Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

The thing is, there IS a pattern to the changes that "folly" doesn't capture. They play down the deity of Christ and essential elements of the gospel message among other things.

The thing is, there IS a pattern to the changes that "folly" doesn't capture. They play down the deity of Christ and essential elements of the gospel message among other things.

No, there's a different problem with that one having to do with how the Alexandrians changed a word in the Greek so that the phrase actually reads "only-begotten God" and Burgon surmises that Westcott and Hort were ashamed of that wording and did their awkward rendering in an attempt to get around it. Burgon mentions this in The Revision Revised on p. 182, and p. 315 in a footnote, but he discusses this peculiar Greek phrase somewhere else that I'm too tired to look up right now. In any case, what sounds like a more definite statement of the Deity of Christ isn't really, though it's also not a denial.

(Also they said the Son has "seen" God but that's not in the Greek; it says He has "declared" Him.)

I'm not up to this at the moment, but are you suggesting that the Latin versions just stuck it in there for no good reason ...

That is, the existence of the passage in early Latin manuscripts ought to be evidence that it also existed in the earlier Greek originals.

Sure, a better translation is given by the NASB: "No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him."I don't maintain that this Alexandrian reading is necessarily a good reading, I merely say that it's the other way round from what you said. The Alexandrian, here, has a proof-text for the Trinity, and the divinity of Jesus, which the Byzantines lack.

Now, to discover whether there has been any systematic bias, we would need two things: firstly, a complete catalog of the differences between the Byzantine and Alexandrian types; and secondly knowledge in each particular case of which is the original text and which has been altered. If we had the first, we would be stuck for want of the second.We cannot, after all, judge the excellence of a text by the number of proof-texts it offers us. If I were to make a version of Matthew with an extra verse saying: "And Jesus said unto the disciples, verily I am God, and should definitely be worshiped as such, no doubt about it, I'm the second Person of a triune Godhead, the other Persons being the Father and the Holy Spirit" then such a text, if accepted as authentic, would be of great use to Christian apologists of an orthodox stripe. And yet the inclusion of this passage in the Codex Adequati would not actually lead you to prefer it to the Byzantines, the Alexandrians, or anything else.

The only claim is that there is a pattern or a trend that can be identified within the collection of changes, suggesting a mindset that is influenced by one heresy or another.

However, "only-begotten God" doesn't at all improve the case for the Trinity. Only-begotten Son is always understood to refer to the Son as God because begotten of God ...

IV. More serious in its consequences, however, than any other source of mischief which can be named [than mere error], is the process of MUTILATION, to which, from the beginning, the Text of Scripture has been subjected. By the 'Mutilation' of Scripture we do but mean the intentional Omission --from whatever cause proceeding-- of genuine portions. And the causes of it have been numerous as well as diverse. Often, indeed, there seems to have been at work nothing else but a strange passion for getting rid of whatever portions of the inspired Text have seemed to anybody superfluous -- or at all events have appeared capable of being removed without manifest injury to the sense. But the estimate of the tasteless IInd-century Critic swill never be that of the well-informed Reader, furnished with the ordinary instincts of piety and reverence. This barbarous mutilation of the Gospel, by the unceremonious excision of a multitude of little words, is often attended by no worse consequence than that thereby an extraordinary baldness is imparted to the Evangelical narrative. The removal of so many of the coupling-hooks is apt to cause the curtains of the Tabernacle to hang wondrous ungracefully ; but often that is all. Some times, however, (as might have been confidently anticipated,) the result is calamitous in a high degree. Not only is the beauty of the narrative effectually marred, (as e.g. by the barbarous excision of ical evddms fiera Saicpvav Kvpte, from S. Mark ix. 24) : l the doctrinal teaching of our Saviour's discourses in countless places, damaged, (as e.g. by the omission of koi vT)rreLa from verse 29) : absurd ex pressions attributed to the Holy One which He certainly never uttered, (as e.g. by truncating of its last word the phrase to, Et Bvvaaat TTurrevacu in verse 23) : but (i.) The narrative is often rendered in a manner unintelligible; or else (n.), The entire point of a precious incident is made to disappear from sight; or else (in.), An imaginary incident is fabricated: or lastly (iv.), Some precious saying of our Divine Lord is turned into absolute nonsense....

But the only basis on which it is interpreted to have been an interpolation is belief that the Alexandrians are indeed "older and better" than the Byzantines, which is to accept the claims of the revisionists.

The other interpretation, that it was in the earlier Greek manuscripts from which the Latin were derived is the more natural and traditional.

By the 'Mutilation' of Scripture we do but mean the intentional Omission --from whatever cause proceeding-- of genuine portions.