Dan Wallace Responds on the ‘Embarrassment of Riches’

Last week, I wrote about the charge made against some reasoned eclectics that they are guilty of praising the large number of NT manuscripts in their apologetic but then not actually using them in their text-critical work. For the details, see here.

I had hoped the post would spark some discussion and it certainly did! It’s now at almost 100 comments. Clearly, it touched a nerve. One of the people I mentioned in my original post was Dan Wallace and I am happy that he responded on the original post. I thought his response deserved its own separate post and so I present it here, only lightly edited by Dan.

---

This has been an interesting discussion (which I just learned about from a friend) on the quantitative argument that I have used in public debates and lectures. I’ve read through the comments as of yesterday (and noticed, but did not read, a mass of comments posted just in the last 24 hours) and noted the objections to this argument. I think the thread can be grouped as follows:

1. Peter Gurry calls me an apologist. 
2. Gurry mentions that both Ehrman and Robinson have argued against the quantitative argument for various reasons.
3. The quantitative argument in isolation is weak and misleading. It’s not 5000+ MSS in any given place, and only 424 (Greek) MSS are from the eighth century or earlier. 
4. I am apparently speaking hypocritically when I invoke the numbers because most of these are Byzantine MSS and I presumably think the Byzantine text isn’t worth much. A good analogy would be that I consider the Byzantine witnesses to be counterfeit in thousands of places.

I’m sure I’ve overlooked some of the arguments. But these are the major ones from what I can tell. My response:

1. I’m an apologist? Peter, I think I should be insulted! Do you really want an apologist writing the foreword to your upcoming book? I may use apologetics but I am hardly an apologist.
   
2. Ehrman has argued against the phrase “embarrassment of riches” because of the lateness of the MSS that comprise most of these riches. Robinson says something similar (point 3 above; dealt with below). Ironically, the phrase is a modification of a line in a book that Bart co-authored! On p. 51 of Metzger-Ehrman, Text of the New Testament⁴, we read “In contrast with these figures [which deal with other Greco-Roman literature], the textual critic of the New Testament is embarrassed by the wealth of material [italics added].” This is the same thing that Metzger had written in his previous editions. So, if Ehrman claims some measure of authorship on this book (and there is no hint anywhere that the two authors disagree over any points, so far as I recall), then I am almost mimicking him on the quantitative argument. This brings us to point 3.
   
3. There are three parts to this objection: quantity, content, and date. That is, presumably I use the quantitative argument in isolation from other factors. Several suggested this based on the lone slide that Gurry displayed. But that is misleading. I never mention just the quantitative argument. (Thank you, Darrell, for pointing this out to the readers!) When I lecture on this topic I typically mention the number of MSS, the date of the earliest MSS, the fact that only a few contain the whole NT, the average number of pages, and the quality of the variants. It’s a lot to cover in a 45-minute lecture!
   
   Robinson critiques the quantitative argument by noting that there are only 424 extant (Greek) MSS of the NT before the ninth century. (Peter, I notice that you invited him to weigh in, but you didn’t invite me. 😔) There are, of course, also versions and fathers through those first eight centuries that make some contribution to our reconstruction of the text of the NT. But the point that Robinson is making is that the vast majority of MSS—coming in the ninth and later centuries—are fuller than the mostly fragmentary MSS of the earlier centuries. Again, I return to Metzger-Ehrman: “the work of many ancient authors has been preserved only in manuscripts that date from the Middle Ages… On the contrary, the time between the composition of the books of the New Testament and the earliest extant copies is relatively brief..” Thus, Metzger-Ehrman make a twofold argument: the quantity and date of the MSS of the NT are vastly more impressive than what we have for other ancient literature.
   
   By the fourth century we already have the complete NT, and it is duplicated over and over again through the first eight centuries. It’s true, only Aleph is a complete NT majuscule, but Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Cantabrigiensis, Claromontanus, Washingtonianus, 019, 022, 042, 043, 047, etc., have substantial material. Among the papyri, there are over 550 leaves (over 1100 pages) of material, though most of these leaves are indeed fragmentary. Of the majuscules and lectionaries through the first eight centuries, we have well over 5500 leaves (more than 11,000 pages). Of course, it is difficult to judge how much content these would have altogether by these mere numbers (I’ll work that out at a later date…), but 12,000 pages of text is nothing to sneeze at. Compared to other Greco-Roman literature, the NT stands head and shoulders above the rest both in quantity of MSS and date of the earliest ones. And we can argue that qualitatively it is superior to many literary remains of classical authors, as some have already pointed out. And that leads to point 4.
   
4. I do not think the Byzantine text is worthless, nor do I think that it has only a confirmatory voice in textual decisions. There are times, though rare, in which I think the Byzantine witnesses virtually by themselves contain the autographic wording. Phil 1.14 is one of these: τον λογον λαλειν without θεου wedged in between is largely a Byzantine reading, though P46 agrees with it. (If I recall, the UBS editors raised this from a ‘D’ rating to a ‘B,’ probably due to Karavidopoulos’s influence.) And in Matt 24.36 I reject ουδε ο υιος as an early Alexandrian-Western interpolation (or, as Karavidopoulos put it, the Byzantine reading is an ‘eastern non-interpolation’). See my essay in Mike Holmes’s Festschrift, “The Son’s Ignorance in Matthew 24:36: An Exercise in Textual and Redaction Criticism,” pp. 182–209. Further, the verdict is still out regarding the Byzantine text since over 80% of all Greek NT MSS have almost nothing published on them except in various apparatuses; they still need published collations. The ECM on the Catholics is a great step in this direction. I fully agree with Robinson that complete collations of all existing MSS is a sine qua non for our discipline. CSNTM states that as one of our goals. Making digital images of the MSS is just the first step… Darrell Post’s thesis on 2907 is a great model on collation and the resultant implications.
   
   Regarding the ‘counterfeit’ argument, another way to put this is that, according to Robinson, since there is c. 94% agreement between the NA text and the Byzantine MSS, this would mean that from a reasoned eclectic position the Byzantines are only 6% counterfeit (to use the most pejorative and misleading term). To speak of ‘counterfeits’ is disingenuous because it is focusing only on the disagreements which, as Gurry noted, are but a tiny fraction of the one million variants (Peter, is this a true estimate or just a guess 😊?)

Finally, in lay presentations the major concern about the text of the NT has to do with theology. Can lay folks trust their text on the major doctrines that they thought were always part of the NT? Yes, they can. Even Ehrman would agree with this (see Misquoting Jesus, p. 252, paperback edition).