A few days
ago, a video by Jonathan A. Sheffield appeared on YouTube entitled,
“A James White Halloween Special: The Textual Frankenstein of Modern Critical
Text Theory.” Since this 21-minute animated video
has a text-critical focus, I thought it might be a good idea to offer a few
observations about it.
I recommend
watching the video (
which
can be viewed here) but for those who would rather have it summarized, here
is a summary:
____________________
After a few
minutes of amusing cameos (by Bart Ehrman, Dan Wallace, and others) the stage
is set for James White to go on a Halloween-themed time-traveling journey with
Family Guy character Stewie, in a role comparable to Doc Brown (from Back to the Future, complete with a
DeLorean time machine). Stewie – Sheffield’s proxy throughout the video – tells White that
past events have created “a mess” where the text of the New Testament is
concerned.
Stewie points out that White,
on his program Dividing Line, has
tended to overlook the real problem with the modern critical text: the weakness
of Hort’s reasons for rejecting the Byzantine Text. After the DeLorean time machine lands, Stewie
summarizes Hort’s theory that Chrysostom used an essentially Byzantine text
that had been created around A.D. 300 by an editor – perhaps Lucian of Antioch
– who selected readings from older texts.
Hort, Stewie explains – as Hort
is represented onscreen by a wizard – reduced the weight of all Byzantine
manuscripts – “thousands of independent witnesses” – down to one.
Stewie then
says that Hort’s theory implies that for 1,500 years after Chrysostom, Greek,
Syriac, and Latin-speaking churches throughout the Byzantine
Empire used “the wrong type of text.” White objects, stating that no bona fide textual scholar still
subscribes to Hort’s theory – except maybe Dan Wallace. Stewie replies that although White rejects
Hort’s theory about the Lucianic Recension (called the “Lucan Recession” in the
video), White still promotes Hort’s conclusion that the Byzantine text ought to
be rejected.
About nine
minutes into the video, Stewie explains that Hort, guided by principles of
“German rationalism,” replaced the text of Antioch with a text “of unknown provenance.” Earlier textual critics – Jerome, who produced
the Latin Vulgate, Thomas of Harkel (who produced the Harklean Syriac version)
and Ximenes (who oversaw the production of the Complutensian Polyglot) – used ecclesiastical
texts, but Hort did not. By preferring
readings from manuscripts of unknown provenance, Hort created a “textual
Frankenstein” which cannot be shown to have been used by any apostolic church
before 1881.
Twelve
minutes into the video, the subject turns to the Coherence Based Genealogical
Method. Dr. Peter Gurry confirms that
there was no Lucan (i.e., Lucianic) recension.
A little later, after Stewie summarizes the concept of text-types
(Alexandrian, Byzantine, Western, and Caesarean) and their importance in the
argumentation of the late Bruce Metzger in his defense of the heavily
Alexandrian UBS compilation, Gurry offers an important pronouncement: the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method
implies that “text-types are unhelpful for making textual decisions.”
This gives
the impression of invalidating the basic text-critical approach that has guided
the field of New Testament textual criticism for over a century, and Stewie
runs with this statement; the basic premises that drove pro-Alexandrian textual
criticism throughout the 1900s, Stewie says, have been a “phony baloney
sandwich from the start.”
Around 17 minutes
into the video, James White is pictured on the floor with his arms curled
around his legs, in a state of shock at how thoroughly the foundation of his
position has been destroyed. Then Stewie,
Igor (Dr. Gurry’s assistant), and White undertake an examination of the “oldest
and best manuscripts” upon which the Nestle-Aland text is based. James White briefly takes on the persona of
Gollum as he looks at Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, saying, “My precious.”
A little
later, White objects to treating Vaticanus and Sinaiticus as if they have no provenance,
stating that they were clearly used by the churches. In response, Dr. Tommy Wasserman steps out
of the background and affirms that the origins of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are
“elusive.” Stewie proceeds to contrast
the elusiveness of the origins of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus with the known
provenance of the text that was in use in apostolic churches in Antioch, North Africa, and Rome in the fourth century. The Vulgate, Stewie explains, opposes the
critical text promoted by James White.
Stewie then
asks why the CBGM’s promoters and the editors of the Nestle-Aland text continue
to use unprovenanced manuscripts as the primary basis for their
compilations. Onscreen, there is a
picture of two individuals: one has a
hat on which “Nestle Aland” is written, sitting on a pile of money; the other
one, holding money, wears a suit with a tag that says “UBS.” Stewie then raises a question: why do these editors continue to spread the
Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation even though all the premises supporting it have
been falsified? He then says, “Is it because when you move off these
mixed texts, and have to resolve the differences between the Vulgate, the Byzantium,
and the Peshitta, it leads us back to the TR?”
James White
finally speaks: “That is heresy,
Stewie!” But Stewie resumes, and
proposes that since the Textus Receptus
is in the public domain, the primary reason why the scholars and publishers responsible
for the NA/UBS text continue to make new editions is financial. White protests that he does not want to hear
this, but Stewie continues, mentioning that without new critical editions, White
could not make new Halloween costumes modeled after the latest edition of the
critical text. White screams in
frustration.
____________________
Stewie –
that is, Sheffield – thus makes five
proposals:
(1) Preference
for Alexandrian readings began with Hort and his German rationalism.
(2) Since
Hort’s theory that the Byzantine Text originated as a recension is incorrect,
there is no reason to adopt non-Byzantine readings.
(3) The
very use of the Alexandrian Text is problematic because we don’t know where it
came from, unlike the texts used by Jerome in the late 300s, by Thomas of
Harkel in the early 600s, and by Ximenes in the early 1500s.
(4) If
researchers were to compile a text on the basis of the Byzantine Text, the
Vulgate, and the Peshitta, the result would be the Textus Receptus.
(5) The
researchers involved in the production of the Nestle-Aland and United Bible
Societies’ Greek compilations are primarily motivated by financial gain.
All five of
Sheffield’s proposals are wrong, and his whole
approach seems like an excuse for maintaining 100% of the Textus Receptus. Let’s consider these points one by one.
DID DIVERGENCE FROM THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS BEGIN WITH HORT?
No. Researchers before Hort, such as Bengel,
Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, and Tischendorf (and, even earlier, Walton) saw the advantage of collecting
readings from all areas where Christianity spread in its early centuries.
DOES THE REJECTION OF
HORT’S THEORY OF A LUCIANIC RECENSION JUSTIFY THE REJECTION OF ALL READINGS THAT DIVERGE FROM
THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS?
No, for two
reasons:
first, the
Textus Receptus has hundreds of translatable differences from the
Byzantine Text.
Even if we were to say,
“Let’s just reconstruct the text that Chrysostom used,” this would generally
yield something like the Byzantine Textform, rather than
the
Textus Receptus.
Second, Chrysostom’s text does not represent
the only ecclesiastically utilized form of the text from the 300s.
(Nor is it a purely Byzantine text:
in
Stephen Carlson’s edition of the text of Galatians (2015) he records non-Byzantine readings supported by Chrysostom in
Galatians 1:3, 1:4, 1:11, 1:12, 2:6, 2:16, 3:7, 5:17, 6:13, and 6:17.
And – to give just one more example – according
to UBS4, in John 20:23, Chrysostom supports ἀφέωνται where the Byzantine Text (and the TR),
the Vulgate, and the Peshitta support ἀφίενται.)
Other forms
of the text were used in other places. Eusebius’
text of Matthew, at Caesarea, for instance, was mainly Alexandrian; Augustine’s
Latin text in North Africa contained many
non-Byzantine readings. The Old Latin
translation(s) also contained many non-Byzantine readings. It would be arbitrary to ignore these other
ancient local texts.
Without
Hort’s Lucianic Recension in the picture, the Byzantine Text deserves to stand
as an essentially independent local text, but that does not mean that its exact
form is always correct, or that the effects of mixture (i.e., mixture with
other local texts) and liturgically motivated adjustments cannot be detected in
it.
DOES THE PROVENANCE
OF THE ALEXANDRIAN TEXT POSE A SPECIAL DIFFICULTY?
No. We do not know the specific origins of
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus but this is true of practically every single parchment
codex of New Testament books that has survived from before the 500s, whether
Greek or Latin or Syriac or whatever.
The area in which the Alexandrian Text was used is no mystery: it was used in Egypt, as can be seen by the
consistent similarly of Vaticanus’ text with the Sahidic version. And many non-Byzantine readings were in the
manuscripts utilized by patristic authors in Chrysostom’s time and earlier, in
other locales. Granting that we do not
know the names and exact locations of the individuals who perpetuated the New
Testament text in Egypt,
this is also true of the individuals who made Athanasius’ manuscripts, and Jerome’s
manuscripts, and Augustine’s manuscripts, and Ambrose’s manuscripts, and Chrysostom’s
manuscripts. Noticing where a manuscript
was used is not the same as knowing where its readings originated.
Sheffield asserts that ancient scholars such as Jerome
and Thomas of Harkel used only “ecclesiastical” texts. But when we examine the actual contents of
the Vulgate and the Harklean Syriac, we don’t see exclusively Byzantine
readings; both the Vulgate and the Harklean Syriac have many non-Byzantine
readings, as anyone can verify by comparing the Byzantine Text, the Vulgate,
and the Harklean Syriac side-by-side-by-side in the General Epistles. If one grants that the Vulgate and the
Harklean Syriac were based exclusively on ecclesiastical sources, it follows
irresistibly that the Byzantine Text was not the only ecclesiastical source available.
WOULD A COMPILATION
BASED ON THE BYZANTINE TEXT, THE VULGATE, AND THE PESHITTA PRODUCE THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS?
No. The Peshitta, as initially issued, did not
contain the books of Second Peter, Second John, Third John, Jude, and
Revelation, and at many points the Peshitta disagrees with the Textus Receptus (and with the Byzantine
text). The Vulgate also has many disagreements
with the Textus Receptus (and with
the Byzantine text). And the Byzantine
Text itself, as presented in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, has many
disagreements with the Textus Receptus.
Certainly
in many textual contests the Vulgate, the Peshitta, and the Byzantine Text all
point in the same direction, uniformly disagreeing with the Alexandrian Text,
as we see in Matthew 1:25 and Matthew 20:16 and Mark 15:28 and Mark 16:9-20 and
Luke 22:43-44 and John 3:13, etc., etc. But most of the minority-readings of the Textus Receptus would not be vindicated
by such a compilation; in addition, the Byzantine reading is sometimes opposed
by both the Vulgate and Peshitta (in Ephesians 5:9 and James 4:4, for example). Sheffield’s
picture of a world in the fourth century where there was one uniform text used
in the churches is not realistic; even less realistic is the idea that this
uniform ecclesiastical fourth-century text was the Textus Receptus.
IS FINANCIAL GAIN THE
MOTIVE FOR THE PUBLICATION OF NEW EDITIONS OF THE NESTLE-ALAND COMPILATION OF
THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT?
In
short: Sheffield’s
criticism of researchers who reject the theory of the Lucianic recension, and
yet continue to treat the Byzantine Text as if almost all of its distinct
readings are secondary, is applauded.
However, if Sheffield’s assumptions
about the text of Chrysostom were valid, they would tend to favor the Byzantine
Text rather than the minority-readings embedded in the Textus Receptus. An
awareness of the variety of local texts in the fourth century renders Sheffield’s whole approach, undertaken to maintain the Textus Receptus, untenable at every
turn.
Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.
