2. Truth vs. Fact
• “Archeology is the search for fact... not
truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr.
Tyree's philosophy class is right down
the hall.”
• Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
4. Detective Questions
●
Whodunit?
●
What is the scene and what are we
investigating?
●
Did an autograph exist?
●
Is that autograph recoverable?
●
How can a we then argue a Divine
author?
●
What is the evidence?
5. Mystery at “Tudor Mansion”
●
From the standpoint of an
independent investigator, an incident
is reported, and the investigator is
called to the scene of the crime.
●
The basic premise of investigation, in
all areas of inquiry, is asking the right
basic questions, then gathering
evidence, then making conclusions.
6. The Noodle Incident
●
What is the Scene and what is
investigated?
●
Scene – Occurrence of the Bible. If its
here, it had to come from somewhere!
●
Preliminary evidence suggests an
ancient work has been handed down
to recent times, and purports to be of
Divine origin with human authorship.
7. Decision Points
●
From our vantage point, the best
questions are:
●
Did an autograph exist?
●
Is that autograph recoverable?
●
How can a we then argue a Divine
author?
8. The Evidence
●
Specifically the NT, 5,800 + Manuscripts are
currently extant
●
Divided among papyri, Uncials, Minuscules, and
Lectionaries.
●
As well, extant are versions, and quotations from
Church fathers
●
Still discovering and cataloging new manuscripts!
●
Comprised of various media
●
Papyri (Job 8:11), Parchment/Vellum (2 Tim. 4.13),
Scroll (Rev. 4-6), Codex, Ink (2 John 12), & Quill
14. Ancient Versions
●
Work done by
Missionaries
●
Into Coptic,
Syriac, Latin,
Gothic, Armenian,
Ethiopic,
Georgian,
Slavonic, Arabic
15. ●
The provenance of the materials:
●
Geographically distributed among the
Mediterranean region of southwestern
Europe, southeastern Asia, and northern
Africa
●
Time frame from late 1st century until the 17th
century
●
Conditions range from remarkably well
preserved and extremely ornate with gold leaf
and designs to tattered fragments, with many
of the earliest being extremely fragile
17. Geography
Rating of Region:
1. Alexandrian
2. Caesarean
3. Western
4. Byzantine
Text Families were
formed by the 4th
Century
18. Parental Guidance Suggested
●
Ratings of Text Familes are due to several
factors:
●
Date
●
Earliest is preferred
●
Accuracy
●
Amount of errors in a Text Family
●
Independence of Witness
●
If a source is related to another source, then
they are probably sharing an earlier source, and
their numerical value should be viewed as one
19. ●
Methods used in writing:
●
Directly written from Author
●
Transcribing by Amanuenses (a scribe)
(Rom. 16.2; 2 Thess. 3.17)
●
Methods used in Early Copying:
●
Paying a professional Scribe (extremely
expensive!) see Wegner, 1999, 208
●
Scriptorium (also expensive)
●
Personally copied
20. ●
A Recension is a critically edited copy
of a text. Some NT Manuscripts show
signs of being critically appraised and
edited. More on that later!
21. ●
New methods such as MRI
technology are being used on the
extant texts to further enhance our
knowledge of the NT corpus
●
Discoveries continue!
23. ●
What archeology has unearthed, textual
critics throughout the centuries have
cataloged and rated.
●
Before Wescott and Hort, the criticism
of the NT was ad-hoc, but did happen
●
From Wescott and Hort, we have Text
Families, critical apparatuses, an
Eclectic text, and a methodology to do
the work.
24. ●
Place readings according to their Text Family
and age
●
Determine the “weight” of the witness, not the
volume
●
Decide which reading would have influenced
the others
●
Speculative Rules:
●
The more unique reading is preferred
●
The shorter reading is preferred
●
The contextually appropriate is preferred
25. Internal vs. External
●
Internal – what is going on in the
Text?
●
Literary, Grammatical
●
External – what is going on out of the
Text?
●
The actual physical evidence (see
above)
26. ●
Did an autograph exist?
●
The Evidence suggests that there WAS an original
●
Early copies – p52 from 125 AD. of John 18:31-33
●
Early work of canonicity started in early 2nd Century with Justin
Martyr ending with councils in 367 and 397 AD.
●
If it had been a multivalent original, then the dispersion of
variants would have been greater and far more dramatic
●
“... only about 1% of the textual variants are both meaningful
and viable.” Wallace, The Gospel According to Bart
●
What we have is a fairly consistent text that has
understandable scribal errors after 2,000 years of
copying!
27. ●
“...we [Dallas Theological Seminary] have as
many as eighteen New Testament
manuscripts from the second century and
one from the first. Altogether, more than
43% of all New Testament verses are found
in these manuscripts.” [Emphasis Added]
●
Daniel Wallace, Earliest Manuscript of the New
Testament Discovered?,
http://www.dts.edu/read/wallace-new-
testament-manscript-first-century
28. ●
The Council of Athenasius (A.D. 367)
and the Council of Carthage (A.D.
397) recognized the 27 books in our
New Testament today as inspired.
●
Sid Lidke, Canonicity,
https://bible.org/seriespage/canonicity
29. ●
Is that autograph recoverable?
●
The Evidence suggests that the majority
of variants can be understood as scribal
errors, however there is sufficient
question to a large number of variants
that 100% accuracy is elusive.
●
What can be said after textual criticism is
that 93-96% (my number!) of the text in a
critical text is what was penned by the
author!
30. ●
How can a we then argue a Divine author?
●
Objection to Divine authorship is that errors
exist therefore a perfect Divine author is
untenable.
●
On the contrary, the errors suggest things
were added!
●
The Evidence suggests that NOTHING was
lost!
●
This is in accordance with what was promised
in Matt. 8!
32. Short Bibliography
– Paul Wegner, The Journey from Texts
to Translations
– Bruce Metzger & Bart Ehrman, The
Text of the New Testament
– Kurt & Barbara Aland, The Text of the
New Testament
– David Alan Black, New Testament
Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide
