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#32.
The Greek Text of the Revised Version.
What are the Evidences?
pp. 175 - 179
There is no short cut to textual criticism. The need for personal and patient inspection
of every original manuscript, painstaking tabulation and comparison, and many years of
labour, as well as sound scholarship and critical acumen, makes textual criticism the
service only of the few. We must, therefore, be prepared to accept the findings of others.
On the other hand, we shall not easily allow any scholar or group of scholars to take from
us the Greek New Testament which has been in use through the centuries, and substitute
a text of their own, based upon one or two manuscripts of the fourth century, unless there
is very strong evidence in favour of the change. The Revisers' Greek Text is largely that
of the Vatican Manuscript, and we have a right to know upon what grounds this one
manuscript is to be regarded as correct in preference to hundreds of other testimonies. It
is not enough to speak of "authorities"; we must see the evidence. In all matters of
textual criticism appeal must be made to the consent of antiquity; yet the oldest existing
manuscript need not necessarily be the purest.
There are three instruments of textual criticism: (1) Copies, (2) Versions, (3) The
Fathers.
(1) Copies.--Since the beginning of Christianity a great number of copies have been
made and widely distributed. The very existence of these widely distributed copies is a
most effective safeguard against fraud. Where anything like unanimity exists among
thousands of such copies, we probably have the original text.
(2) Versions.--Not only were copies made of the original Greek, but the necessities
of the case soon produced many versions in various languages. The old Peshito Syrian
Version dates from the second century. While these translations do not present the
original, they provide a most valuable check upon innovations, and where their evidence
concurs the text is beyond dispute.
(3) The Fathers.--From the beginning, the Christian faith was attacked, and these
attacks called forth an army of apologists, controversialists and teachers, whose writings
cover the whole range of the sacred volume, so providing evidence of the text with which
they were familiar.
Most of the copies of the Greek N.T. now in existence date from the 10th to the
14th centuries. They are copies of manuscripts older than themselves, and in the main
are faithful presentations of the inspired originals. The testimony of these manuscripts,
together with the evidence of the Versions and the witness of the Fathers, have been
ruthlessly set aside in the R.V. in favour of one or two manuscripts, of which the chief are
the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus, which are assigned to the fourth century. To these may
be added the Alexandrian (A), the rescript Codex designated C, and the Codex Bezę (D).