This is for me, trying to sort out my thoughts ...

You could say that I have always accepted the "critical text," uh, rather uncritically. The English New Testaments I reference are based on it, what's the problem?

First off, the prefaces of some recent English translations have made clear that NA27 wasn't slavishly followed. Is there any consensus even as regards the critical text?

Secondly, four years ago, I read White's The King James Only Controversy at the suggestion of a friend.

For convenience, rather than read White with the NA27, I used The GNT According to the Majority Text because it footnoted the NA27 and TR variants. Not that I couldn't take White's word for it, but it's more meaningful to see the passages for oneself in context.

And, after reading White's book, I found myself questioning the reliability of the critical text like never before. I was completely unprepared for this result. How could I study through a work that was intended to convince me of a thing I already accepted and end up more open to the other side of the argument?

One simple realization: the critical text is a patch-work that never existed in real life.

I posed the question to Dr. Bridges at the time, why we accept the critical text when it's a patch-work that never existed in real life. If he answered ... and he rarely answers me anymore ... I can't remember what he said.

Don't get me wrong: I'm still committed to the critical text but my commitment stems more from habit (inertia), reinforced with a conscious act of the will, in spite of sound argument. IOW, things are desperate. When I think about it, it's scary. I try not to think about it.

But the concern was thrust upon me again when I came across a discussion about this very point on a good, evangelical NTTC blog that I hardly ever have time to read and ... to my dismay, I found myself agreeing with the Majority Text advocate!

For instance, a very helpful distinction from Dr. Maurice A. Robinson:

... there is a very major difference between an "eclectic text" created on the basis of a consensus of texttype-specific MSS -- whether Alexandrian, Western, Caesarean, or Byzantine is immaterial -- and an "eclectic text" created on the basis of individual readings that have been selected on various grounds from MSS representing widely differing textual traditions or origins.

Not only do the latter variety of texts fail to reflect any given texttype, but they present as putatively "original" a resultant text which is so composite in nature that it is far less likely to represent any presumed "original" than would any texttype-specific consensus-based text.

Hear, hear!

And again ...

Either (1) the original text -- whatever its form -- preceded and was substantially different from all existing texttypes currently known to us; or (2) the original text more likely reflected one of the currently existing texttypes, and the remaining textual streams reflect deviations therefrom; or (3) the possible rejection of all textual groupings and classification; or (4) no "original text" and no claim to be able to recover anything resembling such.

Most current critical text advocates apparently assume the first option as their presuppositional model.

James Snapp, Jr. clarifies the scope of the complaint:

the objection that the eclectic text of NA-27 "never existed in the manuscript tradition" is not itself a strong objection at all, if it is applied to very large segments of text.

On the other hand, when we consider small series of textual variants, the objection seems to have some weight.

I was thinking in small terms, not vast blocks of text. And I'm not sure this isn't a knee-jerk reaction on my part.

Andrew Wilson brings in this dimension which is never too far off:

The thing that really intrigues me about the argument is whether it contains an element of 'providential preservation' thinking within it.

...

The argument almost seems to take the form: The original text MUST have been preserved in one of the main branches of the manuscript tradition.

My question is, why? Why can't some of the original words have been ALTOGETHER lost and not be extant in any mss?

I think the argument about uber-eclecticism is much more powerful when it is applied AGAINST Alexandrian mss generally.

All of Wilson's comment and Robinson's reply are worth reading.

I'm not really sure where this leaves me ... except I have some more reading to do!