I am almost finished responding to James A. Price’s online article,
“The King James Only View of Edward F. Hills”.
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Quoting from Price’s ¶s 41, 42, and 43:
Unless one holds to Hills’ axioms and to his view that the Textus Receptus is the true text of the New Testament which has been divinely preserved, the differences between the Textus Receptus and the Majority Text create no difficulty. But if one follows Hills’ view, the presence of non-Majority readings is a major difficulty.
Hills’ six axioms argued that the text preserved by the Greek church as found in the majority of manuscripts was the true text. Thus, despite Hills’ protest to the contrary, non-majority readings should be rejected. The sudden shift of referring to the majority text as the standard text in axiom six rather than the preserved true text did not adequately deal with the difficulty which Hills faced. He was acting contrary to his axioms when he argued that virtually all the non-majority readings in the Textus Receptus should be retained in the text as either probably or possibly genuine (Hills, KJV Defended!, pp. 121-133).
Most of the non-majority readings in the Textus Receptus are Latin readings. Hills’ axioms would require that these readings be rejected…
I think it has been sufficiently demonstrated above that
Price’s rendition of Hills’ principles of textual criticism, and
Hills’ actual principles are not the same. Price consistently misrepresents Hills’ views. Dr. Hills makes ample provision for the phenomenon of the inclusion of the non-majority, i.e., mostly Latin, readings, into the Textus Receptus.
In ¶s 45 and 46, Price opines,
Hills’ attempt to retain the non-majority readings of the Textus Receptus was completely out of harmony with his principles as stated in the six axioms. Hills and others are totally inconsistent when they defend the Textus Receptus in passages such as Acts 8:37, 9:5-6, I John 5:7 and others because these readings are not found in the God guided tradition that they have claimed has handed down the pure text. If one were to apply Hills’ principles consistently, he would be forced to abandon non-majority text readings. Hills’ inconsistency at this point clearly revealed that he had not arrived at his views by a careful evaluation of the evidence from the manuscripts. He started with the presupposition that the Textus Receptus was to be adhered to at almost any cost; and he adhered to the Textus Receptus even though it required him to renounce, at least in practice, his own stated principles of textual criticism.
Hills’ treatment of the non-majority readings was nothing more than an exercise in the most extreme form of eclectic methodology which some liberal textual critics have urged for years. He has shown a total disregard for the external evidence to the text at this point. Hills has violated most of his axioms, as well as his emphasis on the common faith.
Dr. Price’s constant refrain that to “apply Hills’ principles consistently” would end in a result different than the TR/KJV readings rings hollow when it is seen that he does not comprehend (or at least present in his arguments) what Hills actually said. As noted above, Price’s view is based on an evidential approach to proofs, while Hills’ is based on a presupposition, this latter being –
not “the Textus Receptus was to be adhered to at almost any cost” – but
the Word of God concerning His promise to providentially preserve the inspired and infallible Scripture was true, and we need but to discern how He had done it, and seek to explain it if we can. Hills’ presuppositions were based upon the promises and truths of God’s word.
A brief word about the “common faith” Dr. Price mentions so often in an attempt to subvert Hills’ own view of it. Price likens the majority of Greek manuscripts in existence in our day to the majority of the Greek MSS which comprise the “majority text” tradition. He says,
Hills also affirmed,
“Today we may be sure that the text found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts is a trustworthy reproduction of the divinely inspired original text” (Hills, B.B.S., p. 34).
But can one really determine the original text simply by finding the majority of manuscripts? One wonders what would happen if one were simply to count the Greek New Testaments in print during this century. If the majority is the determining factor, could not one argue that these represent the God-guided text for our day? In such a case the N-U Text would clearly be shown to be the true text for it is very likely that there are more copies of this critical N-U Text in existence today than all the manuscripts of the Greek New Testament that were ever made. The point is that majority vote of the copies, either handwritten or printed, is simply not a reliable standard, at least not by itself.
Clearly, Hills’ axioms were arguments for the Majority Text. But Hills’ view was not truly a Majority Text view. He was arguing for the Textus Receptus as represented in the KJV as being the restored text of the New Testament.
It should be common sense that one cannot compare the mass-produced varieties of commercial editions of the Greek New Testament available today, with the ancient manuscripts come to us from earlier ages. However, let us examine anyway the abundantly-distributed “critical N-U Text” Price is enamored of a little more closely. You folks who have been following this (and its previous) thread know I do not throw the word “apostasy” around when it comes to this issue (though others may—to the great detriment of the civil discourse on the topic), but perhaps your perception of this may change a little when you read what is to come.
In the book Dr. Theodore Letis edited (and contributed to),
The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate, James A. Borland has an essay,
“Re-Examining New Testament Textual-Critical Principles and Practices Used to Negate Inerrancy” [reprinted from the
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society; Vol. 25, No. 4 (December 1982), by permission]. In this essay Borland shows how that one thrust of TC practice is indeed used to negate the inerrancy of the apostles’ original writings; in other words, the apostles were in error in the things they wrote. I quote the opening paragraph of the essay:
Perhaps it is not shocking to assert that Satan uses every means at his disposal to attack the credibility, reliability and authority of God’s Word. He began the assault in the garden with Eve and has not stopped yet. But often his ways are more subtle than the blatant lie succumbed to by Eve. We live in a modern era of sophistication. Even in Biblical and textual studies we hear more and more about the use of computers and other highly technical tools. And Satan is more than willing to accommodate our sophistication in the area of textual criticism. Especially is this so when it occasionally allows men to assert fallibility in the New Testament autographs based on widely accepted principles and practice of textual criticism.
He briefly surveys the established tenets of NT text critical theory, and then in particular Dr. Hort’s, which postulates the “primacy of the two earliest uncial MSS, Aleph (
Sinaiticus) and B (
Vaticanus), which date from the middle of the fourth century A.D. These two MSS were given the question-begging designation of being the ‘neutral text.’” He continues,
In short, the resultant practice of these new sophisticated principles was to overturn completely the textual critical practices of the past. Since the majority Byzantine text was judged to be a later text, the supposedly more ancient, more pure “neutral text” was substituted at the junctures of innumerable variants…
In referring to the Westcott and Hort theory, George Ladd approvingly writes, “The basic solution to the textual problem has been almost universally accepted.” He goes on to assert that “it is a seldom disputed fact that critical science has to all intents and purposes recovered the original text of the New Testament.” Ladd believes that “in the search for a good text, piety and devotion can never take the place of knowledge and scholarly judgment.” [the quotes are from Ladd’s book, The New Testament and Criticism (Eerdmans 1967) In a footnote Borland quotes Gordon Fee in the same vein saying, “Fee is equally bold in asserting that ‘the task of NT textual criticism is virtually completed’” (in “Modern Textual Criticism and the revival of the Textus Receptus,” JETS 21, 1978, 19-33).] Yet it is precisely this “almost universally accepted” “knowledge and scholarly judgment” that if followed too often leads to the conclusion that the very autographs of Scripture recorded errors and blunders.
He then considers more deeply Westcott and Hort’s rules of external evidence regarding the manuscripts (by which they were able to dispose of the testimony of the majority of manuscripts), and then their rules of internal evidence, which came to the forefront after their external rules had gotten rid of the MT. Borland goes on,
Naturally each of these canons [of internal evidence] to a large degree must be subjectively applied. When a decision is difficult in the area of the internal evidence of readings, scholars often resort to the old circular reasoning that “certain MSS tend to support the ‘original’ text more than others and that those MSS are the early Alexandrian. Therefore, when internal evidence cannot decide, Gordon Fee advises, “the safest guide is to go with the ‘best’ MSS.” [Fee, “Textual Criticism of the New Testament,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, p. 431] Thus all too often external evidence is the last resort, and when it is appealed to, the results have already been determined by a preconception of which MSS are the “best.”….[L]et us examine several examples of this prevalent textual-critical method—which ultimately asserts that the autographs did indeed contain incontrovertible mistakes.
In other words, the prevalent textual methodology can be and is being used to deny the inerrancy of the original autographs.
Nearly a century ago George Salmon astutely observed that Westcott and Hort had attributed to the gospel writers “erroneous statements which their predecessors had regarded as copyists’ blunders.” Salmon noted that “there was indeed but little rhetorical exaggeration in the statement that the canon of these editors was that Codex B was infallible and that the Evangelists were not. Nay, it seemed as if Hort regarded it as a note of genuineness if a reading implies error on the part of the sacred writer.” [G. Salmon, Some Thoughts on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (London: John Murray, 1897)]
I. The Case of Asa and Amon
One example of current import is found in the readings of Matthew 1:7, 10. These texts contain part of the kingly genealogy of Christ. Many conservative commentators seem almost oblivious to the problem [and in a footnote he lists a number]. But scholars who do not adhere to the doctrine of inerrancy do not pass up a chance to point out what they consider to be a fallacy in Matthew’s autograph. The majority of all MSS read Asa (Asa; v. 7) and Amon (Amon; v. 10), easily recognized as two kings of Judah who were ancestors of Christ. Matthew’s point is to demonstrate our Lord’s royal lineage. But the United Bible Societies’ text instead chooses alternate readings based on the “better” manuscripts as well as some very subjective internal considerations. They substitute for the kings Asa and Amon the names “Asaph” and “Amos,” a psalmist and prophet respectively. They reason that “the evangelist may have derived material for the genealogy, not from the Old Testament directly, but from subsequent genealogical lists, in which the erroneous spelling occurred.” [B.M. Metzger, et al., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (NY: United Bible Societies, 1971), p.1] Prior to that confident assertion, Bruce Metzger and others, claimed that “most scholars are impressed by the overwhelming weight of textual evidence supporting Asaph.” [Ibid.]
What is the composition of this “overwhelming weight of textual evidence” in favor of the Asaph blunder? Heading the list are the fourth and fifth century codices, Aleph B and C. Next come the minuscules of families 1 and 13 and two eleventh- and twelfth-century cursives, 700 and 1071, followed by fourteenth-century manuscript 209. Among the versions are several Old Latin MSS (notably k, Bobiensis, a fourth or fifth century production), along with others of the seventh century and beyond. The Coptic, following the basic Egyptian text of Aleph and B, agrees; and the Armenian, Ethiopic and Georgian translations, each perhaps related to Caesarean origins (of f1 and f13), indicate Asaph also. In the Harclean Syriac it merits only a listing in the margin. In summary, barely more than a dozen Greek MSS carry the Asaph reading, followed by a few Old Latin MSS, the Coptic and several minor versions.
On the other hand, the expected reading of Asa is found in literally hundreds of Greek witnesses beginning with uncials E K L M U V W G D and P. These MSS date from the fifth through the tenth centuries and no doubt represent a wide geographic distribution, including Washingtoniensis (the Freer Gospels of the fifth century) and Regius (L), which in Metzger’s opinion has a good type of text, “agreeing very frequently with codex Vaticanus.” [Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 2nd ed. (NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 1968), p. 54] In addition, hundreds of cursives lend their support including numbers of those known “to exhibit a significant degree of independence from the so-called Byzantine manuscript tradition.” [Metzger, Textual Commentary, p. xvii] These would include 33 (the queen of the cursives and constant ally of Aleph and B) and other minuscules beginning with the ninth century. To this may be added the entire bulk of cursive manuscripts that must represent nearly every geographical point where Greek was studied and copied throughout the middle ages and demonstrates an unbroken continuity of evidence sorely lacking in the paucity of material supporting the Asaph reading.
The lectionaries too stand solidly behind Asa, as do a number of Old Latin MSS including the notable fourth-century Vercellensis. the entire Vulgate is another early and uniform witness to Asa—as are the Curetonian, Sinaitic, Pe****ta, Harclean and Palestinian versions of the Syriac. To these may be added both Ephiphanius and Augustine of the first quarter of the fifth century. Only a preconceived notion as to which witnesses are best would cause anyone to deny that the truly “overwhelming weight of textual evidence” favors the traditional reading of Asa.
If such is the case, then Asaph should be viewed as an early scribal blunder injudiciously copied into (fortunately) only a handful of Greek MSS. The evidence for Amon versus Amos in Matthew 1:10 is somewhat similar. It is difficult to believe that Matthew, no doubt an educated literary Jewish writer, was incapable of distinguishing between the Hebrew 'ãsã' and 'ãsãp' or between the even more distinguishable ‘ãmôn and ‘ãmôs. Not only would he have known the names of Israel’s kings by memory, but he probably would have used the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 3:10-14 in securing the names he used.
Lest one thinks this all amounts to academic irrelevance, we should be aware that the Revised Standard Version places the prophet’s name Amos in the text of Matthew 1:10 with the note “other authorities read Amon.” The Catholic New American Bible (1970) reads Amos without explanation. The American Standard Version, the RSV and the New American Standard Bible each read Asa for Matthew 1:7 but append a note indicating that the Greek reads Asaph. But where does the reading for Asa come if not from the Greek? The ASV and NASB do the same for Amos in Matthew 1:10, and the Jerusalem Bible is similar. At the least, this nomenclature is certainly inconsistent with the usual way of introducing a textual variant. We might well believe that Matthew got his kings, prophets and psalmists a bit confused! (excerpted from pp. 46-52)
Thank you for bearing with this longish but significant portion of essay. He goes on with another example, but so as not to stretch my availing myself of the “fair use” policy of copyrighted material I will refrain.
If you will look at the lately much vaunted ESV, you will see that in Matthew 1 it reads both Asaph and Amos instead of the kings! It was in Letis’ audio sermon on the ESV that I learned it had been adapted from the old RSV; on the acknowledgment page it reads,
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.
I would certainly hate to have to explain my way out of these false readings in the ESV to a class of bright teenagers!
Letis was of the mind that the royalties from our purchases of ESVs go the National Council of Churches, to further its agendas. Are we in accord with its agendas?*
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*[Brief portion added on Oct 16 '06 to make correction]:
From
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninf...ID=41504103537 John Hooper from South Carolina (6/23/2004)
“Interesting”
I found this lecture quite interesting. Letis was misinformed though when he stated that proceeds from the ESV go to the National Council of Churches. Crossway states on its faq page (
http://www.gnpcb.org/page/esv.faq) that it does NOT pay any royalties to anyone for the ESV text. They own all the rights to the text. For more information on textual base and translation style see:
http://www.gnpcb.org/page/esv.philosophy Theodore P. Letis (8/4/2004)
“Correction”
Mr. Hooper from South Carolina is unfortunately, misinformed. He derives his information from the official website of the ESV publishers, Crossway. I, on the other hand, derive my information directly from the National Council of Churches, who do, indeed, own the copyright to the old RSV--the basis of the ESV--as can be clearly seen from the copyright page of the ESV itself where this is made perfectly clear. That a licensing fee must be paid for the use of copyright material is standard procedure in the publishing world. That Crossway has such a contract with the National Council of Churches has also been confirmed to me, as I have said, directly by the NCC themselves. Hence, Crossway does financially benefit the NCC.
Gene from U.S.A. (7/29/2005)
“Very True! --And A Clarification”
I contacted the Crossway ESV site by email. The responding associate editor stated that there are NO ongoing royalty payments involved. However, he did admit that Crossway "purchased from the NCC full rights to use the RSV in developing the ESV..." He did not state the amount of funds involved obviously, but considering the market size of this kind of project, it is probably safe to assume a tidy sum. Why would a supposedly conservative translation group seek a translation source from the most rank liberal organization in the country? Dr. Letis makes the point that secular corporate ownership of the Bible translation business is a factor. It's hard to disagree….
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Back to Dr. Price. Can we actually compare the mass-produced varieties of the Greek Critical Text with the Greek manuscripts that come to us from antiquity? These mass-produced editions boldly pronounce the fallibility of the apostolic writings, the autographs themselves. Their editors (some of them) boldly pronounce it in their writings, and their bibles pronounce it in their texts! NO, the texts current and common among believers today are not to be compared to the majority texts of past centuries.
This view of James A. Borland will be strongly attacked, for it not only goes against almost the entire Text-Critical establishment, including those with vested interests in academia (which is not to deny that many proceed in their integrity – I do not mean to impugn people’s characters), and
huge commercial interests, as Bruggen and the late Dr. letis have so annoyingly pointed out.
A friend has said to me that Daniel Wallace has sufficiently answered to Borland’s essay with one of his own (cf.
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1221). I have just looked it over, and do not agree. Shortly I will give a brief response to Wallace’s essay, and though I am way out of his league, can nonetheless think for myself.
P.S. I see that Dr. Borland has written a response to Wallace et al himself, "THE PRESERVATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT: A COMMON SENSE APPROACH" (
http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj10d.pdf#search)