The Kloha-Montgomery Debate - Some Thoughts

          On October 15, John Warwick Montgomery and Jeffrey Kloha engaged in a debate about the theological implications of the text-critical method known as thoroughgoing eclecticism.  However, while Dr. Kloha seems to have intended to describe thoroughgoing eclecticism and explain how it is consistent with conservative Lutheran theology (including the doctrine of inerrancy, which Dr. Kloha specifically affirmed), Dr, Montgomery seems to have approached the debate with the goal of questioning Dr. Kloha’s role as a Lutheran professor, asking, “How realistic is it that someone with his biblical orientation teach future pastors of that church body?”

Dr. Jeffrey Kloha
(Concordia Seminary, St. Louis)

            Inasmuch as Kloha affirms the doctrine of inerrancy, and is, as far as I can tell, doctrinally a Lutheran’s Lutheran, what is it that caused Montgomery to accuse Kloha of promoting a text-critical approach that is “deadly,” and which poses “great dangers” for the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy”?  My impression is that Montgomery’s accusations are completely based on Montgomery’s misunderstanding of Kloha’s positions, Montgomery's misunderstanding of thoroughgoing eclecticism, and Montgomery's inaccurate ideas about text-critical praxis in general.      

            Montgomery’s misunderstanding of text-critical praxis in general is evident in the first of four recommendations that he made:  “Refuse to tolerate textual philosophies that employ internal (stylistic) criteria as the preferred standard for the choice of readings.”  At the debate, Montgomery insisted that he does not object to the utilization of internal evidence – as long as the external evidence is primary.  But one might as well say that one does not object to data as long as one does not analyze it. 
            Let’s take a closer look at two of Kloha’s treatments of the New Testament text which Montgomery found objectionable.  It is not easy to find actual critiques of Kloha’s work in the first six pages of Montgomery’s paper; there are multiple warnings, but not until page 7 do we get a glimpse of a sample of what is being warned against:
            ● Kloha rejects the Alexandrian reading of First Corinthians 7:33-34, which, Montgomery states, is “based on the foundational MSS P15 B P.”  Bruce Metzger, in A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (1971), noted that the variant-unit at the beginning of I Cor. 7:34 had a “D” ranking – meaning that the United Bible Societies’ compilation-committee acknowledged “a very high degree of doubt concerning the reading selected for the text.”  When you observe that the compilers themselves harbor “a very high degree of doubt” about this passage, you might wonder why Montgomery has not accused them of falling into a methodological ditch, as he has accused Kloha.  Montgomery’s approach causes the copyist of Papyrus 46, and the copyists of over 95% of the Greek manuscripts of First Corinthians, to join Kloha in that ditch; they, too, do not have the same text of I Cor. 7:33-34 that is in the NA/UBS compilation.              

            Furthermore, when one consults these three “foundational MSS” in I Cor. 7:33-34 – as Kloha did in painstaking detail in his dissertation, reviewing not just one, or four, but eight Greek variant-units within these two verses – one observes that they disagree with each other in these two verses.  Codex B, for example, does not have the words τα του κοσμου (“of the world”).  So which one of these three disagreeing manuscripts does Montgomery consider “foundational” in this two-verse passage?  And how does he intend, I wonder, to make a case that its readings are “archetypal” without giving internal evidence a decisive role in his considerations? 

            ● Kloha advocates a view which, if accepted, would mean that “no pastor should preach I Corinthians 8:6 as if it were the Word of God,” or so Montgomery claimed.  In real life, however, Montgomery has misquoted and densely misunderstood Kloha’s statement (in his dissertation, Part Two, p. 717), “only after a highly-developed Trinitarian theology took hold could the addition at 8:6 have been made.”  Montgomery misquoted this sentence by replacing the word “at” with the word “of.”  Compounding his error, he then concluded (which he would never have done if he had carefully read Kloha’s comments about I Cor. 8:6 in the section in Part One that focuses upon the passage) that Kloha meant that I Cor. 8:6 is not an original part of the text.          

Dr. John Warwick Montgomery

          Montgomery then stated:  “It is clear that Kloha agrees here with Bart Ehrman:  “As Ehrman has argued, at least some passages of the NT manuscripts have been altered in light of the christological controversites with which the scribes presumably, would have been familiar.”  Montgomery also agrees with Ehrman, at least a little; he just did not realize it at the debate.  For the “addition at [not “of”] 8:6” refers to an interpolation, found in a handful of manuscripts, adding a reference to the Holy Spirit (και εν Πνευμα Αγιον εν ω τα παντα και ημεις εν αυτω).  Nobody, including Montgomery, regards this variant as part of the original text of First Corinthians 8:6.  Clearly, Montgomery is barking up the wrong tree.           

            But what about Kloha’s analysis of Luke 1:46?  Kloha has offered a text-critical case that the original text of Luke 1:46 had no proper name after “And said” (Και ειπεν), which would mean, (1) all the known Greek manuscripts of Luke contain a scribal corruption at this point, and (2) it was Elizabeth, rather than Mary, who spoke the Magnificat.  Somehow this single variant-unit became the focus of much of the Kloha-Montgomery debate.  I intend to take a closer look at that, and at thoroughgoing eclecticism, in my next post.

The 2014 Pericope Adulterae Symposium: Part 1: John David Punch: Ecclesiastical Suppression of the PA

On April 25-26, I had the pleasure of attending the conference on John 7:53-8:11 (the Pericope Adulterae) that was held at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.  Five scholars answered the following questions and explained their answers: 

            (1)  Is this passage original to John’s Gospel, or is it a later interpolation?

            (2)  Should it be proclaimed or proscribed?

This conference was very timely, because earlier in 2014, calls for the removal of John 7:53-8:11 from the text of the Gospel of John were made online by Dr. Jim Hamilton (of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Kentucky), Dr. Owen Strachan (of Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky), and Dr. Denny Burk (also of Boyce College).  Daniel Wallace, of Dallas Theological Seminary (where Hamilton studied), has been expressing the same sentiment since 2008.  Andreas J. Köstenberger (of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary), in his 2004 commentary (in the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series), likewise declared that these 12 verses “should not be regarded as part of the Christian canon.”

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John David Punch went first – which is always a tough position, since the first presenter can’t easily react to the others, but they can respond to him.  His view is that that pericope adulterae is genuine and that it was ecclesiastically suppressed by some pious church-authorities who felt that the story was likely to cause simple-minded readers to view adultery as a minor and easily overlooked offense. 

Punch offered several pieces of internal evidence to support the Johannine character of the PA, or, at least, to answer charges that it is non-Johannine.  Rather than interrupting the surrounding text in chapters seven and eight, the PA is consistent with its context.  The imagery of Jesus writing with His finger, as a prelude to the dispensing of divine mercy, is just the sort of contrast with Moses (who gave the Law written by the finger of God; cf. Exodus 31:38) that one might expect from John.  Jesus’ instruction to “Sin no more” is very similar to His words in John 5:14.  

Punch also pointed out that (as Alan Johnson as observed) the charge that the vocabulary used in the PA is non-Johannine is greatly reduced when one considers, first, that John 2:13-17 has roughly congruent proportions of once-used words and Lukan words, and, second, that the PA has several Johannine features, and, third, that 8:12 does not (contrary to the claims of some commentators) smoothly interlock with 7:52:  the scene at the end of 7:52 is a gathering of the chief priests and Pharisees and their officers, without Jesus present, whereas Jesus is present with them (and the rest of the crowd) in 8:12.  Punch also briefly reviewed the external Greek evidence, noting that the evidence for the omission of the PA is early but is mainly limited, textually, to the Alexandrian text and, geographically, to the vicinity of Egypt.       

            

Turning to patristic evidence, Punch pointed out that the non-use of the PA by some patristic writers may be an effect of their (or their predecessors’) reluctance to preach about the passage in church-services.  Ambrose and Augustine, both of whom accepted the passage, convey that some individuals regarded the story of the adulteress as a risky passage to entrust to those who might be looking for an excuse for sin.  The loss of the PA in the early Alexandrian transmission-line was probably initiated by a bold editor who was similarly motivated.

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Some thoughts:

I felt that Punch’s case would have been more forceful if he had selectively utilized some of Burgon’s (and Ehrman’s) points about orthodox corruptions (see Burgon’s “Causes of Corruption,” pages 211-231), so as to show that some orthodox individuals boldly removed theologically difficult words, phrases, and verses from their exemplars so as to protectively prevent misunderstandings or misapplications; while the removal of the PA would be (if Punch is correct) the largest such orthodox excision, it would thus be special only in terms of its size.  Another point that might favor his theory is that in the early churches, if forgiveness was granted to a Christian who, after baptism, committed adultery, it was only after a long period of penance.  If, sometime in the 100’s, opponents of such a strict standard appealed to the PA as a basis for leniency, a ruthless bishop might react by removing the passage. 

In the Q-&-A time, I asked Dr. Punch why those who found the PA offensive to pious sensibilities would be offended by the opening verses 7:53-8:2, and remove those three verses along with the rest.  He acknowledged that this is not easy to explain.