At someone's request, I am currently working on a series of posts on New Testament textual criticism. Actually, he just wanted me to compare KJV to ESV textually, but I decided to make you wait for that and give you an introduction to the whole of text criticism, one glorious piece at a time.
Questions? Let me have them and I'll try to answer them in upcoming posts.
-Elijah
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
"So superstitious has been the reverence accorded to the Textus Receptus that in some cases attempts to criticize or emend it have been regarded as akin to sacrilege. Yet, its textual basis is essentially a handful of late and haphazardly collected miniscule manuscripts, and in a dozen passages its rendering is supported by no known Greek witness."
-Bruce M. Metzger, "The Text of the New Testament: It's Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration," p. 152.
“We did not need, (in noticing the Revised Old Testament) a blunder Bible to complete the series of eccentric Scriptures. However, good has come out of evil; the old Authorized Version sits secure upon its throne. There is none like it; nor is there likely to be.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
dude! touche! You know when (or where) he said that?
by the way, i decided that i would spare everybody the boringness of an intro to text criticism, though i am writing one for my own use (if you want to read it, email me).
instead, i'll just analyze some differences in ESV and KJV.
I will look up the quote when I get home and yes I would like for you to email me a copy of your intro to text criticism.
I am also going to post some differences between the ESV and KJB.
I have just posted a sampling, since the list of deletions, additions and diffences is several pages long. And also since the ESV has not been out that long I have not had the time to compare it all.
All the other versions, except the NKJV, follow the same pattern of differences, because they all are translated from the same 'counterfeit' Greek text.
If I am correct, then you may ask yourself 'how can all these so called scholarly men be deceived'.
This is the same type question I asked myself about evolution. 'How can all these scholarly brilliant scientists believe in millions of years and evolution?"
When I started studing this subject about 15 years ago I also asked myself the same question about the KJB and everytime I dig into the subject and study it again, I am more convinced.
ESV- KJB Comparison
KJB
2 Sam 21:19
And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
ESV
2 Sam 21:19
And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite,…
The Bible I use says David killed Goliath.
_________________
KJB
Dan 3:25
He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
Dan3:25
….and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.
A failure to reveal who the fourth person in the furnace is.
__________________
KJB
Matt 5:22
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
ESV
Matt 5:22
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment:
This verse in the ESV makes Jesus a sinner, because He got angry.
___________________
KJB
Mark 1:2
As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
ESV
Mark 1:2
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,…
Mark quotes from Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3. So ‘prophets’ is correct.
___________________
KJB
1 John 4:3
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
ESV
1 John 4:3
And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
How many times have we heard Brother Paul say he has used this verse, especially in counseling; but not using the ESV et. al. except NKJV.
____________________
KJB
1 John 5:7
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
ESV
1 John 5:7
For there are three that testify.
This deletion makes way for Mary.
_____________________
Then there are the entire verses that are deleted.
Matt 17:21; 18:11; 23:14
Mark 9:44; 15:28; 9:46
Acts 9:37
Rom 16:24
Ect…
Satan is identified as Lucifer only one time in the Word of God. But Lucifer is deleted in all the versions except NKJV. And most change Satan's name to 'morning star' which is the same name given to Jesus. (Isa 14:12; Rev 22:16)
Changes the word 'sodomite' to 'prostitute' ect...
Most will say that these deletions and additons do not destroy any major doctrines and I would agree. But I want to have a Bible that contains God's infallable, inerrant preserved Word. That is 100% correct, and that has not been 'taken away from' or 'add unto'.
Thanks, Kent, that is very helpful. (I’m preaching tomorrow night, so I’m slow on getting anything else done right now).
I will agree that the ESV is not perfect. There are times when the translators deliberately mistranslated a word because they were afraid of doctrinal misinterpretations that might follow what the Bible actually says.
Ex.: Romans 1:4 “and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord”
“declared” comes from “horidzo,” which means “define, explain, determine, fix, set,” or, in this case, “appoint.” (the word for “predestine” is “prooridzo” (pro+horidzo) which means “to oridzo before (appoint before/set before) This is an example of the ESV deliberately mistranslating a word because of a doctrinal bias.
__________________________________
2 Sam. 21:19-touche. That one is out of my reach.
It has been said though that “Goliath” was possibly a very common name (name overlapping is very common in the Bible) and at this point it is referring to a different Goliath, or that possibly “Goliath” is a title, much like “Pharaoh” or “Caesar.” Either way, the description of His spear fits the “David and-“ Goliath. I don’t see your point though, since the KJV and ESV both read “Elhanan”
_________________________________
Dan. 3:25. I actually get to put my Hebrew to use! (Note: I know that Daniel 3 is written in Aramaic, but Aramaic and Hebrew are very similar and have a lot of vocabulary overlap. ‘elohim is the same word in both languages)
The Hebrew word for “God” is ‘elohim. (the LORD is a different word, as are some of the divine titles); the Hebrew word for “gods” is, you guessed it, ‘elohim. It is impossible to distinguish the two words apart from context.
Now, “in the beginning, ‘elohim created the heavens and the earth.” This is obviously referring to God Himself. But in Daniel 3:25 it is used by a bunch of pagans who don’t believe in Yahweh to describe a miracle they’ve never seen before.
To them, this Person is clearly divine, but how would a bunch of pagans describe that? “Like a son of the gods” is the best interpretation, though admittedly, both “gods” and “God” are permitted here by the original language.
_____________________________
At that, I have to go take a shower and go to work, I’ll be back either tonight or after new years to finish.
That is one of the points I am trying to show, that the translators of the ESV, et. al. have been influenced by the world and thus their bias comes out in their translation/mis-translation.
_______________
Sorry, I should have highlighted the changes.
Many of the changes are so subtle it is easy to miss them.
KJB
2 Sam 21:19
…Elhanan …slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite,...
ESV
2 Sam 21:19
…Elhanan….struck down Goliath the Gittite,…
The ESV has omitted the word ‘brother’.
___________________________
Dan 3:25
Sorry I must have misunderstood something. Daniel wrote the book of Daniel with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so I do not know what ‘a bunch of pagans’ has to do with the translation of the word God. It comes down to the KJ translators knowing the language better than anyone then or today in correctly translating the correct word into English. I believe you would agree with me that the KJ translation of this verse is the best and even makes more sense as we continue to read the next few verses.
Have a good shower. Glad to read you are still taking a shower every Tuesday night whether you need it or not.
(please refer up to earlier posts to have these verses spelled out)
I honestly don’t know how to handle 2 Samuel 21:19. I’m looking at both the Septuagint and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (critical Hebrew text) and I’m not finding the word “brother” in anything. Granted, it could be that I’m so terrible at Hebrew that it’s not registering with me that it’s there, but I’m having trouble even finding it in a textual footnote. (It’s got to be there somewhere, or else it wouldn’t have been translated in the first place!)
As for Daniel, I stand by my original position. I fully agree that Daniel wrote “Daniel” by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. However, in 3:25, Daniel is recording the words of Nebuchanezzar. In verse 24, King Nebuchadnezzar asks his counselors (Daniel probably among them, but apart from him, a “bunch of pagans”) “Didn’t we throw 3 men in there?” “True, O King!” “But, I see 4! They’re walking around in there, and the 4th is like a son of ‘elohim”
The words Daniel inspiredly recorded are from the mouth of Nebuchadnezzar. While he acknowledges Yahweh, he still believes in other gods, as after this instance, He admits that there is no other God like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego’s God. SO, in verse 25, I still maintain that Nebuchadnezzar (and his counselors, minus Daniel) are ascribing deity to the 4th person, by saying He is a son of the gods.
Now, I’m not saying that “God” is strictly wrong, I’m just saying that I think it is more likely that Nebuchadnezzar is referring to “gods” at this point. So I do think that “a bunch of pagans” are important here to understand how something obviously miraculous would be perceived by the common mindset of the day.
_______________________
On to Matt. 5:22.
Sidenote in principles of Text Criticism though. One of the important guidelines of it is that the “best reading” usually explains all the other readings. (There’s a verse in Colossians 2:2 that has 15 variants, but only one of them explains how the rest of them could have come about!) Second principle: verses and words don’t just disappear. Scribes were indeed prone to adding words, for 1. extra clarification, 2. To harmonize the text with a parallel passage elsewhere, 3. to dignify the text or subject of the text (A variant in Colossians 1:23 adds “apostle” and “herald” to describe Paul, lest he be simply a “slave”) or sometimes 4, the text that was there was just too hard to understand. (I will note later the two main ways words and verses can disappear.)
Scribes would also often write a “hybrid-text.” When they were in possession of two differing manuscripts, they wouldn’t pick one reading and copy it, but would rather combine the two. The Byzantine (Majority) text type is characterized by this tendency.
Matt 5:22
This would be an example of number 4 listed above. Kent, you are indeed right, it does seem to make Jesus out to be a sinner because he was angry. But Scripture must be interpreted in the light of other Scripture. (Ephesians 4:26- Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath, KJV) It is WAY more likely that a worried Scribe (justifiably worried for the very same reason you pointed out) added the phrase “without cause” to the verse than that the phrase just dropped out. There is no rational explanation for it’s not being there (as you pointed out) if it was there in the original.
However, if it was not there originally, it is a textbook example of the kinds of things Scribes often added to “improve” upon that which is already perfect.
___________________________
I’m going down the list which you graciously provided, but am also running out of time for the night. I still have to study some for my Bible study at the nursing home tomorrow night.
I completely agree that most of these variations don’t affect doctrine. Much more than that, I wish there were no need for textual critics. God’s originally delivered Word is 100% inspired, infallible, and perfect. It is “given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” 2 Tim 3:16, KJV. However, we no longer have these originals. The Textus Receptus itself was the work of text critical scholars. It is our goal to recover the original words of God, and the evidence to the fact that we, for the most part, have, is embarrassing to any other documents. None are even close to the purity we have in the NT.
More to come later, for now, Romans calls.
-Elijah
Since you first quoted from Bruce Metzger I thought it would be good to understand a litte more about him before relying on him too much for textual criticism.
Metzger is a liberal and probably an unbeliever.
We can see this from Metzger’s own words.
From his introductions to the books of the Reader’s Digest Bible.
Genesis: “Nearly all modern scholars agree that, like the other books of the Pentateuch, [Genesis] is a composite of several sources, embodying traditions that go back in some cases to Moses.”
Exodus: “As with Genesis, several strands of literary tradition, some very ancient, some as late as the sixth century B.C., were combined in the makeup of the books”
Deuteronomy: "It’s compilation is generally assigned to the seventh century B.C., though it rests upon much older tradition, some of it from Moses; time.”
1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus: “Judging by differences in style and vocabulary from Paul’s other letters, many modern scholars think that the Pastorals were not written by Paul.”
James: “Tradition ascribes the letter to James, the Lord’s brother, writing about A.D. 45, but modern opinion is uncertain, and differs widely on both origin and date.”
2 Peter: “Because the author refers to the letters of Paul as ‘scripture’, a term apparently not applied to them until long after Paul’s death, most modern scholars think that this letter was drawn up in Peter’s name sometime between A.D. 100 and 150.”
Notes on Genesis: [Genesis] "2.4b-3.24… is a different tradition from that in 1.1-2, 4a as evidenced by the flowing style and the different order of events,…7:18-20: Archaeological evidence suggests that traditions of a prehistoric flood covering the whole earth are heightened versions of local inundations, e.g. in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.”
Notes on Job: “The ancient folktale of a patient Job (1.1-2.13; 42.7-17; Jas. 5.11) circulated orally among oriental sages in the second millennium B.C. and was probably written down in Hebrew at the time of David and Solomon or a century later (about 1000-800 B.C.).”
Notes on Psalm 22: “22:12-13:… the meaning of the third line [they have pierced my hands and feet] is obscure.”
Notes on Jonah: “The book is didactic narrative which has taken older material from the realm of popular legend and put it to a new, more consequential use.”
Notes from “How to Read the Bible with Understanding”: “The opening chapters of the Old Testament deal with human origins. They are not to be read as history…”
It's definately true that Metzger was liberal. His writings did often lean toward higher criticism, but there is a difference higher criticism and lower criticism.
Higher criticism is doubting the Bible (in a nutshell). Higher criticism = liberal.
Lower criticism is academic scholarship comparing manuscripts to recover the original. Lower criticism can, but does not necessarily = liberal.
Peter Gentry is an example of an unbelievably awesome, conservative, evangelical lower critic. (He's an OT professor here, and he's also the man.)
However, Metzger distinguishes between higher and lower criticism in his textbook. (If it taught liberalism, than it would be highly improbable for a SBTS professor under Mohler to require it as the main text, and a second recommend it to me.)
Bart Ehrman co-wrote the book. If there's anybody to pick a fight about, it's hands-down Barty 'the heretic' Ehrman. This guy's a confirmed, tried-and-true non-believer in the Bible. (He's the guy that wrote the book "Misquoting Jesus.") The solution is quite simple: read everything with a grain of salt, and push aside heretical doubt-casting.
The thing about Metzger is that he was an expert in New Testament manuscripts. Pushing aside all of his theological opinions, he was very zealous for precision and accuracy regarding the original words of the New Testament. His records of the facts (location, section of Scripture contained, type of handwriting, classification of geographical "type") about the manuscripts is definately helpful. Lee Strobel interviewed him on the "Were Jesus' Biographies reliably preserved for us?" Chapter of "A Case for Christ." Metzger has indeed made a stand for the historical reliability of the New Testament, with Strobel in that book if nowhere else! Metzger actually wrote one of the two main blurbs on the back of the book, but I don't dismiss the value of the book just because he likes it.
I won't come out and say that was an "ad hominem" attack. (Ad hominem = Latin for "against the man." It's a famous logical fallacy) Bruce Metzger was indeed the world's leading expert on textual criticism. He was also liberal. I am in no way denying that. I will argue that he is honest in presenting the facts, and that pushing his opinions aside, you can glean some wonderful information from his work.
Moreover, let's take a look at the quotes you brought forth.
First off, Metzger was a New Testament scholar, not an Old Testament scholar. His comments on books of the Old Testament shouldn't be considered as weighty as something he said about the New Testament. Of the 10 quotes you presented, only 3 of them deal with the New Testament. Of those 3, all three of them present a survey of modern scholarship, and one of the three admits that it is varied-to the extent that Metzger doesn't seem to take sides.
It seems that he is largely just presenting information. Let me relate this to another example.
Commenting on Romans 9:13 (Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated), Tom Schreiner writes:
"Once again many scholars insist that this passage does not relate to individual salvation but only to the temporal destiny of nations since Jacob and Esau represent two peoples (Gen. 25:23) and their historic destiny." (Romans, p. 501.)
It would certainly appear that Dr. Schreiner is agreeing with these scholars and dismissing Romans 9:13 as being simply about nations. Ok, Dr. Schreiner is my pastor, and I took a class on just the book of Romans with his this semester. That is NOT what he believes. He is, however, stating the facts. Many modern scholars (including many at rural Baptist churches) believe this. The very next sentence in Schreiner's Romans commentary proves this point. He was just stating facts.
Recording opinions does not mean that you agree with them. To say that it does would mean that Tom Schreiner is an Arminian, the Bible affirms polygamy, and that Richard Dawkins is a young earth creationist.
Yes, Metzger was a liberal; I'm not denying that. I am saying that he can be trusted when it comes to lower criticism. Discernment is just needed to keep higher and lower criticism distinguished from each other.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Metzger headed up the translation committee for the NRSV version of the Bible (the gender-neutral translation before the TNIV). It's how i judge if a person'a liberal or not at work. If they ask for an NRSV, my money's on liberal.
Not only that, but he was the series editor for the Word Biblical Commentary series. Jimmy Dunn wrote the "Romans" volumes in this. Dunn coined the phrase "New Perspective on Paul" to describe a modern theological trend to see justification as an aspect of participating in the covenant community rather than by faith in Christ. Dunn teaches this in his commentary.
-all this to say that I'm not defending Metzger as a person, or even as a theologian, but as an honest New Testament textual critic.
Post a Comment