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Originally Posted by greenbaggins  Matthew, my hunch is that you could quote any number of modern liberal textual critics to demonstrate that. I solemnly declare to you that the shoe fits me so badly that I have blisters and bleeding from it.  So, I'm not sure what you are going to do about people like me, who say that we have the original text uncorrupted. |
The method itself presupposes a corrupted text; the
liberal critics are merely stating a reasonable conclusion based on the experience of their research. What are we to do with reformed people who take it on board? Point out the painfulness of trying to walk both sides of a barbed wire fence.
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Originally Posted by greenbaggins Unfortunately, since the Reformers did textual criticism in order to come up with the TR, this argument can be turned right around and directed back at the TR folk. The methods are at the very least analogous to what modern critics do. The texts have to be weighed and categorized, compared carefully, with all the differences catalogued. Modern text critics are not the only people who could be accused of trying to discover the text. You are driving a rather large wedge between the Reformed world of the 16-17th centuries and Reformed folk of today. |
Again, no one denies that a textual criticism of sorts is necessary. The difference between the reformers and modern critics was the belief of the reformers that the text of the NT is that which has been "received" by the church. There was no divorce between canon and text, higher and lower criticism. MS. evidence merely bore witness to the text. Modern critics make MS. evidence the judge and jury of the case. Here again we find modern reformed exponents of the critical text to be inconsistent, maintaining one criterion for canon and an alotogether inconsistent criterion for text.
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Originally Posted by greenbaggins On the issue of earliest manuscripts, no one today uses that as the only criteria. That is only one criteria among many that have to be weighed in each and every instance of variance. Other criteria include family relationships of manuscripts, geographical distribution of variant readings, number of manuscripts (which considerations are known as external evidence), and lectio difficilior, scribal probability, harmonization, etc. for the internal evidence (which is rather subjective, and therefore to be weighed much less than the external evidence). This is by no means an exhaustive list, but modern textual critics are not under the illusion that earlier is better without heavy qualification. |
These other criteria are merely subjective tools; the genealogical theory of the critic predominates his choice of readings. One needs only to consult Metzger's Textual Commentary to see this is the case.