I extend to you Thomas as an olive branch of peace, the following post, which is my previous response to your comments, but without any mention of my college background which is irrelevant anyway. If you care to react to what I have written here, please do. I desire thought provoking interaction...
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OK, here is my reply to Thomas,
Thomas said,
Okay, let's try this again. In response to Chick's post above, allow me to note that only those scholars who ascribe to the "modern scientific textual criticism" based on the "5 Pillars" of Westcott and Hort believe the Alexandrian textform is the correct textform and the Byzantine textform has "added" to the autographa.
You apparently don't know what modern reasoned eclecticism is. Reasoned eclecticism has left behind Westcott and Hort, even though pro-majority text advocates keep fighting their fight as though they were fighting Westcott/Hort. Reasoned eclecticism does NOT hold that "the Alexandrian textform is the correct textform." You miss the whole point of reasoned eclecticism. Reasoned eclecticism operates toward the goal of restoring the original, not with the goal of promoting a particular text-type or particular manuscript as the being the original. You will note that the current UBS text is a product of reasoned eclecticism. There are ample examples of where Byzantine readings are found in the text, and Alexandrian manuscripts are relegated to the footnote (see James 5:4) Furthermore, through reasoned eclecticism, one can conclude that in
Luke 9:23 a bunch of earliest Byzantines and the Alexandrians together correctly share a LONGER reading against later Byzantines and Western D. Luke 9:23 is a clear example where the textus receptus and the UBS critical text together agree on a reading that is not in the Majority Text (which advocates the shorter reading). No where does reasoned eclecticism claim that the shortest reading is always the more accurate.
In fact, history teaches us that textual corruption is most often caused by homoeoteleuton (like ending). There are several examples of this which I could type in for you, but I will let you do your own homework. I will limit myself to just an example: Luke 2:15. The Byzantine textform reads [garbled Greek font] . . . whereas the "modern scientific critical edition" reads [garbled Greek font] . . .
I dispute your notion that homoeoteleuton is the most often cause of textual corruption. Furthermore, while scribes can and did accidentally leave out phrases due to similar ending, this type of error happened in all text-types and is usually easily identified. Reasoned eclecticists like Metzger (not Metzgar as you spelled it) and David Alan Black warn to watch out for this possibility when using the "shorter reading" rule. Also, sometimes the scribe would put his eyes down on the same line thinking it was the next line and commit a dittography.
Having said all this, homoeoteleuton can hardly be called upon to explain textus receptus anomalies like 1 John 5:7-8. It cannot explain the ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery of John 7:53-8:11, etc. It cannot also explain the many times where later Byzantine mss., have a few additional words like "Jesus Christ" instead of just "Jesus".
Finally, if the Alexandrians are erroneous where they are shorter, then you must solve the conundrum of how the errors came so quickly from LONGER (presumed correct) exemplars. You have to have longer correct exemplars in the first two centuries A.D. that then quickly produce much shorter copies in both Greek manuscripts, all early versions, and in the early church fathers. This is real difficulty for you. B and P75 agree so closely, that they almost certainly shared an exemplar only a few generations back. The many differences between Aleph and B is testimony to the fact that their shared exemplar must have been even further back toward the originals. There is simply not enough room to have several generations of longer correct mss producing shorter incorrect mss--and then to have the same process take place amongst the early version and fathers.
