Tuesday, December 5th | What are Manuscripts?

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Tuesday, December the 5th. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm Jon Galantis. And you're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

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We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. The verse of the day today comes from Isaiah chapter 57, verse 15. For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity.

That's a great intro. He is high and he is lofty. For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Jesus, where do you even begin? First of all, the one whose name is holy. Holy isn't something that God is, in the sense that he happens to be holy, or that holy is part of who he is. That's his name. That is his identity.

Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, holy is not just an attribute. It is his identity.

Yes, and I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit. So it's like, how do I get to God? How do I be like him?

How do I imitate him? A contrite and a humble spirit. And we see that in the person of Jesus Christ. That's exactly why he came. What is it, Philippians? He humbled himself, taking the appearance of a bondservant? It's completely and totally Jesus Christ.

And look at the reversal that happens here. I dwell in the high and holy place. He is the high and lofty one. So how do you get up to God? How do you reach that high place? By becoming humble. By becoming lowly. So in God's great economy, things are flipped on their head, because the way to God is not through grandeur or through some, you know, magnanimous act.

It's through being humble, being lowly, being contrite. And it also reminds us of our own place, where God is here. He is the high and holy one, and we are contrite and humble. And we don't do that so that we can be like him. We'll never, excuse me, we'll never be God.

But there's this separation of God and man, and you see it very poetically in the book of Isaiah all the time. Well, you know it's Tuesday, and we're not going to take a week off. You know what Tuesday means. It's time for the gripe vine. Time to harvest, boys. And ladies. Today's going to be controversial. Oh boy. This is a sour gripe.

Today's going to be a sour gripe, but I think most of the controversy is going to come from within this room. David, go ahead and turn your mic on, because I know David is, David is our engineer, for those who are unfamiliar with the show. He is all things murica. And I love America.

I think America does a lot of, almost everything right. Hold on. Almost? Almost.

Yeah. Some things we need to do away with. We could improve. There's room for improvement.

Excuse? Why are we on the imperial measuring system? I'm so glad you brought this up.

I'm so glad you brought this up. So we need a system of weights and measurements, right? And we don't need systems that conflict with each other. The entire world should be on one. It should be on one and it needs, it should be metric because, because there are imports and exports that happen. We're shipping things to other countries and we're getting things from other countries. We need a standardized unit of measure. Like if you take the, some of the national pride out of this whole thing, first off imperial, what empire are we even talking about here?

Right? Is it the American empire? I've never heard of such an empire. I don't even know where imperial came from, but I do know it makes no sense at all. So like, okay, metric, you've got consistently based like decibel numbers. Like I just add a one and a bunch of zeros and if ever I want to change, I just take that decimal and right there. Right. I don't have to start doing anything in my head where it's like, okay, what are the imperial like?

Like you need 16 pounds and that's an ounce and it's like a fluid. No, no. Yeah.

Flip that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 16 ounces. I got so worked up.

It's 16 ounces and that's a pound. Yeah. Yeah. It's just also just look at the beautiful symmetry of this miller leader sent to leader, deciliter leader, deciliter like just on and on and on. It just, it's just so let's look at some of the imperial, the imperial system and this is not any hate on America. We are as patriotic as they come.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Not to the flag of the inches, foot, yard and mile. Yeah. So 12 inches is a foot, right?

Yes sir. And so three feet is a yard. Now let's ask ourselves why that is.

Why? Why is 12 inches one foot? So then it should be art. So shouldn't 12 feet be a yard? Uh huh. No. How many feet is in the yard?

Dave? Listen here. Okay.

Listen here. Also, it's not exactly three feet, is it? Isn't it like three point blah, blah, blah.

It's 3.333 repeating of course. We are in America. So this is the system that we use. We use pounds. I'm saying we use pounds, ounces. We use feet. We use miles. I don't think this show has the reach to alter like American infrastructure and way of life, but if it does, if, if not, I'll chance someone out there who's listening who has like real strong political power, I would really advocate that we switch over. We'd love to talk to you more about the metric system. And if you do try to mess with my imperial system, whoever this person in power is, I will kick your behind 5,280 feet up the road. I wish I could say he's kidding, but he probably will try to fight.

Yeah, he probably will. Sorry about that. So we're going to bring Dr. Shaw in because I imagine that he's going to support our argument, but we'll have to wait and see.

Write in and let us know what you feel, metric or imperial, and why metric is the better choice. 2-5-2-5-8-2-5-0-2-8. You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Hello Clearview family. I'm Nicole.

And I'm David. And we want to talk to you today about the Clearview app. You know, there are so many churches out there that put their sermons on YouTube and their announcements on Facebook and their prayer lists on Periscope.

I didn't even know Periscope was still functional. Oh, it's not. And that's why nobody can find their church's prayer list and nobody's prayers be getting answered. But here at Clearview, we believe in making our content as accessible as possible. That's right. Clearview produces so much content every single week, including Dr. Shaw's sermons, original music, a full online store, weekly prayer gatherings, and so much more. Not to mention the number one best selling Christian talk show of all time.

I don't know if that's accurate. Well, maybe not yet, but that's why we want people to download the app. If you're listening from the Triangle area, we encourage you to check out Clearview Church in person. But if not, you can still follow all of our content on the Clearview app.

It's 100% free on the Apple store and Google Play Store. And best of all, all of our content is right there in one convenient spot. Make sure you download the Clearview app today and let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clearview today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. We are here once again in the Clearview today's studio with Dr. Abbadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament Textual Criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr. Shah, I got to ask you, I have a sneaking suspicion that you grew up using the metric system.

Yes, I did. Millimeters, millimeters, all the other ones. Millicentidesi. Of course.

Meter, deca, hecto, kilo. Now, of course, we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I got to ask you, imperial system, metric system, given your choice, which would you prefer? I would prefer metric system. Of course. Of course. I mean, to this day, 100 yards, I have to think, how does that work? How does that work? 300 feet, so that's three. Okay, but that's how many inches? Okay, that's three. Already this is too much mental work. I don't want to have to sit there and do conversions in my head. Yeah, and it's like, all right, this one's going to be like, let's go, let's go a thousand meters away. No, we got to do that in a mile.

It's like, all right, that's what it is. We are on the imperial system. 280. What empire, by the way? We're on the imperial system. What empire? The British empire? The American empire.

There's no American. I'm walking over the world and if you don't agree with me, you can get 15,840 feet away. What is that?

Three miles. Wow. Put a soundbite of like a screeching hawk right here. That's America. David, I can picture David sitting over there and like just the equations just swirling around his head as he calculates that. Here in America, we kicked all five foot 11 of King George's behind. Wow. I bet if King George was here right now, he would wipe the floor with it. David is cringing in patriotism. If King George was here right now, he would wipe the floor with you.

No problem. Was he 5'11 for you? I don't know. I just made that up.

I mean, 5'11 is not like short. I 100% agree. I'm so proud to be an American, but when it comes to them, measuring or any of those systems to measure heat, I just don't get it. It's just unnecessarily difficult. I had completely forgotten about the temperature argument.

That's a great... It's unnecessarily difficult. You know what else? It's not unnecessarily difficult, although it is kind of difficult.

I don't know which way to go to segue here. It's difficult, but also necessary. Yeah, there you go. There you go.

New Testament textual criticism. That's what we've been talking about for the past week. We talked about it a little bit yesterday. And the thing is, I still am not done.

I really want to know how this thing works. I thought you were going to say, the thing is, I still have no idea what I'm talking about. No. I mean, I feel like... It may be true for all of us, including me. I feel like if textual criticism is an ocean, I'm like ankle deep. I'm like barely, barely hanging on to, like, I think I might be ready to tread water. Here's the thing, because of these conversations and you at home, if you've been listening along, because of these conversations, I'm ankle deep and I'm not afraid of the water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can be a Gavin or you can be a Holden.

Those are my two boys. Now, Gavin is going to see the ocean. He's going to stick his pinky toe in and then flee, flee back up to the shore. Holden will crawl straight in, can't breathe underwater, nothing.

He'll just go headfirst right into it. You can be either one of those two. I don't know if either one of them are good, but that's kind of, that's kind of where you are.

I was interested because we were talking yesterday when we ended the show, we started talking about your PhD work and you told me once that you have to contribute to the field. And I often wonder how you get started doing something completely unique and original when you're dealing with something as old and I don't want to say like ran through, but like something as comprehensive, I guess, as the New Testament. Yeah. It's not like... Or textual criticism.

Yeah, yeah. Because it's not like any, it's not like no scholar has ever tried it. Like people have been writing on the New Testament since it was written.

But how do you get to a point like where you were like, okay, this is my unique research that I'm going to embark on. Right. Like the paper I just did with Ephesians 5, 30, people have written on it.

Okay. People have written on it over the past 200 years. Starting in the early 1800s, people were writing commentaries. In fact, for those of you who are listening and you are in some capacity in ministry, or you are a Senate school teacher or a Bible study leader, you know, you try to get a commentary, right? And by the way, don't listen to people who say, don't worry about commentaries. You just go to the text and you... Really? It's like saying, don't worry about getting a guide. You just go to the historical site and just start seeing it for yourself. Just to absorb the history somehow. Just roll up to the pyramid. You'll be fine. Yeah.

Just walk around and you'll know, you'll figure out. Didn't you say you went to Egypt with somebody who tried that? Not at the same time, but he did it years ago. Came by himself and walked around and tried to hire a guide and he got some horrible guides. Then he came back with us. I didn't know him, but he came back in the group and he was like, man, this is so much better because I know what I'm doing. So commentaries are good.

Just knowing whether or not you have the best one is the key. Right. I'm just imagining someone just landing in a foreign country, nobody there to meet them. They're just like, all right, I'm in Egypt now. I'm going to go see places. I mean, Israel or Turkey. I want me a map and I'm just going to walk around.

You don't know what you're looking at. So commentaries. The commentaries that came out in the 1800s, now some of them were a little critical, higher critical studies coming from Germany and they were doubting the miracles and things like that. So I'm not going to for one moment recommend that kind of work, but many of them did a great job in examining the text of the New Testament. And so many of these commentaries would not only tell you what the Greek meant or what the theology is and all that, but they will also examine the textual variants. So if you want to know on these issues that we're discussing, starting in the early 1800s commentators were talking about these variants.

So nothing new under the sun. But my work is different because I'm not just repeating what they said. I'm re-examining the evidence to say, I know there was a shift, a shift that began in the 1880s where the shorter reading became dominant. Why that shift is not right. We need to go back to the longer reading and we need to go back to the longer reading, not based on the little commentary that those scholars put on that passage.

Let's talk about it in depth. And the closer you get to these variants and begin to understand what's happening there and are able to interpret the textual apparatus that is underneath, for those of you who are listening, watching, textual apparatus is in a Greek New Testament, you have the text on the top and there's this line on the bottom. It's almost like footnotes. In the footnotes, you have all the information of how many manuscripts, which manuscripts are choosing this reading versus which manuscripts are choosing just this reading.

And you study that. So I am going in depth in looking at each of these manuscripts and trying to understand why this one chose this and why this one chose that. When you do that, when you study the manuscripts and you see these, what did you call them? The list where it's kind of like footnotes, textual apparatus.

Yes. When you, when you study those, okay. And you see these different manuscripts, patterns start to emerge. Are the disagreements on, wait one second, patterns start to emerge.

We need to be careful there. Okay. I need to explain that. The patterns of manuscripts, you're referring to what became known as text types. We introduced that in yesterday's show. And I mentioned the name Bengal.

Bengal was a brilliant scholar, kind of a pietistic scholar, very devotional in his spiritual life, sort of like a pastor. And he realized that many of the manuscripts, when you compare them, they have the same kind of, same variant in the same place. Okay. That's kind of redundant, but they have the same variants. By examining these variants, he was able to group them and he gave them a different name. Okay.

So our nomenclature has changed, but he began to group them based on their common variants. So let's say I'm making this up. Okay.

So nobody go back there and check behind me. Let's say, here's a manuscript. I'm going to call it Galantis.

All right. Here's a manuscript called Hill. Here's a manuscript called Williamson. So you got Codex Galantis, Codex Hill, Codex Williamson. And then you also have Codex Nick, going for Nicholas.

So you have Codex Nick, Galantis, Hill, Williamson. And when we come to, and again, I'm making this up folks, so don't go check behind me. I couldn't find that. Someone's like, I didn't find that manuscript. I didn't find that codex.

Can you tell me where to look? So let's say in Matthew chapter one and verse 15, there is a variant. And if you look at the actual Matthew one 15, probably be the genealogy. But let's just say there's a variant. A word is missing. Let's say a name. We'll make that name up as the name.

Give me a name. Frank. Frank is missing. Frank is missing in Galantis, Hill and Williamson.

Frank is missing, but Nick has it. Go down to Matthew chapter five and verse 30. And at the same spot, at the same place, Matthew five 30, give me an action. Ran. Ran. The word ran is missing in Galantis, Hill and Williamson. Go down to, again, these all made up stuff.

Romans chapter one verse 18, which I already know. But anyways, give me another action. Jumped. Jumped. Let's say the word jumped is missing in Galantis, Hill and Williamson. When you see these commonalities in variants, and I'm being very simplistic, that's when they go, wait a minute.

There's a connection here because they are missing the same words again and again and again, or same phrase or same switching of the order, sequence of the word. Something is coming. So this is the kind of work that people like Bengal have done. Do they jump immediately? And many more after him have done it. Right.

Do they jump immediately to location? Like these were probably written around the same area or are there other factors as well? Same area as in what? Like, okay, these were probably written somewhere around like, I don't know, I'm making this up too, like middle Europe or something. These that have these variants, these patterns were probably written somewhere around Egypt or the Middle East or are there other, is it only geography or are there other contributions?

I haven't even touched geography in this. Okay. I'm just comparing manuscripts to see common variants to establish some kind of a relationship between these manuscripts.

Because it may also happen this. Ready for this? Well, all of a sudden in first Corinthians three, two, there is a word, there's a name. Give me a name. Jill. Jill. Jill is missing in Williamson and Galantis, but not in Hill and Nick. And then in first John one, four again, folks, just to qualify, these are not real variants.

I'm just making it up to explain it. In first John one, four, give me an action. Eight.

Eight. E-T-E is also missing in Williamson and Galantis, but it's definitely there in Nick and Hill. So you see there is a relationship that we have to now account for. Why is it that Galantis, Hill, Williamson agree here? Very, very, very obvious pattern. But then Nick and Hill have a connection and that connection is far more than the connection between Galantis, Hill and Williamson, which means Nick and Hill are much closer than Galantis, Hill and Williamson.

But it didn't appear that way at first. Right. So there are scholars who do this kind of study and have done it for several centuries. And that's how they establish text types and things like that.

Nowadays it's called textual clusters and all that with the CBGM coherence based genealogical method. So that's a whole different subject we can talk about one day. So there's not really any disagreement that there are patterns. The disagreement is what the patterns imply?

Not necessarily. Text types are pretty agreed upon. Nowadays they're trying to do it with text types, which I think, yeah, they're saying like, oh, these patterns are too arbitrary or we're not quite sure. How can we be so dogmatic about these patterns?

So they're finding ways to kind of discredit patterns and I don't think it's working because it's like a computer, whatever you put in it, what you get out. So if you're putting in text types to start out with, if you're saying OLLIF and B are the best manuscripts, why do they say that? Because they are Alexandrian text type. They agree a lot. So based on that, you are saying we're going to start with the Alexandrian text type because they're better.

Well, already you're assuming text types, but then you come up and say, well, there are no text types. Well, wait, then why did you start with those two? Why didn't you pick some other manuscripts? Well, we could have, why didn't you?

Because these are the best ones. Well, then you are, you see, round and round we go. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't our translation, our modern translations based on text types?

Yes. What will the future of translations look like if there are no text types? Well, that's the big debate right now. That's the big discussion right now that the future looks very postmodern, which means you get to pick what translation you want. For people who aren't listening, or for people who, I'm sorry, are listening, but maybe joining for the first time, your Byzantine priority, which means you lean towards the new King James because it's based on the Byzantine text form. But if there are no text types. But I'm not a majority text person. I am not a King James only. It's based on the Byzantine text form because I find that text better.

And I believe it has a transmissional history other than what Alexandrian texts like elephant bee lacks, Byzantine has. And that's another topic we have to discuss. See, all of these are unlocking doors. And when you unlock this one door and look in the room, you go like, wow, that's 15 more doors. Yeah. It's like one door, but you open it up and then you realize there's a hallway. It's just door after door after door after door after door.

It's like Scooby Doo. Like you want to finish this conversation, but you can't without clarifying this over here. Yeah. I hate to be, there's no arrogance there, but that's why textual criticism is such a difficult discipline.

Yeah. You have to be well versed in all these different talking points. People have asked me about that 70 versus 72. I wanted to talk about it today, but our time is going away.

But I'm like, where do I start? So can I explain that for a minute? So the 70 versus 72, we're not even touching Ephesians 5, 30. We're going to leave that aside for a minute.

But so there's a textual variant there. From my study, 70 is a better number. Jesus sent out 70, not 72, both at Luke chapter 10, verse one and Luke chapter 10, verse 17. The deeper question is why did the scribes, why did they change 70 to 72? Why not 73, 74, 75, 80? Why did they go from 70 to 72?

I believe 70 is better. And the answer is not in the Greek New Testament. The answer is in the Old Testament.

So when you go to the table of nations, which is in Genesis chapter 10, right? What you find is that the number of nations in the Hebrew Masoretic text, when you add them up, it comes to 70. But when you go to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, when you add up the number of the nations, it comes to 72.

So the two nations get added in the Greek, they got added into the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Based on that, it seems that some scribe must have come to the passage, Luke chapter 10, verse one or Luke chapter 10, verse 17, and he was like 70 going out. They knew this much that Jesus sending out 70 is connected with the number of nations. They knew that much. But when he looked at his Greek New Testament, the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, he was like, it says 72 here. Jesus must have meant 72.

I'm gonna fix that. What is very interesting to me is, number one, they made the connection from Luke 10, one to Genesis 10. They knew that as they were transcribing, as they were translating, they knew that like, oh, this is connected. There's a connection there.

There's a link there. So they saw that connection. Secondly, the use of the Septuagint. How prominent was that?

It seems like it was very. Paul used the Septuagint more than he used the Hebrew Masoretic Text. Actually, the Masoretic Text came a little later. Really?

Yes. Masora is the dots put into the text. Because the Jewish people, now they're scattered. They're scattered over the world. They've lost the land. This is in AD 130. They lost the temple in AD 70, lost Jerusalem in AD 130. So they're scattered and they're beginning to lose the ability to read Hebrew, to pronounce the words.

So the Masora, the Masoretic Text is like putting the dots and lines so that accent so you can pronounce the words. Because the language had changed some. Not changed. They're forgetting it. They're forgetting it.

Yeah. Because they moved away from Jerusalem where the hub was. Now they're scattered in Asia Minor and Egypt and North Africa and Arabia and Persia and even India.

They're scattered everywhere and even towards the European countries. So they have to now have these dots and everything in the text so they can even read it to know how to pronounce them. So the Masoretic Text actually came later. But the Hebrew Text was there. So it appears that the scribe may have looked at the Septuagint and made the change. And Jesus may have, I believe, because I favor the Byzantine Text, Jesus definitely looked at the Hebrew Text. Lightning Round Questions is coming up this Friday. Maybe we can tackle that 70 versus 72 issue as to why it got translated.

As you guys are listening, if you have any questions about that, maybe you have come across some textual variants in your Bible or footnotes that you maybe quite don't understand, write in and let us know. We can add those to Lightning Round Questions. 252-582-5028. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Don't forget that you can partner with us financially by scrolling to the bottom of that page.

Click that link and become part of our Clear View Today Show family. John, what's coming up on tomorrow's episode? Tomorrow, we are talking about something really cool as we are gearing up towards Christmas. We're going to take just a little brief, and when I say brief, I do mean brief break.

Just that little break from new textual and textual criticism. We're going to be talking about an opportunity we do here at Clear View with our toy truck. Very exciting. And it applies to you guys if you're local as well. If you're listening, you're watching, and you live around us in the area, this applies to you. So make sure you come back tomorrow. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today.