Metzger plagiarisms

[Steven Avery]

WIP - this is only plagiatisms, other problems like the word-parsing deceptions have their own studies. There is one on his mishandling of the heavenly witnesses.

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Dan Wallace:
"I have seen other places in which he regurgitates the essence, and almost the wording, of a source, but without credit. My sense is that he is not intentionally plagiarizing; rather, he has internalized the point and remembered it without remembering the source."

This analysis/apologetic falls flat when virtually identical phrases are used, as pointed out by:

James Snapp
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/705911322829204/?comment_id=706363002784036&comment_tracking={"tn":"R"}
...when one reads Metzger's sources and then reads Metzger, it is hard to resist forming a mental picture of Metzger reading his sources as he was writing.... for the sake of illustration, and to let any readers see that this sort of thing will eventually be detected, let's compare a few of Kirsopp Lake's manuscript-descriptons to some of Metzger's manuscript-descriptions:

33 --
Lake: . . . "has an excellent Neutral and Alexandrian text, close to that of Aleph B, but showing the influence of the Byzantine text."

Metzger: . . . "an excellent representative of the Alexandrian type of text, but it shows the influence of the Koine or Byzantine type" . . .

565 --
Lake: . . . "This is one of the most beautiful of known MSS. It was written in gold letters on purple vellum, during the ninth or tenth century. . . . It is now in the Public Library in Leningrad."

Metzger: "One of the most beautiful of all known MSS, 565 is now in the public library at Leningrad. It is a de luxe copy of the Gospels, written in gold letters on purple vellum during the ninth or tenth century."

579 --
Lake: . . . "It preserves an extremely good Neutral text. . . ."

Metzger: . . . "it preserves an extremely good Alexandrian text . . ."

1739 --
Lake: . . . "It is of extreme importance, because it contains a number of marginal readings taken from the commentaries of Origen."

Metzger: . . . "It is of extreme importance because it contains a number of marginal notes taken from the writings of Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, Eusebius, and Basil."

And these are just samples; there are dozens of such echoes in "Text of the New Testament" alone.

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Now we switch to various individual drop-in’s, noticed while studying specific issues.

Frederic George Kenyon (Our Bible & the Ancient Manuscripts, Being a History of the Text and Its Translations, 1895, p. 134) -
"Unfortunately, the beauty of the original writing has been spoilt by a later corrector, who, thinking perhaps that the original ink was becoming faint, traced over every letter afresh, omitting only those letters and words which he believed to be incorrect.
http://books.google.com/books?id=DI4RAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA134

Bruce M. Metzger (The Text of the New Testament, 1964, 1968, 1992; 3rd edition, p. 47) -
The writing is in small and delicate uncials, perfectly simple and unadorned. Unfortunately, the beauty of the original writing has been spoiled by a later corrector, who traced over every letter afresh, omitting only those letters and words which he believed to be incorrect.

[textualcriticism] Vaticanus - "the entire text has been overwritten by a 15th century scribe"
Steven Avery - Sept 13, 2013
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/textualcriticism/conversations/topics/8102

One Metzger source (directly or indirectly, and not given in his bibliography) looks to be Frederic George Kenyon (1863-1952):
(none dare call it plagiarism)
Metzger borrowing (or plagiarizing) from Kenyon.
[TC-Alternate-list] Tares Among the Wheat & let's focus on Vaticanus difficulties
Steven Avery - April 17, 2013
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TC-Alternate-list/conversations/topics/5668[

Facebook discussions of the Kenyon usage
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/705911322829204/?comment_id=706360649450938&comment_tracking={"tn":"R"}

[TC-Alternate-list] Council of Carthage, 484 AD, heavenly witnesses in the confession of faith by 100s of bishops
Steven Avery - Feb 6, 2011
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TC-Alternate-list/conversations/topics/3917
Metzger, incidentally, is largely warmed-over Alan England Brooke. The earlier than 1920 edition of the ICC under Skinner with Brooke doing the Johannine Epistles is 1912.

Alan England Brooke
"The earliest certain instance of the gloss being quoted as part of the actual text of the Epistle is in the Liber Apologettcus... proof of the presence of the insertion in the Johannine text towards the end of the fifth century:

Metzger
The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a part of the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latin treatise entitled Liber Apologeticus (chap. 4) ..... In the fifth century the gloss was quoted by Latin Fathers in North Africa and Italy as part of the text of the Epistle"

And when Metzger in his Textual Commentary almost a century later typifies the Byzantine text according to its nature, he also begins with pointing out the evident secondary character of this textform. Herein he follows Hort completely. The latter wrote:

"The qualities which the authors of the Syrian text seem to have most desired to impress on it are lucidity and completeness. They were evidently anxious to remove all stumbling-blocks out of the way of the ordinary reader... ,"70

Metzger writes:
"It (The Byzantine Text) is characterized chiefly by lucidity and completeness. The framers of this text sought to smooth away any harshness of language, to combine two or more divergent readings into one expanded reading (called conflation), and to harmonize divergentparallel passages."71

The Ancient Text of the New Testament (1976)
Jakob Van Bruggen
http://www.enigstetroos.org/pdf/VanBruggenJ_TheAncientTextOfTheNewTestament.pdf

WIP

Ezra Palmer Gould
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark (1896)
by Ezra Palmer Gould
https://books.google.com/books?id=6iAeSU3xlLQC&pg=PA306

https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/26/26-4/26-4-pp407-419_JETS.pdf
http://www.brenhughes.com/Research/MarkEnding.pdf
http://onyxkylix.blogspot.com/2012/06/mark-16-bruce-metzger-and.html

Many more planned for here.

From the Facebook thread on top, with James Snapp:

*** Metzger plagiarisms sources ***
... that I have run into en passant, including a few from James Snapp, are the following writers:
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John Scott Porter (1801-1880)

Henry Alford (1810-1871)

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901)

Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892)

Ezra Palmer Gould (1841-1900)

Frederic George Kenyon - (1863–1952)

Alan England Brooke - (1863-1939)

Hugh Pope (1869-1946)

James Hardy Ropes (1866–1933)

Kirsopp Lake (1872-1946)

Eric Gardner Turner (1911-1983)

Martin Litchfield West (b. 1937)

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My sense is that this list may be partial, since nobody has ever done much checking. I have a note about one from Preserved Smith (1889-1941), however I want to check that a bit before putting it on the list (my note is incomplete, it may have been the Erasmus promise. If so, that would be significant because of the Metzger quasi-hidden retraction.)

In situations like the examples from James above, another problem is that you do not know if Metzger ever saw or personally studied the mss. being described.

Brice C. Jones had been blogging about some Metzger plagiarisms, and made a comment in the thread referenced in the OP, however I think he has taken the blog posts down.

Some scholars that may have been Metzger sources, however we have not hit direct examples, include Andrews Norton, Ezra Abbot, Joseph Pohle, Caspar Rene Gregory, and a number of scholars who wrote in German, and occasionally Latin. Now today there are computerized plagiarism checkers, at least for singular languages, it would be interesting to utilize such tools.
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Similar wording like this does not mean that Metzger is dependent on each source for the full article he wrote. Simply that he took the wording, for convenience, without attribution.

 

[Steven Avery]

Facebook threads

Facebook - NT Textual Criticism
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/705911322829204/
Pure Bible (points to NTCC)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/purebible/658630070895552/

Metzger plagiarism

James and I have pioneered in documenting Metzger plagiarisms, from a number of sources (Kenyon, Porter, Moxie Covnoskee). The censored forum also has noted this issue (can anything good come out of NTTC?).

Honest question: would your school or university consider this plagiarism without any citation?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/permalink/10152164119907693/

Although the post starts with a Martin Litchfield West quote, the most interesting is:

Brice C. Jones
"Metzger plagiarizes Eric Turner on many occasions, some verbatim. ... I found a couple sentences that were lengthy and drawn word for word from Turner's 'Greek Papyri' and GMAW."

Martin Litchfield West (b. 1973)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Litchfield_West

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Note, on another thread they have Wilbur Pickering as deceased. Although I sent a note to the writer, and showed Pickering's current status on the board of the CSPMT, and he thanked me, it was never updated. A very strange situation.

Bart Ehrman

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBartEhrman/posts/280998992006778

Facebook - New Testament Textual Criticism
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/permalink/10152164119907693/

James Snapp
Response to Pereira
http://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2018/07/mark-622-whose-daughter-danced.html
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TC-Alternate-list/conversations/topics/5608

AND MANY MORE - The fullness of the project is planned for the future.

 

[Steven Avery]

This needs some tweaking.

METZGER "BORROWS" ERRORS FROM WESTCOTT AND HORT

The Gospel according to st John: the authorised version with intr. and notes by B.F. Westcott (1882)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ur0CAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA141
Tim Wellings
Could Metzger be echoing what Dr. Brooke Westcott said in his commentary on John? ....
Euthymius Zigabenus ...the earliest Greek commentator who writes upon it, observes that it is not found in "the accurate copies" or is obelized in them, and that therefore it is not to be accounted genuine.'
--The Gospel According to St. John, Brooke Wescott, Page 141

[textualcriticism] The Pericope de Adultera and Greek Lectionary influence - October 10, 2008
Daniel Buck quoting Hort
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/textualcriticism/message/4053
"Have you realised that the Pericope [de adultera] was apparently absolutely unknown to every Greek Father whose writings have been preserved, till Euthymius Zigabenus in the 11th century?" -

This Hort quote goes back to :

Dr. Leslie McFall - 22 Dec 2002
Subject: [tc-list] Hort on the Pericope Adultery
PASSAGES RELATING TO THE PERICOPE ADULTERY IN HORT'S UNPUBLISHED LETTERS.

The Metzger "borrowing" was discussed here:

[textualcriticism] The Pericope Adulterae - Nov 9, 2005 - Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/textualcriticism/message/1276
... I think it is important to point out that Metzger was repeating an assertion of
Hort. And I will conjecture that Metzger was familiar with Hort's argumentation. ...
http://pericopedeadultera.blogspot.com/2011/08/obscurantism-on-pa.html

 

[Steven Avery]

Another study is the NETBible use of Metzger.

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Facebook - NT Textual Criticism
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/705911322829204/?comment_id=706221872798149&comment_tracking={"tn":"R"}

The Providential Ending of Mark’s Gospel
James Snapp - April, 2013
http://pastorfergus.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/the-providential-ending-of-marks-gospel/

"... commentaries, like manuscripts, should be weighed, not just counted. And very many commentators appear to have been lazy regarding this subject. They have simply read Bruce Metzger’s one-sided claims about Mark 16:9-20 in his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, and repeated them, adjusting them slightly so as to not commit outright plagiarism. ... Dr. Wallace is, I believe, guilty of this. (Just compare the notes in the NET Bible with Metzger’s Textual Commentary.) And that is how readers, and even preachers, end up being thoroughly misled, with the result that they become willing to acquiesce to the effective removal of 12 verses of the Word of God."
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[Steven Avery]

Facebook - NT Textual Criticism - 2026
plagiarism - Hatch
https://www.facebook.com/groups/302...111&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen

Facebook - NT Textual Criticism - 2024
James Snapp
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/posts/8967335576686696/

Michael Dougherty
I have done some investigation of the Metzger question, but I have not published results. In a new CBQ article on a different plagiarism case, I footnoted online discussions by Staples and by Snapp Jr. (If anyone would like a copy of the new article, I can send one by email). https://doi.org/10.1353/cbq.2024.a940010

Dwayne Green
Oh? I have seen in many cases in the NET refer to stuff from Metzger's commentary without referencing his work.
sure thing! Compare the footnotes in the NET to Metzgers commentary in Mark 15:28 and Luke 17:36

To be fair, the NET notes don't cite ANY sources, but it appears in many cases that Metzgers commentary is the source for those.
There are a number of other examples but those two would suffice for now.


April 7, 2020
Bruce Metzger and Plagiarism – Literary Forgeries Edition

Bruce Metzger and Plagiarism - Literary Forgeries Edition - Jason Staples

Back in the spring of 2008, I took Bart Ehrman’s seminar on “Literary Forgery in the Early Christian Tradition.” At the time, Bart was working toward his book, Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Christian Polemics, which he later popularized into Forged: Writing in the...

www.jasonstaples.com

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Facebook - Pure Bible
https://www.facebook.com/groups/purebible/posts/1096970457061509/

Facebook - New Testament Textual Criticism
Peter Gurry
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/permalink/10152164119907693/

 

[Steven Avery]

Facebook - Pure Bible
https://www.facebook.com/groups/purebible/posts/1096970457061509/

Bruce Metzger - plagiarist - Eric Gardner Turner (1911-1983)
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A request came in to put together the Metzger plagiarism material from the notes over the last years, so this is following up from the King James Bible Debate forum:
https://www.facebook.com/.../permalink/10153986518126693/...
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This thread will be dedicated to only this topic and closely related themes. Generally, one post per person plagiarized (here you see two examples Turner.)
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Brice Jones in 2012 post referenced an Eric Gardner Turner copy by Metzger
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBart.../posts/280998992006778
"Literary works, on the other hand, were written in a more formal style of handwriting, called uncials.1 This 'book-hand' was characterized by more deliberate and carefully executed letters, each one separate from the others, somewhat like our capital letters. Some of the most beautiful specimens of Greek handwriting are certain classical and Biblical manuscripts dating from the third to the sixth century."
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Here is one Ehrman comment:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBart.../posts/280998992006778
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The Jones blog page seems to be removed and unavailable.
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There is a reference there to Alphonse Dain made by Peter Malik.
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More related to Turner. We could inquire to Brice C. Jones for the original articles.
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Another Case of Plagiarism? E.G. Turner and Bruce M. Metzger and/or Bart D. Ehrman
Brice C. Jones.
http://thequaternion.blogspot.com/.../another-case-of...
Here the Metzger direct plagiarism was a bit longer and is on a post that I placed..
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Steven Avery
https://groups.yahoo.com/.../conversations/topics/5608
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"(not uncials, a word that has a precise meaning in Latin writing but only a derived and imprecise one in Greek)."
16 words, 20 out of 21
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Metzger - Text of the New Testament - 4th edition, 2005 (maybe earlier too)
https://books.google.com/books?id=lA4WAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17
https://archive.org/stream/TheTextOfNewTestament4thEdit...
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Steven Avery
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Bruce Metzger - plagiarist - Alan England Brooke (1863-1939)
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[textualcriticism] the snowball effect of misinformation a-b-c
Steven Avery - Sept, 2011
https://groups.yahoo.com/.../conversations/topics/6647
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In Textual Commentary (1993) Bruce Metzger wrote about 1 John v:7 (borrowing from Alan England Brooke).
A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1993).
Bruce Manning Metzger
http://www.bible-researcher.com/comma.html
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(3) The passage is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin; and it is not found (a) in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian Cyprian Augustine), or in the Vulgate (b) as issued by Jerome (codex Fuldensis [copied a.d. 541-46] and codex Amiatinus [copied before a.d. 716]) or (c) as revised by Alcuin (first hand of codex Vallicellianus [ninth century]).
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A critical and exegetical commentary on the Johannine epistles (1912)
Alan England Brooke
http://www.archive.org/stream/criticalexegetic43broouoft...
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And example, this Old Latin "early form" idea, which really is a bogus claim since Cyprian and Tertullian utilized the heavenly witnesses and Metzger was familiar with the Fickermann paper on Augustine, is given in Brooke as:
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"except in the Latin, where it is absent from the older forms of
the old Latin as found in Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine"
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Copying is especially pernicious when the theory is errant.
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"the words are not found (as part of the Johannine text) (i) in
any Greek manuscript with the exception of two very late SlSS,
obviously modified by the text of the Latin Vulgate, and in the
margin of a third, the marginal note being in a seventeenth
century hand; (2) in any independent Greek writer; (3) in any
Iatin writer earlier than Prisciliian; (4) in any ancient version
except in the Latin, where it is absent from the older forms of
the old Latin as found in Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine; from
the Vulgate as issued by Jerome, according to the testimony of
the Codices Arniatinus and Fuldensis; and from Alcuin’s revision
(Codex Vallicellianus). " - Brooke
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The Vulgate as issued by Jerome is another bogus assertion, plagiarized by Metzger from Brooke, note the shared deception of not mentioning the Vulgate Prologue, first person from Jerome, in Fuldensis.
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Steven Avery

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Steven Avery
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Brooke Metzger - plagiarist - James Hardy Ropes (1866-1933)
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[TC-Alternate] Metzger's Echoes of Earlier Writers
James Snapp - Feb 27, 2013
https://groups.yahoo.com/.../conversations/topics/5608
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So there I was, reading Ropes' 1916 commentary on James, and I noticed that in his comment about a variant-unit in 2:19, on page 215, he states that the majority reading "has probably put O THEOS first in order to give it a more emphatic position."
"That seems speculative," I thought. "Would a copyist really think that O THEOS needed emphasis in a four-word sentence? I wonder what Metzger said about this." So I turned to page 680 of Metzger's Textual Commentary. And lo: how the great minds think alike: Metzger says, "Clearly secondary is the reading of the Textus Receptus, O THEOS EIS ESTIN ([Evidence-list]), in which O THEOS is placed first in order to give it a more emphatic position."
I recall reading other passages in Metzger's writings where he repeats phrases used by Porter, or by Hort, or by Lake, but this nine-word verbatim parallel seemed particularly striking.
Has anyone else found such echoes in Metzger's work? A shiny shekel will be awarded to whoever can verify the longest verbatim parallel between something Metzger says, and the words of an earlier writer.
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I found one, just now, ten words long:
Ropes: first in order to give it a more emphatic position
Metzger: first in order to give it a more emphatic position
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Daniel Buck
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The above was commentary on James 2:19
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James 2:19
Thou believest that there is one God;
thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
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Ropes
https://books.google.com/books?id=VCyeGi0NJF8C&pg=PA215
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Don't have the Metzger page yet.