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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.  |
I don't see the critical method as implying this. I see the critical method as positing that the original text is there among all the manuscripts. Plus, the word "corrupt" is ambiguous. If you mean are there mistakes made by the copiers, then every text is corrupt. If you mean that the texts are unable to be used as the inerrant basis for our faith, then no, the manuscripts are not corrupt.
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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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What prevents us from saying that the newly discovered manuscripts are currently received by the church? Unless, of course, you wish to define the church in such a way that 99% of the church isn't the church. Besides this, TR people make manuscript evidence the basis for judgment as well: the manuscripts that they had were compared and contrasted in order to come up with the TR. That is the same thing that is being done today. Again, I have not yet seen any reason to reject the Alexandrian text from the discussion. I reject no Byzantine text, and yet you reject outright the Alexandrian texts.
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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.
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There were several criteria that I mentioned that are not subjective in the slightest, such as geographical diversity of readings, which heavily favors the eclectic method.