# Not In Early Manuscript--Good or Bad?



## Storm (Dec 22, 2009)

I have an NASB Study Bible. I am going through the Book of Hebrews. I was greatly encouraged to read in Hebrews 11:37 that along with being "stoned, sawn in two, put to death with the sword," etc., the early believers were also "tempted." It is amazing to me that temptation is listed with all those other horrific martry-type treatments/situations. HOWEVER, my NASB Study Bible has a footnote that says that "they were tempted" is not contained in "one early manuscript." What does that mean? That I can't believe it should be listed with the other things in that verse? How many manuscripts would have gone into the translation of Hebrews into the NASB?


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## Wayne (Dec 22, 2009)

Get a copy of F.F. Bruce's little book, _The New Testament Manuscripts: Are They Reliable?_.

There are over 5000 manuscripts extant. Some cover just small portions of the NT. Some are just the length of a book or books. Others cover the entire NT. Between all these, there are scribal variations. A scribe copying from one manuscript to create a new manuscript might have dropped a word at the end of a line, for instance. That is one way in which you might have one or more manuscripts that don't agree with the majority of manuscripts for that book or passage. If this _one_ manuscript doesn't have that word, it is not a concern and doesn't change anything. In short, "they were tempted" is part of the inspired text, is authoritative, and does belong there on the page.


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## Bad Organist (Dec 23, 2009)

Hi,

The phrase "were tempted" in Hebrews 11:37 is handled in various ways in different translations.

In the NKJV it is included and in those editions where they have textual notations say "NU omits 'were tempted' "
In the NASB it is included with a footnote "some mss. do not contain 'they were tempted'.
In the ESV the phrase is omitted and has this footnote "some manuscripts add they were tempted".
To me this is confusing. The NASB and ESV don't agree even though they supposedly are using the same basic text. Even the footnotes are not helpful here.
There are those who maintain with all these manuscripts available, that it is easy to discern what is scripture and what is not, but it seems to me that there are an awful lot of variants among translations, and that can hardly be said to strengthen one's faith in the scriptures.
To me, some translations do a disservice with all these footnotes. Just adds to the confusion about what is or is not in the scriptures, alternate renderings which do more to muddy the waters, etc.

Arie V
FC of Scotland
Toronto, Canada


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## Jerusalem Blade (Dec 23, 2009)

Hello David,

I would say, “*Bad*”. My edition (First Edition, 1963 – 1972) of the NASB says in the margin note, “Some mss. omit _they were tempted_.” Here is a little background on this variant reading:

It is present in the _vast_ majority of New Testament manuscripts, having an established place in the Byzantine textform. It is _not_ found in the Nestle-Aland / United Bible Society (often jointly referred to as NU) editions of the critical text, which for the most part are based on the 1881 Westcott-Hort (WH) revision of the standard Greek text according to the methodology of German rationalist criticism. The NASB is based upon this latter method, as are most modern-day Bible versions.

In Bruce Metzger’s _A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament_ 2nd Edition (UBS 2005), the late Dr. Metzger says (speaking for the UBS editorial committee) concerning Hebrews 11:37,

The presence in most manuscripts of the rather general statement [size=+1]epeirasqhsan[/size] (“they were tempted”) amid the author’s enumeration of different kinds of violent death has long been regarded by commentators as strange and unexpected. Many have suggested that [size=+1]epeirasqhsan[/size] is the corruption of some other word more suitable to the context, or that it entered the text as the result of inadvertent scribal dittography of [size=+1]eprisqhsan[/size] [“they were sawed in two” –SMR]....

With some hesitation, but partly on the strength of the uncertain position of [size=+1]epeirasqhsan[/size] in the witnesses (sometimes standing before [size=+1]eprisqhsan[/size], sometimes after it, the committee decided to adopt the shorter reading.... (pp. 603, 604)​
To note in passing, Owen, and also Pink, in their respective commentaries, did not think the traditional reading “strange and unexpected” – though Calvin, following Erasmus’ conjecture, did.

In the apparatus Metzger & Committee give their reading a {C} rating, which, per the first edition of the Textual Commentary (1975, p. xxviii) “means that there is a considerable degree of doubt whether the text or the apparatus contains the superior reading”, though in the present edition they softened it to read, it “indicates that the Committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text.”

Metzger is the mentor of Bart Ehrman, a text critic apostatized from the Faith, who is set to destroy the church’s trust in their Scripture. His line of attack owes much to his former teacher’s position on the Bible, which was less than believing it to be God’s inspired and infallible word. I will be posting more concerning Dr. Ehrman’s views as I have free time to do so. 

There is a long history, David, concerning the development of the two basic approaches to determining the true New Testament text, and it is quite a study, though well worth the endeavor for those exercised to pursue it. To gain familiarity with the general point of view which upholds the Heb 11:37 full reading I would refer you here, though with the caveat that most of my posts advocate the KJV / Textus Receptus point of view, and build – in part – upon the Byzantine / Majority Text position.

It is unfortunate that the different versions display the same variant reading differently – as you point out, Arie – though they do allege the same thing: the longer Heb 11:37 reading is not native to the text. It is also lamentable, as you say, that the ensuing confusion weakens the faith of some and promotes http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/skepticism-doubt-toward-bible-52046/, a disastrous development for the church seeking to withstand the intense allurements of Harlot Babylon with her sumptuous idolatries of economic prosperity and cultural achievement, combined with the growing pressure of the beast (cf. Revelation 13 ff.) to give allegiance to the governing political system to the exclusion of the Lord and His Word. As John Calvin said, “There can be no courage in men unless God supports them by his Word.” If our faith in the reliability of His Word is undermined – as is the case with many today – how shall we stand in the evil day?


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## greenbaggins (Dec 23, 2009)

I would like to offer a different perspective on this issue than Steve (I'm sure you're completely flabbergasted, Steve! )

On the one hand, I do not agree with Metzger and Calvin that the Byzantine reading is unexpected and difficult (after all, in the presence of all these different forms of torture and persecution, wouldn't "be tempted" (i.e., to leave the faith) be a perfectly natural thing?). I think it could fit quite naturally in the text. 

On the other hand, saying that Bruce Metzger was the mentor of Bart Ehrman is irrelevant to the discussion. It is an example of the poisoned well fallacy: look at where Metzger's teaching will wind up: Bart Ehrman! Not true at all. FV students have graduated from Mid-America Seminary, most notably John Barach and Tim Gallant. Because Cornelis Venema mentored them, his theology and conclusions must therefore be suspect. I don't think so. Just because Metzger had Ehrman as his student does not have anything to do with whether Metzger's text-critical decision are right or wrong. I'm not saying that Metzger is Reformed and evangelical in the best sense of those terms, and I'm not making any judgment call on whether he was a Christian or not. I'm saying that even these things do not make his decisions on text-critical issues wrong. 

The textual issue itself is quite thorny. The bare majority of manuscripts does not solve the issue, especially if the majority of manuscripts all come from one family. I happen to weight the Byzantine manuscripts much higher than Metzger does. But I do not weight them more than the Alexandrian tradition. There are many factors that come into play when weighing the alternatives. In this case the internal evidence is weak to non-existent, even though it has certainly exercised the ingenuity of the scholars. There are no lack of speculative options among the commentators, as Metzger notes (one example was even "pickled" instead of "tempted"!).

All that to say that there are even Alexandrian witnesses to "they were tempted." In fact, the best Alexandrian witnesses actually agree with the Byzantine tradition here. The level of uncertainty seems entirely due to the subjectively determined internal evidence of the idea that the "they were tempted" is somehow unexpected.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Dec 24, 2009)

Hello Lane!

Methinks we have strolled down this path re Bruce Metzger once before, so I won’t do a whole repeat, though perhaps I again have not been clear in my remarks. You said,

“...saying that Bruce Metzger was the mentor of Bart Ehrman is irrelevant to the discussion. It is an example of the poisoned well fallacy: look at where Metzger's teaching will wind up: Bart Ehrman! Not true at all.​
Dr. Metzger’s approach to the Bible (but not only his, others at Princeton held the same views) was foundational to Bart Ehrman’s (BE) development. In those Princeton days BE yet identified himself as a believing Evangelical he took a course on the exegesis of Mark with “a much revered and pious professor named Cullen Story” (_Misquoting Jesus_, p. 8); BE developed a defense of the textual problem in Mark 2:25, 26 vis-à-vis 1 Samuel 21:1-6, but Prof. Story wrote at the end of his paper, “Maybe Mark just made a mistake.” This was “a turning point” for BE; he said, “Once I made that admission, the floodgates opened.” (Ibid, p. 9.) After that, all the apparent discrepancies and textual variants turned him against the inspiration of the Scripture, its preservation, and, eventually, the entire Christian faith. Prof. Story’s view in this matter was identical to Metzger’s. That is, Metzger likewise averred that a New Testament apostle made a mistake in his gospel account, to wit, Matthew in 1:7 and 1:10, erroneously said (in the ESV, and the Greek text) Asaph and Amos were Christ’s forebears (I have shown this here and here – and we have discussed it at length in that thread, Lane); what I mean to show is not that sitting under Metzger necessarily turns out Ehrmans, but that a) the Greek New Testament text that Metzger & Co. published for the church to use is founded on a low view of the reliability of Scripture, and b) those who receive this NT text and perceive its poor theoretical foundation have either to find ways to defend it, or will find ways to attack it. Ehrman did the latter. Our brother, Arie, in a post above, seeks to do the former, but whose faith struggles and suffers in the process.

Ehrman said of Metzger he was “the world’s leading expert in the field...[of] the textual criticism of the New Testament” (Ibid., p. 7). He got that somewhat right, for he may have been the _*world’s*_ leading expert, but he was surely not the church’s. Anyone who denies that Genesis recorded human history, but instead evolved as religious literature “out of a matrix of myth, legend, and history”, cannot be a Christian. If Adam was not a historical figure, then the atonement of Christ is irrelevant.

We speak much, in our Reformed circles, of the Regulative Principle of Worship; but regulative principles guiding other areas of our spiritual lives are notoriously absent.

Can you imagine the ancient Jewish priesthood bringing in — or in any way _allowing_ — wise men from Egypt or Babylon to superintend, copy, and preserve the scrolls of the Tenach? But we do _exactly_ this, allowing the wise of harlot Babylon to mediate to us our holy writings. 

Yet God's written Word is not just any book to be handled as if it were a book of the world. It is the book of Heaven, and what have mere earth-dwellers to do with it?

_*But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?*_ (Psalm 50:16)​
And yet without fear of Him they do it, those in whom is “an evil heart of unbelief” (Heb 3:12).

Now the mantle of Metzger has fallen on Ehrman. They are of the same cloth, only Ehrman is more outspoken and radical. Metzger didn’t openly attack the faith, he quietly undermined it.

I want to assert again: I do not attack the Bibles based upon the critical text of Metzger, Westcott and Hort; they are possessed of such adequate preservation that they are sufficient to the saving of God’s elect and the sustaining of His churches, even as they have in ages past when there were different varieties of Biblical texts in various regions of the world. But Dr. Bart Ehrman _*is*_ attacking these Bibles. It’s like tag-team wrestling; poppa Metzger softened up the opponent, then was called out of the ring, and sonny Bart jumped in. You haven’t seen the end of him. He’s gonna make a name for himself.

If I don’t spend all of my time in discussions like this, I’ll be preparing for him.

-------

P.S. If the King James language is too old or difficult for some of you who desire a reliable Bible, I'll recommend _The Modern King James Version_, though it may be hard to find nowadays.


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## greenbaggins (Dec 24, 2009)

I don't have the time right now to respond as thoroughly as I would like, but if I don't say anything, I will forget this thread, so I will merely make a sketch of how to answer. 

I am grateful, first of all, that you do not completely disenfranchise the critical text as being the Word of God. In this you show much more charity to the position I hold than many others would. 

Secondly, I would respond by saying that your arguments would have greater weight if the critical apparatus did not exist in the modern editions. Metzger and company thought that what they printed in the NA 27th, for instance, was as close to the originals as we could get. However, all the important manuscript variations are all listed in the apparatus. No translation is enslaved to the NA 27th, precisely because the translators can choose another path on any given variant. So can the pastor. And I go my own way different from Metzger many times. The pastor has to do textual criticism because we do not have the original manuscripts. Even the Byzantine manuscripts are not uniform. Even if the Byzantine tradition was all we had, we would still have to do textual criticism. 

Further, how would you demonstrate that a given criteria of textual criticism was based on a low view of Scripture? Please demonstrate, for instance, how the recognition of genealogical relationships of manuscripts is based on a low view of Scripture. Please do the same for the canon of geographical distribution, for weighting age of manuscript in a certain way. Even most of the "internal evidence" criteria cannot be said to be based on a low view of Scripture. Some of them are vastly more speculative than others, and some of them are more applicable in certain cases than others, but how about, for instance, itacism as a way to explain variants? Is that based on a low view of Scripture? Most of the canons of textual criticism do not originate with Metzger, but rather with Westcott and Hort, who are considerably closer to orthodoxy than Metzger, if it comes to that. I think it would be quite difficult to prove that the canons of textual criticism originate from a low view of Scripture. 

Lastly, assuming that Metzger is in hell right now, how does that prove that he is wrong in a given text-critical matter? Each text-critical problem is (usually) a distinct matter, with different witnesses, and different issues going on in the text. By your argument, you would have to reject all his conclusions, even when he agrees with the TR. You have proven quite adequately that I would not want Metzger teaching my Sunday School class, were he still alive. But you have not proven that his conclusions about these matters are wrong because of his conclusions on other matters.


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## TimV (Dec 24, 2009)

> Yet God's written Word is not just any book to be handled as if it were a book of the world. It is the book of Heaven, and what have mere earth-dwellers to do with it?



Hi Steve

If you were to find out that the MT version that we use as the basis of the OT had non Christian Jewish scholars working on/influencing it's final form, even on a minute level after the resurrection of Christ would that bother you?

Note: On previous threads I've stated my opinion that women missionaries shouldn't be allowed to translate tribal Bibles since translating involves teaching, and only ordained Christian elders should be allowed to translate Bibles. So I *think* we are largely on the same page, at least here.

My point is one of consistency. I cannot see how anyone could possibly deny that the standardised MT that we now have was not the product of non Christian Jewish textual work that took place after the time of Christ. And I grant that there was very little difference between the different Hebrew mss before the Masorites, so the influence of those broken of from the true vine was slight.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Dec 25, 2009)

First, I would like to address David and Arie, who have spoken from the heart about this that we bandy about intellectually. You may see from the discussion following your remarks that this is both a complicated and a disputed subject. My foremost concern is pastoral, as when Christ’s blood-bought are afflicted with confusion over the reliability of His word due to the text-critical enterprise, it grieves me (and no doubt Him). Still, you will have to make up your own minds after considering the issues.

There are two ways to go in this matter: one, that our Scripture, which, in the eyes of the Reformation and post-Reformation divines, was brought about by the providence of God in preserving His word according to promise, manifest in the Hebrew and Greek texts spoken of in the Westminster Confession 1:8, and translated into English in the King James Bible. It is the foremost Bible of the Reformation.

Two, the modern critical text originally manifest as the 1881 Revised Greek Text of Westcott and Hort, and refined in later critical editions. This text-form is not based primarily on reliance in God’s promise to providentially preserve His word, but upon the science of textual criticism, and its ability to ascertain the true form of the original New Testament (and in a separate field, the Old Testament).

Both camps impugn the methodological validity of the other. Two good representatives of the King James position are Dr. Thomas Holland’s, _Crowned With Glory: The Bible from Ancient Text to Authorized Version_, and Harvard text critic E. F. Hills’, _The King James Version Defended_. I would recommend Holland’s work as first read, then Hills’.

The importance to certain individuals who desire maximum certainty in the accuracy of the Bible they have in hand cannot be overstated. I am one of these. I rest in God’s promise to preserve His word, and that I have it in the form He provided for me. This is no small matter – at least to some people. Some folks are ok with an adequate preservation (which all Protestant Bibles have) – others requiring preservation in the minutiae. 

__________

Lane, while the NA 27 [an edition of the critical text] does have a good apparatus, it minimizes the status of the Byzantine and TR readings. And while “no translation is enslaved” to it, as you say, all modern translations nonetheless exhibit those variant readings peculiar to the Alexandrian text-type, primarily the readings found in Codex Vaticanus (B). If you disagree with the Greek reading, and the reading in the version you are preaching or teaching from, you will have to tell the folks, “Well, it says here, but....” – which can be disconcerting to your hearers. And the “correct” reading of the Word of God will be made dependent on a Greek or Hebrew scholar; it will not be evident to the ordinary man or woman.

I do appreciate the care and learning with which you approach the text; it is that I have lost faith in the discipline – in its tenets and maxims, in its founders and proponents, and in its fruit. As I sought to show in this recent thread, there are many who – even among text critics – are very pessimistic regarding the future of textual criticism. I hold that we are in the post-critical era, and new ways of looking at and thinking about our Bibles are needed.

_________

Tim,

Good question. The Jews post-Christ who kept the Hebrew manuscripts have been called “the librarians of the church”. Jacob ben Chayyim, a Jew converted to Christ, compiled what is known as the 2nd Great Rabbinic Bible of 1524-25, and was used as the Reformation’s Old Testament. There are different views concerning the vowel points added to the consonantal Hebrew text. Some allege they were there in the time of Christ and earlier (some say back to Ezra), others opine that the vowel sounds, transmitted orally, were added to the text by the Masoretes, who feared that the vocalization would eventually be lost without it. 

To throw light on this, we have the Scripture saying, “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because unto them were committed the oracles of God.” (Romans 3:1, 2) Now Paul wrote this “after the resurrection of Christ”. Does this give affirmation to the Jews having the care of the Hebrew Bible (as the “librarians” of it) during those years when the knowledge of Hebrew had largely disappeared among the Gentile Christians? As it was Jacob ben Chayyim – a Jew (and Masorete) cleaving to Messiah – who gathered many Masoretic manuscripts with their various vowel pointings and line stops (known as Masorah) and made order of them, so that his edition was the only authorized one used for about 400 years, among Jews and Christians – this puts the ball in the court of the NT people of God, as regards this Hebrew Bible. As I have said elsewhere, while there may have been peripheral involvement of non-Christians in the transmission and care of the text, the main players were of the priesthood of believers.

I was looking over the Westminster Shorter Catechism the other day and came upon three pertinent points;

Question 7: What are the decrees of God? Answer 7: The decrees of God are, His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby, for His own glory, He hath ordained whatsoever comes to pass.

Question 8: How doth God execute His decrees? Answer 8: God executes His decrees in the works of creation and providence.

Question 11: What are God’s works of providence? Answer 11: God’s works of providence are, His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures, and all their actions.​
I do not seek to _prove_ my point by quoting from the WSC – that would be begging the question – though I do want to show the absolute ease with which our worthy Sovereign _could_ arrange the minutiae of actions and events leading to and culminating in a providentially preserved Bible, OT & NT.

I see no other even in the running – surely not the Codex Vaticanus, main pillar of the modern critical text – the jewel of Rome. Some background: 

_Vaticanus_ has been in the Vatican Library at least since 1481, when it was catalogued. Those with some historical knowledge will remember that these were the years of the Inquisition in Spain during the reign of Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484). In 1481 some 2,000 believers dissenting with Rome were burned alive, with multitudes of others tortured (M’Crie, _History of the Reformation in Spain_, p. 104). When Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492) sat in the royal “Throne of Peter,” he followed in the vein of his namesake Innocent III and commenced anew a persecution against the peaceful Waldensian Christians in the northern Italian Alps, commanding their destruction “like venomous snakes” if they would not repent and turn to Rome (Wylie, _History of the Waldenses_, pp. 27-29). Bloodbaths followed against these harmless mountain peoples, who had their own Scriptures from ancient times, and worshipped in Biblical simplicity and order.

It perplexes many people that the Lord of these many hundreds of thousands of Bible-believing saints who were tortured with unimaginable barbarity and slaughtered like dogs by the Roman Catholic “church” for centuries (it is no exaggeration to say for over a millennium) should have kept His choicest preserved manuscript in the safekeeping of the Library of the apostate murderers, designating it by their own ignominious name: Vaticanus.​
It just doesn’t sound like my Lord’s style. In case anyone says I am using a sort of “argumentum ad hominem” against this manuscript, I will just say its owner is no friend to the Gospel of Christ, or to His followers. The blood of multitudes cries out, “It’s not in the running!” Sorry to get so dramatic – I’m the Lord’s poet.


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