What is Evangelical Textual Criticism? (Again, Again)

A recent comment over at the Amsterdam NT Weblog reminded me of our old conversation on this blog (now years ago) about what is “evangelical textual criticism” and how does it differ from textual criticism proper.

On some occasions I have thought of writing on this subject, e.g., when I read a brief passage in David Parker’s An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts (CUP, 2008), especially since I haven’t said much on the topic myself (in contrast to other ETC bloggers).

So I guess I will start with David Parker’s brief note (p. 187):

The obvious significance of the connection between one’s wider understanding of history and human society and one’s attitude to textual criticism will be more clearly illustrated to someone working in the theological milieu by examples of a quite different point of view.

...

For an example of an approach to New Testament textual criticism with an equally explicit ideology, see the website ‘Evangelical Textual Criticism, a Webpage Promoting Textual Criticism of the Bible from the Perspective of Historic Evangelical Theology’ (www.evangelicaltextualcriticism.com/), claiming among others for evangelical textual criticism the characteristics that

It approaches the task of identifying the words given by God with reverence and therefore caution.

It approaches the task of identifying the words given by God with a confidence in God’s provision.

It is not clear whether this providence is seen in the way in which the text has been preserved or in the work of the textual critic (or both),...

For the specific question how providence is seen, I personally would refer primarily to the way in which the text has been (sufficiently) preserved. On the other hand, I agree with David in general that it is not clear what this approach actually means,and I actually think I like it to stay that way. Perhaps it is easier to say what evangelical textual criticism is not. For example, in a comment to a guest post by James Snapp, Peter Williams (blogfounder) says:

Members of this blog represent a variety of approaches by evangelicals, and that’s how it should be. There are various possible interpretations of the evidence that are compatible with historic evangelical theology. However, there are also some approaches that do not sit well with such theology (and scholars will therefore either challenge the approaches or the theology, or both). Thus we may at least define our approaches negatively: they are not X, Y, or Z. For instance, Von Soden’s preference for ‘Joseph begot Jesus’ in Matthew 1:16 on the basis of the Sinaitic Syriac was wrong philologically, but even before a demonstration of its philological error was available, it looked wrong-headed to evangelical (and other) theology.

Peter Head, on the other hand, once suggested in a blogpost that one “cannot have an ‘evangelical’ textual criticism, when there is no consensus of what an evangelical position is on this topic.” He further stated that

If a site like ETC is to have a goal it should work toward a consensus among evangelicals which should rule out some DIY approaches and agree on some parameters arising from an evangelical concensus on the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, or is there no consensus on that doctrine among evangelicals?

I doubt that there is a consensus doctrine and I would not want to work out one. For me Dirk Jongkind’s ““basic tenets of evangelical textual criticism” are more than enough:

I think there are three basic assumptions that characterise evangelical textual criticism (each with their own modifications and refinements, but we are not going to bother with these).
1) There is an ‘original text’ to aim for in New Testament textual criticism.
2) There is the theological conviction that the preservation of the New Testament is sufficiently reliable.
3) The canon of the New Testament is (in one way or the other) a real and given entity.

These basic tenets give room for “a variety of approaches” (PJW), interpretations and problematization (cf. the various comments to Dirk’s post).

To add my personal thought on 1), I prefer to use the term “initial text.” I regard the reconstruction of the initial text as an on-going scientific enterprise (which is on-going), whereas the acceptance of the simplest working hypothesis, that the initial text essentially represents the autographs is a matter of faith. There are many other related and complex matters; for example, I agree with Ulrich Schmid who has pointed out that we cannot deal with individual writings and neglect that they have been transmitted in collections. At least one person (the collector) has affected the book in terms of editorial activity.

In November 2008 I was involved in some related discussions with Bart Ehrman and others on Wieland’s textual criticism discussion list if anyone would want to read. There are two or three relevant threads (“Initial text and exegesis” and “Analogy and internal evidence” and perhaps “99.5% Reliability and the ‘Dark Age’ of the Text”). I suppose you can find them at the bottom of this page.

Basic Tenets of Evangelical Textual Criticism

Sorry folks, but I am not at all impressed with the overall result of the discussion on the most recent thread on ‘What is evangelical textual criticism‘. I think it should be possible to come up with something more constructive. So bear with me.

By means of introduction, evangelicals practising textual criticism (are/should be) aware of human imperfection in history (‘many things did go wrong’) as in our study of textual history (‘we may get things wrong’). This is not a unique point for textual criticism, or even of evangelical scholarship in general, but it is in my view a sine qua non.

I think there are three basic assumptions that characterise evangelical textual criticism (each with their own modifications and refinements, but we are not going to bother with these).

1. There is an ‘original text’ to aim for in New Testament textual criticism.
2. There is the theological conviction that the preservation of the New Testament is sufficiently reliable.
3. The canon of the New Testament is (in one way or the other) a real and given entity.

Each of these points should be properly expanded and clarified in what they affirm and deny, and can probably be refined in their wording, and perhaps there are even other foundational notions. But I think these three taken together constitute a neat distinctive for evangelical textual criticism.

Is there such a thing as “Evangelical Textual Criticism”? (again)

I was attempting to explain this blog to a colleague the other morning and I don’t think he was completely satisfied. Or perhaps he just wants an argument. He wrote me an email:

“I would place textual criticism as a necessary foundation to all NT and OT studies. If we cannot trust the text, we cannot trust the message that springs out of it. Where there is doubt or the hint of doubt, this opens the door to evangelicals to import radical methods of textual criticism that reflect the belief system of non-evangelicals arising from their non-evangelical belief in the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture.

The fundamental issue that evangelicals must address at some stage in their academic career is how far can an evangelical adopt an eclectic approach to Scripture and remain an ‘evangelical’? By eclectic, I mean, one who creates a text that is not found in any MS, or is a hybrid text, which is not found in any family of MSS, or they invent a reading in the hope that it solves some perceived difficulty in the latest printed text.

It seems to me that you cannot have an “evangelical” textual criticism, when there is no consensus of what an evangelical position is on this topic. If a site like ETC is to have a goal it should work toward a consensus among evangelicals which should rule out some DIY approaches and agree on some parameters arising from an evangelical concensus on the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, or is there no consensus on that doctrine among evangelicals? Maybe ETC needs to work out a statement of faith on an ETC doctrine of inspiration of Scripture before it can move on to a statement about what an “Evangelical” position on Textual Criticism would look like?”
Leslie McFall (www.btinternet.com/~lmf12)

What’s Special about Evangelical Textual Criticism?

To start the New Year we have the following contribution by James E. Snapp, Jr., on a subject that is of central concern to this blog.

Textual criticism, like most branches of science, resists theological classification. The term “evangelical textual criticism,” used to describe the analytical task of reconstructing the original text of the Old Testament and New Testament books, may seem like merely a secondary name for the textual criticism of the books upheld as holy Scripture by evangelicals. However, four distinct features of the text-critical approach used by evangelicals, taken together, separate evangelical textual criticism of the books of the Bible from some other kinds of textual criticism.

1. An evangelical textual critic approaches the text with a sense of religious reverence. He understands his task as a basic exegetical step, establishing and confirming words which God, through human agents, provided for the guidance of the church.

2. An evangelical textual critic approaches his task as a restorative enterprise rather than a creative one. He aspires to add nothing to the original text, and subtract nothing from it. Evangelical textual criticism is a science, not an art. Conjectural emendations are entertained only where the extant readings are manifestly unoriginal. The evangelical textual critic, when presenting Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Biblical texts intended to represent the original text, formats any conjectural emendations in the margin or apparatus-notes. He never places a conjectural emendation within the text.

3. An evangelical textual critic defines the original text of a document — that is, in normal language, the original text of book or book-set — as the contents of the document in the form in which it was first issued (as something distinct from whatever sources it may have had). He acknowledges that authors, revisors, editors, and arrangers may have contributed to the production of a document, while also acknowledging that whatever textual alterations occurred subsequent to the initial issuance of the book as a distinct document constitute unoriginal, uninspired, and unauthoritative material.

He also accepts the possibility that the initial issuance of some documents involved multiple autographs, and regards the contents of each autograph as original, inspired, and authoritative, even where differences of sense among the multiple autographs occurred. He may, when reconstructing the archetype of such a document, present closely contested readings within a variant-unit not as rivals but as brothers, both of which may be regarded as part of the initially produced message.

4. An evangelical textual critic harbors the belief or expectation that the doctrinal message of the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic texts through which God has communicated to the church in many places, and for many years, is not materially different from the doctrinal message of the autographs. This belief or expectation accompanies, but should not interfere with, the text-critical task.

Future of evangelical scholarship

As pointed out in Biblical Studies Carnival VI, Andreas Kostenberger (aliter Köstenberger) discusses the future direction of evangelical scholarship. He bemoans the way the agenda is often set by non-evangelicals, citing Ehrman’s Miquoting Jesus and Brown’s Da Vinci as examples. See here. The two books, though both popular, are in rather different categories. It doesn’t take a scholar to refute Dan Brown. But though some of Ehrman’s arguments should appear flawed to any careful reader, much of Misquoting Jesus can’t be evaluated properly by a lay person and therefore requires a scholarly response.

I agree wholeheartedly with Kostenberger that we should seek to set the agenda and not be merely reactive. But alas, the panel that my learned friend was on recently did not see textual criticism as one of the four tasks in which evangelicals most need to engage. I can’t say I’m very enthusiastic about the first three.

More on evangelical distinctives

I mentioned three characteristics of evangelical textual criticism: (1) belief in verbal inspiration; (2) caution; (3) confidence - leaving the latter two undefined enough to hope that people will want to discuss them. I said that none of these were characteristics that an evangelical could not share with a non-evangelical. A fourth characteristic could also be seen as entailed in the first. Evangelicals have historically argued that what was verbally inspired was a Hebrew (and partly Aramaic) text for the OT and a Greek text for the NT. Thus, while the RC position has (at least in the past) emphasised the Vulgate, and the Greek Orthodox position would emphasise a version of the Greek OT, evangelicals have generally not ascribed verbal inspiration to a Greek version of the OT. Now of course some people called evangelicals are wanting to talk of the LXX having equal authority to the Hebrew, but as far as I can tell they are not talking about verbal inspiration of the LXX such that it is entirely true. Rather they are talking about verbal inspiration of neither the Hebrew nor the Greek, but rather of some vaguer 'authority'. The only evangelical I know to ascribe verbal inspiration to both the MT and the LXX was A.W. Pink (sorry no reference to hand), but I rather doubt that he had ever read the LXX or MT. Evangelicals have therefore historically emphasised the original languages and the 'original' text. This is what makes the NT use of translations we now ascribe to the Septuagint so fascinating.

What are the principal characteristics of evangelical textual criticism?

This is a big question, but one that must surely be bashed out thoroughly here. I suppose that one clear characteristic will be that it is based on verbal inspiration, i.e. the idea that particular words come from God. Whether we use the phrase 'original text' or 'initial text' or some other phrase there's no getting round the idea that evangelical views of scripture state that some actual words do come from God and some do not. Though this is an essential feature of evangelicalism it is not necessarily a distinctive feature of evangelicalism. Arguably, historic Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox accounts of scripture would say the same. Where some distance from older Roman Catholic accounts is found is in the Protestant emphasis on original languages. More recent Roman Catholic approaches have tended to come nearer to the Protestant accounts on this, but, sadly, modern Roman Catholic theologians can be a bit fuzzy about the idea that God gave particular words. In principle, however, a key element of an evangelical approach to scripture could be shared by someone with a completely different ecclesiology and soteriology.

Another feature of evangelical textual criticism is caution, but, again, evangelicals cannot claim the monopoly on this virtue.

A further feature will be confidence in God's provision of His word for us, the idea that His communication with us has not been lost (this obviously needs further unpacking and clarification). Again, this confidence or textual optimism need not be exclusive to evangelicalism.

Thus in principle three key tenets of an evangelical approach could be shared by a non-evangelical.

Thoughts?

What this blog is about

Hi all! This is P.J. Williams here. You can find out about me on: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/divinity/williams/index.shtml

Essentially what I’m wanting to do is to create a blog for those who wish to discuss textual criticism of the Old or New Testament from an evangelical perspective. There are many textual critics out there who are evangelicals and here I am trying to create a forum for us to discuss ideas together.

I want this forum to be robust in two ways: first, it is not going to be embarrassed about believing that the Bible is true and that the Bible is made up of particular words which come from God. Secondly, it is going to be a place where we discuss textual criticism based on a familiarity with the issues involved. If you haven’t read the New Testament in Greek or the Old Testament in Hebrew then it isn’t going to be appropriate for you to take part.

The blog will not generally try to justify the historic evangelical perspective that says that the inspired text of the Bible is Greek for the NT and Hebrew (or Aramaic) for the OT. Justifications may emerge within this group, but it will be more profitable to those involved if we take this as our basis.

Typically people divide into those who are interested in doctrine and those who are interested in history and texts. Here I hope we can see that there need be no division between these groups.

One thing that needs to be said is that evangelical textual criticism is not synonymous with textual criticism carried out by individuals who are evangelical. Evangelical textual criticism is textual criticism which is governed by the principles of evangelicalism. Thus while, for instance, there are some individuals who are undoubtedly evangelical who hold that an English translation of the Bible is superior to what is found in all the Greek manuscripts of the NT, since their position is in conflict with the historic evangelical position that locates the authority of the NT in the Greek they may be evangelical, but their textual criticism is not.

One further characteristic of evangelical textual criticism will also be the manner in which we engage in discussion. All who claim the name ‘evangelical’ need to show the characteristics which should accompany our faith.

I hope that I can have a relatively light touch in steering this blog, and would respectfully request that those who post to it have regard for the principles outlined above.