I have posted WM 149: Hixson, the CJ, and Roman Catholic Provenance. Listen here.
My notes for this episode:
There have
been several recent posts on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog site addressing
the supposed inadequacy of the TR. This is, in fact, probably a good sign in
that it indicates an awareness of gains made by the Confessional Text movement and
a realization that this poses a grassroots threat to the modern academic
reconstructionist text enterprise.
In this
article EH surveys the ten extant Greek mss. that include the CJ in some form (in
the text or margin).
There were a number of things I found
interesting about EH’s article.
To begin with, EH starts by saying that the rejection
of the authenticity of the CJ is “one of the easiest text-critical decisions.”
Nevertheless, he says, it continues to get “a lot of attention.” He then announces
that he will provide a survey of all ten extant Greek mss. that include the CJ
in some form. The so-called “easiest” decision to reject the CJ is based on the
fact that this extant evidence in favor of the CJ is so weak.
One of the main
problems I see here is that EH seems to imply that the reason TR advocates
embrace the CJ is because of this sort of external evidence. That is, he
assumes that TR advocates are engaged in the same sort of reconstruction methodology
as modern/postmodern text critics. JW,
the PIA, often makes the same sort of mistake when discussing the Confessional
Text position. Clearly, however, this is not the case.
In fact, at
least six of the ten extant Greek mss, that have some form of the CJ, surveyed here
by EH, have only been discovered in the last few years. In Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary (Corrected Edition, 1971,
1975), for example, he begins his discussion of the external evidence for the CJ
as follows: “The passage is absent from every known Greek manuscript except
four, and these contain the passage in what appears to be a translation from a
late recension of the Latin Vulgate” (715). He lists the four Greek mss. bearing
witness to the CJ as 61, 88, 629, and 635.
So, in 1975
TR advocates accepted the CJ, despite the fact that it appeared in, what was
then, only four extant Greek mss. Clearly, support for the TR reading at 1 John
5:7-8 is not based on empirical study of the extant Greek mss. evidence, nor is
it dependent on any recent discoveries of other witnesses to the reading.
When TR advocates
point to the fact that the CJ does appear in at least ten Greek mss, in some
form, even if late and marginal, it is only to point out that the CJ is not
without any extant Greek witnesses whatsoever. That point is true whatever the
poor quality or lateness of those mss.
Furthermore,
as I pointed out in WM
54, titled “The CJ and the Papyri,” there is, in fact, very little early
mss. evidence overall for the Catholic Epistles in general, for 1 John, in
particular, and, especially, for 1 John 5:7-8. In fact, according to the NA 28
there are only two extant papyri that contain any part of 1 John (p9 and p74),
both are fragmentary, and neither provide any evidence concerning the CJ (for
or against).
Second, EH seems to take exception to the
fact that TR advocates “vigorously defend the TR because of its theological
value.” He provides an interesting anecdotal account of how as a “much younger”
man he had discovered the CJ and naively thought he could use it in evangelism
and apologetics, in defense of the Trinity, until a friend disabused him of
that notion by telling him it was not “original to 1 John.”
Let me offer
three asides to this anecdote:
Aside one: One wonders what might have happened
if EH’s friend had held to the Confessional Text (?).
Another aside (two): EH also says that at that naïve stage
when he was ignorant of the wonders of modern text criticism, he was making use
of a MacArthur Study Bible in the
(gasp!) NKJV version. I’m not really sure why this would be supposed evidence
of his textual naivete, given that if he had been using the NKJV he might well
have read its textual note at 1 John 5:7, which explains: “NU, M omit the
words, from in heaven (v. 7) through on earth (v. 8). Only 4 or 5 very late
mss. contain these words in Greek.” And the MacArthur
Study Bible notes, in fact, emphatically argue against the authenticity of
the CJ, concluding, “Most likely, the words were added much later to the text.”
One wonders why a “much younger” EH had to rely on his friend to discover that
the authenticity of the CJ had been challenged in modern times, not only by
modern text critics (the NKJV references to the NU and M) but even by some
Calvinistic evangelicals (the MacArthur Study
Bible notes), given he had these sorts of notes to consult.
Yet another aside (three): EH makes the point that affirmation
of the authenticity of the CJ does not necessarily mean that one will embrace
the Trinity. He points out that Oneness
Pentecostals use the KJV (a translation based on the TR in the NT) but reject
the Trinity. On reflection, however, this does not really prove anything with
respect to the authenticity of the CJ. Mormons also use the KJV to argue for
equally bad theology, with respect to the doctrine of God, but this does not nullify
how the orthodox rightly interpret Scripture’s content. On the other hand,
Jehovah’s Witnesses base their New World Translation on the modern critical
text and, thus, reject the CJ, but this hardly leads them to sound conclusions.
The fact that unbelievers “twist” the traditional text of Scripture, says nothing
about its authenticity.
We are, in
fact, more concerned about how it might be used by sound men, not heretics. Clearly,
the CJ has been used as one text, among several, in support of the orthodox doctrine
of the Trinity. Those who have appealed to the CJ for this purpose throughout
church history have included the likes of Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Lombard,
Peter Abelard, Bonaventure, William of Ockham, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin,
Francis Turretin, Benjamin Keach, the framers of the Westminster Confession of
Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession (1689), and John Wesley, among countless
others.
Third, EH declares that in his survey of
these ten Greek mss. that support the CJ in some form, he will give special
attention to the provenance of these mss., noting especially that many of them were
produced by or possessed by Roman Catholics.
Why does EH
think this is important? He explains as follows:
I want to
mention from the start that I have drawn attention to the Roman Catholic
provenance of a few of these. I’ll explain more at the end why I do so, but the
short version is that some of the most vehement defenders of the CJ are
Protestant textus receptus advocates who subscribe to the Westminster or London
Baptist confessions and claim doctrinal purity via affirmation of these
confessions, yet in order to defend the CJ by appealing to the Greek
manuscripts, they have to appeal to manuscripts from the tradition from which
their own tradition broke away, and
in some cases, manuscripts that were made (or marginal notes that were added) after that break.
So, EH
suggests that confessional TR advocates are inconsistent, because they defend the
CJ by appealing to Greek mss. which contain the CJ, in some form, but which also
demonstrate a RC provenance.
Question: Is
this a valid or reasonable critique of the TR defense of the CJ?
Before we
answer that question let me briefly survey the ten Greek mss., as presented by
EH. It is tempting to spend more time in analysis here, but my comments will be
brief and will focus particularly on EH’s comments on provenance, since he
himself has noted this a special interest of his survey.
Here are the
ten Greek mss. EH examines:
Note: At the start he mentions with a
possible 11th example GA 635 marg but rejects it as not containing the
CJ. I reserve judgment on his conclusion.
1.
GA 629 (1362-1363)
EH says,
this is “the earliest known Greek ms. of the CJ.”
With respect
to provenance, EH says it had ownership ties to “a RC family”, and today it is
in the Vatican.
2.
Codex Montfortianus (GA 61)
Hooray! EH writes, “No, Erasmus didn’t promise to include
the CJ if someone could give him a Greek manuscript with it, and no, 61 wasn’t
made to force Erasmus’ hand.” I am glad to hear that this scholarly legend [“Erasmus
anecdote”] is beginning to be acknowledged and that it is rejected by EH. If
only JW would now do the same!
EH’s conclusion:
“In short, 61 is a manuscript of Catholic (Franciscan) provenance that has a
series of what looks like private owners, suggesting that it was either not
made for church use or never made it to church use, copied by a scribe who
diverged from his exemplar in order to introduce Latin readings into his text
rather than copying what was there in the Greek.”
3.
429marg (date:
after 1522)
EH says
that though 429 is “itself 14th century” the CJ addition must be
after 1522, since it agrees with Erasmus’s third edition (1522).
Questions:
Does this risk circular reasoning? Would not even EH concede that this conclusion
must remain speculative? Can the CJ addition to 429 be conclusively proven to
have been copied from Erasmus’s third edition? What if the 429 marg and the
third edition of Erasmus were both dependent on a common source of unknown date?
4.
918 (date:
probably 1573-1578)
EH begins
by stating that “this is another manuscript with a Catholic provenance.”
He also
points out that this is one of three mss. of these ten (along with 61 and
429marg) which agree with Erasmus. So, “Erasmus is likely the source,” adding, “consequently
918 is not a witness to the pre-Erasmian CJ.”
Questions:
As with 429marg do the conclusions here risk the charge of circular reasoning?
Is it possible that 918 and Erasmus were both dependent on a common source?
EH adds
this conclusion: “GA 918 is a manuscript of Spanish Catholic provenance from
the 1570s that broke from its textual tradition by adding the CJ from Erasmus’
third edition.”
How strange indeed that a Spanish mss.
would follow the reading of Erasmus and not the Complutension!
5.
2473 (1634)
This ms. only has a short entry. EH
concludes, “Still, the King James
Version already existed by the time this manuscript rolled around.”
One wonders
about the mention here of the KJV, in particular. The implication, of course,
is that defense of the TR is simply a variety of KJV-Onlyism.
Why did
not EH write instead something like: “Still, Tyndale’s English translation and
a host of other early English translations based on the TR (e.g., the Matthew’s
Bible, the Bishop’s Bible, the Geneva Bible, etc.), as well as numerous
Protestant translations in various other European languages already existed by
the time this manuscript rolled around.”? Because this likely does not fit with
EH’s assumption that defense of the TR can only be perceived as a variety of
KJV-O.
6.
2318 (1700s)
EH concludes
this ms. “seems to have a clearly non-Protestant provenance in the
1700s” [if from the Romanian Academy Library, though EH does not suggest an Eastern
Orthodox provenance.]. He quotes Wachtel’s suggestion that it was copied from a
later printed edition of the TR. Is it also at least possible it was copied
from a Byzantine ms.?
7.
177marg (c.
1785)
EH
begins, “GA 177 is fun.”!
He
traces the marginal insertion of the CJ to “a Roman Catholic priest in Munich.”
8.
221marg (after c. 1850)
EH dubs
this “a complete surprise” and “the oldest manuscript (10th century)
with the youngest CJ.”
He cites
a printed note on this ms. from Henry Coxe (1854) which says, “There is missing
1 John, chapter 5, verse 7.” From this he dates the CJ to after c. 1850.
Questions:
Is it possible that Coxe made his note on absence of the CJ in the main text,
simply ignoring mention of the marginal addition? If this is the case, we have,
in fact, no idea when the marginal note was added.
9.
88marg
EH
begin, “GA 88 itself is 12th century, but the hand of the note is later.” It is
found in the National Library in Naples.
EH
adds: “Still, it would not surprise me if the addition post-dates printed
editions.”
And he
concludes: “Though I can’t say much about its 12th-century provenance, 88 does
have strong ties to Counter-Reformation Roman Catholicism by the time the CJ
seems to have been written in it.”
I
assume EH would agree that his suggestions on the date of the CJ addition must
remain a speculation. I’m also not sure I understand the relevance of his
emphasis on the discovered provenance of this ms. as having “strong ties to
Counter-Reformation Catholicism.” Why would Counter-Reformation RCs desire to
insert into an ancient manuscript a passage missing from it, but which appears in
printed editions of the Greek NT used by Protestants?
10.636marg
EH
begins, “GA 636 is a 15th-century manuscript, but again the CJ looks like a
later hand.”
He traces
the provenance to Naples and adds: “That seems to give the manuscript itself a
15th-century Roman Catholic provenance, though it is unclear when the marginal
addition was written.”
EH’s Conclusions:
I might
say that EH has done us all a service by providing this catalogue of the current
extant Greek mss. which provide at least some evidence of the tenacity of the
CJ reading in 1 John 5:7-8.
EH ends
the article with a three-paragraph conclusion. Let’s look at each paragraph in
full, in turn, with some responses.
Paragraph 1:
I wanted to
give a survey of the manuscripts here that goes slightly beyond merely
mentioning them. If you’re just dealing with numbers and vague generalities,
it’s really easy to lose sight of the significance of what each manuscript is. To someone who doesn’t know how to evaluate evidence, 10
manuscripts of the CJ might look like it’s even more or better/stronger
evidence than places where modern editions go with a reading that has fewer
manuscripts in support, but when you are so focused on a big idea that you
neglect to look at the evidence you are claiming to support your idea at
specific points, you don’t see things like what I have pointed out here. More
than that, a lot of people don’t want to just “trust the scholars”. That’s
another discussion, but I wanted to lift the curtain a bit and show why the
scholars can arrive at some of the conclusions we do. I’ve tried to walk
through in a few cases why I think these are the reasonable observations about
the manuscripts and from those, the reasonable conclusions about where the data
leads (note: yes, data is a Latin
neuter plural, but let’s not forget that in both Greek and Latin, a neuter
plural subject can take a singular verb).
JTR Response: As noted above,
EH wrongly implies that TR advocates affirm the CJ based on analysis of extant
Greek mss evidence. Clearly, this is not the case. TR advocates held to the CJ
when there were only four extant witnesses to it. Further witnesses have not “proven”
its authenticity empirically, but they have provided evidence of its appearance
in the Greek tradition and also of its tenacity in the Christian tradition.
Paragraph 2:
Maybe I have
been reading too much from textus receptus advocates, but it struck me that
some of the arguments I hear from them actually work against the textus
receptus position once you take the time to step away from the grand claims and
look at how the specifics about manuscripts fit in with those grand claims. I
often hear from people who want to do away with modern textual criticism that
the textus receptus is based on manuscripts with known provenance (and I think
they mean “approved texts used by the Church”) whereas the Oxyrhynchus papyri
were discarded as rubbish, etc. (Yet I don’t
think I’ve ever seen any textus receptus advocate making this claim acknowledge
the lectionary markings in Codex Bezae, which are as sure indicators of church
use as anything.) In my experience, some of the manuscripts whose provenance we do know are the ones that should be most quickly rejected by
people whose position on the text is derived from a particular reading of the
Westminster Confession or London Baptist Confession. This is why I made all the
references to Roman Catholic provenance in this post. If Protestants (specifically,
those who actively align themselves with the Protestant Reformation and the
Puritans and claim to have the correct view of the text based on confessional
statements made in the 1600s) are citing the Greek manuscript evidence for the
CJ, they are appealing to manuscripts produced by, owned by, and used by those
whom their own theological predecessors rigorously opposed.
JTR Response: First, one
wonders which TR advocates EH has been reading. No specifics are given. Second,
he suggests that the arguments of TR advocates in support of that text actually
work against them. This is seen, he says, once one steps away from their “grand
claims” and looks at the specific manuscript evidence. One wonders what EH
means by “grand claims.” Is it simply the claim that the TR has historically
been and should continue to be looked to as the authoritative and authentic
text of the Protestant Scriptures? He takes exception to a preference for this
text over ones based on modern discoveries of mss. of unknown provenance (like the
Oxyrenchcus papyri). But is it really wrong to prefer a text affirmed by usage
in Westminster rather than one of unknown provenance in Egypt? I’m not sure
about his drift in reference to lectionary markings in Codex Bezae. Is his
point that it was used in some church tradition? But its obscure readings were,
in fact, rejected as authentic, right? Doesn’t that argue in favor of the preservation
of the true text in spite of obscure counter-readings and not against it?
He takes
special aim at confessional Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists who prefer the
traditional text. The charge is inconsistency, since some of these late mss.
which witness to the CJ have a (dreaded) RC provenance.
I do
not think this argument is well founded. In fact, it reminds me of the arguments
sometimes made against the TR I’ve heard from the likes of JW and Dan Wallace,
that the TR is suspect because Erasmus was Roman Catholic!
We need
to point out again that though Erasmus’s edition of the Greek NT were
foundational to the emergence of the family of printed TR mss., the validity of
his text was affirmed by Protestants like Stephanus and Beza. We might also
point out that prior to 1517 nearly everyone in Western Europe was at least
nominally Roman Catholic. For the examples surveyed here dating post-1600, in
particular, this argument seems especially irrelevant, given that they were
composed after a Protestant consensus on the authenticity of the CJ had already
been forged. IMHO, the fact that the CJ represents a point where RCs, and
Eastern Orthodox, for that matter, as well as Protestants find agreement is not
a matter that in any way discredits the Protestant affirmation of its authenticity.
I find
two further distinct ironies in this line of argument:
First,
it is ironic for an evangelical modern text advocate, like EH, to chide TR supporters
for supposedly making use of “RC” evidence, given that such men have essentially
suggested that confessional commitments should be irrelevant when doing text
criticism. Tommy Wasserman, for example, has suggested we should approach the
text as though God does not exist. If there is concern that orthodoxy should be
considered as paramount in doing text criticism or in examination of textual
evidence and its provenance, where was the hue and cry from such men when a
Roman Catholic served as one of the editors of the Novum Testamentum Graecae in the 1980s, or when a Mormon was
appointed as an editor of the Biblia Hebraica
Quinta in 2009?
Second,
it is ironic for an evangelical modern text advocate, like our friend EH, to
chide TR supporters for supposedly making use of “RC” evidence, given that it is
confessional TR advocates who are, in fact, urging a self-conscious return to
the textual position of the Protestant orthodox, who defended the notion of a stable
and divinely preserved text of Scripture as part of their overall defense of
Scripture as theopneustos and autopistos, over against the RCs, who
suggested that Scripture had been corrupted, and thus Sola Scriptura, could not be affirmed, apart from the
interpretation of the Roman magisterium.
The
noted Puritan John Owen, for example, presciently and intuitively saw the
warning clouds of developing modern text criticism in his critique of Brian
Walton’s Biblia Polyglotta. Namely,
he saw the apologetic advantage of assuming corruption in Scripture that would be
seized upon by “Romanists or Atheists.” Owen suggested they would use such
empirical study of textual corruption in transmission “as an engine suited to
the destruction” of the authority of Scripture. It would serve “as a fit weapon
put into the hands of men of atheistical minds and principles, such as this age
abounds withal, to oppose the whole evidence of truth revealed in the
Scriptures.” He continues, “I fear, with some, either the pretended infallible judge or the depths of atheism will be found to lie
at the door of these considerations.”
Paragraph 3:
To bring the
‘Evangelical’ back into Evangelical
Textual Criticism, one of the most
liberating things to me is knowing that Jesus is powerful enough to save me—to
grant forgiveness of my sins and reconcile me to God, and God’s promises to
preserve his word are so strong that I am not powerful enough to screw it up.
As a result, I don’t have to scramble to explain away things that are difficult
for my position in order to try to preserve the integrity of my position,
because that would be exhausting. When it comes to manuscripts, I can let the
chips fall where they may because Jesus is king (and they’re his chips, after all!). As my dad always
says, “The truth don’t hurt unless it ought to”. I can take rest and comfort in
the knowledge that I must do my best with what I’ve been given, and if I make a
mistake, well I’ve been wrong before (just ask anyone who was at my 2016 SBL
paper! [EDIT: or ask the friend who found a typo in this very sentence before I
updated the post just now to fix it]), and I’m sure I’ll be wrong again, but no
matter what, Christ is enough, and I am not powerful enough to thwart his
purposes.
JTR Response: Though I might appreciate some of the piety expressed
here I find it confusing. EH seems to be saying that evangelical modern critical
text advocates, like himself, experientially benefit from their modern
redefinition of the doctrine of preservation (through modern scholarly
reconstruction) in a way that TR advocates do not.
He writes,
“As a result, I don’t have to scramble to
explain away things that are difficult for my position in order to try to
preserve the integrity of my position, because that would be exhausting. When
it comes to manuscripts, I can let the chips fall where they may because Jesus
is king (and they’re his chips, after all!).”
I find this ironic for several reasons.
First, it is the defenders of the TR who are, in
fact, advocating a return to the classic Reformed doctrine of preservation as
stated in WCF 1:8. Namely, that Scripture has been “by [God’s] singular care
and providence kept pure in all ages.” Such men believed in the “practical
univocity” between the autographs and the apographs (see the historical scholarship
by Richard Muller, Garnet Howard Milne, Richard Brash, etc.).
Second, it is defenders of the TR, in fact, who
feel no need to “scramble” through the extant evidence to defend some “reconstruction”
of it. It is they who “let the chips fall where they may.” Does EH realize he
writes this after an exercise in which he has literally been “scrambling” through
the extant CJ evidence attempting to show the impact of RC provenance?
The question, in the end, is, which definition of
providential preservation do you want to embrace? The classic Protestant “preservation”
view, or the modern “reconstruction” view?
I choose the former. This leads me to feel perfectly
comfortable with affirming the CJ as an authentic and inspired part of God’s
Word.
JTR
