Continuing the Textual Criticism Series

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 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five three Three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James White.

The Case for Textual Criticism and the Problem of Certainty

Hey, 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 the 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 one 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.

And 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 Scripts 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, no. No, I don't think it was anyway, we did the I only thought there was two towns in now you know 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 I went to Chattanooga and that's where the Ankerberg show was being. Is that the other city in Tennessee? Rich's at the Chattanooga in Memphis. Those are 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've always kicked it off. I've mentioned a couple of times at my that 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.

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. Then 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. 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. Uh. 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 and 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.

Ecclesiastical Text Claims and the Limits of Church Authority

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 will 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.

Examining the UBS Text and the Ephesians 1:1 Variant

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 at 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 in 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 SESB 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 addition 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 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.