Finishing the Textual Critical Series

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. Hey, good morning. Welcome to The Dividing Line as my ears explode.

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That is set to maximum exposure at the moment.

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And we'll hopefully get that fixed here very, very quickly because I'm going to have to take these headphones off while we do that.

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Anyway, nothing like, we didn't test our system today and that's not a good thing and I sound horrible.

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So anyway, trying to continue our study of textual criticism on the program.

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Try to figure it out this week, finish it off this week, if at all possible, because I know there are some of you who are ready to pull your hair out.

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But actually, to be honest with you, I haven't heard from you yet. But I have, in fact, heard from lots of folks who have been exceptionally happy with the study so far.

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And I would like to continue going that direction. And to do so, I want to continue looking at the

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Nessie Olin text. And I thought this morning, you know, it's always good to address an issue that has a specific application right now.

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That has application in such a fashion that you will be able to take the information that you have, that you gain from listening to The Dividing Line and use it right now.

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And so the thought crossed my mind, you know, there is this variant.

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And we discussed it once before on the program, I don't know, a little over a year or so ago, something like that. But a variant that you might have thrown at you by a person who has never even cracked the bindings of a

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Bible. And what do I mean by that? Well, for those of you watching on the webcam, and yes, we do have a webcam, sort of.

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It's not a real webcam. Well, it's a real webcam. But we don't have it set up yet to where it's actually streaming meaningful video.

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Instead, it streams one image every 10 seconds. So it's sort of,

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I don't know how to describe it, but it's odd. But you can see stuff and I can hold things up. And like right now,

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I'm holding up Bart Ehrman's book, Misquoting Jesus, the story behind who changed the

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Bible and why. And of course, Bart Ehrman is the favorite unbelieving agnostic of Muslims and everybody else who wishes to attack the

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Bible, a great enemy of the faith today. And I'm one of the few people willing to actually name him for what he is and what he's doing, the damage that he's doing and so on and so forth.

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And I can do that without saying anyone should be mean to him or anything else. It's amazing how our society has lost the ability to say someone is an enemy of another position without automatically saying you're a mean, terrible, horrible, nasty person.

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Anyway, one of the key texts that Ehrman spends, my goodness, he spends at least six pages.

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This isn't a long book. The book is rather fluffy. It's only 200 some odd pages and it's not very heavily packed as far as text goes.

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So it's a rather short book. He spends about six pages, a major portion, under the subtitle

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Mark and an Angry Jesus. Mark and an Angry Jesus. He spends much time discussing the possibilities of why there is a variant at Mark 141.

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So what I did today on the dividing line, again, if you are listening to this down the road someplace, time -wise, this will be

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February 20th, 2007. February 20th, 2007. So you can look at the information that I put up there.

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I have provided to you the Greek text, the variant, the manuscript supporting the variant, and I also quickly threw in, though the fonts didn't work quite right due to HTML issues that I didn't have time to worry about this morning,

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Metzger's comments on this particular text as well. And so let me, obviously, the text itself, if you're not familiar with it,

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Mark 141, let me back up just a little bit to 140 so you have the context.

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And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching him and falling on his knees before him and saying, If you are willing, you can make me clean.

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Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I am willing, be cleansed.

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Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. And he sternly warned him and immediately sent him away.

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And he said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what

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Moses commanded as a testimony to them. But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city but stayed out in unpopulated areas, and they were coming to him from everywhere.

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Now, the issue that Ehrman raises is in verse 41.

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And moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand. Moved with compassion.

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If you look at the website, it is the Greek term, splanchnis theis, which is placed in bold lettering for you, the second letter, second word,

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I'm sorry, in the string that I give to you there. And then the variant is the word for wrath or anger, being moved by wrath or anger.

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And so Ehrman spends quite some time on this.

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And comes up with some fascinating theories in regards to these things.

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Of course, he starts with the bold assumption that Matthew and Luke are just sitting there with Mark in front of them.

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And they have a written text of Mark, and they're editing Mark, and they're changing Mark. The idea that there is an apostolic proclamation of these things, that there is a body of apostolic teaching that everyone would be familiar with, that these people would be drawing from, just dismiss, don't even go there.

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Just take it as the final scholarly consensus that Mark wrote first, and then

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Matthew and Luke are just sitting with Mark and going, I don't like how Mark said this, I'll change this, I'll change that. Exactly as you have, for example, when

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Shabir Ali makes the same kinds of statements himself. And so he'll say, well, why do they want to change

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Mark? Well, it's because Mark presents Jesus as having experienced anger, and Matthew and Luke don't.

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And therefore, they were trying to hide these things, etc., etc. Of course, you still have the temple and the scourgings and things like that, driving the people out of the temple and those other gospels.

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But we won't go into that at the moment. And so much space is taken up on all these things.

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Let me just go toward the end of his discussion here, page 137.

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All these interpretations have in common the desire to exonerate Jesus' anger and the decision to bypass the text in order to do so.

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Should we opt to do otherwise? What might we conclude? It seems to me there are two options, one that focuses on the immediate literary context of the passage and the other on its broader context.

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First, in terms of the more immediate context, how is one struck by the portrayal of Jesus in the opening part of Mark's gospel?

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Bracketing for a moment our own preconception of who Jesus was in simply reading this particular text, we have to admit that Jesus has not come off as the meek and mild, soft -featured good shepherd of the stained glass window.

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Well, of course, Christians don't believe in such Jesus anyways. But Mark begins his gospel by portraying

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Jesus as a physically and charismatically powerful authority figure who is not to be messed with, which, interestingly enough, is what

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Mark would be communicating to Romans anyways. He is introduced by a wild man prophet in the wilderness. He is cast out from society to do battle in the wilderness with Satan and the wild beasts.

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He returns to call for urgent repentance in the face of the imminent coming of God's judgment. He rips his followers away from their families.

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He overwhelms his audiences with his authority. He rebukes and overpowers demonic forces that can completely subdue mere mortals.

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He refuses to accede to popular demand, ignoring people who plead for an audience with him. The only story in this opening chapter of Mark that hints at personal compassion is the healing of Simon Peter's mother -in -law sick in bed.

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But even that compassion interpretation may be open to question. Some wry observers have noted that after Jesus dispels her fever, she rises to serve them, presumably bringing them their evening meal.

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Is it possible that Jesus is being portrayed in the opening scenes of Mark's gospel as a powerful figure with a strong will and an agenda of his own, a charismatic authority who doesn't like to be disturbed?

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It would certainly make sense of his response to the healed leper, whom he harshly rebukes and then casts out.

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Now, all of this makes for fascinating theater, to be certain.

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There can be no doubt that we can make all sorts of theories once we have thrown out the idea of any consistency in scripture, so on and so forth.

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But the careful person, the careful reader, will note that even

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Ehrman admits the foundation, the background, textually, for this particular reading is rather scant.

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He doesn't really spend much time on that. But it's rather scant.

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Now, I gave Metzger's comments, and Metzger says, quote, it is difficult to come to a firm decision concerning the original text.

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On the one hand, it is easy to see why being angry would have prompted over -scrupulous copyists to alter it to being filled with compassion, but not easy to account for the opposite change.

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On the other hand, a majority of the committee was impressed by the following considerations. The character of the external evidence in support of, and I just realized now, the

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Greek disappeared. Ah! I threw this text up there, and the Greek just simply vanished.

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I wonder why it vanished. It must be, well, I'll take a look at the HTML and fix it later on, but the

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Greek just went, poof, out of the way. The character of the external evidence in support of being angry is less impressive than the diversity in character of evidence that supports compassion.

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At least two other passages in Mark, which represent Jesus as angry, 3 .5, or indignant, 10 .14, have not prompted over -scrupulous copyists to make corrections there.

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It is possible the reading either was suggested by verse 43, which, of course, is where Jesus himself, because of what the man does, he sternly warns him and immediately sends him away, and that's, of course, what

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Ahriman was just referring to, or arose from confusion between similar words in Aramaic in regards to being angered and so on and so forth.

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So that's given to you in Metzger's commentary. But let's go to the Nessie -Aland text, and I've given you the material on the website, and just step back from all of this, well, it's possible that Mark was doing this, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

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You know, that sells books, fills six pages of a fairly short book, but let's consider the reality here.

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First of all, you will notice that the variant, the Nessie -Aland only gives you, it's right down at the bottom of the page, if you have the

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Nessie -Aland text, you're looking at Mark 141, it's the last thing on the page in the textual section, and you will see that there are only a few manuscripts, very, very few manuscripts that have this reading to be filled with wrath, to be moved by wrath or anger.

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The first one is D, and then you have A, FF2, and R1 asterisks.

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Now, what in the world does that mean? Well, you go back to the materials we were looking at last week, and you see those small letters, and you'll be able to tell by where they appear, they come after D.

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Those are Latin manuscripts, individual Latin manuscripts, and if you go back to the appendix at the back of the

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Nessie -Aland text, under the Latin codices, you will see each one of these listed, approximately when it was written, where it currently exists today, where it's stored, where it's housed, and what it contains.

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And you will see that those Latin manuscripts are somewhat related to D.

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Whenever you see D in the Gospels, that should definitely make you stop and look at what is being said.

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Why? Because D is a reference to, and those of you, again, on the webcam, now see another book appearing in your image here,

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Codex Bezae Catebrigensis, or Bezae Codex Catebrigensis, if you want the

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Latin. I have here Scrivener's edition of this from the

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Pittsburgh reprint series, number five, enlarged from the original, probably because lots of folks have the same problems that I have once you get into your 40s.

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And if you know something about Codex Bezae Catebrigensis, it is undoubtedly, and I don't want to use this term inadvisably, but it's undoubtedly the weirdest unsealed manuscript around.

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What do we mean by that? It has a mind of its own. It tends to go its own direction.

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It tends to do its own thing. And it's also unusual because it is a polyglot, actually a diglot.

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It has on one column the Greek and then the second column it has

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Latin. So it's coming from the West. And it is fairly clear to see that the

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Latin has rather strongly influenced the Greek. In fact, it almost seems like this is a

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Latin translation that didn't necessarily gain wide distribution and that the

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Latin is overriding at times the Greek. And so when you see the listing there on the blog entry and you see that this is the only non -Greek source that reads like this is a few

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Latin manuscripts. And then you remember that D, Codex Bezae Catebrigensis, is a diglot and that it has

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Latin as well. What you're looking at is primarily a Latin reading that has influenced the

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Greek rather than a Greek reading that has then been translated into Latin. That would be the highest probability at that point.

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And it is interesting that the Latin of D likewise says angered rather than what you have.

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For example, if you have the Vulgate text and you look up the

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Vulgate text, you will see that in verse 41 it has misertus, misertus, with compassion, miserabd.

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You're familiar with that if you've gone to New York and gone to Broadway. So even here, it's a minor reading in the

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Latin tradition. And it's only in one Greek text that is a diglot.

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So it can't even be said to have any meaningful Greek foundation to it whatsoever.

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So it's an extreme minority reading. The idea of it being original only comes from attempting to say, well, you know, we don't have any papyri of this section of Mark.

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And we don't, ironically. It's right toward the beginning of Mark. But it was beginnings and endings of books that frequently you lose.

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Think about a papyri codex in a book form. The beginning and ending of a book are going to be the pages toward the front and the back.

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And they're going to be the ones that are most likely to be damaged by age, bugs, fungus, whatever else you might want to discuss that could have an impact on a manuscript.

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And so we don't have papyri manuscripts. And so it's only the unseals. And so it's like, well, you know, we've got a long space there where we know the

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Gospel of Mark existed. But we don't have any papyri witnessing to this particular section.

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So we can bring in all of our other assumptions and make a big deal out of this particular reading and make it really sound like things are really bad.

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Because the thing is, when you're talking to non -specialists, when you're talking to the people that Ehrman is trying to reach in misquoting

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Jesus, which is why he's on NPR and doing all this stuff, you're not talking to people that are going to be taking time to be looking at the

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Greek codices themselves. They're not going to be doing what we're doing on this program. Let's face it, this program is weird.

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I mean, how many people would address for this length of time subjects like textual criticism?

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I mean, most everybody would be telling us, folks, you people don't know what you're doing. You're getting rid of folks, and this isn't how you market, and you're not going to get folks to be donating big bucks to your ministry by doing this kind of thing.

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Which, granted, all of that may be true, but that's just the way we are. So anyway, here you have

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Ehrman raising these issues, and most people are not going to check it out.

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They're not going to look at this and go, wait a minute. If you're consistent, if this kind of minor textual variant material, there's a very small amount of external material that contains this textual variant, if you're going to allow that to create six pages of speculation based upon various theories of redaction criticism, then there's no page in the

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New Testament that you cannot launch off into flights of fancy concerning what you think might have been said here, there, and everywhere.

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And if you have the ability, if you have the Nessie Olin text, and you know what?

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I totally neglected to check this. There it is. I can pretty much guarantee,

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I should have done this for the program, but I'm looking at the UBS text, and again, this will illustrate for you where the problem is, if I'm guessing here correctly.

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Nope, I was wrong. They do list it. Well, okay, I understand why.

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They only list things that are really translationally relevant. If you want a much fuller listing, and this is a good illustration actually, if you have the

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UBS and Nessie Olin, compare the two of them. Verse 41 is the variant listing in the

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Nessie Olin text is what? A third of a line, possibly, maybe a quarter of a line in length, but when the listing is the variant is given in the

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UBS text, and there are, for example, the entire variant in verse 41 before this is ignored by the

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UBS text. Remember, the UBS text only gives you 400 some odd variants or so in comparison to literally thousands in the

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Nessie Olin text. But when you look at this variant here, you will notice that it gives you this long listing of all the texts that read as the text itself does.

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Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, CLW, Delta, Theta, Family 1,

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Family 13, all these minuscules, the Byzantine text, the lectionaries, the Vulgate, the Syriac, the

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Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Georgian, Slavic, Basel, Ambrose, etc., etc. And then you have the one listing for Orgost Theis, the

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To Be Angry, D, it gives you the Latin manuscripts, and in fact it gives you one

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Latin manuscript not listed in the Nessie Olin, and parentheses,

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Diatessaron, and then you have one lectionary and one

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Latin manuscript that omit it entirely. And there you have a fuller reading, which is somewhat unusual.

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Again, I think the reason that they did that for that one is because it does have a major impact on how you translate the text, and the

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UBS text is primarily designed for translators who are working in foreign languages and things like that. But there is the information.

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If you have the UBS text, you can look it up. If you have the Nessie Olin text, you can look it up. And you can look at that and go, wait a minute, there is so little external evidence, and given the

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Latin consistency coming from the Latin side there, this would have to be a reading that in essence just completely disappeared from the

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Greek manuscript edition. And this is where Ehrman's theory runs into a real problem, because where there is such a variant, it always leaves a sign.

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He would have to be coming to the conclusion that the original of Mark actually did have to be angered, but it leaves no evidence within the

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Greek manuscript tradition itself. And that's a pretty radical view, but it also sells books, so there you go.

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There's how you deal with something along those lines. Another that he frequently brings up, and this we do have in the

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NA27 .pdf on the website, if you hopefully by now have downloaded NA27 .pdf.

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In fact, this will be page 5 of NA27 .pdf.

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This is also one that Bart Ehrman likes to make reference to. I heard about it a number of times in the last holiday season when they do the ubiquitous programs where you have

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John Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman and how we can't trust the Bible. It's just this constant drumbeat in the media to, in essence, destroy faith in the text of the scriptures.

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And it is the story, of course, of John 7 .53 -8 .11.

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And I believe, if I recall correctly now, Shabir Ali raised John 7 .53

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-8 .11 in our debate during the cross -examination period as well. And this one, if we look at the

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Nestle -Olland text, and this is page 5. This is page 273 if you have the 27th edition in front of you.

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You will notice that the information might throw you a little curve because you see that there are double brackets before verse 53.

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The variant is verse 53 through verse 11 of chapter 8.

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And the actual information about whether it is included or not included is actually found in the variant information at the end of verse 52.

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There is an insertion mark with a dot. And when you look down to verse 52, the second line of its variant information is where you will find the information about the variant.

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All the rest of that, if you skip down to where it says, you can even see AD, then the parentheses, 7 .53

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-8 .11. All that has to do with internal variations within that longer variant itself.

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The actual information is found up above that, where you have the brackets around 7 .53

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-8 .11 next to the insertion mark. Now, the ad hich is put here in these particular manuscripts.

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Then when you see CUM OBEL, that is with OBELI or asterisks, it is with markings on the part of the scribe indicating that he knows that this is a variant, it may not be original, something along those lines.

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And that gives you, for example, the margin of 1424 has that, with some OBELI after 8 .2

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and some at 8 .3. And it gives you some more manuscripts there. So that is telling you that these manuscripts have markings that say that the scribe recognized that there was an issue with this text.

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But here is the fascinating thing to me. Notice after you have the broken bar and then it says, add 7 .53

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VL 833 SQQ and then a italics

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P 736. Now, what that means is in the manuscript cited here, which is number 225, 7 .53

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-8 .11 actually appears after verse 36 of chapter 7.

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Now, think about what that means for a moment. This text, as a body of text in that manuscript, is found after verse 36 of chapter 7.

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And then in family 1, it is found after John 21 .25.

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And then in family 13, and this is one of the distinguishing characteristics of family 13 is manuscripts that are related to one another.

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In family 13, it is found after Luke 21 .38. Now, that is why

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I have sometimes described John 7 .53 -8 .11 as the homeless passage. It is wandering about and it is put in a number of different places.

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So it is put in the normal place after 7 .52. It is placed 7 .36, 21 .25,

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and Luke 21 .38. So it appears in at least three different places. And then it is omitted by P 66 and P 75, which are the two earliest papyri manuscripts of the

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Gospel of John. Sinaiticus, it seems that Alexandrinus likewise deletes it.

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Vaticanus deletes it. And then you have the whole line of papyri there, other translations, etc.,

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etc. The evidence is very, very strong on two grounds, both external evidence, the manuscript evidence.

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But then if you have any block of text that is homeless, okay, that bounces around from place to place, that is clearly an external story, maybe an old story that was very much circulated in the early period, but it is an early story that is trying to find its way in, maybe as a sermon illustration, maybe someone, you know, they have their manuscript and they've written this in the margin as a wonderful sermon illustration that someone heard from John, you know, something along those lines, you know, whatever it might be.

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That is clearly a body of text, and this is the only one that I'm familiar with that is this size, certainly.

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There aren't any of this size that have the same characteristics. That is clearly coming in from the outside and has found a place in these four different locations.

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That is, I think, a conclusive argument against its originality. Now, those who promote the

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Byzantine text type have their arguments, and it's all going to go back to numbers and the preeminence of a particular theory, etc.,

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etc., but that at least gives you an idea of how to read the information that is found for you, provided for you there in the text.

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I believe we already looked at page 6, so let's finish this up.

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And looking at these, in fact, I think what we can probably do is we can probably— they're not on—we can probably take some phone calls.

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Well, actually, I hope we can take some phone calls because I just realized, I just found out that I have no headsets anymore.

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So if you—okay, now I'm starting to hear something. Okay, now I'm coming back up. All right. Hopefully I can hear you.

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The sound is pretty bad, but I think I should be able to figure out what you're saying.

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If you would like to call in and ask some of your questions about what we have been saying over the past number of weeks, maybe we can get an early start on this.

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In fact, maybe if nobody calls in, we have a good idea that we can move on to other subjects on Thursday because nobody wants to call in.

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But if you'd like to call in at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, and we will be able to take your phone call at that particular point.

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All right. The last image that I provided to you in the NA27 .pdf is of 1

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John, chapter 5. And, of course, here we have what is known as the comma johannium, comma johannium, which is,

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I don't know, maybe outside of Mark it is the most famous of all textual variants in the

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New Testament. It's not an overly large textual variant, I would say.

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It's certainly not as far as text goes. And from the viewpoint of the vast majority of scholars, it isn't even really an issue.

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I'll be perfectly honest with you. It just isn't an issue. The facts are pretty straightforward.

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And I have said that on this issue, if someone defends the comma johannium, then

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I know that I'm speaking with someone who has a theological paradigm that is determining their textual methodology.

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The reason I say this is that the comma johannium itself, there are three that bear witness in heaven, the

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Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and these three are one. And that insertion into the text is not a part of the manuscript tradition in any way, shape, or form.

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And so when you look at the information found at the bottom of the page in the

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Nessie Olin text, you have the insertion there, in heaven, the

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Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in the earth, the

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Spirit, and the water, and that's where verse 8 continues on in ours, and these three are one. And you are given the listings of 221, 2318, 61, 629, omitting some of these things.

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Then that information is repeated thereafter, 636, 918.

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All of these are not ancient manuscripts at all.

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Some would date all of them to past the 15th century. There is no one, no manuscript within the first thousand years that knows anything of this in the

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Greek manuscript tradition. Now, you will find manuscripts, the Vulgate, you'll find that this comes from the

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Latin, and the Latin then has resulted in its insertion in a few later

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Greek manuscripts. But once again, if this could be original, then we have no possible idea what the

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New Testament originally read. Nothing. None. A massive variation could take place even during the lives of the apostles of thereafter, during the lives of the people who heard them preaching.

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Entire editing could take place to where we don't have a clue. In fact, if that's the case, we don't know what anyone ever wrote in history.

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Just skip history. Just drop it because it's irrelevant. You can see the information that is provided to you by the

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Nestle -Aland text. It looks like it's a lot, but actually it's just providing you with a lot of information, and then also providing you with variants within the variant.

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You look back at the back of the text, you can see the various manuscripts that contain this.

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You're probably familiar with some of the stories about what happened with Erasmus and the fact that Erasmus could not find it in any of the manuscripts he had.

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By the way, I want everybody to hear this. If you hear anybody who uses majority text argumentation, who says, well, you know, we need to use the texts that were used by the church.

34:14

If you hear someone use ecclesiastical text argumentation, if you hear someone using majority text argumentation, ask them about this text.

34:23

If they accept it, then they are inconsistent themselves and can be dismissed immediately.

34:30

Why do I say that? Because if you're a majority text advocate, you don't have this. It's not in the majority text.

34:37

It's not in the Byzantine text. It is a, well, how did it get there?

34:42

Why is it in the King James Version? Well, you know the story. You know the story that in the first two editions of Erasmus' Novum Instrumentum, it was not there.

34:52

None of the manuscripts that Erasmus had seen for 1 John contained the Kamiohonium.

34:58

It just wasn't there. And so he was being attacked by his opponents.

35:03

He had many opponents and Erasmus was a rather irascible fellow. And he liked the battle and he liked the war.

35:09

And he, in essence, said, well, look, you can accuse me of all sorts of things.

35:20

But the fact of the matter is I don't find it in my manuscripts. Show me a manuscript that reads this way.

35:27

Now, some have titled that a dare or something like that, and some have even theorized that one of the manuscripts listed here,

35:34

I believe it's 629. I could be wrong about that. I didn't check it out before the program. But one of the manuscripts listed here was actually produced specifically for the purpose of confuting

35:43

Erasmus. We don't know. It has been looked at so many times at that particular point that it opens of its own will to 1

35:52

John 5 -7. But be it as it may, he inserted that text, 1

36:02

John 5 -7, into the third edition of his Greek New Testament with a long note explaining why he does not feel that it's original.

36:11

The problem is notes don't last as long as texts do. And the third edition of Erasmus was very influential.

36:18

And that is the means by which it entered into the reading of the King James Version of the

36:25

Bible. If the King James had followed the first two editions of Erasmus, it would not have been there.

36:31

We would not even have had a discussion of that in our context today.

36:37

But the third is the one that had that kind of an influence on it.

36:42

So this is the story of the Kamiohonium. And I remember someone just said something interesting.

36:50

I suppose I'll do some musical interlude here. And, yeah, no, the

37:00

Hodges -Farstad text gives you the reading down in the bottom and gives you what's called the

37:10

TR reading, which would be the Textus Receptus reading. But it likewise does not have the

37:16

Kamiohonium placed in the text itself. Anyway, when you hear someone raising this text,

37:28

I hate to hear this happen. And, in fact, it brings back bad memories for me, too, because when

37:35

I was a junior in high school, I went out on a visitation meeting and I ran into a

37:43

Mormon lady. And I hadn't read anything on Mormonism, didn't know anything about Mormonism as a,

37:49

I don't know, 16-, 17 -year -old, something like that. And the only verse that I could argue with this lady was 1

37:58

John 5, 7. Scott Sherman was with me that day.

38:03

I remember it well. We were chuckling about this. We had dinner, got back together again after,

38:09

I don't know, 20 -some -odd years, hadn't seen each other in 23 years. I don't know how long it had been. But we were chuckling about that first meeting with a

38:15

Mormon lady. And all I could do was argue 1

38:23

John 5, 7. And since she had the King James Version, it didn't make any difference because she had it, too.

38:29

But talk about the blind leading the blind. And it's painful to hear folks citing this text who don't know anything about its history and don't know anything about the fact that they're about to have their heads handed to them on a platter by a

38:45

Jehovah's Witness or by a Muslim or whoever it might be. It is somewhat difficult to listen to that.

38:51

But once again, there you have the information before you. There is how you look up these various and sundry things.

38:58

And you use the appendices and you look at the manuscripts. And hopefully that has been of assistance to you.

39:03

I wish we could get a kickback on all the editions of the NA -27 and UBS -4 that have been sold as a result of our doing this, but we don't.

39:13

But I hope that you will obtain that kind of information. It will be very useful to you. One last thing, and it just crossed my mind before we start taking our calls, at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341.

39:26

Only one call right now. That means we must have answered all the questions there are about textual criticism.

39:31

And in fact, looking at it, it's not even on the subject of New Testament textual criticism. So if you have

39:38

New Testament text that you wish to examine, 877 -753 -3341 is the number.

39:45

I realize that we didn't say on the blog we'd start taking calls today. So there's probably a lot of folks that are just trying to find the time to be able to do it on Thursday.

39:52

But we'll see how that ends up working out. I had a gentleman at church ask me a question.

40:02

And since it's semi -relevant here, I want to address it in passing because I'm talking about obtaining resources.

40:11

The question is often asked of me. What do you think of interlinears?

40:17

There are so many interlinears that are published out there.

40:23

You can get stuff, you can even put Bible works into interlinear mode and things like that.

40:28

And I told him what I will tell you. If you know

40:34

Greek, you don't need an interlinear. If you don't know Greek, you don't need an interlinear.

40:42

I honestly think that interlinears are the greatest waste of wood and the life of a tree ever designed by man.

40:52

Because if you can read the Greek so as to identify terms and to be able to parse them, you don't need an interlinear.

40:59

If you can't, then you don't need an interlinear anyways because it's not going to help you. Yes, sir. The only thing is if you put

41:06

Bible works into interlinear mode, you keep saying every 10 seconds, Cheater, cheater.

41:14

I didn't get that edition myself or managed to update past it.

41:20

But anyway, I suppose you might argue that the only real use of an interlinear would be in this context of textual criticism.

41:33

Why? Because if you had an interlinear, then you can look at the English word, figure out what the

41:38

Greek word is. Then you go to the Greek text and then look at the textual data. And that way you can make sure that you're looking at the right word.

41:44

That might be the only meaningful use of an interlinear I've ever found.

41:50

But I have found so many people who abuse an interlinear.

41:57

How many times have we heard radio preachers or not radio preachers, just preachers, preachers say the

42:03

Greek word here is. And you can tell they're using it. You can tell that they're not translate.

42:09

They can't translate themselves. They're going on second and third hand. And they're just wrong. The application, just if they were actually reading it, they would not even make that application.

42:18

And yet, you know, as it has been said many, many times, a little Greek is a dangerous thing. If you're going to have a little

42:25

Greek in your life, make sure he cooks food for you at the diner and that you're not using it to preach sermons from because it just doesn't help.

42:34

But maybe, maybe if you just have to have an interlinear, maybe it's only viable use is to allow you to make sure you're looking at the right

42:44

Greek word in the text on a textual critical level. But you still need to have a real

42:50

Greek New Testament that has the textual critical material there. And by the way, just in passing, the

42:55

Hodges Farstad majority text does have a very basic textual critical apparatus.

43:05

The bottom, I suppose, of what you just want is what the majority text says, what the

43:11

TR says, what Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and all of say that's going to give you that information, basically.

43:21

And if you just want to get rid of all the other stuff, then that might be of assistance to you.

43:27

So keep that in mind. Hopefully, the series has been of assistance to you. We're going to start taking your phone calls now or maybe not.

43:35

Might have to go look at a couple other variants depending on how long Jeff's call lasts here. But let's talk with Jeff in Valley Forge.

43:42

Hi, Jeff. Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing? Doing good. Good. It's good to talk to you again. Yes, sir. I appreciate this opportunity.

43:50

As I've told you in the past, I'm involved in Jewish ministry. And a lot of the things that come up involve

43:58

Old Testament textual variations, and I'm not sure if that's your area of expertise. But one of the things

44:04

I was kind of curious about besides, I guess, would be what good resources, because especially most of the stuff you see, especially on the

44:16

Internet, on better Christian websites involve discussing New Testament variations.

44:23

And a lot of the stuff that comes up in Jewish ministry is a lot of disparaging of the

44:29

Septuagint as corrupted by – similar to Muslim arguments, it was corrupted by Christians to make

44:41

Jesus' Messiahship look better. And not that I view the Septuagint as authoritative, but kind of like you would look at different Latin translations to kind of figure out variations and that kind of thing.

44:57

And I was just kind of curious what would be the best place to kind of turn to for that sort of – for the

45:05

Old Testament. Well, a couple of things. Yeah, that is a major area of discussion and study is the relationship that exists between the – what we would call the

45:18

Hebrew Masoretic text, which we would find in modern schools and seminary situations.

45:25

Generally, the text that you're utilizing and that which you'll find in Bible works and Lagos, et cetera, et cetera, is the

45:32

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, which really varies in a minor, minor way from the 1525

45:41

Blomberg text that underlies the King James Version of the Bible. Dr. James Price, the

45:46

Old Testament editor of the New King James, indicated he knew of only eight meaningful variations between the 1525

45:53

Blomberg and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia used in the modern translations, and those are mainly place -named spelling variations.

46:01

And so determining the Masoretic text generally is not all that difficult to do.

46:09

The question is the relationship between that Masoretic text as it became codified nine centuries after Christ and what would have been the textual platform upon which the

46:22

Lord Jesus and the apostles were operating, and that's where the Greek Septuagint comes in. As you well know, that Septuagint manuscript tradition is what is primarily utilized in the

46:36

New Testament. I mean that there are times, there are a number of times, and this would be quite relevant to Jewish apologetics, there are a number of times where the apostles quite purposefully utilize the

46:46

Greek Septuagint even when it differs from the Masoretic text we have today. For example, in Hebrews chapter 8, in the nature of the

46:55

New Covenant, there is a variation there between the Masoretic text where God says,

47:02

I'll be a husband to them, and the Septuagint says that I did not care for them.

47:07

And the variant is very small in the Hebrew as far as what it would have looked like in written text, but it's fairly large as far as meaning is concerned.

47:17

And so there are all sorts of issues along those lines. Obviously your primary resources immediately on the first level are the texts themselves.

47:28

And we're not going to do this because I just don't think there'd be enough people that would be interested, but if you have,

47:37

I'm sure you have, Stuttgartensia, there is an entire booklet that goes with it. Not that comes with it, you have to buy it separately, and it's not cheap, but you can buy it separately in paperback that will go into full depth into how to interpret every element of the textual critical apparatus of the

47:55

Biblica Stuttgartensia as well. And I would suggest to anyone who can at least muddle their way through the

48:03

Hebrew text, which is the best most of us can do, to familiarize themselves with the textual critical material at the bottom because it not only provides you with any variants found in the

48:14

Hebrew manuscripts, but it also gives you access to the various forms of the Septuagint and also to the

48:21

Targums and things like that that will help you to analyze those things. Of course, as far as the

48:27

Septuagint itself is concerned, Rolf's is about the only semi -critical edition that we have available to us.

48:35

There is much work that needs to be done on that. I would like to think that there's work being done on that that might produce a higher quality textual text in the future.

48:44

And then, of course, the rest of it is books like Wirthwein, books like the more recent publication,

48:52

Invitation to the Septuagint, that Moises Silva was involved in. I can't remember the second author just off the top of my head right now, that go much more into depth into studying specific variants and how they can shed light on the relationship of what became the

49:11

Masoretic text and what would have been in general usage in the days of Christ as well.

49:17

And also then to go into the question of the early textual transmission of the

49:22

Greek Septuagint because, as you know, the Septuagint predates Christ. And the

49:28

Jewish argument would be that the text, the utilization of, say,

49:34

Psalm 110 .1 or things like that or some of the prophetic passages in the Old Testament, that those have been corrupted by Christians.

49:40

When I think an unbiased person looking back at – or at least a semi -unbiased person, anyone can be completely unbiased – looking back at the history will note that the rise of Jewish translations in Greek of the text in opposition to the

50:01

Septuagint is pretty much connected with the rise of Christianity itself. In other words, it was the

50:07

Christian usage of these texts that brought about the Jewish translations and hence the prejudice would be in the

50:14

Jewish translations that are being made in a reaction against a perceived misuse of the

50:20

Septuagint rather than the Septuagint. In other words, there would have been no reason for the

50:25

Jews to abandon the use of the Septuagint itself if they could prove that the original text did not support the

50:33

Christian utilization of it. But the fact was the Christian Septuagint had been so widely disseminated at that point in time that you really couldn't argue about the text they were using.

50:43

You had to come up with a new text yourself. And so you have the later versions of the

50:51

Greek Old Testament being produced by Jewish sources and being used by them, Aquila's translation being the primary.

50:57

If they were quoting for missionary purposes, will it be the point of quoting something that your opponents didn't have access to?

51:04

Yeah, exactly. That's an excellent argument to make is that, look, if we put ourselves back in that context, in that situation, what would have been the benefits to the

51:17

Christians to do what you're claiming they were doing? You've got to remember these were – and this is of course the sore spot – these were

51:24

Jews. They were born Jews. And from the Jewish perspective, they are now apostates.

51:30

From their perspective, they are now completed Jews. But they were trying to find a common ground from which to argue.

51:36

You don't do that by then ravaging the very text that you're trying to find as your common base and just your common ground.

51:44

So there's a lot of work yet to be done in that area, to be perfectly honest with you. There's probably a lot of information still locked up in the original languages that has not even come into general use.

51:56

I mean it's sort of like there's still Augustan materials that haven't even been translated from Latin into English.

52:02

So there's still a lot of work out there, and I would look forward someday to an improvement on Rolf's edition of the

52:09

Septuagint and would encourage folks. I've told the story before.

52:15

You may have heard the time that the textual critical apparatus in the

52:21

BHS text saved me from a difficult situation. I was up in Salt Lake City, and Bill Hamblin, William Hamblin of BYU, called in the last half hour of a four -hour marathon to throw out a textual variant in Deuteronomy 32, as I recall.

52:38

And as I had left my palatial Motel 6 room to go to the radio program that evening,

52:46

I had seen this very one. I happened to have those on the webcam. See, here is my pretty leather -bound edition of Biblia Hebraica Stricta Etentia.

52:54

I had seen this very text laying on the bed, and I thought, the chances of that being relevant, it's not all that big, but it's more weight.

53:05

And I went ahead and grabbed it, and I was able then to, on the fly, consult that information, respond to it.

53:12

So it's good to be able to have access to that stuff, to know what the major symbols are and what they represent and how to read them and things like that in the original languages.

53:22

And unfortunately, outside of seminary students – and let's face it, many seminary students drop that stuff so fast after graduation, they don't stay up with it – that there's a very small number of people who would find it relevant in an apologetic context to know that kind of information.

53:41

It's a shame. It shouldn't be that way, but that's sort of the way it is. Yeah, I think you've raised a lot of things in my mind

53:49

I might want to ask you at a later date, but one of the things I saw recently was Jerome's introduction to the

53:58

Torah, like his preface for the

54:03

Vulgate translation. And he quoted the infamous or famous Nazarene quote in Matthew, and he was actually defending using – basically the whole introduction was just about how he had to defend himself from not using the

54:22

Septuagint and going back to the Hebrew sources. And he was saying that the Hebrew sources – and he's writing, I guess, before the 8th or 9th century, which is the latest we have for Masoretic – he was saying that there's a bunch of Old Testament prophecies that the

54:36

Septuagint doesn't have that are quoted by the apostles. And he mentioned that Nazarene thing, and he said it's in Isaiah.

54:45

And I was wondering if we have anything in the Vulgate, in the Old Testament translation in the

54:51

Vulgate, that kind of deals with where we could look for those passages and kind of – like the

54:58

Nazarene passage is kind of like, okay, what was Matthew quoting? That's not in the Old Testament.

55:04

What's going on there? I know Dr. Michael Brown, who does a lot in Jewish apologetics, mentioned that that could be a play in Isaiah with the branch.

55:15

And that's the most common response. And there's no question that Jerome is a storehouse of information along those lines.

55:25

I mean, I mentioned last week the fact that when he translated Jonah, since he was living there, one interesting aspect of it was to have one of the very few early church fathers who knew both

55:38

Hebrew and Greek. And most people aren't aware of that. Most people assume that an early church writer would be fluent in these languages.

55:44

This wasn't the case. There were two well -known major writers who were fluent in both languages,

55:49

Origen and Jerome. And some – when I say fluent,

55:54

I mean they really could produce their own translation and things like that. And here he is living in Bethlehem.

56:01

He's living in Palestine. And so he's living in the same – and, you know, okay, 400 years have passed, but that's not like 1 ,400 years or 2 ,000 years.

56:10

And so the general geography of the area is going to be the same. And the flora and the fauna are going to be the same.

56:17

And most people know that a lot of the questions about how to properly translate the Hebrew Old Testament have to do with things like animals and flowers and things like that that we're not sure exactly what the original

56:28

Hebrew is referring to. Which is a good evidence against oral tradition, by the way. Okay.

56:36

I was going in the other direction. What do you mean? If they don't know what the word means, that kind of means the oral tradition.

56:41

I know some Roman Catholic apologists. I've seen them try to use oral tradition in terms of Mosaic law and stuff like that.

56:49

Right, right, right. But anyway, that's aside. Yes, yeah. Well, but the point being here's a guy who in that area does give us some fascinating insights into those things and tries to give us a more accurate translation by going back to the

57:03

Hebrew. But even then, you're still – it's not that we don't know what

57:10

Matthew was saying. The question is how do we interpret what Matthew was saying. And I think Brown is correct there. I think that's the majority viewpoint is it is a play on words at that particular point in time that is being utilized by Matthew.

57:23

And he's the one who utilized it because that would resonate with his particular audience, whereas it would not resonate with others.

57:30

Again, a recognition of the importance of seeing that the synoptic writers have a particular audience in mind and they're going to use argumentation for that particular audience that that group is going to find compelling that others are not going to use for their particular audience because they're not going to find that kind of argumentation to be compelling.

57:50

That's one of the things I'm facing in dealing with Islamic studies is that there are certain kinds of argumentation that Muslims find compelling that I don't even begin to understand.

57:59

And yet I need to understand why they can hear it that way so that I can understand how they're hearing what

58:04

I'm saying. And so there is value there in Jerome's translation. I can't tell you off the top of my head.

58:11

I could look it up if we had time, but we're out of time for the program, what the Vulgate says there. But I don't know that there's any information specifically as to whether he provided – probably in his commentaries, he would provide an extended discussion of that as well.

58:25

I'll call up later. Okay. Thanks a lot, Jeff. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. Well, thank you for listening on the program.

58:31

We're going to go ahead and start the Thursday program with the open phones for you to call in with your primarily

58:38

New Testament textual questions, though that's important information to be covering as well. But I will be prepared to move on from there should we have answered every possible question people could have.

58:50

So we'll do that Thursday evening on Dividing Line. See you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

59:56

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

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