The Textual Frankenstein of Modern Critical Text Theory
A passionate Textus Receptus advocate named Jonathan Sheffield recently published a video about textual criticism, framed around James White, a well-known Reformed apologist and PhD candidate in textual criticism. Although Sheffield apparently does not realize that Frankenstein is the name of Mary Shelley’s scientist, not the monster (who is never named), he raises a number of objections to modern textual critical theory.
The video is excellent from a technical standpoint, and Sheffield employs a number of amusing pop-culture references throughout. The more one has followed developments in textual criticism in recent years (look for a reference to the now-infamous Wallace/Ehrman/early Markan fragment debate!), the more “in jokes” one will see in the video, which is very entertaining. James White is a favorite target of Sheffield’s, who prodcued a similar video last year entitled “A James White Christmas Carol on ‘Father Forgive Them’ in Luke 23:34.”
Sheffield asks:
Why are Modern NT Textual Scholars like James White, Daniel Wallace and the field as a whole losing the intellectual argument against the scholarship of Dr. Bart Ehrman and others that hold to his primary hypothesis on the text of the New Testament? In order to understand this predicament for Modern New Testament Textual Scholars, we will document the problems with Modern Textual theories as shown in the following cartoon animation.