stating: "Modern criticism stops before the barrier of the second century; the age, so it seems, of unbounded liberties with the text".1
Finally, G.D. Kilpatrick - an ardent eclecticist - contends that "as distinct from errors, most deliberate changes, if not all were made by A.D. 200".2 Kilpatrick then argues that the reason the creation of new variants ceased by around 200 was that by that time it became impossible to "sell" them. He next cites attempts by Origen to introduce changes into the text and notes the dismal reception with which they were met:
"These two examples of alteration to the text of the New Testament after A.D. 200 show how uncommon such changes were in the later period. ... There can be no question that the earlier ones are far and away more in number. Origen's treatment of Mt. 19:19 is significant in two other ways. First he was probably the most influential commentator of the Ancient Church and yet his conjecture at this point seems to have influenced only one manuscript of a local version of the New Testament. The Greek tradition is apparently quite unaffected by it. From the third century onward even an Origen could not effectively alter the text. This brings us to the second significant point - his date. From the early third century onward the freedom to alter the text ... can no longer be practiced. Tatian is the last author to make deliberate changes in the text of whom we have explicit information. Between Tatian and Origen Christian opinion had so changed that it was no longer possible to make changes in the text whether they were harmless or not."3 (until our day - author)
Kilpatrick completes this aspect of his article saying:
"... by the end of the second century A.D. Christian opinion had hardened against deliberate alteration of the text, however harmless the alteration might be. The change of opinion was ... with the reaction against the rehandling of the text by the second century heretics. This argument confirms the opinion of H. Vogels ... that the vast majority of deliberate changes in the New Testament text were older than A.D. 200. In other words they came into being in the period A.D. 50-200.4
Thus most of the deliberate changes had been injected into the text and the creation of new variants had ceased by the year A.D. 200 with almost no further damage being incurred thereafter. From this and other data, Sturz rightly concluded that the readings of the Byzantine text were old as they, like those of the other so-called text-types, demonstrably go back deep into the 2nd-century.5
Thus Burgon's "contrary evidence" has been produced such that the presupposition in favor of antiquity is nullified - both by the known existence of a variety of maliciously altered texts, especially during the 2nd-century, and the testimony of Scripture as noted.
It is common knowledge that the minority MSS,6 those upon which the critical texts are based, used papyri or parchment which came only from Alexandria Egypt.7 The question is - is it prudent to follow the witness of only one locale? Is it reasonable that an original reading should survive in
1 Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles, op. cit., p. 11.
2 G.D. Kilpatrick, "Atticism and the Text of the Greek New Testament", Neutestamentliche Aufsatze (Regensburg: Verlag Freiderich Pustet, 1963), pp. 128-131.
3 Ibid., pp. 129-130.
4 Ibid., p. 131.
5 Sturz, The Byzantine Text-Type, op. cit., p. 97.
6 Beatty, Bodmer and Uncials, such as B, Aleph, A, H and W.
7 Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text, op. cit., pp. 116-117.
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