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Originally Posted by CalvinandHodges  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. |
OR, it could very well be that there are no older Byzantine manuscripts because they never existed prior to the 5th Century. Judging from the fact that we have copies reflecting the Western Text Type and the Alexandrian Text Type from these earlier centuries but no copies of the Byzantine Text Type it is extremely curious that not a single manuscript exists of this text type prior to the 5th Century if it is indeed most representative of the original.
Furthermore, what you are describing was the process for the Hebrew Masoretic Text, but you are going way out on a limb to say that this was the process for the copying of the New Testament text. There is no evidence that the original was destroyed when a copy was made of the New Testament Text during the first several centuries of its transmission (I'm not even sure one can establish that from the later stage of the transmission of the text either.).
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Originally Posted by CalvinandHodges 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. |
This is pure fiction. A 'trip into cloud land' to quote one textual scholar
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The Old Italic is a representative of the Alexandrian Text as Tischendorf pointed out...
"...the Sinaitic copy, which more than any other is in closest agreement with the old Italic version. We do not mean that there are no other versions which agree as closely with the Sinaitic copy as the old Italic version, which the translator, who lived in North Africa, somewhere near our modern city of Algiers, had before him. For we find that the old Syriac version which has been recently found is quite as closely related as the Italic."
Regarding the Syriac...While the Peshitta does reflect the Byzantine Text Type, the Old Syriac copies (which pre-date the Peshitta) does not (as Tischendorf also pointed out in the quote above).
Finally, the Latin Vulgate...neither the Old Latin that preceeded the Latin Vulgate nor the Vulgate itself reflect a Byzantine Text Type. The Latin Vulgate most closely identifies with the Western Text Type.
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Originally Posted by CalvinandHodges 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. |
The troublesome fact that history seperates the Byzantine Text Type four hundred years from the autographs AND the fact the the longest surviving autograph of any New Testament book probably did not survive to the end of the First Century or, at best, the very beginning of the Second put significant dents in this reasoning.
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Originally Posted by CalvinandHodges 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. |
Then how under the heavens do we have the Alexandrian manuscripts (and other non Byzantine manuscripts and translations) today if God did not preserve them?
Even if you contend that God preserved it in use but the other manuscript traditions were not used, it would be fiction. Prior to the 5th Century, the textual evidence reveals the texts in use were either Western, Alexandrian or mixed. After the Byzantine gained preimmenance in the Eastern Church during the Middle Ages, the west used the Latin Vulgate which reflects more of the Western Text Type.
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Originally Posted by CalvinandHodges 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. |
Finally we come to the arguement that the Alexandrian manuscripts are the deliberate result of heretics perverting the Scriptures. The doctrines which some claim are under attack in the Alexandrian manuscripts are all so thouroughly present, that these heretical copyists must have been the most inept heretics in the history of the Christian church.
I don't see how anyone could reasonably pick up a translation like the NASB and claim the text reflects the deliberate work of heretics (since translation like the NASB are essentially Alexandrian in nature).
God has preserved the scriptures in the manuscripts. In the case of the varients between the manuscripts, we deal with each one on a case by case basis weighing the evidence for each based upon the internal and external evidence of each witness. I find this approach to be far more biblical as was as reasonable than starting with the KJV and working backwards.