The Byzantine text-type in Egypt

He made the New Testament less accurate.
Wallace describes Metzger as one of the best textual scholars.

As he also says, one piece of manuscript evidence can be worth a ton of presumptions. Admittedly the removal of presumptions does lead to greater uncertainty, but hopefully the uncertainty will eventually be resolved. Sometimes you have to break something down in order to reconstruct it more adequately.
 
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I guess they all come from the Originals. But one tradition came through with less mistakes than the others. Less changes to the text.

I lean to that conclusion, however, there is so little evidence between the time of the death of the apostle through to the 3rd century. What evidence we do have is fragmented. Those fragments do not provide a conclusive "picture" in the text type form debate. To me, the fact that Alexandrinus has Byzantine form in the Gospels shows that the form found its "predecessor" in the earliest of manuscripts of the Gospels.

I try to be independent in analysis. I don't have an agenda. Analysis of Papyrus 45 is a prefect example. Agendas are clearly found among those who have studied Papyrus 45. "45" predates the Edict of Milan. It is a good example of how the "collection" process and derivative works point to a scattered representation of text types very early on.

There was a "great falling away" after the death of the apostles. That "calamity" caused what we have today. My opinions that Alexandrinus is a very early collection that represent a very ancient source in the OT and early sources in the Gospels/Epistles. It is a blended work. All the digging I've done hasn't changed my opinion. A blended source is all we really have left. That's okay with me. I believe God wants it that way. He has given us plenty to study and consider.
 
Wallace describes Metzger as one of the best textual scholars.

As he also says, one piece of manuscript evidence can be worth a ton of presumptions. Admittedly the removal of presumptions does lead to greater uncertainty, but hopefully the uncertainty will eventually be resolved. Sometimes you have to break something down in order to reconstruct it more adequately.

I'm not a Metzger fan. In my opinion. Wallace has changed. I like the "newer" Wallace.

If you've seen as many varying documents as he has seen, change is inevitable. Most just hide their head in the sand so they can hear the echoes of their own thoughts better.
 
Wallace describes Metzger as one of the best textual scholars.

As he also says, one piece of manuscript evidence can be worth a ton of presumptions. Admittedly the removal of presumptions does lead to greater uncertainty, but hopefully the uncertainty will eventually be resolved. Sometimes you have to break something down in order to reconstruct it more adequately.
I read Metzger first and was a huge fan. Read alot by him. He had taught my way as a beginner. On one hand I am glad I learned from his camp. Most of what I know came from the eclectic camp. But later on in life you come to your own conclusions. Sometimes a person changes positions with new evidence or even seeing an older side of things that they had missed. I like Wallace and used his material against KJVOnlyist sometime ago. I will always be grateful for what I learned from them. But it is a plain fact that I learned some error from the eclectic side as well.
 
I'm not a Metzger fan. In my opinion. Wallace has changed. I like the "newer" Wallace.

If you've seen as many varying documents as he has seen, change is inevitable. Most just hide their head in the sand so they can hear the echoes of their own thoughts better.
I'm not yet in a position to hold any strong opinion. I'm going to read the Sturz book, "The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism" for a better understanding of this issue. Pickering espouses the "might is right" principle, which is inherently crude and dubious, and extremist. Sturz takes a more moderate approach. Sturz summarizes the three positions on p.47:
_____________

Pickering believes that there is no other way of explaining the
great numerical preponderance of the Byzantine manuscripts than
that they represent the text that goes back to the autographs:

"I see no way of accounting for a 90% (or 80%) domination unless
that text goes back to the Autographs. Hort saw the problem
and invented a revision. Sturz seems not to have seen the problem.
He demonstrates that the “Byzantine text-type” is early
and independent of the “Western” and “Alexandrian text types,”
and like von Soden wishes to treat them as three equal
witnesses. But if the three “text-types” were equal, how ever
could the so-called “Byzantine” gain an 80-90% prepondcrance?" (The Identity of the New Testament Text, revised ed. p. 118).

Despite these strong assertions there do appear to be other reasons,
both historical and ethnological, which explain the great numerical
preponderance of the later Greek manuscripts associated
with the Byzantine area (empire) as compared with the sparse remains
of Greek witnesses from the West and from Egypt.

There are at least three principle reasons why the Greek textual
traditions of Alexandria and the geographical West have not been
preserved in the numbers that are found in the Byzantine.......
 
I'm not yet in a position to hold any strong opinion. I'm going to read the Sturz book, "The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism" for a better understanding of this issue. Pickering espouses the "might is right" principle, which is inherently crude and dubious, and extremist. Sturz takes a more moderate approach. Sturz summarizes the three positions on p.47:
_____________

Pickering believes that there is no other way of explaining the
great numerical preponderance of the Byzantine manuscripts than
that they represent the text that goes back to the autographs:

"I see no way of accounting for a 90% (or 80%) domination unless
that text goes back to the Autographs. Hort saw the problem
and invented a revision. Sturz seems not to have seen the problem.
He demonstrates that the “Byzantine text-type” is early
and independent of the “Western” and “Alexandrian text types,”
and like von Soden wishes to treat them as three equal
witnesses. But if the three “text-types” were equal, how ever
could the so-called “Byzantine” gain an 80-90% prepondcrance?" (The Identity of the New Testament Text, revised ed. p. 118).

Despite these strong assertions there do appear to be other reasons,
both historical and ethnological, which explain the great numerical
preponderance of the later Greek manuscripts associated
with the Byzantine area (empire) as compared with the sparse remains
of Greek witnesses from the West and from Egypt.

There are at least three principle reasons why the Greek textual
traditions of Alexandria and the geographical West have not been
preserved in the numbers that are found in the Byzantine.......

I give my opinion. The Byzantine Empire was powerful and basically "won" the "reproduction" battle. I believe the Byzantine and Western forms to be largely equal in "pedigree" with the Byzantine having a slight "edge". The Alexandrian form is superior in the Epistles but inferior in the Gospel. The Gospels undoubtedly had a much wider distribution than the Epistles. I would suggest that anyone spend time studying Canonicity. If you do, you will find that there were varying degrees of interest in preserving various Epistles throughout antiquity. This teaches me that the Gospel were reproduced often and find a larger distribution into the Eastern Roman Empire. The Epistles had a much smaller distribution and were less prone to mistakes/change. This is one of the reasons I treasure Alexandrinus above the others. That and I believe the ancient Greek OT is best represented in Alexandrinus. Which is another reason you find the collection of Alexandrinus paired as such.
 
So then, what do the byzantine readings in the Papyri mean then? There not really there? Dismissed? Brushed aside?

"Distinctively byzantine" (Hort used "Syrian)" is a fake term that has been used from Hort to Carson and Fee to Wallace to try to defend the corruption texts. It has all sorts of contradictory meanings.

On the papyri readings, here are a couple of good posts, only having the Sinaiticus early error.

Early Witnesses to the Received Text
David L. Brown
http://www.logosresourcepages.org/Versions/received.htm

Truth Magazine
The Received Text, or the "Textus Receptus"
Luther W. Martin
Rolla, Missouri
http://www.truthmagazine.com/archives/volume29/GOT029003.html

On my research forum I also go through the main points of the Harry August Sturz (1916-1989) material. He actually did try to unpack "distinctively Byzantine" with a fairly sensible definition.
 
If Sinaiticus was a criminal deception attempt, rather than simply a replica, would that mean that it was in fact produced in Mt. Athos c. 1840?
Yes.
No. It could have been produced anywhere, if the product of criminality. But Simonides later forgeries were nothing like Sinaiticus, so we can rule it out as a conspiracy theory. Moreover no-one would spend that much effort on a criminal deception, without seemingly any real profit motive.
 
But Simonides later forgeries were nothing like Sinaiticus, so we can rule it out as a conspiracy theory.
Simonides was simply a youthful scribe. The questions of intent and the textual preparation go back to Benedict. So it has nothing to do with the later productions of Simonides.
 
Manuscripts of the Greek Bible:
An Introduction to Greek Paleography
BRUCE M. METZGER, 1981, p.68

________________

Luke 16:9-21. Gregory-Aland P75. Early iii cent.

COLOGNY-GENEVA, BIBLIOTHECA BODMERIANA, PAP. XIV, PAGE 45.

Papyrus codex, containing most of the Gospel according to Luke, early iii century, 10 1/4 X 5 1/8
inches (26 X 13 cm.), one column, averaging 42 lines to the page.

________________

This, the earliest known copy of Luke, is written in a medium-sized, rounded uncial, though
some letters (particularly omicron and sigma} are much smaller than the average size. The scribe
marks paragraphs by leaving blank a space of one or two letters, and extends into the left-hand
margin the first letter of the following line (see lines 17-18 and 34-35)....

Textually the manuscript is of importance in showing that the Alexandrian type of text characteristic
of the fourth-century codices Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus () was current at the beginning
of the third century (see studies mentioned in the bibliography). Furthermore, not only is
the text of P75 Alexandrian, but it is closer to B than that of any other manuscript, while the influence
of readings of the Western type is almost non-existant.

This goes a long way, as A. W. Adams remarks, 'to showing that the B-type of text was already
in existence in Egypt, and in a relatively pure form, before the end of the second century.
If so, the view, much canvassed in recent years, that the Alexandrian text-type was a third

or fourth century recension—i.e. a deliberately revised or "made" text formed out of the
"popular" texts of the second century—will need considerable revision.'
[1]

[1] F. G. Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible, 3rd ed., revised and augmented by A. W. Adams (London, 1975),
P. 77.
 
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Luke 16:9-21. Gregory-Aland P75. Early iii cent.

COLOGNY-GENEVA, BIBLIOTHECA BODMERIANA, PAP. XIV, PAGE 45.

Papyrus codex, containing most of the Gospel according to Luke, early iii century, 10 1/4 X 5 1/8
inches (26 X 13 cm.), one column, averaging 42 lines to the page.

Of minimal relevance.

The papyri in general only show the corrupt and wild Alexandrian textual region.
Kurt Aland even put forth a pithy warning on that point.

And the dating is ultra-dubious.
As usual, the problem is a far-too-early terminus ante quem.

"Reconsidering the Place of Papyrus Bodmer XIV-XV (P75) in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament"
https://www.academia.edu/25759945/R...in_the_Textual_Criticism_of_the_New_Testament

"The evidence gathered in the present essay calls these conclusions into question by showing that both paleographically and codicologically, P.Bodm. XIV–XV fits comfortably in a fourth-century context, along with the bulk of the other “Bodmer papyri” with which it was apparently discovered."

Vaticanus may well have preceded P75.
The major effort in Vaticanus could easily have been, directly or indirectly, the exemplar for P75.
 
Of minimal relevance.

The papyri in general only show the corrupt and wild Alexandrian textual region.
Kurt Aland even put forth a pithy warning on that point.

And the dating is ultra-dubious.
As usual, the problem is a far-too-early terminus ante quem.

"Reconsidering the Place of Papyrus Bodmer XIV-XV (P75) in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament"
https://www.academia.edu/25759945/R...in_the_Textual_Criticism_of_the_New_Testament

"The evidence gathered in the present essay calls these conclusions into question by showing that both paleographically and codicologically, P.Bodm. XIV–XV fits comfortably in a fourth-century context, along with the bulk of the other “Bodmer papyri” with which it was apparently discovered."

Vaticanus may well have preceded P75.
The major effort in Vaticanus could easily have been, directly or indirectly, the exemplar for P75.
Nongbri: "Several different studies showed that, for the text of both Luke and John, where variation exists in
the textual tradition, p75 and Codex Vaticanus agree between roughly 90 and 94
percent of the time, once one accounts for small orthographic errors and obvious
scribal errors. To gain a sense of the impressiveness of this level of agreement, one
need only consider that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, generally acknowledged
to be closely related, agree at a rate of roughly 75 percent under similar conditions of comparison.
The online tools produced by Münster’s INTF for Luke and the early chapters of John provide
more data to reinforce this close relationship between p75 and Vaticanus.
What made this level of agreement even more remarkable was the perceived
temporal distance between Codex Vaticanus and p75. Vaticanus was (and is)
generally agreed to be a product of the fourth century, and p75 has been thought
to represent a text of about the year 200 CE faithfully copied from a second-century
exemplar......

As Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland have phrased it, the text of p75 was “so close to that of Codex Vaticanus (B) that the theory of
recensions, i.e., of thoroughgoing revisions of the New Testament text made in the
fourth century, was no longer defensible. One of the main pillars supporting the
dominant theory of New Testament textual history was now demolished.” (Aland and Aland, Text of the New Testament: An Introduction, 87.)

The present study, however, places us in a position to evaluate this textual
evidence from a rather different perspective. Because the paleographic and codicological
characteristics of p75 are not inconsistent with a fourth-century date of
production
, the close similarity between the text of p75 and that of Vaticanus may
instead be seen as an additional piece of evidence in favor of a fourth-century date
for the production of p75 itself. Furthermore, if both of these codices can be
assigned to the fourth century, then textual critics of the New Testament may need
once again to entertain the idea that the “B Text” is indeed the result of some sort
of recensional activity in the fourth century."

Note Nongbri is not ruling out the possibility that the original dating is correct. He isn't saying it's wrong. He's saying "not proven."
_______________________

Against the above:

"It must be noted, however, that Nongbri seems generally skeptical of conventional palaeographical methods, and it remains to be seen whether his emphasis on the manuscripts’ codicological format and the date of their collection provides a more reliable alternative."
Peter Malik, p.54 "P.Beatty III (𝔓47): The Codex, Its Scribe, and Its Text"
 
Manuscripts of the Greek Bible:
An Introduction to Greek Paleography
BRUCE M. METZGER, 1981, p.68

Luke 16:9-21. Gregory-Aland P75. Early iii cent.

This goes a long way, as A. W. Adams remarks, 'to showing that the B-type of text was already in existence in Egypt, and in a relatively pure form, before the end of the second century. If so, the view, much canvassed in recent years, that the Alexandrian text-type was a third or fourth century recension—i.e. a deliberately revised or "made" text formed out of the "popular" texts of the second century—will need considerable revision.' [1]

[1] F. G. Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible, 3rd ed., revised and augmented by A. W. Adams (London, 1975), P. 77.

In addition to the quote from Arthur White Adams (1912-1997), (Kenyon was long deceased), no longer having any significant palaeographic support, let us restore the phrase omitted by Metzger, that shows the Alexandrian circularity, and then continue the quote.

"This goes a long way to showing that the B-type of text was already in existence in Egypt, and in a relatively pure form, before the end of the second century. If so, the view, much canvassed in recent years, that the Alexandrian text-type (of which B and א were the chief representatives) was a third or fourth century recension— i.e. a deliberately revised or "made" text formed out of the "popular" texts of the second century—will need considerable revision. Indeed, Hort’s theory that the ‘neutral’ text of B א—and especially B—was an ancient text which had survived in almost pure form, apart from scribal errors, and without serious editorial revision, now returns into the foreground of serious discussion."

Then Adams goes into the P75 corruption at Luke 16:19 trying to name the rich man, and other corruptions like John 4:11 and John 8:57 and John 10:7. It is all a total textual disaster, even trying to revert back to the neutral text absurdity of Hort.
 
Nongbri: one need only consider that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, generally acknowledged to be closely related, agree at a rate of roughly 75 percent under similar conditions of comparison.

Since Herman Hoskier (1864-1938) showed that the two manuscripts differ over 3,000 times in just the Gospels, it is hard to take this "generally acknowledged" as actually relevant.
 
I had thought it was 70% for Vaticanus/Sinaiticus. 78% for Vaticanus/ p75.

There really is no accepted methodology for two-way comparisons.
Letters? Words? Verses? How do omissions "count"?

In a three-way comparison you can take variants and compare.

eg. The Peshitta agrees with the Byzantine variants about 75% of the time and with the Critical Text variants about 25%, when they disagree.
 
There really is no accepted methodology for two-way comparisons.
Letters? Words? Verses? How do omissions "count"?

In a three-way comparison you can take variants and compare.

eg. The Peshitta agrees with the Byzantine variants about 75% of the time and with the Critical Text variants about 25%, when they disagree.

So you say there is no "accepted two-way" comparison and then precede to make a comparison.

Double minded much?

You have very very poor methods. All you can think about is your silly goal of proving the KJV is perfect.
 
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