Monday, October 24, 2016

Timothy Dunkin's Flawed Understanding Of Greek Manuscripts, Part One

[This post is in response to a section of Timothy Dunkin's polemic in favor of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7 in the KJV/TR tradition). Mr. Dunkin's blog may be viewed here].

There is no such thing as an even minimally reasonable apologetic in favor of the Comma Johanneum. Despite five centuries to invent one, KJV Onlyists (or TR superiority advocates) have yet to be able to do so. If their argument is that John wrote this then they've had twenty centuries and yet their arguments are as weak today as when first proposed. Unfortunately, Dunkin demonstrates an incredible amount of ignorance (or deception) of the issue. Timothy's  remarks will be in bold while my response will be in plain script.

In the minds of the modernistic textual critics, the Greek manuscript evidence is THE center of debate, to the seeming exclusion of nearly everything else. This allows them to focus the discussion surrounding this verse around the one portion of the evidence which would, on its face, seem to support their contentions about the Comma. However, the treatment which the Greek evidence is given suffers from being only partially presented, and often misrepresented, by the Critical Text side of the debate.

This is a common objection from KJV Onlyists or those trying to argue an untenable position. It is also utter nonsense. It is easy for Dunkin to sit and attack the opposing position from the standpoint of presumed neutrality, but the problem is that his neutrality is not real but pretentious. It is simple common sense - one should expect to be able to determine the Greek reading of a writing originally made and preserved in Greek from what language? Greek obviously. Of course, that does not necessarily mean that the Greek reading is found in any extant manuscript. There are a couple of readings in the modern NA text that are found in no extant Greek manuscript whatsoever (πρώτης in Acts 16:12 and οὐχ εὑρεθήσεται in 2 Peter 3:10). But that isn't really the point. Very simply, the translators do not go rushing off to Latin or Syriac or other secondary languages to provide their reason for the GREEK text. One should be expected to determine the Greek original from Greek.

But his charge of 'partially presented' or 'often misrepresented' is a charge of patent dishonesty towards the textual critics. There is no way getting around this - Dunkin is basically suggesting every advocate of the Critical Text (or at least those who have worked on the NA or UBS texts) are dishonest people with an agenda. Let's continue further to see what examples he provides.

The most common statements made by Critical Text supporters about the paucity of evidence for the Comma in the Greek manuscripts sound similar to Metzger's below, who says it "...is absent from every known Greek manuscript except eight."Metzger then proceeds to list seven of these manuscripts (#61, #88m, #221m, #429, #636m, #918, #2318), excluding the eighth manuscript, Ottobonianus (#629), a 14th-century manuscript which is listed in the United Bible Society's 4th edition of the Greek New Testament.

I pause merely to note that Dunkin is slipping a rhetorical argument past the reader and hoping nobody notices. It is correct that Metzger's TCNT only lists seven of the eight manuscripts; however, Dunkin himself doesn't bother to disclose that Metzger himself was one of the editors of the UBS-4, so the claim that Metzger 'partially presented' evidence rings rather hollow[1]. Might the 'eighth manuscript' Dunkin is accusing Metzger of 'excluding' be due to something other than Metzger himself? Of course. Maybe it's the publisher's fault. Maybe it was an accidental omission due to either Metzger or the publisher. Maybe it was because it's a 14th century manuscript that tells us nothing about the first century NT text. There are many acceptable reasons that simply don't add up to the suggestion of dishonesty that Dunkin makes.

 Now, there are over 5300 extant Greek New Testament manuscripts, so this would on its face seem to be an overwhelming argument against the authenticity of the Johannine Comma. However, the numbers game is reduced somewhat when we note that only 501 of these manuscripts contain the book of I John, chapter 5.

I pause only to note here that Metzger never once claimed he was counting 5300 manuscripts and common sense indicates a manuscript only counts as a witness 'for' or 'against' a reading if it actually features that particular section. Dunkin is refuting Metzger for something the latter did not even say or suggest.

 Further, we see that Metzger and the UBS have slighted the actual number of Greek manuscripts which contain the verse.

This charge is more interesting, particularly in light of the evidence Dunkin is about to present.

Further, we see that Metzger and the UBS have slighted the actual number of Greek manuscripts which contain the verse. In addition to the ones listed above, D.A. Waite is reported to have identified manuscripts #634 and Omega 110 as containing the Comma, and Holland notes that the Comma appears in the margin of #635.

What is truly egregious is the fact that Dunkin has so many things wrong here that it's difficult to know exactly where to begin. I have no doubt that Dunkin sincerely believes that there are additional manuscripts with the Comma, but I also have no doubt that he is totally wrong in his belief. Let's begin with his story about Dr. D.A. Waite. It took a bit of research, but here's the gist of what happened. In the May 1979 issue of Dean Burgon News, an official publication of the Dean Burgon Society that Waite (and the late David Otis Fuller) began in November 1978, Waite published the 'research' of a New Jersey pastor named C.J. Drexler, who claimed to have discovered many more manuscripts that have the Comma Johanneum. Waite repeated as fact Drexler's alleged discovery of a total of twenty manuscripts that have the disputed reading [2]. Dr. Thomas Strouse then repeated this erroneous information in “A Critique of D. A. Carson’s The King James Version Debate "[3]. 

Not only is this totally false but Dunkin also has in his very article the pro-Comma book that reveals this fact - assuming Dunkin actually read the book. Dunkin cites the work of Michael Maynard in footnotes 19, 20, 27, 51, and 52, four of those citations coming from Maynard's "A History of the Debate Over 1 John 5:7-8." How is it possible then that Dunkin missed Maynard's comments upon Drexler's flawed research? “Drexler apparently mixed Gregorian and non-Gregorian numerals” [4]. Had Dunkin actually read this work (or at least paid attention), it would have prevented him from making this monumental blunder because as one reads further Maynard notes, "Duplicate terms...were a factor for the bloated count. Perhaps 110 was derived from Tischendorf's Omega 100" [5]. What I'm saying is quite simple: Dunkin created new manuscripts with the Comma because he didn't know that different numbers in different numbering systems often denote the same manuscripts. Metzger made no mistake whatsoever as far as his documentation of evidence here.

Much is made of the appearance of the Comma in the margins of several of these manuscripts (specifically, #88, #221, #635, and #636), and the standard interpretation of this occurrence is that later scribes emended the texts with the Comma in the margin. From there, it is said, the emendation made its way into the actual text of manuscripts which were subsequently copied. While this is indeed a plausible contention, it is not conclusive by any means. Equally plausible is the suggestion that the verse appears in the margin as a response by scribes who had seen the verse in other texts, noted its lacking in the manuscript before them, and corrected the text according to what they had previously seen.

Dunkin continues his flawed argumentation by suggesting that two hypotheses are equally tenable. One must wonder if Dunkin is either completely ignorant of textual criticism or if he is merely engaged in wishful thinking. Recall Dunkin's (false) allegation that textual critics "partially presented" evidence. Dunkin commits that very fallacy here because he doesn't bother to mention the fact that those notes in the margin come from hands that are (literally) HUNDREDS of years later. For example, manuscript 88 is a fourteenth century manuscript with the Comma added in a sixteenth century hand. To even suggest that such a manuscript can be explained as 'equally plausible' is ludicrous on its face. Does Dunkin not know the paleographic data or does he dispute it? The reader cannot know because Dunkin never even touches on the issue. And rather than engage in mindless speculation, can Dunkin tell us which manuscripts were seen with this alleged reading? They are obviously manuscripts extant in the sixteenth century if his theory is correct, so arguing they 'wore out from use' while convenient is also ridiculous. Dunkin, however, continues his flight of unreality as follows:

Further, it ought to be evident that the weight of numbers on the side of Comma-deleted manuscripts at least partially nullifies the "oldest-is-best" arguments which the Critical Text crowd loves to advance in favor of the Alexandrian texts. While it is true that only around 8-10 of the Greek texts contain the Comma, and most of these are late, the vast bulk of those without the Comma are also late, by the standards of the United Bible Society. 

It is difficult to know how to respond to this argument rationally because the standpoint from which it is written is completely irrational. For starters, "oldest is best" is NOT verbiage normally found among responsible text critical works. The overriding canon of textual criticism is very simple: the most likely original reading is the reading that explains all of the variants. While it is generally true that the older a manuscript is the more valuable it is, that is not always true. Does Dunkin not know this? "Oldest is best" tends to be shorthand verbiage from KJV Onlyists erecting a straw man and attempting to demolish it. But the bigger problem is this - what exactly is Dunkin even attempting to argue here? He seems to basically be saying, "Although the manuscripts that have it are late, so are "the vast bulk of those without the Comma." This would be very important if textual criticism was nothing more than 'oldest is best,' but it isn't. Besides, how in the world does this irrational argument help make Dunkin's any stronger? Dunkin doesn't seem to realize that he is admitting that manuscripts WITHOUT the Comma are the VAST MAJORITY of late manuscripts to say nothing of the TOTALITY of earlier ones. Again, how does this help his argument for authenticity? 

Around 95% of these Comma-deleted texts are "late" by these standards (post-9th century). 

Remember at the start of this critique where Dunkin used the phrase 'numbers game?' The only one playing a numbers game here is Mr. Dunkin himself. Should I even bother to point out that 100% of the pre-10th century Greek manuscripts - by his own admission - DO NOT have the Comma Johanneum?

Further, at least three other marginal references date to a relatively early period, these being #221m (10th century), #635m (11th century), and #88m (12th century). This could suggest that during that 10th-12th century period, there were still other Comma-bearing manuscripts floating around which provided a source for the addition of this verse to these Greek texts.

This is not only utter nonsense, it is misrepresentation of scholarly sources. Manuscript 221 may be a tenth century manuscript but the marginal gloss is dated no earlier than the fifteenth. Does Dunkin not know this or is he just not telling us? Manuscript 88 is an eleventh century manuscript but the gloss dates no earlier than the fifteenth century. This shading of the truth should not be found in scholarly research. Dunkin apparently realizes that he is reaching here because he begins a shotgun approach in every direction to try and scrape together a coherent argument. 

 At any rate, the oldest of these marginal references predates all but eight of the non-Comma bearing texts, and is roughly contemporaneous with another one (#1739). Hence, we see that the "oldest-is-best" argument, which really does not have the merit which its proponents suggest anywise, is less than decisive here, since we see that both types have the bulk of their witness in the late manuscripts, and each has a much smaller portion of its witness from the early texts, though admittedly, the Comma-deleted tradition (in the Greek tradition) has older extant witness by several centuries. As we will see below, when the evidence of the Latin witness is taken into account, this gap shrinks significantly, and when the witness of early Christian writers and other historical evidences is considered, the gap disappears entirely.

Let's summarize Dunkin's argument: even though I have absolutely ZERO evidence that this exists in Greek before the tenth century, I have proof that it existed in Latin and I will ASSUME that this Latin interpolation must have a Greek origin despite not having one shred of evidence to support this notion.

One hopes Dunkin's argument will improve, but the hope is met with only more distortion. 

[1] One need simply look at the first page of the UBS to establish this indisputable fact.

[2] D. A. Waite, “Most Frequent Questions We’ve Been Asked: What is the Evidence Supporting 1 John 5:7,” The Dean Burgon News, vol. 1, no. 5, May 1979, 2.

[3] Thomas Strouse, “A Critique of D. A. Carson’s The King James Version Debate,” 16.
[4] Michael Maynard, A History of the Debate Over 1 John 5:7-8. Tempe, AZ: Comma, 1995, 264.

[5] Maynard, Ibid., 264.



 Apparently

Saturday, October 15, 2016

A Debate Challenge For Timothy Dunkin

Timothy Dunkin is the author of an online apologetic entitled, "A Defense of the Johannine Comma: Setting the Record Straight on 1 John 5:7-8" (now located here). He is hereby challenged to a public debate on a number of his statements concerning the Comma Johanneum and his advocacy of Johannine originality. I will be responding to Mr. Dunkin's arguments online in the coming months. Incidentally, his blog can be downloaded as a PDF, where he states that he was helped in his research by a person named Steven Avery. Avery has been challenged to debate this issue multiple times over the last six years but has chosen the coward's route. I would not have called it that save for the fact that his entire corpus of internet postings consists of little more than third-grade level insults. If you're going to insult someone, you should at least be man enough to back up your charges in a public debate. I will also note for the record that Avery is a Oneness believer who denies the Trinity, but he carefully does not come right out and state those words as I just did about his theological views. It is not that I care about a critic's theology since two authors from whom I've learned much are Dr. Bart Ehrman (agnostic) and Dr. J.K. Elliott (liberal). However, Mr. Avery has chosen to insult people from the safety of his keyboard but doesn't want his KJV Only brethren to know his own theological views - all while he accuses others of 'hiding' information from people. The hypocrisy is maddening but hardly unexpected; indeed, if I were the low level of non-scholar as Steven Avery of Queens, New York, I would at least have the consistency to not post about subjects I know nothing about. This debate offer still extends to Avery as well, should he ever actually take the time to learn Greek grammar (an important omission that has not stopped him from incompetently commenting upon it).

So Mr Dunkin, consider yourself challenged. You will find me polite as long as you remain the same, sir.