On the Early Christians and Bible Quotes

I ran across “On the Early Christians and Bible Quotes” report at Academia.edu. In it Mark McCabe researches whether early Patristic Bible quotations support one Greek text-type over another – such as whether the quotes of scripture are Alexandrian versus Byzantine.[i]

McCabe’s purpose.

“This Report seeks to determine the original text of the New Testament as written by the Apostles, as far as is possible, by going back directly to the first non-biblical Christian writings and thereby bypassing not only the oldest extant manuscripts but also the consolidations and harmonisations of the text. By doing so, therefore, this Report seeks to identify the underlying text used and relied on in the early Church, in order to identify which, if any, English translation of the Bible is nearest to the original as written as can be best determined.”

McCabe’s scope.

For his research, McCabe used the writings of thirteen early Christians:

1. Clement of Rome (c. 96 CE)  
2. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-107 CE)
3. The Didache or, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (c. 50-c. 110 CE)
4. Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 69-c.155 CE)
5. Papias of Hierapolis (c. 100 CE)
6. Epistle of Barnabas (c. 70-c. 131 CE)
7. 2 Clement (c. 95-c. 140 CE)
8. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 CE)
9. Tatian the Assyrian (c. 120-c. 180 CE)
10. Aristides of Athens (c. 124 CE)
11. Mathetes (c. 130-c. 170 CE)
12. Athenagoras of Athens (c. 133-190 CE)
13. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-c. 202 CE)

“The Greek (or, in some cases, the Latin) of the early Christians writings have been relied on instead, to avoid the bias of translators and to compare text with text directly. Thus, this Report is not concerned with the work of the early Christians in themselves. The original language of the early Christians writings are compared to the Greek of the New Testament, as contained in the Westcott-Hort text of 1881 representing the Alexandrian Text and in the Patriarchal Text of 1912 of the Orthodox Church representing the Byzantine Text.”

McCabe’s conclusions.

35. If one takes all the conclusions and adds them together, the following picture is formed:

(1) over twice as many quotes of the early Christians at an early date are of the Byzantine Text rather than the Alexandrian Text:

(2) the lack of the geographical spread of Alexandrian variants:

(3) the widespread distribution of the Byzantine Text in all decades, by all the early Christians, in all places to the full extent of Mediterranean Christendom:

(4) the systematic absence of the Alexandrian Text in all decades, by some early Christians, in some places in Mediterranean Christendom:

(5) the links in the chain are unbroken for the Byzantine Text in all early Christians, in all places and in all decades, which cannot be said of the Alexandrian Text:

(6) the chain of custody of the Byzantine Text is unbroken through all early Christians, in all places and in all decades, which cannot be said of the Alexandrian Text.

36. All this points to the Byzantine Text being the original text of the autographs written or dictated by the apostles themselves, and it therefore seems more likely than not, more probable than not, indeed virtually certain, that the Byzantine Text is the original text of the autographs.

37. With the constant chain of evidence supporting the Byzantine Text over any other, it appears that the only reasonable inference that can be drawn is that the Byzantine Text is, mindful of and discounting the errors that have crept in over centuries of hand-copying, the direct descendant of the original autographs.

38. The Byzantine Text has been demonstrated to be the original text of the autographs, the text which today underlies the Textus Receptus, which itself underlies the King James Version and the New King James Version. The text underlying all other modern Bibles, the Alexandrian Text, started to be used definitively after around 90 CE, when the readings distinct to that text began to appear.

39. However, one must add a strong word of caution. One is not saying and does not argue that the current text of the Byzantine Text is free from error. Some well-known corruptions have crept into the text over the centuries (such as 1 John 5:7-8). The corruption just mentioned is absent in the leading compilation of the Byzantine Text, the Patriarchal Text, and so the Patriarchal Text must be considered, it seems, the best representative of the Byzantine Text, the text of the autographs. The Patriarchal Text is a compilation of all the manuscripts held in the Orthodox Church’s possession.

This report is dated 2014. I am not in that research loop, but I have not noticed that any text critics have acknowledged McCabe’s work. It seems reasonable to me that the Bible quotes of the earliest Christians should tell us something about the scriptures they possessed.

McCabe is not a conservative, fundamentalist, or Textus Receptus proponent. In the course of his report he indicates he believes there are corruptions in the preserved text, he does not believe that the Bible has been protected by God in a particular text, or that the Bible is infallible. He sees the Bible as a writing of an historical record of religious belief, and does not even consider the canon of the New Testament is closed (i.e., in theory, other apostolic writings could be discovered and added to the biblical canon). Certainly, he is a clear candidate of research in the style of modern textual criticism, working solely from a naturalist academic perspective. However, he seems to contradict some of their own foundational ideas.

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[i] University of Glasgow, 2014. At Academia.edu, McCabe describes himself as an independent researcher with an honours degree in theology, a graduate of the University of Glasgow, Scotland.