Subject: Re: tc-list Burgon on 1Tim 3:16

From: "Mr. Helge Evensen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 16:11:35 -0700

Robert B. Waltz wrote:
>
> On 7/28/99, Martin Smart wrote:
>
> >Dear list.
> >
> >It is not my intention to start a debate on the merits of the KJV-only position, or the majority text debate.  I however, know that what Burgon
wrote below mi (....)
> >
> >Is Burgon accurate in his opinion of 1Tim 3:16 below, and can anyone point me to any literature which might specifically address/rebut his
views?
>
> One is tempted to say that any time Burgon expresses an opinion, it is
> wrong. :-)

*That* is *your* "opinion"! Maybe it's wrong, too. :-)
 
> To put it mildly, he let his rhetoric take charge of the issues.

Modern TC after Burgon's time is FULL of "rhetoric", only that THIS kind
of "rhetoric" is regarded as "scientific" by those that use it!  :) So
it's really your "rhetoric" against Burgon's!

> Burgon actually did do useful textual work, in that he examined many
> manuscripts, both of the New Testament itself and of patristic works.

For this reason he was a well competent authority on the text of MSS!
Modern TC at large does not acknowledge this, and it's a shame indeed!

> But his prejudices are so strong that one must examine *everything* for
> motive. :-(

Prejudices against the Byzantine Text/TR are behind very much of modern
TC's "axioms" with regard to the Text of the NT!

> Much safer to simply go back and re-examine the evidence.

Which Burgon DID! He re-examined it after Hort, Tischendorf and others
had "examined" it! Wilbur Pickering, who has thoroughly studied all of
Burgon's books on TC, writes: "A grammatical anomaly is introduced.
"Great is the mystery of godliness, who was manifested in flesh", is
worse in Greek than it is in English. "Mystery" is neuter in gender while
"godliness" is feminine, but "who" is masculine! .. In an effort to
explain the "who" it is commonly argued that the second half of verse 16
was a direct quote from a hymn, but where is the evidence for this claim?
Without evidence this claim begs the question. ... "Who" is nonsensical,
so most modern versions that follow UBS here take evasive action: NEB and
NASB have "he who"; Phillips has "the one"; RSV, Jerusalem, TEV and NIV
render "he". Berkeley actually has "who"! The Latin reading, "the
mystery...that", at least makes sense. The true reading, as attested by
over 98% of the Greek MSS, is "God". .... a copyist could be
momentarily distracted and forget to add the cross strokes. [] The
reading "who" can be explained by an easy transcriptional error. The
reading "that" would be an obvious solution to a copyist faced with the
nonsensical "who"." ("What Difference Does it Make?", paper, MTS, p.9).

Think of it! 98% of the Greek MSS!!! That *is* strong evidence!

> So, for instance, the first place to turn in examining a reading like
> this is the UBS commentary.

As for "prejudice" and "rhetoric", there is a lot of it in this volume!
But, of course, its basic reasoning is in harmony with the already
established TC canons and is therefore worthy of a hearing among TCers!

> (For all the nasty things we've been
> saying today, this is the only full and modern textual commentary
> in existence.)

That's a shame!

>
> The other thing to do is look at the manuscript evidence as we know it
> today. (In this instance, there isn't all that much new data, but
> usually there is. It's just that the Pastorals are relatively poorly
> represented in our early witnesses.)
>
> Anyway, the evidence:
>
> OS: Aleph* A* C* F G 33 365 442 1175 2127
> QEOS: Aleph** A** C** D** K L P Psi 075 0150
>   6 81 (88 O QEOS) 104 263 330 424 436 451 629 630 1241 1319
>   1505 1739 1881 1962 2492 2495 Byz
>   geo2 slav
> OS QEOS: 256 (conflation)
> O: D* (a b d f m vg "quod," i.e. O on its face but possibly
>   a grammatical correction for OS)
>
> O or OS: most other versions except as cited.
>
> Thus OS has the best support, being supported by all the Alexandrian
> witnesses plus some "Western" witnesses. "QEOS," except for the
> members of Family 1739, is purely Byzantine (we can ignore the
> corrections in Aleph, A, C, etc.; those are Byzantine also).
> "O" is supported only by a subset of the "Western" witnesses.

The corrections of Aleph, A, C, D in this instance should NOT be ignored!
They testify to the existence of the Byz reading at the time of the
correction, and to these scribes' awareness of the Byz reading! Maybe
they had *good reasons* for making the correction. This correction shows
that the scribes doing it did not approve of those MSS's original
reading! Isn't this, then, as good an evidence as a MS dating from the
time of the correction?? If so, we have four more ancient witnesses to
the Byz reading. (I may be wrong about "*ancient* witnesses" as I do not
know the DATE of the corrections. Maybe some could halp me dating
these!? Of course, even MSS of the 10th century are regarded as
"ancient", though not among the "most ancient".)

>
> Internal evidence also supports OS. (This is where most of us
> disagree with Burgon: Our rule is, "Prefer the reading which
> best explains the others." His is, "Prefer the reading which
> doesn't pose any problems.")
>
> "OS" is the reading which best explains the others in several
> senses. First, the best witnesses all support a relative
> pronoun (either O or OS). This is much the more difficult
> reading. So surely a relative pronoun is correct, and OS
> is better attested.
>
> OS is also the middle reading. To get from OS to O requires a
> change of only one letter; similarly, to get from OS to QEOS
> requires only one letter (remember that QEOS was written QS).
> To get from O to QEOS or vice versa is a larger change. So
> OS is to be preferred as the middle reading.
>
> Thus one must conclude that this is another instance where Burgon
> has preferred to Byzantine reading, and has come up with forced
> evidence to support his conclusion.

Is 98% of the Greek MSS "forced evidence"?
A *better* example of "forced evidence" is pointed out, again, by
Pickering: "Metzger [in his "Textual Commentary", on the Pericope
Adulterae, John.7:53-8:11] ... claims that "the style and vocabulary of
the pericope differ noticeably from the rest of the Fourth Gospel" --
but, wouldn't the native speakers of Greek at that time have
been in a better position than modern critics to notice something like
that? So how could they allow such an "extraneous" passage to be forced
into the text? I submit that the evident answer is that they did not; it
was there all the time." (paper, p.9).

It should be clear to anyone familiar with Burgon's writings and modern
TC, that it is not a matter of Burgon being "rhetoric" (even though he
*is*) and modern TC using only "hard facts"; rather, it is a matter of
different ways of expression and argumentation, both being equally
"subjective"! Just because some theories are more "established" than
others does not make them truer!

Please do not think that I am out to start a "majority text debate", for
I am not!  :-)

-----

Mr. Helge Evensen

---

From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1999 11:30:42 -0500

I'm not going to get into a long discussion here, but I have to add one
comment:

>Think of it! 98% of the Greek MSS!!! That *is* strong evidence!

Think of it! 0% of manuscripts from before the fifth century!
An amazing panoply of non-evidence.

Think of it! The Textus Receptus, from which the King James Version
is translated, which contains readings not found in *any* Greek
manuscript.

All I will say on the subject. 

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                        Robert B. Waltz
                     [email-masked]

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A site inspired by the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

---

From: "Mr. Helge Evensen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 04:52:21 -0700

> An amazing panoply of non-evidence.

OK, then, let's shift evidence and look at patristic and versional 
evidence. :-)
Besides, Byz/TR *readings* are found in P66. In fact, almost all of the 
Byz readings in that MS is *also* TR-readings! Think of it!  :-)

> is translated, which contains readings not found in *any* Greek

Yeah, think of that! And do not forget all of the ancient MSS which 
scholars *trust* in, which contain multitudes of "singular" readings!
(Is my TC-memory failing me, or is "singular reading" an expression used 
to indicate a reading not found in *any* (other) Greek
manuscript?) The TR is nothing more than a complete NT MSS in PRINTED 
form! But I do not trust in only one TR edition but in a variety of TR's 
and other evidences besides these, as found in the text of the TBS 1976 
edition of the "TR". In turn, this is to trust in the decisions of the 
many competent scholars who produced the TEXT of the KJV!! I shall say 
nothing of my belief in providential preservation.....  :-)

> All I will say on the subject.

Why?
No person discussing the text of the NT on a *TC-list* should be afraid 
of discussing the Byz/TR text since this text/these texts represent the 
MAJORITY of the available MSS! What kind of "TC" list would *that* be?
BTW, I do not think that you are "afraid", though!  :-)

-- 
- Mr. Helge Evensen

---

From: [email-masked] (U.B.Schmid)
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 09:00:56 +0200

> Byz readings in that MS is *also* TR-readings! Think of it!  :-)

I would be greatful to see evidence not rhetorics, i.e. P66 has nothing to do 
with the Pastoral Epistles. Moreover, where is the specific patristic and/or 
versional evidence for 1 Tim 3,16 that you are invoking?

> form! 

Scholars usually don't *trust* in "multitudes of 'singular' readings". Moreover, 
viewing the TR as just another NT Ms means:
a) it certainly doesn't represent the majority of witnesses at every single 
place of variation;
b) it contains errors as every single NT Ms I know of does;
b) if "error free" is required, as people defending the TR sometimes claim, the 
TR is way beyond *real* Mss' human proportions.

------------------------------------------
Dr. Ulrich Schmid
[email-masked]

---

From: "Mr. Helge Evensen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 21:50:26 -0700

> versional evidence for 1 Tim 3,16 that you are invoking?

I wasn't talking about evidence for 1 Tim 3,16 in that particular 
statement about P66 but evidence for the Byz txt in general! Of course I 
know that P66 does not contain the Pastorals. So maybe I shouldn' have 
added that comment, since it did not concern 1 Tim 3,16.
As to "the specific patristic and/or versional evidence for 1 Tim 3,16" 
just read Burgon's own 70+ pages dissertation on it in his "Revision 
Revised"! It's loaded with various kinds of evidence! You know Burgon! :) 
Not just "rhetoric"!
Among other things, he states: "But I am prepared to show that Gregory of 
Nyssa (a full century before Codex A was produced), in at least 22 
places, knew of no other reading but THEOS" (Revision Revised, p.456).
On pp. 461-462 he states: "....a famous Epistle purporting to have been 
addressed by Dionysius of Alexandria (A.D. 264) to Paul of Samosata. .... 
the epistle must needs have been written by *somebody*: that it may 
safely be referred to the IIIrd century; and that it certainly witnesses 
to THEOS EPHANERWTHE.....".

But still, 98% of the *MSS*, even though not among the "most ancient", 
*is* strong evidence! And the 98% MSS is not just copies of each other!
 
> Scholars usually don't *trust* in "multitudes of 'singular' readings".

I didn't say they "*trust* in "multitudes of 'singular' readings", but: 
"all of the ancient MSS which scholars *trust* in, WHICH CONTAIN 
multitudes of "singular" readings!" (emphasis added)
There is a difference between trusting in singular readings and trusting 
in MSS which CONTAIN singular readings.

> Moreover,

Right. I never said it did! No MS does!

> b) it contains errors as every single NT Ms I know of does;

Especially the first edition of Erasmus. "My TR" is not that one, but 
rather the later "refined" and corrected editions!

> TR is way beyond *real* Mss' human proportions.

The TR is providential preserved, not referring to just one printing, but 
to the development which resulted in such editions as Stephens and Beza 
(though they are not "error free"!). Only the TBS 1976 edition is "error 
free"!  :-) :-) 
To believe in a God-preserved text is not the same as believing in "error 
free" MSS or editions!

-- 
- Mr. Helge Evensen