Critical Text Advocates Don’t Like Our Argument Because It Doesn’t Bow To Their Gods

Before we get into today’s post I want to make sure we avoid a potential False Friend. Throughout today’s post I will be using the word “rancor” which means “bitter deep-seated ill will” as opposed to “the Rancor” from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi pictured above. I just wanted to make sure there was no confusion.

I have oft asked myself, “Why is that such rancor, especially by Christian academics, is leveled at average Christians who hold to the TR and the KJV as their standard sacred text to the exclusion of all others?” In order to answer this question, allow me to illustrate with pictures.

The image immediately above is a picture I took this morning of my UBS 4th Ed. Revised. It is a picture of Mark 16:2b-8. Note first the blue arrow pointing at the page number. The reason this is important is actually very simple. We are going to look at the very next page and see what that page contains, but first let’s take a look at the red arrow.

The red arrow is pointed to a portion of what is called the textual apparatus or the textual footnotes. Here text-critics include the manuscripts they consider relevant to the choice they made regarding a given variant. As most of you know the “Long Ending of Mark” is an infamous variant because Critical Text advocates believe it should not be in the Bible while TR advocates believe it should be in the Bible.

Take a look at what is in the red square, “[A] omit vv 9-20”. What does [A] mean? Well in the introduction of the UBS, the editors explain,

“The letter A indicates that the text is certain.”

UBS 4th Ed. Revised, Introduction, 3.

“[A] omit vv 9-20” therefore means to the editors of the UBS that they are certain that Mark 16:9-20 should be omitted from the biblical text because in their estimation it is not original. Again, the word here is “certain”. They have no doubt that the Long Ending in Mark should be removed from the text of Mark.

Not long ago I asked a Critical Text advocate why the Long Ending of Mark is printed in the modern versions. He said, “Because scholars are unsure whether the text is original or not.” Not according to the editors of UBS. They are certain the Long Ending does not belong.

Ok, so as promised let’s look at the next page and see what is printed there.

Notice at the top right of the page shown that we are now looking at page 190. What do you see printed in the body of the text? A second shorter ending as indicated by blue arrow 1, and right below that the Longer Ending as indicated by blue arrow 2. Both are printed in the body of the text.

Now there is a lot to disagree about here and I don’t want to diminish the gravity of those things, but it is important to note that the Longer Ending is printed in the body of the UBS 4th Ed. Revised even after the editors rated vss. 9-20 with an “A” to omit. That is, they are certain 9-20 does not belong in the text and yet the thing they are certain does not belong in the text…is in the text.

All that is done to differentiate this text, which certainly does not belong there according to textual scholars, from the rest of the text is to include a “[[” right before vs. 9 as indicated by the red arrow and a “]]” at the end of 20.

The point of this observation on page 190 is that text of the Long Ending is in the body of the New Testament even though the editors are certain that it does not belong there.

What about the story of the woman caught in adultery? Consider the following image,

Now you may not be able to read Greek but you can read the heading on this page, The Woman Caught in Adultery. Again from the UBS 4th Ed. Revised, we see that the story of the woman caught in adultery is printed in the body of the New Testament text as indicated by blue arrow 1.

Looking at the red arrow and the red box we see exactly what we saw with the Long Ending in Mark, “[A] omit 7.53-8.11]”. So again, the editors of the UBS are certain that the story of the woman caught in adultery does not belong in the text and yet they print the story and set if off with “[[“.

So, textual scholarship is certain that the Long Ending in Mark and the story of the woman caught in adultery are not original and therefore do not belong in the text, buuutttt they still print the certainly-not-original text in the body of the New Testament. And here is where the rub comes into the picture when answering my initial question at the top of this post, “Why is that such rancor, especially by Christian academics, is leveled at average Christians who hold to the TR and the KJV as their standard sacred text to the exclusion of all others?”

The TR and the KJV include both of these passages of Scripture in the body of the New Testament. Interestingly enough, the Critical Text and the modern versions include the same passages albeit with brackets in the body of the New Testament. This tells me that our Critical Text brothers are not or at least should not be upset with the TR/KJV folks for included these two passages in the body of Scripture.

The fact that most text-critics consider themselves to practice some kind of science yet their product [i.e., the printed UBS text] goes direct against their “scientific conclusions” [i.e., [A] to omit] makes their work, at a minimum, untrustworthy regarding these passages. I mean what other science does this and remains credible?

Chemistry: “Our investigation of Enchanted Thorium has concluded that it is not a real element.” ***2 months later*** “Enchanted Thorium is now included in the periodic table of elements.”
Biology: “Only women can get pregnant”***5 years later***”Men can get pregnant too.”
Textual Criticism: “The Long Ending is not part of the New Testament.”***1 year later***”Prints the Long Ending as part of the New Testament + a couple of these [.”

Then Critical Text advocates have the gall to call TR/KJV irrational and illogical while CT and multiple version only folks won’t even follow their own conclusions.

With the above point aside, where is the problem? What is the difference between our two positions? It’s not that we include those texts in the body of the NT. The UBS and the modern versions do the same.

We believe those texts are the word of God, should not be omitted, and therefore we include them in TR/KJV with an “[A] to include.” Our opponents on the other hand do not believe those texts are the word of God, that they should be omitted, yet they include them in CT and modern versions.

CT and multiple version only advocates have no problem including these passages in the New Testament so long as the reader believes/knows the passages shouldn’t be there. But when those passages are included in the text AND the reader believes/knows the passages SHOULD be there, then comes the rancor.

Why?

Because we have not appropriately bowed to the academic idols. Because we have not paid appropriate homage and obeisance to academia which looks like “taking their scholarly-word for it.” And their scholarly-word takes the form of first printing these passages in their New Testaments only to say, “Well, those readings are weakly attested” or “Those readings are not among the oldest, shortest, and hardest” or “Those readings are not contained in the best manuscripts.”

Then we say, “I don’t care if it’s weakly attested. And who is the ‘authority’ of what counts as ‘weakly’ anyway? And why is ‘authority’ binding on me?” or “I don’t regard oldest, shortest, and hardest to be reliable criteria for determining was is or is not the word of God” or “What gives you the authority to claim what the ‘best manuscripts’ are?” Language like this will only anger the academic gods.

I can’t help at this point to observe a similarity here with the emperor worship of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Rome did not care if you worship your God so long as you also worshipped the emperor. Modern textual critics don’t mind if you include these passages in the body of the New Testament so long as you also acknowledge their opinion that these passages don’t belong in the New Testament.

You can believe the KJV is the word of God so long as you also say most or all of the modern translations are equally the word of God. If you don’t say this here comes the wrath of the academic gods. You can say that the TR is the word of God so long as you speak of it only in terms of it being sufficiently reliable like all the other critical texts. If you say that the TR is equal to the originals, then here comes the that holy academic fire sent to purify you of your ignorance.

Which takes the form of chiding, silly jokes, lumping you in with double-inspiration, informing you that your position is ignorant, teaching as if there is no other meaningful position out there, refusing to print any of your material, when you submit material for publication you receive no meaningful feedback as to the veracity of your arguments, asserting that you’ve “got them all wrong” and thus you are doubly ignorant, telling you straight-out to “Get another version” as happened in my Ph.D. defense and on and on.

Failure to believe in the emperor as god meant death or exile.
Failure to believe in textual criticism means academic exile.

The TR/KJV position is not exiled because it includes the Long Ending of Mark and the story of the woman caught in adultery in the Bible. It is exiled because it does not submit to the prevailing academic consensus to omit those passages while still printing them.

If you believe these passages should be omitted but you desire to print them anyway, then you will be accepted.
If you believe these passages should be included and therefore print them, then you will be exiled.

So here’s your choice, gross inconsistency or exile.

See you on Patmos.