Quote:
Originally Posted by larryjf  I was under the impression that the Alexandrian Text is the only text that we have proof of existing up through the fourth century. And that from the fifth to eighth century it is found to be in the majority. It was not until the ninth century that the Byzantine text became predominant.
To follow your logic of the Church rejecting families of manuscripts, wouldn't it make more sense to reject the Byzantine since the first four centuries have no proof of such a text-type at all? And even after that it is found in the minority until the ninth century? Doesn't this show that it is not the favored text of the early Church. |
Hey:
The short answer to your questions is no. The long answer will take several pages, but here is a short synopsis:
1) When an official copy of a text was made and approved the original was destroyed, and the copy of the original was considered authentic. This accounts for the lack of "ancient" mss in the Byzantine text-type. Both the Jewish Church in the OT and the Christian Church in the NT considered newer copies of the autographs more authoritative than older copies (since the older copies were considered destroyed).
If you find, then, older copies lying around one can argue that these were never copied - hence the very small number of copies of the Alexandrian Varients. If these texts were copied, then they would have been destroyed, and the newer copies would have survived in exactly the same fashion that we see the Byzantine texts surviving.
2) Ancient translations of the Bible such as the Vulgate, the Old Italic of the Waldensians, and the Syriac all agree with the Byzantine texts. The Old Italic of the Waldensians, for example, has been traced back to circa 130 AD.
3) If you consider where the Autographs of the New Testament originated, or, which churches these Autographs would be found in, then you will find that they will be found in what would be known as the Byzantine Empire. From Jerusalem, Matthew, James, and Jude (possibly), through Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, Phillipi, Thessolonica, Rome (Romans), the epistles of Peter (1 Pet. 1:1), and of the rest of the NT will be found in the Byzantine Empire.
I would suggest that those churches that actually handled and copied the Autographs would be able to recognize which are authentic and which are not. That after the Roman persecutions were aleviated by Constantine (313 AD) these churches came together and standardized the New Testament Text. The result is the Byzantine mss. Consequently, once the standard text was determined the multitude of copies would be made.
4) Finally, the Spirit of God has preserved the Byzantine mss through the Dark and Middle Ages, and the Greek text as it is known through all of history is the Byzantine text. Such a testimony cannot be made of the Alexandrian Varients/Critical Text.
Consider, the Apostle Peter warned the Church of heretics who were corrupting the Scriptures even in his very day:
...which they which are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do the other scriptures, unto their own destruction, 2 Peter 3:16b.
Out of some eight hundred thousand various readings of the Bible that have been collated, about seven hundred and ninety-five thousand are of just about as much importance to the sense of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures as the question in English orthography is, whether the word honour should be spelled with a u or without it. The vast majority of the remaining readings come from the Alexandrian Varients. These readings change the doctrinal nature of the passage in question.
I will leave you to your own conclusions.
Blessings,
-CH
PS: Psa 101:3 I wil set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the worke of them that fall away: it shal not cleaue vnto me.
Psa 119:104 By thy precepts I haue gotten vnderstanding: therefore I hate all the wayes of falshoode.
-CH