APPENDIX D - HISTORY OF TEXTS TRANSMISSION

It has been established that textual critics acknowledge that without a viable history of the transmission of the Biblical text, lower criticism is unworkable as the choice between variants becomes reduced ultimately to subjective conjecture (p. 82). This was the reason Hort devised his genealogical-conflation theory and invented the Lucianic revision (p. 75ff.). It has also been noted that modern eclecticism is likewise doomed to failure as its proponents basically ignore this vital component (p. 80). Yet incongruously, we have further documented from the citations of leading moderns that, without a history of the text, critical techniques are unable to determine and hence restore an "original" reading (p. 91).

Remember, there is no actual recorded history regarding the transmission of the New Testament documents. We have the resulting manuscripts of that transmission and now are faced with the problem of attempting to work backward while seeking to establish a reasonable, logical history which would account for the present condition of those documents and their variants. This hypothetical reconstructed history must especially account for the fact that we have no extant mss of the Byzantine Textform predating A.D. 400 as this is the most common criticism charged against the TR/Majority Text position by the naturalistic critics. Indeed this appears a formidable and valid objection since no physical data is available which might be used for refutation. As previously stated, all the extant early manuscript evidence comes from the arid Egyptian region and reflects the mixed types of text prevalent there during the second century.

The fact that the Church was experiencing great and prolonged persecution during the first few centuries under discussion forms the basis for understanding, unraveling, and explaining the current status of the extant mss data. Taking into account this single historical fact forms the setting for establishing a comprehensible solution and defense for the Byzantine (Syrian) texttype as well as the phenomenon present in the other text "Families".1 Toward achieving the above stated purpose, the foregoing is offered as a general historical framework.

Having been initially written in Koine or common Greek, the geographical region in which that language flourished and from whence the autographs originated would tend to act as a safe haven for the original wording. That region would center around Jerusalem (Gal.2:1-9; Acts 21:17-20 etc.), Syria (especially Antioch from whence Barnabas and Paul labored - Acts 11:25-26; 14:26-28; 15:35; 18:22-23 etc.) extending to the western portion of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece.

Indeed, Antioch became Paul's home church from which he launched his three missionary journeys. As the Hebrew people were populous in this area and since most of the early Church was comprised of Jews who had received Jesus as the long awaited Messiah, these followers would have been especially jealous over the New Testament readings for such had been their culture and tradition regarding the Old Testament. Therefore, the manuscripts in this "inner" zone would maintain their purity as appeal to the apostles' autographs (or faithful copies of same) would have been possible for many years after their having been written.

Here a qualifying clarification is necessary to distinguish between that which we might label "Church manuscripts" and "Non-church manuscripts".2 By "Church" manuscripts is meant those

1 Maurice A. Robinson and William G. Pierpont, The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Byzantine/ Majority Textform, (Atlanta, GA: The Original Word Pub., 1991), pp. xxvi-xxxviii. Many of the insights included within this historical reconstruction were gleaned and adapted from the introduction of this work. Of course as the authors, like Pickering et al., are purely Majority Text advocates (vis-a-vis the Textus Receptus) and thus "limited restorationists" (shunning theological factors and providential preservation considerations as well, see his pp. xli-xlii), some disparities will be found between their approach and that of this author's.

2 Ibid., p. xxviii.

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