There is a theory taught just as faithfully in today’s bible colleges as evolution is taught in secular universities, and it has just about as much proof. This theory is held to be fact by such Bible scholars as James White, Bob Ross, and Kenneth Barker. (Barker was the head of the NIV translation committee.) It is known as the “Conflate Theory,” It was developed by Brooke Foss Westcott and John Fenton Anthony Hort. These two Anglican bible scholars devoted much of their lives to a critical study of the Greek New Testament. They studied the various “text types” or groups of manuscripts, and they claimed that the manuscripts from Alexandria, Egypt (primarily Sinaticus and Vaticanus) were the best because they were apparently the oldest and thus, in their opinion, closer to the originals. But they had one major problem: 95% of all the NT manuscripts (known as the Majority Text) disagreed with the their Alexandrian manuscripts while agreeing with each other.
So they came up with their theory: The Alexandrian Text agreed with the originals, and that the church at Antioch, Syria, “edited” them to “improve them” and “strengthen the doctrines,” thus producing the Majority Text. The Majority text, they claim, was then forced upon the people by a church council.
There are several major problems with this theory. First, what orthodox Christian would add to a text that they held sacred? “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” (Prov 30:5,6) “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (Rev. 22:18,19) What early Christian wasn’t familiar with these passages? Why would any true Christian want to change the God-inspired scriptures? We can be assured that their attitude about changing scripture was this: “For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.” (2 Cor. 2:17)
Second, how could the church force any text-type upon the believers? It just won’t work. For example, in about 400 AD, the Roman Catholic Church wanted to replace the early Latin translation known as the “Vulgate” (150 AD) with their own Latin translation. A scholar named Jerome made a Latin translation from the Alexandrian mss. Vaticanus, which the Church named “the Vulgate,” and then tried to force it on the believers. It didn’t work. The church tried for 800 years to make people use their “Vulgate,” and they finally resorted to burning all the original (150 AD) “Vulgates,” along with their owners. So then it is impossible that the Majority Text was forced on the believers by the early Christian church.
Third, there is no historical evidence supporting this theory. If a major Bible revision really occurred, it would be recorded in history. But this is not the case. It never really happened. This is a theory!!!
