inspiration of God (II Peter 1:21). These are the true Word of God, and through His gracious providence and infinite wisdom the stream of the life-giving water of God’s inspired Word has come to us crystal clear.
The “god of this world” directs his attack first on the character and Person of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, and then on the integrity and accuracy of the written Word of God — the Bible. From the beginning there has been no pause in the assault on God’s Son and God’s Word. The first Gospel promise in Genesis 3:15 had hardly been uttered when Satan sought to erase the “Seed of the woman” from the scene. There came a time when a six-month-old baby was the only one left of the royal line following a massacre by the wicked Queen Athaliah (II Chronicles 22:10-12). When Jesus was but a baby He, with His foster father Joseph and mother Mary, was forced to flee into Egypt from the wrath of Herod the Great, who secured and kept his throne by crimes of unspeakable brutality, murdering even his own wife and two sons. It was this Herod who slew the children of Bethlehem in an effort to kill the Christ.
In the days of His earthly ministry three times they sought to stone Him to death; once they hustled Him to the brow of a hill overlooking Nazareth and were going to cast Him down headlong, “But he passing through the midst of them went his way” (Luke 4:30). True, they finally crucified Him, but only by His permission; for it is written, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again” (John 10:17). In all these, and in many other ways the hatred of Satan toward the Son of God was manifested.
In the second arena, that of the Word of God written, Satan is more than ever active today. From the very outset, when he cast doubt upon God’s Word in the garden with the question, “Yea, hath God said . . .?” he has sought to corrupt or destroy that which God has caused to be written. The power and providence of God are displayed in the history of the preservation and transmission of His Word, in fulfillment of the promise of the Son of God, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). Our Lord was not given to exaggeration, and God’s holy Law was not confined to the commands of Sinai but is set forth in all that He inspired His prophets and apostles to write.
The whole realm of created things is ordered and sustained by the over-ruling providence of God, Who upholds all things by the word of His power. The Scriptures make it quite clear that He is also well able to insure the providential preservation of His own Word through the ages, and that He is the Author and Preserver of the Divine Revelation. The Bible cannot be accounted for in any other way. It claims to be “Theopneustos,” “God-breathed.” “All scripture is given by inspiration of God” (II Timothy 3:16). Without impairing or destroying their individual personalities and style, the Spirit of God “carried along” those inspired writers of His words, so that they did in fact record the very words of God — “Not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches.” Those who reject this as impossible would reduce the Almighty to the stature of a fallible man, but “with God all things are possible.”
The compiler of this book, and the able writers whom he quotes, all contend that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant and authoritative Word of God and that there has been a gracious exercise of the Divine providence in its preservation and transmission. They are also deeply convinced that the inspired text is more faithfully represented by the Majority Text — sometimes called the Byzantine Text, the Received Text or the Traditional Text — than by the modern critical editions which attach too much weight to the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and their allies. For this reason the reader is encouraged to maintain confidence in the King James Version as a faithful translation based upon a reliable text.
Many ancient copies of the Scriptures have perished, but the Divine revelation has been preserved. In countless instances the old and well-worn copies were deliberately destroyed when new copies had been made from them. In this way the ancient text has been perpetuated in less ancient copies. Some very ancient copies have escaped decay and destruction for the simple reason that they were not regarded as accurate enough for copying purposes or for common use. Dr. E. F. Hills draws attention to this in his scholarly little book, The King James Version Defended. The author received his A.B. from Yale University and his Th.D. from Harvard. He also pursued graduate studies at Chicago University and Calvin Seminary. Dr. Hills is entitled to a hearing because of his scholarship and scientific research, which qualify him to evaluate the facts.
The following extracts are taken from his book, pages 42,43 and 69.
“Kirsopp Lake, a brilliant liberal critic of the Scriptures, began his study of the Byzantine manuscripts with the expectation of finding many cases in which one of the manuscripts examined would prove itself to be a direct copy of one of the other manuscripts. But to his amazement he could discover no such cases of direct copying. He summarized this surprising situation in the following manner: ‘The Ferrar group and family 1 are the only reported cases of the repeated copying of a single archetype, and even for the Ferrar group there were probably two archetypes rather than one. . . . Apart from these two there seem to be no groups of manuscripts which are conceivably descendants of a single lost codex. . . . Taking this fact into consideration along with the negative result of our collation of manuscripts at Sinai, Patmos, and Jerusalem, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the scribes usually destroyed their exemplars when they had copied the sacred books.’4
4 Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 21 (1928), pp. 347-349.
“But this hypothesis which Lake advanced as something new and startling was essentially the same as that for which consistently Christian scholars, such as J. W. Burgon (1813-1888), Dean of Chichester, had contended long before. According to Burgon,5 there once were many ancient manuscripts containing the Byzantine text, manu-scripts much older than B6 or ALEPH. But they were read so constantly and copied so frequently that finally they wore out and perished. This is why only a few ancient Byzantine manuscripts are extant today, none of which is as old as B or ALEPH. And conversely, the reason why B, ALEPH, and other non-Byzantine manuscripts have sur-vived to the present day is because they were rejected by the Greek Church as faulty and so not used.
5 The Revision Revised (London, 1883), p. 319.
6 The 4th century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, by which misguided critics have attempted to correct the New Testament text.
“Burgon’s contention was universally rejected in his own day by naturalistic critics. It is interesting, therefore, to see it confirmed forty-five years later by a leading representative of the naturalistic school. For if Lake was right in supposing ‘that the scribes usually destroyed their examplars when they had copied the sacred books,’ then many ancient Byzantine manuscripts could have perished in this manner, and certainly B, ALEPH, and other ancient non-Byzantine manuscripts now extant would have so perished had they contained an acceptable ·text.
“Naturalistic New Testament critics seem at last to have reached the end of the trail. Westcott and Hort’s broad highway, which appeared to lead so quickly and smoothly to the original New Testament text, has dwindled down to a narrow foot path and terminated finally in a thicket of trees. For those who have followed it, there is only one thing to do, and that is to go back and begin the journey all over again from the consistently Christian starting point; namely, the divine inspiration and providential preservation of Scripture.
“Those who take these doctrines as their starting point need never be apprehensive over the results of their researches in the New Testament text. For the providence of God was watching over this sacred text even during the first three centuries of the Christian era. Even during this troubled period a sufficient number of trustworthy copies of the New Testament Scriptures was produced by true believers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These were the manuscripts to which the whole Greek Church returned during the fourth and fifth centuries, again under the leading of the Holy Spirit, and from which the Byzantine text was derived.”
Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, author of the penetrating and incisive book, The Suicide of Christian Theology, makes this comment on page 38: “The historical value of the New Testament records about Christ is, when considered from the objective standpoint of textual scholarship, nothing less than stellar. Writes Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, formerly director and principal librarian of the British Museum: ‘The interval . . . between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.’ ”4
4 The Suicide of Christian Theology, ©1970 Bethany Fellowship, Inc.
Dr. Yigael Yadin is the author of a most unusual book, Masada, the momentous archaeological discovery revealing the heroic life and struggle of the Jewish Zealots. Dr. Yadin at the time of Israel’s struggle for independence and during the War of Liberation in 1948, became Chief of Operations of the Israeli Defense Forces and later Chief of the General Staff.
In 1952 he resigned from the army to resume his research and joined the Hebrew University in Jerusalem where he is now professor of archaeology. In 1955 and 1958 he directed the excavations at Hazor, and in 1960 and 1961 he led the explorations of the Judean Desert Caves where Bar-Kochba documents were discovered. He has done much research work on the scrolls from the Dead Sea area and has written numerous papers in archaeological and scientific journals. In 1956 he was awarded the Israel prize in Jewish studies and in 1965 the Rothschild prize in humanities. The following are extracts from his book.5
5 Yigael Yadin, MASADA: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealots’ Last Stand. Copyright © 1966 by Yigael Yadin. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.
“About three feet away from the shekels the first scroll was found. All the details of this discovery are sharp in my mind. In the early hours of the afternoon, while I was in one of the northern storerooms, Shmaryahu Guttman came running to me, followed by some of the volunteers working with him, and flourished before me a piece of parchment. It was so black and creased that only with difficulty could one make anything out. But a quick examination on the spot showed us immediately that here was a fragment from the Book of Psalms, and we could even identify the chapters: the section ran from Psalm 81 to Psalm 85.
“A little while later we also found another part of the scroll, which completed the top part of the first fragment. . . : This discovery is of extraordinary importance for scroll research. It is not only that this is the first time that a parchment scroll has been found not in a cave, and in circumstances where it was possible to date it without the slightest doubt. It could not possibly be later than the year 73 AD, the year Masada fell. As a matter of fact, this scroll was written much before — perhaps twenty or thirty years earlier; and it is interesting that this section from the Book of Psalms, like the other Biblical scrolls which we found later, is almost exactly identical (except for a few minor changes here and there) to the text of the biblical books which we use today. Even the division into chapters and psalms is identical with the traditional division” (pp. 171-172).
“On the very first day of the second season, early in the afternoon, it fell to a young lad from a kibbutz in Western Galilee to discover in the western comer of the court in front of the large wall, fragments of a scroll scattered among the ruins. This discovery provoked great excitement and was taken as a happy omen for our future work. Parts of the fragments had been eaten away, but those that were undamaged were very well preserved and we could immediately identify them as several chapters from the Book of Leviticus, chapters eight to twelve, and to note that this scroll too was absolutely identical with the traditional text of Leviticus. . . . How this scroll reached this location we shall never know. Maybe it was blown here by the wind during the destruction of Masada and was buried among the ruined debris; or perhaps it was thrown here by one of the Roman soldiers. At all events, its discovery here might be called an archaeological ‘miracle’ ” (p. 179).
“Within a few hours he [Chief Petty Officer Moshe Cohen, from the Israeli Navy] had reached almost to the bottom of the pit and there his groping hands found the remains of a scroll. Though the parchment was badly gnawed, we could immediately identify the writing as chapters from the Book of Ezekiel; and the parts that were better preserved than others, and which we could easily read, contained extracts from Chapter 37 — the vision of the dry bones.
“As for the rolled scroll discovered in the first pit, it was found on opening — which had to be done with great care in the laboratory in Jerusalem — to contain parts of the two final chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy. But the tightly rolled core of the scroll, on which we had pinned much hope, turned out to our dismay to be simply the blank end ‘sheets’ of the scroll. They had been sewn to the written ‘sheets’ to facilitate rolling and unrolling. It need hardly be added at this stage that these two scrolls, too, are virtually identical with the traditional Biblical texts.
There are only a few slight changes in the Ezekiel scroll” (pp. 187-189).
In the following pages though there is language that is technical and difficult for the average layman to grasp, there is also much that anyone may comprehend and greatly profit from. May God, the Blessed Holy Spirit, use the pages of this book to inspire and challenge the hearts of believers who have been bought with the precious blood of the Son of God. Let us be willing to stand against what is erroneous and ready always to give a reason for the hope that lieth in us in meekness and fear.
Terence H. Brown
The Rev. Terence H. Brown has been Secretary of the Trinitarian Bible Society of London, England for a number of years and is a scholar in his own right. God is increasingly using the TBS around the world, with branches being formed recently in Canada and the United States.
“There were many chosen that were greater in other men’s eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise.1
1 Miles Smith, The Translators to the Reader.
Advocates of the modern versions often assume that they are the product of scholarship far superior to that of the translators of the King James Version of 1611, but this assumption is not supported by the facts. The learned men who labored on our English Bible were men of exceptional ability, and although they differed among themselves on many matters of church order, administration and doctrine, they approached the task with a reverent regard for the Divine inspiration, authority and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures. To them it was “God’s sacred Truth” and demanded the exercise of their utmost care and fidelity in its translation.
The most learned men in the land were chosen for this work, and the complete list shows a high proportion of men with a profound knowledge of the languages in which the Bible was written. Of the fifty-four who were chosen, a few died or withdrew before the translation was started and the final list numbered forty-seven men. They were divided into six companies, and a portion was assigned to each group. Everyone in each company translated the whole portion before they met to compare their results and agree upon the final form. They then transmitted their draft to each of the other companies for their comment and consent. A select committee then went carefully through the whole work again, and at last two of their number were responsible for the final checking.
The six committees were to meet at Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge. The first Westminster Committee was attended by:
1. Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, Fellow of Pembroke, Cambridge, where he took his B.A., M.A. and divinity degrees, later became Dean of Westminster, Bishop of Ely and then of Winchester.
2. Dr. John Overall, Fellow of Trinity and Master of St. Catharine’s, Cambridge, became Dean of St. Paul’s and successively Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and Norwich. He took his D.D. in 1596 and became Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.
3. Dr. Adrian Saravia, Professor of Divinity at Leyden University in 1582, became Prebendary of Canterbury and Westminster. In the controversies of that period he is often referred to as “that learned foreigner.” His Spanish descent and residence in Holland qualified him to assist the translators with his first-hand knowledge of the work of Spanish and Dutch scholars.
4. Dr. John Layfield, Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge in 1585 and Greek lecturer in 1593, was specially skilled in architecture; and his judgment was relied on regarding passages describing the Tabernacle and Temple.
5. Dr. Richard Clarke, Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, D.D.
6. Dr. William Teigh, Archdeacon of Middlesex, Rector of All Hallows, Barking-by-the-Tower, described by Wood as “an excellent textuary and profound linguist.”
7. Dr. F. Burleigh, B.D. 1594, D.D. 1607. Fellow, King James’ College, Chelsea.
8. Richard Thomson, M.A., Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, described by Richard Montagu as “a most admirable philologer . . . better known in Italy, France and Germany than at home.”
9. William Bedwell, M.A., St. John’s College, Cambridge, had established his reputation as an Arabic scholar before 1603 and is recognized as “the Father of Arabic studies in England.” He was the author of the Lexicon Hep taglotton in seven folio volumes, including Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee and Arabic. He also commenced a Persian dictionary and an Arabic translation of the Epistles of John (now among the Laud MSS in the Bodleian Library).
10. Professor Geoffrey King, Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and Regius Professor of Hebrew. Lively, Spalding, King and Byng held this professorship in succession.
The second Westminster Committee included another seven scholars:
1. Dr. William Barlow, St. John’s, Cambridge, B.A. in 1583, M.A. in 1587, Fellow of Trinity in 1590, B.D. in 1594, D.D. in 1599. He represented the “Church Party” at the Hampton Court Conference and wrote The Summe and Substance of the Conference, which the Puritans criticized as being biased against their cause. He was made Bishop of Rochester in 1605, “one of the youngest in age, but one of the ripest in learning” of all those that had occupied that position. He later became Bishop of Lincoln.
2. Dr. Ralph Huchinson, President of St. John’s College, Oxford, B.A. in 1574, M.A. in 1578, B.D. in 1596, and D.D. in 1602.
3. Dr. T. Spenser, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
4. Dr. Roger Fenton, Fellow of Pembroke, Cambridge, D.D., one of the popular preachers of the day.
5. Mr. Michael Rabbet, Rector of St. Vedast, Foster Lane.
6. Mr. Thomas Sanderson, Rector of All Hallows.
7. Professor William Dakins, Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, M.A. in 1594, B.D. in 1601, Greek Lecturer at Trinity, and Professor of Divinity at Gresham College in 1604.
The Oxford Old Testament Committee enrolled:
1. Dr. John Harding, President of Magdalen College and Regius Professor of Hebrew. He presided over this committee.
2. Dr. John Reynolds, Merton College, Oxford, moved to Corpus Christi and became Fellow in 1566. He took his D.D. in 1585 and became Regius Professor of Divinity. After several years as Dean of Lincoln he was made President of Corpus Christi College in 1598. He represented the Puritans at the Hampton Court Conference at which he suggested that a new translation of the Bible should be undertaken. His reputation as a Hebrew and Greek scholar was sufficient warrant for his inclusion among the translators, and Hall relates that “his memory and reading were near to a miracle.” He worked on the translation of the Prophets until his death in 1607. During this period the Oxford translators met at his residence once a week to compare and discuss what they had done.
3. Dr. Thomas Holland, Balliol and Exeter Colleges, Oxford, B.A. 1570, M.A. 1575, B.D. 1582, D.D. 1584. Master and Regius Professor of Divinity, 1589. He achieved so much distinction in many fields of learning that he was not only highly esteemed among English scholars but also had a good reputation in the universities of Europe. Like Apollos, he was mighty in the Scriptures, and like the Apostle, he was faithful in explaining them. His example went hand in hand with his precepts, and he himself lived what he preached to others. Among the translators he was probably the most strongly opposed to Rome, and it is recorded that whenever he went on a journey away from his college he would call the men together and “commend them to the love of God and to the abhorrence of popery.”
His biographer writes — “He loved and he longed for God, for the presence of God, and for the full enjoyment of Him. His soul was framed for heaven, and could find no rest till it came there. His dying prayer was — ‘Come, 0 come, Lord Jesus, Thou Morning Star! Come, Lord Jesus; I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Thee!’ ”
4. Dr. Richard Kilbye, Lincoln College, Oxford, B.A. 1578, M.A. 1582, B.D. and D.D. in 1596 and Regius Professor of Hebrew in 1610. Author of a work on Exodus prepared from Hebrew commentators. An interesting story is found in Walton’s biography of Bishop Sanderson illustrating the truth of the old proverb, “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” Dr. Kilbye, an excellent Hebrew scholar and Professor of this language in the university, also expert in Greek and chosen as one of the translators, went on a visit with Sanderson, and at church on Sunday they heard a young preacher waste a great amount of the time allotted for his sermon in criticizing several words in the then recent translation. He carefully showed how one particular word should have been translated in a different way. Later that evening the preacher and the learned strangers were invited together to a meal, and Dr. Kilbye took the opportunity to tell the preacher that he could have used his time more profitably. The Doctor then explained that the translators had very carefully considered the “three reasons” given by the preacher, but they had found another thirteen more weighty reasons for giving the rendering complained of by the young critic.
5. Dr. Miles Smith, M.A., D.D., Corpus Christi, and Brasenose and Christ Church, Oxford, Bishop of Gloucester in 1612. He provided more evidence of his contribution than any of the others, as it was left to him to write the long Translators’ Preface — “The Translators to the Reader,” which used to be printed at the beginning of most English Bibles. His knowledge of the oriental languages made him well qualified for a place among the translators of the Authorized Version of the Bible. He had Hebrew at his fingers’ ends; and he was so conversant with Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, that he made them as familiar to him as his native tongue. He persisted in this task from its commencement to its completion and was himself the last man engaged in the translation.
The work of the whole company was revised and improved by a small group selected from their number, and was then finally examined by Bilson and Miles Smith. The latter then wrote the famous preface, beginning — “Zeal to promote the common good. . . .”
6. Dr. Richard Brett, Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, D.D., well versed in classical and Eastern languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic and Ethiopie.
7. Mr. Fairclowe, Fellow of New College, Oxford.
The Oxford New Testament Committee includes:
1. Dr. Thomas Ravis, Christ Church, Oxford, B.A. 1578, M.A. 1581, B.D. 1589, D.D. 1595, Vice Chancellor 1597. He was one of the six deans who attended the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 and was made Bishop of Gloucester in that year.
2. Dr. George Abbot — began his university studies at Balliol College, Oxford in 1578 and soon became known for his strong Calvinism and puritanism. In 1593 he took his B.D., in 1597 his D.D., and in the same year became Master of University College at the age of thirty-five; and a few years later he was Vice Chancellor. He very strongly opposed the Romanizing influence of Laud and was very severe in his denunciation of anything which savored of “popery.” Nevertheless he accepted some high offices in the Church of England and in 1609 became Bishop of Lichfield and Archbishop of Canterbury in 1611. He was regarded as the head of the Puritans within the Church of England, and he vigorously opposed the King’s declaration permitting sports and pastimes on the Lord’s Day. He encouraged James to request the States General to dismiss Vorstius from his professorship at Leyden because of his Arminianism.
3. Dr. R. Eedes, Dean of Worcester.
4. Dr. Giles Thompson, Dean of Windsor, Bishop of Gloucester, a man of high repute as scholar and preacher.
5. Sir Henry Saville, Brasenose College, Oxford, Fellow of Merton College in 1565 and Warden in 1585, Provost of Eton in 1596, Tutor to Queen Elizabeth I. He was a pioneer in many branches of scholarship and the founder of the Savillian Professorships of Mathematics and Astronomy at Oxford. His works include an eight volume edition of the writings of Chrysostom.
6. Dr. John Perin, Fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford, Canon of Christ Church and Professor of Greek.
7. Dr. Ralph Ravens, Fellow of St. John’s College.
8. John Harmar, M.A., New College, Oxford, Professor of Greek in 1585. He was well read in patristic and scholastic theology and a noted Latinist and Grecian. His works include translations of Calvin’s sermons on the Ten Commandments, several of Beza’s sermons, and some of the Homilies of Chrysostom.
The first Cambridge Committee also numbered eight scholars:
1. Edward Liveley, Trinity College, Cambridge, B.A. in 1568, M.A. and Fellow in 1572, Regius Professor of Hebrew in 1575, enjoyed the reputation of an acquaintance with the oriental languages unequalled at that period.
2. Dr. John Richardson, Fellow of Emmanuel College, D.D., Master of Peterhouse and later Master of Trinity.
3. Dr. Laurence Chaderton, Fellow of Christ’s College, D.D., Master of Emmanuel. Chaderton entered Christ’s College in 1564 and embraced the Reformed doctrines. He had been brought up as a Roman Catholic, and his father offered him an allowance of thirty pounds if he would leave Cambridge and renounce Protestantism — “Otherwise I enclose a shilling to buy a wallet — go and beg.” He acquired a great reputation as a Latin, Greek and Hebrew scholar and was also proficient in French, Spanish and Italian. For fifty years he was Afternoon Lecturer at St. Clement’s, Cambridge, and forty of the clergy said they owed their conversion to his preaching.
He was a noted Puritan; but he did not join the cry against “prelacy,” although he never accepted a bishopric himself. He was one of the three representatives of the Millenary Plaintiffs at the Hampton Court Conference. This faithful preacher and teacher lived to be 94 (one of his biographers says 104), and almost to the time of his death he was able to read his small type Greek New Testament.
4. Francis Dillingham, Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, M.A. in 1590 and B.D. in 1599. According to Fuller, he was “an excellent linguist and subtle disputant.” His works include A disswasive from Poperie, containing twelve effectual reasons by which every Papist, not wilfully blinded, may be brought to the truth.
5. Dr. Roger Andrewes, Fellow of Pembroke, Master of Jesus College, D.D., brother of Dr. Lancelot Andrewes.
6. Dr. Thomas Harrison, St. John’s College, Cambridge, B.A. in 1576. Fellow, Tutor and Vice-Master of Trinity, D.D., noted Hebraist and chief examiner in Hebrew. He was a convinced Puritan.
7. Professor Robert Spalding, Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, succeeded Edward Liveley as Professor of Hebrew.
8. Professor Byng, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Hebrew Professor.
The second Cambridge Committee included the following scholars:
1. Dr. John Duport, Jesus College, M.A. and Fellow before 1580. D.D. in 1590, Master of Jesus College, four times Vice-Chancellor of the University.
2. Dr. William Brainthwaite, Fellow of Emmanuel and Master of Gonville and Gaius College.
3. Dr. Jeremiah Radcliffe, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
4. Dr. Samuel Ward, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, D.D., Master of Sidney College, and Margaret Professor. His correspondence with Archbishop Ussher contains treasures of diversified learning, especially concerning Biblical and oriental criticism.
5. Professor Andrew Downes, St. John’s, Cambridge, B.A. 1567, Fellow 1571, M.A. 1574, B.D. 1582, Regius Professor of Greek 1585. Downes and Boys revived the study of Greek at St. John’s. These two men joined Miles Smith on the sub-committee which subjected the whole translation to a final careful process of checking and correction.
6. John Boys, Fellow of St. John’s, Cambridge, and Greek lecturer there. He was born in 1560 and at a very early age showed an unusual interest in languages. He began to read Hebrew at the age of five years and was admitted to St. John’s College, Cambridge, when he was fourteen. There he very soon distinguished himself by his knowledge of the Greek language, which he sometimes studied in the library from 4 a.m. until 8 p.m.
When he was elected Fellow of his college he was suffering from smallpox, but he was so anxious not to delay his career that, at some risk to himself and fellow-scholars, he persuaded his friends to wrap him in blankets and carry him in. After studying medicine for some time he gave up this course and applied himself to the study of Greek. For ten years he was the chief Greek lecturer in his college. At four in the morning he voluntarily gave a Greek lecture in his own room which was frequented by many of the Fellows.
After twenty years of university life he became Rector of Boxworth in Cambridgeshire, and while he was there he made an arrangement with twelve other ministers that they should meet each Friday in each other’s homes in turn and share the results of their studies.
When the translation of the Bible was begun he was chosen to be one of the Cambridge translators, and eventually he not only undertook his portion but also the part allotted to another member of the committee. When the work was completed John Boys was one of the six translators who met at Stationers’ Hall to revise the whole. This took them about nine months, and during this period the Company of Stationers made them an allowance of thirty shillings each per week.
After a long life of profitable study, ministry, translating and writing he died at the age of eighty-four, “his brow without wrinkles, his sight quick, his hearing sharp, his countenance fresh and his body sound.”
7. Dr. Ward, Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, D.D., Prebendary of Chichester.
Lancelot Andrewes, a member of the Westminster Committee, had his early education at Coopers Free School and Merchant Taylors School, where his rapid progress in the study of the ancient languages was brought to the notice of Dr. Watts, the founder of some scholarships at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. Andrewes was sent to that College, where he took his B.A. degree and soon afterwards was elected Fellow. He then took his Master’s degree and began to study divinity and achieved great distinction as a lecturer. He was raised to several positions of influence in the Church of England and distinguished himself as a diligent and excellent preacher, and became Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth I. King James I promoted him to be Bishop of Chester in 1605 and also gave him the influential position of Lord Almoner. He later became Bishop of Ely and Privy Counsellor. Toward the end of his life he was made Bishop of Winchester.
It is recorded that Andrewes was a man of deep piety and that King James had such great respect for him that in his presence he refrained from the levity in which he indulged at other times. A sermon preached at Andrewes’ funeral in 1626 paid tribute to his great scholarship — “His knowlege in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic, besides fifteen modem languages was so advanced that he may be ranked as one of the rarest linguists in Christendom.
“A great part of five hours every day he spent in prayer, and in his last illness he spent all his time in prayer — and when both voice and eyes and hands failed in their office, his countenance showed that he still prayed and praised God in his heart, until it pleased God to receive his blessed soul to Himself.”
No reasonable person imagines that the translators were infallible or that their work was perfect, but no one acquainted with the facts can deny that they were men of outstanding scholarship, well qualified for their important work, or that with God’s blessing they completed their great task with scrupulous care and fidelity.
It is remarkable that the literary style of individual members of the company of translators was generally inferior to that of the version which they jointly produced. The explanation of this is that they exercised their wisdom in leaving undisturbed the simple style and vocabulary of the earlier translators. If they had cast the translation in the mold of the more ornate style of their own period, it is doubtful whether their work would have triumphed for so long as it has. They made many thousands of small changes, most of which improved the rhythm, clarified the meaning, or increased the accuracy of the translation.
They were indeed “learned men” — and their scholarship was accompanied by a deep conviction of the Divine origin of the records which they were translating. Learning and faith went hand in hand to open the storehouse of God’s Word of Truth for the spiritual enrichment of millions from generation to generation, over a period of more than three hundred and fifty years.
Zane C. Hodges
This article is reproduced with the kind permission of Prof. Z. C. Hodges and Dr. J. F. Walvoord, Editor of Bibliotheca Sacra, published by the Faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary and Graduate School of Theology. Prof. Hodges is Assistant Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis, Dallas Theological Seminary.
The average well-taught Bible-believing Christian has often heard the King James Version corrected on the basis of “better manuscripts” or “older authorities.” Such corrections are often made from the pulpit as well as being found in print. If he has ever inquired into the matter, the Bible-believing Christian has probably been told that the Greek text used by the translators of 1611 is inferior to that used for more recent translations. He has perhaps also been told that the study of the Greek text of the New Testament (called textual criticism) is now a highly developed discipline which has led us to a more accurate knowledge of the original text of the Bible. Lacking any kind of technical training in this area, the average believer probably has accepted such explanations from individuals he regards as qualified to give them. Nevertheless, more than once he may have felt a twinge of uneasiness about the whole matter and wondered if, by any chance, the familiar King James Version might not be somewhat better than its detractors think. It is the purpose of this article to affirm that, as a matter of fact, there are indeed grounds for this kind of uneasiness and — what is more — these grounds are considerable.6
6 The body of the article which follows is written so that it may be understood by the general reader. More technical information, for those who may want it, wfl be found in the footnotes.
By way of introduction, it should be pointed out that a very large number of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament survive today. A recent list gives these figures: papyrus manuscripts, 81; majuscules (manuscripts written in capital letters), 267; minuscules (manuscripts written in smaller script), 2,764.7 Of course, many of these are fragmentary and most of them do not contain the entire New Testament. Nevertheless, for an ancient book the available materials are massive and more than adequate for our needs providing they are properly handled by scholars. It is also well known among students of textual criticism that a large majority of this huge mass of manuscripts — somewhere between 80-90% — contain a Greek text which in most respects closely resembles the kind of text which was the basis of our King James Version. 8 This piece of information, however, may come as a surprise to many ordinary Christians who have gained the impression that the Authorized Version is supported chiefly by inferior manuscripts, but have never realized that what contemporary textual critics call inferior manuscripts actually make up a huge majority of all manuscripts.
7 The figures are those of Prof. Kurt Aland, to whom scholars have committed the task of assigning official numbers to Greek manuscripts as they are found. In addition to the totals given above, Aland also lists 2,143 lectionaries (manuscripts containing the Scripture lessons which were read publicly in the churches), so that the grand total of all these types of texts is 5,255. Kurt Aland, “The Greek New Testament: Its Present and Future Editions,'' Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXXVII (June, 1968), 184.
8 According to Aland, the percentage of minuscules belonging to this type of text is about 90% (say, 2,400 out of 2,700), while its representatives are found also among the majuscules and later papyri. Cf. Kurt Aland, “Die Konsequenzen der neueren Handschriftenfunde fur die neutestamentliche Textkritik,” Novum Testamentum, IX (April, 1967), 100. Among 44 significant majuscules described in Metzger’s handbook, at least half either belong to or have affinities with this text form. Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, pp. 42-61. The low figure of eighty per cent is, therefore, likely to be a safe estimate of the percentage of witnesses to this text from among papyri, majuscules, and minuscules taken together.
The question therefore naturally arises on what grounds scholars have set aside this large majority of manuscripts which contain a Greek text very much like that used by the translators of the AV in 1611. Why do they prefer other manuscripts with differing texts? What arguments do they advance for their views? Needless to say, it would be impossible in the short compass of this discussion to consider every ramification of modern textual theory. It must suffice to set forth three basic arguments which are used against the type of Greek text which underlies the King James Version. This kind of text will henceforth be referred to as the Majority text.9 The arguments against it are arranged in the order of ascending importance.
9 For this very excellent name we are indebted to Prof. Aland who informs us that the siglum M will represent the Majority text in the forthcoming 26th edition of the Nestle-Aland text. Cf. Aland, Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXXVII (June, 1968), 181. The familiar term “Byzantine text” was never descriptively accurate nor was it entirely free from pejorative overtones.
This argument is the one most likely to impress the ordinary person. Yet it is almost a truism in textual research that the oldest manuscript does not necessarily contain the best text.10 Still, the argument from “old manuscripts” can be presented in a way that sounds impressive.
10 Recently this has been reaffirmed by Aland in these words: “But we need not mention the fact that the oldest manuscript does not necessarily have the best text. P47 is, for example, by far the oldest of the manuscripts containing the full or almost full text of the Apocalypse, but it is certainly not the best. ’ Kurt Aland, “The Significance of the Papyri for Progress in New Testament Research,” The Bible in Modem Scholarship, ed. J. Philip Hyatt, p. 333.
No extant Greek manuscript which can be dated in the fourth century or earlier contains a text which can be clearly identified as belonging to the Majority text. What is more, the papyrus finds of the last thirty to forty years have yielded manuscripts which more or less support the kind of Greek text used in more modern translations (like the ASV or RSV). Particularly striking is the discovery of the papyrus manuscript known as P75 containing large portions of Luke and John. This new find, which is dated around 200 A.D., has a type of text substantially the same as that found in the famous Codex Vaticanus (B) of the fourth century. More than any other manuscript, Codex B had long been regarded as an extremely valuable witness to the New Testament text. By many it was regarded as the most valuable of all. The modern editions of the Greek New Testament and the translations made from them leaned heavily on the evidence of B. Now, thanks to P75 , there is proof that the kind of Greek text found in B was in circulation in the latter part of the second century and, no doubt, even earlier.11 All of this, it may be said, tends to support the general rejection of the Majority text by modern critics.
11 “Since B is not a lineal descendent ofP7^, the common ancestor of both carries the Alexandrian type of text to a period prior to A.D. 175-225, the date assigned to p75 ." Bruce M. Metzger, "Second Thoughts: XII. The Textual Criticism of the New Testament," Expository Times, LXXVlll (1967), 375.
Such arguments, however, have only a superficial plausibility. In the first place, all of our most ancient manuscripts derive basically from Egypt. This is due mainly to the circumstance that the climate of Egypt favors the preservation of ancient texts in a way that the climate of the rest of the Mediterranean world does not. There is no good reason to suppose that the texts found in Egypt give us an adequate sampling of texts of the same period found in other parts of the world. One might just as well affirm that to sample the flora and fauna of the Nile valley is to know the flora and fauna of Greece, or Turkey, or Italy. It is, therefore, most likely that the text on which our modern translations rest is simply a very early Egyptian form of the text whose nearness to the original is open to debate.12 Indeed Kurt Aland, who is coeditor of both of the most widely used critical Greek texts and who is certainly the leading textual scholar on the European continent, proposes that the text of P75 and B represents a revision of a local text of Egypt which was enforced as the dominant text in that particular ecclesiastical province.13 But if it is, in fact, possible that some such explanation may be given of the text of these ancient witnesses, it is clear that we must look for other reasons for preferring their evidence than age alone. For a revised text may be either good or bad and in any case is the result of the judgment of those who revised it. This illustrates one reason why most textual critics would not argue the superiority of a manuscript merely because it was older than others.
12 The recent Bible Societies text, edited by Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Bruce M. Metzger and Allen Wikgren, does not often reject reading supported by both P75 and B. Small wonder that it can thus be regarded as a near relative of these two manuscripts, which go back (see previous footnote) to a common ancestor. Cf. 1. A. Moir’s review of the Bible Societies text in New Testament Studies, XIV (1967), pp. 136-43.
13 Aland in The Bible in Modern Scholarship, p. 336. Cf. also Novum Testamentum, IX (April, 1967), p. 91.
Another factor militating against an uncritical acceptance of the oldest manuscripts is that they show a capacity to unite behind readings which — even in the eyes of modern scholars — are likely to be wrong. John 5:2 is a case in point. Here the three oldest manuscripts extant are P66 and P75 (both about 200 A.D.) and B (4th cent.). All three unite to read “Bethsaida” in this verse instead of the familiar “Bethesda” found in our AV. But both of the most widely used critical editions of the Greek text, Nestle’s text and the United Bible Societies text, reject “Bethsaida” in favor of the reading “Bethzatha,” supported — among extant Greek texts — only by Aleph (4th century, somewhat later than B) and the ninth-century minuscule 33. But even this reading is most likely to be wrong as the prominent German scholar, Joachim Jeremias, has pointed out in his definitive monograph entitled, The Rediscovery of Bethesda. Jeremias confidently defends the reading “Bethesda” as original and adduces as evidence for this the Copper Scroll from Cave III at Qumran.14 This scroll, which palaeography indicates to have been inscribed “between A.D. 35 and 65, that is, between the life and ministry of Jesus and John’s writing of his Gospel,”15 contains a Hebrew form of the name “Bethesda.” Furthermore, as Jeremias points out, the variant “Bethzatha” (Aleph, 33) can now be explained as merely the Aramaic counterpart of the Hebrew form of “Bethesda” found on the Copper Scroll.16 Thus the reading of the Majority text, which is not found in any extant Greek manuscript before the fifth century, has after all the superior claim to originality in John 5:2. This is a classic example of how the great mass of later manuscripts, without any strain on the imagination, may be thought of as going back to other manuscripts more ancient than any we currently possess.17 The RSV may reasonably be charged with error in following the reading “Bethzatha,” while the AV can continue to be followed here with considerable confidence.
14 Joachim Jeremias, The Rediscovery of Bethesda: John 5:2, pp. 11-12.
15 Ibid.,p. 36.
16 Ibid., p. 12. The Hebrew form on the Copper Scroll is a dual, fitting in precisely with the archaeological discovery that Bethesda was, in fact, a double pool. The Aramaic “Bethzatha” replaces the original dual with an emphatic plural termination.
17 The point is that, if we concede the originality of “Bethesda,” there is no valid reason why its presence in the majority of manuscripts may not be ascribed to direct transmission from the autograph of John’s Gospel.
Furthermore, the concurrence of P66 , P75 and B in the spurious reading “Bethsaida” raises questions about their independence as witnesses to the original text. “Bethsaida” is not the type of variant reading which copyists normally produce by accident, but is most likely the result of some kind of correction of the text. It is quite possible, then, that all three manuscripts go back ultimately to a single parent manuscript in which this emendation was originally made. Thus their numerous agreements against the Majority text are suspect on the grounds that they may simply reproduce the readings of a single ancient copy — the extent of whose errors and revisions we do not know.18
18 Already scholars are willing to concede a common ancestor forP75 and B (cf. footnote 6). We can postulate here that this common ancestor and p66 meet even further back in the stream of transmission in a copy which read “Bethsaida” in John 5:2 (P66 has an orthographical variation of this). In the same chapter (5:44) the word God is omitted by P66, P75, b, and Codex W alone among Greek manuscripts now known. The omission is rejected both by the Nestle text and the Bible Societies text and if they do so correctly we may suspect yet another faulty reading of the common ancestor. Once we concede that such variants are shared errors, we cannot insist that we have genuinely independent testimony in other places where these three manuscripts happen to agree.
II. The Majority Text Is a Revised, and Hence Secondary, Form of the Greek Text
It is still sometimes argued that the form of the Greek New Testament text which is found in the majority of Greek manuscripts derives from a revision of the text made sometime during the first four centuries of the Christian era (the third century has been a popular date for this).19 This argument is frequently elaborated with the assertion that the revisers who created this text attempted to present a smooth, acceptable text that combined elements from other, earlier texts. Hence, so the argument runs, the very fact of revision, especially an eclectic revision of this kind, necessarily reduces the testimony of this majority of manuscripts to a secondary level. The “older manuscripts” are thus to be preferred because, even if they have suffered some revision, it was of a lesser and more discerningly critical nature.
19 By Metzger the origination of the Majority text has been assigned to Lucian of Antioch (d. 312). He states, “As has been indicated in the previous pages, his [Lucian’s] recension of the New Testament was adopted at Constantinople and from there it spread widely throughout Greek speaking lands.” Bruce M. Metzger, “The Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible,” Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism, p. 27.
We need not spend much time with this argument in view of the fact that contemporary critics are by no means agreed on the way in which the Majority text originated.
They are, indeed, generally agreed that its testimony to the original text is much inferior to that of the other and older Greek witnesses, but this inferiority is no longer traced by all critics with confidence to a definite, specific revision of the text. A leading American textual critic, Ernest C. Colwell, has stated for example, “The Greek Vulgate [i.e., the Majority text] . . . had in its origin no such single focus as the Latin had in Jerome” (italics in the original). 20 From Colwell’s point of view, the Majority text — as well as the other major forms of the Greek text — are the result of a “process” rather than a single event in textual history.21 Another scholar, Jacob Geerlings, who has done extensive work on certain “family” branches of the Majority text, has stated flatly concerning this text that, “Its origins as well as those of other so-called text-types probably go back to the autographs. It is now abundantly clear that the Eastern Church never officially adopted or recognized a received or authorized text and only by a long process of slow evolution did the Greek text of the New Testament undergo the various changes that we can dimly see in the few extant uncial codices identified with the Byzantine [i.e., Majority] text.”22 Thus the view popularized by Westcott and Hort before the turn of the century, that the Majority text issued from an authoritative, ecclesiastical revision of the Greek text, is widely abandoned as no longer tenable. Yet it was this view of the Majority text which was largely responsible for relegating it to a secondary status in the eyes of textual critics generally. Dean Burgon, the great proponent of the Majority text who was a contemporary of Westcott and Hort, scoffed at their theory of official revision. But his protests were largely drowned out and ignored. Today, scholars like Geerlings and Colwell agree that such a revision did not occur.
20 Ernest C. Colwell, “The Origin of Texttypes of New Testament Manuscripts,” Early Christian Origins; Studies in Honor of Harold R. Willoughby, p. 137.
21 Ibid., pp. 136-37.
22 Jacob Geerlings, Family E and Its Allies in Mark, Vol. XXXI of Studies and Documents, p. 1. It will be seen how Geerlings’ statement contradicts Metzger’s quoted above (f.n. 14). A more recent statement by Metzger, however, makes no mention of Lucian and seems to represent a “process” view of the Majority text. Cf. Bruce M. Metzger, “Bibliographic Aids for the Study of the Manuscripts of the New Testament,” Anglican Theological Review, XLVIII, pp. 348-49.
It will be noted in this discussion that in place of the former idea of a specific revision as the source-point for the Majority text, some critics now wish to posit the idea of a “process” drawn out over a long period of time. It may be confidently predicted, however, that this explanation of the Majority text must likewise eventually collapse. The Majority text, it must be remembered, is relatively uniform in its general character with comparatively low amounts of variation between its major representatives.23 No one has yet explained how a long, slow process spread out over many centuries as well as over a wide geographical area, and involving a multitude of copyists, who often knew nothing of the state of the text outside of their own monasteries or scriptoria, could achieve this widespread uniformity out of the diversity presented by the earlier forms of text. Even an official edition of the New Testament — promoted with ecclesiastical sanction throughout the known world — would have had great difficulty achieving this result as the history of Jerome’s Vulgate amply demonstrates.24 But an unguided process achieving relative stability and uniformity in the diversified textual, historical, and cultural circumstances in which the New Testament was copied, imposes impossible strains on our imagination.
23 The key words here are “relatively” and “comparatively.” Naturally, individual members of the Majority text show varying amounts of conformity to it. Nevertheless, the nearness of its representatives to the general standard is not hard to demonstrate in most cases. For example, in a study of one hundred places of variation in John 11, the representatives of the Majority text used in the study showed a range of agreement from around seventy per cent to ninety-three per cent. Cf. Ernest C. Colwell and Ernest W. Tune, “The Quantitative Relationships between MS Text-types,” Biblical and Patristic Studies in Memory of Robert Pierce Casey, eds. J. Neville Birdsall and Robert W. Thomson, pp. 28, 31. The uncial codex Omega’s ninety-three per cent agreement with the Textus Receptus compares well with the ninety-two per cent agreement found between P^5 and B. Omega’s affinity with the TR is more nearly typical of the pattern one would find in the great mass of minuscule texts. High levels of agreement of this kind are (as in the case of p75 and B) the result of a shared ancestral base. It is the divergencies that are the result of a “process” and not the reverse.
A more general, summary statement of the matter is made by Epp, "... the Byzantine manuscripts together form, after all, a rather closely-knit group, and the variations in question within this entire large group are relatively minor in character.” Eldon Jay Epp, “The Claremont Profile-Method for Grouping New Testament Minuscule Manuscripts,” Studies in the History and Text of the New Testament in Honor of Kenneth Willis Clark, Ph.D., eds. Boyd L. Daniels and M. Jack Suggs, Vol. XXIX of Studies and Documents, p. 33.
After describing the vicissitudes which afflicted the transmission of the Vulgate, Metzger concludes: “As a result, the more than 8,000 Vulgate manuscripts which are extant today exhibit the greatest amount of crosscontamination of textual types.” Text of the New Testament, p. 76. Uniformity of text is always greatest at the source and diminishes-rather than increases as the tradition expands and multiplies. This caveat is ignored by the “process” view of the Majority text.
Herein lies the greatest weakness of contemporary textual criticism. Denying to the Majority text any claim to represent the actual form of the original text, it is nevertheless unable to explain its rise, its comparative uniformity, and its dominance in any satisfactory manner. All these factors can be rationally accounted for, however, if the Majority text represents simply the continuous transmission of the original text from the very first. All minority text forms are, on this view, merely divergent offshoots of the broad stream of transmission whose source is the autographs themselves. But this simple explanation of textual history is rejected by contemporary scholars for the following reason.
III. The Readings of the Majority Text Are Repeatedly Inferior to Those of the Earlier Manuscripts
Perhaps the greatest surprise to many Bible-believing Christians will be the discovery that textual critics seek to defend their preference for the older manuscripts by affirming that they are better because, in fact, they contain the better readings. The Majority text, they insist, repeatedly offers us variations with little or no claim to being original. So that, in the last analysis, a manuscript is attested by its readings rather than the reverse.25 In the minds of contemporary scholars, however, no circular argument is involved in this. Careful study of the context of a passage, plus a good acquaintance with scribal habits and with textual phenomena in general, permits the skilled critic — so they affirm — to pass a valid judgment on competing readings and in many cases to reach conclusions that may be regarded as nearly certain. Hence, it follows from this, that confidence in modern critical Greek texts depends ultimately on one’s confidence in contemporary scholarly judgment.
25 So, for example, J. Neville Birdsall states: “And even if we were to arrive at a favorable view of the P75-B Text, we could do so only as Lagrange confessedly did, and perhaps Hort, not so explicitly: on internal criteria, not ... on the basis of criteria drawn from the history of tradition.” See his review of Carlo M. Martini’s, Il problema della recensionalita del codice B alia luce del papiro Bodmer XIV, in Journal of Theological Studies, XVIII (1967), p. 465.
It should be clear, however, that when the whole problem of textual criticism is reduced to a series of arguments about the relative merits of this reading over against that reading, we have reached an area where personal opinion — and even personal bias — can easily determine one’s decision. This has recently been admitted by a leading textual critic who, himself, has in the past espoused this reading by reading methodology. Speaking of the two criteria primarily relied on by modern critics in deciding on a reading (namely, “ ‘Choose the reading which fits the context’ ” and “ ‘Choose the reading which explains the origin of the other reading’ ”), E. C. Colwell has confessed, “As a matter of fact these two standard criteria for the appraisal of the internal evidence of readings can easily cancel each other out and leave the scholar free to choose in terms of his own prejudgments.”21 26
26 E. C. Colwell, “External Evidence and New Testament Textual Criti-cism,” Studies in the History and Text of the New Testament in Honor of Kenneth Willis Clark, Ph.D., eds. Boyd L. Daniels and M. Jack Suggs, Vol. XXIX of Studies and Documents, p. 3. Contrast this statement with the same writer’s discussion in his What Is the Best New Testament? pp. 75-77.
Indeed, it is Colwell who has most effectively pointed out that the generalizations which scholars have been making for so long about scribal habits are based upon a quite inadequate induction of the evidence. He calls for a fresh and comprehensive description of these.27 But if this is needed then it is also clear that we must reconsider nearly all the judgments previously passed on individual readings on the basis of the alleged tendencies of scribes. Moreover, quite recently, another prominent textual critic has actually presented arguments that reverse the long standing judgment of textual critics against an appreciable number of readings found in the Majority text. G. D. Kilpatrick has argued that the “older manuscripts” not infrequently reveal various kinds of changes in the text, both accidental and deliberate, in places where the Majority text preserves the original reading.28 What is important to note about Kilpatrick’s work is how it is actually possible for a scholar who adopts the reading by reading method (in contrast to the use of manuscript authority) to find reasons for controverting long standing opinions on specific passages.29 In short, the knowledge possessed by modern textual critics about scribes and manuscripts is so ambiguous that it can, without difficulty, be used to reach almost any conclusion.
27 Ibid., pp. 9-11.
28 G. D. Kilpatrick, “The Greek New Testament of Today and the Textus Rcceptus,” The New Testament in Historical and Contemporary Perspective: Essays in Memory of G. H. C. Macgregor, eds. Hugh Anderson and William Barclay, pp. 189-206.
29 To anyone schooled in the standard handbooks of textual criticism, it may come as a shock, for example, to find Kilpatrick defending so-called Byzantine “conflate” readings as original! Ibid., pp. 190-93.
Of course, it might be suggested that the text can be determined simply by careful study of the Biblical writers’ style, argument, and theology. Logically such a method would have no real need for a reconstruction of the history of the transmission of the text. But few, if any, contemporary critics would espouse so extreme a view as this.30 Its result could only be that the Bible would say to the scholar just what his training and perspective dispose him to think it says.
30 Cf. the statement of Harold Oliver, “In recent years the necessity of reconstructing the history of the text has become apparent.” Harold H. Oliver, “Implications of Redaktionsgeschicte for the Textual Criticism of the New Testament,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, XXXVI (March, 1968), p. 44.
The present writer would like to suggest that the impasse to which we are driven when the arguments of modern criticism are carefully weighed and sifted is due almost wholly to a refusal to acknowledge the obvious. The manuscript tradition of an ancient book will, under any but the most exceptional conditions, multiply in a reasonably regular fashion with the result that the copies nearest the autograph will normally have the largest number of descendants.31 The further removed in the history of transmission a text becomes from its source the less time it has to leave behind a large family of offspring. Hence, in a large tradition where a pronounced unity is observed between, let us say, eighty per cent of the evidence, a very strong presumption is raised that this numerical preponderance is due to direct derivation from the very oldest sources. In the absence of any convincing contrary explanation, this presumption is raised to a very high level of probability indeed. Thus the Majority text, upon which the King James Version is based, has in reality the strongest claim possible to be regarded as an authentic representation of the original text. This claim is quite independent of any shifting consensus of scholarly judgment about its readings and is based on the objective reality of its dominance in the transmissional history of the New Testament text. This dominance has not and — we venture to suggest — cannot be otherwise explained.
31 This truism was long ago conceded (somewhat grudgingly) by Hort, “A theoretical presumption indeed remains that a majority of extant documents is more likely to represent a majority of ancestral documents at each stage of transmission than vice versa.” B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, II, p. 45.
It is hoped, therefore, that the general Christian reader will exercise the utmost reserve in accepting corrections to his Authorized Version which are not supported by a large majority of manuscripts. He should go on using his King James Version with confidence. New Testament textual criticism, at least, has advanced no objectively verifiable reason why he should not.