Books for Your Bookshelf in 2024

            It's still January 31, 2024, and the following text-critical resources are now available on Amazon.  Anyone who finds the price at Amazon prohibitively high is welcome to request a free digital text copy in the comments below or via an email to james.snapp@gmail.com .

Reviews welcome on Amazon
$9.99 US digital e-book
$19.50 US paperback

New Testament Textual Analysis.  That's what New Testament textual criticism is, minus the "art" that the dearly departed plagiarist Dr. Bruce Manning Metzger tries to smuggle in.  

            In terms of authority in the Christian church on earth, textual analysts rank second to the men and women who produced the contents of the Bible, for it is through the work of Christian textual analysts that the form of the New Testament books' text written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is recognized, verified, and protected from corruption.
            In this volume, written for adults, James Edward Snapp Jr. (that's me) systematically explains the materials and methods that are used to produce and, for lack of a better term, authenticate the text of the books of the New Testament. He also confronts the flawed reasoning that has, in much of academia, weakened many Christians' confidence in the New Testament's accuracy. He also exposes prominent false teachers both within and without church walls who have spread falsehoods about specific passages in the New Testament. Finally he summons aspiring textual analysts to dedicate themselves to this sacred enterprise using the equitable eclectic approach which he has developed.

This 400-page volume is intended to render superfluous Bart D. Ehrman's strategically titled "The Text of the New Testament - Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration" and is an ideal resource for those who prefer not to have an atheist as their guide through the text of the New Testament.

Reviews on Amazon
Are Welcome
Is It Eclectic?
$12.88 Hardcover
$8.88 digital

Is It Eclectic? is a devastating expose of the "reasoned eclectic" text that has been produced via the "reasoned eclectic" approach which has hypnotized/brainwashed (I don't have a word that's just right so those will have to do) so many American seminarians.  The data in the page of this brief volume speaks for itself but I added some commentary to make sure even Wheaton graduates can't miss the point:  the Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation in Matthew-Jude is 99% Alexandrian, and about 1% Byzantine.    
The Greek text that is the basis for the ESV, CSB, NRSV, NIV, NLT and other English versions of the New Testament is marketed as an "eclectic" text. But after textual analyst James Edward Snapp Jr. (that's me) examined it, he concluded that the idea that the results of the compilation-method used by the editors of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece and the UBS Greek New Testament are NOT, by any reasonable definition of the word, eclectic. The empirical evidence that compels this conclusion is presented in this book.

Is It Eclectic? is also available in German, so the folks in Muenster can read it as they wonder why American Christians are beginning to wonder why the Greek base-text of their English Bibles (NIV, CEB, NLT, NRSV, CSB, etc) is being introduced by an ally of secular humanists.  (Yes, in Germany, secular humanism is still a thing.)  

Reviews on Amazon are welcome.
Is It Eclectic?
in German is
$9.80 US

Der Basistext, der die edle deutsche Übersetzung der Heiligen Schriften der 27 Bücher des Neuen Testaments ersetzen wollte, wurde als „eklektische“ Zusammenstellung auf der Grundlage antiker Manuskripte vermarktet.
            Aber wir alle haben schon erlebt, wie alte Fußballspieler von jüngeren Spielern besiegt wurden. Die Qualität des Textes in einem Manuskript hängt nicht vom Alter des Pergaments oder Papyrus ab. Es hängt davon ab, wie gut die Kopisten ihre heilige Pflicht erfüllt haben.
            In diesem Buch untersucht James Edward Schniepf objektiv die neugriechische Zusammenstellung, die als „Nestle-Aland“ und als „Griechisches Neues Testament“ der United Bible Societies beworben wird, und entlarvt ihre Marketingpropaganda als authentische Propaganda. Meister Luther verfügte über jüngere Manuskripte, aber für den größten Teil des Neuen Testaments verfügten sie über einen besseren Text als die „älteren und besten Manuskripte“ als der Text, der wie schlechter Fußball aus Münster stammte. Es lebe der reife Martin Luther und möge seine deutsche Übersetzung wiederbelebt werden und möge auch die gläubige bekennende christliche Kirche in ganz Deutschland wiederbelebt werden.
            Dieses Buch enthält die Daten, die zeigen, dass Münsters „eklektischer Text“ nicht eklektisch ist!

Is It Eclectic? is also available in Portuguese.  Você já ouviu afirmações como essa dos editores do seu novo e moderno Novo Testamento em português? Então você foi enganado. Neste volume, o analista textual James Edward Snapp Jr. oferece uma crítica sincera ao texto base "eclético e fundamentado" sobre o qual vários.

Um exame do texto base "eclético e racional" da Nestlé-Aland do Novo Testamento.

Seu Novo Testamento é baseado no texto grego encontrado em mais de 5.000 manuscritos gregos, todos cuidadosamente considerados pelos maiores especialistas do mundo. Você pode ter certeza de que todas as evidências foram cuidadosamente examinadas antes do início da tradução do seu Novo Testamento em português.

Is It Eclectic? is also available in Indonesian.  (Due in part to a dream I had which involved Indonesian chicken wings.  So delicious.)

            Kompilasi Perjanjian Baru Yunani Nestle-Aland/UBS adalah dasar utama untuk terjemahan Perjanjian Baru di seluruh dunia dan untuk terjemahan bahasa Inggris seperti ESV, NIV, NLT, dan NRSV.
            Ini dipasarkan sebagai kompilasi "eklektik yang beralasan" berdasarkan lebih dari 5.000 manuskrip Yunani.
            Apakah itu deskripsi akurat dari teks Yunani NA/UBS?
Dalam pemeriksaan analitis yang cermat terhadap kompilasi NA/UBS, peneliti James Edward Snapp Jr. menunjukkan bahwa ini BUKAN merupakan deskripsi yang akurat menurut definisi normal istilah "eklektik".

The Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation of the Greek New Testament is the primary basis for translations of the New Testament around the world and for English translations such as the ESV, NIV, NLT, and NRSV.
It is marketed as a "reasoned eclectic" compilation based on over 5,000 Greek manuscripts.
Is that an accurate descriptions of the NA/UBS Greek text?
In this meticulous analytical examination of the NA/UBS compilation, researcher James Edward Snapp Jr. demonstrated that it is NOT an accurate description by any normal definition of the term "eclectic."

Codex Sinaiticus:
Reliable or a Liability?
$8.88 paperback
Reviews on Amazon
are welcome

The World's Oldest Bible:  Reliable or a Liability? is a close (but not exhaustive) look at the message conveyed by the main text of Codex Sinaiticus (called "The World's Oldest Bible" in the title of Dr. D. C. Parker's book "Codex Sinaiticus - The Story of the World's Oldest Bible").  In this concisely worded volume, James Edward Snapp Jr. - citizen of the kingdom of God and specialist in the field of New Testament textual analysis (and definitely NOT a KJV-Onlyist) - tests the claim that the text of one of the "the oldest and best manuscripts" of the Bible means the same thing that a typical medieval Byzantine manuscript of the Gospels means. Collecting 60 translation-affecting variants from Matthew, 60 translation-affecting variants from Mark, 60 translation-impacting variants from Luke, and 100 translation-impacting variants from John, brother James offers an irrefutable answer to the question, "Is Codex Sinaiticus' text as reliable as the Byzantine text in the Gospels?".  James R, White fanboys take note.

A Word to John MacArthur Regarding His False Claims about Mark 16:9-20 is, as the title, suggests, a straightforward word to John MacArthur of Grace Community Church (in Sun Valley California USA addressing some of the erroneous claims he has shared (and, as of December 2023) continued to share via the Grace To You organization, pertaining to Mark 16:9-20 - twelve verses of the inspired and inerrant word of God.  This comes in large print so that even someone as blind to the evidence as John MacArthur can easily read the proof that Grace To You has spread, and continues to spread, ridiculous lies (did I say that out loud?) about 12 verses of inspired Scripture.  With the data in this book, the average congregation-member in John MacArthur's congregation will be well-equipped to refute MacArthur's preposterous claims, and to compose a stern rebuke to the Masters Seminary faculty for their failure to inform their boss that he sounded like a braying donkey who has no business attempting to teach textual criticism from the pulpit.

Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20 (Fourth Edition) is also available on Amazon in two formats:  digital e-book($9.99) and paperback ($25.00).
You may have read statements like these from trusted scholars:  
"Mark 16:9-20 is not in many of the oldest and most reliable manuscripts.”
"Mark 16:9-20 is not found in any manuscript until the 800s."
"Mark 16:9-20 was added over two centuries after the Gospel of Mark began to circulate.”
"Clement of Alexandria and Origen affirm that the Gospel of Mark ended at 16:8."

                STOP TRUSTING THEM.      

                                                                                  Those are all lies.

          In this book James Edward Snapp Jr. identifies some of the liars who have misled American and European readers, students, and congregations about Mark 16:9-20 - twelve verses of sacred Scripture. He also demonstrates the numerous errors committed by "parrot pseudo-scholars" -- individuals who basically paraphrase Bruce Metzger without conducting their own research -- and shows how incompetent and irresponsible (or just plain dense) authors such as James R White, John MacArthur, Craig Evans, James Edwards, N. T. Wright, Norman Geisler, Bart D. Ehrman and the late Bruce Manning Metzger have been in the course of leading astray (knowingly or unknowingly) many readers, students, and congregations about Mark 16:9-20.
            By thoroughly analyzing the evidence in Greek manuscripts, church writings, and more, James E. Snapp Jr. presents a decisive case for retaining Mark 16:9-20 in the Gospel of Mark, and for interpreting it and applying it reasonably to the lives of all believers, as the Christian church has done since the first century of her existence.

More titles and more translations (French, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, and more) editions are planned.  If you would like to write a review - just make sure it's honest, favorable or unfavorable - please contact me for a free text file; be sure to name the book you intend to review.

Mark 16:9-20 - Grace To You vs. The Evidence

 

            Watch the new video about the false claims that Grace To You has been spreading about Mark 16:9-20 for the past ten years on YouTube.            

It has been almost ten years since Dr. John MacArthur preached a sermon titled “The Fitting End to Mark’s Gospel,” in which he called Mark 16:9-20 a “bad ending.”  Since then, the ministry of Grace to You has promoted his claims over and over.

            But many of his claims are false.  I’m not challenging his doctrines here; I mean that  he says many things in that sermon that are flat-out untrue.  He says things that are fictitious.  In the next ten minutes, I will focus on just some of them.

(1)  John MacArthur says, “I would say there is massive evidence that the Holy Spirit not only inspired the Scripture but preserved it in its purity through all history.”   He also says, “There are twenty-five thousand ancient manuscripts of the New Testament.  Such an abundance preserved by the Holy Spirit through faithful men in the church makes it possible to reconstruct the original books with virtually complete accuracy.”

           There are 1,653 Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark.  Almost all of them – over 99% – include the 12 verses that MacArthur calls a “bad ending.”  There are just three Greek manuscripts in which the text of Mark ends at Mark 16:8.

            If “massive evidence” shows that the text of Scripture has been preserved in its purity through all history, then massive evidence also refutes MacArthur’s idea that Mark 16:9-20 should be rejected.  

            To put it another way:  if “massive evidence” – say, 99% of the Greek manuscripts,  99% of the Syriac manuscripts, 99% of the Latin manuscripts, and 100% of the Ethiopic manuscripts – is what shows us the text that the Holy Spirit has preserved for the church to use, then Mark 16:9-20 is part of that divinely-approved text.  But if, instead, we should rely on 1% of the Greek manuscripts, 1% of the Syriac manuscripts, 1% of the Greek manuscripts, and none of the Ethiopic manuscripts. what happens to MacArthur’s claim about “massive evidence”?  It disintegrates.  It dissolves into dust.

 

(2)  John MacArthur claims that after the Council of Nicea in 325, as Christianity became established as the religion of the Roman Empire, persecution ended, and starting then you have the proliferation of manuscripts.  “They all survived,” he said, “because no one is banning them or destroying them.”

            That claim is downright silly.  Even after Roman persecutions stopped, humidity still worked.  Outside the exceptionally dry climate of Egypt, papyrus manuscripts experienced natural decay.  Eusebius of Caesarea claimed that Emperor Constantine instructed him to make 50 manuscripts for churches in Constantinople.  Do we have 50 Greek manuscripts from the 300s?  No we do not.  The claim that “they all survived” is ridiculous.

 

(3) MacArthur demonstrated his ignorance of New Testament manuscripts again when he identified Codex Sinaiticus as “The earliest and most important of the Biblical texts that have been discovered.”  But Sinaiticus is not the earliest New Testament text; other substantial manuscripts, such as Papyrus 45, and Papyrus 46, are earlier. 

 

(4) As part of the basis for his rejection of Mark 16:9-20, MacArthur appeals to “Eight thousand copies of Jerome’s Vulgate.”  The thing is, in Jerome’s Vulgate, Mark 16:9-20 is included.  MacArthur also appealed to “Three hundred and fifty-plus copies of the Syriac Bible.”  But in the standard Syriac text, Mark 16:9-20 is included. 

 

(5)  MacArthur then says,  “When you compare all of these manuscripts, they’re all saying exactly the same thing.”

            But that is not true.  The text in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus is different from the text of the Vulgate, and it is different from the text of the Peshitta – and one difference is that the Syriac Peshitta and the Latin Vulgate include Mark 16:9-20.  When you compare the vast majority of the Greek, Latin, and Syriac manuscripts, they say the opposite of what MacArthur seems to think they say!

            If we’re going to say, “Let’s accept the text that is supported by all these Greek and  Latin and Syriac manuscripts,” we should be accepting Mark 16:9-20.    

 

(6)  John MacArthur tries to appeal to patristic quotations, claiming that “you can virtually put the entire New Testament together from the quotes of the fathers and it matches perfectly all other manuscript sources.”

      
      That claim is fiction.  You can easily demonstrate that it is fiction by picking up a textual apparatus and looking through the list of patristic writers who are listed as support for different rival readings.    

            But MacArthur doesn’t let the obviously false nature of his claim slow him down.  He keeps going:  he says, “There are over 19 thousand quotations of just the Gospels in their writings, and they read the Gospel text the very same way you read them in your Bible today.”   That is another fictitious claim.  MacArthur seems unaware that what he calls a “bad ending” is quoted far and wide by patristic writers from the days of the Roman Empire.

     

(7)  MacArthur continues to spread falsehoods when he compares the history of the transmission of the New Testament with the transmission of Homer’s Iliad.   He claims that “The oldest manuscript of the Iliad that we have is in the thirteenth century A.D.”  That is false.  There are dozens of fragments of the Iliad from way before the thirteenth century A.D.  Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 560, from the 200s, is just one example.  Are the personnel at Grace To You aware that John MacArthur is making these false claims?  Then why has  Grace To You been spreading them for the past 10 years?  Do they just not care?  It’s been ten years.  So much for the pretense that Grace To You believes that truth matters.    

 

(8)  John MacArthur says we can be confident that our English translations are accurate because “We have so many accurate, consistent manuscripts.”  But he’s not relying on many Greek manuscripts in this case; he is relying on three.  One is a medieval commentary-manuscript.  The two early ones are the ones that matter, and one of them has a distinct blank space that includes a whole column after Mark 16:8, and in the other one, the last page of Mark is written by a different scribe than the scribe who wrote the surrounding pages. 

            John MacArthur is thus rejecting the testimony of 1,653 Greek manuscripts, including early manuscripts such as Codex A, Codex C, and Codex D,  and he is basically depending on two Greek manuscripts.  And, inasmuch as they disagree with each other at 3,036 places in the Gospels, they can’t both be very “accurate, consistent” copies of the Gospels.     

(9)  MacArthur claims that “Somewhere along the line, they started piling up optional endings.”  But in real life, besides verses 9-20, there was just one other ending after verse 8:  the “Shorter Ending” – and that was in one particular locale:  Egypt.   It is preserved in eight Greek manuscripts, and all eight of them also support the usual 12 verses.   

            Let me say that again:  a total of eight Greek manuscripts have preserved one rival ending, along with the normal ending.  There is also one manuscript, Codex W, which has extra material between verse 14 and verse 15, but that is an interpolation, not an ending.  The claim that endings “started piling up” is rubbish and nonsense!  Anyone who tells you that there were “several endings” or “various endings” – I’m looking at you, Philip Comfort; I’m looking at you, New Living Translation footnote-maker – is deceiving his readers.     

 

(10)  MacArthur makes his false fantasy even falser, if it were possible, when he says that “Justin Martyr and Tatian show knowledge of other endings,” and that “Even Irenaeus shows knowledge of other endings starting to float around.”

         What Justin Martyr and Tatian and Irenaeus show is that they used a text of Mark that included Mark 16:9-20.  There is no evidence in their writings of any other ending.  MacArthur is just making things up!  Instead, he should state that  Irenaeus' quotation from Mark 16:19 in Against Heresies, Book 3, chapter 10, around the year 180, (long before Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were made in the 300s), it means that Irenaeus’ manuscripts of Mark 16 included verses 9-20.

 

             In conclusion:  I call on John MacArthur to retract the false claims that he has been spreading for the past ten years.  And I call on Grace To You to stop circulating the materials that contain and promote those false claims. 

             Until this is done, I say to everyone who regards John MacArthur as a reliable source of information about New Testament manuscripts, and to everyone who thinks of Grace To You as a responsible organization that would never promote false claims:  you have my pity.

The Mumpsimus Mentality

           In the summer of 1516, Desiderius Erasmus, who had compiled the first published printed Greek New Testament earlier that year, wrote an interesting letter to his friend Henry Bullock.  In that letter, he described his frustration with some people who objected to his translational and text-critical work on the grounds that he was introducing changes to the Scriptures:

Erasmus of Rotterdam

           “Do they allow any changes in Holy Writ, or none at all?  If they allow any, why not examine in the first place whether it is right or no to make the change?  If they do not, what will they make of those passages in which the existence of a corruption is too obvious to be denied or overlooked?  Would they rather imitate on this point the mass-priest who refused to change the word mumpsimus which he had used for twenty years, when someone told him that sumpsimus was what he ought to say?  They burst out in horror crying, ‘O heavens, o earth!  This man is correcting the Gospels!’  But with how much more justice one would cry out upon the man who fills them with error, ‘Rank sacrilege!  This man corrupts the Gospels!”¹

            Mumpsimus and sumpsimus?   What do these words mean?  Erasmus was referring to the traditional Latin prayer which is offered by Roman Catholic priests near the end of the Eucharist-service; the relevant line goes, “Quod ore sumpsimus Domine pura mente capiamus,” meaning, “May what we have received with our mouth, O Lord, be received with purity of mind.”  The scene pictured by Erasmus (popularized, with some embellishment, by Richard Pace shortly thereafter) is one in which a priest was in the habit of saying this part of the prayer with the term “mumpsimus,” which is not the correct Latin word (and which, if not for Erasmus inventing it, would not be a real word at all), and when a learned visitor priest told him (correctly) that he ought to say “sumpsimus” instead, replied that he would not abandon the traditional “mumpsimus” in favor of the new-fangled “sumpsimus.”

             The term “mumpsimus” quickly became a designation for incorrect things – whether incorrect forms of words, or incorrect interpretations, or incorrect textual decisions – that some people prefer merely because, as far as the people who prefer them are concerned, they have been favored by tradition.  The term “mumpsimus” is found in statements by William Tyndale, Thomas Cranmer, Henry VIII, and Hugh Latimer; Latimer, in a sermon in 1553 (two years before his martyrdom), memorably said, “Some be so obstinate in their old mumpsimus that they cannot abide the true doctrine of God.”

            One could say nowadays that there are some who are so sure about their old textual mumpsimus – poorly attested readings that are perpetuated in the Textus Receptus – that they cannot abide the original text.  In the case of readings for which there is barely a whiff of Greek manuscript-support, and even less Greek patristic support, what is the reason to prefer such poorly attested readings, except a preference for what is traditional over and above what is true?  

            It has been said by some defenders of the King James Version and its base-text that the Textus Receptus represents the “Antiochan line” of reliable manuscripts, as opposed to the Alexandrian line, which is represented by fewer (but older) manuscripts.  But the Textus Receptus contains some readings which most manuscripts do not support.  Consider the following ten readings from the Gospel of Matthew which are in both the Byzantine, or “Antiochan” Text (representing a large majority of manuscripts) and the Nestle-Aland compilation (representing mainly the Alexandrian text), contrasted with the KJV’s base-text: 

                                                               

● Matthew 4:18:  Περιπατων δε (And walking). 

              KJV/TR:  Περιπατων δε ο Ιησους (And Jesus, walking).   

● Matthew 5:27:  ερρεθη (it was said). 

              KJV/TR:  ερρεθη τοις αρχαίος (it was said by them of old time).

● Matthew 6:18:  αποδώσει σοι (shall reward thee).

              KJV/TR:  αποδώσει σοι εν τω φανερω (shall reward thee openly).

● Matthew 7:2:  μετρηθήσεται υμιν (it shall be measured to you). 

KJV/TR:  αντιμετρηθήσεται υμιν (it shall be measured to you again).

● Matthew 8:5 – Εισεθόντι δε  (And when he had entered). 

KJV/TR:  Εισεθόντι δε τω Ιηοου (And when Jesus was entered).

● Matthew 8:15 – και διηκόνει αυτω (And she arose and ministered unto him.) 

KJV/TR:  και διηκόνει αυτοις (And she arose and ministered unto them.) 

● Matthew 9:36 – εσκυλμένοι (harassed). 

KJV/TR:  εκλελυμένοι (fainted).

● Matthew 12:35 – θησαυρου (treasure). 

KJV/TR:  θησαυρου της καρδίας (treasure of the heart).

● Matthew 18:29 – και αποδώσω σοι (and I will pay thee).

KJV/TR:  και πάντα αποδώσω σοι (and I will pay thee all).

● Matthew 25:44 – Τότε αποκριθήσονται και αυτοι (Then shall they also answer).

KJV/TR:  Τότε αποκριθήσονται αυτω και αυτοι (Then shall they also answer him).  

Other minority-readings are scattered through the rest of the New Testament in the Textus Receptus,² and are reflected in the KJV; here are some samples:

● Ephesians 3:9 – οικονομία (dispensation, or, administration).

KJV/TR:  κοινωνια (fellowship).

● Philippians 4:3 – Ναι ερωτω και σε (Yes, I entreat thee also).

KJV/TR:  Και ερωτω και σε (And I entreat thee also). 

● Colossians 1:6 – και εστιν καρποφορούμενον και αυξανόμενον (and is bringing forth fruit, and is growing).

KJV/TR:  και εστιν καρποφορούμενον (and is bringing forth fruit).

● First Timothy 5:4 – τουτο γάρ εστιν απόδεκτον ενώπιον του Θεου (For that is acceptable before God).

KJV/TR:  τουτο γάρ εστιν καλον και απόδεκτον ενώπιον του Θεου (For that is good and acceptable before God).

● Second Timothy 2:19 – το ονομα Κυρίου (the name of the Lord).

KJV/TR:  το ονομα Χριστου (the name of Christ).

● Hebrews 12:20 – λιθοβοληθήσεται (it shall be stoned)

              KJV/TR:  λιθοβοληθήσεται η βολιδι κατατοξευθήσεται (it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart)

● First John 5:7-8 – Οτι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες, το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν (For there are three that bear record, the spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree in one.)

KJV/TR:  Οτι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τω ουρανω, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος, και το αγιον πνευμα· και ουτοι οι τρεις εν εισιν.  Και τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες εν τω γη, το πνευμα και το υδωρ και το αιμα και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν.  (For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one,  And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one).

● Revelation 22:19 – του ξύλου της ζωης (the tree of life).

KJV/TR:  του βίβλου της ζωης (the book of life).

In these 18 minority-readings, the causes of corruption in the Textus Receptus are usually not difficult to perceive: 

● Matthew 4:18:  Jesus’ name was added at the beginning of a lection.      

● Matthew 5:27:  Conformation to 5:21.

● Matthew 6:18:  Conformation to 6:4 and 6:6 (as read in the Byzantine Text).

● Matthew 7:2:  Harmonization to Luke 6:38.

● Matthew 8:5 – Jesus’ name was added at the beginning of a lection.

● Matthew 8:15 – Scribes were probably confused by an abbreviated word. 

● Matthew 9:36 – A quirk-reading, perhaps the result of Erasmus’ awareness of the reading in Codex Regius (L).

● Matthew 12:35 – Harmonization to Luke 6:45.  

● Matthew 18:29 – Conformation to 18:26.

● Matthew 25:44 – Conformation to 25:37.     

● Ephesians 3:9 – An exemplar was misread (or miswritten).

● Philippians 4:3 – An exemplar was misread (or miswritten).

● Colossians 1:6 – A parableptic error (-μενον, -μενον).

● First Timothy 5:4 – Harmonization to 2:3. 

● Second Timothy 2:19 – An interchange of sacred-name contractions; the more specific name was written to replace the less specific name.

● Hebrews 12:20 – An expansion to conform more precisely to a Septuagint-reading. 

● First John 5:7-8 – An expansion added (initially in an Old Latin transmission-line) as an allegorical interpretation of the three transposed witnesses “the water, the blood, and the spirit.”

● Revelation 22:19 – A result of Erasmus’ retro-translation of the last six verses of Revelation from a form of the Latin Vulgate.

                     

              The sense of all 18 of these readings has been perpetuated in English (and other languages) for hundreds of years, but that does not make them the original text that God inspired.  At every one of these 18 points, the Textus Receptus departs from the Byzantine Text, and simultaneously disagrees with the Alexandrian Text as well.  What may appear to be the “traditional” reading, from the perspective of an individual who knows the Scriptures primarily via the KJV, has the support (in these 18 places) of neither the most numerous manuscripts, nor the oldest manuscripts, nor the most widespread manuscripts, and internal considerations point toward an origin for each one that is elsewhere than in the autographs. 

              Since the Textus Receptus’ readings at these points are not original, they should not be considered authoritative.  There is no good reason to make the original text give up its seat to the creations of scribes.

              Nevertheless there are some individuals who insist that each and every word of the Textus Receptus must be original.  This is mainly because they have misinterpreted passages about the eternality and immutability of God’s Word as if those passages mean that every letter, and every part of a letter – every jot and tittle – must be available to the people of God, at all times.  After all – as Bart Ehrman and John MacArthur have said – why inspire the words without preserving them? 

              This approach has gained some momentum in parts of Reformed Protestantism.  Some individuals who subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith have pointed to its affirmations as if they express such a view – particularly the affirmation that the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek “being immediately inspired by God, and, by his singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal unto them.”  Working from the premise that “kept pure” must mean “preserved exactly,” these individuals proceed to deduce that inasmuch as the formulators of the Westminster Confession of Faith used the Textus Receptus, the Textus Receptus should be regarded 100% as the original text. 

              Such an approach requires some rather acrobatic reasoning.  The formulators and past defenders of the Westminster Confession of Faith do not seem to have harbored objections against the practice of textual criticism; they seem to have acquiesced to the textual research undertaken by James Ussher, Francis Turretin, Gerardus Vossius, Brian Walton, John Lightfoot, Edward Pococke, Patrick Young, et al in the 1600s.  Certainly their predecessors in the 1500s did not object to the textual research that resulted in the different compilations that they used; even the Elzevirs in the 1620s and 1630s were still tweaking their Greek compilations (for example, in Mark 4:18 and Second Timothy 1:12).  And Benjamin Blayney was neither executed nor excommunicated when he undertook a mild revision of the KJV in 1769, in which dozens of textual changes were introduced.³

              Those who exaggerate and inflate the Westminster Confession’s statement that God has kept the text of Scripture “pure in all ages,” so as to insist that the Textus Receptus is indistinguishable from the original text in every detail, contort their creed and the Scriptures themselves, and ignore historical facts.  For where and when did a Greek manuscript contain a text identical to the Textus Receptus in all respects, with αὐτῶν in Luke 2:22, and with και ὁ ἐσόομενος in Revelation 16:5, and with the 18 minority-readings already listed?  If it were true that the Textus Receptus has been kept pure in all ages, completely unchanged, then the answer would be, “All the time in all places,” but our manuscripts say, “Nowhere and never.”  

              So-called Confessional Bibliology assumes that if a variant circulated in print in the 1500s and early 1600s, it must be authentic, and on that premise, many variants which are found in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts are rejected by adherents of this approach, and are allowed to be usurped by scribal corruptions.

              Such an approach is fundamentally unsound.

              Consider geocentrism.  Some individuals not only believe that the sun revolves around the earth, but that the sun must revolve around the earth or else the Bible is not true.  Empirical evidence is superfluous to these individuals; Scripture, they say, decides the question.  But they are not truly being led by Scripture; they are misled by their flawed interpretations of Scripture.

              Confessional Bibliology is the textual equivalent of geocentrism.  Positing the idea of “verbal plenary preservation” by asserting that various passages in the Bible require one to believe that the Greek text of the New Testament has been preserved completely intact in its pristine form, they proceed to claim that the text has providentially been made available to the church in every age, and from there, they proceed to claim that the Textus Receptus must be the original text, dismissing observable evidence that forcefully shows that the Textus Receptus contains some scribal corruptions.    Regardless of how these individuals insist that they are defending God’s integrity, I have no doubt that if Erasmus could see them, he would undoubtedly declare that they are overly attached to their mumpsimus.   

_______________

Footnotes

1 – See Letter #456 on page 46 of The Correspondence of Erasmus, Letters 446 to 593, 1516 to 1517 (Volume 4), translated by R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson, and annotated by James K. McConica.  © University of Toronto Press, 1977. 

2 – Dr. Daniel Wallace has reported that he counted 1,838 differences between the Hodges-Farstad Majority Text and the 1825 edition of the Textus Receptus.  A substantial number of these differences, however, consist of readings that are only discernible in printed editions of the text, and which would not be perceptible in manuscripts written in scriptio continua, and with contracted sacred names.  An even greater number of the differences counted by Wallace are incapable of having an impact on translation. 

3 – It should also be observed that many Reformed ministries, such as Ligonier Ministries and some members of The Gospel Coalition, presently promote the Westminster Confession of Faith and yet routinely use English versions with New Testament base-texts that reject hundreds of readings found in the Textus Receptus.  

Mark 16:9-20: A Quiz for Grace To You

          Some friends have suggested that my previous post was too accusatory.  I disagree, since I was raising the point that if someone were to continue to spread falsehoods knowing that they are false, then such a person would be a liar.  This should be obvious to everyone.  Nevertheless, since not everyone sees things from the same perspective, it seems fitting to recast my points, via this simple quiz.  

            If you know anyone associated with John MacArthur, or Grace To You, or The Master’s Seminary, or The Master’s University, or Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, please share this quiz with them.  For as far as I can tell, everyone supervising those ministries and schools is unaware that they are responsible for the spread of a lot of false statements about Mark 16:9-20.

 

1.  T or F:  New Testament copyists wrote one letter, and then took a bath, and then wrote another letter, and took a bath, and so forth.

2.  T or F:  All manuscripts of the New Testament survived after the Council of Nicea in 325.

3.  T or F:  The earliest copies of Biblical texts are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.

4.  T or F:  Codex Vaticanus contains both the Old Testament and the New Testament, as we (evangelicals) know them.

5.  T or F:  We have 8,000 Latin manuscripts going back to the fourth century.

6.  T or F:  There are 350 Syriac copies that go back to the 200s.

7.  T or F:  When you compare all the Greek, Latin, and Syriac manuscripts, they're all saying exactly the same thing.

8.  T or F:  It is possible to reconstruct the entire New Testament from 32,000 Scripture-quotations made by patristic writers.

9.  T or F:   A reconstruction of the New Testament based on patristic quotations will match perfectly all other manuscript sources.

10.  T or F:  Over 19,000 quotations from the Gospels in patristic writings read the Gospel text the very same way you read them in your Bible today.

11.  T or F:  The original text of the New Testament was preserved and protected as it was passed down. (Remember, this is in the context of a talk about Mark 16:9-20, which is supported by every Greek manuscript of Mark 16 made after the 300s except one, minuscule 304, a commentary-manuscript.)

12.  T or F:  We have so many accurate, consistent manuscripts that we know without hesitation that the ESV is an English translation of the original with no loss.

13.  T or F:  There are no manuscripts of Homer’s Iliad from between the thirteenth century A.D. and the eighth century B.C.

14.  T or F:  Irenaeus was aware of more than one way in which the Gospel of Mark ended.

15.  T or F:  Justin Martyr and Tatian were aware of more than one way in which the Gospel of Mark ended.

16.  T or F:  Several endings to the Gospel of Mark were composed to help Mark a little bit with his abrupt ending.

           Anyone familiar with the relevant evidence about Mark 16:9-20 should perceive that the correct answer to every question in the quiz is “False.”  But if you believe a video that Grace To You is circulating online, you would conclude that the correct answer to every one of these questions is “True.”  John MacArthur promoted every one of those claims in that video.  I call upon Grace To You to stop spreading those false claims, and I hope that others will join me in the effort.  This is not about making judgments about personal integrity; it is about stopping the spread of false claims.  There is no need to remind preachers such as John MacArthur and distinguished ministries such as Grace To You that it is wrong to spread false claims; what is needed is for their friends to explain to them that that is what they have been doing.

            Post-script:  I will gladly send a free copy of my book Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20 to any staff-member of Grace To You, any faculty-member of The Master’s Seminary, and any member of Grace Community Church who contacts me and requests one.

Mark 16:9-20: Does John MacArthur Know What He's Talking About?

John MacArthur

            Grace To You, a California-based ministry, is still spreading the false statements about Mark 16:9-20 that are found in John MacArthur’s infamous sermon, The Fitting End to Mark’s Gospel.  Here are some of them.           

● MacArthur conveyed that copyists of New Testament books wrote one letter, and then took a bath, and then wrote another letter, and took a bath, and so forth.  This is false.  When Grace To You spreads this sort of nonsensical fable, they insult viewers’ intelligence.

● MacArthur said that all manuscripts of the New Testament survived after the Council of Nicea in 325 because no one was banning them or destroying them.  This is false.  The natural effects of humidity destroyed many papyrus manuscripts.  There were still areas where Christianity was opposed.  And there are many cases in which Christians themselves destroyed ancient manuscripts by recycling their parchment to use as material with which to make new books.             

● MacArthur stated that the earliest copies of Biblical texts are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.  This is false, inasmuch as the Dead Sea Scrolls are older than those two manuscripts, and so are some New Testament papyrus manuscripts (P52, P104, P45, et al).

● MacArthur said that Codex Vaticanus contains both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  It should be clarified however that Codex Vaticanus does not contain the books of First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation; in addition, the Old Testament text in Codex Vaticanus is a Greek text, primarily a form of the Septuagint, which includes apocryphal books  (Tobit, Bel and the Dragon, etc.) and which varies in many other respects from the Hebrew-based English translations that MacArthur uses and endorses.

● MacArthur, referring to Latin manuscripts, conveyed that there are “eight thousand copies going back to the fourth century” but what ought to be said is that the Vulgate was translated in the fourth century, and our extant copies of the Vulgate were produced later.  There were later revisions of the Vulgate, such as the revision undertaken by Charlemagne’s scholar-advisor Alcuin.  It is not as if all existing copies of the Vulgate read the same as the Vulgate as it existed at the end of the fourth century.

● MacArthur stated, referring to Syriac manuscripts, “There are 350 copies that go back to the 200s, very ancient manuscripts.”  In real life, the number of Syriac manuscripts with text from the New Testament that were made in the 200s is zero.  There are two major Syriac manuscripts that represent an early Syriac text of the Gospels (not the whole New Testament).  The 350 Syriac manuscripts to which MacArthur refers are copies of the Peshitta, a translation which scholars such as Syriac-specialist Sebastian Brock do not consider earlier than the late 300s in terms of its creation.  In terms of the production-dates of manuscripts of the Peshitta, its representative manuscripts are all significantly later than the 200s.   

● MacArthur, after describing Greek, Latin, and Syriac manuscripts, said, “When you compare all of these manuscripts, they’re all saying exactly the same thing.”  That is outrageously false – so false than it must be concluded, if one assumes that MacArthur had no desire to deceive, that MacArthur does not know very much at all about the contents of ancient manuscripts of the New Testament.  It boggles the mind that MacArthur was capable of saying such a thing in the course of a sermon in which he rejected Mark 16:9-20, because in those thousands of copies of the Vulgate, and in those dozens of copies of the Peshitta, Mark 16:9-20 is in the text.  MacArthur makes it seem as if the opposite is the case.  Grace To You spreads this severe misrepresentation of the evidence every day they keep MacArthur’s sermon online.      

● MacArthur claimed that using 32,000 Scripture-quotations made by patristic writers, it is not only possible to reconstruct the entire New Testament, but that “it matches perfectly all other manuscript sources.”  This too is absurd.  Dozens of patristic writers, in the era of the Roman Empire, quoted from Mark 16:9-20 and used the passage as Scripture; this alone proves that what can be reconstructed from patristic quotations does not match perfectly with “all other manuscript sources.”  A brief investigation of practically any major patristic writers – Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil of Jerusalem, Chrysostom – will show that their quotations do not match perfectly with each other, let alone with “all other manuscript sources.”  MacArthur’s claim about this is preposterous, and the staff of Grace To You should be ashamed to participate in the circulation of such nonsense. 

● MacArthur claimed that over 19 thousand quotations from the Gospels in patristic writings “read the Gospel text the very same way you read them in your Bible today.”  This is not just one absurdity, but a stack of absurdities, a tower of absurdities.  It is a statement which can only be made by an honest man if he has vigilantly avoided studying the materials about which he is speaking.  Anyone who picks up an ordinary UBS Greek New Testament and reads its textual apparatus with a modicum of understanding will see that there are hundreds of textual contests in which some patristic writers favor one reading, and other patristic writers favor a rival reading.  Grace to You should not expect to be trusted while it spreads claims that are refuted by a basic familiarity with the evidence.    

For more data,
watch my 26-minute video
John MacArthur and
the Ending of Mark. 

● MacArthur conveyed that the original text of the New Testament was “preserved and protected as it was passed down.”  Without testing this claim, I merely wish to raise a point:  considering that out of 1,670 Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, only three end the text at 16:8, how can MacArthur say one minute that the original text has been preserved and protected as the text was passed down, and then say the next minute that 99.8% of the Greek manuscripts of Mark contain a “bad ending” that shouldn’t be there? 

● MacArthur explicitly appeals to the number of manuscripts as evidence of the preservation of the original text:  “we have so many accurate, consistent manuscripts that we know without hesitation that what we hold in our hands is an English translation of the original with no loss.”  By “many,” he cannot mean three.  But if he were to consult 99.8% of the Greek manuscripts of Mark (plus lectionaries, in which Mark 16:9-20 is routinely found), he would find the passage that he rejects!  The moment one posits that the text of the vast majority of manuscripts is the text that should be accepted without hesitation, one surrenders any objection against Mark 16:9-20.

● MacArthur claimed that the oldest manuscript we have of Homer’s Iliad is from the thirteenth century A.D.:  “We don’t have anything between the thirteenth century and the eighth century B.C. of Homer’s Iliad.”  That is false,  Over two dozen fragments of the Iliad exist which were produced before the thirteenth century A.D.  Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 560, from the 200’s, is just one example.

● MacArthur claimed that Irenaeus, a prominent Christian writer in the 100s, was aware of “other endings starting to float around.”  This too is false.  In real life, Irenaeus – writing well over a century before Codex Vaticanus was made – clearly quoted Mark 16:19, stating that he was quoting from near the end of Mark’s Gospel-account.  This shows that as far as Irenaeus’ manuscripts of Mark were concerned (and Irenaeus had been in Asia Minor, and southern Gaul, and Rome), the Gospel of Mark ended with verses 9-20.  Contrary to MacArthur’s claim, the only way in which the Gospel of Mark ended, as far as we can tell from Irenaeus’ testimony, is with verses 9-20 included.  Irenaeus does not express an awareness of the existence of manuscripts of Mark that end at the end of verse 8.  Irenaeus does not indicate in any way that he is aware of manuscripts of Mark that end with the “Shorter Ending.”  MacArthur’s statement about Irenaeus is 100% fictitious and 100% misleading. 

● MacArthur claims that two other second-century writers – Justin Martyr and Tatian – also “show knowledge of other endings.”  This too is false.  The only ending of Mark attested in any way by Justin Martyr and Tatian is the ending that consists of verses 9-20.   

For even more data,
read my book Authentic:
The Case for Mark 16:9-20.

● MacArthur claims that several endings were composed by people who tried “to help Mark a little bit with his abrupt ending.”  However this too is false; exactly one alternative ending, the Shorter Ending, was created in Egypt, where the text had formerly circulated with no words after the end of verse 8.  Except for the Shorter Ending – which stands alone after (most of) Mark 16:8 in exactly one Latin manuscript, and which appears along with verses 9-20 (or at least verse 9; incidental damage having affected the rest) in six Greek manuscripts (sometimes in the margin, sometimes with notes – see my book for details) – there are no endings of Mark after 16:8 that do not involve the presence of verses 9-20.  When Grace To You spreads the claim that “several endings” were floating around, as if referring to several independent compositions, Grace To You misleads people.

    

            And where are the faculty members of The Masters Seminary on this subject?  Where are the staff-members of Grace To You?  Or the officers of Grace Community Church?  These trusted men are entirely silent as far as I can tell – either too scared, too apathetic, too distracted, or too misinformed to adequately address the wild inaccuracies that are being spread daily by their school’s founder.      

            Grace To You, you have one proper course of action:  take down the video in which John MacArthur makes these false claims.  This is not about debatable points of theology; this is not even about whether or not Mark 16:9-20 belongs in the text.  It is about whether Grace To You’s leadership and staff want to spread false statements, or not.    

            Any teacher who aspires to inform listeners, rather than misinform them, would be happy to improve his work by removing false claims.  If Dr. MacArthur and Grace To You do not stop spreading these claims, having been informed that the claims are false, the only conclusion that can reasonably be drawn is that these men continue to spread false claims because they have decided to do so.  I do not mean for this to be construed as an accusation but rather as an invitation:  please show me, Dr. MacArthur and Grace To You, that you do not want to continue to spread false claims.