Mon Feb 12 11:43:09 1996

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From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: "Majority Text"
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On Sat, 10 Feb 1996, Carlton Winbery wrote:

> This is in answer to a post from Rachel off list. 

> > I wonder why is there is so much hull-a-ba-loo
> > over the Maj T.  It seems like the conservative spectrum is really
> > getting excited over it.  

Some clarification is probably in order, since there are a number of
degrees of "conservative" advocates who seem to use the term "majority
text", and this really muddies the waters over this issue.  The various
groups can be described as follows: 

Class 1: King James Only advocates

(1) There are those who know nothing about textual criticism, and read
misleading propaganda from sources such as the tracts and comic books
(seriously!) of Jack Chick and the writings of Peter Ruckman, and
especially Gail Riplinger's "New Age Bible Versions."  In all of these a
modicum of textual data is highly distorted and misapplied so as to
support an agenda defending the KJV-Only position.  This view is rightly
seen as cultic hyper-fundamentalism at its worst.  Mostly affects the 
anti-intellectual "independent fundamental" churches.

(2) Then there are those who know slightly more about the NT text and 
manuscripts, but who still have the same agenda of defending the KJV-Only 
position at all costs.  These include David Otis Fuller's "Which Bible?" 
group and D.A.Waite's "Bible for Today" organization, as well as the 
Trinitarian Bible  Society.  The viewpoint is still ultra-fundamentalist, 
and not far removed from the previous position, since all text-critical 
data must be made to fit a KJV defense mode, with no possibility of any 
other reading being correct.  

Within this group, lip service is usually given to the Greek text, but
only in the TR form which directly underlies the KJV (the Trinitarian
Bible Society currently reprints Scrivener's 1894 TR which was
artificially constructed by Scrivener to for the first time reflect the
underlying text the KJV translators chose -- even though Scrivener himself
did not favor that text!).  Needless to say, if the Greek even of the TR
differs from the KJV (due to certain Latin readings in the KJV with little
or no Greek support), you can guess whether the KJV or TR wins the toss.
*:-)

(3) Then there are the "numerical majority text" partisans, for whom the
basic case is "number" or "counting noses" which Gordon Fee wrongly claims
that all partisans of all "majority" groups do).  These people see nothing
except "majority" as the deciding factor, and may have come from either
groups (1) or (2) or from those which follow, due to a misunderstanding of
all the ramifications which exist within a "majority text" perspective. 

This group usually cannot tell the Greek TR from the majority or Byzantine
text, and still has a KJV fixation or at least a concern for translations
only to reflect the KJV underlying Greek text. 


Class 2: Majority Text Proper advocates

One definite demarcation line is now crossed: the remaining two groups are
not tied to the KJV or the TR in any manner whatsoever, even though some 
of their works are misquoted and misapplied by KJV-Only distortionists.

(4) Within the "Majority Text" camp proper one finds Zane Hodges and 
Arthur Farstad, who produced the Majority Text Greek NT edition.  These 
are joined by Wilbur Pickering who wrote "The Identity of the NT Text" 
volume some years back -- a work which was long on critique of the W-H 
theory but quite short on "majority text" theory.  

A basic contention of this group is theological: the text found in the
greatest number of copies is that which God providentially preserved. 
Pickering alleged from this that virtually all other variant readings were
the result of Satanic and heretical activity, since scribes were (in his
opinion) uniformly "orthodox" and had a "high view" of Scripture,
including its inerrancy.  

The theological argument in Hodges and Farstad is not so explicit, but is
still mentioned as an underlying factor in their theory (Hodges and
Farstad sacrifice much of their theory, however, in Revelation, where they
follow stemmatics and end up favoring a sub-group (Ma) comprising only 20%
of the known MSS, thus giving rise to the anomaly that their "majority
text" in Revelation at times has only 20% support as opposed to the "true"
80% majority. *:-)

(5) The Byzantine-priority group (which I claim to reflect) does not begin
nor end with a theological agenda regarding providential preservation
(i.e., if such occurred, then all MSS of all texttypes reflect that
preservation), nor is "number" a primary factor.  Rather, the question of
whether the Byzantine text as a texttype might be more likely to reflect
the autograph text is the primary question.  

This approach is coupled with a detailed historical transmission
hypothesis and takes into account all the relevant data, as well as
performs praxis by utilizing standard external and internal criteria of NT
textual criticism (with modifications befitting the transmissional
hypothesis).  

William Pierpont and I have produced our own edition of the
Byzantine/Majority Textform in both printed and electronic form (text
only; no apparatus), utilizing the data from the Von Soden, Tischendorf,
and the Nestle26-27/UBS3-4 apparatuses.  Even if one does not share the
same hypothesis, our edition provides a distinct Byzantine text which is
not abandoned at any point for extraneous reasons such as in that of
Hodges/Farstad. 

It is true that most if not all advocates of the true "Majority Text" or 
"Byzantine-priority" hypotheses (groups 4 and 5 above) reflect a 
theological conservatism, including a belief in biblical inerrancy.  This 
position does not, however, dictate our choice of variant readings, nor 
does it imply any desire to make the resultant text match the TR or KJV 
or any other translation.  

I have presented a number of papers to the Evangelical Theological Society
on aspects of Byzantine priority, and have not made any conclusions which
were imposed by inerrantist or "preservationist" beliefs (I originally
held to a "reasoned eclectic"  position, and only changed that view after
a careful consideration of all the evidence and questioning the theories
currently in vogue, thanks to the help and guidance received from my
text-critical mentor, Kenneth W.  Clark). 

> >But some even feel that anyone who goes along with the TC tradition
> >is suspect (of liberalism... humanistic feminism.... and any other
> >bogeyman...)

This reflects most of those in categories 1-3 above.  Categories 4 and 5 
make no ad hominem assertions of that type.

I will continue a reply on Rachel's other questions in the next post, 
since this one is already quite long.


=========================================================================
                       Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.
            Associate Professor of Greek and New Testament
              Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
                      Wake Forest, North Carolina
                   
=========================================================================

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