Kurschner’s 4th reason
(4) Let’s take a step back from history and ask a logical question: Why should we simply assume that the fact of the majority of manuscripts somehow follows a logical necessity of being more accurate or faithful to the originals? Indeed, this assumed principle may be compelling for democratic nations—the majority rules. But why should this principle be carried over to the Holy Writ? Is a basket of 100 rotten apples more valuable than a basket of 10 good apples? Again, why does the fact of a majority (in this case Greek manuscripts) in itself warrant accuracy?
Say you begin with two manuscripts with two different readings: A=uncorrupted and B=corrupted. And manuscript B is copied 10 times. Since we now have 10 corrupted manuscripts versus 1 uncorrupted manuscript, it follows that the purest text of the two is found in A. Indeed, manuscripts need to be weighed not blindly counted.
Let me quote Dr. Fenton John Anthony Hort, in his volume II of
The New Testament in the Original Greek, the “Introduction” to his theory:
A theoretical presumption indeed remains that a majority of extant documents is more likely to represent a majority of ancestral documents at each stage of transmission than vise versa. p. 45.
What he is saying is that the majority of existing manuscripts would presumably represent a majority of ancient manuscripts, thus validating the contention of MT advocates that the Byzantine text was of ancient widespread origin reflecting the original autographs. It is interesting to note that regarding the Byzantine/Majority Text he said,
The fundamental Text of late extant Greek MSS. generally is beyond all question identical with the dominant Antiochian or Græco-Syrian Text of the second half of the fourth century. Ibid. p. 92. [cited in Burgon’s The Revision Revised, p. 257. Emphases Burgon’s, I believe. –SMR]
Of course Hort – concerning the first quote – sought to annul any connection of the Byzantine (what he calls the “Syrian”) Text with the ancient autographs by immediately positing a theory accounting for the vast numerical superiority of the Byzantine / Traditional Text, saying it came to be as a result of an official edition (“recension”) of the church in Syrian Antioch. I have dealt with this issue in
an earlier post from the “Why do KJ Only types believe the Westcott and Hort manuscripts are bad” thread. This consists primarily of John Burgon’s response to Westcott and Hort’s “Syrian recension” theory, and is quite edifying.
There is also an excellent – and brief! – examination and rebuttal of the Hortian theory in the
Introduction to
The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Byzantine/Majority Textform, by Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont. See the two sections, “Hort's Basic Contentions” and “A Rebuttal of Hortian Logic”.
I realize I am giving you patient folks a lot of reading material, but this is an intricate matter, and to do justice to the complexities of it one must look closely at them. Serious inquirers will appreciate this, much as gold-miners will diligently dig to find their treasure.
The point of these examinations is to assess whether Mr. Kurschner’s “10 apples” are really good apples, and whether the other “100 apples” are really bad, as he implies! It comes down to a few Alexandrian exemplars to thousands of Traditional Text mss. I think it a simple exercise in ascertaining the quality of a text to see if there are identifiable and
indisputable errors purporting to be genuine. That codices Aleph (
a or Sinaiticus) and B (Vaticanus),
the exemplars and primary foundations of the Critical Text, both have as the ancestors of the Lord Jesus Asaph and Amos instead of the correct Asa and Amon in Matthew 7 and 10 respectively, I take as a warning flag of danger the Lord providentially had appear right at the beginning of these mutilated manuscripts. As though Matthew would have written the
wrong names! This would assert that the inspiration of God
failed at this initial point in the writing of Matthew’s gospel. The ESV boldly publishes this in its text, most versions are more subdued than to so trumpet what is false in their Greek bases.
In his
A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd Ed., Metzger says,
It is clear that the name “Asaph” is the earliest form of text preserved in the manuscripts…(a B)….the tendency of scribes, observing that the name of the psalmist Asaph (cf. the titles of Pss 50 and 73 to 83) was confused with that of Asa the King of Judah (1 Kgs 15:9 ff.), would have been to correct the error, thus accounting for the prevalence of Asa [Asa] in the later Ecclesiastical text and its inclusion in the Textus Receptus.
….Since, however, 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, the Committee saw no reason to adopt what appears to be a scribal emendation in the text of Matthew. (p. 1)
Do you see the implications of Metzger (and Committee) having this view of the Scripture? Matthew got it wrong. To err is human, right? Metzger’s assertion that
Asaf [Asaph] is “the earliest form of text preserved in the manuscripts” is false. It is rather
a form of text preserved in the earliest
surviving manuscripts (
a B), for
the “earliest form of text” must needs be identical with the apostle’s original, the autograph.
Yes, this is a theological view impinging on the supposedly scientific field of textual criticism: yet it is a doctrine of the Scripture itself: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God…” (2 Timothy 3:16). Scripture attests to itself; and it corrects the errors of men pertaining to itself.
Hoskier, collating Sinaiticus and Vaticanus (minutely comparing their texts), ascertained that there were 3,036 differences between the two manuscripts
in the Gospels alone! What kind of witnesses are these that so greatly disagree? They would not be permitted to testify in a court of law, as they would be termed contradictory and unreliable. They may be among the oldest, but to say they are the “best” and “most reliable” (the publishers’ marginal blurbs pushing their lucrative products) is downright deceptive, a spiel to catch the gullible.
These two “golden apples” have not worms inside of them, but something more sinister. Did the Sovereign who works all things after the counsel of His own will, even in the most minute details, plant a red flag – for those with eyes to see – on the very first page of this depraved form of text?
John Burgon wrote,
I am utterly disinclined to believe – so grossly improbable does it seem – that at the end of 1800 years 995 copies out of every thousand, suppose, will prove untrustworthy; and that the one, two, three, four or five which remain, whose contents were till yesterday as good as unknown, will be found to have retained the secret of what the Holy Spirit originally inspired?
I am utterly unable to believe, in short, that God’s promise has so entirely failed, that at the end of 1800 years, much of the text of the Gospel had in point of fact to be picked by a German critic out of a wastepaper basket in the convent of St. Catherine; and that the entire text had to be remodeled after a pattern set by a couple of copies which had remained in neglect during fifteen centuries, and had probably owed their survival to that neglect; whilst hundreds of others had been thumbed to pieces, and had bequeathed their witness to copies made from them…. (Cited in D. O. Fuller’s, Which Bible?, p. 92 [I am looking for the original source in Burgon’s works, and will post it here when I find it.])
I think I’ll steer clear of Alan Kurschner’s apples!