Featured Sorenson's new book Neither Oldest Nor Best

Thanks to Doc and JoJ for the reference to Pickering's work on Family 35. I've been reading through God Has Preserved His Text! I admit to being lost much of the time in the specifics of the statistical analysis (but not the other arguments, i.e., geography, et al., which are pretty standard), but it appears to me (as Doc has said) that Pickering has identified 200 or so manuscripts that are the "pure line" of transmission and thus the Majority Text is a dead end and better than the Critical Text only relatively. That is, where the MT departs from Family 35, it is no more reliable than, say, Alexandrinus or Sinaiticus. But that's just my take.

Pickering's Family 35, if I understand correctly, is the same as Von Soden's K(r); the difference is that Pickering believes those MS are the original (or very near the original) texts while Von Soden believed they are a medieval recension, which is why Von Soden believes they were copied so consistently.

 

So ...

1. Pickering is correct in that Family 35 represents the original (I would say best available, but this not really Pickering's argument) text of the New Testament and the other readings, whether Byzantine or Alexandrian, or whatever text type you want to mention, should be largely ignored. So both the Critical Text and Majority Text proponents are left out in the cold.

Or ...

2. Pickering is wrong and Von Soden is correct in that Kr or Family 35 is a late recension and should be largely ignored in determining the Majority Text.

What are the practical results of either of those two positions?

 

I agree. I can hold in my hands the inspired word of God. My KJV is vested with derivative inspiration because it is translated from the inspired Greek and Hebrew which were vested with that same derivative inspiration right back to the autographs.

And I can say the same thing of my NKJV. My WEB. My ASV. My ESV. Etc. I prefer the first two, but still consider the others to be vested with derivative inspiration.

The History is inspired History.
The Prophecy is inspired Prophecy.
The Promises are inspired Promises.

The Originals: Given by Inspiration of God.
The Copies: Preserving the Inspired nature of the above.
The Translations: Transmitting the inspired nature of the history, prophecy, and promises of the above into the receptor language.

This all seems rather obvious to me. But then, what do I know?