I came across this tweet from David Green @Biblicist4Life a little late.  I have interacted with David several times on Twitter and generally found him rigorous and studied.  Since I was late to interact with this particular tweet (given the very short shelf-life of Twitter), I decided to write a post about it.  David is pretty dogmatic in this tweet – not that I object to raw assertion.  But I found several “facts” in it that I think require a little more information than he provides.  And since King James Only debates have been the rage for nigh unto two decades running, I thought I would feed the beast and keep things going. 

As debates go, both sides believe they hold the stake to drive through the heart of the opposing side.  Yet, somehow, the discussion continues.  This comes, no doubt, from the obstinance and implacability of the other side.  Plus, KJV people don’t think much.  Plus, we all talk past each other.  Plus, King James might have been a homosexual.  And we know he was an Anglican.  So, the debate continues. 

Anyhow, let me start by copying and pasting the entire tweet.  Then, I will break it down and attempt an answer for each point.  Here’s the tweet…

7 Facts I Wish KJV-Onlyists Would Get Straight:

1. There is no received text. Sorry. There are errors in all Greek manuscripts. Not only are there not 5000+ manuscripts that agree with each other, there actually aren’t any manuscripts that perfectly agree with each other. And I’m not talking about just the dreaded “Alexandrian” manuscripts. All of the manuscripts have errors. The Greek NT hasn’t been passed down cleanly.

2. The KJV translators didn’t have one text in front of them. They consulted many texts that differed from each other because…there was no received text. So they guessed. Somewhat educated guessing, sure. But sometimes there is good evidence on both sides of a textual variant. Hard to say which is original and which is an error. And the KJV translators didn’t hide this fact. They made textual choices, and they included marginal notes with alternate readings where they were uncertain due to their Greek texts disagreeing.

3. Westcott and Hort didn’t discover any manuscripts. Vaticannus has been housed in the Vatican Library (hence its name) for centuries. Sinaiticus was discovered by Tichendorf in St. Catherine’s monastery. (This point isn’t overly relevant. It just bugs me when people talk about Westcott and Hort discovering these. Lol)

4. It’s true that Westcott and Hort published a new edition of the Greek New Testament in the 1800s, but they didn’t only use 2 manuscripts to create it. That’s absurd. What would be accurate is to say that they leaned heavily (not exclusivity) on a few manuscripts. At times they leaned too heavily on them. Pretty much everyone today acknowledges that. Which leads to the next fact…

5. NO ONE IS STILL USING WESTCOTT & HORT’S GREEK TEXT. This whole argument from KJV-onlyists is super outdated. The KJVO attacks on Westcott and Hort’s text were an exaggeration a hundred years ago. They’re completely irrelevant today. No one is still using Westcott & Hort’s text. Zero Bibles are being translated from it.

6. The Greek text that is being used today (Nestle-Aland 28th edition or the UBS 5th, same text just different apparatus) has made hundreds of changes in favor of the majority of Greek manuscripts. In other words, the imbalance of Westcott and Hort relying too heavily on a few manuscripts has been corrected. Decades ago. Now you might think it hasn’t gone far enough and it is still somewhat imbalanced. Fine. Make that argument. But don’t say that we’re all using Westcott & Hort’s text that was created by comparing only 2 manuscripts. Both of those are lies. Stop it.

7. The KJV isn’t based on majority readings. Here’s where the argument really falls apart…Most KJV-onlyists believe that there are 5,000+ Greek manuscripts that support their text, and basically only 2 manuscripts line up with the modern text. They tend to be shocked when they find out that this just isn’t true. For example, take the 2 most significant “missing verses” in the NT: 1 John 5:7 and Acts 8:37. Both of these verses are absent in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts. So the “We have 5000 on our side and you guys have 2” argument is just not true. In hundreds of places, the exact opposite is true. When it comes to 1 John 5.7, the KJV guys have like 4 Greek manuscripts that contain it (all dated to over 1000 years after 1 John was written).

Some KJV-onlyists know this last fact. And when you bring it up, they will never be ok with removing a verse like 1 John 5:7, even though the overwhelming majority of Greek manuscripts don’t have it. They’ll come up with some reason to keep everything just as it is in the KJV. Because at the end of the day, the manuscript evidence doesn’t really matter to them. What matters is whatever the KJV says. The argument about a “Received Text” is just a distraction. KJV-onlyism is a conclusion in search of an argument. So, the advocates of KJV-onlyism have to use inconsistent/contradictory arguments for their position, depending on which variant is being discussed.

Let’s take this apart, point by point…

1. There is no received text. Sorry. There are errors in all Greek manuscripts. Not only are there not 5000+ manuscripts that agree with each other, there actually aren’t any manuscripts that perfectly agree with each other. And I’m not talking about just the dreaded “Alexandrian” manuscripts. All of the manuscripts have errors. The Greek NT hasn’t been passed down cleanly.

I’ve heard this kind of argument bandied about in a few places.  When he says “there is no received text,” I assume he means that the name itself is what others have called a “marketing ploy,” that the Elzevir Brothers’ little promo for their edition of the TR was nothing more than propaganda.  I’m guessing that he means to refute the idea that there is a text of Scripture that the churches settled on. 

His stated reason for rejecting the idea of a “received text” is that “there are errors in all Greek manuscripts.”  So, the presence of differences between editions of the TR necessarily disqualifies it from being the “received text.”

Now, I don’t deny copyist errors and variants between manuscripts of the Byzantine text (the text which accounts for about 90% of available continual-text and lectionary manuscripts, according to Robinson-Pierpont).  But the variations between these 5,000+ manuscripts are also overstated. For example, Bruce Metzger says, “Of the approximately five thousand Greek manuscripts of all or parts of the New Testament that are known today, no two agree exactly in all particulars” (emphasis mine).  But of course, such a carefully worded statement doesn’t mean these manuscripts don’t agree.  They aren’t identical, sure, but there certainly is uniformity between the manuscripts.

But when David says “there is no received text,” I’m guessing he means to argue against the TR as a special category of manuscripts representative of the Byzantine text.  I can’t say for sure because he doesn’t explain, apart from variants among Greek copies.

Whether he means to argue for a “neutral” text or not, I cannot say.  I see this argument passed around, essentially that every text and every manuscript is of equal merit and value.  Thus the view that there is no such thing as the Received Text and no such thing as the Critical Text.  There are only different texts/manuscripts of Scripture. 

If this is what he means (and I am happy if it isn’t), I would respond that not every text/manuscript is of equal quality and reliability.  Surely we can agree that Sinaiticus is a prime example of poor quality in a manuscript of Scripture.  We cannot be intellectually honest and treat every manuscript as if they are all of equal value.  

The raw assertion that “there is no received text” goes against history.  According to this article, Robinson and Pierpont have said that “The ‘Byzantine’ Textform (otherwise called the ‘Majority’ or ‘Traditional Text’) predominated throughout the greatest period of manual copying of the Greek New Testament manuscripts – a span of over 1000 years (ca. AD 350 to AD 1516). It was without question the dominate (sic) text used both liturgically and popularly by the Greek-speaking Christian community” (p.xviii).”   And Kurt Aland acknowledges the same:

The “Koine Text” (which he considers to be the precursor to the Byzantine text-type) “… became widely disseminated even in the fourth century” and it became “the dominant text of the Byzantine church.” (taken from the same article)

In his recent debate with Thomas Ross, James White himself argued that the King James is translated from the TR because “that’s all they had.”  And though that claim might not be completely accurate, we can still say that they had one text in front of them.  The translators make it clear in their preface that they referenced various editions and copies of Scripture, that a word not in one copy was found in another. But it was one text. So the TR was the primary text used when the King James was translated. 

I think David means to deny the idea of a “received text” as a theological statement (which it is).  I’m guessing (and I admit, this is “educated guessing”) that he means to argue that churches didn’t settle on a text, that there is no “authoritative” text or “ecclesiastical” text of the Greek New Testament.  If so, I would argue that this is the debate.  Do we rely on the church, or do we rely on the scholars to give us certainty about the text?

2. The KJV translators didn’t have one text in front of them. They consulted many texts that differed from each other because…there was no received text. So they guessed. Somewhat educated guessing, sure. But sometimes there is good evidence on both sides of a textual variant. Hard to say which is original and which is an error. And the KJV translators didn’t hide this fact. They made textual choices, and they included marginal notes with alternate readings where they were uncertain due to their Greek texts disagreeing.

I’m not going to dig into this much.  It strikes me as so much conjecture about the work of the King James translators – a somewhat educated guess about their “educated guessing.”  I see plenty of statements made about their work but very little in the way of actual source material.  I’d be interested to read citations.  No doubt they made textual choices.  That isn’t the same thing as modern textual criticism, but it happened. 

The part that makes me scratch my head is that “they included marginal notes with alternate readings where they were uncertain due to their Greek texts disagreeing.” 

Now, I always read the marginal notes while preaching or studying a passage, and I often mention the marginal notes in my sermons. In addition, I usually translate passages myself as part of my sermon prep.  I will admit that I haven’t studied every marginal note in the Bible, so I could be wrong about this.  But of all the marginal notes I have read, I can’t think of any based on uncertainty due to disagreement between Greek texts.  I’m open to an example of this.  The marginal notes I have examined offer an alternative way to render a particular Greek (or Hebrew) word or phrase. 

3. Westcott and Hort didn’t discover any manuscripts. Vaticannus has been housed in the Vatican Library (hence its name) for centuries. Sinaiticus was discovered by Tichendorf in St. Catherine’s monastery. (This point isn’t overly relevant. It just bugs me when people talk about Westcott and Hort discovering these. Lol)

4. It’s true that Westcott and Hort published a new edition of the Greek New Testament in the 1800s, but they didn’t only use 2 manuscripts to create it. That’s absurd. What would be accurate is to say that they leaned heavily (not exclusivity) on a few manuscripts. At times they leaned too heavily on them. Pretty much everyone today acknowledges that. Which leads to the next fact…

5. NO ONE IS STILL USING WESTCOTT & HORT’S GREEK TEXT. This whole argument from KJV-onlyists is super outdated. The KJVO attacks on Westcott and Hort’s text were an exaggeration a hundred years ago. They’re completely irrelevant today. No one is still using Westcott & Hort’s text. Zero Bibles are being translated from it.

6. The Greek text that is being used today (Nestle-Aland 28th edition or the UBS 5th, same text just different apparatus) has made hundreds of changes in favor of the majority of Greek manuscripts. In other words, the imbalance of Westcott and Hort relying too heavily on a few manuscripts has been corrected. Decades ago. Now you might think it hasn’t gone far enough and it is still somewhat imbalanced. Fine. Make that argument. But don’t say that we’re all using Westcott & Hort’s text that was created by comparing only 2 manuscripts. Both of those are lies. Stop it.

I put these all together because they go together, and I don’t have much to say on #4 and #5.  A friend of mine went to the trouble to do a google search on the phrase “Westcott and Hort discovered.”  His findings cracked me up. 

It appeared exactly three times online. Out of the three, one was critical text who said that “Westcott and Hort discovered the existence of two types of texts. . . . The first they named the “neutral” text.”  The other said that “Westcott and Hort discovered the truth about ‘the older and better manuscripts.’” That leaves exactly one person on the entire world wide web who said what this author said.”

On these “facts,” I only want to point out that the Nestle-Aland text has been gradually moving closer and closer to Westcott and Hort’s text with each edition (as demonstrated here).  As I understand it, NA-28 is something like 99.5% the same as WH1881.  So, hundreds of changes, but little in the way of substantial difference. 

Has Nestle-Aland abandoned Westcott & Hort’s methodology?  Because that is the more important question.  And to that question, I would argue that Nestle-Aland has modified the Westcott & Hort method of textual criticism, but they still largely agree with that method (which, again, is the real point of contention on this issue).  Berean Patriot has done a fantastic job of breaking down the differences in their methodologies.

7. The KJV isn’t based on majority readings. Here’s where the argument really falls apart…Most KJV-onlyists believe that there are 5,000+ Greek manuscripts that support their text, and basically only 2 manuscripts line up with the modern text. They tend to be shocked when they find out that this just isn’t true. For example, take the 2 most significant “missing verses” in the NT: 1 John 5:7 and Acts 8:37. Both of these verses are absent in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts. So the “We have 5000 on our side and you guys have 2” argument is just not true. In hundreds of places, the exact opposite is true. When it comes to 1 John 5.7, the KJV guys have like 4 Greek manuscripts that contain it (all dated to over 1000 years after 1 John was written).

Some KJV-onlyists know this last fact. And when you bring it up, they will never be ok with removing a verse like 1 John 5:7, even though the overwhelming majority of Greek manuscripts don’t have it. They’ll come up with some reason to keep everything just as it is in the KJV. Because at the end of the day, the manuscript evidence doesn’t really matter to them. What matters is whatever the KJV says. The argument about a “Received Text” is just a distraction. KJV-onlyism is a conclusion in search of an argument. So, the advocates of KJV-onlyism have to use inconsistent/contradictory arguments for their position, depending on which variant is being discussed.

I’ll ignore the swipe there.  I see it as a bit patronizing. We don’t have a substantial critique of the TR position here.

For clarity, the entirety of I John 5:7 is not in dispute, only the second half of verse 7 and the first part of verse 8.  There are many good reasons to accept I John 5:7 (this article makes a very solid case).  And though David oversimplifies when he says, “at the end of the day, the manuscript evidence doesn’t really matter to them,” I will agree that I’m not willing to give up verses or passages based on textual criticism.  I view manuscript evidence the same way I view archeological evidence. Fantastic when it confirms the truth of Scripture.  But not authoritative enough to discard anything in Scripture.