"The textual history that the Westcott-Hort text represents is no longer tenable in the light of newer discoveries and fuller textual analysis. In the effort to construct a congruent history, our failure suggests that we have lost the way, that we have reached a dead end, and that only a new and different insight will enable us to break through."1 (author's emphasis)
These candid admissions by such renown scholars from the opposing viewpoint who have been at the forefront of the controversy are remarkable, yet their disciples and other pundits continue on along much the same paths seemingly unaware of the significance of that which their colleagues have conceded. Of course as Hort's theory was never tenable in the first place, Clark's frank incredulous admission is what the present author (along with Burgon, Miller, Scrivener, Nolan, Hills,. Fuller, Pickering, Waite, Letis, etc.) has been maintaining all along. Clark's needed "new insight" is actually no more than a return in the "logic of faith"2 to trusting in God's promise that He would forever preserve His Word and to see that throughout history He has so done through the Reformation text as Nolan's research concluded. This last point shall be enlarged upon presently.
GAIUS, THOUGH LONG DEAD, SPEAKS
Gaius was an orthodox "Father" writing near the end of the 2nd-century (c.175-200 A.D.). Gaius named four heretics who altered text and had disciples copying them.3 He charged that they could not deny their guilt because the copies in question were their own handywork and that they were unable to produce the originals from which they had made their copies. As Pickering observed, this would have been a hollow accusation from Gaius if he could not have produced the Originals either!4 Hence, it follows that the Originals were still available at the end of the second century.
Polycarp (69 - 155 A.D.) was a pupil of John the Apostle. It is very likely that he had originals, at least the ones which John wrote. He also would have had some very near originals of the rest of the New Testament which he would have obtained from his teacher, John. Moreover, Polycarp would have had them at the time of his death in 155 A.D. Thus, around 175 to 200 Gaius must have had access to them also. Since the papyri prove the Syrian readings are at least second century, how could the original Syrian have gained dominance over the other text types (Neutral, Alexandrian, Western) if they had been corrupted when appeal to the autographs could have been made at that date? The whole W-H Theory as well as its modern counterpart is thereby clearly exposed and seen as vacuous and fallacious - "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
The only ancient, historical, authoritative revisions were those which occurred when Constantine commissioned Eusebius to produce fifty Bibles for him to place in the hands of the Bishops of the larger Churches in his realm and that of Jerome for Pope Damasus. Thus the recension spoken of by the text critics was not in the days of Lucian but nearly 150 years earlier when Eusebius (and later, Jerome) chose Origen's work from the library at Caesarea as his text for both Testaments.
THE ARTIFICIAL NATURE OF TEXT FAMILIES DEMONSTRATED5
We are constantly being assured by church leaders and scholars that all that is being done to restore the original readings is being done according to well established, and therefore trustworthy,
1 Clark, "Today's Problems", op. cit., p. 161.
2 Hills, Believing Bible Study, op. cit., pp. 36-37.
3 Burgon, The Revision Revised, op. cit., pp. 323-324.
4 Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text, op. cit., pp. 109-110.
5 The material from this point through page 1 has been adapted and compiled by leaning most heavily on Dr. Wilbur N. Pickering, The Identity Of The New Testament Text, op. cit., pp. 55-57.
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