Majority Text The True Power of the Probability Argument

Majority Text: (X): Carson's Objections Reexamined


Lets look at D.A. Carson's first objection to the Majority Text Probability Model:

He suggests historical factors skewed the results, supposedly making minority readings (errors/edits) become majority readings (overcoming the Alexandrian and other text-types). What mechanical model does he offer?

He cites:

(1) the influence of Chrysostom,
(2) the restriction and displacement of the Greek language. ​

Because of this he argues, the Byzantine text probably doesn't represent the original text.

Chrysostom comes onto the scene too late to explain the creation and existence of the Byzantine text. Born in 349 A.D., he was not even baptized until 368 or 373. He lived as a hermit from 375-377. He did not become a deacon until 381, and became a priest only in 386. Between 386-398 he became popular as a speaker/commentator, apparently in Antioch. He was ordained archbishop of Constantinople in 398. Because of his attempted reforms he was attacked and banished in 403, but reinstated. He was banished again to Georgia but died on the way in 407.

Chrysostom used the Byzantine text, but this was already the popular text in Constantinople by this time. He does not seem responsible for popularizing it himself. Jerome had used the Byzantine text for his Vulgate translation in 392, and had judged this text to be older than the three current recensions of

(a) Lucian (Antioch, 270-310)
(b) Hesychius (Egypt, c. 320-350?)
(c) Origen (Caesarea, c. 200).​

Even granting the popularity of Chrysostom's writings long after his death, this alone is simply not enough to cause or explain the dominance of the Byzantine text-type in the Eastern Empire. Hort had posed two 'recensions', first the Lucian (assuming this was the pre-Byzantine text), and then a second 'recension' in the 4th century. But who did a second major 'recension', and who imposed it upon the entire Greek-speaking world? Why was there no resistance, and more importantly, no historical record of this? Chrysostom is supposed to fit the bill, but there is no evidence that this ever happened. Chrysostom was a controversial figure in his own lifetime unpopular with the Emperor and many other bishops, and could not have imposed a uniform text in the East.

What about Carson's second idea?

(2) the restriction and displacement of the Greek language. ​

How can this mechanism reverse the position of majority and minority readings? In fact, it can't. It is no mechanism at all. Of course the Latin language finally dominated Western Europe, while the Greek, formerly the dominant international language, faded from the stage. But this provides no mechanism to flip readings upside-down:

Certainly the percentage of total manuscripts changed, with Latin manuscripts gradually outnumbering and even overwhelming Greek manuscripts:

Greek and Latin MSS: Click to Enlarge



However, both copying-streams were essentially separate, and both streams were normal. There is nothing in this situation that can explain a reversal of minority and majority readings.

Certainly the Latin MSS (Old Latin / Vulgate) already had essentially the same text as the Greek Byzantine MSS. This means that changes in the relative percentage of the MSS would not significantly affect the attestation of majority and minority readings.

The only thing that could happen from the change-over from Greek to Latin, is that a few of the so-called 'Western' readings would gain some support from the overwhelming numbers of Latin MSS. But this has nothing to do with the Byzantine readings in the Greek transmission stream. Very few if any Greek MSS in the Eastern Byzantine empire would ever have been corrected using Latin MSS! The Greeks couldn't care less about the Latin texts being used in the West.

Nor can the "shrinking" of the Greek language and influence cause any reversals between minority and majority readings. This is pure nonsense. The raw manuscript count went continually upward, as churches, people and markets, and demand expanded. What decreased here was the rate of increase, not the number manuscripts!

A 'shrinking' of influence would in any case cause a decrease in the score for Byzantine readings, not an increase! D.A. Carson's logic is what is really upside-down here, not the minority/minority readings.

Nazaroo

(to be continued...)

 

Majority Text: (XI): What Jerome described


Previously, we looked at D. A. Carson's arguments against the Majority text Probability model. These ideas I think originally came from G.D. Fee or Epp, but have also recently been restated by Daniel Wallace.

These arguments still seem to have a psychological hold on various textual critics today, even defenders of traditional readings. For instance, James Snapp Jr. offers a variation on D.A. Carson's argument in his proposal for an "Equitable Criticism". Here is his statement from Part 3:

"Many scholars and interested bystanders, noticing that the weaknesses of several of Hort’s key premises and assertions have been exposed, have been willing to consider the model of transmission-history proposed by the supporters of the Byzantine Textform – but not many have decided to embrace it. Some have irresponsibly associated it with the novel American fundamentalist doctrine of King James Onlyism. ​

Others have rejected it because, despite detailed lists of principles of internal and external evidence in Dr. Robinson’s essay The Case for Byzantine Priority,15 the quality which usually determines the adoption of a variant in the approach advocated by Robinson is its attestation in over 80% of the Greek MSS. Patristic evidence and the testimony of early versions are not included in the equation of what constitutes the majority reading. Distinctive Alexandrian variants, Western variants, Caesarean variants, and even minority readings attested by the oldest Byzantine witnesses (such as parts of Codices A and W) have no chance of being adopted; generally, whenever a variant is supported by over 80% of the Greek MSS, it is adopted. ​

The validity of such an approach depends upon the validity of the premise that the transmission of the text of the Gospels was free from “major disruptions.” However, major disruptions have had enormous impacts upon the transmission of the text. Roman persecutions and Roman sponsorship, wartime and peacetime, dark ages and golden ages – all these things, plus innovations and inventions related to the copying of MSS, drastically changed the circumstances in which the text was transmitted, and while all text-types were affected by them, they were not all affected to the same extent, as a review of history will show.16 ​

Greek fell into relative disuse in Western Europe; Constantinople became the center of eastern Greek-speaking Christendom; Islamic conquests squelched the vitality of the transmission-streams in regions where Islamic rule was imposed; copyists in or near Constantinople invented more efficient ways to copy the text. Such historical events completely invalidate results that are based on a transmission-model that assumes the non-existence of such disruptions."
​

( - James Snapp Jr. , Equitable Eclecticism, Pt 3) ​

As much as we like James' clarity and integrity regarding many issues, we feel that here he has dropped the ball:

In fact, not only does the Majority Reading Probability Model survive the impact of transmission anomalies, the model itself invalidates these very objections. We have previously demonstrated that imbalances in the copying quantities of various transmission lines and master-copies has no real effect on the essential outcome. We only want to underline again here, that there is no plausible mechanism or genealogical stemma that can reverse the majority of readings, causing them to switch places.

Again, the point is, yes: one very specific and unique "major disruption" could cause the majority of majority readings to be false. We have shown precisely the model stemma required. But there is no known point in the history of the text where this could have taken place. This is because of the very evidence which survives. Two things are required:

(1) All previous copies would have had to have been all but wiped out for a 'false' text to usurp the real text.
(2) A deliberately false or bad text would have to have been substituted. A mere sample text from one or another textual line will not do. That would only favour a few errors from that line, but it could not create a significantly different text than the true one, or one based on some other impoverished but random sample. ​

But this is demonstrably false. Not only are both circumstances required, but both can be shown to have never occurred.

James gives a vague list of events supposed to have created the potential circumstances for minority and majority readings to reverse themselves. Lets look at them again:

(1) Roman persecutions
(2) Roman sponsorship
(3) wartime and peacetime
(4) Dark Ages and Golden Ages
(5) Innovations and inventions re: copying methods
(6) Disuse of Greek language
(7) Constantinople becomes center of Eastern Empire
(8) Islamic Conquests destroy textual lines
(9) Copying efficiency significantly improves​

This is list is James' supposed "magic bullet" that inverts majority and minority readings. The problem is, none of these separately or even all together create a any kind of plausible mechanism whereby the majority of majority readings could become minority readings, and the majority of minority readings could become majority readings.

On the face of it, and in the deepest analysis, the list is a demonstrable failure, because it neither provides a mechanism, nor coincides with the known history of the text. We must stress this last point: its not enough, even if one can create a plausible historical mechanism that could supplant the true for the false: we ourselves have done that. You must also show that it could plausibly have happened at some specific and unique point in history, supportable by historical evidence of a very unambiguous and specific kind.

The onus must remain on the person claiming that any of these factors, (or combination) could reverse minority and majority readings,to show how it could happen.

The further onus must remain on that same person, also to show how it could have happened historically, either in harmony with existing evidence, or unobserved in spite of normal existing evidences.

 

Jerome (c. 390 A.D.) described succinctly the textual situation and the state of the Greek NT text in his time:

"...when Jerome is comparing his own work as reviser of the Old Latin text with similar work by others in Greek, he is rather severe in his judgment of Lucian. Thus in his Preface to the Four Gospels, which takes the form of an open letter addressed to Pope Damasus and which was composed perhaps about the year 383, he refers somewhat contemptuously to the "manuscripts which are associated with the names of Lucian and Hesychius, the authority of which is perversely maintained by a few disputatious persons."
Continuing in the same vein Jerome condemns the work of Lucian and Hesychius as infelicitous:

"It is obvious that these writers could not emend anything in the Old Testament after the labors of the Seventy; and it was useless to correct the New, for versions of Scripture already exist in the languages of many nations which show that their additions are false." (1a)
​

Subsequently, in the Preface to his translation of the books of Chronicles, Jerome makes a more temperate allusion to the work of Lucian and other Biblical scholars. In referring to the diversity of the editions of the Greek Old Testament, he declares that three are current in various parts of the Empire:

"Alexandria and Egypt in their [copies of the] Septuagint praise Hesychius as author; Constantinople to Antioch approves the copies [containing the text] of Lucian the martyr; the middle provinces between these read the Palestinian codices edited by Origen, which Eusebius and Pamphilus published."(1)​

(Metzger, Chapters in the History of NT TC,
"The Lucianic Recension" (1963) p. 3 - 8)​

In the diagram below, we illustrate the situation Jerome has described. The three popular regional texts probably came into existence around 300 A.D. -- their authors seem to have lived at this time. These "recensions" or corrected, standardized texts referred to by Jerome are whole Bibles (including the O.T.), so the editing/correcting and the differences for the most part probably refer to the O.T. text, which in the 2nd century A.D. suffered a series of disputes and revisions (see Origen etc.).
It is likely that the NT portions of these three popular regional texts did not differ as much as the most extreme texts do today. Their editors had the same basic goals, i.e., correcting errors and restoring the best possible text. Already these recensions would present "mixed texts", with readings taken from various sources.
There are some key observations that can be extracted from Jerome's testimony:​

(1) There was no single dominant text, even at the beginning of the 5th century. Rather, there were various popular regional texts.


(2) Jerome tells us that the Old Latin translations were in a similar state, with many variations and errors having accumulated between copies. (Hence the need for a new standardized translation into Latin).


(3) Jerome specifically tells us he avoided all three of these popular Greek recensions, when making his fresh Latin translation. He went to the East, (Constantinople etc.) to secure the oldest and most reliable manuscripts he could. ​

​

​

Just as importantly, we can add several other observations and historical facts to the picture subsequent to Jerome:

(1) Jerome's text was not based on any later recension, but rather on early independent texts closer to the originals.

(2) Jerome's Latin Vulgate was later corrected from the Old Latin (older readings were restored), because many preferred the established text and older readings. The final result was a mixed text but with both of its sources predating Greek recensions (c. 300 A.D.).

(3) The Greek text in the East was never corrected using Western Latin copies, but was a regional text independently copied at the core of the Greek speaking center of the Eastern Empire.

(4) Most of the later Greek copies originated in the East. The Greek copies and Greek-speaking monks did not flee West until very late, at the fall of the Eastern Byzantine empire.

(5) The divergences and mixture present in the later Greek copies shows they were not the result of an official text-type imposed upon the copyists. The close conformity of the Byzantine copies is a result of random processes and careful copying. ​

(6) It is unlikely that all the later independent Greek copies descended exclusively from the recension of Lucian. Rather, the obvious mixture and divergence suggests multiple lines of descent. ​

In this wide and diverse transmission path, there is no physical mechanism or plausible process by which minority readings and majority readings could switch places and reverse themselves. No single text or recension could be imposed by individuals or groups upon the textual stream.

The argument that the decrease of the spread and influence of the Greek language allowed a late and erroneous text to become dominant is a logical fallacy:

(1) The decrease in influence of the Greek language did allow for its replacement by the Latin texts, but the so-called "Western" text (the Latin) is older than the Byzantine text and actually more primitive. The majority of "Byzantine readings" finding support from the Latin must themselves be primitive and original, and not distinctively "Byzantine" (i.e., 'late').

(2) The Muslim and Arabic hordes certainly did destroy some lines of transmission in Egypt, Palestine and Turkey, but these churches were Monophysites (Coptic, Jacobite, Armenian), and their textual traditions are known. They did not use the Alexandrian text-type, and their destruction cannot account for the dominance of the Byzantine text.

(3) Alexandria and its texts were abandoned within the Empire, and this may simply have been as a result of the adoption of more accurate texts from the Byzantine and Palestinian traditions.

(4) The Syriac texts often support Byzantine readings, and show the antiquity and purity and preference of that text-type. ​

When all is said and done, there remains no mechanical possibility, nor any historical force, which could cause the majority and minority readings to switch places.


Nazaroo

 

Majority Text: (XIII): More on James Snapp Jr.s "major disruptions"

​

James gives a vague list of events supposed to have created the potential circumstances for minority and majority readings to reverse themselves. Lets look at them again:

(1) Roman persecutions
(2) Roman sponsorship
(3) wartime and peacetime
(4) Dark Ages and Golden Ages
(5) Innovations and inventions re: copying methods
(6) Disuse of Greek language
(7) Constantinople becomes center of Eastern Empire
(8) Islamic Conquests destroy textual lines
(9) Copying efficiency significantly improves​

This is list is James' supposed "magic bullet" that inverts majority and minority readings. The problem is, none of these separately or even all together create a any kind of plausible mechanism whereby the majority of majority readings could become minority readings, and the majority of minority readings could become majority readings.

Lets note right away that #5 and #9 are almost repetative, and could be grouped as a single idea:

(5) "Copying methods changed and correction procedures developed, resulting in better accuracy and more efficiency."​

Although this seems to suggest the possibility that a later text would somehow gain an 'edge' over an earlier, purer text, in fact it is nothing new, and offers no special mechanism at all. The statement breaks down into the following components:

(1) Later copies will obviously outnumber earlier copies, because copies were multiplying faster than they were being destroyed, and earlier copies wore out. But this is just a universal truism, and is independent of the quality of copying, or any changes in the quality of copies. We may have to devise an appropriate 'weighing' procedure to accommodate for this natural imbalance, but this would be true of any transmission stream, and is not at all special.

(2) Any special procedures that developed would be irrelevant, unless they actually drastically increased the introduction of errors into the text. All actual improvements in copying and correction would only stabilize the correct (majority) text. Thus innovations and improved copying methods work against James Snapp's argument.

(3) The text actually did stabilize and become nearly uniform, suggesting the real original (majority) text was entrenched by improvements, not that an artificial text imposed over and against the original text. Overall, this point only erodes further any claims for Alexandrian texts.


James' #2, #7, #6 we can take together in proper sequence:

(2) "The Roman Emperor sponsored the Greek text, moved his capital to Constantinople in the East, and the Greek language's area of influence gradually shrank geographically."​

Can this series of events have caused the inversion of majority and minority readings?

(1) Constantine did not create the Byzantine Text-type. Yes Constantine adopted Christianity, but he also carefully balanced his powers as emperor against the judgment and wishes of some 1,200 bishops across the empire, already with copies of the NT in their hands. There must have been at least 2,000 copies of the NT in various forms and languages existing, even after the destruction of some manuscripts by the previous emperor in the West. Many areas in the Far East, such as Syria, Alexandria, and Armenia, never really came under Constantine's control. These large church groups (Coptic, Jacobite, Armenian) went their own way, yet their copies still support many Byzantine (majority) readings.

(2) Moving the Capital did not favor a specific text-type. It merely put the Western Old Latin translations in some jeopardy through the abandonment of the Western half of the empire, but these wild copies were already in disarray by the 4th century, requiring Jerome's remaking of a standard version. But most Western/Byzantine readings were already a part of the Latin tradition. As it turned out, the Latin survived, and spread all over Europe.

(3) Any disadvantage against the Latin text was balanced by the shrinking influence of the Greek. The collapse of the Greek language in the West did not result in any losses for the Alexandrian text-type. The Western text was already established there, and continued in an unbroken transmission, being absorbed into Jerome's Latin Vulgate. There is nothing here that could cause minority and majority readings to reverse themselves.


Again, James #1, #4, #8 may be sensibly grouped together:

(1) "Roman persecutions, the Dark Ages, Islamic Conquests destroy textual lines." ​

It is certainly true that these three items probably had the most impact on the textual transmission of the Greek New Testament. However, again, there is no mechanism to cause a reversal of majority and minority readings. Lets see why:

(1) The Minority Readings are only in the Alexandrian text-type. But most of the persecutions however, took place in the Far East during the Roman/Jewish Wars (Palestine, 60 - 130 A.D.)They spread up the Nile Southward into isolated monastery-type settlements, away from the main cities of Egypt (Alexandria). , and perhaps in some Eastern Roman provinces (Asia Minor). It is most likely that the Eastern Byzantine manuscripts were hit as hard as any other text-type.

(2) The Dark Ages took place in the West, far away from Alexandria. (c. 420-700 A.D.) These times of unrest and ignorance had their greatest impact on the Western Latin textual tradition, not the Alexandrian text in Egypt.

(3) The Islamic Invasions hit mostly Armenia, Syria, and North Africa in the 7th century, (630-750 A.D.), far too late to give the Byzantine text-type any special advantage. It was already the dominant text-type by the end of the 4th century.

Again, there is nothing here which could have created the Byzantine text-type out of nowhere, or caused a false text to have suddently become the dominant text in the very heart of the Greek-speaking Byzantine empire.

Everything points to a single conclusion. The Greek lines of textual transmission were essentially normal, and reflect the original text as well as, or better than, any other branch of transmission.

There is simply nothing else in the historical evidences to indicate any other likely scenario.

 

Majority Text: (XIV): Source of the "major disruptions" Theory

​

Of course the theories and explanations for the magical reversal of the mass of majority and minority readings sketched by D.A. Carson and elaborated by James Snapp Jr., did not originate with Daniel Wallace, or even G.D. Fee or Epp.
In fact, this cluster of arguments reached its highest and clearest articulation way back in 1897, by the mouth of Sanday, at the great Oxford Debate on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament!

In the final printed report of the Oxford Debate, Professor Sanday (p. 25 fwd) states:

"...it is true there is a tendency for the Text which ultimately represented in the Received Text, for the Traditional Text as it is called, to gain ground in the latter part of the 4th century, and you would no doubt find it to a considerable extent in Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa.


Of course, according to Dr. Hort, the home of this Text really is Antioch, whence it spread. The way in which Dr. Hort accounts for its prevalence in later ages is not by the fact that it was regarded as in any way authoritative, but simply because of the great influence which Antioch exercised upon Constantinople at the end of the century [c. 400].
​

You have St. Chrysostom transferred from Antioch to Constantinople as Patriarch, and there are a good many other points tending in the same direction. Its prevalence, therefore, is accounted for partly in that way, and partly also by the fact that the Church very soon afterwards lost its other great provinces. ​

You have the wave of Mahommedan invasion in the 7th century. First Syria and Palestine were lost, and then Egypt and Africa. Almost all the Christian provinces were blotted out from the map, not entirely or absolutely, but still to a very large extent. ​

Constantinople became the centre of the Christian world, and the Text which prevailed there prevailed all over the Greek-speaking world, because by that time, you will see, the West was purely Latin [4th cent.?], and Constantinople was I have no doubt a great centre for the manufacture of MSS. That is the way in which Dr. Hort would account for this set of facts.


To the prevalence of the Antiochene Text towards the end of the century there are very large and important exceptions. St. Jerome, does not take that Text. [!] Mr. White and Bishop Wordsworth have been investigating the character of the Greek MSS used by Jerome in his revision of the Greek Testament. I will not anticipate Mr. White's answer to this question, but I do not think you will find it is Antiochene.
...
I will end by venturing to do what Dr. Hort has never done. It constantly seems as if his argument was leading up to it, but he never lets the name pass his lips. He thinks there was a revision of some kind; that is simply a way of describing the phenomena of the MSS on what appears to be the easiest hypothesis as to their origin. He thinks that a kind of revision took place at that time, and was a more or less continuous revision. I confess it has always seemed to me that that revision was probably connected with Lucian of Antioch and his school, which exercised great influence all through the 4th century. This type of text is prominent in his disciples, most prominent indeed in Theodore of Mopsuestia, where it reaches its culmination. The school was in close contact with the Syriac-speaking Churches and writers;
​

and I have always suspected, although I cannot prove it, that this Traditional Text, of which Mr. Miller is so fond, owes its origin ultimately to Lucian of Antioch." (Sanday, p. 25-29)
​

One can see easily that all the main points listed by Carson and Snapp are found right here.

Again however, the fatal flaws remain the same. The loss of other copying centres may account for a preponderance of the Byzantine Text, but this cannot possibly account for its origin.

These factors do nothing to explain why the Byzantine Text should be wrong, and the Alexandrian Text (if it even existed) should be right. These factors might explain why a few local readings could become dominant, but not why the majority of readings should be all the wrong ones, while the all the minority readings found in Aleph/B and Egyptian papyri should be the right ones.

But what is missing is any kind of plausible mechanism that would cause minority and majority readings en masse to switch places. And the reason for the lack is that this Hortian reconstructed history is demanding the impossible. There is no mechanism whereby minority and majority readings could switch places in the bulk of cases, through any known copying procedures, controlled or uncontrolled.

When Sanday was theorizing, no one had done any mathematical modeling of textual transmission nor had anyone discussed the Majority Text Probability Model. So he can be excused for not knowing that the claims he was making were logically fallacious and historically impossible.

But textual critics don't have the luxury of such ignorance today. Probability Theory is well-understood and the consequences of copying trees are well known. Furthermore, the general tendencies of copyists in surviving documents are also well known. There can be no excuse now for the type of subjective and arbitrary 'textual criticism' that was practiced in Hort's day.

Nazaroo

 

Majority Text: (XV): MSS Destruction and Text-types


Click to Enlarge

Back in the previous installments on the question of "disruptions" to the normal textual transmission, Hort, Sanday, Fee, Epp, Wallace, and James Snapp Jr. proposed that historical disruptions had catastrophic effects which account fully for the preponderance of the Byzantine Text-type over all rivals. James stated,

"...my description of disruptions is not specific -- which is true, since there should be no reason to dredge up a long list of events and dates to readers who should already be familiar with them; it would just make the discussion verbose. ..."
​

We on the contrary however, feel that any support-claims regarding the favouring of one text-type, specifically the Byzantine, need to tested, not assumed.

Nor should readers be expected to be masters of early Roman and Byzantine history. That expectation is both absurd and unfair. The cards must be placed on the table, and claims left to stand or fall on the historical basis found.

For this purpose, we fully acknowledge that there were destructive forces at work, which targeted copies of the NT; forces more severe than those suffered by ordinary books. We will give a point-form chronology of the important events here:

68-130 A.D. - The Jewish/Roman Wars: Romans systematically destroyed cities, towns, populations, and just about everything and anything Jewish, and this would include New Testament scriptures, identified at this time as simply offshoots of Jewish sects.


250-300 A.D. - The Last State Persecution of Christians by the Romans. In this last desperate outbreak of hostility, the Romans specifically targeted Christian books for burning, torturing Christians to reveal their whereabouts. This was so severe that survivors were disfigured and crippled, and the Church had to deal with the question of whether or not to forgive and restore those who had betrayed their bretheren and handed over manuscripts. ​

c. 300-340 A.D. - Emperor Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to become a Christian, had over 3000 Christians executed because their interpretation of the Bible did not agree with his. That is more than the number of Christians who died at the hands of the Romans during the well known 1st century "Christians to the lions" persecutions. [Manchester, 7-8] ​

304 A.D. - Pope Marcellus Iis not mentioned in Eusebius' History of the Church. Annuario Pontifico, the Vatican's official directory of the popes gives his dates in office as 308-309. The New American Bible gives them as 304-309. Upon becoming pope, Marcellus persecuted Christian backsliders so viciously that the Roman Emperor Maxentius banned him from the city to avoid public disorder. Marcellus was later made a saint. [Curran, 16-18, McBrien, 55]

310 A.D. - Pope Eusebius, like his predecessor Marcellus, was involved in the dispute over the treatment of backsliders. Also like Marcellus, the dispute was so disruptive to civil order that he was deported by Emperor Maxentius. He was also made a saint. [McBrien, 55-56]

325 A.D. - at the Council of Nicaea, a majority of bishops favored the Arian position. They were overruled by Emperor Constantine. In a letter to the churches, Constantine wrote that "any one who conceals a work of Arius shall be punished with death." State interference in church affairs resulted in politics causing some falsification of the Gospels' message. The church became more important than religion, to the detriment of Christianity. [De Rosa, 44; Richardson, Chapter III, "Writings," 23]

c.326 A.D. - Constantine denied "heretics and schismatics" the right of assembly in public or private, confiscated their property and gave it to the Catholic church. His edict specifically names "Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians." Constantine also had their homes searched and confiscated any heretical books. [Eusebius, L.C., Book III, Chapter LXIV, LXV, & LXVI; "Edict against the heretics. In Eusebius, V.C., 3. 64-5." Cited by Richardson, Chapter III, "Writings," 32.]

330-380 A.D. In the eastern part of the empire, "orthodox" Christians killed large numbers of "heretical" Christians. Vestal Virgins, Arians, Athanasians, Donatists, and Novatians were killed by other Christians. The death toll between 330 and 380 A.D. was many times more than had been killed by pagan persecution in two and half centuries. [McCabe, 1939, 55]

341-342 A.D. - Constantius II passed the first major anti-pagan law in 341 and [the] next year ordered that 'all superstitions must be completely eradicated.'" [Johnson, 1976, 97]



372 A.D. A law ordered the confiscation of Manichaean meeting places and books, and punishment for Manichaean teachers. [Engh, 93]

379 A.D. [St.] Ambrose persuaded Roman Emperor Gratian to outlaw Arianism in the west. [Delaney, 33]

380 A.D. Roman emperor Theodosius I ("The Great"),

* made Christianity the official state religion.
* began enacting repressive laws to punish non-Christians.
* made paganism and pagan rites illegal, and abolished the pagan priesthood.
* granted privileges to Christian clergy, banned activities on Sunday,
* made Christmas and Easter legal holidays.
* confiscated Arian Christian churches and banned their meetings.
* removed Arian-leaning bishops from their offices or forced them to conform,
* and systematically banished Arian believers (many in Constantinople).
* forbade Apollonarians to call their leaders "bishop" or "clergy."
* He also decreed the death penalty for Manichaean monks.
* defined Christians as believers in the Trinity
* declared non-Christians insane and subject to divine / imperial vengeance.
* burned the books of the heretics.

[Bokenkotter, 62; Engh, 97; Grant, 272-273; Jenkins, 122-123; Wikipedia, "Timeline of Christian Missions"; www.stopthereligiousright.org/theodosius.htm ]
381 A.D. - Emperor Theodosius I,

* "made 'heresy' a crime against the state." [Pagels, 1988, 62]
* "made it illegal to disagree with the Church." [Ellerbe, 28]
* "ordered that no Manichaean of either sex should be able
to bequeath or inherit any property." [Freeman, 2009, 104; Engh, 93]
* decreed that the Holy Spirit was divine,
thus creating the Holy Trinity and expanding the Nicene Creed.
* He declared Homoeans, Homoiousians, and Arians heretical and
* ordered their churches handed over to Trinitarians.
He probably did this for political reasons,
because there was no consensus on the nature of the Holy Spirit.
* Like Constantine before him, Theodosius wanted to put a stop to
endless disputes, and just as before, he failed at this. [Freeman, 2005, 193]
* called a council of pro-Nicene bishops, the First Council of Constantinople.

The council apparently affirmed Theodosius' decree regarding the Holy Spirit, but no record of that exists. The council also decreed that Christians who lapsed into paganism forfeited their right to make a will. [Freeman, 2005, 193; www.stopthereligiousright.org/theodosius.htm ]

* Theodosius' edicts "confirmed emperor as the definer/enforcer of orthodoxy." [Freeman, 2005, 194]
382 A.D. - Theodosius made membership in some Manichaean sects a capital crime, and made it illegal to support Manichaean monks. He also used a system of informers to police the pagans. [Freeman, 2009, 104; www.stopthereligiousright.org/theodosius.htm ; Engh, 93-94; Jenkins, 123]

383 A.D. Emperor Theodosius I decreed that Eunomians and other kinds of "heretical" congregations were forbidden to assemble or to build places of worship. Another decree six months later confiscated their property and expelled all Eunomian clergy. [Freeman, 2009, 140]

 

c.400 A.D. - Pope St. Anastasius condemned the writings of Origen, the Church's first great theologian, even though he was not familiar with them. Anastasius was also the father of his successor, Pope St. Innocent I. [McBrien, 65]

405 A.D. - Emperor Honorius had published the Edict of Unity, "which ordered the dissolution of the Donatist [Christian] Church." [Bokenkotter, 79; Valantasis, 270]

407 A.D. A law criminalized Donatists / Manichaeans' beliefs. Punishment was confiscation of all their property. They were barred from inheritance. Convicted heretics were also barred from buying, selling, or making a contract. [Valantasis, 270]

409 A.D. A law was passed requiring the burning of all books possessed by heretics. Failure to hand over a heretical book was made a capital crime. [Freeman, 2009, 143] Astrologers were also deported if they refused to burn their books. [Valantasis, 273]

427 A.D. A law forbade anyone to make an image of Jesus in any medium. [Valantasis, 266]

428 A.D. The prohibitions against any and all heresies (35 were specifically named) was renewed. In addition, the law decreed that "they shall also be deprived of all aid, whether military or civil, of the law courts, the defenders and judges...." [Valantasis, 270]

448 A.D. - Theodosius II passed another law which required the burning of all heretical books. [Freeman, 2009, 150]

457 A.D. A law forbade Eutychians and Apollonarians to assemble, promote their religions, or to publish anything against the "holy Chalcedonian Synod." All their writings were to be burned. Violators were banished forever. [Valantasis, 271]

484 A.D. - Arian Christian Huneric, king of the Vandals, declared Catholic Christians heretics and persecuted them as Catholics had persecuted Arians previously. Catholic churches were closed and their property confiscated. Catholic clergy were executed, exiled, or enslaved. Those who resisted conversion to Arianism were sometimes tortured. (North Africa, from Morocco to Carthage) [Engh, 103]

517 A.D. Christians closed the university at Alexandria. [Johnson, 1976, 112]

524 A.D. Catholic philosopher Boethius was tried and executed by Arian Christians at Pavia. [Johnson, 1976, 153]

529 A.D. - Emperor Justinian closed the school of Athens founded by Plato, located in a pagan temple. [Freeman, 2009, 154; Johnson, 1976, 112]

532 A.D. - Encouraged by his wife Theodora, Christian Emperor Justinian ordered soldiers to massacre more than 30,000 non-conformist residents in Constantinople to impose his version Christian orthodoxy. Apparently, Justinian did not see it as murder if the victims did not share his own beliefs. The Old Testament of the Christian Bible has many examples of violent punishment by God. As God's representative on earth, Justinian thought himself justified in using his absolute power to punish Christians as well as non-believers, if those Christians refused to accept the canons of the Council of Chalcedon. [Frank Mortyn, "Blood on the Ground, Churches All Around," reprinted in Leedom, 237-240; Freeman, 2003, 253; Haught, 1990, 53-54; Jenkins, 235; Johnson, 1987, 166]

533 A.D. - General Belisarius, sent by the Catholic Eastern emperor Justinian, defeated the Vandals and made Arianism heretical again. (in Western North Africa)[Engh, 104]

553 A.D. - The Council of Constantinople condemned Origen as a heretic even though he had been dead for 300 years. "This conflict had only occurred because an orthodoxy had been proclaimed to which earlier thinkers, long since dead, were now expected to conform.
"Origen was the first major exegetist, or interpreter, of the Bible. In one the finest intellectual achievements of the third century, he began by putting together the HEXAPLA, Hebrew & different Greek versions of the O.T. in parallel columns for comparison.
"The condemnation of Origen was thus a profound loss to Christianity. Not only did Augustine's extreme theology make nonsense of the concept of a loving and forgiving God, but the threat of hell was used to manipulate obedience." [Freeman, 2009, 133, 137, 139]

590-604 A.D. - Pope [St.] Gregory I ("The Great") objected to grammatical study, condemned education for all but the clergy, forbade laymen to even read the Bible, and had the library of the Palatine Apollo burned. [Ellerbe, 48, 50]

653-561 A.D. - Lombard king Aripert I, a Catholic, outlawed Arianism. [Engh, 105]​

It is clear from the chronological list that on many occasions, copies of the NT in possession of various parties and groups (Arian, Trinitarian, etc.) were confiscated and destroyed in many locations throughout the Empire.


But it is equally clear that many of these large and catastrophic events hit entirely different text-types, like the Arian copies, and the Western texts, and the Alexandrian etc. While the destruction of copying lines was certainly rampant all over the Empire, and it may be admitted that many of these attempts were targeted, there is nothing here that consistently and uniformly favors the Byzantine text. The operation of the Arian parties within the Empire, and with Emperor-support, were as destructive as the Trinitarian attacks upon competing copies and their supporters.


The closer the real history is examined, the less likely it appears that events 'magically favored' the Byzantine text, over all others. Such a large portion of destructive campaigns were targeted at such widely diverse groups, including Trinitarians and Byzantines, that a catastrophe of the kind which would transpose minority and majority readings en masse remains utterly implausible.

Nazaroo

 

It seems to me that there is little doubt that the Johannine Comma currently finds its home-base in the Latin (Western) traditions. I am in doubt as to whether it was found in the majority of Old Latin manuscripts (i.e. the text as it would have been generally circulating between 200 and 400 A.D.). Since almost all those earlier MSS were apparently destroyed (for the reasons behind that, see our post on MS destruction here), it is very difficult to establish some readings, except by their use in the Early Christian Writers (ECWs).

It is also a part of the Byzantine text, but apparently only in later MSS. I am uncertain of what this means at the moment.
I am uncommitted on it at the moment, because I haven't sufficiently studied all the literature and data on it. Too many other projects more pressing.

It is quite possible that Jerome got this reading from some Old Latin manuscripts now long perished. The West fell immediately into the Dark Ages after Jerome's time (420 A.D.) and little survives from the period.

The condition of the Eastern Byzantine text also suffered because of the destruction of many manuscripts over quarrels regarding Arianism and other doctrinal disputes. Some edits were deliberate, so it is difficult again to know who did what and why in this period (300-600 A.D.).

I continue to study the historical data, and will probably make some tentative opinions on it soon.

peace
Nazaroo

 

Thanks for this link. I also have an article on the Joh.Comma here:

http://pericopedeadultera.com/SUPLEM/Burgess1.html

 

Bayes theorem is a technique in Probability theory whereby one has some known information (like a percentage score for say a scribal habit) and data set (like a group of manuscripts or readings), and one wants to answer a third question, such as "What is the probability that this reading is category A or B (an omission or an addition)?"

Even among Bayesian theorists (i.e., 'frequentists' and 'Subjectivists') there will be some debate about when the Bayes Theorem (equation) is applicable and what it means when you're done.

The idea is that you can start with a probability estimate based on a theory, and with repeated sampling, bring the starting estimate into line with the data, in regards to a given outcome. Supposedly the Bayes Equation will converge reasonably fast regardless of your starting premise.

The concept and technique does seem suited to a genealogical copying situation where you want to keep track of errors and/or identify them in an ongoing process (your suggestion of industrial quality control is a good example of this).

However, few textual critics are up to the mathematical qualifications for proper application of Bayes technique, and probably more importantly, it is not necessary for most situations, given the vastness and stability of the accumulated textual apparatus of the NT text (that would be one argument anyway for suspecting that the Bayes Theorem is overkill).

The most difficult portion of NT textual crit has to do with choosing a plausible history (< - click here) of the textual transmission which can both align with the data and insightfully explain it, filling in the unfortunate gaps (missing manuscript samples).

At the moment, there are several models, the choice of which drastically effects the outcome (i.e., the reconstructed text using a theory), and it is doubtful that this controversy can be resolved by simply applying Bayes equations to textual variation units.

In examples like your industrial quality-control model, the mechanics are well understood and there is no additional complication such as 'deliberate tampering' (consciously motivated editing) or fraud/forgery for theological or ideological motives.

I would like to see reliable mathematical techniques used more often in Textual Criticism, but the recent and novel experiments have not been any kind of scientific advance. On the contrary, amateur application of specialized techniques has instead muddied the waters and resulted in more confusion in this field, where the practitioners are simply not credible scientists.

An example of a good technique improperly applied is the use of Principal Components Analysis (PCA)
Recently W. Willker attempted to apply it with poor results,
and S. Carlson has commented on it, and I myself have written a critique of the method (< - click here) and its dangers and limitations.

My article has some very helpful diagrams to explain the technique and how it can work in certain cases.

peace
Nazaroo

 

A Few 100 reasons why Hort's 'Syrian Recension' didn't happen


Below is a map showing the known existing foundational churches at the time of the Diocletian Persecution (304 A.D.):

Click to Enlarge Map adapted from A Short History of the Middle Ages,
(U of T press, 2009, 3rd ed.) by Barbara Rosenwein.

Most of the Western Churches were already preaching, teaching and reading the New Testament in Latin by the time of Constantine. The Greek-speaking churches remained in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire.

Popular Editions or Recensions of the Greek text did take place, according to Jerome, at Alexandria under Hesychius, at Caesarea under Origen, and at Antioch by Lucian. But Jerome claims to have avoided all those popular local editions, and resorted only to "ancient Greek copies", which can only mean manuscripts at least 60-100 years older than himself (c. 392 A.D.) and hence contemporary with manuscripts perhaps 30 or more years older than Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

It is possible that Jerome used manuscripts which reflected Origen's or Pamphylus' preferences. Or his chosen copies might reflect the type of text found in papyrus P45 or P66. But this is only a side-issue.

From the map, it can be seen just what groups of churches would be under the sway of the various editors and their recensions. The Alexandrian, Caesarean, and Antiochian areas all lay outside, on the periphery of the main bulk of the church communities spread across the Empire. Its not surprising that these independent communities had their own texts.

But it is highly implausible that the rest of the Empire would be significantly affected by their textual choices. The Latins would hardly embrace textual novelties, as the long resistance to Jerome's new Latin Vulgate demonstrates. In the process of assimilating Jerome's text, the Latins reversed many of his textual decisions, restoring the Latin text back to familiar readings.

The same would be expected from the central Greek Byzantine community, were a text like that of Lucian brought from the outside, i.e., Antioch. The Byzantines might indeed assimilate some of the readings of a popular preacher like Lucian, or Chrysostom, but any wholesale alterations would meet strong and vocal resistance, and a new text would only be adopted once older accepted and long familiar readings were restored to their traditional places. Lucian's text would have undergone a restoration process, conforming it to the proto- or early Byzantine text as recognized and venerated by the Greek-speaking Christian world.

This textual inertia would have resisted textual innovations and would have tended to preserve stability in the text-form copied by Greek scribes.

 

Majority Text: (XVI): Flawed Logic against Majority Readings - T.S. Green

​

One cannot probably fully understand how the anti-Majority Text position has come to dominate Textual Criticism, without tracing a little bit of its history.

Although cautions against simply 'counting MSS' began to be vocalized as early as Wetstein (1700s), truly articulate arguments probably begin with Tregelles, Tischendorf and Alford. These men first advanced the argument in favor of the oldest manuscripts. Reasoning against the Majority Text was merely a corollary, but a necessary step to clear a path for consideration of the oldest texts. So early arguments against the the Majority Text were crude and usually minimal in content.

One of the better popular arguments was offered by T.S. Green, in his A Course of Developed Criticism, (London, 1856) Intro. Here for the first time we get a window into the thinking behind the rather rash and easy rejection of the traditional (majority) text:

"The work to which the critic of the NT is called, must consist to a considerable extent in disentangling the text from intrusive and usurping matter, having its origin in the margin ; in detaching accretions, and replacing whatever may have been dislodged by a spurious rival : and with this view one leading principle must be especially noticed. (1)
​

Corruption of this particular kind must be the work of time, because the growth of such matter itself would be gradual, (2) and its sliding into the text by the agency of reckless, ill-taught, and foolish hands, and through the general propensity of copyists for amplification, (3) would be likewise gradual : the evil, too, unchecked in its earlier stages by due watchfulness or control, would go on spreading with the advance of time. (4)
​

It follows of necessity from this, that the more ancient documents will in general exhibit a greater approach to purity in this particular respect than those of later date, and, as a practical consequence, that the adverse testimony of but a few witnesses of high antiquity, in the case of matter of questioned genuineness, must receive the first and foremost regard, even though it were certain that their text was unsound in certain other respects, as, for instance, in the touches of critical hands. (5)
​

Fewness must not discourage a reliance on their testimony, because, if an intrusion took place at a particular point at a remote date and there is sufficient proof that such mischief was very early at work such a numerical disparity is precisely the state of things to be encountered in the body of surviving documents, where the really ancient must, from the very nature of things, form but a small minority, and even of these all cannot be expected to have escaped intrusive influence. (6)
​

This canon, as it may be called, does not rest on an unreasoning prepossession in favour of antiquity, but is a logical consequence from unquestionable premises.
​

Since in citing the MSS which exhibit a certain reading, a great preponderance of mere numbers is imposing in appearance, and may seem to be a circumstance that cannot lightly be set aside or countervailed by other considerations, it will be well to state fairly and precisely how much may be concluded from the circumstance:
​

Out of the entire body of existing copies, as has already been remarked, those of high antiquity form a very small portion ; and, accordingly, any great majority of the whole must be almost entirely composed of those of later date. Whenever, therefore, a particular reading is supported by a greatly preponderating part of the mass in contrast with a group of distinctively ancient copies, all that can be at once concluded from this bare fact is, that the reading in question had a settled currency in later times. This narrow conclusion is all that in such a case can be taken into account from MSS. alone in a discussion of the claims of a reading; without any prejudice, however, to arguments for antiquity and genuineness which may be derivable from other quarters notwithstanding. (7)

In one particular way mere numbers would be important evidence of genuineness, namely, in case there were something in the character of the reading itself adverse to its acceptance in the presence of rivals, and, therefore, to that currency which those numbers indicate. (8)
Mere numerical considerations do not therefore possess that prime importance which they might at first sight seem to claim, and which they have too frequently been allowed to exercise.
​

...
​

In a review of authorities special regard will reasonably be paid to antiquity: but this must not be overstrained into a summary neglect of more recent witnesses, as necessarily offering nothing worthy of notice.
The critic should not suffer himself to be encumbered by prepossessions or assumptions, nor bind himself to the routine of a mechanical method of procedure. If he allows himself to be thus warped and trammelled, instead of ever maintaining the free employment of a watchful, calm, and unfettered mind, he abandons his duty and mars his work. "
​

Unfortunately, this basic argument, as reasonable as it sounds at a glance, has several fatal flaws, which we will analyze shortly.

 

(1) It is remarkable that Green's sketch poses that the main problems 'to a considerable extent' consist of insertions, substitutions, and absorbed marginal glosses. He skips over completely the other glaringly common error, accidental omissions by homoeoteleuton (h.t.). Its as if these errors, though they comprise a large chunk of significant variants in both individual manuscripts and text-types, were an insignificant aspect of a critic's work. That Green is fully aware of the existance of h.t. errors, is clear from other statements.
Hort likewise gave lip-service to h.t. errors, while failing to discuss the possibility of same among the hundreds of probable omissions he adopted. The unspoken assumption is that the antiquity of a reading somehow makes it exempt from being an h.t. error, even though h.t. errors are rampant in even the most ancient of manuscripts. That assumption is blatantly false however, and this casts all such omissions in the critical text under grave suspicion.


Error Rate vs. Error Accumulation Rate:

(2) Green says the accumulation of errors would be gradual. This much is true, in that errors will occur at different places in the text, and in all ages. Thus errors will be spread through the text and across time fairly randomly and evenly.

But Green and all early critics fail to distinguish between the raw error-rate, and the rate of accumulation of errors. Because there is no awareness of the difference between these two rates, there is no awareness of the independence of these two rates.

For example, say the error-rate is 1 error per verse in each copy. Without error-checking, a 3rd generation copy would have about 3 errors per verse. We could estimate the error accumulation rate at about 1 error per verse per generation.
But now suppose each copy is proof-read, and about half the errors are caught. The raw error-rate is the same, but the error accumulation rate is now only 1 error per verse for every two generations, or half that of the raw error rate.
A simple checking procedure has drastically altered the accumulation rate, without any change in scribal skill or raw error rate.

Suppose now that about every 10 generations, a copy is checked against a much older copy (10 generations earlier). Again half the errors are caught. But this time, ALL the errors accumulated over 10 generations will be open to checking. The new copy, which would have had 10 errors per verse, now has about 5 per verse (given the same quality of proof-reading as before). The 10th generation corrected copy is the equivalent of a 5th generation copy. Again the error accumulation rate has been halved, with a simple, occasional procedure.

But more importantly, the same reduction in errors was accomplished this time by the same procedure performed only 1/5 as often! Checking a much older copy is potentially an order of magnitude more effective than using the same technique on every copy in every generation!
While the Tortoise can certainly achieve the same purity with thorough hard work, the Hare can effectively skip doing any error-checking at all for many generations, and yet achieve the very same purity, with only the same mediocre skill and effort case by case as the tortoise.

This shows us a few revealing things:

(a) The raw error-rate is effectively independent of the error accumulation rate.
(b) The error accumulation rate can be drastically attenuated by simple techniques, without needing to increase scribal skills.
(c) Most importantly, longer-term procedures can effectively bypass accumulated errors and virtually 'reset' the error count to near-zero repeatedly, causing the error accumulation rate to slow to a virtual crawl. ​

Simple proof-reading methods effectively telescope generational copying effects, reducing real generations to a fraction of their potential handicap for practical purposes. These methods can even be inconsistent and sporadically applied, with the very same results in quality control.

(3) Green mentions "the general propensity of copyists for amplification". That is, he assumes copyists were more likely to add than to omit material, emphasizing Griesbach's canon, 'Prefer the Shorter Reading'. This was not however a general tendency, and the rule could only be applied in a restricted set of situations with caution. For a modern critique of this idea, see Royse.
Such opinions in Green's time were based on impressions and guesstimates; but modern studies have made clear that scribes were far more often prone to omissions than additions. This has major consequences for the credibility of 19th century critical reconstructions of the text.

(4) Green's claim about the continual spread (accumulation) of errors is also based on a failure to grasp the dramatic impact of error-correction using earlier copies. We have explored above what even occasional use of early manuscripts can do. But mixture effectively demolishes skeptical arguments regarding generational corruption. Significantly, the majority of 'mixture' (cross-correction of a MS with another text) will occur using older manuscripts as a guide. This has a devastating effect on the accumulation of errors, effectively wiping out whole clusters of error and continually purging the text.

(5) Green's argument here is that his previous observations inevitably lead to the idea that a few older manuscripts will outweigh a large number of later manuscripts. But this is a serious non-sequitor. His model assumes there is no significant error-checking, proof-reading, and so the age of a manuscript also indicates its genealogical relationship in regard to an accumulating error-pool.

But this is an absurdity, given that the majority of copies cannot be placed in a sequential copying line. Rather, they are individual copies of independent lines of transmission reaching back to early times. The diversity of both texts, geographical origins, and community heritage of these texts indicates they are not direct descendants of the earliest surviving manuscripts, or even close relatives in a common copying stream.

Furthermore, some copies clearly 'jump the que', being direct copies of much earlier texts which are independent of surviving older copies.

Since there is no way to intelligently group late manuscripts all together in contrast to early ones, we must deal with each manuscript or small family independently. They cannot be crudely separated from early copies, placed together and de-valued en masse.

(6) Now Green imagines that an 'early interpolation' enhances his argument that a few early MSS would have the true reading against a mass of late ones. For if the interpolation were early enough to be the landslide majority reading in the great remainder of later MSS, this would automatically place the alteration earlier in time than the relatively late 4th century date of the extant Uncials. But if so, then the question of whether it is an omission in the Uncials or an addition in the later MSS must be settled on other grounds. The 4th century Uncials are just as secondary to the early corruption of the text as other lines of transmission.
It would be more convincing if the omission were found in a significant number of independent later MSS as well as a few early Uncials. Then the addition would clearly be 'late' relative to the Uncials. Such nonsense has the appearance of reasonableness but is really just another case of naive, simplistic, oversimplification so rampant in the 19th century.

(7) Green's argument here runs essentially thus: (a) By the nature of the case, there will always be a large number of later MSS, and few early ones, therefore (b) a majority reading by itself only means it was settled in later times.

The argument here is again a non-sequitur and false. When the mass of later MSS are closely examined, it becomes clear that they represent such a wide diversity of transmission-lines, and variety of ages of for their texts, that any overwhelming agreement must drive the reading back to the 4th century and earlier, contemporary with the surviving most ancient MSS.

The false assumption of relative lateness of text for an overwhelming majority reading found in the mass of later MSS must be dismissed. But we were never in the predicament that this would be the only available evidence in any case. Most majority readings can also be found to be supported by early versions, and most importantly early quotations from the large numbers of early Christian writers (ECWs). The claim that 'later MSS always outnumber early ones, therefore their testimony is worthless' is a ridiculous argument.
The correct conclusion is, the mass of later evidence must be carefully considered alongside earlier evidence, especially since early evidence is fragmentary and unreliable.

(8) Now Green suggests that (internal) evidence of the difficulty of, or hostility to a reading comes into play to give added weight to a majority reading. Thus for Green and friends, a majority reading can be valued if its somehow difficult, adverse, or offensive.

We need hardly comment on the subjectivity of this 'exception' that Green proposes to reinstate a majority reading to respectability. In comparison to textual evidence, all such personal conjecture and opinion must be secondary, and considered on its own merits, but hardly at all, next to overwhelming textual evidence in the form of landslide majority support.


Nazaroo

 

I'm posting Joe Layman's discussion of error-accumulation to round out the view:

Engineering 101: Part VI - Error Distribution and Bell Curves

​

Scientists, especially in biological and statistical work with 'populations' continually find and make use of the 'Bell Curve'.

The Bell Curve is a typical pattern of population distribution, so typical in fact, that equations are used to plot it, and parameters are tweaked to align its contours with given data, fill out and predict unknowns, and predict expectations for future research.

​

By 'population', we mean any group of independent objects, like people, animals, items, measurements, or even more abstract things like 'instances', 'examples', 'cases', elements, or anything that can be separated and distinguished as individuals, forming a group. Bell curves are as frequent with abstractions as they are with physical objects. The scales, parameters, coordinates can also be just about anything, and Bell-like curves will appear.

Almost any such group will exhibit some kind of 'Bell Curve' shape when plotted on a graph. This strange coincidence is actually based on well-understood probability factors. Simply put, there are more opportunities and chances for an individual to be somewhere in the middle of the scale than at the extremes. Its easy to be average or mediocre.

​

Above, we will find that there are few really great copyists (near-perfect), and equally few really bad ones (they would be replaced). We might find very few copyists making 30 or more errors per page, and equally few making 1 or less per page, while most copyists might score in the 5 or 10 errors per page range.

 

If we are simply observing raw error rates, these will be rather constant, with minor variations in certain times and places, depending upon training or copying methods. This is important, for errors can be plotted over time. If we imagine the copying stream as an ever-expanding fan, we may notice that the average density of errors will be rather constant, while the number of errors in each time-zone goes up, not only the total error-count:

​

We can modify this view to make it even more realistic, by allowing that early copyists produced more errors (i.e., a lower skill base), but this will be more than offset by the actual exponential (fibbonaci-like) growth of the manuscript count:

​

From this we can see that it will remain true that most raw errors will happen later in time, and not be early errors. Why does this seem to contradict the recent acknowledgement by textual critics that in fact "most errors are early"?

The reason is that most errors are actually ignored, and critics only focus on a small subset of the actual errors found in the manuscripts. For instance, most 'singular errors' (occuring in only once) are not even noticed or recorded. Only readings that have an added 'life-line' (by being copied), or have support (they may have spread by coincidence or mixture) are generally discussed. But this is not proper sampling, and gives a misleading picture of the history and spread of errors.


Now we enter into the most remarkable and subtle part of the analysis. This will require the reader's careful attention and insight.

Those who advocate for the 'early readings' (Alexandrian) as a group as against the 'later' Majority readings (Byzantine) would say "Aha! Most errors are late, and so the probability is therefore that most Byzantine readings are late, vindicating the antiquity of the Alexandrian text-type."

That conclusion however is a demonstrably false analysis:

(1) The majority of errors are not majority readings. These are two completely different groups of variants. The majority of errors are in fact minority readings, and must be, by the nature of the case. Most will have occurred very late in the copying stream, and cannot have had any opportunity whatsoever to become majority readings. The true distribution of raw errors will indeed resemble the lopsided 'bell curve' below:


click to enlarge

But the errors represented by this bell-curve will almost all be minority readings.

Perhaps even more importantly, the early errors represented here, may indeed be themselves majority readings, but they will not be the majority of majority readings. They will be a small subset of the total number of majority readings. Most majority readings will not be errors, but rather will represent the correct text.

Furthermore, the small subset of early majority readings represented above, which may indeed be errors, will be clustered, each associated with some severe anomaly that caused them to become majority readings. The competing clusters of variants (correct readings), especially those coming earlier in this one singular source (the archtype of the Byzantine transmission stream) will necessarily have been purged from all other copying streams.

The basic Byzantine text-type can be seen to have been in existence since the 5th century. If that is so, then its unique "Majority" readings (whether errors or not) must have originated much earlier than this, to become dominant from this time onward, both in the Greek and Latin copying streams.

Click to Enlarge

The Majority readings of the Byzantine text, and the majority of errors (which again are found mostly in the Byzantine texts) are two completely different sets of variants (entities).

Contrary to uncritical expectations, the nature of the error-producing process and the spread of errors over time, prevent the bulk of errors from becoming majority readings, whether they are copied or not by future copyists.


- The Engineer

 

By the late 1890s, many important and outspoken opponents of the Lachmann/Hort approach had articulated and published their criticisms. This did not derail the tampering of the NT text, but split textual critics and interested Christians of all denominations into two groups:

(1) Those who went with the new 'scientific' theories, preferring the critical texts, and
(2) those who were unconvinced, and held to the Traditional Text. ​

At this juncture, apologists like Marvin Vincent attempted to review the history of textual criticism itself, and distill out advances in knowledge and scientific progress. In his book, A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Macmillan, 1903), Vincent advances what he considers to be the development of TC and current state of affairs. He sums up the First Period of recent Textual Criticism as follows (p. 93-95):

'The First Period Reviewed ​

A review of the First Period (1516-1770) exhibits, in the beginning, a scarcity of documentary sources, an arbitrary determination of the text on a false and narrow basis, and a general ignorance of the comparative value of documents. The small number of manuscripts accessible (1) or used was only one of the obstacles which opposed the purification of the text. (2) Scholars were unable to make the best choice from among those actually at hand, or were not accurate in comparing them, or estimated the value of readings according to their number. (3)

"In consequence of the astonishing number of copies which appeared at the very beginning, (4) in a long series of manual editions, mostly from one and the same recension, the idea grew up spontaneously very early that in the manuscripts also the text was tolerably uniform, and that any thorough revision of it was unnecessary and impertinent. The Oriental Versions were closed to most; the importance of the Church Fathers was scarcely suspected; but the greatest lack of all for the purification of the text (2) was the indispensable knowledge of the process of its corruption" (5) (Reuss). ​

The Purist Controversy

Moreover, the beginning of the seventeenth century was marked by the rise of the Purist controversy. The Purists maintained that to deny that God gave the NT in anything but pure classical Greek was to imperil the doctrine of inspiration. The Wittemberg Faculty, in 1638, decreed that to speak of barbarisms or solecisms in the NT was blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Hence, a correct conception of the peculiar idiom of the Apostles was impossible, and the estimate of different readings was seriously affected by this cause. (6)​

Readings of existing editions were arbitrarily mingled, the manuscripts employed and the sources of variants adopted were not properly specified, and a full survey of the apparatus was impossible. (7)

The number of uncial sources [MSS], (1) however, gradually increased; the existence of various readings was recognized, but they were merely registered, and not applied to the construction of a purer text. (2) There began to be signs of revolt against the authority of the Textus Receptus, and [also] attempts to restore the text (2) on the evidence of manuscript readings. (8)
​

Signs of Improvement ​

There arose a growing distrust of the numerical basis of evidence. Manuscripts began to be weighed instead of counted. (9) There was a dawning recognition of the value of ancient documents and a corresponding effort to formulate principles of classification. A large mass of material relating to MSS, Fathers and Versions was collected, which awaited thorough sifting and arrangement, and the doctrine of families of texts was broached. Through all this the Received Text substantially maintained its supremacy, (10) though its pretensions were boldly challenged by individual critics; its chain (2) was rudely shaken and more than once broken, and its authority began to be visibly weakened. (11)
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The superstitious hesitancy (2) about departing from the Received Text still prevailed, and the critical valuation of the older uncials was suffering seriously from Wetstein's sweeping charge of latinisation (1751).' (12) (Vincent, p.93-95)
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Those already inclined in the Lachmann-to-Hort direction might find Vincent's banter satisfactory, as he attempts to build a platform to support the W/H critical text. But others who differ from this view will note some serious flaws and distortions in the presentation, exposing Vincent's bias.

(1) Vincent claims the period begins with only a 'small number of MSS', but this is patently untrue. Even Erasmus (1516), who made use of only a handful for his first edition, had already collated dozens of MSS in England and Europe for his fresh Latin translation. Early editors quickly gained access to dozens more independent copies, and Vincent seems oblivious to the contradiction here brought in by his own quotation of Reuss [!]: "the astonishing number of copies which appeared at the very beginning," ...

(2) Vincent begins liberally using suggestive language ("purification of the text" etc.) that begs the question regarding the relative purity and value of the TR in comparison to subsequently reconstructed 'critical texts' cobbled together from Uncial readings. It has yet to be established that the TR is "impure" in any significant way, even if one or two readings are legitimately open to challenge, such as 1st John 5:7 etc. The suggestion of course is that the Traditional Text (TR) is in desperate need of 'restoration', but convincing case has yet been made.

(3) Of course scholars indeed rightly 'estimated the value of readings according to their number', since this is a legitimate indicator of the spread and antiquity of a reading. It was never the only criterion, as review of the period literature (Mill, Bengel, Wetstein, Michaelis) shows. Vincent implies that this was an incorrect methodology, or that it was naively applied and led to bad results, but this has never been shown. Indeed, the very same criterion is applied enthusiastically without qualification to passages like 1st John 5:7 etc. by the same critics who avoid the criterion in other cases. This inconsistency is far more glaring in the W/H position (with its rejection of countless majority readings) than in the TR position, which with few exceptions values this criterion. In no case can estimating readings by MS count be found as the sole or main methodology anywhere in the literature of the period, or subsequently up until the 1880s. Even Burgon and Miller did not articulate or elevate such a criterion to preference over all other considerations.

(4) Here 'the astonishing number of copies' (Reuss) refers in the main to later cursive (minuscule) copies, ranging from the 8th century to the 15th. It appears that Vincent's contradiction can be traced to the fact that he only considers Uncial MSS to be of any value for textual reconstruction.

(5) It is true that 'knowledge of the process of corruption' is indispensable. The majority of variants are in fact accidental errors, or minor linguistic updates. However, understanding this process better in the 20th century has resulted in the reversal of TC canons taken for granted in the 17th to 19th centuries, such as "Prefer the Shorter Reading" (Griesbach, 1805). But such knowledge remained virtually unknown in Vincent's day, or else was wilfully ignored (e.g., Westcott/Hort).

(6) The Purists did not influence 17th century textual criticism, at least as significantly as claimed here. Very few important variants turn on questions of classical vs. Koine grammar, or new knowledge from a study of the papyri. This controversy had more relevance to translational issues and interpretation. Few textual critics can be shown to have made errors in judgment because of a lack of knowledge of 1st century Greek. The concern is unsubstantiated.

(to be continued...)