Textual Criticism

The Science of Various Readings

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        Most people have only a translation of the scriptures.  Some are fortunate enough to have a copy of a copy ... of a copy ... of the originals in either Greek or Hebrew.   Textual Criticism deals with the art and science of the transmission of the text, that is to say, it tries to answer the question how we got the copies we happen to have.     It also deals with the question of determining which reading or readings are correct.

         Many textual critics try to undermine faith in the reliability of the Scriptures.   They cite variant readings as reasons why the text is unknown and unknowable, or they propose readings of their own which have no validity by the rules of textual criticism.  Some of them go so far as to 'emend the text' in ways that are arbitrary and uncaring.   One will find these critics in secular universities and seminaries.   Generally they try to make the bible agree with the latest secular findings in history or science.   I say secular, because, if these same scholars and scientists did their researches through the lens of divine revelation, they would naturally come to a better and truly  scientific conclusion.

         There are also textual critics that do not abuse the discipline.  They follow the rules of logic and do not draw unwarranted conclusions.   Very rarely will the variant readings have any impact on matters of doctrinal importance.  Most of the readings are spellings of words, or various synonyms errantly put in by copiest.   There is yet another set of readings produced by scribes who were merely trying to improve the grammar or style of the text.  They had no intent to change the meaning.   Sometimes a reading does rise to the level of  affecting an important doctrinal point.   The errant reading can be easily discovered in these cases if we simply compare it with what the Scriptures say elsewhere on the same subject.

        Actually, textual critics agree far more on what the text actually is than they do agree on what the translation of the text should be.  Compared to the various translations, the results of textual criticism are dull and uninspiring.   Rarely do we have to resort to a textual variant to settle a matter, because the text can be established by using other manuscripts.

         Generally the older a MSS the more weight it will carry in deciding which reading is correct.  Also, if it can be clearly established that a group of MSS were copied from a single exemplar (by looking for errors they have in common), then the exemplar of that group will carry more weight than any of its descendants.

          Most of what I said applies only to the 'New Testament,' because we have 5000 or so ancient MSS to deal with.   The Law and the Prophets is another matter.  For this we have very few ancient copies.   However, the Dead Sea Scrolls filled a gap between 150 b.c.e. and 1000 c.e. showing that the text had undergone almost zero change in a thousand years since the time of Messiah.

          Compared to various translations, and completely wrong translations, textual criticism does not amount to much.   There are some points on which it is easy to prove the errancy of many translations.   For example, if you read the Law and the Prophets in Hebrew, then you will be able to see that it says God's name is 'YHWH'  (Hebrew was always written without vowels until the Massoretic Text; but there are more recent Hebrew texts which don't use vowels), and it is manifiestly evident that YHWH is His personal name, and it does not translate "Lord."  For 'Lord' we have another Hebrew word.

         So, if you look in a typical bible translation, such as the King James Version, you will find that it ignores the correct text, 'YHWH' and instead mistranslates it 'Lord,' some 7000 times.  The "Authorized" King James Version is thus an example of all the errant versions which likewise fail to translate the very name of the God who revealed the Scriptures.   The translators prefer to follow the traditions of men rather than the commandments of God.

          One however, should not loose faith in Scripture just because a bunch of Anglican scribes mistranslated God's name.   After all, His name has still been there in the Hebrew text, faithfully preserved by the Jews, who fell prey to the same errant tradition.   So here is the crux of the matter.   Misinterpretation and mistranslation of the scriptures is epidemic, and those who take everything on man's authority, refuse to study, refuse to think, and above all refuse to compare scripture with scripture with a view to harmonizing the texts and their own theological thinking, shall surely fall prey to the 'sound bite theology' and trivial error traps laid out by the Adversary.

         All it takes is a little bit of cross checking, and a little bit of testing.   For example, the King James Version is supposed to be based on 'the Received Text,' called Textus Receptus in Latin.   Was the Greek text called Textus Receptus the only one known in 1611?  Was it the established text of the Church?  Far from it!   It was only recently aquired and complied from MSS dating to about 1000 c.e.    Not only that, but the Church used Latin, not Greek.  In fact the study of Greek was all but dead from the time of Rome's fall to the time of the Reformation.  Likewise the study of Hebrew was all but dead in the Church, but that is another story.

        Not long after Textus Recpetus was named, giving it an aura of authority and longevity and official hand-me-downness that it never had, historians, librarians, explorers, and archeaologists promptly began to unearth more Greek manuscripts of the 'New Testament.'   It was all in the spirit of the same discovery and research that prompted the putting together of Receptus in the first place.   With the discovery of these older MSS, Sinacticus  a, Vaticanus B, and Alexandrius A, the science of textual criticism was born.   These manuscripts were from the fourth century --- a six hundred year improvement!   Or in other terms 60% closer to the actual dates of the original manuscripts.

          Now Erasmus did not actually have a complete Greek copy in his Textus Receptus.  He lacked Revelation chapter 22.   So he translated it from the Latin copy he had back into Greek  --- complete with all the errors that were in the Latin text.  It was the received text, because it was all he had.   We now know that the Latin, and the Greek he produced from it, was not inerrant, because comparision with the newly discovered fourth century MSS showed what the correct text was.

        It is not hard to explain the dogmatic faith in Textus Receptus.   The Church, after all, does not maintain the pure doctrine of the faith once delivered to the saints ( ~yvidQ.h; ). It maintains a mixture of truth and error, and it is constantly challenged by its own members who find bits and pieces of truths it has suppressed or neglected.   It is therefore no surprise that ancient manuscripts should be a threat to the hegemony of the Church, which has centuries of practice in suppression of distasteful truths.    It is a fact that the ancient MSS contain clues of the infidelity of the Church.   And it does not care for these truths to be unearthed.

          For example compare Acts 15:24 (KJV) with Acts 15:24 (NIV).  The words 'saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law; to whom we gave no such commandment' are not in the older MSS (NIV).   Such an addition to the text is important, because it is the very thing we might expect of a scribe with an anti-law agenda on his mind.   The scribe who added the words wanted the text to intimate that the Jerusalem Congregation had a policy of not teaching circumcision or obedience to the Law, or that this was what constituted 'subverting your souls.'

         Or again compare Acts 21:25 (KJV) with Acts 21:25 (NIV).  The KJV says, 'that they observe no such thing, save only' in reference to the Temple sacrifices.  Yet this text is not in the most ancient MSS (cf. NIV).   This shows, again, an anti-law motive on the part of the scribe or scribes who propagated this error in the text.    Now we know that these readings are errors based on two criteria.  (1)  Neither is in the most ancient MSS, and (2) the sentiments in the added readings contradict the other scriptures (cf. Mt. 5:17-20; 23:1-3; 28:18-20; Deut. 6:25; Deut. 12:30; Mal. 4:4;  Mal. 3:3-4;  Isaiah 56:6-8).