CHAPTER I

THE RECENT HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM

• Miller's Traditional Text of the Gospels
• Miller and Burgon I
• The ruling idea dominating Burgon's work
• His criterion of the goodness of MSS
• His explanation of the badness of the oldest MSS
• Westcott and Hort's Greek Testament Their predecessors in rejecting the authority of the Textus Receptus
• Lachmann and Tregelles
• Tischendorf
• The Cambridge theological school
• The Church's obligations to it
• The revolutionary aspect of WH's edition
• The Revised English New Testament
• Dr Hort's great merits and deserved authority
• WH's decisions first made known without explanation of the reasons for them
• Consequent ignoratio elenchi in Burgon's arguments
• And also in those of Burgon's critics
• Contrast between the value assigned to early authorities by Burgon and by WH ,
• Yet it is a mistake to suppose that the difference is that WH build their text on the earliest authorities Burgon on the latest
• WH also have no scruple in rejecting ancient testimony Incompetency of one who dips into textual criticism unsystematically, to criticise the decisions of an expert
• Experts, however, are ranged on opposite sides
• Similar cases constantly occur in courts of justice
• The omissions of WH's edition at first an obstacle to its acceptance
• It seemed as if the editors thought any evidence sufficient to justify an omission
• Their edition also unpopular because of its making the sacred writers responsible for certain erroneous statements
• We have no right to assume it to be a priori impossible that a sacred writer should make an erroneous statement
• Yet some of the errors imputed to them by WH must be called bad mistakes
• These grounds for hesitation were, however, outweighed by the confidence inspired by the character of the editors
• And still more by the scientific aspect of their methods
• And by practical acquaintance with their working
• Yet an outsider may without immodesty form some judgment of his own between the views of opposing experts
• Some grounds for hesitation in accepting Hort's rulings with unquestioning submission
• In particular, a want of moderation in his judgments, and a tendency to overrate the certainty of his decisions
• Yet one who is not an expert cannot safely reject Hort's decisions; if for no other reason, because the evidence on which they rest is not accessible to him
• Nevertheless, outsiders are warranted in asking for further investigation of points as to which, on the evidence now accessible, their judgment is not satisfied

CHAPTER II

WESTCOTT AND HORT'S NOMENCLATURE

• Rejection of Burgon's explanation of the omissions of the Vatican MS
• Yet it does not follow that this MS represents the evangelic autographs
• The project of getting back to these autographs too ambitious
• Hort's method of determining the value of authorities
• The results, however, no more than probable
• Hort offers his readers instruction, not guidance His nomenclature question-begging
• Notation for Syriac versions
• Probable influence of Tatian on Syriac texts
• No evidence as to type of text earlier than Tatian
• Griesbach's three types of text
• The name "Syrian"
• The name "Western " not accurate Objection to the name "neutral" - Hort's use of the name "Alexandrian" unprecedented and confusing
• Hort's neutral text better called " early Alexandrian " His method necessarily led him to an Alexandrian text No note of disparagement in the name " Alexandrian " Bad result of refusal to use a local name -
• Hort's attitude towards Western readings
• The Western reading not accepted even when the
• Alexandrian is clearly wrong Example in Acts xii
• Hort attempts conjectural emendation
• Divergent aberrations from early Alexandrian text how to be explained
• Hort prefers later Alexandrian authority to Western
• The longer conclusion of St Mark Hort's guess as to the birthplace of B
• The question not important
• B and א issued from the same workshop
• And not improbably from Caesarea
• Striving after minute accuracy quite modern
• The Caesarean library likely to have contained an Alexandrian text

CHAPTER III

THE SYRIAN "TEXTUS RECEPTUS"

• WH find marks of lateness in the Syrian text, and chiefly on account of its conflations
• What meant by the word "conflation"
• Hort's eight examples discussed by Canon Cook
• The last verse of St Luke
• Except by way of illustration, it is needless to discuss particular cases
• Yet the conflation hypothesis fails to account for all the various readings
• Whether any of the neutral readings are conflate
• The "one thing needful " (Luke x. 42 )
• Whether the Syrian revision was the work of a single critic
• The difficulty that history has preserved no record of this revision, nor of its author
• It could scarcely have been so late as A.D.350
• For the support given by Eusebius to the Alexandrian text must have gained for it a longer preeminence
• The Alexandrian text had probably never superseded the Western text in Antioch
• Hort regards the Syrian revision as an ascertained fact, and not a mere hypothetical probability
• An addition to the hypothesis of a Syrian revision made necessary by the phenomena of the Syriac versions
• Cureton's discovery of a new Syriac version fulfilled a scientific prediction
• It does not necessarily follow that Cureton's is the oldest type of text
• Hort is obliged to add to his hypothesis of a revision of the Greek text about 350 that of an earlier revision of the Greek as well as that of an authoritative revision of the Syriac
• Silent changes of text possible, as each bishop had to choose the text to be read in his church
• A change in the Greek text would naturally produce corresponding changes in versions
• Great changes, however, not easily made
• Changes notoriously took place in Church use even as to the reading of whole books
• The superseding of the LXX version of Daniel by Theodotion
• Probable time when the change was made at Carthage
• There is possibly another trace of Cyprian's intercourse with the East
• No evidence that the Alexandrian text had gained a
• footing in Africa before Cyprian's time
• Apparent conflation may arise from a simple difference of taste
• Whether, because the taste of the Syrian reviser was different from ours, his rulings may be disregarded altogether
• He had at least one important advantage over us

CHAPTER IV

THE OMISSIONS OF THE WESTERN TEXT

• Hort's successive elimination of witnesses
• Something paradoxical in his opinion of the worthlessness of Western testimony
• His limitation of admissible testimony makes him less inclined to regard conjectural emendation with disfavour
• And also to expect little from enlarged acquaintance with MSS
• No new MS likely to be treated with more respect than those we have got already
• Except in the case of an omission, which Hort is willing to accept in the teeth of the strongest documentary evidence
• His inconsistency in dealing with Luke xxiv
• His reasons for thinking that a transcriber was much more likely to add to the text than to omit
• How far this dictum may be accepted as true
• In the present case the omitted words are necessary to the context
• The rejection of the longer conclusion of St Mark influential in causing a rejection of the mention of the Ascension in St Luke's Gospel
• Yet Luke himself recognizes this mention in the beginning of the Acts
• The Western authorities which reject the clause in St Luke are forced also to modify the opening of the Acts
• Probable reasons for their inclination to do so
• If the discussion of the two passages is separated, a hybrid text is produced
• The Gnostic lengthening of the interval between our Lord's death and His ascension gives indirect evidence of the antiquity of the history as recorded in our Gospels
• Some doubt cast on the decisions made by Hort in his preliminary testing of authorities by our knowledge of the influence with him of the rule always to prefer the shorter reading
• Speculation to account for signs of compression at the end both of Gospel and Acts

CHAPTER V

THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM

• WH take little interest in the question of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels
• Assumption common to Burgon and Hort
• Whether the value of the Gospels to us is that they contain the " individual words of an individual author "
• Does the first Gospel give us the individual words of St Matthew?
• To answer this question we must know whether it was first written in Greek or Aramaic, and whether St Matthew's composition afterwards received any editorial changes
• If such changes had taken place before B was written, that MS will not enable us to recover the " individual words " of St Matthew
• Early changes in the text likely to have been of a different kind from later ones
• Assimilation of the Gospels probable at a later stage, but not so at the earliest
• Whether stories as told by two Evangelists are more likely to be identical or diverse depends on the decision of the question whether the Evangelists drew from a common source
• The story of the rich young man
• Why those who reject D's additions to the text can
• rely on it as an authority for omissions
• Origen witnesses that Matthew's account of the story differs from that of the other Gospels
• Testimony of authorities earlier than Origen
• The question as to what actually were the words that our Lord spoke
• A canon of Hort's applicable to this question
• On transcriptional grounds Luke's version likely to be correct
• And also on grounds of intrinsic probability
• Two explanations of existing state of the text
• Signs of conflation in Matthew's text as read by Origen
• The Syrian reviser not responsible for the assimilation of the Gospels
• The second explanation
• Spurious addition to the story of the Crucifixion in the Alexandrian St Matthew
• Hort willing to accept this as a genuine part of the "extant form of St Matthew"
• Is then the "extant form of St Matthew" older than the longer conclusion of St Mark?
• And is it earlier than the fourth Gospel?
• What Burgon means by speaking of Pseudo-Tatian
• What Miller means by the same phrase
• Coincidences between the fourth Gospel and the Alexandrian text of the last chapter of St Luke The text Luke vii. 35
• Differences between St Mark and the other Evangelists in the story of St Peter's denial
• In other respects Matthew's account of the Crucifixion is based on St Mark's
• Luke xviii. 14
• St Mark's two cock-crowings may not impossibly have originated in an error of an early transcriber
• The authorities on which WH rely are distant from the original autographs

CHAPTER VI

THE PROBLEM OF ACCOUNTING FOR WESTERN VARIATIONS

• There are cases where rival texts can equally claim antiquity of attestation
• Origen's testimony only useful in establishing the Alexandrian reading
• God has at no time given His Church a text absolutely free from ambiguity
• Hort's simplification of the problem
• But a simplification not a solution
• Presumption that Western testimony may deserve a hearing
• WH do not account for the licentiousness of Western scribes
• Western Christians not indifferent to the purity of the Scripture text
• Hypothesis of a double edition of Luke's Gospel
• The hypothesis rejected by Hort, but accepted by Lightfoot
• Mommsen on Acts xxviii. 16
• The case for a double edition of the Acts
• The Western text of the Acts
• Blass's account of its origin
• His extension of the hypothesis to Luke's Gospel
• Alternative explanation
• Oral publication credible
• Early Christians ordinarily learned the Gospel story by hearing rather than by reading
• The office of evangelist
• Renan's account of the genesis of the Gospels
• Leaves out the influence of ecclesiastical control
• The conditions of learning the Gospel story different at Rome and at Alexandria
• How did Apollos learn the Gospel story?
• Blass's answer
• Information independent of the written text was abundant at Rome
• This information likely to be preserved
• Authorized and unauthorized commentary
• Luke ix. 55
• The Western text likely to have had Church authority
• The Diatessaron called forth by the exigencies of missionary labour

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION

• There is nothing to shock us if Gospel texts were read differently in different churches
• The conclusion of St Mark's Gospel
• Hort's restoration of the Alexandrian text
• The Alexandrian form of text not necessarily the fittest for church use
• Burgon and Hort at opposite extremes in their estimate of the value of Church authority
• Too close following of WH makes the Revised English New Testament in some points less fit for church reading
• WH agree with Burgon in adopting the older doctrine of inspiration
• The doubt that hangs over a few determinations does not affect the certainty of our faith