Originally posted by Dr. Bob Griffin:
Agree, Archangel, and am quoting this evidence you stated as it is a PRIME EXAMPLE of the most grievous error of well-meant scribal additions to the Word of God which is the prime reason for so many differences between the text families.
This ought to be cut-and-pasted to everyone fighting the pernicious attacks on the Word by the only sect. Thank you!
Have you read and seriously considered the very scholarly writings of Maurice A. Robinson? Dr. Robinson is Senior Professor of New Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He makes a very valid point when he says:
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76. The local text of Egypt <105> is not likely to reflect that which permeated the primary Greek-speaking portion of the Empire (Southern Italy through modern Greece and Turkey to Antioch on the Orontes), from which we have no MS, versional, or patristic data from before the mid-fourth century. <106> After that point one finds from that region a highly pervasive and dominant Byzantine stream. It is far more reasonable to assume that the predecessors of that stream simply retained the same textual complexion which earlier had permeated that region. <107> Otherwise, the greater task is to explain a previous non-Byzantine dominance in that region which was thoroughly overwhelmed by the Byzantine model within less than a century without a word of historical confirmation or authorization, whether from fathers, councils, or ecclesiastical or governmental decree. <108> Also, how to explain a reversal of dominance in the widest region without seeing a parallel change in smaller regions of the Empire, where local varieties of text maintained their regional influence with but sporadic Byzantine intrusion influencing their readings over an extended period.
77. The silence of early testimony from the primary Greek-speaking region of the Empire leads to two opposite views. Modern eclectics assume an early dominance of a non-Byzantine text in those areas which became the stronghold of Byzantine support, despite the transmissional unlikelihood of such having occurred in history. The Byzantine-priority advocates suggest that the later existence and dominance of the Byzantine Textform in that region provides presumptive evidence favoring a similar dominance in earlier times. <109> It is reasonable to suppose that, as texts spread geographically from their initial locale, regional alteration would increase proportionally to distance. This is especially the case given the "uncontrolled popular text" phenomenon of the early centuries. Copies produced within a close proximity to the site of origin or initial reception of a given text would be expected to retain a more uniform textual complexion closely resembling that of the autograph; this would occur without the imposition of formal "controls" upon the copying or dissemination of the text. Copies produced at a more remote distance from the site of origin would tend to diverge in greater quantity. If such a hypothesis is correct, the primary Greek-speaking region during the period of "geographical silence" would be expected to retain a Byzantine text, just as other localized regions preserved their disparate texts in the European and African West as well as in Egypt and Palestine; this is simple transmissional theory at work.
105 See Colin H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (London: British Academy, 1987) 3: "An overwhelming proportion of the evidence comes from Egypt, and even then ... from various provincial towns and villages... We cannot assume that ... the proportions ... which have survived from different periods, reflect the position in the ancient world generally." Further (35), "We cannot be certain either that they are typical of Egypt as a whole, or ... of the Graeco-Roman world as a whole."
106 Epp, "Continuing Interlude," Theory and Method, 119, critiqued Kurt Aland regarding the Egyptian papyri: "It may be strictly correct to say that the early history of the text is directly and immediately visible only in these earliest papyri and uncials. Yet, can we really ... be content with Egypt as the exclusive locale for this glimpse into the earliest textual history? Was any NT book written there, and does not Egypt therefore clearly represent only a secondary and derivative stage in textual history? ... Can we proceed with any assurance that these ... randomly surviving earliest MSS are in any real sense representative of the entire earliest history of the text?" Epp's amazing 1991 reversal on this point (cited below) appeals to possibility and not probability, and fails to establish any such convincing basis.
107 Eldon Jay Epp, "New Testament Papyrus Manuscripts and Letter Carrying in Greco-Roman Times," in Birger A. Pearson et al., eds., The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 55, makes a peculiar reversal without sufficient evidence (emphasis added): "(1) the various textual complexions ... found in Egypt--did not have to originate there, but could ... have moved anywhere in the Mediterranean area... (2) it is ... quite probable, that the present array of text-types represented in the Egyptian New Testament papyri do ... represent text-types from the entire Mediterranean region." Not only does Epp contradict Roberts and Skeat 1987, but also his own 1980 statement cited above. Epp 1991 does demonstrate a widespread communication between Egypt and other areas of the Roman Empire during the early centuries, but his evidence concerns only the carrying of personal letters and commercial or official documents--not any NT MSS. In most cited situations, letters often went astray, were lost, or remained unanswered. Epp 1991 provides no evidence proving that NT documents during the era of persecution traveled as other trans-Empire documents. Nor does he demonstrate that any NT papyrus or uncial fragment reflects a palaeography suggesting an origin outside of Egypt. Timothy J. Finney, "The Ancient Witnesses of the Epistle to the Hebrews: A Computer-Assisted Analysis of the Papyrus and Uncial Manuscripts of PROS EBRAIOUS" (PhD Diss., Murdoch University, 1999) 194-211 demonstrates that various early papyri and uncials (P13 P46 A B D I) have similar orthography, and on the hypothesis that shared orthography implies shared provenance, Finney suggests that these witnesses were copied in the same region, possibly Egypt.
108 Eldon Jay Epp, "The Significance of the Papyri for determining the Nature of the New Testament Text in the Second Century: A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in Epp and Fee, Theory and Method, 274-297 [original article published 1989] anticipated his later 1991 position, but with the cautionary note that his speculation "is largely an exercise in historical-critical imagination" (274). No such caution appears in Epp 1991. Nevertheless, Epp 1989 still stated that the 45 earliest papyri "all come from Egypt and ... twenty of these ... were unearthed at Oxyrhynchus" (277); and, while it is "possible ... that one or even all of these early Christian papyri could have been written elsewhere ... it must be remembered that virtually all of the papyri are from Egyptian rubbish heaps and presumably, therefore, were in extended use--most likely in Egypt" (279). Since a non-Egyptian origin for fragments found in that region cannot be proven, all speculation to the contrary remains "historical and creative imagination" (283) rather than anything resembling fact.
109 Tertullian, De Praescr. Haer., 36, appeals in the early third century to the apostolic cathedrae in the primary Greek-speaking region of the Empire as places where the "authentic writings" of the NT authors either had originated or were first sent and could still be found. The significant point is that Tertullian's appeal was not made to North Africa, Europe, Egypt or Palestine, but to those same primary Greek-speaking regions from which we have no extant evidence during the first three centuries.
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The entire article can be found at
http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol06/Robinson2001.html
The above seems to me to be a much more likely explanation of the differences between the various texts than the theory suggested regarding Byzantine additions.
NE found an ERROR in the NASB. You might not like a word, a word might have been translated better, but there have been no ERRORS.
