Dubious developers of Modern Textual Criticism

There are essentially four views in regard to how we approach the Biblical text:
1. Tradition (e.g. Vulgate), i.e. what has passed down ecclesiastically
2. Reception (e.g. Textus Receptus), i.e. what has come to us through divine providence
3. Majority (e.g. Majority Text), i.e. what can be discerned empirically to have the most and best attestation
4. Reason (e.g. Modern Critical Text), i.e. what can be discerned rationally from eclectic sources to have the most probable primacy

Pure tradition was rejected in the Reformation, as tradition plus a believing analysis of afforded limited information was thought to be a sufficient basis for arriving at a correct text.

The Majority view and the Reason views put emphasis on what humans know, that is, as more manuscripts were discovered, it could be better known to the human mind what was probably the correct, original reading.

The King James Bible Only view is on the spectrum at 2. The Byzantine tradition is going from 1 to 4, while neo-Byzantine tradition is at number 3.

What is telling is that those who developed view number 4 have a very dubious record:

GRIESBACH — Higher Critic, follower of Higher Critic, Rationalist and Modernist Semler

LACHMANN — Rationalist

WESTCOTT AND HORT — Naturalistic views of the Biblical text

MARTINI — Roman Catholic, Liberal

NIDA — Relativist

METZGER — Higher Critic, considered the Bible as containing myths, believed many books written long time after the authors lived

ALAND — Denied Inspiration

The modern critical text views have been developed under the influences of Modernism.