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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. 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. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.
If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 9 7 3 4 6 0 2 or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James white.
Hey, I'm Mary welcome to the dividing line on a Tuesday morning a cool and rainy morning. Well sun's out now, but it's been raining a little bit here in the Phoenix area. We can obviously use that. We continue with the series on textual criticism today.
I know that there are a number of folks who have some questions. We'll be getting to a phone calls in a future program where we can look at some textual critical issues and we will be limiting phone calls that point to textual critical issues and I had someone last night asking if they call in about some sort of odd emergent church thing.
I said, nope, I wouldn't fit so Won't be won't be doing that before we we get to the the texts themselves, I would like to. Why does it Microsoft Word open a document we double-click on it, it's just driving me nuts.
I've found a document that I wish to open and so I Double-click on it and Microsoft Word opens up and then it's it's there and stares at me. I just love it. Maybe it does not like that open office is installed in this unit too.
Anyways before we get into some of these specific Issues of the Textual critical Application we started looking at some some some issues. No, I don't know last time we were together I'm looking at a thing about six to sefith here because it has to do with what I want to mention right right now I want to address a An issue I should I have in the past and in fact if you just do a search for Credenda agenda on my blog you'll be able to find the URL where I did a.
It's not a debate. I certainly don't list it as a debate but credenda agenda has had for many years these things they called a disputatio Disputation and I was asked man. I remember what year it was now.
It's quite some time ago to do a Disputatio with Douglas Wilson on the subject of what's called the Ecclesiastical text and this goes. Right at that particular point in time the folks up in Moscow, Idaho were being Influenced by a fellow who has since passed away by name of Ted Liedis Theodore Liedis and his Ecclesiastical text theories that in essence continue on and In various forms some of you may have noticed that one of the primary writers at the oxymoronic blog Recently indicated that now he's become an Anglo Catholic he's looking at these things and he's changing his textual critical viewpoints and Is embracing the Byzantine textual platform as the canonical platform of the church?
Now people hear that and they go. What are these folks talking about? I mean, let's face it most folks don't know what the Byzantine platform is or the Alexandrian or what an eclectic text is and we talked about some odd things on this webcast to be certain but There are those who you know, they start reading and maybe they start reading some Reformed writings and things like that and for some reason there are a number of reformed folks.
There are King James only reformed folks. There are TR only reformed folks and and I've always found that to be a little bit odd from my perspective. It would seem that this very same critical thinking abilities that would lead a person to recognize Reformed theology is the teaching of scripture would also allow one to see through some of the rather circular Argumentation is used in these areas, but be that as it may I understand that many people don't like the idea of having textual reference notes.
There are many people who do not like that the New King James for example lists what the The UBS text says or what the majority text says or when the majority text splits they are you're sowing discord.
You're sowing a disbelief when you make reference to these facts, which makes me wonder a little bit about what you think facts are but anyway There there is a real desire for Certainty. I Want one text no questions black and white all the way.
I don't want a textual variance. I want just one text and you know, we I've been playing the Shabir Ali debate in Bible study it Phoenix reformed actually I was gone for a week. And so we started then and and all they got to hear was Shabir his opening statement.
I didn't think it was fair to do that. I wanted to get a chance to respond so we've been watching the entire day. We'll finish up this weekend and You know, you hear the Muslim saying I see you have all these textual problems.
You have all these these textual variants and they can you know Spend an entire debate just just talking about textual variance and it takes longer. Obviously in a meaningful fashion to explain a textual variant that it does to throw out just the bald assertion that.
Well, and I gave an example Shabir was talking about how I remember riding South Mountain and I was hearing him talking about how In Luke 1 that that later scribes had had inserted into Luke's Writings that it seemed good to me and to the Holy Spirit.
To do this research and to write this gospel and so on and so forth and I looked it up and there was one Latin Manuscript. I mean it there's there's no possible Reality at all that this is the original but he throws it out there and says doesn't tell his audience that it's it's meant to Inculcate in people's minds, you know this massive amount of corruption.
No one really knows the original said and so I I fully understand when people say man. It would just be a whole lot easier if we didn't have Any textual variation in New Testament. I mean Bart Ehrman.
That's his whole thing. It's if this is God's Word, there would be no textual variance. I guess God would just strike any scribe dead who was about to make a mistake, you know. You're getting tired toward the end of a book, you know.
The end of a long day and your eyes are weary and and you're just about to misspell a word and boom Lightning comes out of sky and turns you into a crispy critter and that way you never get a textual variance.
Of course, I don't think you'd actually have anybody copy Manuscripts either if the last 14 scribes had tried to copy John got turned into toast. I don't think nobody to have the New Testament around but anyway.
Or I know you know, you could have automatic writing and he could. Oh superintendent and all the rest of stuff. But it's silly that no ancient text unless it was chiseled in stone has any Can be can be passed down in handwriting Without textual variation.
That's that's the nature of that means of communication. So I understand when people want to embrace this this concept. There's two things I want to address first of all.
Back in.
1995 I.
Forget what month it was, but I went back Tennessee I believe it was Nashville. Was it Nashville? Where was the Ankerberg program at that time? That was Nashville. It's been a while. Anyway flew back someplace back there I remember visiting relatives.
So I thought was Nashville, but no, it couldn't have been Nashville. Where's Tennessee Temple at? No, where's where's Tennessee Temple University? Where is that located wherever Tennessee Temple University is?
That's where I went. We didn't go there, but I just happen to know that that's not Memphis. No, huh? No, I don't think it was. Anyway, we did the I only thought there was two towns in Tennessee. Now you know I I I the the opinions expressed by Rich Pierce on this program are not the opinions Of the management or the rest of the staff the other 50 of the ministry.
I do not want to Have that's not even get in there. Anyways, we did the John Ankerberg show and If you've ever seen them, I I we got a track down. I think I've got the video. Hey videotapes I can I can digitize videotapes now If you've ever seen them, I I really should remind me put I got to put this on the list for the YouTube parade Some of the great questions and there was this one time when a Chattanooga.
Thank you. Thank you. Nana came through for us And that's where the Ankerberg show was being is that the other city in Tennessee rich Chattanooga and Memphis those the two only two agreement don't even doubt don't even go there forget it.
Anyway, I Need to put some of the exchanges that took place during that on on the blog and comment on because they were fascinating especially with the the Ruckman representative Sam Gip there was some there were some great ones there, but I Would I would suggest that you get the series it's well worth watching but for eight half-hour programs, it's like 90 bucks.
It's just a it's always been outrageously expensive. But you know, I got one because I was I was on the program. But anyway in that particular Encounter Dan Wallace and I Tag-teamed some of these King James only guys.
We really did I mean we had not met prior to that but but Dan and I really kicked it off and and We we've always kicked it off. I've mentioned a couple of times at my die. I only have two positive memories of The first time I attended ETS in 1998 in Orlando and one of them is standing at the NET Bible Display having about a half-hour conversation with Dan about our differences In understanding of the grammar and syntax the Carmen Christie of Philippians 2 5 to 11 and neither one of us had a Greek text Anywhere around but we both had it memorized and it was so much fun.
And the other happy memory I think I have mentioned before was David King and I listening to Dr. Nicole Talking about the founding of ETS and when somebody asked him Why'd you say the Bible alone this big big man just sort of shuffles up to the microphone says Because we didn't want any Roman Catholics in the group David King and I are in the back.
And we realized we're the only people who are clapping and everybody's looking at us like we were freaks but anyway Those were the two happy moments in the 1998.
And.
So I Haven't a clue what that means. I I just got I just got a p .m. From someone who remained nameless that has absolutely positively nothing to do with.
Saying.
It's just like the most random thing I've ever seen in my entire life and I haven't a clue what anything is about. So I'm gonna try to continue on here. Dan Wallace and I were a tag-teaming the King James only a fellow.
And one of the things that Dan said, I'm finally getting to my point here. It must be early in the morning. But I get at my point.
Dan.
Dan said you have traded truth For certainty. You have traded truth for certainty and what does that mean. Well Ever talked to a Mormon missionary who was absolutely positively certain That the Book of Mormon was true.
I have I Mean I've talked with people with tears in their eyes. They just they just know. They are certain that the Book of Mormon is Word of God. There are a lot of people who are very certain that the Quran is the Word of Allah.
They're so certain they'll strap explosives their body and blow themselves to smithereens along with everybody else. They're certain doesn't make it true. There are people who can be very very very very certain about things that are not true at all and Christians can do the same thing.
They shouldn't. Inconsistent indefensible, but they do it they do it Absolutely certain. And What you have with? With a King James only person is A person who let you know, let's let's let's look at the the best way of thinking about this.
Okay, the most you know, just the best way we can look at it would be something along these lines. They want to know for certain What God says? And if you say some manuscripts say this and some manuscripts say that my certainty is.
Destroyed and.
So I Believe God has spoken and so he must have spoken in this form and then all these arguments and and at that point honestly. Almost any translation can be defended on that basis. I mean the King James is defended.
Well, look at all the great preachers have used the King James. Well, there were great preachers before the King James. There were translations before the King James. There are people who gave their lives to make translations before the King James and The time is gonna come where there's gonna be a whole generation.
That's known nothing, but the NIV. Will there be an NIV only movement once that becomes the way that people have always heard the Word of God in their particular tradition? You know that that whole mindset, you know can be very powerful.
But it doesn't mean that what you are certain of is actually true.
That's a very dangerous Path to start going down. It's indefensible. First of all, it's from an apologetic standpoint. It can't stand up against the challenges made from other perspectives. You end up having to use Inconsistent arguments and is that not the argument that I used against Shabir Ali?
He has to use one entire worldview one entire spectrum of Scholarship against Christianity and then abandon all of that reject all of that Grab a completely different worldview a completely different spectrum of the of scholarship of theology to defend the Quran.
That's what he has to do and.
So that means you're wrong. No matter how else you put it if you use one set of arguments to attack and another set of arguments to defend if you're not consistent Then you're wrong. That's the only way that you can express it and so.
That kind of Emphasis, I know it's there and it impacts people and so in a in a gross way you see the King James only movement and I want to have certainty and and you see people Like da Wade attacking the new King James version for putting textual notes in the margins.
Even though the original King James had textual notes itself they sort of forget that but You know when you're the head of the Dean Bergen Society and Dean Bergen could never been a member of your society that in and of.
And of itself should tell you all is not well on the consistency level and that is to me, by the way. The greatest evidence the King James only movement is completely fraudulent and false is the fact that it is grossly Inconsistent it cannot give a consistent defense of its own perspective.
It has to flip-flop back and forth. It has to engage in equivocation all the rest that stuff and That proves it's wrong. I mean for any any person who can is concerned about truth now. Of course, the problem is you have to find people who are actually concerned about truth now.
Taking a step back though. The the ecclesiastical text folks like like Doug Wilson and I don't know what Doug Wilson's viewpoint on this is today. I haven't haven't had a you know contact with him on this particular subject since we did.
That dispute ocio in credenda agenda, which again, like I said, if you just google it or it's on the blog I've linked to at least twice. It's been a while so I don't know exactly where he stands on it now.
But at the time during the course of the of the dispute ocio, I asked him All right, you want to talk about how the church has decided the text of Scripture? Let's again, then that sound wonderful. I mean I can I can spin this Just as well if not better than some of these folks.
I mean, okay. Come on. We don't want the text the Word of God determined by a bunch of secular scholars. We want the text the Word of God determined by godly men by elders in the church, right? Well, yeah, who's gonna argue with that?
I mean, it's really easy to to demonize secular scholarship and and say Unbelievers are handling the holy things and you know, you can spin all sorts of stuff and make it sound Really bad. But here's the problem.
It's it's one thing to attack secular scholarship or even just scholarship in general and Sometimes there's a good reason to do that certainly isn't these days when scholarship has become primarily a political thing rather than something you do.
It's something you buy some it's a club you join rather than something you actually do in your life. But anyway That's one thing but just simply attacking another position doesn't mean you're actually affirming your own.
And so if someone wants to say well the church has determined the text of Scripture the canon of Scripture the the Actual readings of variant text one of the things I asked was when who? When when did people actually sit down and actually sit down with variant readings and they actually had all the information and Make these decisions.
When did that happen? Who did it? Can we examine their their deliberations. Well exactly what information did they have? Accessible to since we have the papyri today and things like that that we've only discovered over the past 80 years.
Has it happened since then if it happened before then? Then you're making certain assumptions that well, you know I guess if manuscripts go out of circulation like in all those areas where Islam takes over.
Then that means that the text that was read there is irrelevant anyways. And that God so Superintended history that he basically wiped everybody out that was using the wrong Greek text. I guess there would be some people might argue that way I suppose.
I don't know. But who made these decisions and I asked Douglas Wilson. I said, let's let's look at an example. Let's look at Luke 2 22 and Luke 2 22 contains a reading in the King James Version and in the TR that is that was Basically unknown to any Christians for at least the first thousand years the Christian Church and really is based upon a conjecture by Beza.
As to what the actual reading should be and he wasn't the first one to make that conjecture but that's basically where it came from and it's there's just no possibility of it being the original and once you brought it down to the nitty-gritty down to the where the rubber meets the road.
Then.
The wheels fell off because it sounded really good to talk about the church determining the text. Okay, how does that work? Let's apply it to a particular text and see how that works. And the fact is you can't you can't make it work because it's never happened.
It's it sounds all pious and you know, it's sort of like Kevin Johnson's exegesis by the mind of the church thing it sounds so warm and fuzzy and and Spiritual, but it doesn't work. It doesn't help you to exegete anything that's why I challenged him to exegete a single passage and show us how this differs from the grammatical historical method of hermeneutics and I'm gonna attempt to do so because he can't it's it's impossible.
It's it's like saying Coming up with some nice fluffy phrase. About how you fix a carburetor, but it then requires you not to use any physical tools. Well, let's see how you fix it. You know, what do you do lay your hands on it and pray over it?
Yeah, you know, I guess there are some people would do that, but I don't want I'm not gonna pay them money to fix in my car, so. That's what you have with this ecclesiastical text stuff. And I'm wondering.
Since Paul Owen is presenting a paper on the longer ending of Mark Mark 16 9 through 20 I'm wondering if this Anglo Catholic thing and this Ecclesiastical text thing that takes the Byzantine text as well since it's the majority text that's text the church.
It wasn't majority text in the 7th century. So why does that why is that irrelevant? It wasn't the majority text prior to Islam spreading all over the place so why is why why can the text change from century to century if you're if your methodology results in in that kind of Evolving text and it's probably not really good methodology.
But that's the type of thing that's being expressed out there and again I understand the motivation and I understand why certain reform people for example might hear that and go. Oh, that sounds good.
You know the church and the authority the church and the elders. Yeah, but but when did the church? Get together and actually determine these things. It didn't. It's just it simply didn't and to just take the the facts of history.
That the West started speaking Latin and In the East where Greek was still being spoken. You had that a great shrinking of that area due the Islamic expansion to take all that and say ah this determines text the Bible.
Makes absolutely positively no sense to me at all now. Don't get me wrong. There have been lots of people in history who have done things like this who have said ah, this is the text. But nobody today actually thinks they were right.
In other words, you know, I've told the story in the King James only controversy when Jerome translated the Latin Vulgate he did not slavishly follow what Christians were accustomed to at that point, which was a Greek septuagint or Latin renderings of the Greek septuagint in essence and in the West and so.
So the You know the first time that that's Augustine's translation was read. In Carthage, there was a near riot. They nearly rioted and as I recall it was over the fact that that's a Jerome had a better rendering of the castor oil plant in the book of Jonah if I'm recalling correctly and Most right did.
There you had a traditional text that had already been set up. It was what people were accustomed to and when you changed it people didn't like it. But then ironically it becomes the Latin Vulgate which at first was resisted when it first came out.
That becomes the standard so much so that the time the Reformation. You've got you've got Sixtus V coming up with his inspired version of the Latin Vulgate this is the infallible Vulgate. I is the successor of Peter and the Pope and blah blah blah blah and Everybody knows it was filled with errors.
His successor had to sort of hide it and in an embarrassed fashion make mistakes. And it was delivered to the printer with with pieces of paper taped to certain pages with corrections, and that was a mess.
But again there was the mindset. We need to have an absolute text and the Vulgate is it and the Latin is it and that wasn't even the original language. Ah, but it was a language that God had blessed in it for a thousand years.
God has used a lot. It's the text of the church Church. Well, okay, if you're gonna start going down the ecclesiastical text direction. Yeah, I you better start dealing with those questions. You better start dealing with those arguments because I don't know that you really have any solid basis for saying no no no.
We're gonna go with the Greek because for for a half of church history and from Rome's perspective more than that Latin has been the language. It was used to the Greeks language of the heretics. That's they said to Erasmus and So you see these things aren't new this is not new argumentation these these issues have come up before but unfortunately the vast majority of conservative Christians are ignorant of Their history and ignorant of issues like this from the past and so as a result we go back over it.
Again and again and again as we seem to be doing now.
Now.
Having addressed all of those issues having gone through the UBS. Let's look at and I just just before the program started. I reposted.
The.
PDFs.
Links to the PDFs. I also by the way, I almost tried to do this. I also posted and for those of you listening down the road I posted this on Scroll up here today on the 13th of November. I Posted a graphic.
It's not really big. You can't really read it all that well, I've only got 400 pixels to play with so that's sort of how that works, but a Quick shot that I took just a few moments ago from the Stuttgart electronic study Bible SESB for libronics That I have on my system and the SESB Though it is in German allows you to have on your computer the textual data for the Nestle Island 27th edition of the Greek New Testament and You can't barely see this as I'm looking at on my screen and looking on a 17-inch laptop with a very high resolution now but if you look at the graphic you will see I put Ephesians 1 up here, which is quite interesting.
We have to talk about sometime. Maybe somebody will remind me to do that because there's an interesting Variant here that I think is theologically relevant somewhat historically relevant. Definitely anyway You can't really see it.
But the textual data on the right hand side. You can see the Greek text on the left side the right side. Is the variance Ephesians 1 1? The the manuscripts are in green the manuscript Illustrations are are in green.
I suppose I can just bring up the original I took it off of as much easier to see and when you put the cursor on any one of these Manuscripts in the listing it will give you its its Designation its unseal number where it is located what century it is from what it contains.
It's it's it's really a really neat thing to have and I also have in my library most the papyri that have been transcribed Available to examine as well. And so you can do a lot of this stuff now I mean used to be the books you had to buy were exceptionally expensive and big and cumbersome and not easy to use.
But it's getting easier and easier and easier To do a lot of this stuff textually this textual stuff on a computer, of course you are having to trust that the source is Completely reliable and what's recording and nothing's infallible on that level and so you know, it's still good to cross-reference things and double-check things because there are sometimes differences of opinion on certain of those things but For example, I just put my cursor on p46 because it's relevant to this variant in Ephesians 1 1 and it gives me the name circa 200.
It's one of the Chester Beatty Library papyri, it's up in Ann Arbor University of Michigan and then it gives me its contents and I can see that it contains Romans 5 17 through 6 3 and then verses 5 through 14.
Then chapter 8 verses 15 to 25 or 27 to 35. I mean, I've got the whole listing of everything that it contains right here on my screen. So it is nice. It's not not overly cheap the SCSB for libronics, but there are a lot of things that aren't overly cheap for for libronics, but the price 7 coming down you gotta admit that they're not as bad as they used to be and if you have the libronics library system, you can get a lot of stuff for that primarily from Logos and So anyways that that is available to you as well if you're looking at and there is one other advantages by the way.
This is something I wouldn't have thought of only a few years ago. But there is one major advantage to electronic textual study over paper textual study. It's called presbyopia. And For those of you who don't know what that is, that means you're under 40.
Because if you're over 40, you know, what presbyopia is the first time your ophthalmologist mentioned it to you you said no, I'm a Baptist. But he then said no no, no, no. Unless of course you're a Presbyterian in which you would say yes, but I'm not with the Opie.
Yeah, I'm with the OPC. That's a little joke. And it's very little but I'm doomed. Yeah, where's the rimshot when you need it? Anyway. That was pretty bad. Anyway. That's what you get when you're when you're on guard duty for 10 straight days.
Your humor just went down the right down the tubes.
Anyway.
Presbyopia, of course is the fact that My arms are getting shorter as I get older and I have to hold things farther and farther away. Actually, it has to do with with the hardness of the lens of your eye and the muscles in your eye and their inability to Cause the lens to to do what it needs to do to focus upon nearby objects and.
The nice thing about electronic textual study is a thing called changing the size of the stinking font. Because like the na na 27 if you get it in its normal size It ain't easy to read folks at least 27 is better than than 26 or 26 was tiny I mean it hurt.
I I remember even in college doing a textual study a grammatical study. Actually, I called it project eye strain because it was not easy on the eyes. And at least 27 is a little bit larger than 26 was.
You can get them in large print versions. But they tend to be a little bit more expensive. But the nice thing is with the electronic stuff you can change the font blow that baby up to 200 and Actually read what is there I've mentioned that to my fellow elder in regards to Hebrew the Hebrew vowel signs can be exceptionally Frustrating especially when you develop floaters in your eyes now is.
Especially since since Hebrew vowel signs though. Sometimes just one dot then it's three dots and how'd that become four dots? So that's what the world's that mean, you know. Oh, it just floated away.
Never mind. It helps if your font is a little larger in that situation.
Yeah, but the problem there is a computer is involved. Oh, well.
I.
Recognize that for certain people The utilization of electronic methodology is inherently non-spiritual. I I do realize that that is that is the case, but it isn't for me. And so there's there's no no problem there.
All right.
Where in the world are we with all of that said in regards to the electronic versions and things like that? Let's go back to UBS Dots was it to PDF that I want to look at here I just very briefly if you didn't take a look at it in UBS to PDF.
There is the the variant of Colossians 114. Remember we discussed that Where the the modern text modern in the sense of the eclectic text? I would argue the most ancient text by far in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins is found that I pointed out that Since that's a parallel to Ephesians 1 7 later manuscripts much later manuscripts Contain redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins and that becomes the basis the King James you can see that there I was mentioning this before I put up the PDF and put it up since then that is the second variant on that page and You can see the edition at the end of a couple translations a couple later later manuscripts and again just.
So I emphasize this when you see something like What you have there VGCL Vulgate the Clementine versions of all gate you can't just automatically assume when you see a particular translation and You look it up and go.
Oh this particular translation dates from and you go the earliest date. You can't just assume that means that reading is necessarily that early. Because sometimes they're gonna be different manuscripts and again, especially with with a variant like this where there is such a Obvious scribal reason why the expansion would take place.
There's not obvious reason why I'd be cut out and Given that it's not found in this Everything basically for the first five six seven eight nine centuries of the Christian era. Trying to explain how that could have gotten lost.
To defend the insertion is what will eventually lead to a discussion. We'll probably have some time later in regards to what's called the comma Johannium first John 5 7. But I will just say state this right now for those of you who already know what I'm talking about and the the major.
Well, actually, it's exceptionally minor textual variant there, but one that many people talk about. I've said this many times. I Am is inspired scripture. But I've never had one of them be able to respond to this statement the comma Johannium first John 5 7 there are three.
They bear witness to heaven the Father word and spirit. These threes are one. That is a later insertion it is not in the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament and Here's the situation. Even earliest it's it's it's not a part of the Greek manuscript tradition at all.
If first John 5 7 could be original if that is what John originally wrote. Then if you're consistent if you're consistent You would have to teach openly and directly that we don't have a clue. What the New Testament originally looked like none.
No idea. No confidence at all. You would have to become consistently more radical than Bart Ehrman or Or any of the Jesus seminar as to the original readings of the New Testament why. Because if an entire reading can be lost Just lost gone no evidence whatsoever from the Greek manuscript tradition.
Then we have no reason to believe that anywhere else. Do we have? Any type of firm knowledge. From a historical perspective what the New Testament originally read and if you were to apply the same standard that if you can find anything 1 ,500 years after the original all of a sudden something pops up comes in from another translation clearly.
There are other places in the text that happens. It didn't happen to enter into the King James Version of the Bible if you're gonna be consistent you have to insert them too and. So you're gonna have to come up with something very different than the TR very different than the King James Version of the Bible.
If you're going to be consistent, not a one of these people will ever be consistent. They can't and that's why when I find someone who defends the comma the comma Johannium. But does not the same time.
Be consistent and say that means we have to radically alter all of the text in the New Testament. I just immediately have to say I'm sorry, but I Can't even take you seriously. Because you are not being consistent you are you clearly have an agenda you clearly have an argument you're trying to prove and You're using whatever evidence you can find to prove your argument, but you're not being consistent and that is not The mark of truth and that's not how we should handle things now if you'll go to UBS PDF.
And let me scroll down here go to page 2 it's the second page of UBS PDF. You'll find page 442 of the United Bible Society's text. It is proxies the Acts of the Apostles Acts 9 31 through 38 on this particular page and You have.
A.
Variant here in verse 31 and.
It's not.
You know the world does not shift on this particular variant. It's one of the reasons. I chose it, but it does have some Theological significance and so I didn't want to bore people to death but the variant has to do with whether It was the church throughout all of Judea and Galilee and Samaria that had peace.
Or whether it was the churches and if you read Greek you see it the fourth word first line after 31 even if you don't read Greek is Ecclesia Ecclesia the singular form of church the church as a whole taken Generically as a whole the church throughout all of Judea and Galilee and Samaria Galilee and Samaria had peace.
All right, if you go down to the bottom of the page and I've blown the text up to about 166 percent here. So I got a click down twice down the bottom of the page only one variant in this entire page is noted and again, that's one of the differences between the UBS text and the na -27 text is you have Many more variants noted in the Nessie Allen text than you have in the UBS, but you're given much more information In the UBS text now.
Down below you have a 3 then 31 then a again the a is the relative certainty of the Committee that worked on the UBS and I again find that More of a waste of space anything else because a lot of that changed between UBS 3 and 4.
I'm not sure how that really worked. But their level of certainty increased greatly in many areas but.
You see the.
First reading is What is provided in the text and then if you'll go down to the third line? There are two slashes. Which we would Instead of a backslash. It's a forward slash In computer talk, but they're right next to each other.
That is the indication where.
Textual data is shifting to the next reading and You'll see that there is a there are actually three readings Here because there is a second one of those down on the third to last line that looks very similar and as far as as Meaning goes.
The real the only only the only real differences between these readings Is whether it's churches or church. But if you have churches Then you're going to need to change Your verbal agreements and endings later on.
Unlike many people in the English language don't bother with that anymore. Don't really know how to speak the language. It's all always embarrasses me when I hear some professional athlete or something somewhere just murdering the language and can't figure out how to make verbs agree with.
Whatever.
So you'll notice that there are some some differences throughout that particular verse, but they all go back to whether you're talking singulars or plurals in essence in. In the verb endings you have and making them consistent with one another and so the primary.
As you would look at this you would see hey a klaycea. You'd see the singular and. By the way, this would be one of the differences between this and the UBS the na -27. The na -27 is just going to have txt for the text.
They're not going to repeat what they've already printed once because remember the idea in the na -27 is put as much information into a small amount of space as possible and. So they're just going to use abbreviations to represent things and instead of the UBS giving you the actual full.
You know, they basically printed the same Greek words twice. To give you this this variant and that's why they don't note nearly as many of them. But once you have the ending of the Greek reading given to you.
The first thing you're going to see in the UBS text and the na -27 text will be the papyri. Then you're going to have the unseals. Then you can have the minuscules. Then you're going to have the translations and then you're going to have the early church fathers.
That's the order in which the textual data is presented to you. So that's what you have here 31 after I Play Thunata you have p74. That's papyri 74. Then you have olive and notice unlike when we looked at olive before there is no asterix.
There's no one two, three see anything like that. That means there's no Question as to the reading of Codex Sinaiticus at this particular point. It says ecclesia it has the singular form of church. At this point along with p74 A, B and C.
Then you have a number of other unseals. They're listed. I mean, I'm so a B and C are the unseals are listed then you have the various Minuscules all the way down to lectionary, by the way, I didn't mention Lectionary before to you.
I apologize for that at the end of the second line. You have a Italic L. It almost looks like. In fact in small print it would look like a slash. Similar to the marking for the different variant coming up, but that is the the L for Lectionary now what in the world is a lectionary?
Well. If you're in a more liturgical church, you already know what a lectionary is. But if you're not if you're one of the dreaded Baptists. Then you don't know what a lectionary is but lectionaries were popular.
They would they would provide scripture readings. Broken up by date and so you could go through the liturgical calendar and things like that and. But sometimes have other writings in them and so on so forth and obviously ancient lectionaries are copies of sections of Scripture.
And so they have a witness to bear as to the text of Scripture as well. So lectionary 1178 and again, you can go the back and if you're good if you're going to do if you're going to for example.
If I.
Was going to write a paper in which I dealt with this and I have actually touched on it just a little bit in some things because this is somewhat relevant to.
Church's church issue the Presbyterian Baptist argument over church polity so on so forth. I would want to go through each one of these manuscripts. It's listed. I would want to be looking at the material in the back or if I was using the SES B just running my cursor down looking at the information it's found and Here's where having a library full of other books helps then you can.
You would also want to look at some of the background issues of the of the nature of this manuscript and and what family it tends to be in and and. There is a interesting things about this particular manuscript that you're examining.
There are books that provide you that kind of information. Metzger's books are helpful on those lines. Allens text of course rather expensive as well, but I'd be looking at each one of these. And I'm looking at the the old Latin versions that have the plural and of course almost any translation is going to be helpful it here because almost any translation is going to be able to differentiate between the the singular and the.
Plural.
The Vulgate the Syriac the Beshid of the various Coptic Manuscripts the Hittite Boheric so on so forth. Armenian Ethiopian and pseudo Dionysius. Okay, so that gives me an idea of the range. This the plural is found basically when you see a papyri plus olive plus a plus B.
Especially outside the Gospels because a has an older text in the guy Has a Byzantine text in the Gospels and so it tends to split off during the Gospels, but outside the Gospels it has much more of a Alexandrian flavor to it when you see a papyri plus all if Especially papyri papyri all of B.
Then throw a in there. That's going to be a reading. It's going to be hard to overcome because you have The great unseal text and then you have a demonstration that they are following a text. That was even earlier than them found the papyri and in most modern eclectic texts It's gonna gonna really require some major league reason why you would overthrow the testimony of a papyri manuscript plus all of Plus B and especially here.
You've got you've got a going along with.
Then you have minuscule support. You also have Latin support. You've got to translational support ancient translational support as well. Now so you take a look at that and you go, okay, this is ice this is why from their perspective they've taken this text first and foremost is this the external strength of this reading and It's not like there's going to be much internally.
That's gonna Really make a difference one way or the other. So this is one. This is a variant that's very much determined upon external rather than internal considerations. But you always want to look at what's the evidence for the other readings?
And so this the second reading that the two readings provided here are very very similar to one another. They they really can be sort of put together in essence as far as the the interest that we have in examining this and what we have is.
Immediately you go. Hmm. There's a There's the end of my Greek. This is on the toward the Two-thirds down the fourth line and immediately it goes to 614 and 1409 and Then you have 2344 Byzantine that means this is the Byzantine reading.
This is in the na 27. This is going to be the fracture M majority text reading L &P so there's at least two unseal text and then a lot of lectionaries and.
What you immediately see is there's no papyri or ancient unseal support for the reading just right off the bat. And you go. Hmm. Well. You said the other one's very similar to that. I dropped down there and there's ease.
There's sort of a more ancient unseal and psi. But there's not a lot of real ancient. We're not going all the way back here as far as these readings are concerned where you have the plural being used.
Lectionaries, you know, okay, and you do have some some translational some manuscripts. But notice something else as we look down these lines. This is the kind of thing your mind wants to be able to pick up.
You'll notice that for example lectionary 1154 and 11 and 422 omit this lectionary 680 reads this for this and then even in the Coptic Boheric manuscripts, there are some manuscripts of the Coptic to read this way and in the Look at BD BD 1 slash 4 that means 1 out of 4 times.
So there's even variant in how he renders it and then you look at the the third variant. Which is pretty much the same and once again, you've got these parentheses. Well, this one reads this way and it's a little bit different than here.
What does that tell you when you have? Variants that have all sorts of variants inside them. That should be a little red flag. That should be something that that says hey, wait a minute. There's a problem here.
And where would the problem have come from here? Well, it does help to know a little Greek here and that is well. The first variant ends up causing all sorts of problems down the line because you have you're changing.
The number of a noun and you have to then play with your verbs down the road to make them agree and if the first guy who made the mistake just put Churches Instead of church, which is easy enough to see by the way.
I hope you've noticed that what's the main major difference here? Is the difference between a clay CI and a clay CIA that's one letter. Now the article changes, but it's primarily one letter. The first person may have just completely missed that.
Might have just been a simple spelling error on their part. Anyone ever misspelled by one letter a word. Even when you were concentrating you probably have and then the person who's who's then copying him sees the plural and then sees all the singular verbs following and then they have to try to fix it see and.
Once that has happened once there's been that interruption in the stream. It causes all sorts of issues and problems, especially when you get down the line of the lectionaries and things like that, uh,.
Because your later scribes don't know Greek very well at all. They may know how to copy what's in front of them but they may not actually understand what they're reading all that well and hence they may make errors in trying to insert a plural or fixing a plural or think somebody else messed up fixing a plural same and so when you have all that kind of.
Variation in.
The later readings that's a pretty good sign that those later readings are secondary and they come after a textual error has taken place Somewhere in the transmission stream. And so when you have strong ancient attestation like this That's clean and clear without all sorts of variants cropping up within it that's widely based in in papyri in Unseals in minuscules and the lectionaries translations, etc, etc, and then you find other variants that are complex.
They're longer. That's a that's a very clear sign to the person reading this that the shorter reading is the easier. It's not not actually the easier reading but it is the much more likely reading especially in light of the external Evidence that exists for it.
Okay, so that's some. That's the UBS text and how you can utilize it and take a look at it. All right now We're almost out of time here, but I want to make sure this is it's a it's a large file I realize large files 12 megs.
Some of you still suffer from dial-up syndrome. That is an exotic East Asian problem dial-up.
So your your files tend to download very slowly when you are suffering from dial-up. We have a dial-up suffer in our channel. One of our regulars Carla has dial-up syndrome and we we always are are concerned for her and feel very badly for her that she suffers so badly from dial-up, but.
It is a 12 megs. And so it might take you some time to track it all down. There are seven pages hopefully you get all seven pages of the PDF that is na 27 dot PDF and It begins on pages 52 and 53. So there's actually two and the nice the reason I did PDFs is so you can Zoom in on them and you can at least make the the text readable to you and especially on this one.
You're gonna have to zoom in Because the these the signs just are not easy. For people who suffer from Presbyterianism, I mean presbyopia.
To.
Actually read and so You just you're just going to need to make sure you're able to zoom these pages up to a decent size To be able to look at them. So starting on page 52 We have the listing of the critical signs that will be utilized in in the text and It's sometimes easier to just go through a text and explain each one but I want to go through these briefly beforehand because to be honest with you sometimes the The Nessie Olland Textual data is so condensed and it's it's so thick That it can scare somebody off from even trying Because there's not a lot of space and things are crammed together and a lot of folks going.
Yeah, you know I don't want to go there. Maybe if we see them first out here in the introduction and Then move into the text itself. That'll be somewhat easier for us to to press forward as You're reading through text in the na -27 probably the most common sign you're going to see is the small superscript circle and That small superscript circle is the indication that the word singular, please notice word singular Following in a text is omitted by the witnesses cited.
So you'll be reading along and you will encounter this little circle and in fact if what you want to do if you don't have An example of this you can go to the fourth page of the PDF document and you will have the textual data for mark 16 9 to 20 and One of the problems mark 16 9 to 20 is that there's a lot of textual variant variations within mark 16 9 to 20 and If you go over to that right now, you will see for example.
On.
Verse 14.
Second Greek word which is in brackets in the text has the superscript circle next to it and Whenever the nasty island uses one of those Symbols within the text Unlike the na -27 we put a nice little number for you so you can go down there.
You don't use numbers. That's another thing you have to print that gets in the way. It takes up space instead what they will do is They will assume that you can go down to the bottom of the page and You can find the verse number that you're looking for.
You're still you're reading verse 14 to go down to verse 14, and then they figure you can match The textual symbols up and so it happens to be at the first variant in verse 14 there down below you'll find the the black dot is how they Differentiate between verse variants and then 14 and then the superscript circle and then you have the variant and What it means is this word is deleted in these following witnesses.
So CLW psi 099 family 13 3324 27 the majority text that's the M and so on so forth and then you'll have a I'm not sure what the technical name for a a Vertical line split in half is to be perfectly honest with you.
But that's the divider. We have it on our keyboard. It's above my enter key. We have a divider and then you have TXT so the text that they've given up above is the reading of Codex, Alexandrinus Bezicatabrigidensis D Theta family 1 and then the listing on down the way to the next Solid bar where you have the next variant and notice by the way since we're talking about it.
It is a little circle with a 1 next to it. So if you've got more than one single word deletion in the same verse, then they'll put a number next to it. So you can differentiate between the Sigla as they occur in the in the text so that's.
That's how you will read that as it appears in in the text now that's to be contrasted then with the square the superscript square which means the word clause or Sentences following the text are omitted by the witness decided the backs the elevated backslash sign Marks the end of the omitted text.
So that square is going to be at the beginning of the variant and then that backslash will be at the end of the variant. We'll take a look at that. We continue with our study of textual criticism on the dividing line.
We'll be doing that this Thursday. Hope you join us then. God bless.
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