Book Review of Rethinking of NT Textual Criticism (David Alan Black, ed.)

In the introduction, Dr. Black gives the historical background to this book. On April 6–7, 2000, Dr. Black assembled some of the world’s leading experts in the field of New Testament studies on the campus of Southeastern Seminary to read papers and to engage in dialog with their colleagues. The conference, entitled “Symposium on New Testament Studies: A Time for Reappraisal,” was designed to expose students and other interested parties to the main positions held by New Testament scholars in three debated areas of research: the Synoptic problem, the authorship of Hebrews, and New Testament textual criticism. Each author who presented papers New Testament textual criticism at the symposium has a chapter in Rethinking of NT Textual Criticism.[1] 

Chapter One: Issues in New Testament Textual Criticism: Moving from the Nineteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century by Eldon Jay Epp (received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1961). 

Dr. Epp identifies five textual criticism issues. 

1. Choosing among variants and deciding on priority: The issue of the canons of criticism.  

1) Epp gives J. A. Bengel’s canon: “the harder reading is to be preferred.” This was challenged by Emanuel Tov. Moises Silva believes this canon is still legitimate.    

2) Epp notes that J. J. Griesbach (1796–1806) held to the canon that the shorter reading was to be preferred.[2]  James Royse challenged this canon in 1979. 

3) Griesbach also preferred the oldest readings. Constantin von Tischendorf in 1849 also endorsed this canon.   

4)Tischendorf also gave preference to readings that occasioned a “reading that appears to have occasioned the other readings.”[3]  

5) B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort preferred the reading that best matched the author’s style and grammar.[4] This was challenged by J. H. Petzer in 1990.  

6) Westcott and Hort also advocated a “clear division between external and internal criteria, [13] an approach that will characterize all subsequent discussion of the canons of criticism.”[5] External arguments involve information about manuscripts and the history of their transmission. The internal arguments determined if the variant conformed to the writer’s literary style, vocabulary, or theology.”[6]

“Indeed, we now have 116 New Testament papyri, representing perhaps 112 different manuscripts, of which 61, or 54%, date prior to around the turn of the third/fourth centuries. Should we not be able to write the very early history of our text—something that the vast majority of textual critics are convinced would improve our external arguments?”[7]

2. Choosing among Manuscripts—and Deciding on Groups: The Issue of Text-Types

Textual critics fall into two classes.[8]

1. On the one hand there are the thoroughgoing or rigorous eclectics, who utilize internal arguments largely to the exclusion of the external.

2. On the other hand there are the reasoned eclectics, as they are named, who employ a combination of external and internal arguments.[9]

We now turn to the issue of New Testament text-types—that is, the attempt to isolate clusters of manuscripts that constitute distinguishable kinds of texts.[10]

Families were expanded by J. S. Semler in 1767 to three groups comparable to our own three main text-types: Alexandrian (≈ B-text), Western (≈ D-text), and Oriental (≈ A-text or Byzantine).[11]

All textual critics accept the existence, at least by 300 C.E. , of three text-types (B, D, and A).[12]

One small reason for renewed optimism about the second century is that, whereas ? 52, containing John’s Gospel, used to be the only second-century papyrus of the New Testament, now there are two or three more: ? 90 (John), ? 104 (Matthew), and perhaps ? 98, (the Apocalypse of John).[13]

3. Choosing among Critical Editions—and Deciding for Compromise: The Issue of Current Critical Editions of the Greek New Testament

Tischendorf produced his critical edition from 1869-72 using fourth and fifth century codices.

Westcott and Hort produced what some believe is the most influential critical text in 1881. WH eventually gave way to the NA and UBS text.

The Aland and Aland text of 1898 was the dominant text for eighty years.[14] Kurt Aland, who does not acknowledge any pre-fourth-century text-types, nonetheless claims that the recent NA editions do represent the original text.[15]

Though Aland and Aland have been dominant (UBS has the same text), they admit that there are only 558 differences from WH.[16]

4. Choosing to Address Context—and Deciding on Influence: The Issue of Manuscripts and Variant Readings in Their Church-Historical, Cultural, and Intellectual Contexts

in 1904, however, Kirsopp Lake urged textual critics to examine variants as a window on exegesis in the church: “We need to know,” he said, “what the early Church thought [a passage] meant and how it altered its wording in order to emphasize its meaning.”[17]

Eldon Jay Epp approves of Bart Ehrman, in his Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, of second and third century proto-orthodox scribes making variants orthodox to refute heretics. Epp also approves David Parker saying the Gospel of Luke is not a closed book because of the variants and textual critics continue to add to the book. David Parker basically denies inspiration, inerrancy, and a closed canon with his textual criticism view of scribes and theologians adding their interpretation to textual variants, as in the case of the last three chapters of Luke, Parker concluding that Luke is not a closed book.[18]

5. Choosing to Address Goals and Directions—and Deciding on Meanings and Approaches: The Issue of Original Text

Epp refers to two camps in reference to the originals.

The first camp of textual critics have as their goal to discover what the originals were. This includes conservatives such as Kurt and Barbara Aland and Bruce Metzger. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, who assert very directly, “Only one reading can be original.”[19]

Bruce Metzger’s widely used handbook states that the purpose is “to ascertain from the divergent copies which form of the text should be regarded as most nearly conforming to the original.[20]

The second camp of textual critics are represented by Ehrman and David Parker.

If ( à la Ehrman) textual variants reveal the alteration of a text in support, for example, of a more orthodox theological viewpoint, which text is original—the text that was altered by the scribe or the scribe’s own newly altered text?

If Epp solidly believed in inspiration, the answer is easy, the first document is the original because inspiration applies only to the original.

Epp contradicts himself when he writes: there is a real sense in which every intentional, meaningful scribal alteration to a text—whether motivated by theological, historical, stylistic, or other factors—creates a new Textform, a new original. Epp agrees with David Parker that the originals are living documents.  

There can only be one original!

Chapter Two: The Case for Reasoned Eclecticism by Michael W. Holmes (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary is the former Chair of the Department of Biblical and Theological Studies at Bethel University in St. Paul Minnesota and has taught at Bethel since 1982).

Unlike Epp, Holmes believes there is an original to be sought and translated. Holmes endorses the reasoned eclectic approach which utilizes both the external and internal evidences (the habits, mistakes, and tendencies of scribes, or the style and thought of an author).[21] He uses the external evidence to identify the oldest manuscripts and then determines with internal evidence which variant was original. Weaknesses in the reasoned eclectic approach have been cited in the UBS text.

When used in conjunction with a carefully grounded theory of the history of the text, the approach known as reasoned eclecticism will, if carefully applied to the evidence bequeathed to us, enable us to make progress toward our goals. Given that our subject matter is, to paraphrase Housman, the human mind and its disobedient subjects, the fingers, hopes for an allegedly more “objective” method are illusory. [59] To quote Zuntz once more, “There is no divining rod to save the critic from the strain of labour and thought.” [60] In such circumstances, reasoned eclecticism is our best—indeed, our only—option.[22]

Chapter Three: The Case for Thoroughgoing Eclecticism by J. K. Elliott (Emeritus Professor at the University of Leeds).

Rigorous or thorough going eclecticism uses mostly the internal method.  

Elliot mentions several popular exegetical commentaries that employ the Thoroughgoing Eclectic method. He mentions The  International Critical Commentary, on the Pastorals by I. Howard Marshall as using the Thoroughgoing Eclectic method.  

Elliot, admits that three major views on textual criticism (Byzantine priority, reasoned eclecticism, and thoroughgoing eclecticism) while different, in many ways the results of the three methods do not differ in all respects.[23]

Elliot defines what he means by the Thoroughgoing Eclectic method: What I mean by thoroughgoing is the consistent application of criteria and principles for assessing textual variants that are based primarily (but not, I should add, exclusively) on internal evidence. I want to emphasize the word primarily because those of us (those few of us) who are thoroughgoing eclectic textual critics are not blind to the documentary evidence, as some of our critics might say. We do take account of the quality of the witnesses, as I shall demonstrate later.[24]

Elliot states that even the UBS/NA text is unbalanced because the translators preferred the א (Codex Sinaiticus  א [Aleph] of the Alexandrian text-type) and B (Vaticanus), which did not produce the most accurate selection of variants because the internal method was ignored.[25]  

Elliot writes, I must make it clear that I do not wish to state that א and B are faulty manuscripts—far from it; they are often right, and I accept the originality of their support for the most famous and largest omission: the last twelve verses of Mark, a reading supported virtually only by these two Greek manuscripts, but I accept their text there not because it is found in these two particular manuscripts, (that would represent the outward textual critical method) but because I can see good reasons why the longer ending and indeed the so-called shorter ending are non-Markan[26] (which would represent the internal method).

Elliot praises Bart Ehrman, as following the thoroughgoing eclectic method, has put us very much in his debt with his Orthodox Corruption of Scripture by showing how various pressure groups in early Christianity left their fingerprints on manuscripts because their deliberate changes to the text, especially those relating to important issues of Christology and theology, caused changes to the text being transmitted in one direction or another in support of a particular party line. His reasoning can be harnessed when assessing textual variants; often his work is compatible with the aims and practices of thoroughgoing eclecticism.[27]

Chapter Four: The Case for Byzantine Priority by Maurice A. Robinson who taught at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1991-2016.

The Byzantine Priority proposes that the original text clearly can be expected to appear within an aggregate consensus of its manuscripts.[28] Maurice Robinson gives principles for restoring the text.

Principles of Internal Evidence

1. The reading most likely to have given rise to all others within a variant unit is to be preferred.

2. The reading that would be more difficult as a scribal creation is to be preferred.

3. Readings that conform to the known style, vocabulary, and syntax of the original author are to be preferred.

4. Readings that clearly harmonize or assimilate the wording of one passage to another are to be rejected.

5. Readings reflecting common scribal piety or religiously motivated expansion or alteration tend to be secondary.

6. The primary evaluation of readings should be based upon transcriptional probability.

7. Transcriptional error—rather than deliberate alteration—is more likely to be the ultimate source of many sensible variants.

8. Neither the shorter nor longer reading is to be preferred.[29] The Alexandrian text-type prefers the shorter readings and the Western text-type prefers the longer.

Principles of External Evidence

1. The quantity of preserved evidence for the text of the New Testament precludes conjectural emendation.[30]

2. Readings that appear sporadically within transmissional history are suspect.

3. Variety of testimony is highly regarded.

4. Wherever possible, the raw number of manuscripts should be intelligently reduced.

5. Manuscripts need to be weighed and not merely counted.

6. It is important to seek out readings with demonstrable antiquity.

7. The concept of a single best manuscript or small group of manuscripts is unlikely to have transmissional evidence in its favor.

8. Exclusively following the oldest manuscripts or witnesses is transmissionally flawed.

9. Transmissional considerations coupled with internal principles point to the Byzantine Textform as a leading force in the history of transmission.

Maurice Robinson next raises and answers objections to his Byzantine Priority view:

1. There are no early Byzantine manuscripts prior to the fourth century.[31]

2. The argument for the early existence of the Byzantine Textform rests on a stronger basis than the Synoptic Q-hypothesis.

3. The early existence of the Alexandrian text-type has been confirmed only within recent memory.

4. Disruptions in the transmissional history supposedly eliminated the Byzantine predecessors and competitors.

a. The Diocletian or other persecutions did not just target the Byzantine texts.

b. The Islamic conquest was not as destructive as has been stated.

c. The popularity and influence of Chrysostom. There is no evidence that Chrysostom corrupted the Byzantine text he used.

d. The Byzantine Textform supposedly can be understood as the result of a process. Unlike other textforms, the Byzantine textform did not conform into localized forms over the centuries.

Chapter Five: Response by Moises Silva (He taught at Westmont College, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He was president of ETS in 1997. He served as a translator of the NASB). 

Moises Silva writes of the weakness of the internal view or Thoroughgoing Eclecticism:

Part of the problem is that the analysis of internal evidence involves examining variants “independently” (WH 2:19). But even more problematic is the ambiguity inherent at this stage of the process. This is especially true of intrinsic probability: while in some cases the arguments attain great force, “the uncertainty of the decision in ordinary cases is shown by the great diversity of judgement which is actually found to exist. . . . Equally competent critics often arrive at contradictory conclusions as to the same variations” (WH 2:21).[32]

He also shows the weakness of the Byzantine Priority view.

Silva agrees “not only with Hort, but with practically all students of ancient documents—that the recovery of the original text (i.e., the text in its initial form, prior to the alterations produced in the copying process) remains the primary task of textual criticism. Of course, it is not the only task.”

Silva states that “David Parker, for example, sanctifies his proposals by a theological appeal to a divinely inspired textual diversity—indeed, textual confusion and contradiction—that is supposed to be of greater spiritual value than apostolic authority”[33] and Bart Ehrman: for us to retreat from the traditional task of textual criticism is equivalent to shooting ourselves in the foot. And my exhibit A is Bart Ehrman’s brilliant monograph The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, which I consider one of the most significant contemporary works on biblical scholarship. Although this book is appealed to in support of blurring the notion of an original text, there is hardly a page in that book that does not in fact mention such a text or assume its accessibility. “Why is such-and-such a reading in Mark a later corruption and not original? Because Mark (authorial intent!) would not likely have said such a thing.” Indeed, Ehrman’s book is unimaginable unless he can identify an initial form of the text that can be differentiated from a later alteration.[34]

My conclusion is that a balanced method is best and is probably the procedure used by most textual critics to varying degrees. Even Michael W. Holmes in his Rigorous or thorough going eclecticism uses mostly the internal method. Maurice A. Robinson in his Byzantine Priority lists both internal and external principles of textual criticism. J. K. Elliot defines what he means by the Thoroughgoing Eclectic method and stressed that he does not exclude the internal evidence: “What I mean by thoroughgoing is the consistent application of criteria and principles for assessing textual variants that are based primarily (but not, I should add, exclusively) on internal evidence. I want to emphasize the word primarily because those of us (those few of us) who are thoroughgoing eclectic textual critics are not blind to the documentary evidence, as some of our critics might say. We do take account of the quality of the witnesses, as I shall demonstrate later.”

            [1] Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism (Kindle Locations 111-113). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

                  [2] Ibid., 212.

                  [3] Ibid., 222-223.

                  [4] Ibid., 226.

                  [5] Ibid., 232-23

                  [6] Ibid., 255-256.

                  [7] Ibid., 363.

                  [8] Ibid., 373.

                  [9] Ibid., 377.

                  [10] Ibid., 379-380.

                  [11] Ibid., 410-411.

                  [12] Ibid., 452-453.

                  [13] Ibid., 506-510.

                  [14] Ibid., 2581-2583.

                  [15] Ibid., 547-548.

                  [16] Ibid., 564-565.

                  [17] Ibid., 626-628.

                  [18] Ibid., 749-751.

                  [19] Ibid., 919-920.

                  [20] Ibid., 931.

                  [21] Ibid., 1027-1028.

                  [22] Ibid., 1280-1281.

                  [23] Ibid., 1337-1338.

                  [24] Ibid., 1327-1328.

                  [25] Ibid., 1403-1406.

                  [26] Ibid., 1414-1415.

                  [27] Ibid., 1681-1684.

                  [28] Ibid., 1867.

                  [29] Ibid., 1776-1812.

                  [30] Ibid., 1816-1818.

                  [31] Ibid., 1875-1904.

                  [32] Ibid., 1985.

                  [33] Ibid., 2052-2053.

[34] Ibid., 2055-2058.