“Queen Anne” Revisited: A Rejoinder -- By: Richard A. Taylor

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 21:2 (Jun 1978)
Article: “Queen Anne” Revisited: A Rejoinder
Author: Richard A. Taylor


“Queen Anne” Revisited: A Rejoinder

Richard A. Taylor*

An evaluation of a work that supports a position to which one does not personally subscribe should be characterized by two considerations above all. First, it should accurately portray the position of the author; and second, it should deal fairly with the material. Unfortunately, Wilbur Pickering has rated my review of his book low on both counts (see my “Queen Anne Resurrected? A Review Article,” JETS 20/4 [December, 1977] 377-381). The following are my reflections on his response that appears in this issue of the Journal.

(1) Pickering points out that he and Zane Hodges are not calling for a return to the TR as such; rather, they “are advocating what Kurt Aland has called the majority text.” That is exactly what I was trying to express in the paragraph that Pickering quotes from my review. I said: “True progress can be made, Pickering feels, only when scholarship returns to the ‘majority’ Greek text as (usually) represented by the printed TR” (p. 377; italics added). I fully recognize that Pickering is not completely satisfied with the traditional printed representation(s) of the majority text, and on p. 381 of my review I point out the need for “an improved TR” that would reflect more accurately the readings of the majority text. (Hodges and his associates reportedly have such a project underway.) I also stated in the review (p. 381) that “the identity of the NT text, in [Pickering’s] opinion, is to be sought in the mass of relatively late Greek manuscripts.”

Perhaps some misunderstanding occurred in my review because of the other authors I mentioned in the paragraph cited by Pickering. But it was not my purpose to imply that those referred to were entirely congruent with one another in the details of their presentations. Nor did I mean to imply that Pickering would necessarily agree with their positions in toto. I was simply suggesting that there is a growing interest in an interpretation of the textual data that is at least similar to Pickering’s.

(2) The author reports that I was “quite unfair” in suggesting that “to Mr. Pickering the scribes were all demons.” Two points may be mentioned in reply. First, he has not really left my comment in its context. To the end of the portion which he cites should be added the words “as far as theology was concerned.” I was trying to compare Pickering’s evaluation of theological variation in the text to Hort’s minimization of this factor. Second, I find very satisfactory Pickering’s view (expressed in his rejoinder) that “it was a small minority that engaged in deliberate alteration of the text.” I am puzzled by that

*Richard Taylor is assistant professor of Greek and New Testament at Capital Bible Seminary...

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