Textual Criticism?

[Conan]

I agree with the following quotes found here
The Difference Between Original Autographs and Original Texts

Not actually.

Eldon Jay Epp notes, “The point is that we have so many manuscripts of the NT . . . that surely the original reading in every case is somewhere present in our vast store of material.”

Excellent!

Gordon Fee concurs: “The immense amount of material available to NT textual critics . . . is their good fortune because with such an abundance of material one can be reasonably certain that the original text is to be found somewhere in it.”
.

Gorden Fee does not concure. He does not hardly use all these manuscripts. Remember you quoted him earlier saying the Byzantine Text did not exist in the first 3 centuries. Gorden Fee only uses a few early manuscripts and discards the rest. That is until his early manuscripts are so bad he will have to consider the other majority of manuscripts.

 

[37818]

I agree with the following quotes found here
The Difference Between Original Autographs and Original Texts

Regardless what the link says, the text of the autographs and the text of original are to be the same text.

 

[Silverhair]

Not actually.

Excellent!

Gorden Fee does not concure. He does not hardly use all these manuscripts. Remember you quoted him earlier saying the Byzantine Text did not exist in the first 3 centuries. Gorden Fee only uses a few early manuscripts and discards the rest. That is until his early manuscripts are so bad he will have to consider the other majority of manuscripts.

As both Epp and Fee pointed out we do not have the text of the autographs or did you miss that?

 

[Silverhair]

Regardless what the link says, the text of the autographs and the text of original are to be the same text.

And we have neither.

 

[Silverhair]

Further reading, while a full identity of f35 is being offered, it is still a work in discovery. Mark 13:31 is a case in point. While current reading is probably the correct one, there are a small number of some other references. And more collation to be done. f35 is largely the same as the Byzantine Text. I am still learning about it.

But as Dr Robinson said regarding the F35, they are from about the mid 11th century. Pickering has made his claim but do you have any scholars that support his claim.

As you said it is a incomplete work so can not be called the complete text now can it. You and Canon continue to deny the obvious, why is that?

 

[RipponRedeaux]

Regardless what the link says, the text of the autographs and the text of original are to be the same text.

The autographs and the original are the same thing. Why do you differentiate between them?

 

[Conan]

As both Epp and Fee pointed out we do not have the text of the autographs or did you miss that?

I would say we easily have 98, 99% of the Text of the New Testament as Originally written. I mean there is 94% agreement with Byzantine, TR and Critical Texts. We throw out Gordon Fees methods and the percentages go up closer to 98-99%.

 

[Silverhair]

The autographs and the original are the same thing. Why do you differentiate between them?

The original text would be a copy of the autographs. We do have text that, as best as we can tell, gives us much of the text of the autographs. Scholars have been able to recover between 94 to 98 % of the original text depending upon which scholar you speak to.

Within a particular transmission stream subgroup they may be able to show 99 % agreement of that subgroup but there are usually differences even between the subgroups. Such as in the byzantine line we find differences between the M5, M6 & M7 subgroups. These three subgroups each comprise about 30% of the byzantine line.

From what I have read this line seems to be the most consistent textural line of transmission although not the earliest one.

We have a abundance of biblical manuscripts and as Gordon Fee “one can be reasonably certain that the original text is to be found somewhere in it.”

 

[Silverhair]

I would say we easily have 98, 99% of the Text of the New Testament as Originally written. I mean there is 94% agreement with Byzantine, TR and Critical Texts. We throw out Gordon Fees methods and the percentages go up closer to 98-99%.

Yes I know we have 94% agreement within the Byzantine, TR and Critical Texts. But why do you think we should throw out Fee's work?

 

[Conan]

Yes I know we have 94% agreement within the Byzantine, TR and Critical Texts. But why do you think we should throw out Fee's work?

To get closer to 98-99%. No disrespect to G. Fee but Sometimes he goes with the Text when it is weak, or just a few manuscripts vs a clear overwhelming majority. I think he was a very good scholar, meaning qualified and smart. But when it came to examples I think biased toward a non byzantine type text.

 

[AVL1984]

Really? Have you really followed this? @Silverhair just posted 3 videos.

Be that as it may, y'all repeating the same things over and over isn't productive and is exactly what I said it is.

 

[Silverhair]

To get closer to 98-99%. No disrespect to G. Fee but Sometimes he goes with the Text when it is weak, or just a few manuscripts vs a clear overwhelming majority. I think he was a very good scholar, meaning qualified and smart. But when it came to examples I think biased toward a non byzantine type text.

You can say all scholars are biased toward one text type. But all good scholars will use all the types at their disposal when doing research. And Fee was an good scholar. Do you not think that Robinson is a good scholar? He prefers the byzantine text but as he said he still uses all the available texts. He nor Fee let their preference overrule the text. Also Dr Robinson is the one that said we could only get to a 94 - 96% of to original text.

 

[Silverhair]

Be that as it may, y'all repeating the same things over and over isn't productive and is exactly what I said it is.

If you read through the thread you will see that we have been moving along in the discussion. Although it may be slow progress it has been progress. I hope that I have brought some clear information to those that have read these posts. What people do with that information is up to them.

But like you I think we have about exhausted this topic as anything else I present would just be in support of things I have already posted.

So on that note I will say it has been fun and I hope eye opening for those that have taken the time to engage whether reading or commenting.

 

[Conan]

You can say all scholars are biased toward one text type.

Never said such a thing.

But all good scholars will use all the types at their disposal when doing research.

True!

And Fee was an good scholar. Do you not think that Robinson is a good scholar? He prefers the byzantine text but as he said he still uses all the available texts. He nor Fee let their preference overrule the text.

You are mistaken. Take your own quote of Gordon Fee earlier in this thread. He dismissed the Byzantine Text outright, saying Pickering was wrong about the Byzantine Text, that it didn't exist in the earliest times. You are the one who posted that view of his. Then later you pretend he takes all texts in consideration? That view does not match your earlier quote at all.

Also Dr Robinson is the one that said we could only get to a 94 - 96% of to original text.

No. He prefers the Byzantine Text at 99%. He was saying if you took Nestle/Aland, the TR and Byzantine Text you have 94-96% agreement.

 

[Silverhair]

Never said such a thing.

Speaking of Gordon Fee you had said "I think he was a very good scholar, meaning qualified and smart. But when it came to examples I think biased toward a non byzantine type text."

In my response I said "You can say all scholars are biased toward one text type." You seem to be overly sensitive. Do you not agree that all scholars can be biased?

You are mistaken. Take your own quote of Gordon Fee earlier in this thread. He dismissed the Byzantine Text outright, saying Pickering was wrong about the Byzantine Text, that it didn't exist in the earliest times. You are the one who posted that view of his. Then later you pretend he takes all texts in consideration? That view does not match your earlier quote at all.

I looked at all the times I quoted or referenced Fee and in none of them did he dismiss the byzantine text. What he said was that Pickering's claim regarding the ECF and the byzantine text was wrong. Show me where Fee dismissed the byzantine text.

"The latter point, it appears, simply will not stand. With regard to the Fathers, Fee, who is among the most active and significant researchers in the area of patristic citations, has demonstrated quite clearly that Pickering is simply wrong; his list of nearly thirty Fathers who allegedly ‘recognize’ Majority readings has no basis in fact. No early Father witnesses to the Majority text; the only one prior to Chrysostom known to have used it was the heretical Asterius the Sophist (d. 341). Pickering’s claim to the contrary overlooks completely the researches of the last eight decades." # 164

No. He prefers the Byzantine Text at 99%. He was saying if you took Nestle/Aland, the TR and Byzantine Text you have 94-96% agreement.

Your right Robinson likes the byzantine text but other scholars like other texts and as he said they might say the text they use is 99% accurate. So no difference there. But as he also said when you look at all the manuscripts you get to 96 - 98%. And since the byzantine text does not go back as far as other texts you have to use those other texts thus the overall is 96 - 98%.

 

[Conan]

Thank you 37818 & Silverhair for the excellent video's. Catching up on watching them.

 

[Conan]

Be that as it may, y'all repeating the same things over and over isn't productive and is exactly what I said it is.

That is true. However, if you listen to the video's provided by 37818 & Silverhair, the information is excellent and among the very, very best!

 

[Silverhair]

All scholars are Not biased towards one text type.

So you don't think any scholar is biased toward a particular text type, if so how do you explain you comment about Fee and what about Pickering. I will say you do have a well honed ability to misread a text.

IN other words, you don't really know what Fee and Pickering were even debating. You just quoted a googled response that had Pickering's name in it. Well, since you don't know what they were debating it was the existence of the Byzantine Text in the early centuries. Pickering says it existed from the earliest times Fee said it didn't. You are misunderstanding partial quotes from partial snip it's from a summary of a debate.

What did Fee say in regard to Pickerings claim? Fee pointed out that the byzantine text was not quoted by the ECF as Pickering claimed and the byzantine text is not found before

The Byzantine Text does go back to the first century AD. That is Robinson's position. That is my position. That is Pickering's position. Whether Robinson's, Pickering's, or Hodges and Farstad Text's are used you get 99% agreement of text. If you include Critical Text's in the equation (that is Nestle/Aland), then the percentages of agreements go down to 94% agreements. This is because of differences in Text's.

You keep making claims but you do not provide any scholarly reviews or links to back up your claim. Where did Robinson state that the byzantine text goes back to the 1st century? I know that Pickering does but his work is suspect in that claim. "we ignored the m7 group contrary to Pickering primarily because the m7 group is the kr group family 35 of which no manuscript exists earlier than about the mid 11th century" Dr. M. Robinson

Well since Robinson's, Pickering's, & Hodges and Farstad use the byzantine text one would expect it to have a high degree of agreement within them. Just as you would expect from other lines of transmission. Which is what scholars that support those other lines do claim. But none of them have the complete text of the bible. That is why Dr M.
Robinson in regard to papyri evidence in support of the byzantine text said "Any bold assertion that the point is settled, since no predominately Byzantine manuscripts of the second century have yet to be discovered, certainly seems to beg the question from an argument based on silence"
Majority Text vs. Critical Text: Part One

But after all is said and done I think the following quote sums it up well:

Famous British manuscript expert Sir Frederick Kenyon summed up the matter well when he declared that: “The interval between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established” (Kenyon, The Bible and Archaeology, 288).

 

[Conan]

So you don't think any scholar is biased toward a particular text type, if so how do you explain you comment about Fee and what about Pickering. I will say you do have a well honed ability to misread a text.

I had erased this reply to your post early after I made it so as you could have the last word and folks could focus on the videos that you and 37818 had posted but.....

That's not what you said. You said all scholar's biased towards one text. Not all scholars are biased towards one type of text. Fee and Pickering are not all scholars, and your statement was wrong. Some scholars look at all of the evidence and then make, to them a fair choice among the evidence. Fee was not one of them in my opinion.

What did Fee say in regard to Pickerings claim? Fee pointed out that the byzantine text was not quoted by the ECF as Pickering claimed and the byzantine text is not found before

And what was Pickerings response back to Fee? You have no idea what it was because you never read his rejoiner if there was one. You didn't read their original debate only someone's biased review of one segment of their debate. A debate that took place in the 1970's before Pickering had discovered Family 35. Remember it was called Kr back then, not Family 35.

You keep making claims but you do not provide any scholarly reviews or links to back up your claim.

Neither had you, until you posted the excellent Robinson videos. I'm going by memory, what I have learned the last 25 years of studying Textual Criticism.

Where did Robinson state that the byzantine text goes back to the 1st century?

Excellent question!

I know that Pickering does but his work is suspect in that claim. "we ignored the m7 group contrary to Pickering primarily because the m7 group is the kr group family 35 of which no manuscript exists earlier than about the mid 11th century" Dr. M. Robinson

Yes, the two excellent scholars disagree on the value of family 35. This certainly shows the Byzantine manuscripts are not all copies of one another like some critical text scholars make it out to be. Please Remember that fact!

Well since Robinson's, Pickering's, & Hodges and Farstad use the byzantine text one would expect it to have a high degree of agreement within them.
Just as you would expect from other lines of transmission. Which is what scholars that support those other lines do claim. But none of them have the complete text of the bible. That is why Dr M.
Robinson in regard to papyri evidence in support of the byzantine text said "Any bold assertion that the point is settled, since no predominately Byzantine manuscripts of the second century have yet to be discovered, certainly seems to beg the question from an argument based on silence"
Majority Text vs. Critical Text: Part One

Dr Robinson's point is well taken!

But after all is said and done I think the following quote sums it up well:

Famous British manuscript expert Sir Frederick Kenyon summed up the matter well when he declared that: “The interval between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established” (Kenyon, The Bible and Archaeology, 288).

That is certainly true if one follows the Byzantine Text, Family 35, Textus Receptus. If one follows the Critical Texts then the percentages go down a little.

 

[Silverhair]

@Conan you keep making these claims but you overlook the facts.

While scholars may claim 99% accuracy within their chosen text line none of the lines give us an early dated full text do they? So while the CT is older the Byz is more consistent but younger.
I have bibles that come from both major lines of transmission and use them.

This is not a topic that we will be able to resolve to a final position as we do not have the autographs. So scholars will continue to debate this question.

As I said before, further discussion will not advance this topic as we would just be restating what we have already said. It has been fun and interesting.