restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Dr. Abidan Shah on NT Textual Criticism

 David Alan Black 

(Editor’s Note: Recently I interviewed Dr. Abidan Shah of Clearview Church in Henderson, NC. Dr. Shah is my former assistant and a recent graduate of Southeastern Seminary with a Ph.D. in New Testament Textual Criticism.)

1. Please tell us a little bit about your family, your church, your academic pilgrimage, and how you became interested in textual criticism.

I was born and raised in India. As far as I can remember, the Scriptures had a very special place in our family’s life. Mom would remind us kids to read our Bibles daily. Dad is a pastor and continues to serve his first and only church for 56 years. At church, we heard expository messages that were both educational and evangelistic, a rare combination.

To back up a little, my dad grew up in a non-Christian family. Growing up, he was told that the Bible was just a human book, created and corrupted by the church (especially the West) to suit its purpose. The more my dad read the Bible, the more he became convinced that the Bible was the words of God given to those inspired by the Holy Spirit, which is far more realistic and verifiable than some document that “exists in heaven.” Long story short, he gave his life to Christ. He stepped out on faith and began to preach on the streets of India. He was beaten and mocked for his faith—but, word was out that a young convert was on fire for Jesus! A missionary named Dr. Fred Schelander heard of him and sought to find him (this is extremely difficult in a large country like India with hundreds of millions of people and a poor communication system of the 50s). A word about Dr. Schelander—he was a Bible scholar who revised the Marathi Bible translation by Pandita Ramabai, the famous Christian Indian social reformer, women’s rights advocate, and Sanskrit scholar. By God’s providence, Dr. Schelander got in touch with my dad and arranged for him to go to Union Biblical Seminary in Yavatmal (now Pune). After graduation, my dad came to pastor the very church where Dr. Schelander was a resident missionary. He became a mentor to my dad. When he wasn’t travelling, he would be at our home for meals every day. I remember the countless times sitting in his lap as he read Bible stories to me. I also remember them discussing theology and church issues. Later, dad was elected to the board of UBS and he even served as the Principal of Maharashtra Bible College, a small college dedicated to training those going into rural India with the gospel. He also taught a couple of seminars at Fuller Theological Seminary. You could say that growing up I had no choice but to love the Scriptures and the academic study of the Bible!

After coming to America, I graduated with my bachelors in broadcast journalism from Toccoa Falls College, Georgia and, through the influence of Jerry Shedd, my father-in-law (a pastor/missionary, Mercer University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Th.M. graduate), I came to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. My first semester I took Elementary Greek with Dr. Maurice Robinson. Little did I know that I was signing up for much more than an introductory course in Koine Greek. This was also an introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism! Although I enjoyed learning Greek, I was far more fascinated by his rabbit trails on variant readings, text types, and transmissional history. I had never heard of any of this! I knew that I had to educate myself. So I began with the slim but simple New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide by Dr. David Alan Black. From there I went on to books by Metzger, Aland, Greenlee, Sturz, Ehrman/Holmes, Epp/Fee, etc. Needless to say, I was hooked! Although I enjoyed the fields of theology, philosophy, church history, ethics, preaching, etc., New Testament Textual Criticism became my first love and continues to this day. It was an easy decision for me after my Masters to pursue a PhD in New Testament Textual Criticism. I am very grateful to my wife Nicole and our 4 children (Rebecca, Abigail, Nicholas, and Thomas) for dealing with me through the years of plodding along with my dissertation.

2. What was your dissertation topic at SEBTS and how do you hope it will contribute to scholarship?

My dissertation is titled Changing the Goalpost of New Testament Textual Criticism. I explain in my introduction, which I give here with minor adjustments—“Before the 1960s, the goal of New Testament Textual Criticism was singular: to retrieve the ‘original text’ of the New Testament. Since then, the goalpost has incrementally shifted away from the ‘original text’ to retrieving ‘any text’ or ‘many texts’ of the NT. Under this new approach to the text, all variants are considered to be equally valuable, regardless of their external evidence in the history of transmission. Previously, variants were looked upon as a means to recover the original text but now they are increasingly treated as windows into the various early Christian communities and their struggles with doctrines. Now it is considered far more profitable to gain insight into the various ‘Christianities’ or ‘trajectories of faith’ in the early church than to seek after an elusive and illusive ‘original text.’ Some scholars have concluded that the ‘original text’ is hopelessly lost and cannot be retrieved with any confidence or accuracy. Other scholars have gone a step further to claim that the idea of an ‘original text’ itself is a misconception that needs to be abandoned. As a major representative of this movement, Eldon Epp contends that instead of a single authoritative ‘original text’ there were multiple originals in the beginning and that the concept of an ‘original text’ is a later development that arose since the coming of the printing press. Some have also proposed creating a text or texts that suit the reader and his or her community. Such an understanding of the history of the NT text has serious implications for the study of the NT and the authority of Scripture. Historic Christianity is a faith that is built upon a first-century text. Without a generally determinable ‘original text,’ there is no longer an authoritative text, and if there is no authoritative text, then there is no longer any distinct Christian faith and practice. It is imperative that this new shift in NTTC be examined, evaluated, and refuted.”

I would add that the typical response by the proponents of the recent trend in NTTC is to disregard the traditional view, as I have proposed, as outdated or ill-informed. To the contrary, they should welcome it as a well-needed safe-guard against going off the deep end.

3. The Byzantine text type continues to be a flashpoint in New Testament studies. How does your view of the Byzantine text align with (or differ from) the views of, say, Maurice Robinson, Harry Sturz, and Arthur Farstad?

Great question! That is true. The Byzantine text type continues to be a flashpoint. In fact, lately, it appears to be fashionable to favor some Byzantine readings! The CBGM (Coherence Based Genealogical Method) advocates often point out that their text has shifted to the Byzantine side—something that was unthinkable a few years ago! (In reality, it still strongly favors the non-Byzantine text.)  

I hold to an “essentially” Byzantine priority position. Although I truly appreciate Sturz’s The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism,I find his 2 text-types out of 3 approach difficult to hold at times because it makes the Western text—the most corrupt, the least favored, and the least evidenced text—the ultimate arbiter when the Alexandrian and Byzantine texts differ. As to Hodges and Farstad, their use of stemmatics in the Pericope Adulterae and the book of Revelation is untenable. Their use of von Soden’s Western/Caesarean I-text to determine originality where the Byzantine reading is divided in the rest of the NT is also problematic. Perhaps such a situation has led Wilbur Pickering (another Byzantine text supporter) to adopt his particular model of simply favoring a single minority transmissional line (his Family 35) as original—not as an arbiter, but solely as autograph. In my view, no particular manuscript or group of manuscripts has been providentially preserved. They all have errors and require our careful application of text-critical principles to reach the original text. The goal is worth it.

4. Some textual critics today no longer refer to “text types” per se. What do you think about their perspective?

I actually address this in my dissertation, which I quote here with minor adjustments—“Gerd Mink (originator of the CBGM) claims that the ‘traditional text-type approach … should be avoided in favor of the structure that will emerge if we focus on the relationships between all individual witnesses and thus determine their places in the transmission history.’ As well-meaning as this may be, this bold intention of the proponents of the CBGM is repeatedly ignored in praxis, wherein various textual ‘clusters’ are repeatedly invoked to categorize readings as prior and secondary along with outside editorial judgments based on internal evidence. If the CBGM’s true aim is to focus exclusively on external evidence, then any and all pre-judgment of a witness should be discarded, which is an impossible task.” In fact, even Eldon Epp, who is part of the recent trend, has objected to CBGM’s contra-text-type approach. He cautions them to be modest in their claims against text types since the methodology “has been applied fully only to the Catholic Epistles [now also Acts, and Mark soon to come], where, as most agree, text types or textual clusters play little role.”

The real test is in the Gospels, Acts, and the Pauline Epistles, where text types are far more pronounced. I agree that the older notion of text types is passé, based on [an] older concept of text types being products of a particular recension. Nonetheless, the concept of text types recognized as textual clusters is still valid.

5. Finally, I know your passion is shepherding the flock of God. How do you feel your doctoral studies have helped you to become a better pastor of your local church?

Let me preface the answer with a conviction I’ve had for a long time. With regards to the flock of God, being a biblical scholar and pastor demands a balance between “Challenging” and “Confirming.” On one hand, it is important that, as a biblical scholar and pastor, I challenge the church to rethink unbiblical views and practices. It is my responsibility to use the knowledge I have gained to call the flock of God to biblical truth leading to repentance and obedience. On the other hand, it is also important to confirm to the flock of God that they are standing in the truth. After all, the flock of God is the body of Christ led by his Spirit. It is vital for biblical scholars to listen to the people of God. Personally, I have been inspired and convicted by the faith of the church, individually and collectively. In fact, I feel a sense of accountability to the church. I like the subtitle of Ronald Heine’s book on Origen: “Scholarship in the Service of the Church.”

I have been pastoring Clearview for the past 21 years. It is my first and only church. I’ve done my best to share my knowledge to both challenge and confirm the flock of God. Every time I preach, visit, baptize, officiate a wedding, preside over a funeral, dedicate a child, pray over fellowship dinners, or organize an event, I always attempt to do two things: first, I try to impart something to the people from the Bible that they were not aware of before, and, second, I bring them the confirmation that their faith is solidly built upon Christ and his word. I do all this with the ultimate goal to seek and to save those who are lost.

I am also using my platform at Clearview Church to put biblical scholarship on the lower shelf for all people. We are offering an introductory course titled “Greek for Everyone,” led by Dr. David Alan Black of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Also, last year, we held our first apologetics conference at Clearview Church. Speakers included Dr. Black, and Drs. Peter Gurry and John Meade of Phoenix Seminary’s Text and Canon Institute. In 2020, we are hosting our second apologetics conference with more guest speakers! I credit the team at Clearview Church for pouring their heart and soul in making these events so successful! They do it unto the Lord.

February 7, 2020

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Don’t Bury Your Gifts!

 David Alan Black 

It’s official. Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya will both run in this year’s London Marathon on April 26.  It’s already being called the match race of the century. Their records are so close it would take a DNA test to differentiate them. Bekele has a marathon PR of 2:01:41. Kipchoge’s is 2:01:39. Here’s hoping for good health for both runners.

But here’s the deal. Both superstars are nearing the end of their careers. They are both in the later stages of their physical prowess. The lessons for me? Dave, don’t let getting older stop you from pursuing your spiritual, personal, academic, and professional goals. My message to you? Run your race. Continue to chase the dream that’s in your heart. God made you good at something for a reason. You’ve been given gifts by the best Giver of all, so use them.

Make us proud of you, even as you age. Don’t wait for the timing to be just right. That will never happen. Do the best with what you’ve got and be willing to start off on shaky legs if necessary. I don’t like it when people minimize their gifts and opportunities. “I could never learn Greek. I could never go to Oxford. I could never ….” Look at yourself. What are you good at? What gets your pulse going? Think of being a part of the piano keyboard of life. Play your note. 

Bekele and Kipchoge. Two men gifted with running DNA. Two men giving it their all. Two men telling us, “Don’t bury your gifts!”

January 18, 2020

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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1917 and the Bible

 David Alan Black 

The camera work in 1917 is absolutely brilliant, as you well know if you’ve seen the movie. Sam Mendes, who directed the film, was once asked if he thought that audiences were sophisticated enough to pick up on the genius of the behind-the-scenes camera work. His response was that he hoped people would pay more attention to the story line than to the movie’s brilliant cinematography. He said, “I don’t want the camera to be the most interesting thing in the movie.”

I don’t know about you, but when I watched 1917 on the big screen I found myself focusing almost exclusively on the camera operators, at least for the first 10 or 15 minutes of the movie.

Eventually, however, I forgot about them and watched the story, oblivious to the work of the cinematographers. In other words, a camera is not designed to draw attention to itself. In the words of director Mendes, “I don’t want people to think of the ‘how’ but the ‘why’ of the movie.” Getting 1917 to look like one single shot took the highest level of planning and some awfully clever shooting and editing. But the film is not about filming. It’s about a putting the audience in the shoes of a British soldier fighting in WW I. 

Years ago I became enamored with the literary artistry of the New Testament. I had been trained in the standard historical-grammatical method of exegesis and so was quite shocked to discover that the New Testament contains all kinds of fascinating rhetorical devices. It was, in fact, a jaw-dropping experience. The danger, of course, is that we begin to read the Bible only as an esthetic text and not as a theological document. The Bible then becomes merely literature and not sacred Scripture. As I have written elsewhere, I believe that too many people study the New Testament as either a great work of literature or as a textbook on theology. Is this a valid dichotomy? Not in my mind. I would claim that studying the New Testament as literature helps us better understand those ultimate concerns with which it deals. As such, it is best studied not merely as a collection of complex literary devices (chiasmus, inclusio, word play, etc.), as so many studies seem to do, but as the means by which God inscripturated divine truth.

Just as the cinematography in the movie 1917 contributed to the message of the film, so the purpose of highlighting literary devices in the New Testament writings is not to impress people with its esthetic qualities but rather to see how they function to advance the message of the Bible. The Bible is indeed great literature, but it is so much more than that. The literary method has both strengths and limitations, and it’s probably a good idea to keep both in mind constantly.

January 31, 2020

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Bruce Metzger and Me

 David Alan Black 

“Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light to guide my path” (Psa. 119:105). As Christians, we have a guidance system — a best-selling collection of 66 books that guides our feet and illuminates our path forward. These books are collectively called the Bible, but the Bible is actually one book in two volumes, and the first volume is especially replete with testaments from men and women who trusted God completely as well as people who completely disregarded Him. The Old Testament tells it like it is, warts and all. But the overriding message is a simple one: God desires us to experience a full and rich life, and He will guide us out of whatever dark space we happen to find ourselves in, whether it’s our fears of what the future holds or our tears over a broken relationship. The Bible, however, is not the only guidance system out there. As we’ve often said on this blog, Christian biographies can come alongside the Bible and give us example after example of how God indeed has a magnificent plan for our lives that exceeds our wildest imaginings. Bruce Metzger’s memoirReminiscences of an Octogenarian is a good example of this.

It takes the reader from his childhood in Amish Country to the hallowed halls of Princeton University. I was drawn to this book because in some ways the career of Bruce Metzger and my own have coincided with each other. As I began the book, I wondered to myself, “How did Metzger end up becoming a Greek teacher?” The answer is found on p. 22. It was the 1938-39 academic year. One day Metzger just “happened” to be sitting next to John MacKay, the president of Princeton Theological Seminary, during a train ride. At some point in the conversation the president asked Metzger if he would be willing assume the post of teaching fellow at the seminary while he was pursuing his doctorate at the university. He would be employed by the seminary to teach entering students the grammar of the New Testament. “Of course I gladly accepted the invitation,” wrote Metzger. “In the autumn of 1938, therefore, I began the first of my forty-six years of teaching at Princeton Theological Seminary.” Metzger was only 24 years old at the time.

Fast forward 38 years. It was the fall of 1976. A need arose in the Greek Department at Biola for an adjunct instructor in Classical and Koine Greek. The head of the Greek Department at the time was Dr. Harry Sturz, whose impact on my life was incalculable. (I’ve recounted that impact here.) For some reason that mantle fell upon my shoulders. That fall I began what, thus far, has turned out to be a 44-year career of teaching. The odd thing is that neither of us sought out that opportunity. It was simply God directing our paths.

Incidentally, I was 24 at the time.

Where are you today, my friend, on the path of discovering God’s plan for your life? When we become a Christian, the thought of being used by God to make a difference in other people’s live can be paralyzing. But what we feel incapable of doing, God is able to do. He knows what school we will attend and who we will marry and how many children we will have and where we will work and when we will retire. He is with us now, and He will be with us through eternity.

One of the most important lessons we can learn is that life is never stagnant. Things will constantly be changing. With that said, I think the life of Bruce Metzger embodies a lot of what this blog is all about —  challenging yourself to keep moving forward no matter what and being open to whatever the Lord has in store for you. The Christian life is demanding and often frustrating, but it offers the rewards of great joy and fulfillment to those who throw themselves into it with prayer, abandonment, and love.

January 3, 2020

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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How I Fell in Love with Greek

 David Alan Black 

I fell in love for the first time in the 5th grade. I recall it was the first day of the new school year at Kainalu Elementary School. My social studies teacher entered the classroom and uttered this utterly incomprehensible sentence: “Cómo está usted?” I was intoxicated. It was love at first sight. That day I learned there were languages other than English and Hawaiian Pidgin.

As it happened, Spanish and I broke up after the 5th grade. No Spanish was offered in the 6th grade, and in fact no foreign languages were required at my intermediate and high schools. The next language I fell in love with was Greek. By then I was a student at Biola, and my 4 semesters of Greek were the beginning of a lifetime obsession with foreign languages. As I got older I began to teach myself languages in earnest, beginning with those languages that one was expected to know prior to arriving in Basel for doctoral studies — for me this meant French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Latin, and, of course, German. Eventually it dawned on me that anything can be said in about 6,000 other ways, with completely different words and grammar. It’s not an accident that the science of linguistics caught my attention in those days. Human language is a vast ocean of discovery. Today, my aim in teaching Greek is to help my students see just how fascinating language study is — how languages change, how they mix, how they process thought. Languages are like cloud formations, inherently transitory. A few hundred years ago, double negatives were considered good grammar in English, “silly” meant “innocent,” and verbs were fully conjugated (the way they still are in Spanish and German). English started out like Greek and Latin with noun cases and verb endings but eventually said “Enough is enough.” When I began my studies in Basel in 1980, I thought I knew German. I quickly found out that, as soon as I stepped outside the classroom, I couldn’t understand a word anybody said. They were speaking German of course — or at least what they called German. In fact, there is no default “German,” just like there is no default English. The Pidgin we grew up speaking in Hawai’i — despite all of its “mistakes” — stands equal to any other language in the qualitative sense. Once you understand this, the difficulties disappear. In Basel German, it’s as simple as leaning Mir gange for Wir gehen. In Hawaiian Pidgin, it’s basically the same thing. Dey stay run means They are running. “Stay” is simply a preverbal marker indicating progressive action, which is marked in English by the “-ing” suffix. ‘A’ole pilikia! (No problem.)

If you think about it, my Greek students are learning so much more than Greek. Today’s Greek is tomorrow’s Spanish or German or Russian or Mandarin. By studying one language you begin to develop a grid for the study of other languages. So, in addition to German German, I had to learn Basel German when I lived in Switzerland. And yet even Basel German is not used by all German-speaking Swiss. Living in Basel, you just got accustomed to speaking both the standard dialect and the non-standard one. Linguists call this being diglossic. Ditto for when I’m in Hawai’i. I just switch to Pidgin.

I’ve often noticed how German seems to be much more “transparent” than English. “Succession” is “Row-following” (Reihenfolge), “vocabulary” is “Word-treasury” (Wortschatz), and “pork” is “Pig-flesh” (Schweinfleisch). Then again, German can be deceptive: the German noun Gift means “poison” in English. In Spanish, the infinitive is one word — comer — not two like in English (“to eat”). Germans say “I know that he a good student is,” but in English this is somewhat of a Yoda-ism. Even “Denglisch” — German plus English — retains its German original. “Mein Leben ist eine awesome-story” makes sense only when you realize that the feminine article “eine” is used because the German word for “story” (Geschichte) is feminine. Or how about this? In English we say “I’m bathing,” but in French or German you must mark the reflexive overtly (“Je me lave,” “Ich wasche mich“).

I could go on and on about language learning and language loving. Next Monday I’ll begin my 44th year of teaching Greek. Who knows what will happen. Maybe, like that boy in the 5th grade, somebody will fall in love for the first time.

December 31, 2019

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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Verbal Aspect in Greek

 David Alan Black 

There are three aspects in Greek. I call them imperfective, perfective, and aoristic. Of these, aoristic aspect is the default. An aoristic action is one that the speaker perceives not as an action occurring over time or as a completed action but as a mere occurrence. Aoristic aspect by itself does not specify whether the action is/was/will be prolonged, repeated, or finished — hence the name aoristos, “undefined.”

I continue to use “aoristic” (instead of “perfective”) to describe this category of aspect for two reasons.  (1) The term perfective is too easily confused with the Greek perfect tense system, and (2) imperfective (incomplete) aspect and perfective (completed) aspect are binary opposites. One grammar I read this morning admits as much when it observes that the word “imperfective” derives from the Latin word imperfectivum, “not completed.” Then what should “perfective” (Latin perfectivum) mean other than “completed”? But when discussing the Greek perfect tense, the later grammar says nothing about the Latin word perfectivum, “completed”! For the sake of simple consistency, then, I retain the more traditional use of “perfective.” As I said above, perfective aspect (remember: I’m using the term with reference to the Greek perfect tense system) is the logical opposite of imperfective aspect.

By the way, I’m not the only one who still uses the term aoristic to refer to the aorist tense system in Greek. In her recently published grammar From Alpha to Omega: A Beginning Course in Classical Greek, Anne Groton writes (p. 15): “A Greek verb has one of three possible aspects: imperfective, aoristic, or perfective.” I would simply ask: Isn’t there less terminological confusion if we say, for example, that the perfect tense indicates perfective aspect, and the aorist tense indicates aoristic aspect?

To summarize: Grammatical aspect in Greek concerns the way an action is presented or regarded.

Imperfective aspect presents an action as incomplete, that is, as an action that is ongoing or repeated.

Perfective aspect (the opposite of imperfective aspect) presents an action as a state resulting from a preceding completed action or it signifies the effects of a completed action that is somehow still relevant.

Aoristic aspect presents an action as a complete whole, that is, an action viewed as neither incomplete nor complete but in its entirety.

Put another way:

Imperfective aspect describes a process.

Perfective aspect describes a state of affairs that exists as a result of a completed action.

Aoristic aspect describes an event without commenting on whether it is a process or completed.

Make sense? Hmm, maybe not. Let’s summarize matters even more simply:

Imperfective aspect: Incomplete.

Perfective aspect: Completed.

Aoristic aspect: Complete. 

There you have it!

December 16, 2019

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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