Trevor,
Some thoughts on the “heavyweight” Dr. Metzger:
Many naturalistic textual critics believe neither in God nor in the devil, and hence accept neither the supernatural character of God’s Book
nor the intense, continual destructive efforts against it by supernatural antagonists.
Look at it this way: would I allow a physician who for decades specialized solely in abortions be the Ob/Gyn for my pregnant wife? Would that not be madness? And why would I take a “Bible” thoroughly worked over by enemies of the Faith and of God?
Do you think the
modern textual experts are better than those of the 19th century?
Bruce Manning Metzger is renown as a textual critic; he is one of the editors of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (a modern edition of W&H’s Greek text), and George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary. He was the chairman for the
Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible (which removed 40% of the Bible text, including the warning of Revelation 22:18-19), and he wrote the introductions to each book of this abbreviated “Bible.” In these he denies the authorship by Moses of the Pentateuch, and the writing of Daniel by Daniel (instead, he says, written by others in 168-165 B.C – whereas abundant evidence proves he wrote in approx. 605 – 536 B.C.).* Metzger was co-editor of the
New Oxford Annotated Bible RSV (NOAB-RSV), and wrote many of the notes in this Bible and put his editorial stamp of approval on all the others. In the section, “Introduction to the Old Testament,” is written, “The Old Testament may be described as the literary expression of the religious life of ancient Israel…The Israelites were more history-conscious than any other people in the ancient world. Probably as early as the time of David and Solomon,
out of a matrix of myth, legend, and history, there has appeared the earliest written form of the story of the saving acts of God from Creation to the conquest of the Promised Land…
Thus the Pentateuch took shape over a long period of time.” [bold emphases added]
But this is not true criticism or exegesis, this is the thinking of a rationalistic unbeliever. It matters not how famous a man may be, a red flag of danger should go up if he says of the Book of Job it is an “ancient folktale,” and of Jonah it is “from the realm of popular legend” (both of these from the same notes in the NOAB-RSV as the above), and of the Book of Genesis, “The opening chapters of the Old Testament deal with human origins. They are not to be read as history…These chapters are followed by the stories of the patriarchs, which preserve ancient traditions now known to reflect the conditions of the times of which they tell, though they cannot be treated as strictly historical…it is not for history but for religion that they are preserved…” (Notes from “How To Read The Bible With Understanding” in the NOAB-RSV).**
I do not know about you, reader, but I do not want a Bible put together by a man like this (and he is one of very many, though Metzger is one of the most influential editors of modern Greek texts, and of Bibles, living today). I would not trust it!
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Footnotes:
* The dates and events Daniel gives are historically solid, attested to by internal evidences (including the teaching of Jesus Christ in the N.T.), corroborating histories of other nations, and archeological discoveries. The unbelieving modernists cannot stand that Daniel made accurate prophesies which all came true to the letter, so they claim someone else wrote them centuries later, after the events happened! For an extended and in-depth treatment, see Robert Dick Wilson’s,
Studies In The Book of Daniel, 2 volumes (MI, Baker, 1972); also Josh McDowell’s,
Daniel In The Critics’ Den (CA, Here’s Life Publishers, 1979). Edward J. Young,
An Introduction to the Old Testament, (MI, Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 360-377; and also his,
A Commentary on Daniel, (PA, Banner of Truth, 1972), pp. 15-26, ff.; Gleason L. Archer,
A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, (IL, Moody Press, 1994), pp. 421-447. These are but five among many able defenses of the integrity of the Book of Daniel.
** Cited in,
Modern Versions Founded upon Apostasy, by David W. Cloud (WA: Way of Life Literature, 3rd ed. 1997), pages, 41, 42, 43, 44.
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Further information on rationalistic text-critics may be found in David Cloud’s online article, “Textual Criticism Is Drawn From The Wells Of Infidelity” (
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/textualcriticism.htm)
Steve