Do Westcott & Hort Rule New Testament Textual Criticism?
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- Опубліковано 31 січ 2024
- The Textual Confidence Collective rides again! Welcome to our second "season," a series of four episodes dedicated to Westcott and Hort.
This is Episode 1, and it features special guests Abidan Shah, Peter Gurry, and Maurice Robinson. Tim Berg is our host for this episode.
Episode 2 (Feb 8): The Sin of Slander
Episode 3 (Feb 15): Common Slanders of Westcott & Hort
Episode 4 (Feb 22): Genuine Problems with Westcott & Hort
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Warning.. Once you begin this video/series, you will not want to leave your seat. Grab a drink and snacks because this will be a doozy. Great job Mark!
This one was especially challenging.
@@markwardonwords Coming from a non scholarly background in this field, it was a tad challenging to follow. However, it was very enlightening and did cast away some of the shroud of darkness surrounding W&H.
I started watching after midnight but reluctantly forced myself to stop after 40 minutes as I had to sleep but carried on in the morning!
The lie have encountered a few times is that all modern translations are controlled somehow by the Catholic Church.
Whoop whoop! I cannot begin to say how much I appreciate this - it is SUCH an honor to have played a (very) small part in all this. Mark Ward - the MAN - the MYTH - the LEGEND!!! May your tribe increase :-)
Dr. Ward, these TCC videos are a great resource for the church. As a minister, I appreciate being able to refer my congregation to such irenic and well produced content on this important subject. I look forward to the next installments. God bless you!
Thank you so much! More to come!
3 years ago, if someone said I’d be watching this then I would have considered insane. And yet here I am! Excited
Ha! Love it!
Amazing! Been waiting for this for a while. Glad to see you all come together once again. m
Thanks, Wes! I hope this series on Westcott & Hort is useful in your work! The other videos in the series won't be quite as challenging; they'll be more accessible.
Thanks to everyone involved.
I was interested to hear how much difference a text history model makes.
Also, really interesting data on how much WH text contributed to the ERV.
Thank you Drs. Shah, Gurry, and Robinson, and great job steering the conversation, Tim.
I’m finally getting a chance to watch these. Looks like great content I’m looking forward to it. Thank you Mark, it’s a great ministry to present this information in a way for people like me to digest.
Hope you enjoy it!
I’ve had this series in my on deck to watch for a while now. I finally did and I knew I wouldn’t want to stop once I started. I’m binge watching pretty much and hopefully I can put together a cohesive sentence after this🤪 Thank you so much for these. Blessings🙏
Aaaaaand we’re back! I’ll be the first to admit that I replay this series on occasion because of its breadth and depth on the topic of textual “confidence” and the surrounding stigma of biblical text study. Thank you for continuing the discussion - and as always, with virtue and honesty.
✔
With napkin, cutlery, and a ready appetite, I await the next course of these to come. I'll even wear a tie. 🤓 Thank you for such great discussion from an impressive coterie! Blessings to you all!
Yes!!
@@markwardonwords If it's helpful, this discussion did change my impression of how much influence WH has had into modern times. I did not realize the level of modern pushback and reevaluation, especially with ECM. Thank you for that.
This is such an informative and cordial discussion. Can’t wait for the rest of them!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for this discussion. I largely agree. John 1.18 is an interesting test case (one of Hort's dissertations). The RV did not follow WH, nor had Tischendorf, despite his use of 01, 04 and 019. Also, the SBLGNT is instructive. WH was the base text and Holmes sided with WH against Tregelles, Robinson-Pierpont and the Greek text behind the NIV in 98 places, more than such agreement against three. Holmes was closest to the NIV and agreed with RP in 66 places against the others, second only to the 98 agreements with WH. I am excited about the rest of this season.
This is great! I love that you got Dr. Robinson to participate.
He's awesome!
Great discussion! I do need to say that Stephen Hackett and Jeffery Dodson has played a much greater roll in getting everything together for the Byzantine printing coming up. We're getting close, but we also have a few more exciting things that are happening with it :)
On another note, it would be interesting to hear the panel discuss the idea of that Papyrus manuscripts representing a localized Egyptian text.
Would love to hear an update on the project 😊
@@lbd0723 An update is coming soon :)
I may need to have Stephen and Jeffery on to chat. I know Stephen. Super nice guy.
do it!
i have been waiting for this season! looking forward to listening to this episode today!
Loved the first series and this episode did not disappoint. Praying that God will use the TCC material to reach and teach the Body of Christ about the work that goes into preserving the precious Bible translations that we, too often, take for granted. Thank you Mark and the team.
✔
Glad you are back to shed more light on such an important topic.
I have to gather popcorn for this , I’m so excited!!!
You might need several buckets. ;)
I love being a fly on the wall for these discussions. Thanks for pursuing your vision!
Our pleasure!
What a great discussion! Glad to see another series in this vein. I know it's representative of an incredible amount of work. 👏👏👏
Glad you enjoyed it! It really is.
A big THANK YOU for this video. I tip my hat to those who have taken the time to weigh the evidence and who have in some way contributed to our having excellent Bible study resources available.
This is a great conversation. I wish they could keep going for a few more hours
More to come! With the original TCC crew! Drops tomorrow morning, Lord willing!
The thought of retiring the Text Family idea has crossed my mind as well, compiling the Big 3 into a single work. Also, this vid challenges me to dig even into manuscript research a bit. Looking forward to this series!
Your timing is impeccable. I was planning to tackle this topic for my own edification recently and here it is!
Wonderful!
My main take away: I have much studying to do.
Join the club!
I'm about 1/3 through the video, but as a Byzantine Priority proponent, I couldn't help but smile during the following exchange:
Peter Gurry when talking about the CBGM, paraphrasing, "The computer helps the editors keep track of all the variant decisions and what manuscript they favored. And I believe they had over 3000 decisions to make. I don't believe Maurice Robinson had that many decisions."
Maurice Robinson: "No, I didn't have to make that many decisions" :)
Yes, those two are great! And one of the messages we're trying to send here is that Byzantine prioritists and critical text proponents can have some good humor in their united opposition to textual absolutism.
Just finished! Great episode. Very helpful. I need to go back now and make notes.
Wonderful!
Another valuable question is whether the TR dominates textual criticism (to the detriment of the Byzantine Text): Stephanus 1550 is the base text for collation (Vulgate-derived readings included); Metzger's Commentary reacts against the TR (e.g., especially, at Ephesians 3:9, Luke 23:15, etc.); Westcott and Hort discredited the TR and their Antiochean Text with it.
Thank you Mark!
P.S. Might need to explain "Ad Hominem". I had to look it up back when I first started listening to you, and others talk about debates.
I feel like a lot of people attack a straw version of Westcott and Hort, who in their mind is a single "Westcottandhort" which started out being not only a conflation of both Westcott and Hort, but of a different Westcott, William Wynn Westcott. At least, that seems to be what Gail Anne "God And" Riplinger does, and what her followers slavishly copy her in doing.
So excited for this!!! I will probably have to watch this series more than once since I’m no scholar, lol. Thank you, Dr. Ward!
Hope you enjoy it!
I've only just started watching but I appreciate that you've given yourselves time to cover the issues in depth instead of a just a 30 second soundbite.
This series is a great followup to your comments on Burgin. I always thought that the criticism of Westcott and Hort needed to be studied by people who were not KJV Only. Anxious for the following 3 episodes.
I would like to hear more about the differences between the TR and the majority text. Thanks so much for this forum.
1:13:45 - Souter's manual GNT represents the base-text of the English revised version.
thank you Mark
It's over my pay grade, I have a love the truth, and to please God and an understanding that God backs his word!
Thank you.
You're welcome!
A great video. I really enjoyed this.
Glad you enjoyed it! You must be a nerd!
Hello,Gents,great to see /hear y'all.🌹⭐🌹⭐🌹⭐
Hey there!
I love this.
This is great - thanks! Thanks also for being fair to the Byzantine/Majority Text.
Robinson and Shah are fine fellows! I hope to join Shah at a conference in the coming year or so!
@@markwardonwords Do you know Robert Adam Boyd's 'The Text-Critical English New Testament - Byzantine Text Version' (pub. 2021)?
@@alanhowe1455 Yes-I really need to have him on the channel!
nice this is so needed
Agreed! Thank you!
It's the video you referenced in a comment to me recently!
Yup! And there's more to come!
These few videos are going to personally affect me a bit more than most of the listeners here. I read the Bible in Chinese quite often, and the Chinese Union Version of the Bible is in some sense a translation from ERV/ASV (even falling for a false friend at one point).
Guess I learned something new about the Chinese Union translation today.
I’m going to have to watch this again. This was very deep
Yeah, this one is challenging.
I appreciate the work of David W. Daniels (his books and vlogs) on Westcott and Host and all things related to the Bible/translations.
Then you'll need to listen to the other side-stay tuned!
Part way through, I read Hort's introductory volume in Seminary, though I'm not current in TC. The one point (speaking asna philospher and not a moderntext critic) that impressed me about Hort and others in discussions of the internal evidence is that it was good, abductive logic. I sometimes wonder if the issues we have in this issue is the dearth of logical study in our schools.
Also, Ehrmann isn't someone I specialize in, but his argument always struck me as more conducive to a modern logical positivism (with a criteria of certainty) rather than post-modernism, though he does seem to accept Lessing's ditch and a certain idea that Kant disproved the knowledge of God.
I read WH with you in that class, Kevin, right? I remember reading a beautiful old first edition of their work.
@@markwardonwords Possibly, we read a section of Hort at that time, but I also read outside of the course. At one time I really wanted to pursue Text Crit., it was pre-Ehrman (I read his revision of Metzger), and I concluded at that time most of the serious heavy lifting was done (boy I was wrong), and I was really interested in two areas surrounding Paul's work, including a budding interest in epistemology from Paul's references to Dueteronomy's law of two witnesses (my epistemic starting point).
I spent a summer reading that work, Metzger's book on the ancient versions, something by Bruce, and a few others while still in my MA or M Div. I don't remember what section of the book we read in class, but it was an early introduction to practical abuductive reasoning.
And yes, BJU had a first edition of the introduction. They also had a beautiful facsimile of Tyndale's 1534 or 1536 I used to love doing my devotions in.
I'd always understood that the RV NT was based on W&H's NT. Thanks for clarifying
Looking forward to the next installment :)
Have a name for textual absolutism...just thought of it. Could we label it Textual Docetism? I had been KJVO in the past but thankfully (Thank you Holy Spirit) never saw a need to confront someone about the bibles they used. I thank the Lord as that has never been anything I had to walk back or seek forgiveness on with others in the past once leaving that movement/viewpoint. You think cagestage Calvinists are bad...
The next video can't come soon enough
Is this related to the series done in 2022?
Yes. It's a second "season" with a new topic.
Is it true?
1.Westcott slept on a cot facing west.
2. Hort introduced his fiancee as the future Co-Hort.
Yes. All true.
@Colonel Sanders: I love your chicken!
Few people know that Colonel Sanders was also a world-renowned expert on the Pericope Adulterae.
@@markwardonwords Well shucks shaw, I ain't never HEEERD tell of such as that. All my pericopes is unadulterae. I uses the Πατριαρχικό Κείμενο του 1904.
I wonder if some of the accusation of the Westcott and Hort being used in the "Revised Version" was just a little confusion between the "Revised Version" and the "American Standard Version" of 1901, published just a few decades later, which did used Westcott and Hort?
I could be mistaken, but I thought that the ASV was a revision of the RV to bring it more into line with the preferences of some American scholars.
@@richardvoogd705 You are correct, but part of the revision process included using the Westcott and Hort for the New Testament.
I am upset I will have to wait a month for this series. I want my videos, and I want them now, lol
The more I think about it the more I feel I agree with what was said of Scrivener. I am between the Byzantine and the Nestle Aland, but I am closer to the Byzantine.
The key line for the TCC is textual absolutism vs. textual confidence. We stand with Byzantine prioritists (and Scrivener) against those who believe that we have achieved the final form of the text.
Great video so far but the audio needs work
Agreed. Sigh. I'm just not great at audio.
@@markwardonwordsdon't be too hard on yourself the content is still excellent and it's not like the audio is horrible it's just slightly off is all nothing major
1:16 - The "only 64 times" is a meaningless statistic, considering that Ellicott was every inch as pro-Alexandrian as Westcott and Hort were - and also considering that the Unitarian on the Revision Committee favored the Alexandrian text as well.
It would have been nicer to see them sitting on a sofa in a cozy room and talking. Instead of that boring and ugly room. And why these piles of books in front of two? And then these plastic bottles. And then the very uneven sound quality. As you can hear, I'm in a critical mood today, I hope you can handle it.
It seemed very drawn out explanation. It think that though you proved your points but a much more concise video needs to be produced. As someone that is concerned about friends who are KJV only I don’t think they would sit through such a long explanation.
I agree. Perhaps this can be accomplished. Maybe Tim and I can do a follow-up.
Respectfully, I disagree. KJV-onlyists have very extravagant, mulit-layered arguments which require thoroughness to address.
@@vinoneil Perhaps both are right-I default to the longer explanations, but I think that some people can only handle concise.
Thank all for their respectful replies.
Thanks for this vid. It reaffirms my view that The King James Bible is THE HOLY BIBLE for all English Speaking people. I was particularly struck how the panel tried to distance the modern fake English Bibles from Westcott and Hort. None of the panel entered a defense against some serious accusations against Westcott and Hort. So, lets see if future vids do so. I was also surprised that the Westcott and Hort fanboy on the panel did not bring up the accusations against his heroes.
Have patience, and we will splain thee all.
Accusations against Westcott and Hort are irrelevant, anyway. They weren't the only textual critics of the 19th century who realized that the Textus Receptus was flawed. Even if Westcott and Hort had not been on the committee, the revisers would still have plenty of other scholars to consult. That's the point that this video makes.
@@MAMoreno Really? GOD allowed Bibles from a flawed line of texts from the New Testament era all the way to the present, and needed to be corrected by another line of texts over just the past few hundred years (which the "experts" are still correcting)? "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." (Matthew 24.35) " The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." (Psalm 12.6-7)
@@igregmart There's no such thing as a "flawed line of texts" in opposition to an "unflawed line of texts." God chose to leave preservation largely to the hands of flawed human scribes, and the resulting "lines of text," whether they be lines in the Hebrew manuscripts, lines in the Greek manuscripts, lines in the Latin manuscripts, lines in the Aramaic manuscripts, or any of the others, are all flawed and contradictory. That's the reality of the situation, and taking issue with that is no different than taking issue with the existence of hurricanes or mosquitoes or anything else we don't like that God has elected to do. And making up lies about the textual tradition might be comforting, but it doesn't make it true.
Which Bible was the Holy Bible for all English speaking people in 1610?
All the versions are different only one can be correct that would be the kjv thats why it's the one that Satan always attacks.
Is this true a foreign language Bibles as well? Is the KJV the only Bible for the whole world?
@@markwardonwords Spanish and German are word for word with the kjv
@@johnyates7566
They simply are not. Revelation 16:5 in the original 1602 Reina-Valera Spanish Bible says (and I'm translating here, obviously!),
"Thou art righteous, Lord, which art, and wast, the Holy One."
The KJV says:
"Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be."
This is a famous textual variant. The KJV sided with a conjectural emendation made by Theodore Beza.
The Luterbibel of 1545 agrees with the Spanish against the KJV.
@@johnyates7566 You won't find the Trinitarian statement from 1 John 5.7 in Martin Luther's classic German translation. Here are verses 6-8, which contain no reference to "der Vater, das Wort und der Heilige Geist" in Luther's version: "Dieser ist's, der da kommt mit Wasser und Blut, Jesus Christus; nicht mit Wasser allein, sondern mit Wasser und Blut. Und der Geist ist's, der da zeugt; denn der Geist ist die Wahrheit. Denn drei sind, die da zeugen: der Geist und das Wasser und das Blut; und die drei sind beisammen."
Even at the time, this verse was disputed, as it is supported almost entirely by the Latin tradition rather than the Greek text. And Luther was a devout Trinitarian, so he didn't leave it out for doctrinal reasons. He left it out because the external evidence strongly implies that it's a later addition to John's letter.
The main reason why Luther didn't include it is that he used Erasmus' 2nd edition of the Textus Receptus, which didn't contain the Comma Johanneum. It was introduced in the 3rd edition of his Greek text.@@MAMoreno
No, that is not the real issue. Codex Sinaiticus changes were based on the lie that Sinaiticus was 4th century. It was created in the 1800's.
how do you know that?
There is no single "real issue." One common issue raised by TR-only folks is the supposed dependence on W&H by all critical texts; this video addresses that issue. A distinct issue is the supposed forgery of Sinaiticus. These are both issues raised by TR-only believers (and both false), but they are not the same issue. Don't blame Columbus for not discovering Australia.
That's false conspiracy theory spread by Sorenson and David Daniels. Both make the same claims that have been disproven multiple times.
@@swamprat22he doesn't. More KJV only nonsense he heard from someone else.
Joshua, this is a conspiracy theory that even F.H.A. Scrivener did not believe. He talks about Constantine Simonides, the progenitor of this conspiracy, as a con-man.
As a side note I do not like the name of the group, Textual Confidence Collective. "Collective" has a Communist overtone. 😎
You’ve discovered the truth!
Nothing to see here. Move along and fill your quota, comrade.....
Might I suggest coalition?
Regardless of what Wescott and Hort believed or what heresies they may have embraced the fact is that their work of itself from the scholary perspective does not impede the authority or reliability and divine preservation of the word of God. Every Greek manuscript, papyrus fragment etc is of supreme value and significance. To be so obtuse so as to not gather and study everything comprehensively is folly in my opinion. I use every Greek text avaliable to the student of scripture. Critical or Byzantium. I find absolutely no internal conflict that prevents me from reaching a sound and vibrant evangelical orthodox Christian faith. Not one essential doctrine of saving truth has been tainted or removed. All of our best English translations attest to this. The evidence is irrefutable. My faith does not depend on one camp or the other when it comes to absolute Christian truth. We can find demons everywhere we look if we are honest and wish to be moved by all the wrong factors related to the integrity of the manuscripts and their history. Just an aside the KJV only movement is perverse and just plain ignorant. And I love the KJV though I will never worship it. The originals only (infallibility) is my motto and modus operandi.
It's very hard to explain to KJV-Onlyists that Westcott and Hort both do and don't matter. Yes, their work has ramifications in Bibles today. But their theological views have effectively no influence on modern Bibles.