Questionable passages?

Biblicist,

Thanks; I’m glad to be here. Thanks, to, for permission to present the links, although I will have to wait for that until I have posted over 50 times.

Regarding some of your statements:

The “seemingly redundant Greek text types” – Byzantine, Alexandrian, Western, Caesarean – are not redundant. There is more to the picture; the Byzantine group, for example, has sub-groups, and the Alexandrian text can be split in two, and the Latin Western Text(s) is a cobweb. But the terms remain meaningful, especially when describing the transmission of the text of the Gospels. If anything is redundant or obsolete, it’s the Alands’ “Category I, II, III, IV, and V,” which clarify nothing and merely paint a fresh layer of jargon over everything. I expect the old terminology will eventually be replaced by definitions of groups established via the CBGM, but the nomenclature is, at the moment, a work in progress, and since we have to call the groups something, the old names still work just fine (in the Gospels).

You wrote that Erasmus and other scholars of his day “all based their work on the Latin text as both the Hebrew and Greek texts always played second fiddle to the Latin Vulgate.” No no no. Erasmus based his Greek text primarily upon what he read in Greek manuscripts. He used the Vulgate as a supplement, either as a base-text of last resort (when his only available Greek exemplar was damaged or unclear), or at points where he felt that a plausible case could be made for the reading in the Vulgate, even though his limited Greek resources did not support it. (And in the case of the CJ, but that's a special case.)
You wrote that “If Erasmus had of been born in our time period, considering that he was a superb scholar he would probably be a member of the translation committee behind either the GNT or the NA texts.” Maybe. Or maybe not. It’s speculative.

You wrote that you didn’t see where Aland & Aland “made any reference to the passages contained in Vaticanus.” Whether they mentioned it or not, Erasmus was informed by Paul Bombasius in 1521 about the lack of the Comma Johanneum in Codex Vaticanus, and in 1533, Sepulveda wrote to Erasmus in order to point out 365 agreements between Codex Vaticanus and the Vulgate, in an attempt to persuade Erasmus that these readings were not late conformations of the Greek text to a medieval Latin standard (which Erasmus, up to that point, and even afterward, seems to have assumed that they were). Scrivener reports this on p. 109 of the first volume of his Plain Introduction (in the 1894 edition revised by Miller, with a blue cover), and also mentions that in Erasmus’ Annotations to Acts (1535), Erasmus mentions that the reading KAUDA was found in Acts 27:16 in a manuscript in the Vatican Library; this refers to Vaticanus: Scrivener mentions that “for this reading Cod. B is the only known Greek witness, except a corrector of Cod. Aleph.” For additional details (which I have not double-checked) one can consult page 170ff. of Volume 2, Part 1 of Herbert Marsh’s English translation of Michaelis’ Introduction to the New Testament.

Regarding Gordon Fee’s approach to I Cor. 14:34-35: I think that Fee’s theological assumptions have steered his judgment, too, but what I said still applies: he’s not saying, “Let’s ignore these verses because it poses a problem for my egalitarian views;” he says that these verses should be ignored because Paul did not write them. While we can view with suspicion the convenient dove-tailing of Fee’s interpolation-theory and his theology, it is not sufficient to say something like, “Fee’s theory springs from a theological agenda,” even if that is true. His case for interpolation can only be refuted by a stronger case against it.

Regarding the changes to the KJV from 1611 to 1769: I found a few web-pages that have some helpful details about this, showing that the vast majority of the changes do not involve changes to the content of the text.

A pro-KJV site (by an author who does not seem to be “shaking in his boots”) offers a precise count, stating that “From 1611 until now, the King James Bible has undergone a grand total of 421 word changes.” The author goes on to point out the nature of the changes: “towards” has been changed to “toward 14 times; “burnt” has been changed to “burned” 21 times; “amongst” has been changed to “among” 36 times; “lift” has been changed to “lifted” 51 times; “you” has been changed to “ye” 82 times. Most of the remainder of the changes have only a minimal effect, such as the addition of the word “the” in Genesis 22:7 and Leviticus 11:3. (It’s probably safe to say that the impact of the changes to the text of the KJV from 1611 to 2013 is about the same as the impact of the changes which the ESV’s text has undergone from 2001 to 2013.)

So if writers go around giving readers the impression that the KJV has undergone extensive changes in its content, and then some KJV-Onlyist pushes back with relentless facts to the contrary, and catches them red-handed spreading a misleading claim, the writers should not be very surprised that their deceptive statements have been answered with a “certainly less than charitable” tone.

Regarding the Greek base-text of the KJV: I think you will find that Blayney never revised the TR; he only revised the English text. The Greek base-text of the KJV is not based on a single printed Greek New Testament, although the editions by Stephanus and Beza come very close. Even the text printed by the Elzivirs does not conform exactly to the KJV. Scrivener’s text is, I believe, the most accurate representation of the KJV’s base-text. But a very small percentage of the TR is fuzzy; this fuzziness is the result of two things: (1) non-translatable differences among the editions made in the 1500’s, and (2) a measure of translational freedom employed by the KJV’s translators, which in some cases gives the false appearance that the KJV is based on a reading which was not known to the translators.

You mentioned that it is safe to say that all translations have watered down some aspects of the original texts. However, while I am not denying that approximation occurs in translation, there is a difference between a translation which conveys the meaning of the original text imperfectly, and a translation which subverts or obscures the meaning of the original text. This second kind of version is not a phantom that exists only in the minds of wild-eyed zealots. There are numerous renderings in Eugene Peterson’s “The Message,” for example, which obscure the base-text’s doctrinal message. If adherence to the KJV, with all its archaisms, textual barnacles, and doctrinally benign mistranslations is the safest way for simple souls to avoid doctrinally significant traps built into some translations (that is, pseudo-translations), then the task of working through those doctrinally benign flaws of the KJV seems a small price to pay.


In my ideal world, simple souls would not stay simple; they would plunge into deep study and emerge with a well-exercised appreciation of textual variants and translational methods, and become adept at gauging the strengths and weaknesses of various translations, and uphold the original text, to the extent that it can be confidently reconstructed, as the church’s written authority in all matters of doctrine.

But that’s not everyone’s ideal; some people have thought about plunging into such studies, and then noticed that some individuals who looked like enthusiastic believers when they dove into text-critical research have come out looking like heretics. In addition, as these simple people have reviewed the names of the movers-and-shakers of New Testament textual criticism, and looked into their careers, they have realized that a disturbingly high proportion of them have possessed either objectionable beliefs, or did objectionable deeds, that would disqualify them from preaching at the local pulpit, and they conclude, “There’s no way I’m ever going to entrust the honing of the church’s sword to individuals who have expressed such beliefs, or who did such things.” To some people, that may seem like a baseless ad hominem argument, but I believe there is some wisdom in it.


Yours in Christ,


James Snapp, Jr.

In my opinion those verses should be regarded as scripture for two complimentary reasons.

#1 - in none of the cases is the argument for exclusion absolutely certain. In every case there are counter arguments and evidences which support the verses. The best you can say with certainty is that we are unsure of those verses are original or not.

#2 - None of the verses are contrary to the rest of scripture. None of them establish doctrines which can not be demonstrated or inferred from the rest of scripture. They are all inline with what the rest of scripture says.


There is a third bonus reason that some people probably wouldn't accept.

#3 - Many people's concept of inspiration revolves around a specific single author. In other words, one author was inspired to write one perfect original text and if that text has been changed at all, then the inspired value of it has somehow been damaged.
There is nothing in scripture that establishes this view, and there is really nothing in the History of the Church that establishes this view, and there is nothing really in logic that requires this view.

There is no reason why the inspiration of scripture couldn't be accomplished by process rather than all at once. In other words, God inspired John to write his gospel, but then he also inspired students of John to edit the gospel, or maybe to write the final passages, or something like that.

I think that people are often uncomfortable with a view like that because it involves more human agency and its not as 'clean' as simply believing that one guy was inspired one time to write one perfect book.

However, we know for example from the books of Moses themselves that some of the things in them happened after the death of Moses, thus they must have been recorded by someone other than Moses.

We also know that the priests in the OT had some kind of authority to modify things because in the later books of the Kingdom (Kings and Chronicles) there are examples where things practices or requirements are referred to as from the law of Moses which are not actually included in the books of Moses. In other words, they were added later by priestly authority and that was considered to be valid.

This at least suggests the possibility that inspiration can be a process over time rather than a single event.