Dr. Wallace’s essay promotes several false impressions. I am concerned that Dr. Wallace’s students and other readers may, as a result of the false impressions elicited by his essay, harbor some unjustified doubts about the adequacy of the King James Version. I am particularly concerned about ten subjects that were presented by Dr. Wallace in a misleading or unbalanced way. I intend to concisely address the following questions:
1. Were
the compilers of the Textus Receptus
limited to a few late manuscripts?
2. What
about the disputed phrase in First John 5:7-8?3. How extensive are scribal errors in the KJV?
4. Does a manuscript’s age automatically improve its text?
5. Does the Revised Text always follow the oldest
6. Are scribal additions more frequent than scribal omissions?
7. Are the compilers of the Revised Text objectively following the best manuscripts?
8. Do
9. Is textual stability important?
10. What about obscure terminology?
I will also cover some miscellaneous points. Here in Part One, we will cover the first five questions.
1. WERE THE
COMPILERS OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS IN
THE 1500’S LIMITED TO A FEW LATE MANUSCRIPTS?
Dr.
Wallace gave readers the impression that the KJV was based directly and
exclusively on the Greek text edited by Erasmus in the early 1500s, and that the
first edition of Erasmus’ Greek text was a carelessly printed representation of
a carelessly compiled text: “the most
poorly edited volume in all of literature.”
That is not an accurate description.
Instead of taking the time to dissect Dr. Wallace’s assertion, though, I
wish to stress that no one should imagine that after Erasmus produced his Greek
text in 1516, the next important event happened in 1611 when the
KJV-translators finished translating it into English. There are other important links in the chain
of events that led to the KJV. The
Complutensian Polyglot was published in 1520.
Robert Estienne (Stephanus) produced editions of the Greek New Testament
in the mid-1500s. Theodore Beza’s
second edition of the Greek New Testament was released in 1582. John Calvin’s Harmony of the Three
Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke and his Commentary on John, in both
of which Calvin addressed some textual variants, were translated into English
in 1584.
It is not
difficult to see why Dr. Wallace did not mention the Complutensian Polyglot, or
the Greek New Testaments produced by Stephanus and Beza. These works were made more carefully than
Erasmus’ first edition. Also, it cannot
be truthfully stated that these works were made without consulting early
manuscripts. Beza used Codex Bezae,
which has been assigned a date of c. 400 by text-critic D. C. Parker. Stephanus made annotations about the readings
of Codex Regius (L, 019), a Gospels-MS which was produced in the 700s, and
which is ranked by advocates of the Revised Text as one of the most accurate
extant copies of the Gospels. Erasmus
used Codex 1, which is related to the Gospels-text used by Origen in the first
half of the 200s. When Erasmus visited England
Erasmus also accessed the extensive quotations of the New Testament embedded in many patristic writings, such as Against Heresies, by the second-century bishop Irenaeus. He personally hand-copied some compositions by Jerome, who worked in the late 300s and early 400s. And in 1533, a supervisor of the Vatican Library at Rome provided Erasmus with a list of over 300 readings of Codex Vaticanus, the flagship manuscript of the Revised Text.
It would be hard to tell readers that these ancient sources were known to the scholars who compiled the text-base of the KJV, and then expect readers to believe the claim that the KJV was based on a few late manuscripts. So Dr. Wallace decided not to mention those ancient sources. Instead, he used First John 5:7 as Exhibit A in his case that “Very few of the distinctive King James readings are demonstrably ancient.”
We will look into First John 5:7-8 in the next entry.
2. WHAT ABOUT THE DISPUTED PHRASE IN FIRST JOHN 5:7-8?
Dr. Wallace has repaired Bruce
Metzger’s fictitious tale about a “rash promise” made by Erasmus about the Comma Johanneum (the phrase, “in
heaven: the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Spirit, and these three are one.
And there are three that bear witness on earth”). However, more needs to be said. I do not regard the CJ as part of the
original text. The Comma Johanneum (which I’ll call “CJ”) probably began as a loose quotation
of a statement by the third-century patristic writer Cyprian which was placed
in the margin of a Latin copy of First John, and was subsequently inserted into
the text. But consider how things stood in the 1500s and early 1600s:
Most copies of the Vulgate text of First John contain the CJ,
and since the Vulgate represents a text from the late 300’s, that was a strong
point in favor of the CJ.
The CJ, or something closely resembling it, is attested in
the Liber Apologeticus, which was
written in the 380’s: “As John says,
‘and there are three which give testimony on earth, the water, the flesh the
blood, and these three are in one, and there are three which give testimony in
heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ
Jesus.’”
The
author of the Prologue to the Canonical
(i.e., Catholic) Epistles in the
important Latin manuscript Codex Fuldensis (made in 546) mentions the CJ: after referring to the place “where we
read the unity of the Trinity laid down in the Epistle of John,” he states,
“I found translators (or copyists) widely deviating from the truth; who set
down in their own edition the names only of the three witnesses, that is, the
Water, Blood, and Spirit; but omit the testimony of the Father, the Word, and
the Holy Spirit; by which, above all places, the Divinity of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit is proved to be one.” The CJ is not in the text of Codex Fuldensis,
but clearly it was known and confidently advocated by someone in the mid-500’s.
In
addition, the Greek text in the Complutensian Polyglot contained the CJ. When one also considers that a statement by
Cyprian (which, as I mentioned already, is probably the source of the CJ) and a
statement by Claudius Apollinaris of Hierapolis seemed capable of being
interpreted as support for the CJ, it is not difficult to see why many
individuals in Europe in the 1500’s, who did not have access to an abundance of
ancient Greek copies of First John, regarded the CJ as authentic.
(We
don’t have access to an abundance of ancient Greek copies of First John today,
either. Out of the 660 or so extant continuous-text
Greek manuscripts of any part of the Catholic Epistles, only about a dozen Greek
copies earlier than the 800s contain First John. If you have a copy of D.C. Parker’s Introduction
to NT MSS and Their Texts, there’s a helpful chart with data to this effect
on pages 284-285.)
The
CJ is, though, one of the most weakly supported variants in the Textus Receptus. Its low level of support is not typical. However, Dr. Wallace makes it seem as if this
is just one of hundreds of meaning-affecting variants in the Textus Receptus that are not supported
by ancient evidence. He writes: “Very few of the distinctive King James
readings are demonstrably ancient.” We
shall test his claim shortly.
3. IS THE KJV FILLED
WITH SCRIBAL ERRORS?
Dr.
Wallace claimed, “The King James Bible is filled with readings which have been
created by overly zealous scribes!” Later
in the very same essay, Dr. Wallace says, “Over 98% of the time, the Textus Receptus and the standard
critical editions agree.” How is it that
a text agrees with the Revised Text over 98% of the time and is filled with scribal errors?
It looks like Dr. Wallace has used the phrase “filled with” as a synonym
for “less than 2% of the time.”
I
don’t think more needs to be said about that; if Dr. Wallace’s claim that the
KJV’s text-base and the modern versions’ text-base agree about 98% agreement is
correct, then his claim that the Textus Receptus is “filled with” scribal
errors is an exaggeration. Let’s move on
his next claim.
4. DOES THE AGE OF A
MANUSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY IMPROVE ITS TEXT?
Dr.
Wallace wrote, “Most textual critics just happen to embrace the reasonable
proposition that the most ancient MSS tend to be more reliable since they stand
closer to the date of the autographs.” That
is a carefully worded statement. I hope
that all readers will read it carefully, so that the words “tend to be” will not
be misinterpreted as “are.”
Unfortunately footnotes in modern translations of the Revised Text fail
to express that important distinction.
The age of
a manuscript is just one factor to consider when evaluating the quality of its
text. The oldest extant manuscripts are,
by definition, those that have survived the longest. They have survived the longest because of the
conditions in which they were preserved.
Early copies of New Testament books were written on papyrus, and the
climate of Egypt Egypt Antioch Constantinople ? It all depends on
how faithfully the text was copied in Egypt Antioch Constantinople . And that’s the
point: it all depends on how well the
copyists preserved the text, not on how well the climate preserved the material
upon which the text was written.
5. THE REVISED TEXT VERSUS THE OLDEST
Dr. Wallace gave his readers the impression that the Revised Text is superior to the Byzantine Text because the Revised Text contains the oldest readings. However, when we take the time to wade through the earliest readings and compare them to the Revised Text, it becomes clear that the compilers of the Revised Text have frequently rejected the oldest readings. Let’s consider some of the readings in the oldest manuscripts of Mark chapter 7.
Mark 7:4a: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus both read the Greek equivalent of “pour upon themselves,” but this is not adopted in the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland text.
Mark 7:4b: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus do not contain the phrase kai klinwn [kai klinōn] (“and couches”), but the phrase is in NA-27, bracketed.
Mark 7:6a: Papyrus 45, produced in about 225, has apokriqeiV [apokritheis]. The Byzantine Text (and the Textus Receptus) also has apokriqeiV [apokritheis]. NA-27’s text, however, does not have it.
Mark 7:6b: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has oti [oti], but this is not adopted in NA-27.
Mark 7:12a: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has kai [kai], but this is not adopted in NA-27.
Mark
Mark 7:31: P45 (and the Byzantine Text) has kai SidwnoV hlqen [Sidōnos ēlthen], but this is not adopted in NA-27.
Mark
Mark
Mark
Mark 7:37b: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus do not have the last occurrence of touV [tous], but it is included in NA-27 in brackets.
So when somebody claims that “Very few of the distinctive King James readings are demonstrably ancient,” it is hard for me to take such claims seriously in light of data like this list. This list shows that in a single chapter of Mark, eight readings in the KJV’s base-text are supported by the oldest known manuscript of a passage, and three more readings in the KJV’s base-text are preferred by the NA-compilers themselves over the readings in the oldest known manuscript of a passage.
To Be Continued in Part Two.
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.
Quotations from Dr. Wallace are from his blog-article at
http://bible.org/article/why-i-do-not-think-king-james-bible-best-translation-available-today (December 2009), © Copyright 1995-2012 bible.org All rights reserved. Used for review purposes.
