# Responding to James White of AOMIN



## Jerusalem Blade

I’ve decided to – as *briefly* as possible – come out of retirement from being highly active on Puritanboard so as to respond to James White’s “invitation” on the AOMIN blog, and also to things he said on the DL while talking with Rob Wieland. Due to my need to give adequate time preparing a series of sermons on Revelation, and whatever is left after tending to the church, and being a good husband to my wife (_not_ in order of importance!), devoting the remainder to the book I’m working on, _A Great and Terrible Love_, I have to carefully set my time-management priorities (an update on the book will be on the blog here shortly). This response will be in one single post – I’m afraid to say – as separate continuous posts are no longer supported here at PB. Sections that would have been separate posts will be divided by red dots.


Dear Doctor White,

(Allow me, please, to call you James, Dr. White)

I know your invitation pertained to callers on the DL, but as your 4 PM in Phoenix is my 1 AM in Cyprus (and talking at that hour wakes my wife who needs her sleep due to grueling days [taking care of a mom with end-stage Alzheimer’s]), I hope you will accept my writing instead. I will try to keep this brief _as possible_ for the sake of both our schedules, although to do justice to your questions thorough answers must be provided, which will make it more lengthy than a conversation on the DL. All I simply aim to do in responding to you is present an intellectually respectable “methodology that will actually allow us to determine what the text is” (approx. 15:40 on your DL talk with Robert). Maurice Robinson said somewhat the same thing in the Intro to his Byzantine Greek Text:

A sound rational approach which accounts for all the phenomena and offers a reconstruction of the history of textual transmission is all that is demanded for any text-critical hypothesis. (p. xxxii)​
Now I don’t hope to convince you that _my_ methodology will allow _you_ to determine the text (for you have your own methodology), but rather that my “hypothesis” is internally consistent and can effectively be defended against detractors, whether fellow Christians or unbelievers.

You will excuse me, I hope, if in explaining my position I go to some length, bringing in the work of others, both to make clear to you where I stand, and for the sake of those who no doubt will be observing our interaction. I will, however, seek to keep my citations to a minimum, and to give links to sources rather than post them so as not to bloat the discussion.

An important point: I am all-too-aware that our exchanges have the potential to be grievously damaging to the faith our brothers and sisters have in their Bibles. You tear down the TR and Byz mss and I the Alexandrian / CT / Eclectic Text (ET), and we wreak havoc everywhere, in all quarters! So I would like to say some things I hope may offset this possibility, at least as far as _*my*_ causing such damage is concerned. There are folks who use the AV / TR who imply or openly state that CT / ET Bibles are not legitimate Bibles, disparagingly calling them “per-versions”. I neither think nor will speak like this, for it is not true. I realize I will anger and alienate a multitude in my camp with this saying, but I do not care to please men as long as I please the Lord who is overseeing this exchange between you and me. 

The woman through whose witness I was converted in 1968 used the Lamsa Pesh-itta Bible, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit was powerful through her, illumining and saving a wretch caught in the strong delusion of New Age and various occult influences. The men God used to minister to me up through the years used a variety of Bible versions; Jerry Bridges in _The Pursuit of Holiness_ was used by the Lord to direct my life in a time of crisis, the NIV he used was quickened by the Holy Spirit to edify and give me divine life and guidance. Al Martin, in one of his sermons, using a Bible I do not believe was the AV, caused – through the Holy Spirit – the heavens to be opened and a new walk of faith made available to me. R.C. Sproul likewise on numerous occasions. Tim Keller used the NIV and sometimes the ESV (as well as his own Greek translations) during the five plus years he was my pastor, to my eternal benefit as the depths and wonder of the Gospel of Christ was opened for my wife and myself. Not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power these men (and that woman) were vessels of the anointing of the Lord Himself, _*and they could not have been such if the Bibles they used were not legitimate Bibles, and they not godly souls who walked intimately with Him.*_ I repudiate the slurs put upon their Bibles and their souls, as I have personally seen the Lord in their ministries. The issue is, not the Bibles, but the variants and occasionally the translations. The variants may indeed not be legitimate, and there is no harm done in pointing this out, while generally affirming their Bibles. You AVers having fits over this view, consider, are you willing to tear down the faith of those for whom the Lord shed His blood so that your view may – in your own eyes – prevail? For many precious souls hold to the NIV / ESV / NASB etc, and would you take away that which they cling to, if they do not have faith that your view of the Scripture is right? The same applies to those disagreeing with the TR / KJV camp. There is a meanness and inconsiderateness over the welfare of other believers who differ in these debates, that the Lord will deal with, for you “correct ones” seek to take away that which they need to live – that being His Word, because it is not in the version you hold to be the best, and disagreeing with the variants or some translations in their versions you trash their Bibles in their entirety. Where does that leave them? Have you no mercy or love for erring brothers and sisters?

It would be better to graciously, if possible, meet people where they are, insulting neither them nor their Bibles, and demonstrate the soundness of your positions.

James, on the blog you stated these questions for the KJV / TR advocate:

1) When did "the church" "received" [sic] this text?
2) What council engaged in a study of the respective texts and determined that this is the "one" text that most closely represents the original?
3) Which text IS the "TR"? Can you identify a single text as THE TR? If not, why not?
4) Please explain why I should use the TR's readings of Luke 2:22, Revelation 16:5, and the final six verses of Revelation.​
Re #1, I think _informally_ during the post-Reformation period, when the Protestant scholars – such as John Owen (1616-1683) and Francis Turretin (1623-1687) – were formulating their responses to Rome, and more formally at the Westminster Assembly – in the mid to late 1640s – when they hammered out the Confession, and its section 1:8.

The Waldensian churches of ancient Italy and France also pay an important part in this, as an apostolic witness to doctrine and intact Scriptures were maintained by them against the corruptions in both by Rome. I realize this is a controverted historical matter, but there is much good research available. For example: The Waldenses and the Bible: http://web.archive.org/web/20080112064257/http://members.aol.com/dwibclc/waldbib.htm True, one of the articles is from Wilkinson’s book (an SDA), but if his research is sound and documented, why is it not as good as Metzger’s, an unbelieving liberal? If anyone throws Kutilek’s piece at me, he’s been well answered many times, and by Dr. Ken Johnson in particular in his, _A Refutation Of Kutilek’s “The Truth About The Waldenses Bible And the Old Latin Version”_, available at Bible For Today, item #2263 (link to online store given below). Will Kinney also addresses it: http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/OldLatin.html

#2 Would the Westminster Assembly count as a council? Would a general consensus among the post-Reformation scholars count? What about the assembly that produced the 1689 London Baptist Confession? Have the early Reformed churches ever had major (international) councils, apart from Westminster and Dort?

Did a council _*ever*_ engage in a study of the respective texts and determine that one is the “one” text that most closely represents the original? (Hort imagined one in around 350 A.D., but that theory has been debunked.) Or did the believing church simply recognize early on which texts were in accord with the autographs still extant in apostolic churches, and which were mutilated? More on this below.

3# I do not believe we have or even know all the texts the Reformation editors had, though some of those Stephanus and Beza used are known to us, and the texts that the King James translators used – besides primarily using Beza’s 1598 edition – have been lost to us due, I believe, to one of the London fires destroying much of the translators’ notes and minutes. 

In the above link to the Bible of the Waldenses we have insight into texts that came to Beza and the Reformers. These cast a new light on why they occasionally accepted variants not in the Greek of the Byzantine.

A rhetorical question you asked just prior to talking with Robert on the DL was, “Did they [the TR editors] have access to the information we have today?” It is likewise fair to ask, Do we have access to the information they had four centuries ago? It is documented they had manuscripts that no longer exist.

David Cloud also addresses this matter in "MYTH # 2: REFORMATION EDITORS LACKED SUFFICIENT MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE": http://KJV.landmarkbiblebaptist.net/KJVmyth-2.html [Taken from his book, _Myths About The King James Bible_]

An interesting view into the matter of the TR mss comes from Theodore Letis’ _The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate_:

Owen saw only the minor variants between the various editions of TR as valid areas for discrimination, staying within the broad parameters of providential preservation, as exemplified by “Erasmus, Stephen, Beza, Arias Montanus, and some others.” Within the confines of these editions was “the first and most honest course fixed on” for “consulting various copies and comparing them among themselves.”

This is both the concrete domain of the providentially preserved text, as well as the only area for legitimate comparisons to choose readings among the minutiae of differences. In fact, “God by His Providence preserving the whole entire; suffered this lesser variety [within the providentially preserved editions of the TR –TPL] to fall out, in or among the copies we have, for the quickening and exercising of our diligence in our search into His Word [for ascertaining the finality of preservation among the minutiae of differences among the TR editions –TPL] (_The Divine Original_, p. 301)* It is the activity, editions, and variants after this period of stabilization that represent illegitimate activity, or, as Owen says, “another way.”

Thus Owen maintained an absolute providential preservation while granting variants. (“John Owen _Versus_ Brian Walton” fn 30, p. 160)​
* Owen’s _Divine Original_ online: http://www.godrules.net/library/owen/131-295owen_p5.htm. This is from volume 16 of Owen’s works.

Incidentally, this would be in line with the thinking of Dr. E.F. Hills, who allowed there were three errors in the KJV. 

There were mss extant in those days which no longer are. We often hear of John Gill asserting Stephanus had 16 manuscripts with 1 John 5 in them and 9 of them had verse 7, but they are no longer with us in 2009. We have some editions of the Majority / Byzantine Text (which differ), we have Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, Elzevir, but what _*definitive*_ TR edition do we have? Even Scrivener’s 1894 “backward engineered” TR but seeks to reproduce the particular Greek readings from these (first three) editions which conform to the KJV, though we don’t know if other versions influenced their choices, such as a Waldensian Bible might have. (Kinney has an interesting article on this: http://av1611.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4812&postcount=1) The KJV begat the 1894 TR and not vice versa. So where is our TR? Beza 1598 and Scrivener 1894 may be very close, but neither is the definitive and perfect original text. Nor did the translators use but one text. What we do have is their King James Bible. The TR 1894 would still reproduce the Greek readings underlying the AV perfectly.

Which leads me to another point. How do I proceed from here? What evidences are available to lead me to a knowledge of the truth of this textual matter that so perplexes multitudes? How do I truly know anything? I mean with absolute certainty? Only by God’s word. So I shall look to that.

Among the promises He has given to those who love Him and keep His covenant is that He would preserve His written word for them throughout the ages.

In Matt 4:4 the Lord Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Does it not follow that what He said we must live by He would see to it we have? Has not “His divine power…given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3)? When Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away” (Matt 24:35), was He referring to His words only being kept in Heaven, and not here on the earth where we need them desperately in order to live? Is not Isaiah 59:21 something that pertains to this issue:

As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.​
It is what my epistemological foundation is that matters. By that I mean, what presuppositions are operating in my worldview, and which inform my view of the Bible? First of all is, God has spoken, and revealed His heart, mind, and knowledge in written form so as to communicate these things to me. I have received true knowledge from Him. Because of what He has said, I believe that He created the world as He had revealed in the Book of Genesis. I believe His account of creation – including the creation of man and his fall – despite all supposed evidences and theories to the contrary.

I realize we all have the same data regarding the Bible, both historical and textual, but we interpret the data differently. I appreciate and use evidences but they are not my epistemological foundation. God has said He would preserve His word for us. I know you believe that also, James. Clearly we have different views on how He _did_ / or _will_ fulfill that promise. This is where it gets sticky!

For what you believe – and teach – on this matter you get a lot of invective, hatred, contempt, and rejection, and I get the same as well. Before I proceed, let me say – as the folks here at PB know all too well – I do not tolerate that railing style of “discourse” (which James says “is earthly, sensual, devilish” [3:15], and Paul says should not be allowed in the church [1 Cor 5:11-13]) regardless of which camp they are from, yours or mine. We are brothers to one another – and will walk in the streets of glory together – though we differ on this particular. I refuse to demonize you or those in your camp, and I resist such characterizations of myself and those in my camp.

With all my integrity, and the intelligence the Lord has given me, I believe my understanding of the matter to be correct, and no doubt you believe the same for yourself. Now this is where the acrimony often comes in: If you are able to tear down my beliefs in this matter (I trust the Lord will keep that from happening), I would have lost faith in the reliability of the Bible, for, having carefully studied the matter, I have already lost confidence in the view you uphold, the Critical Text position (and the eclectic as well). I no doubt speak for multitudes in this. Yes, you are right in that we have sufficient agreement in the various text-types so that the Lord may easily save whom He will through these. But I am expecting a preservation in the minutiae, and not simply in the main. But more on this below.

Unfortunately, many of our textual critics (the experts and scholars) have already succumbed to this loss of faith in the Bible:

“In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort and of van Soden, we do not know the original form of the gospels, and it is quite likely that we never shall” (Kirsopp Lake, _Family 13, The Ferrar Group_, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1941, p. vii).

“…it is generally recognized that the original text of the Bible cannot be recovered” (R.M. Grant. “The Bible of Theophilus of Antioch,” _Journal of Biblical Literature_, vol. 66, 1947, p. 173).

“…the optimism of the earlier editors has given way to that skepticisim which inclines towards regarding ‘the original text’ as an unattainable mirage” (G. Zuntz, _The Text of the Epistles_, 1953, p. 9).

“…every textual critic knows that this similarity of text indicates, rather, that we have made little progress in textual theory since Westcott-Hort; that we simply do not know how to make a definitive determination as to what the best text is; that we do not have a clear picture of the transmission and alternation of the text in the first few centuries; and accordingly, that the Westcott-Hort kind of text has maintained its dominant position largely by default” (Eldon J. Epp, “The Twentieth Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,” _Journal of Biblical Literature_, Vol. 43, 1974, pp. 390-391).

“…we no longer think of Westcott-Hort’s ‘Neutral’ text as neutral; we no longer think of their ‘Western’ text as Western or as uniting the textual elements they selected; and, of course, we no longer think so simplistically or so confidently about recovering ‘the New Testament in the Original Greek.’…We remain largely in the dark as to how we might reconstruct the textual history that has left in its wake—in the form of MSS and fragments—numerous pieces of a puzzle that we seem incapable of fitting together. Westcott-Hort, von Soden, and others had sweeping theories (which we have largely rejected) to undergird their critical texts, but we seem now to have no such theories and no plausible sketches of the early history of the text that are widely accepted. What progress, then, have we made? Are we more advanced than our predecessors when, after showing their theories to be unacceptable, we offer no such theories at all to vindicate our accepted text?” (Eldon J. Epp, “A Continuing Interlude in NT Textual Criticism,” _Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism_, (Eerdman’s, 1993), pp. 114, 115).​
This pessimism is _*not*_ what the Lord has provided for His people! Granted, James, this is not your view, but the trickle-down effect of these views has already impacted the believers in the pews, and many of those in the pulpits as well. There is a steady erosion of confidence in the intactness of the Word God has left His church. When we – you and I, and others like us – go at it as we do, it furthers this process. I hope to proceed in such a way as to greatly limit this erosion. I have not only a scholar’s and warrior’s interest in this matter, but a pastor’s!

In your conversation with Robert one thing I noticed very prominent in your remarks to him was your insistence on the need for *consistency* in our arguments for and defenses of the Faith and its foundational Scriptures, and in particular the present issue here, Do we have a reliable Scripture, and which is it?

Note here, please, the thread of cohesion in my arguments – the point of consistency throughout: *God promised to preserve His word*, and this is how He did it, _*according to how I believe*_ (upon which I shall be elaborating). Of course you are right, James, to say this is not the only view of preservation there is, and people may well believe He has done it in another manner.

Before I wax too theoretical, let me try to _*briefly*_ address the three TR (1894) readings of Luke 2:22, Revelation 16:5, and the final six verses of Revelation. Whether I discuss the TR 1894 or the KJV it amounts to the same thing.

Permit me, please, to use the work of scholars I think sufficient to satisfy the desire for “a sound rational approach” while maintaining our faith that God’s providence arranged for these readings to be in the TR editions the 1611 translators used and – over those of other differing readings – chose. A brief discussion will follow this quote from Dr. Thomas Holland’s, _Crowned With Glory: The Bible from Ancient Text to Authorized Version_, pages 150-153.

Luke 2:22 – “of her purification” 

_And when the days *of her purification* according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;_

Here the variant is small but the difference is profound. The _Authorized Version_ and Textus Receptus (Beza's edition and Elzevir's edition) use the phrase, _"of her purification"_ (_katharismou autes_). Modern versions and the Critical Text read, _"of their purification"_ (_katharismou auton_). Contextually, the reading must stand as reflected in the KJV. Under the Levitical Law a woman was considered unclean after giving birth and needed purification. The passage in Leviticus 12: 2-4 reads,

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.​
The citation is quite clear: this was "_her purifying_" and not the purifying of both mother and child. Therefore, the _Authorized Version_ and the Greek Textus Receptus agree with the Levitical Law.

To offset this point, some have suggested that the word _them_ is a reference to Mary and Joseph. The argument is that since Joseph and Mary are mentioned in verse 16 and referred to in the second half of verse 22, the word _them_ referred to the married couple. The obvious doctrinal problem with this is that under the Law of Moses, as set forth in Leviticus 12, the woman and not the husband needed purification after giving birth. The best contextual reading agrees with the _Authorized Version_, as it would support both the Old Testament Law and the actions presented in Luke's Gospel. [1]

Admittedly, the Greek support now known for the reading as found in the Textus Receptus is extremely poor. It is found in a few Greek minuscules such as 76 and a few others. [2] There is an additional textual variant within the Greek manuscripts. Codex D05 (sixth century), which is highly acclaimed among textual scholars, has the reading _autou_ (of it). While the reading _autns_ (of her) is preferred, both readings stand in the genitive singular and not the plural as _auton_ (of them). Additionally, we find the Sinaitic Syriac and the Sahidic Coptic versions supporting 2174, and D. 

The reading _her purification_ has a great deal of textual support among the Latin witnesses. The majority of all Latin manuscripts read, _et postquam postquam impleti sunt dies purgationis eius secundum legem mosi_ (And after the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses). The Latin word _eius_ (or _ejus_) means _her_ and stands in the feminine genitive singular, thus _of her_. In order to have the translation _of them_, the Latin texts would have to use the word _eorum_. When we consider the age and the number of extant Latin manuscripts, we find the reading is both ancient and well substantiated. It is also interesting to note that the reading has some support in the forged _Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew_ (possible third century). Written in Latin, it allows us to see that the purification spoken of in Luke 2:22 was a reference to Mary. _Pseudo-Matthew_ reads: "Now, after the days of the purification of Mary were fulfilled according to the law of Moses, then Joseph took the infant to the temple of the Lord" (15:1).

-------
Footnotes

[1] There is a debate among textual critics regarding _eclecticism_. Most support what is commonly called "reasoned eclecticism" which tends to focus on the age and number of existing Greek manuscripts. However, scholars such as G. D. Kilpatrick and J. K. Elliot promote "_rigorous eclecticism_" which focuses on the internal evidence above the external textual evidence. Therefore, according to this type of eclecticism, any textual variant regardless of age or number could conceivably be the correct reading if the internal evidence is sufficient. See Kilpatrick, _The Principles and Practice of New Testament Textual Criticism_, 1990, pp. 33-52.

[2] Edward F. Hills, _The King James Version Defended_ (1956; reprint, Des Moines: The Christian Research Press, 1984), 221.​
End Holland.

Before I comment I’ll also include a paragraph from Kevin James’, _The Corruption of the Word: The Failure of Modern New Testament Scholarship_:

An original Aramaic copy of Luke can also give a possible answer. In Aramaic, the letters for “his” or “her” are the same: THRH. The difference in meaning is determined by the vowels assigned to these four letters; “her” purification is the_RaH_ while “his” purification is the_RayH_ (Brown, Driver, Briggs and Gesenius _Hebrew Lexicon_,1979, p. 372; Alger F. Johns, _A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic_, Andrews Univ. Press, 1982, pp. 6, 13). It is easy to see how an early copyist engaged in the translation of an Aramaic Luke into Greek, could mistakenly write “his” for “her” purification. Later copyists, finding both, wrote “their.” (p. 70)​
This reminds me of another reading where the text seems to have wide circulation and acceptance today, yet is wrong, that being the Critical Text’s Matthew 1:7 and 10, where the correct Asa and Amon – in Christ’s lineage – are replaced by Asaph and Amos. It is in the Greek of Vaticanus (and a very few others), and rendered into the English by the ESV. Metzger opines that the error was in the original Matthew wrote (the autograph!) and should remain in the Greek text. In the verse considered above, Luke 2:22, “their” is likewise wrong, though with far less textual attestation than the correct Asa and Amon have.

Now here is my point: Corruptions / mutilations did enter into the text, even the Byzantine; why should not the God, in whose hand is the heart of kings, to turn them “whithersoever He will” (Prov 21:1), why should He not turn the hearts of those editors of His word to pick the words He wants restored to the text? This is consistent with my method (though I realize not yours, James): _*in the main*_ God preserved the accurate reading of the autographs in the Byzantine tradition; _*in some minute particulars*_, where the Byz lost the true reading, but by Him “kept pure in all ages” in some other manuscripts or traditions, and restored when He deigned to bring His word into the English language and those other language versions the great missionary movements sent forth throughout the world. As He is Lord of the Book, superintending it with His invincible care (“…for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” Ps 138:2 [Cf. ESV margin]), this is no big thing for the One who moved an empire to have His Son born in Bethlehem, who knows the names of all the stars in the _billions_ of galaxies (in the _known_ universe), who knows no limits to the care He will bestow on the Bride He has chosen for His Son, providing for her “all things that pertain unto life and godliness”, foremost of which is “every word that proceedeth out of [His] mouth” and by which we must live! (2 Pet 1:3; Matt 4:4) 

Mine is a supernatural faith from beginning to end; my salvation is such, and the word by which I have been begotten is such. Why is it thought odd I should see the Book of God in this same light? My faith is not in the scientific scrutiny of men, in their theories of transmission and texts, but in the power and promises of the God of my life, His Book being one of those supernatural wonders. As the repentant emperor confessed, “...he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (Dan 4:35) And the apostle says the same, He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph 1:11).

Surely you will say to me, James, “But it is not written _*how*_ He will work all things, especially with regard to His Book.” Agreed. I say those things to show how easily He _*could*_ have brought readings back to His Book lost through error, accident, or design. In the realm of faith it is as sound a view – at the _*least*_ – as marshalling evidences. But this does not mean we are bereft of such! Evidences are just not the foundation of our understanding. 

.........


Not that we are bereft of evidences! For instance, Dr. Wilbur Pickering posits a compelling view of the transmission and preservation of the NT autographs in the early years of the church (please bear with my entering this segment of his work, as it substantiates the argument I posit regarding the warranted preference of the Byzantine textform over that of the Alexandrian/CT, upon which I build):

This is from chapter 5 in Wilbur N. Pickering’s, _The Identity of the New Testament Text II_, where he talks about the history and factors involved concerning the copies made from the autographs. Please note that this later version of the book (the online version) is slightly different from the earlier hardcopy book:

We have objective historical evidence in support of the following propositions:


The true text was never "lost".


In A.D. 200 the exact original wording of the several books could still be verified and attested.


There was therefore no need to practice textual criticism and any such effort would be spurious.

However, presumably some areas would be in a better position to protect and transmit the true text than others.

[size=+1]*Who Was Best Qualified?*[/size]

What factors would be important for guaranteeing, or at least facilitating, a faithful transmission of the text of the N.T. writings? I submit that there are four controlling factors: access to the Autographs, proficiency in the source language, the strength of the Church and an appropriate attitude toward the Text.

*Access to the Autographs*

This criterion probably applied for less than a hundred years (the Autographs were presumably worn to a frazzle in that space of time) but it is highly significant to a proper understanding of the history of the transmission of the Text. Already by the year 100 there must have been many copies of the various books (some more than others) while it was certainly still possible to check a copy against the original, should a question arise. The point is that there was a swelling stream of faithfully executed copies emanating from the holders of the Autographs to the rest of the Christian world. In those early years the producers of copies would know that the true wording could be verified, which would discourage them from taking liberties with the text.

However, distance would presumably be a factor—for someone in north Africa to consult the Autograph of Ephesians would be an expensive proposition, in both time and money. I believe we may reasonably conclude that in general the quality of copies would be highest in the area surrounding the Autograph and would gradually deteriorate as the distance increased. Important geographical barriers would accentuate the tendency.

So who held the Autographs? Speaking in terms of regions, Asia Minor may be safely said to have had twelve (John, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Philemon, 1 Peter, 1 and 2 and 3 John, and Revelation), Greece may be safely said to have had six (1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Titus in Crete), Rome may be safely said to have had two (Mark and Romans)—as to the rest, Luke, Acts, and 2 Peter were probably held by either Asia Minor or Rome; Matthew and James by either Asia Minor or Palestine; Hebrews by Rome or Palestine; while it is hard to state even a probability for Jude it was quite possibly held by Asia Minor. Taking Asia Minor and Greece together, the Aegean area held the Autographs of at least eighteen (two-thirds of the total) and possibly as many as twenty-four of the twenty-seven New Testament books; Rome held at least two and possibly up to seven; Palestine may have held up to three (but in A.D. 70 they would have been sent away for safe keeping, quite possibly to Antioch); Alexandria (Egypt) held *none.* The Aegean region clearly had the best start, and Alexandria the worst—the text in Egypt could only be second hand, at best. On the face of it, we may reasonably assume that in the earliest period of the transmission of the N.T. Text the most reliable copies would be circulating in the region that held the Autographs. Recalling the discussion of Tertullian above, I believe we may reasonably extend this conclusion to A.D. 200 and beyond. So, in the year 200 someone looking for the best text of the N.T. would presumably go to the Aegean area; certainly not to Egypt.

*Proficiency in the source language*

As a linguist (PhD) and one who has dabbled in the Bible translation process for some years, I affirm that a 'perfect' translation is impossible. (Indeed, a tolerably reasonable approximation is often difficult enough to achieve.) It follows that any divine solicitude for the precise form of the NT Text would have to be mediated through the language of the Autographs—Greek. Evidently ancient Versions (Syriac, Latin, Coptic) may cast a clear vote with reference to major variants, but precision is possible only in Greek (in the case of the N.T.). That by way of background, but our main concern here is with the copyists.

To copy a text by hand in a language you do not understand is a tedious exercise—it is almost impossible to produce a perfect copy (try it and see!). You virtually have to copy letter by letter and constantly check your place. (It is even more difficult if there is no space between words and no punctuation, as was the case with the N.T. Text in the early centuries.) But if you cannot understand the text it is very difficult to remain alert. Consider the case of P66. This papyrus manuscript is perhaps the oldest (c. 200) extant N.T. manuscript of any size (it contains most of John). It is one of the worst copies we have. It has an average of roughly two mistakes per verse—many being obvious mistakes, stupid mistakes, nonsensical mistakes. From the pattern of mistakes it is clear that the scribe copied syllable by syllable. I have no qualms in affirming that the person who produced P66 did not know Greek. Had he understood the text he would not have made the number and sort of mistakes that he did.

Now consider the problem from God's point of view. To whom should He entrust the primary responsibility for the faithful transmission of the N.T. Text? If the Holy Spirit is going to take an active part in the process, where should He concentrate His efforts? Presumably fluent speakers of Greek would have the inside track, and areas where Greek would continue in active use would be preferred. For a faithful transmission to occur the copyists had to be proficient in Greek, and over the long haul. So where was Greek predominant? Evidently in Greece and Asia Minor; Greek is the mother tongue of Greece to this day (having changed considerably during the intervening centuries, as any living language must). The dominance of Greek in the Aegean area was guaranteed by the Byzantine Empire for many centuries; in fact, until the invention of printing. Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453; the Gutenberg Bible (Latin) was printed just three years later, while the first printed Greek New Testament appeared in 1516. (For those who believe in Providence, I would suggest that here we have a powerful case in point.)

How about Egypt? The use of Greek in Egypt was already declining by the beginning of the Christian era. Bruce Metzger observes that the Hellenized section of the population in Egypt "was only a fraction in comparison with the number of native inhabitants who used only the Egyptian languages."[21] By the third century the decline was evidently well advanced. I have already argued that the copyist who did P66 (c. 200) did not know Greek. Now consider the case of P75 (c. 220). E.C. Colwell analyzed P75 and found about 145 itacisms plus 257 other singular readings, 25% of which are nonsensical. From the pattern of mistakes it is clear that the copyist who did P75 copied letter by letter![22] This means that he did not know Greek—when transcribing in a language you know you copy phrase by phrase, or at least word by word. K. Aland argues that before 200 the tide had begun to turn against the use of Greek in the areas that spoke Latin, Syriac or Coptic, and fifty years later the changeover to the local languages was well advanced.[23]

Again the Aegean Area is far and away the best qualified to transmit the Text with confidence and integrity. Note that even if Egypt had started out with a good text, already by the end of the 2nd century its competence to transmit the text was steadily deteriorating. In fact the early papyri (they come from Egypt) are demonstrably inferior in quality, taken individually, as well as exhibiting rather different types of text (they disagree among themselves).

*The strength of the Church*

This question is relevant to our discussion for two reasons. First, the law of supply and demand operates in the Church as well as elsewhere. Where there are many congregations and believers there will be an increased demand for copies of the Scriptures. Second, a strong, well established church will normally have a confident, experienced leadership—just the sort that would take an interest in the quality of their Scriptures and also be able to do something about it. So in what areas was the early Church strongest?

Although the Church evidently began in Jerusalem, the early persecutions and apostolic activity caused it to spread. The main line of advance seems to have been north into Asia Minor and west into Europe. If the selection of churches to receive the glorified Christ's "letters" (Rev. 2 and 3) is any guide, the center of gravity of the Church seems to have shifted from Palestine to Asia Minor by the end of the first century. (The destruction of Jerusalem by Rome's armies in A.D. 70 would presumably be a contributing factor.) Kurt Aland agrees with Adolf Harnack that "about 180 the greatest concentration of churches was in Asia Minor and along the Aegean coast of Greece." He continues: "The overall impression is that the concentration of Christianity was in the East. . . . Even around A.D. 325 the scene was still largely unchanged. Asia Minor continued to be the heartland of the Church."[24] "The heartland of the Church"—so who else would be in a better position to certify the correct text of the New Testament?

What about Egypt? C.H. Roberts, in a scholarly treatment of the Christian literary papyri of the first three centuries, seems to favor the conclusion that the Alexandrian church was weak and insignificant to the Greek Christian world in the second century.[25] Aland states: "Egypt was distinguished from other provinces of the Church, so far as we can judge, by the early dominance of gnosticism."[26] He further informs us that "at the close of the 2nd century" the Egyptian church was "dominantly gnostic" and then goes on to say: "The copies existing in the gnostic communities could not be used, because they were under suspicion of being corrupt."[27] Now this is all very instructive—what Aland is telling us, in other words, is that up to A.D. 200 the textual tradition in Egypt *could not be trusted.* Aland's assessment here is most probably correct. Notice what Bruce Metzger says about the early church in Egypt:

Among the Christian documents which during the second century either originated in Egypt or circulated there among both the orthodox and the Gnostics are numerous apocryphal gospels, acts, epistles, and apocalypses. . . . There are also fragments of exegetical and dogmatic works composed by Alexandrian Christians, chiefly Gnostics, during the second century. . . . In fact, to judge by the comments made by Clement of Alexandria, almost every deviant Christian sect was represented in Egypt during the second century; Clement mentions the Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Marcionites, the Peratae, the Encratites, the Docetists, the Haimetites, the Cainites, the Ophites, the Simonians, and the Eutychites. What proportion of Christians in Egypt during the second century were orthodox is not known.[28]​
It is almost enough to make one wonder whether Isaiah 30:1-3 might not be a prophecy about N.T. textual criticism!

But we need to pause to reflect on the implications of Aland's statements. He is a champion of the Egyptian ("Alexandrian") text-type, and yet he himself informs us that up to A.D. 200 the textual tradition in Egypt could not be trusted and that by 200 the use of Greek had virtually died out there. So on what basis can he argue that the Egyptian text subsequently became the best? Aland also states that in the 2nd century, 3rd century, and into the 4th century Asia Minor continued to be "the heartland of the Church." This means that the superior qualifications of the Aegean area to protect, transmit and attest the N.T. Text carry over into the 4th century! It happens that Hort, Metzger and Aland (along with many others) have linked the "Byzantine" text-type to Lucian of Antioch, who died in 311. Now really, wouldn't a text produced by a leader in "the heartland of the Church" be better than whatever evolved in Egypt?

*Attitude toward the Text*

Where careful work is required, the attitude of those to whom the task is entrusted is of the essence. Are they aware? Do they agree? If they do not understand the nature of the task, the quality will probably do down. If they understand but do not agree, they might even resort to sabotage—a damaging eventuality. In the case of the N.T. books we may begin with the question: "Why would copies be made?"

We have seen that the faithful recognized the authority of the N.T. writings from the start, so the making of copies would have begun at once. The authors clearly intended their writings to be circulated, and the quality of the writings was so obvious that the word would get around and each assembly would want a copy. That Clement and Barnabas quote and allude to a variety of N.T. books by the turn of the 1st century makes clear that copies were in circulation. A Pauline corpus was known to Peter before A.D. 70. Polycarp (XIII) c. 115, in answer to a request from the Philippian church, sent a collection of Ignatius' letters to them, possibly within five years after Ignatius wrote them. Evidently it was normal procedure to make copies and collections (of worthy writings) so each assembly could have a set. Ignatius referred to the free travel and exchange between the churches and Justin to the weekly practice of reading the Scriptures in the assemblies (they had to have copies).

A second question would be: "What was the attitude of the copyists toward their work?" We already have the essence of the answer. Being followers of Christ, and believing that they were dealing with Scripture, to a basic honesty would be added reverence in their handling of the Text, from the start. And to these would be added vigilance, since the Apostles had repeatedly and emphatically warned them against false teachers. As the years went by, assuming that the faithful were persons of at least average integrity and intelligence, they would produce careful copies of the manuscripts they had received from the previous generation, persons whom they trusted, being assured that they were transmitting the true text. There would be accidental copying mistakes in their work, but no deliberate changes. It is important to note that the earliest Christians did not need to be textual critics. Starting out with what they knew to be the pure text, they had only to be reasonably honest and careful. I submit that we have good reason for understanding that they were especially watchful and careful—this especially in the early decades.

As time went on regional attitudes developed, not to mention regional politics. The rise of the so-called "school of Antioch" is a relevant consideration. Beginning with Theophilus, a bishop of Antioch who died around 185, the Antiochians began insisting upon the literal interpretation of Scripture. The point is that a literalist is obliged to be concerned about the precise wording of the text since his interpretation or exegesis hinges upon it.

It is reasonable to assume that this "literalist" mentality would have influenced the churches of Asia Minor and Greece and encouraged them in the careful and faithful transmission of the pure text that they had received. For example, the 1,000 MSS of the Syriac Peshitta are unparalleled for their consistency. (By way of contrast, the 8,000 MSS of the Latin Vulgate are remarkable for their extensive discrepancies, and in this they follow the example of the Old Latin MSS.) It is not unreasonable to suppose that the Antiochian antipathy toward the Alexandrian allegorical interpretation of Scripture would rather indispose them to view with favor any competing forms of the text coming out of Egypt. Similarly the Quarto-deciman controversy with Rome would scarcely enhance the appeal of any innovations coming from the West.

To the extent that the roots of the allegorical approach that flourished in Alexandria during the third century were already present, they would also be a negative factor. Since Philo of Alexandria was at the height of his influence when the first Christians arrived there, it may be that his allegorical interpretation of the O.T. began to rub off on the young church already in the first century. Since an allegorist is going to impose his own ideas on the text anyway, he would presumably have fewer inhibitions about altering it—precise wording would not be a high priority.

The school of literary criticism that existed at Alexandria would also be a negative factor, if it influenced the Church at all, and W.R. Farmer argues that it did. "But there is ample evidence that by the time of Eusebius the Alexandrian text-critical practices were being followed in at least some of the scriptoria where New Testament manuscripts were being produced. Exactly when Alexandrian text-critical principles were first used . . . is not known."[29] He goes on to suggest that the Christian school founded in Alexandria by Pantaenus, around 180, was bound to be influenced by the scholars of the great library of that city. The point is, the principles used in attempting to "restore" the works of Homer would not be appropriate for the NT writings when appeal to the Autographs, or exact copies made from them, was still possible.

*Conclusion*

What answer do the "four controlling factors" give to our question? The four speak with united voice: "The Aegean area was the best qualified to protect, transmit and attest the true text of the N.T. writings." This was true in the 2nd century; it was true in the 3rd century; it continued to be true in the 4th century. And now we are ready to answer the question, "Was the transmission normal?", and to attempt to trace the history of the text.

-------

Notes

[21]Metzger, _Early Versions_, p. 104.
[22]Colwell, "Scribal Habits," pp. 374-76, 380.
[23]K. and B. Aland, _The Text of the New Testament_ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), pp. 52-53.
[24]_Ibid_., p. 53.
[25]Roberts, pp. 42-43, 54-58.
[26]K. and B. Aland, p. 59.
[27]K. Aland, "The Text of the Church?", _Trinity Journal_, 1987, 8NS:138.
[28]Metzger, _Early Versions_, p. 101.
[29]W.R. Farmer, _The Last Twelve Verses of Mark_ (Cambridge: University Press, 1974), pp. 14-15. He cites B.H. Streeter, _The Four Gospels_, 1924, pp. 111, 122-23.​
----------

I post this fairly lengthy section of Pickering’s to give an idea of the text-critical hypothesis he gives to account for the existence of the Byzantine text, and also to put in perspective the phenomenon of the Alexandrian textform. Remember what Dr. Maurice Robinson said,



> A sound rational approach which accounts for all the phenomena and offers a reconstruction of the history of textual transmission is all that is demanded for any text-critical hypothesis. (From the Introduction to _The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Byzantine/Majority Textform_, by Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont.



Please, forgive this lengthy _*apparent*_ digression from the discussion of Revelation 16:5! We have not interacted before, James, and I need to establish my arguments with some substance, so both you can see my frame of reference, as well as those who are observing our discussion and unfamiliar with me – as *you* are quite well known from your books and AOMIN, but I am, to quote Dylan, “a complete unknown”! Henceforth I will for the most part try to give the URLs to material rather than posting them. 

You must be getting impatient to see what I have to say. To Revelation 16:5:

Among us there are two schools of thought concerning this text. One of them is that of E.F. Hills, who opined that it is a “conjectural emendation” and ought not be recognized as original; this would agree with the _methodology_ of John Owen (noted above), although I do not know Owen’s view of this particular verse. According to Hills, and in principle by Owen, this is the proper domain of discerning the true text – within the parameters of the TR editions and mss, and not elsewhere. So there is no inconsistency when this camp of the AV / TR advocates select other TR readings and deny this one.

The other school, represented by Will Kinney, Dr. Thomas Holland, and others, have a presuppositional view that holds the providential preservation of God is to be seen in the fait accompli of the King James Bible deriving from the Hebrew and Greek Texts underlying it – and that this divine accomplishment by its very existence overrides evidentiary considerations to the contrary. Let me explain that.

The Lord promised to preserve His word. Psalm 12:6, 7. I am full aware that the modern versions reflect an exegetical tradition which makes verse 7 refer to the men rather than the words, and I have read what you say of these verses in your book, _The King James Only Controversy_ (KJOC).

It remains that an entire exegetical tradition – a tradition upheld by both Jewish and Christian exegetes – has been suppressed by mere editorial fiat with bias, and manifests in the modern version renderings of this verse. This is not the only place _*where suppression of textual evidence*_ occurs, as we shall see in further discussion of the Book of Revelation below.

To substantiate this allegation I give links to some sources (as I said I would, rather than encumber the discussion with too much material):

Peter Van Kleeck on Psalm 12:6, 7: http://www.wayoflife.org/otimothy/tl040003.htm
Will Kinney citing multiple authors on Psalm 12:6, 7: http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1096061&postcount=10

Above I cited Isaiah 59:21, and then Matthew 4:4 together with 2 Peter 1:3 as Scripture affirming that God would preserve his words; _*you*_ say they are spread throughout the manuscripts, and by diligent effort the scholars may ascertain which are authentic and which are not; _*I*_ (speaking for the latter mentioned school on preservation) say God in His providence preserved them _in the main_ in the Byzantine texts, and in certain particulars – which had been lost in the Byz – through other versions, or through what appears as the mere “conjectural emendation” of the all-too-human Theodore Beza (or, in other cases, Erasmus). What you see as chance I see as design. What you see as merely human (and human failing, at that) I see as divine. This is the _consistency_ I spoke of; some things I can’t explain in evidential terms, but can according to promises of Scripture. Again, you will say, “But it nowhere says _*how*_ God will keep those (prophetic) promises of preservation.” We often discern the fulfillment of prophecy with hindsight. I believe my discernment (the KJV/TR view) of His fulfilling His promises has _*far*_ greater merit and credence than yours. 

The Lord preserved His word in the main, I reiterate, in the Byz, even though some passages were lost from it. Were I to go into _*this*_ aspect of the transmission here (the losing or changing of passages) I would have to add a lot of material, so I will pass it by for now. At the time of Erasmus and the later editors of the Byz-cum-TR the Lord brought the true reading back.

You have said, James, that for Rev 16:5 the KJV phrase “and shalt be” has no Greek manuscript support, neither is it found in any English translation before the King James. You didn’t mention the Latin, as it is found in Beatus of Liebana’s compiled commentary on the book of Revelation (786 A.D.) where he uses the Latin phrase “qui fuisti et futures es”. In this compilation he was preserving the commentary of Tyconius (approx 380 A.D.). So there is manuscript support. Whether Beza knew of it or not, the 1611 translators may well have, and we do not know what manuscripts they had at their disposal, likely many more than we know of four centuries later. 

Jack Moorman, in his, _Hodges/Farstad “Majority” Text Refuted By Evidence_ (also titled, _When the King James Departs from the “Majority Text”_, says,

The King James reading is in harmony with the four other places in Revelation where this phrase is found.
1:4 “him which is, and which was, and which is to come”
1:8 “the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty”
4:8 “Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come”
11:17 “Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come”

Indeed Christ is the Holy One, but in the Scriptures of the Apostle John the title is found only once (1 John 2:20), and there, a totally different Greek word is used. The Preface to the Authorized Version reads, “With the former translations diligently compared and revised”.

The translators must have felt there was good reason to insert these words though it ran counter to much external evidence. (p. 102)​
Moorman’s book available at http://www.biblefortoday.org/search.asp search for item #1617.

I should add that in their respective commentaries on Revelation, G.K. Beale and Dennis E. Johnson both are of the view that “...the future-oriented member (‘who is to come’) of this threefold confession is deleted. When the bowls are poured out, the coming One will have come in holy justice.” (Johnson, _Triumph of the Lamb_, p. 227)

However, I see this as simply interpreting the text – the reading – they believed was the right one.

Sources used for 16:5:

Thomas Holland http://www.purewords.org/kjb1611/html/rev16_5.htm
Will Kinney http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/Rev16-5.html

Let me take an example from the NASB which is similar.

Deuteronomy 26:3 KJV “...I profess this day unto the LORD THY God, that I am come unto the country, which the LORD sware unto our fathers for to give us.” Here all Hebrew texts as well as the RV, ASV, NKJV, NIV, RSV, NRSV, ESV and Holman read either THY God, or YOUR God (which mean the same thing), but only the NASB follows the Greek Septuagint version and says: “unto the Lord MY God...” The footnotes in versions like Holman, ESV tell us this. Even the online NASB footnotes that the reading of “MY God” comes from the LXX, but that the Hebrew reads “your God”.

From Kinney: http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/NIVapos.html​
The NASB uses a source other than the Hebrew (i.e., without any Hebrew support), other than most of the other modern versions, and you give us grief that the King James uses a version without Greek support? You say your methodology is at least consistent, whereas mine is not. If I were to say we _*always*_ go by the majority of manuscripts, or even the majority within the Byz majority, then your charge would have weight; but that is not my method. I say we go by the Byz in the main, but infrequently, in certain cases, the Lord sovereignly breaks method in lieu of a wisdom above man’s wisdom and methods. You may not appreciate this, but it is consistent. 

To sum on Rev 16:5: Whether one takes the Hills / Owen position that there may be minute variations within the narrow precincts of the TR manuscripts, or the Kinney / Holland view that God was able to _*and actually did*_ restore the readings He had preserved elsewhere than the Byz to the text editions available to the 1611 translators, these two AV / TR options are, to my view (and many others) certainly at least as plausible as the hypotheses you formulate.


.........



Before I go on to the last six verses of Revelation, I’d like to make a few points. Robert said on the DL, “What we have today in the Byzantine mss are the inspired word-for-word copies of the autographs....The TR is a collation of these manuscripts and consequently contains the sacred apographa of the autographs.”

“Collation” is obviously not the right word; the TR is an _*edition*_ of these manuscripts would be better. Nor is the “in the Byzantine mss are the inspired, word-for-word copies of the autographs” correct. For there are TR passages that are not in the Byz, as is clear.

It has been asked, “If only the Greek Byzantine was the providentially preserved text, what about the other locations in the world that had a different texttype – did they not have a preserved and adequate Bible?” And I would answer:

There is a preserving of the text, and there is a preserving of the text — the latter where its integrity is held even to minute readings not granted the former. That the former was nonetheless efficacious is analogous to the Bibles based upon the CT being efficacious to save and edify God’s people today, as witnessed by the multitudes regenerated and brought to maturity through those who use the NIV, NASB, ESV etc. The _minute preservation_ occurred in the primary edition (the Masoretic Hebrew and the Greek TR and their King James translation) which was to serve the English-speaking people and the translations created for the vast missionary work they undertook, which impacted the entire world. There was a progression in the purifying of the text, so as to almost (and some say completely) perfectly reconstitute the original manuscripts of the apostles, even as there has been, in the area of theology, a restoration of apostolic doctrine, which also went through phases of deterioration and eventual renewal.

Thus, even those areas of the church which were non-Greek-speaking also had a “preserved text”—as do multitudes in this present day—though their texts were not “minutely preserved.” The texts they had were efficacious unto the salvation of souls and the sustaining of the churches. The distinction is between an _adequate_ preservation as distinguished from preservation in the _minutiae_.

As regarding the Lord’s promise to preserve His Scripture (Matt 24:35; Isaiah 59:21; etc), many times the people of God have not understood how a prophecy was to be fulfilled until it was a done thing, and then they looked backward to see how He had worked. It is thus in observing how He fulfilled His promise to preserve His word. When the Lord prophesies, does it have to come about instantly? Is there not sometimes progression, as in the development seen in the Olivet discourse of events from the time Jerusalem fell till the time of the end?

Concerning the statement in the Westminster Confession, 1:8

The Old Testament in Hebrew... and the New Testament in Greek... being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical...​
I am not sure if you will agree that Warfield introduced a new understanding of this section differing from that of the framers, but such is the case (I can elaborate on this if necessary*). What I want to say concerns what this “kept pure in all ages” entailed. Does it mean that there was a pure text – intact in the sense of the autographic documents – in all generations and all locales? Does it mean every generation and geographical area had an equivalent of an autographic copy? I do not believe so. I believe this means that the Lord kept the true readings of the autographic Hebrew and Greek extant in all ages; when in certain textual traditions (I am thinking of the Greek here) some readings were removed they were retained elsewhere – and later restored to the Greek by His providence. The Hebrew and Greek copies – the apographs – the WCF divines had in hand exemplified this.

Another view that I have given my attention to recently (or it has been newly presented in such a way as to arrest my attention), is the verbal plenary preservation view (VPP). Upon initially hearing of it I thought that as regards the NT it could only have been accomplished through the Waldenses, and coming upon the link given above on the topic that does seem to be a promising approach, which I will investigate further. I have written before (here on PB) of Frederick Nolan and his investigation into the old Italik version. I have studied the Waldensian history before, and this renews my interest.

* Extended quote of Letis on Warfield and WCF 1:8: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/wcf-1-8-ct-40915/index3.html#post510367

and: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/wcf-1-8-ct-40915/index3.html#post509179


About your saying that 94% of Majority Text mss came into existence after 900 A.D. 

That statement doesn’t give the true picture. I shall give a quote from Maurice Robinson:

We do know that, after the 9th century, almost all manuscripts ceased to be copied in the uncial style (capital-letters), and were systematically replaced by the "modern" minuscule style (cursive-letters) which then predominated until the invention of printing. This "copying revolution" resulted in the destruction of hundreds of previously-existing uncial manuscripts once their faithful counterpart had been produced in minuscule script. Many truly ancient uncials may have vanished within a century due to this change in the handwriting style. Those palimpsest[34] manuscripts which survive provide mute testimony to the fate of many of those ancient uncials, the remnants of which, having been erased and re-used to copy sermons or liturgical texts, might simply have perished or been discarded once those texts were no longer considered valuable.

Since Kirsopp Lake found only genealogically-unrelated manuscripts at Sinai, Patmos, and Jerusalem, he concluded that it was "hard to resist the conclusion that the scribes usually destroyed their exemplars."[35] If strictly applied to all copying generations, this view would lead to a number of logical fallacies. Some of these have been discussed by Donald A. Carson and Wilbur Pickering.[36]

However, the real explanation of Lake's comment revolves around the "copying revolution": scribes apparently destroyed uncial exemplars as they converted the Greek text into the then-standard minuscule format. Thus, the apparently unrelated mass of later minuscules may in fact stem from long-lost uncial sources far older than the date of the minuscules containing them. This in itself adds a significant weight to the testimony of the minuscule mass, especially those copied in the ninth and tenth centuries, at the height of the copying revolution.

For modern researchers summarily to neglect the text of the minuscules because they mostly reflect a Byzantine type of text is to suggest that their text is all one and all late, in accord with Hort's thesis concerning the ultimate origin of the Byzantine Textform. Yet Von Soden and subsequent researchers have clearly shown the internal diversity found among the manuscripts of the Byzantine Textform – a diversity which cannot be accounted for genealogically. An unprejudiced consideration of the present hypothesis will impart a value to (at least) the earlier minuscule testimony which ranges far beyond that allowed by modern critics. This factor now makes the complete collation of all known minuscule manuscripts an important task which should be completed as rapidly as possible.[37]

------
Footnotes
34 From the Greek, "to rub again." The term denotes a manuscript from which the original text was erased and a second, differing text placed on top of the original writing. Through the use of various methods (e.g., ultraviolet light), the original text can often be recovered with extreme accuracy. 

35 Lake, Blake, and New, "Caesarean Text of Mark," p.349. 

36 Donald A. Carson, _The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism_ (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), pp. 47-48, note 5. Pickering offered a clarification and rebuttal of Carson's critique which differs at points from the present hypothesis; see Pickering, _Identity_, pp. 230-231, note 30 

37 See further W. J. Elliott, "The Need for an Accurate and Complete Collation of all known Greek NT Manuscripts with their Individual Variants noted in pleno," in J. K Elliott, ed., _Studies in New Testament Language and Text_ [G. D. Kilpatrick Festschrift] (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), pp. 137-143.​
Sorry to enter such a lengthy quote, but it is crucial to begin breaking the oft-stated error that these thousands of 9th and 10th century Majority Text minuscules were “late” and thus of no consequence! Of the minuscules, Kirsopp Lake says in his book, _The Text of The New Testament_, 

Then, in the ninth century, Theodore the Studite, or some of his associates in the monastery of the Studium in Constantinople, invented an new and extremely beautiful form of cursive writing for literary purposes. This appears to have been adopted almost at once throughout the Greek world, and, although in succeeding centuries some local differences can be noticed, it remained dominant throughout the Byzantine Empire....It must not be assumed that an uncial is necessarily a more valuable witness to the text than a minuscule. Many uncials have a late text, while not a few minuscules have rare readings which bear witness to types of text otherwise lost to us. In short, it is neither the date nor the script of a MS. which determines its value for the critic, but the textual history of its ancestors. (p. 12)​
To assume an uncial _*is*_ a “more valuable witness” than a minuscule has led to a mudslide of opinion obscuring a proper apprehension of the history of the text! Not to belabor the old Westcott and Hort fallacies (held by few and far between nowadays), but Hort’s testimony is illuminating:

The fundamental Text of late extant Greek MSS. generally is beyond all question identical with the dominant Antiochian or Græco-Syrian Text of the second half of the fourth century. (_The New Testament in the Original Greek_, Vol II, p. 92). [Cited in Burgon’s _The Revision Revised_, p. 257.]​
Hort also says,

A theoretical presumption indeed remains that a majority of extant documents is more likely to represent a majority of ancestral documents at each stage of transmission than _vise versa_. Ibid., p. 45.​
There was a revolution in manuscript writing that reached its height in the 900s, where minuscule writing (using lowercase Greek letters) replaced the older Uncial / majuscule (uppercase) letters, and all the old uncials in use were copied in the new format and then, as text critic Kirsopp Lake suggested, were destroyed as outdated. One can only imagine what old uncials existed before that time. And in what quantity.

Even that great opponent of the Textus Receptus, Dr. Hort, conceded that the Byzantine (“Antiochian”) text was “dominant…[in] the second half of the fourth century”, and that this text “is beyond all question identical… [with the] late extant Greek MSS. generally”, that is, the majority of mss, a.k.a., the Majority Text. We have noted that Hort found a way to annul this numerical superiority with his theory, which has been thoroughly examined, and found wanting.*

*See for critiques of the Westcott-Hort theory:

Maurice Robinson and Wm. Pierpont posited in their Introduction to _The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Byzantine / Majority Textform_,

Jakob Van Bruggen, _The Ancient Text of the New Testament_,

Wilbur N. Pickering’s, _The Identity of the New Testament Text_,

Hort on early Byz majority: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/answering-alan-kurschner-aomin-24839/#post307360


Perhaps you will say to me, James (as is written in your KJOC) “While modern Greek texts are not identical to that created by Westcott and Hort, one will still find defenders of the AV drawing in black and white, saying that all modern versions are based upon their work.” (p. 99) I would think this equivalent to saying, “Modern versions are not based upon the W&H Greek text.”

An extended discussion can be found here: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/answering-alan-kurschner-aomin-24839/#post306418

A brief quote of David Cloud’s from that discussion will be sufficient to make the matter clear: 

The W-H text of 1881 and the latest edition of the United Bible Societies’ text differ only in relatively minor points. Both represent the same TYPE of text with the same TYPE of departures from the Received Text. [Emphases his; the link to the online source is defunct, the book remains in print –SMR]​
.........


Perhaps it’s time to look at the last six verses of Revelation! You said, James, “Please explain why I should use the TR's readings of...the final six verses of Revelation.” 

As I know you ask that rhetorically, what follows is why _*I*_ should use the TR’s verses 16–21 of Revelation 22. I will have to post rather lengthily to do justice to your question –sorry for the amount of material.

I want to quote first from a paper titled, “That Rascal Erasmus—Defense Of His Greek Text”, pages 5-8, by Dr. Daryl R. Coats (available for $2.00 at BFT – Bible For Today Webstore – item # OP2456). Most of us have heard stories of Erasmus’ poor copies of texts available to him, and especially the one about his offering to insert 1 John 5:7 into his Greek editions if but one Greek MS was shown him which contained it. Dr. Coats writes,

*The supposed “Erasmian Inventions”*

Modern critics such as Metzger almost gleefully repeat the story that when Erasmus put together his Greek New Testament, he had access to only one copy of Revelation, a “very mutilated” copy missing the last six verses of the book and damaged in verse 17:4. As a result Erasmus supposedly retranslated the missing verses from the Latin vulgate back into Greek, producing several readings supposedly known in no Greek manuscripts and one word (akaqavrthtoVin 17:4) which doesn’t even exist in Greek. These readings (to Metzger’s apparent distress!) “are still perpetuated today in printings of the so-called Textus Receptus” [_The Text of the New Testament: its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration_, 3rd Edition, by Bruce Metzger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 100.

Even if this story were completely true,* these “Erasmian inventions” are of no consequence unless a person believes that the New Testament exists in no language other than the “original Greek.” Pressed to prove the seriousness of his claim of supposed inventions, Metzger lists only _33_ words. Of these 33 words, 18 match the text of the UBS Greek New Testament which Metzger helped edit! Of the 15 words that _don’t_ Metzger’s own text, 11 make no difference in English translation. Of the four words that _do_ affect translation, _three_ are found in Codex Sinaiticus (a), the oldest existing “complete Greek manuscript of Revelation!**

There are, however, at least three good reasons to doubt the validity of the story of Erasmus and his mutilated copy of Revelation: 1) the only evidence for it is that the manuscript apparently used by Erasmus for Revelation is missing its last page;*** 2) Erasmus’s Latin New Testament doesn’t agree with the Latin Vulgate in the last six verses of Revelation (a problem if his Greek text for those verses was derived from the Vulgate); and 3) there exists Codex 141.†

H.C. Hoskier spent a lifetime collating every edition of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, several other printed Greek New Testaments, and almost all of the known Greek manuscripts of Revelation….His study and collation of Revelation in Codex 141 surprised him, because it contained substantially the same text that appears in Erasmus’s Greek New Testament. In Hoskier’s own words:

Upon reaching the end [of Revelation] and the famous final six verses, _supposed to have been re-translated from the Vulgate into Greek by Erasmus_ when Codex I was discovered and found to lack the last leaf: the problem takes on a most important aspect. For if our MS. 141 is _not_ copied from the printed text, then Erasmus would be absolved from the charge for which his memory has suffered for 400 years! [Emphasis in the original]​
In an effort to nullify the testimony of Codex 141, most “scholars” assign the manuscript a “young” age and simply claim that it is a copy of Erasmus’s (or Aldus’s or Colinaeus’s) printed Greek New Testament. But based on his study of the penmanship of the scribe who composed it, Hoskier determined that Codex 141 was executed in the 15th century—well before Erasmus’s Greek New Testament was printed; and based on his study of its contents (and the collation of same), Hoskier determined that MS 141 “has no appearance of being a copy of any [printed edition of the Greek New Testament], _although containing their text_” (Coats’s emphasis).†† There is, then, manuscript evidence to support the supposed “Erasmian readings”—as much as there is to support the reading of Revelation 5:9 that appears in all the modern “bibles”—and critics who claim otherwise are either ignorant or purposely deceitful.

-------------
Footnotes

* By their own admissions, not all the stories which these “scholars” tell about Erasmus are true. Since 1964, on p. 101 of all three editions of _Text of the New Testament_, Metzger has claimed that Erasmus inserted 1 John 5:7 in his Greek New Testament only because “in an unguarded moment [he] promised that he would….if a single manuscript could be found that contained the passage. At length such a manuscript was found—or made to order!” He has claimed further (pp. 62, 101) that Erasmus wrote notes stating his suspicions that the manuscript was a forgery and the passage was spurious. Yet in the third edition, in small print in footnote 2 on p. 292, he makes this admission: *“What was said about Erasmus’ promise….and his subsequent suspicion that MS. 61 was written expressly to force him to [add 1 John 5:7 to the text], needs to be corrected in light of the research of H.J. de Jonge, a specialist in Erasmian studies who finds no explicit evidence that supports this frequently made assertion”* [bold emphasis mine –SMR; italic Coats’]. Why isn’t this admission in larger type in the _text_ of the book? Why is the “assertion” (that is, lie!) _still_ included?.... 

** In _Text of the New Testament_ (p. 100, n. 1), Metzger lists these “Erasmian inventions” in Revelation: one word in 17:14; one in 22:16; three in 22:17; seventeen in 22:18; ten in 22:19; and one in 22:21. But the “coined word” of 17:4 and the “invented words” of 22:16 & 17 are _synonymous_ with the “original” words and make no difference in English translation.

Of the 17 words in question in 22:18, twelve match the text of the UBS Greek New Testament; two more are synonymous with the “original words” and make no difference in English translation. One word (a personal pronoun) “missing” from Erasmus’ Greek New Testament is also “missing” from many manuscripts of the Received Text, including von Soden’s subgroups c, d, and e—and including it makes no difference in English translation, because the King James translators already added a personal pronoun to the English text for clarity. The other two “invented words” appear in the scribal corrections in Codex a. (Other words in Erasmus’ text of this verse also appear in Codex A and the corrections in Codex a.


Six of the ten “invented words” in 22:19 match the USB Greek text. Three more represent only differences in spelling or inflection (case; conjugation/voice) andmake no difference in English translation. Only biblou (*“book”*) would affect English translation (*“book of life”* vs. “tree of life”). The invention cited for 22:21 is almost laughable: amhvn (*“amen”*! The word is rejected by the UBS Greek New Testament, but it’s found in most of the manuscripts of the Received Text as well as in Codices a, 046, 051, 94, 1611, 1854, 1859, 2020, 2042, 2053, 2065 (commentary section), 2073, and 2138.... 

*** The audacity of “scholars” in speculating (and then basing theories and “facts”) on the contents of _a missing leaf of a manuscript_—or even in assuming that the leaf was missing when Erasmus used the manuscript (provided that this _is_ the manuscript he used)—aptly demonstrates the reliability of such men in matters of scholarship.

† The manuscript is listed under several call numbers. Under Hoskier’s, Scrivener’s and the Old Gregory classification systems, it is MS 141; under the New Gregory system it is 2049; and under von Soden’s system, it is _w_ 1684. It is located in the Parliamentary Library in Athens.

†† For full details, see H.C. Hoskier, _Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse: Collations of All Existing Available Greek Documents with the Standard Text of Stephen’s Third Edition, Together with the Testimony of the Versions, and Fathers; a Complete Conspectus of All Authorities_, Vol. 1 (London: Bernard Quaritch, Ltd, 1929), pp. 474-477. It was also Hoskier who noted that Erasmus’s Latin New Testament differs from the Vulgate in the last six verses of Revelation.​
-------------

There are many more interesting details to Dr. Coats’ paper, mostly regarding the integrity of Erasmus’ text vis-à-vis modern text editors and editions. 

In a moment we will look more closely at Hoskier’s remarks in Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse, and in particular, at Revelation 22’s verse 19:

In the AV it reads,

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.​
In the ESV (reflecting the CT) it reads, 

and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.​
The difference in the Greek is, the CT reads

[size=+1]xuvlou[/size], “_tree_ of life” instead of the TR’s [size=+1]biblou[/size], “_book_ of life”; and the 6th word from the end of the verse in the Greek, [size=+1]kai;[/size], or _and_ is absent in the CT, so that in translation the phrase “and from the things” is also omitted. 

As for the sense, it makes far more to have one’s part (or share) taken out of the book of life, which phrase runs parallel with the foregoing taking away “from the words of the book of this prophecy,” than having one’s part taken away from the tree of life.

To add to the difficulty for AV adherents, the Greek of the Majority Text (Hodges and Farstad) is identical to the CT. And this aligning of the MT with the CT in the Book of Revelation is a factor to be addressed. It is to this phenomenon Jack Moorman speaks in the book mentioned above.

Above Dr. Coats talked of the misinformation concerning Erasmus and the supposed missing last leaf of the copy of Revelation he used, on which were the last six verses of the book. In bringing Codex 141 to light, Coats shows this MS has the text Erasmus used. Regarding 141 Coats refers to Hoskier, and I have the latter’s book here in front of me, _Concerning The Text Of The Apocalypse_ Vol. 1, and I find he has devoted four pages to an examination of Codex 141. In these pages he scrutinizes the MS and determines it was not executed in the 16th century from the printed text of Erasmus, but likely in the 15th (p. 474), and shows “presumptive evidence” the last six verses (of both Erasmus and MS 141) were not copied from the Latin Vulgate (p. 477).

-------------

Further information may be seen in an article by Will Kinney on the passage we are considering; it is from his website: (http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/booklife.html). 

An additional article:

“Another side point that may be of interest is that it is not quite that simple to say, ‘Erasmus took the reading from the Vulgate.’ The Clementine Vulgate does in fact read, ‘_Et si quis diminuerit de verbis libri prophetiae huius, auferet Deus partem eius de *libro* vitae, et de civitate sancta, et de his quae scripta sunt in libro isto:’_, but in a modern critical text of the Vulgate like the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft edition, one will find ‘ligno’ (tree) rather than ‘libro’ (book). Erasmus certainly could not have used the Clementine Vulgate—which became the standard Vulgate for over three centuries after it was first published in 1592—because he had been dead for over a half century when it appeared. This is not to say that the Vulgate that Erasmus knew did not (like the mss. Dr. Holland cites) read ‘libro’ rather than ‘ligno’; but it does suggest that the easy dismissal of the reading as the fault of the Vulgate--when in fact the ‘standard’ Vulgate bearing ‘libro’ for ‘ligno’ dates from several decades later, with Jerome himself apparently not responsible for the reading--is open to serious question.” - T.L. Hubeart [in online article: Revelation 22:19 and “The Book of Life”]​
I could not find how many of the 230 manuscripts Hoskier collated contained Rev 22:19, though it is clear that some of these manuscripts were but fragments, and only had a portion of the whole. I will continue to search for the number that had that passage, and what the breakdown of the readings – tree or book – amounted to. But I did find some other interesting material in my searching.

There are two basic text groupings comprising the varying readings in Revelation – _within the Majority Text camp!_ – as well as some CT readings. The MT groups are the 046 and the Andreas.

Hodges and Farstad in their (_The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text_, p. xxxvi) do admit, “There is no reason why the parental exemplar of the Andreas texttype could not go back well into the second century.” And Hodges says, “…the Textus Receptus much more closely approximates Andreas than 046 – in fact, hardly resembles the latter group at all” (from “The Ecclesiatical Text of Revelation,” _Bibliotheca Sacra_, April 1961, p. 121). [In their edition of the MT, they favored the 046 group, so this is a significant admission.]

From Hoskier’s _Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse_,

We trace the origin of the B (046) group not further back than 8th or possibly 7th century. Now many cursives are identified with this family group, whereas in the main our Textus Receptus is not, and has at any rate avoided the bulk of this revision (_Apocalypse_ p. xxxvii)

This may be the proper place to emphasize why the Textus Receptus of the Apocalypse is intrinsically good. Apoc. 1, on which it is founded, is an old text. See how it comes out in Hippolytus…

It is actually possible to reconstruct a first-class text from Hipp.—47—and Textus Receptus, and a far better one than that of _any_ of our five uncials. Why? Well, apart from a few idiosyncrasies, which the whole body of subsequent evidence rejects, Hippolytus represents as old a text as we can get. Then 47, also apart from a few distinguishing idiosyncrasies easily identified and rejected owing to lack of other support, is throughout a straightforward, careful witness. And lastly, the Textus Receptus, apart from any instinctive and intrinsic excellence, happens to prove back to the very order of words used by Hippolytus’ codex; in places where _t.r._ disagrees we let 47+Hipp. guide us and they nearly always lead us in the right path, namely with the consensus of general evidence. (Ibid., p. xlvii)​
Hoskier’s basic conclusion toward the 200 plus MSS he collated for Revelation was:

I may state that if Erasmus had striven to found a text on the largest _number_ of existing MSS in the world _of one type_, he could not have succeeded better, since his family-MSS occupy the front rank in point of actual _numbers_, the family numbering over 20 MSS besides its allies. (_The John Rylands Bulletin_ 19-1922/23, p 118.)​

Continuing to examine Revelation, particularly where the AV differs from the Majority Text. The book I noted in a previous post, _Hodges/Farstad 'Majority' Text Refuted By Evidence_ (also titled _When the King James Departs from the “Majority Text”_), by Jack Moorman, is, as I have stated before, the book I would recommend as having the latest and most comprehensive information – to my knowledge, as of this writing.

This book also is the best on this particular topic (the disputed text of Revelation in the AV), and I see it available under two different titles: The one I have before me, _When the King James Departs from the “Majority Text”: A New Twist in the Continuing Attack on the Authorized Version (With Manuscript Digest)_ is exactly the same as the one advertised at The Bible For Today online bookstore (http://www.biblefortoday.org/search_result.asp), under the title, _Hodges/Farstad 'Majority' Text Refuted By Evidence_, and it has the same item #: 1617, and can be purchased from them ($16). I have repeated this information for those who pick up the discussion here.

This bears upon some general principles of the AV – MT disparities. Hodges & Farstad, as well as Robinson and Pierpont, in their respective editions of the Majority Text, relied on Hermann Von Soden’s 1913 edition of a massive gathering and collation of the “majority” cursive manuscripts. Although remarkable for it enormity of information gathered, as can be seen in its apparatus, later scholars examining it have declared it “honeycombed with errors” (H.C. Hoskier; _JTS_, 15-1914, p. 307)

Frederik Wisse, in his, _The Profile Method for the Classification and Evaluation of Manuscript Evidence_ (Eerdmans, 1982), says

Once the extent of error is seen, the word “inaccuracy” becomes a euphemism…

…von Soden’s inaccuracies cannot be tolerated for any purpose. His apparatus is useless for a reconstruction of the text of the MSS he used. (pp. 16, 17)​
Yet, as Moorman remarks, “…Hodges and Farstad went ahead and used von Soden to reconstruct the Received Text!” (_When the KJV Departs…_, p. 11)

What Moorman brings out, his collating of the MSS was very incomplete, and relatively few of the thousands of MSS were represented. It was not a depiction of how the majority of cursives read.

The “Majority Text” of the Book of Revelation, however, is different, as it does not rely on Von Soden’s work. It relies on the more comprehensive and complete work of Herman C. Hoskier, in his two-volume, _Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse: Collations of All Existing Available Greek Documents With the Standard Text of Stephen’s Third Edition, Together with the Testimony of Versions, Commentaries and Fathers_. Hoskier was also the author of the two-volume devastating-to-the-Westcott/Hort-(CT)-production, _Codex B and its Allies: A Study and an Indictment_. So why does the MT of Hodges & Farstad differ from the TR (1894) if they used the superior work of Hoskier?

Please note that I am using Jack Moorman’s aforementioned work for my writing here.

What Hoskier showed, basically, is that there are two groups of manuscripts exhibited in those that have the Apocalypse, the Andreas group and the 046 group. Moorman says, “Hoskier did not elevate 046 but merely cited the data.” (p. 17) Hodges and Farstad did not allot to the Andreas group all the MSS due it, and thus “the 046 group in the Majority Text edition is made to look much larger and appear dominant.” (Moorman, Ibid.)

How this happened is through their use of the scholar Josef Schmid’s work and their misconstruing his count of the respective MSS in Andreas and 046. The places where the MT and the TR 1894 differ in Revelation – save at the very end of the book, which we have discussed above – is due to this.

Moorman proceeds with an extended discussion of various factors and issues in this matter. He remarks,

At the outset the Bible believer will be very happy to know that [or is it “what” –SMR] Hoskier’s basic conclusion was toward the 200 plus MSS he collated for Revelation:

I may state that if Erasmus had striven to found a text on the largest _number_ of existing MSS in the world _of one type_, he could not have succeeded better, since his family-MSS occupy the front rank in point of actual _numbers_, the family numbering over 20 MSS besides its allies. (_The John Rylands Bulletin_ 19-1922/23, p 118)​.

It should be noted that this exemplary MS used by Erasmus was of the Andreas group, the readings of which we find in the AV. Perhaps needless to say, we do not think it coincidence this primary manuscript fell into the hands of Erasmus. For we believe that the Lord providentially preserved His word, and the only place it makes sense to have been preserved in was the Greek Textus Receptus as discerned by Erasmus, Stephens, Beza, and the AV translators, and given to us in the AV.

I’d like to close this part of my response with a pertinent quote from an essay by Dr. Theodore Letis:

Both schools [the Critical Text and the Ecclesiastical Text –SMR] interpret the data of NT textual criticism and modern translations differently, and both groups fill in the gaps in the data with assumptions which favor their given position. I hope some are beginning to see that this is not an argument between scholarship (the established school represented by Carson) and non-scholarship (the challenging school which has traditionally been treated as non-scholarly and completely uncritical). To the contrary, the best representatives of both schools display genuine scholarship. Why is it, then, that these two schools co-exist on this all-important issue of the very wording of the NT text?​
He closes the essay with these words,

Some will fault me for not answering every objection of Carson’s, but it was only our intention to raise the old issue of presuppositions and to underscore the fact that this debate is not one between experts with data and non-experts with dogma, but rather one between experts with the same data, but different dogma—the dogma of neutrality versus the dogma of providence…(pp. 201-204). [From, _The Majority Text: Essays And Reviews In The Continuing Debate_, the essay, “In Reply to D.A. Carson’s ‘The King James Version Debate’ ”.]​
.........

I would like to give some links to help those explore alternatives to the Critical / Eclectic Text positions; these are mainly Majority Text proponents, and are important text critical works. I will post some responsible and scholarly TR / AV links shortly.

Maurice Robinson and Wm. Pierpont’s Introduction to _The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Byzantine / Majority Textform_,

Jakob Van Bruggen, _The Ancient Text of the New Testament_,

Wilbur N. Pickering’s, _The Identity of the New Testament Text II_,
Chapter 5: http://www.revisedstandard.net/text/WNP/id_5.html

--------

I notice that VPP advocates generally assert the preserved texts were / are maintained / kept in “immersing communities” up through the ages – that is, with the Baptists. This brings us to the bone of contention as to what were the views of the Vaudois or Waldenses on the matter of baptism. The mountain people of Italy and later, Gaul, are really key in discerning the faithful transmission of Scripture and doctrine. If it turns out they were in the main baptistic then that would be at least one error they fell to (in reaction against Rome’s perversions of baptism?), for the Covenant rule of bringing Abraham’s infant seed into the Covenant people continues. I know, IFBs and RBs, this is one – among a few – of the items we’ll have to duke it out on! It remains, however, that in these days – last century and this – it has been mostly the Independent Fundamentalist Baptists who have indeed held and defended the doctrine of God’s providential preservation of His Word, and specified the text it was done in. Yes, there have been others, Burgon, Miller, Dabney, Nolan, Hills, Letis, Kinney, etc, who were / are not Baptists, but the Baptists have been in the forefront of the fight. They are reviled, stereotyped, disdained, shunned, and discriminated against for their stand, but these are godly, courageous, scholarly men who have done the cause of the sound doctrines of Scripture great good.

I do see that the Baptists among the VPP assert that the churches formed upon Presbyterian principles are not true churches (it would follow that their ministers are not truly ordained ministers) although they cede there are genuine born-again folks among them. How very like some Presbyterian views this is! For I see Presbyterians asserting the same against the Baptist forms of church government, and their pastors as well!

For my part I do not believe a form of church government is mandated in Scripture, but is purposely left open. I may change my view, but that’s it now.

I will be posting a substantial section from Frederik Wisse’s _The Profile Method..._, with unusual insights on the neglect / suppression of the minuscules, shortly.


------------------

Quoting Frederick Nolan [1] as he discusses 1 John 5:7, he says this about the Waldenses and the Latin NT:

Another point to which the author has directed his attention, has been the old Italick translation…on this subject, the author perceived, without any labour of inquiry, that it derived its name from that diocese, which has been termed the Italick, as contradistinguished from the Roman. This is a supposition, which receives a sufficient confirmation from the fact,—that the principal copies of that version have been preserved in that diocese, the metropolitan church of which was situated in Milan. The circumstance is at present mentioned, as the authour thence formed a hope, that some remains of the primitive Italick version might be found in the early translations made by the Waldenses, who were the lineal descendants of the Italick Church; and who have asserted their independence against the usurpations of the Church of Rome, and have ever enjoyed the free use of the Scriptures. In the search to which these considerations have led the authour, his fondest expectations have been fully realized. It has furnished him with abundant proof on that point to which his Inquiry was chiefly directed; *as it has supplied him with the unequivocal testimony of a truly apostolical branch of the primitive church, that the celebrated text of the heavenly witnesses was adopted in the version which prevailed in the Latin Church, previously to the introduction of the Modern Vulgate.* [2] [Emphasis added –SMR]​
In a lengthy footnote at this point, he documents the progress of the text of this primitive Italick version up into the mountain communities of the Waldenses and into the French language in a number of texts, and he states, *“It thus easily made its way into Wicklef’s translation, through the Lollards, who were disciples of the Waldenses.”* [Emphasis added –SMR] [3] Nolan is a rich source of evidences concerning the transmission of the Greek text.
-----------
1 _Inquiry Into the Integrity Of the Greek Vulgate, Or Received Text Of the New Testament; in which the Greek Manuscripts are newly classed; the Integrity of the Authorised Text vindicated; and the Various Readings traced to their Origin_, by Fredrick Nolan ((London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1815), pages 38, 39, 40, 41. Reprint available at Bible for Today ministry (see bibliography above). Nolan’s complete book online (minus the valuable Preface): http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/classics/inquiry0.html
2 Ibid., pages xvii, xviii.
3 Ibid., Footnote #1, pages xviii, xix.

Post on Nolan: http://www.puritanboard.com/f63/verses-ommited-esv-24712/#post303785 thread
Downloadable versions (with Preface): http://www.archive.org/details/a601052600nolauoft

.........

Sorry to have gone on at such length, James, but, as said before, I wanted to do justice to your remarks and questions.

Sincerely in Christ,

Steve

P.S. There may be some typos and redundancies in the text above, and I'll be correcting them as I see them, and have time.


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## LawrenceU

That is one of the most gracious defenses of the TR position that I have read. Thanks. That doesn't mean I agree, but I appreciate the fact that you didn't throw non-TR folks under bus and borderline heretics.


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## TimV

> in the main God preserved the accurate reading of the autographs in the Byzantine tradition; *in some minute particulars, where the Byz lost the true reading*,





> Now consider the problem from God's point of view.





> If I were to say we always go by the majority of manuscripts, or even the majority within the Bzy majority, then your charge would have weight;* but that is not my method*. I say we go by the Byz in the main, but infrequently, in certain cases, the Lord sovereignly breaks method in lieu of a wisdom above man’s wisdom and methods. You may not appreciate this, but it is consistent.



At least with Rob I can understand where he's coming from, although I disagree. He says that God preserved His Word in various manuscripts of the Byzantine tradition, and in those few places where the TR differs from any existing Byzantine text it would be acceptable to change the TR in those few places. This leaves honest debate open. He's willing to change the TR if necessary.

But with you, Steve, you seem to be saying that there was a act of inspiration where the Holy Spirit worked through the hands of the King James translators to restore God's pure Word. And you base this on the belief that you are able to 



> consider the problem from God's point of view



How can you debate this? Rob is saying "if this word isn't found in any Byzantine text, scholars of good will and character, under the auspices of an ecclesiastical body, can change it".

You seem to be saying "If a word in the TR isn't found in any existing Byzantine text it doesn't matter, since something miraculous happened while the King James Bible was being translated, and we should accept by faith that the Holy Spirit directed the translation of the King James Bible and in addition to faith we should all accept this because of Greek dying out in Egypt".


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## Blueridge Believer

I have printed this out and look forward to reading it. I hope brother White will answer or talk about it on his program. Keep us posted.


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## Kevin

Thanks, that was a lot of work. I don't think you convinced me yet, but that is one of the best presentations of your view I have read.


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## Stephen L Smith

Have you made official contact with James - I am not sure if he reads this blog daily.


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## DMcFadden

Steve,

What a gracious and generous defense of your position! Thank you, brother, for blessing all of us with the substance of your position and the model for how to deal with contentious matters in a God-honoring way!

On the substance of your views, I have been doing some of the reading you suggested last year and must admit that the arguments for a Bible that never existed in any organized way (i.e., the CT) seem extraordinarily weak. As I explained it to a friend recently, the CT view is based upon a theory that says you can take a stack of photographs of different body parts and cobble together a complete picture of a woman based upon a theory of what "should have been" the best elbow, arm, nose, ear, etc. It does not matter that there never was a photograph with exactly those particular parts of the puzzle in one picture. What matters is that the reasons for selecting one piece over another fulfill the criteria of the selection theory. This is the CT in all of its glory: a Frankenstein creation of parts that never existed in one manuscript anywhere at any time.

Against this, we have the TR or the MT tradition. Steve, you still haven't won me over to the TR quite yet. However, the claims by Robinson in favor of the history of transmission for the Byzantine text at least offer a plausible theory for textual transmission that does not require the Frankenstein model for textual reconstruction out of different parts.

So, thanks for your helpful piece. I will be interested to read it more carefully.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Friends, thanks for your comments!

I think Dr. White will hear of this response rather quickly. It's a small virtual world in the arena of consciousness on Apokalypse Field.

----

I said I would post some material from Frederik Wisse’s, _The Profile Method..._, to give an idea of the status of the Byzantine minuscules, the vast majority of which have been unexamined and suppressed due to editorial bias. Wisse is not a TR / KJV advocate (as can be seen), though it seems safe to say he is a Majority Text advocate, or at least a text critic who seriously desires to know what the overwhelming majority of the Greek MSS actually have to say, especially in light of the failure of text critical efforts based upon the Egyptian MSS. The pages that follow give a telling story of the doings among those academics who have taken to themselves and their naturalistic methodologies our New Testament manuscripts.

There’s a good bit of material here (if it’s long for you to read, it was longer for me to type!), but for those interested in these text critical matters it will be a joy to gather more information on issues that are so important to us. As Wisse reviews Hort’s schema for disallowing the Byzantine (Syrian) text-type, those of you troubled at his method and wondering if there is any validity to it, I would refer you to Robinson and Pierpont’s Introduction noted above and a URL given to it online as an antidote. Bruggen’s and Pickering’s excellent critiques of Hort are good also. Wisse also reviews and critiques Kurt Aland's views on the Byz. I quote as much as I do of Wisse because the book is out of print and rare; though the information is startlingly relevant to our New Testament studies. Please note that I have omitted the footnotes due to time and space constraints.

I quote first from Kevin James’, _The Corruption of the Word: The Failure of Modern New Testament Scholarship_ (distributed by Micro-Load Press, 1990, ISBN: 0962442003):

Some examples of places where a King James wording seemingly has little support are given in the following chapters. Seemingly, because, *while most existing New Testament copies have been roughly categorized into “majority” or “non-majority” groupings, the exact text of thousands of existing manuscripts is unknown except in a handful of places.* [Emphasis mine –SMR] 

It should be understood that it is impossible to *prove* which of two or more competing wording variations is the original since the originals have long since disappeared. But it is the height of folly to throw the settled received text of three and one-half centuries into the dustbin to make a revision *when the exact contents of thousands of existing copies of mainstream tradition manuscripts is unknown* [this last emphasis mine –SMR]. A clear picture of New Testament manuscript transmission history is also lacking. Finally, unless the vigilance of a living God is recognized, attempts at revision of the King James can easily stray from a stated target of supplying God’s people with a “better” New Testament.

Paul said: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21.) This should be the guiding principle for the Christian church when dealing with the intricacies of the wording of the original text. (pp. viii, ix)​
For those interested in reading this now out-of-print work (perhaps you can get it through Inter-library Loan), he collates and studies a number of Greek manuscripts in the following chapters.

-----------


*The Profile Method for Classifying and Evaluating Manuscript Evidence*, by Frederik Wisse (Eerdmans 1982) ISBN: 0802819184

Of all the spectacular developments in NT textual criticism since Tischendorf the least advertised has been the phenomenal increase in the number of known minuscules. There must be a reason for this curious situation. It cannot be simply due to the fact that the finds of a considerable number of early papyri have tended to overshadow all other NT textual developments. Certainly the bringing to light of more than 1700 minuscules in less than a century could have shared top rating with the few hundred newly discovered papyri and uncials, most of which are mere fragments, if only lower critics had chosen to do so. The underlying reason is that the ever-swelling mass of minuscules has been a real embarrassment to the textual critic. Every additional minuscule, however high its market price might be, has made the critic’s task more confusing and difficult.

The mass of minuscules creates a dilemma for the textual critic. Either he will try to take all the MS evidence into account without hope of ever finishing his task, or he will ignore the great majority of existing MSS and be accused of basing his results on partial and probably biased evidence. No wonder, therefore, that the role of minuscules in NT textual criticism has become the most frustrating problem facing the scholars in the field.

The problem posed by the minuscules can be divided into two parts. First, the question must be answered whether the minuscules deserve to play a role in the search for the best text of the NT, and consequently, whether they should be represented in a full _apparatus criticus_ to the Greek NT. In case this first question is answered in the affirmative, it still must be shown that the great quantity of MSS does not make any kind of meaningful and representative use of minuscules impossible or impractical.

In a situation where MS evidence runs into more than 5000 separate items and a time span of more than fourteen centuries, it should be questioned whether all this evidence is relevant for the establishment of the original text. It may well be that the oldest copies in existence are adequate representatives if the MS tradition si that the rest can be ignored. After all, why start more than thirteen centuries after the autographa were written, and wade back through literally thousands of MSS in an immensely complicated process, if at best one can only arrive at a fifth-century text which is already well represented by copies of that time. To find the foundation of a building one does first climb the roof; one starts somewhere below the ground floor.

The argument, obvious and tantalizing on the surface, forms the background for all those who consider it just to ignore all, or almost all, minuscules. Yet they must first prove that the MS tradition after, let us say, the ninth century, does not add any pertinent information for the recovery of the original text of the NT. Whether one holds that this proof necessitates a complete study of the more than 2700 known minuscules depends on one’s viewpoint. Naturally the opponents of the use of minuscules do not consider this time-consuming process to be necessary at all.

There is basically only one argument which can circumvent the task of studying all the late minuscules to make sure they are indeed of no value for textual criticism. This argument is that among the early uncials there are MSS which stand in a relatively uncorrupted tradition, and which show all other text-types of that period to be secondary and corrupted. Only if this argument can be proved, and if it is clear from some sampling that late minuscules fall predominantly in the tradition of one of the corrupted texts, can we safely omit a full study of these MSS.

The first and best representative of this position is Fenton John Anthony Hort (without wishing to deny or ignore the contribution made by Westcott we will simply refer to “Hort”). His view stands out from that of many who share his attitude toward minuscules in that he knew what was at stake and was willing to face the consequences. With some danger of caricaturing, we shall attempt to summarize his evaluation of the mass of minuscules in four points. It should be borne in mind that Hort knew of the existence of fewer than one thousand cursives, and that only 150 of these were available to him in complete collation, though he sampled some more in a few selected passages.

a) An analysis of the text of the major uncials, the NT quotations of the Fathers, and the early versions shows that there were three text-types in existence during the fifth century A.D.: the Neutral or Alexandrian text, the Western text, and the Syrian text [also known as the Antiochan, Byzantine, Traditional, Koine, Ecclesiastical, etc –SMR]. Patristic attestation shows the Syrian text to be the latest of the three, though it eventually won out and became the text found in the great majority of the minuscules.

b) A study of conflate readings – he used four from Mark and four from Luke – conclusively proves that the Syrian text is a recension which made use of the Western and Neutral texts. Hort knows of no case where a Neutral reading is a conflation a Western and Syrian reading, or where a Western reading is a conflation of Neutral and Syrian readings. Thus Hort has internal evidence proving not only that the Syrian text is posterior to the Western and Neutral texts, but also that it is secondary in nature.

The conflate readings imply a further point about the work of the editors of the Syrian text, for [Hort says] “it is morally impossible that their use of documents of either or both classes should have been confined to those places in which conflation enables us to detect it in actual operation.” Hort at this point is still forced to leave open the possibility that the Syrian text had a source, or sources, beyond the Neutral and Western texts that was both ancient and good.

c) As elsewhere, Hort closes this remaining loophole by means of both transcriptional and intrinsic evidence. Transcriptional evidence indicates that no Syrian readings existed before A.D. 250. This means that even if the Syrian recension had sources beyond the Western and Neutral texts, these sources did not go back farther than the middle of the third century, and thus were later than the two non-Syrian text-types.

It was left up to the intrinsic evidence to give the final death blow. Readings peculiar to the Syrian MSS proved to be smooth, they never offend, are free from surprises and seemingly transparent. Therefore, taking the negative side of the _lectio difficilior_ principle, Hort can conclude that the internal evidence of Syrian readings is “entirely unfavorable to the hypothesis that they may have been copied from other equally ancient and perhaps purer texts [than the Western and Neutral] now otherwise lost.”

d) Thus the die was cast against the minuscules. We again quote Hort: “Since the Syrian text is only a modified eclectic combination of earlier texts independently attested, existing documents descended from it can attest nothing but itself.” And one page later: “All distinctively Syrian readings must be at once rejected.” Still, Hort laments the fact that so few minuscules have been studied, but his sorrow does not go deep. True, some “valuable texts may lie hidden among them,” but “nothing can well be less probable than the discovery of cursive evidence sufficiently important to affect present conclusions in more than a handful of passages, much less to alter present interpretations of the relations between the existing documents.”

Only after these carefully reasoned and convincing steps did Hort limit himself to the early uncials and especially the “Neutrals” among them. It speaks for Hort’s power of persuasion and influence that, though scholars today would question almost every point of his argument, yet the result still stands. After a few halfhearted attempts for supremacy by the Western text, Codex Vaticanus and it allies have become the new “Textus Receptus.”

A prominent contemporary textual critic, Professor Kurt Aland, has also taken a generally negative view of the minuscules. His position is sufficiently different from Hort’s to deserve separate treatment. Unfortunately, we have no comprehensive introduction, like that of Westcott and Hort, from Aland’s hand. Conclusions will have to be drawn from scattered remarks in a number of articles.

An a priori rejection of the mass of minuscules would have been an impossible task for Aland. He and the INTF [Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster, Germany –SMR] took on the difficult and important task of publishing an up-to-date list of all extant papyri, uncials, minuscules, and lectionaries of the Greek NT. Hence, one could hardly expect him to pass by the majority of MSS without at least a preliminary study. 

Yet Aland’s interest in the minuscules is not for their own sake. He is no longer satisfied with Hort’s judgment that the discovery of important cursive evidence is most improbable. He wants to find the few hypothetical nuggets which Hort did not think were worth the effort. Aland wants to be able to say that he has searched the minuscules exhaustively for anything of value. This search, of course, presupposed that the minuscules as such are of little value. Only the exceptional MSS warrant the concerted effort.

Thus with Aland no less than with Hort a value judgment is at work. Minuscules have to pass a test before they are considered worthy of inclusion in a textual apparatus. All MSS which are generally Byzantine will fail. Aland sees the Byzantine text as a unit which, in spite of all its internal differences and developments, should be treated as one. This text-type is for him already well enough represented by some of the late uncials. He believes that the character and readings of the Byzantine text are so well established that its members can be represented under a siglum M (Majority Text). In order to separate the sheep from the goats Aland proposes a list of readings which will readily identify a minuscule as being Byzantine or non-Byzantine.

In many ways Aland’s attitude toward the minuscules is a step forward from Hort. Greater certainty is necessary than Hort’s “probabilities” to eliminate the possibility that new evidence will invalidate conclusions drawn from a selection or sampling of MSS. Aland is trying to provide this certainty. The question remains, however, whether Aland is still too restrictive. Aland believes that von Soden tried to do too much in dealing with the whole history of the text. Yet this criticism does not focus on von Soden’s inaccuracies and questionable results. Rather, Aland implies that a large part of von Soden’s effort was unnecessary. The Byzantine text, and particularly the Byzantine minuscules, can be left out of consideration. They are of no use in establishing the original text of the NT. But this is a conclusion to be drawn from evidence, not to form the basis for the selection of evidence.

The point of contention is not whether the Byzantine text, whatever that exactly may be, is of greater or equal value than the great Egyptian uncials. The real question is whether the time has come to speak about the value of the Byzantine MSS at all. Except in von Soden’s inaccurate and unused pages, the minuscules have never been allowed to speak. Once heard, they may be found wanting, but at least their case will have been presented, and then for good and necessary reasons they will be content to grace libraries and rare book collections. Textual critics deserve to have all the evidence before them, evidence which has not been prejudged.

It is an ironic fact that today basic MS evidence of the NT is less available to the textual critic than it was fifty years ago. Editions of great uncials have long been out of print. Tischendorf’s _editio octava maior_ has never had serious competition, let alone a complement. Though the casual user of a critical text of the Greek NT has been well provided for, the expert and serious student is at the mercy of the highly selective and incomplete _apparatus critici_. This situation could only be defended if the task of establishing the best possible NT test had been accomplished, and if the history of the transmission of that text was clear. But it is not.

The much-needed new and unbiased look at all of the evidence available demands the use of a good representation of the minuscules. To condemn the great majority of them by means of a single siglum will not suffice. The situation up to the ninth century is too uncertain. The fact that among the early uncials and papyri there is only one clearly defined group has made any objective judgment impossible. The well-trained choir of the “Neutral” group, recently strengthened by P75, has drowned out all the solos. The long overdue dethronement of the Textus Receptus (TR) by Hort and others suffered from overkill of the only group of MSS that could have put up a fight. Since that time lower criticism seems to have become the study of what to do when Codex Vaticanus and P75 disagree....

All these considerations are secondary to the overriding need for complete and unbiased evidence. There has never been such evidence. The bulk of the minuscules may well be of little value for textual criticism, but how can one be sure before studying them? No one has ever presented a conclusive argument against the use of the Byzantine text. Certainly Hort’s case against the late minuscules no longer convinces, and Aland is begging the question. Therefore, until there is proof to the contrary, minuscules ought to play a meaningful role in the lower criticism of the Greek NT. (pp. 1–6) 

------
End Wisse


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## Semper Fidelis

James has been notified of this entry. I am not convinced he'll reply because the issue has been dealt with pretty extensively recently but we'll see. One thing that is refreshing is an irenic presentation of the TR position and I appreciate your effort Steve.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Dennis, to interact with your thoughts a bit (and thanks for what you said),

My main concern with the Majority Text position _*as a final outcome*_ of the Lord’s preservation of His word is that it remains but provisional, unsettled.

Hodges and Farstad’s, _The Greek New Testament According To The Majority Text_ (Nelson, 1982), has on its jacket (of the second edition):

Scholarly discipline permeates the editor’s logic and conclusions; yet Hodges and Farstad make no claims that this text in all its particulars is the exact form of the originals.​
and on page x of the book we are told:

The editors do not imagine that the text of this edition represents in all particulars the exact form of the originals…it should therefore be kept in mind that the present work…is both preliminary and provisional.​
If, as stated, this MT work isn’t a final and settled Bible, and (others say) the AV-Received Text isn’t, and the CT / Alexandrian isn’t either, are we left in awkward position (to put it unreasonably mildly!) of having only a tentative, provisional Bible? It was put to me recently when I asked a similar question of someone, “No, I do not have a Bible I can hold in my hand and say, ‘This is the Word of God.’ ”

Professor Robinson’s work may well be better than the aforementioned MT text, but the same applies – as demonstrated by Wisse’s research, all the heads haven’t been counted in the Byzantine MS camp. Must we wait another 50 years or more for that count to be tallied (if even then)? I realize that Professor R. will disown me as an illegitimate offspring of his and his colleagues in the Byz camp, for he does not acknowledge as valid my leap of faith to the TR / AV position. I admit, it _is_ a leap of faith, but if it is based soundly – that is, if my exegesis of the texts is sound – who is to dispute it on the basis of a scientific methodology? I take the same faith / exegetical stand as regards the record of God’s creation and man’s fall in Genesis over against the evolutionary “science” that tells me to stick with what can be empirically proven (not that evolution can be proven, though they allege it can!).

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”.... and by “his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness”.... “no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Matt 4:4; 2 Pet 1:3; Ps 84:11)

Whether one takes the _absolute_ preservation stand (which has abundant merit in the world of faith), or the 99.99% preservation stand of Owen and Hills, we have the ability to say, “Yes, this Bible I hold is the sure word of God.”

I will not be subject to “the tyranny of experts” (to use Machen’s memorable phrase) if I do not concur entirely with the methods they use; I may use their work as I see fit, but am not bound by it. The MT labors are immense and of precious value; we stand on their shoulders – or to perfect the metaphor, we leap from their shoulders to a high rock, upon which we take our stand.

I know many generations have said, “We are in the time of the end”; nonetheless, there are signs that lead me to say we are very close – the Gospel having gone out into _*most*_ of the world, and a coming (so I see) persecution of Christians even in the once-Christian Western world – and can it be that we don’t have a Bible _*yet*_ we can say is the sure word of our God? I believe He gave us one almost 400 years ago, just prior to the great missionary work of Britain, and at the commencement of modern English, the trusty sword of our Reformation fathers against the bloodthirsty and persecuting harlot. Can it be modernized? It would take genius to do it well, and a love for the AV and for its Author.

Dennis, I have a Bible, and because of God’s promises – and my discernment that He fulfilled them – I trust its readings.


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## larryjf

Since we don't have the notes from the KJV translators, nor some of the manuscripts that they used...
And since there is a historic blank spot over Byzantium regarding manuscripts prior to the 4th century...

Can we compare the Byzantine/TR to the Alexandrian in an honest way?

It seems that many have turned to a new text (after the TR) on the basis of evidence that can't be rightly compared.


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## DMcFadden

Steve,

The realization that the CT text that we possess does not purport to be (and, indeed, probably cannot be) an actual copy of any manuscript that has ever existed coupled with the thought that the antiquity of Byzantine readings has much firmer support than my profs led me to believe 35 years ago, combine to leave my mind reeling.

While, unless one takes a KJV-only position, they are left with a "provisional" confidence in the exactitude of the text before them, that need not be an insurmountable hurdle. The Alexandrian texts and the Byzantine texts do not differ enough to change a single Christian doctrine. That is a solid enough foundation for me. Beyond that, I want to follow the manuscripts to the most faithfully exact outcome possible this side of the eschaton. Your bibliography has caused me to wonder if my answer may be more in the Byzantine than the Alexandrian mss. However, the exalted claims of the TR folk generally scare me to death.


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## bened

Sorry I'm late on this - but just discovered this thread two days ago as I'm going through Dr. White's debate w/Ehrman on DVD and his mp3 conversation w/Robert re: the TR.

I would love to know if Dr. White ever responded to Dr. Steve's post and, if so, what did he say?

And again, thank you, Steve, for your investment in this and each of your posts. I find them edifying and challenging as I work through and process what you have to say.

Your intelligent, thorough and irenic style is as winsome as it is refreshing.

I shall keep reading... and thinking on this topic.


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## Spinningplates2

DMcFadden said:


> Steve,
> However, the exalted claims of the TR folk generally scare me to death.



This is exactly how I feel and can never dream of a day when Christianity is limited to ANY version of the Scripture.


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## DonP

Have you ever considered that should the Lord not come for another 2000 years, and if many of the old manuscripts that were used by the KJV translators, and most of the ones used for the CT were destroyed, that our offspring could be having this discussion too:

They might say, seeing that the language of 2009 is so antiquated and most people no longer understand it well, we must make a new translation. 

Well the KJV is the only complete manuscript we have been able to find, we have a mostly complete copy of one but it was only used for a few years then abandoned by the church called the NASB and it was based on an earlier ASV that we can't find any copies of. There are parts of a version called ESV and RSV both with limited usage, but more recent than the KJV.
And one called NIV but clearly a paraphrase attempt to make it easy for less well educated people to read, not a real translation. 

So in light of what manuscripts we have to work with, we feel it best to go with the one we have the most complete copy of 
and fill in the missing verses from a compilation of the best of our other manuscripts. 

Would this not make sense? 
Would we say they do not have a real reliable word of God Bible were they to make a year 4009 translation this way?

Thus, though I would never say it is the only way, or you should do it, to me it seems the TR would be the best for us to use. I would not go so far to say there was a new canon made with the KJV translation, rather the largest complete manuscripts, saved in reliable sensible places, that had agreement with each other were used; then where something may have been missing in a few small spots we use the frankenstein method, rather than for the entire work. 

Now if we agreed on this method, then perhaps scholars could go to work improving a better translation from the TR if they feel the KJV or NKJV lack something in translation. 

I just can't stand the frankenstein concept which basically, or at least potentially in concept, is still not a closed canon.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Hello Ben,

No, James White didn't respond to the thread, which is ok with me as that leaves me free to minister, study and prepare sermons, care for my wife, etc. It takes a lot of time to engage in these text-critical discussions. No doubt he's busy as well, and having written books about the topic, lectured on it, and debated it, why should he deal with yet another contender?

I write on the topic to demonstrate that the King James Bible and the TR can be ably defended by lay persons without expertise in the original languages, as it is the understanding of the arguments and historical background that is key. The days are coming quickly when on many fronts the true church will be sorely attacked, and the text-critical attack, while not the most violent, will be the most crucial, as the Bible is the source of our strength and very life.

And the text-critical assault itself will have a number of fronts, the postmodern deconstruction of textual authority, unbelieving critics like Ehrman, Muslims discerning the vulnerable underbelly of versions with their differing variants, and of course the internecine warfare we are all too familiar with. I can defend against all these. But there are other fronts that will marshall against us.

It appears that in short order the constitutional right to free speech we take for granted we will be taken from us — as is already the case in Canada and parts of Europe — and this a development ordained by the Lord for the fiery refining of His church, which is increasingly becoming defiled. Much dross will be removed and the true church will be drastically smaller. As our testimony to the risen Lord, His sovereignty over the nations, and the Holy Spirit thereby reproving the world of sin, righteousness and judgment is not something negotiable with us, we shall run afoul the laws that prohibit such "hate speech", and the stand-up Christians and churches will be outlaws.

An historical reminder: as the infamous 1938 Kristallnacht (and the horrific events following) in Germany was triggered by the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by young Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew whose family had been severely mistreated by the Nazis, even so all it would take for a violent backlash against the entire Christian community *here* would be the violent acting out and attempted (or actual) assassination of a government official by one of our own. Already there are many gun-carrying hotheads in the Christian sector angered and alarmed by what they see is the selling out of the nation and subverting of the Constitution, and it wouldn’t take much for one of them to go over the edge. First the laws, then the violent act in reaction, and then an angry America unleashing its fury against an already hated minority.

It is by no means farfetched to envision such a thing. A modern day Dietrich Bonhoeffer wannabe...

So now the fronts expand to legal/penal, educational, psychological, cultural, etc. But as with Samson and his hair, _our_ strength is the word of our God. How many will be able to stand against the text-critical fronts while the other fronts are heating up? And what about our children and grandchildren, and those we seek to bring to the Lord — will they be inoculated _against_ the Faith by powerful text-critical assaults against the trustworthiness of their forebears' Bibles?

As I said, I can defend the Bible against all comers, but only one in its minute particulars. The other versions I will have to let go.

As we shall be pressed upon sorely, I will (as I do now) conduct my defense graciously, for important as the textual issue is, _more_ important is our loving unity in the Spirit of our Savior. Genuine friendship is the cement that holds the living stones together in God's house. The foundation is the word of our Lord and His apostles, and the sound doctrine arising therefrom, but the solidity of the building in each generation will be the result of real friendships. So no internecine warfare on the Bible from _me!_. My friends may differ with me, and we differ graciously. In the days ahead, friendship and trust will be very important to us, so many will be our enemies.

The business of Christians will not be "as usual" — laid back and low key — no, for our testimony we will see ourselves in the Scriptures, those who overcame in great tribulation: "And they overcame [the accuser] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death." (Rev. 12:11)

Nor am I a Dr. Ben, but one schooled in the wilderness, as David.

Steve


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## Robert Truelove

Pastor Rafalsky,

Though I am on the other side of the fence from you in regards to how we should approach the issue of textual variants, I sincerely appreciate your commitment to the authority of the Word of God. 

Having read and interacted with you off and on over the last two years (has it been 3 already?) I have one word of advice...

It is clear you put a lot of time into your posts. Indeed, they are complete articles and if put into print would make booklets. The problem with this is a threaded discussion forum is not the best medium for lengthy treatises. Might I suggest you put up a Web site where you could publish your thoughts? 

If you used a Web site, your writings would not get buried in the archives of a forum and would ultimately be read by more people. You could use forums such as Puritan Board to post notices with links when you have uploaded a new work and perhaps include a brief summary. 

Also, when interacting in forums, you could reference a particular work on your Web site when making a concise point instead of having to repeat at length things you have already said numerous times in other threads that are now buried.

I say this not to discourage what you are doing but to help you make the most of the time you invest in this subject. I think such an endeavor would be a profitable undertaking for the Traditional Text argument since you have so much to say about it. It would definitely make my 'bookmarks' list, even if I am a "Critical Text guy".


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## larryjf

Steve,

I agree with Robert...and if you need somewhere to put your writings i would be glad to host them on the TNARS website.

If you'd rather have a more relevant site, you could probably get your stuff on here...
Bible Devotionals and the Greek Majority Text

I would love for you and Rev. Winzer to write a book...maybe even together...i would volunteer to edit the book...please, please.

I am truly indebted to the work you've done...and it is a shame to see most of it lost in the shuffle on the discussion board.


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## TimV

> An historical reminder: as the infamous 1938 Kristallnacht (and the horrific events following) in Germany was triggered by the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by young Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew whose family had been severely mistreated by the Nazis,



His extended family was mistreated by Poland for complicated political reasons having to do with many Jews like the Greenspans being born in parts of Austrio-Hungary which became Poland after WW1, and the new Polish government not wanting more Jews, and denying many of them Polish papers, which led to many of that Jewish population being left Stateless.

His family wasn't severely mistreated by the Nazis, and the version of the Bible used by Poles and Germans and French was based on the TR, so I'm left more confused then ever about the meaning of that last post.


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## Semper Fidelis

larryjf said:


> Steve,
> 
> I agree with Robert...and if you need somewhere to put your writings i would be glad to host them on the TNARS website.
> 
> If you'd rather have a more relevant site, you could probably get your stuff on here...
> Bible Devotionals and the Greek Majority Text
> 
> I would love for you and Rev. Winzer to write a book...maybe even together...i would volunteer to edit the book...please, please.
> 
> I am truly indebted to the work you've done...and it is a shame to see most of it lost in the shuffle on the discussion board.



Of course, this section is vastly underdeveloped: The PuritanBoard Theological Journal - The PuritanBoard


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## larryjf

Semper Fidelis said:


> larryjf said:
> 
> 
> 
> Steve,
> 
> I agree with Robert...and if you need somewhere to put your writings i would be glad to host them on the TNARS website.
> 
> If you'd rather have a more relevant site, you could probably get your stuff on here...
> Bible Devotionals and the Greek Majority Text
> 
> I would love for you and Rev. Winzer to write a book...maybe even together...i would volunteer to edit the book...please, please.
> 
> I am truly indebted to the work you've done...and it is a shame to see most of it lost in the shuffle on the discussion board.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Of course, this section is vastly underdeveloped: The PuritanBoard Theological Journal - The PuritanBoard
Click to expand...


I was unable to post an article there.


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## Semper Fidelis

larryjf said:


> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> larryjf said:
> 
> 
> 
> Steve,
> 
> I agree with Robert...and if you need somewhere to put your writings i would be glad to host them on the TNARS website.
> 
> If you'd rather have a more relevant site, you could probably get your stuff on here...
> Bible Devotionals and the Greek Majority Text
> 
> I would love for you and Rev. Winzer to write a book...maybe even together...i would volunteer to edit the book...please, please.
> 
> I am truly indebted to the work you've done...and it is a shame to see most of it lost in the shuffle on the discussion board.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Of course, this section is vastly underdeveloped: The PuritanBoard Theological Journal - The PuritanBoard
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I was unable to post an article there.
Click to expand...


Right. Because you need to request to post an article as the forum instructions note.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Hello again Robert (Truelove),

Yes, your point is well taken. It's just a question of time. As I get older I seem to slow down a little — physically speaking (my mind remaining intact, though some might disagree!) — and thus I have to prioritize, often radically. When it comes to pastoral care, people come first, study and writing second. As I have no one in jail or in the hospital presently, that frees up some time I haven't had lately. Sermon prep takes time, especially when preaching through Revelation, which is electrifyingly delightful to me. I have a guest preacher coming for the next three weeks (he uses the ESV, and I don't give him too hard a time as he's a good man), to free me up to prepare a public lecture, "The Da Vinci Code vs. the Greek New Testament: who won the fight, and remains standing?" It'll be in a hotel hall, and advertised in the English-language papers here. I'm fishing for souls, particularly English-speaking Greek Cypriots. This is still a topic of interest for them (with their Byzantine text), plus Dan Brown's latest movie, "Angels and Demons" about to hit the screen, will add to the interest factor.

All of which to say, I'm just so busy I don't want to spare the time to reorganize, reformat, and republish all these "articles", as I'd have to cut something else that needs to get done. I do have them all saved, and I would like to do something with them; it remains to be seen if I get around to it. Were someone else to express an interest in compiling them into a coherent whole I would be glad, as long as I'd have final editorial say. I do think your idea is very good, and I appreciate your taking the time to write me about it, especially as you're from the other camp!

It's a good thing I have a very small congregation, and so pastoral care is not extensive, though that may change if the Lord puts a lot of fish into our net!

I have lately been devoting my spare time to publishing a literary journal online, which will include a section for a book I've been writing for some years. I'm so ignorant of this phase of tech stuff I had to buy a book, _Google Blogger for Dummies_, so as to make the site (blog) look professional and interesting. As soon as I get it basically constructed I'll note the url here at PB. 

I won't always be doing pastoral work, as when we return to New York (DV) after my wife finishes caring for her Alzheimer's-ill mom, I'll sit under seminary-trained pastors, and see what form of lay-type ministry the church might want to use me in, and also write, our financial situation allowing. Given the state of things I may have to also work for a living, notwithstanding a small pension and Soc. Sec. benefits. So now I devote as much time as I can to the book, and the journal.

I'm preparing a compilation of my threads and posts from here at PB on textual matters, so folks who are interested in my work can reference them. I'll post it and also put it in my PB blog when I get it pretty much done.

Thanks for your thoughts, Robert!

Steve

P.S. The Grynszpans, as Jews, were forced out of Germany in a mass deportation and shipped to the border of Poland which refused them entry. They lost their store, home, everything, and their son went over the edge and committed murder (the consensus of holocaust historians). My point had nothing to do with the TR per se, but with my concern that a like scenario of one angry person murderously acting out against a popular government official could trigger a Kristallnacht-like reaction, by both government and general populace. An amil, I don't have rose-tinted glasses. And the church seems due for purification.


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## TimV

> *The days are coming quickly when on many fronts the true church will be sorely attacked, and the text-critical attack, while not the most violent, will be the most crucial*, as the Bible is the source of our strength and very life.



Sorry, I still don't get it. You seem to me making a correlation between a Mideastern descended illegal alien murdering a foreign diplomat in a foreign country and American Christians on the verge of getting sent to concentration camps. And the use of the ESV and other translations being the main cause of the weakening of our will and strength to resist this.

In fact, reading your post again, I am certain this is what you must mean.


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## DMcFadden

Tim, I disagree with Steve's connection here too. 

However, don't make it sound so far-fetched as to be insane. Bart Ehrman just released yet another book, _Jesus Interrupted_, leveraging his textual critical "facts" to buttress his case against Christianity. Muslim apologists make a good deal of Ehrman's points in their arguments against Christianity. So, in the minds of many secular writers and Islamic apologists, the CT has emerged as a potent argument against Christianity.

Unfortunately, the only way to put _that_ genie back in the bottle requires a commitment to KJV-only arguments for preservation that I (for one) find impossible. Steve has moved me to a far more accepting stance toward the majority tradition of the Byzantine manuscripts. However, good or bad, I doubt that the vast majority of conservative scholars are prepared to move too far away from commitment to the claim that Aleph and Vaticanus are the "oldest and most reliable manuscripts."


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## TimV

> Tim, I disagree with Steve's connection here too.
> 
> However, don't make it sound so far-fetched as to be insane. Bart Ehrman just released yet another book, Jesus Interrupted, leveraging his textual critical "facts" to buttress his case against Christianity. Muslim apologists make a good deal of Ehrman's points in their arguments against Christianity. So, in the minds of many secular writers and Islamic apologists, the CT has emerged as a potent argument against Christianity.
> 
> Unfortunately, the only way to put that genie back in the bottle requires a commitment to KJV-only arguments for preservation that I (for one) find impossible. Steve has moved me to a far more accepting stance toward the majority tradition of the Byzantine manuscripts. However, good or bad, I doubt that the vast majority of conservative scholars are prepared to move too far away from Aleph and Vaticanus as the "oldest and most reliable manuscripts" claim.



Thanks Dr. M.

Still, Steve thinks that the majority Byzantine readings are also attacks on Christianity, so you still can't find favor with the extreme AVers unless you swallow their interesting theories whole cloth. 

Muslims and secularists will have the same arguments as always no matter what version of the Bible we use. True, they can point to variations in the readings of different manuscripts, but were all the Christians in the world to agree on an ecumenical manuscript tomorrow they'd just find something else. 

And in the foreseeable future, if an illegal Mexican fanatic kills the Guatemalan ambassador to the US we American evangelicals won't be rounded up and sent to Sweden. No matter what version of the Bible we use.


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## Jerusalem Blade

What Steve is actually saying is that the way a governmental and societal outrage was triggered in another country against a certain people could also be replicated here. That's almost a no-brainer. No conspiracy, just common dynamics. 

I do believe that when the church in the West enters upon its time of trial full-fledged, issues such as Bible versions, peripheral doctrines (even important doctrines), modes of worship, all will be put on the back-burners as we support and stand by one another. This is why it is important to me not to go for the jugular of my brother-opponents, and to show the wickedness of those who do, for without love, knowledge is put to ill use — to _demonic_ use. And we need to learn a catholicity of spirit, even with those brothers whom we think err. The days are coming when this will be an important attitude to possess. But this is rudimentary.

It's absurd (preposterous disinformation actually) to aver that I think Byzantine readings are an attack on Christianity! I've said quite a bit on when the Byz (or MT) differs from the TR/AV, and it's an interesting, nuanced subject. But an attack? Get a life!

Some degrees of spin, and arguments by ridicule, constitute obfuscation to the point of false witness. Straight talk is always cleaner.

When we tell our kids, "Sorry, we don't have an intact Bible you can hold in your hands and say this is _*the*_ Bible; no, you'll just have to say it's a provisional one till our experts figure out the manuscripts; yeah, we know, some of them say they'll never get it figured; but do the best you can with what you've got!" Then we're in the business of undermining the faith of the future generations. For faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Maybe you grownups can deal with this, but not everyone will.

Is "Thus saith the Lord" as regards the whole Bible a bygone certainty?

Will the Lord find faith on the earth when He returns?


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## TimV

> What Steve is actually saying is that the way a governmental and societal outrage was triggered in another country against a certain people could also be replicated here. That's almost a no-brainer. No conspiracy, just common dynamics.



Jews were *ONE THIRD OF ONE PERCENT* in Germany at the time, and many RECENTLY ARRIVED. They were considered *ALIEN*.

Self described Evangelical Christians are *ONE THIRD of the population of the US* and HAVE BEEN HERE FOR CENTURIES. They are considered *ESTABLISHMENT*.

The comparison between the two is fear mongering.




> It's absurd (preposterous disinformation actually) to aver that I think Byzantine readings are an attack on Christianity! I've said quite a bit on when the Byz (or MT) differs from the TR/AV, and it's an interesting, nuanced subject. But an attack? Get a life



Nice try. Anyone who's read the Rev 22:19 threads that you've participated on will remember your stooping to the level of quoting numerologists to support the REJECTION of the overwhelming Byzantine textual tradition of the use of the the word tree instead of book. Your interest is in pushing the TR, not the majority Byzantine textual tradition.



> Some degrees of spin, and arguments by ridicule, constitute obfuscation to the point of false witness. Straight talk is always cleaner.



Well, we agree on that.



> When we tell our kids, "Sorry, we don't have an intact Bible you can hold in your hands and say this is the Bible; no, you'll just have to say it's a provisional one till our experts figure out the manuscripts; yeah, we know, some of them say they'll never get it figured; but do the best you can with what you've got!"



Except for my youngest, who has Down's, even my 14 year old daughter understands the fallacy of that mockery of the position of those of us who aren't extreme AVers. The fact that some words are different makes no difference in the doctrine of preservation, since no central doctrine of the Church is changed whether you use the KJV, ESV, ASB or any of a half dozen other versions. The overwhelming number of Christians have always believed that, and they always will.




> Is "Thus saith the Lord" as regards the whole Bible a bygone certainty?



I don't have a problem with it, even with the version that we will use 1 hour from now, which won't be the AV.



> Will the Lord find faith on the earth when He returns?



I think He sees faith in my OPC congregation right now, even though the Pastor uses the ESV and the RE who fills for him uses the ASV. And the fact that you consider something as personal preferences choosing between mostly non doctrine changing textual differences as a matter of basic Christian faith is really disturbing.


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## calgal

Tim:

I saw Steve warning us not to major in the minors and be aware we are in the crosshairs for some (or many). Now without getting into the backstory of Kristallnacht (IMNSHO like the burning of the reichstag in 1933, there may very well have been some meddling by the nazi faithful to set up the scenario and get rid of a popular political figure that was not in agreement with their policies at the same time), he makes a good point that we are becoming less than popular with "the world". I do think the smug "religious right" with the incredibly poor pattern of inconsistency and hypocrisy played a big part in this.


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## TimV

> I saw Steve warning us not to major in the minors and be aware we are in the crosshairs for some (or many). Now without getting into the backstory of Kristallnacht (IMNSHO like the burning of the reichstag in 1933, there may very well have been some meddling by the nazi faithful to set up the scenario and get rid of a popular political figure that was not in agreement with their policies at the same time), he makes a good point that we are becoming less than popular with "the world". I do think the smug "religious right" with the incredibly poor pattern of inconsistency and hypocrisy played a big part in this.



Gail, as you well know I always admire your postings on foreign affairs. I think we posted (perhaps) at the same time, and I'd be interested in your reading of my above post. Again with the burning of the Reichstag building by a retarded Aryan Dutchman, I don't see the relevance between non TR uses by a population and the persecution of Christians. We can now add the Dutch translation to the German, French and Polish which were all based on the TR during the thirties.

If there were popular version of the Dutch, French, Polish and German Bibles based in the Majority Text or the CT do you think the thirties and forties would have been worse?

After all, to applying basic, systematic logic to a hypothesis is a hallmark of Calvinism.


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## larryjf

Jerusalem Blade said:


> I do have them all saved, and I would like to do something with them; it remains to be seen if I get around to it. Were someone else to express an interest in compiling them into a coherent whole I would be glad, as long as I'd have final editorial say.



Consider this me expressing my interest in doing the best that i can to compile what you have. I would be honored to do it as your writings have been such a blessing to me.

I would have no problem with you having full control over the content and end result...i would simply consider it service for the Kingdom!


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## calgal

TimV said:


> I saw Steve warning us not to major in the minors and be aware we are in the crosshairs for some (or many). Now without getting into the backstory of Kristallnacht (IMNSHO like the burning of the reichstag in 1933, there may very well have been some meddling by the nazi faithful to set up the scenario and get rid of a popular political figure that was not in agreement with their policies at the same time), he makes a good point that we are becoming less than popular with "the world". I do think the smug "religious right" with the incredibly poor pattern of inconsistency and hypocrisy played a big part in this.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gail, as you well know I always admire your postings on foreign affairs. I think we posted (perhaps) at the same time, and I'd be interested in your reading of my above post. Again with the burning of the Reichstag building by a retarded Aryan Dutchman, I don't see the relevance between non TR uses by a population and the persecution of Christians. We can now add the Dutch translation to the German, French and Polish which were all based on the TR during the thirties.
> 
> If there were popular version of the Dutch, French, Polish and German Bibles based in the Majority Text or the CT do you think the thirties and forties would have been worse?
> 
> After all, to applying basic, systematic logic to a hypothesis is a hallmark of Calvinism.
Click to expand...


I agree that the comparison is fearmongering. One thing to remember though: Hitler did not just target the polish Jews in funny hats with sidecurls but went after anyone with a hint of Jewish blood. There was a decent population of native German Jews who lived in Germany for centuries (and many who had converted to Christianity were also targeted and killed).

As for the different versions of the bible making a difference in the 30's and 40's, the communist and nazi murderers of millions did not do much with bibles other than to burn them or to write names of aryan family members therein (the nazis).


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## NaphtaliPress

Moderator: Drop the Jews in Germany tangent.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Tim, you said, "I don't see the relevance between non TR uses by a population and the persecution of Christians." Nor do I. I assume you have your wits about you — why then do you go off on such weird tangents? You're so used to spinning it seems your own mind is caught up in its convolutions.

My remark was not "mockery of the position of those of us who aren't extreme AVers", but a genuine concern for those who are told there is no Bible they can hold in their hands and say, "This in its entirety is the infallible, inspired Word of God." And this is a modern phenomenon. 150 years ago in the English-speaking world the consensus was the exact opposite. Are we wiser and more knowledgeable than they were? Or has the quality of our knowledge and wisdom deteriorated? Has an enemy snuck in and sown bad seed in our field of understanding? (Please don't rant on about conspiracies; of course the church knows that devils conspire against the human race. Our job is to discern where and when, and to keep ourselves free of such.)

The doctrine of preservation does not pertain to central doctrines of the Faith generally, but specifically to the providential preservation of the Scripture itself. That is a central doctrine of the faith, along with the doctrine of the divine inspiration of Scripture. The different wording of versions — and acceptance of such — indicates a view of "preservation" at odds with the Reformation's doctrine, which was a plenary preservation of Scripture.

What you say about the living faith in your congregation I would agree with, and it is so in my home church in NY which uses the ESV, NIV and the pastor's own translations. Nor do I see the use of versions with differences (by personal preference) as something other than "basic Christian faith". I have been emphatically clear about this in this thread. Your needle's stuck — give it a kick!

Tim, would you kindly show me where I "stooped to the level of quoting numerologists" in my defense of "book" of life instead of "tree". But really this slur is an avoidance of confronting my saying,



> It's absurd (preposterous disinformation actually) to aver that I think Byzantine readings are an attack on Christianity! I've said quite a bit on when the Byz (or MT) differs from the TR/AV, and it's an interesting, nuanced subject. But an attack? Get a life.



Then you say, "Your interest is in pushing the TR, not the majority Byzantine textual tradition." I find you're adept in "sound bite" inflammatory diversion and obfuscation!

Of course I promote (push has a coarseness, vulgarity to it) the TR over the Byz, but not at the expense of it, for the Byz is the basic foundation on which we build. It is not the _exclusive_ foundation, but it is the basic one. In an above post I put it like this: "The MT labors are immense and of precious value; we stand on their shoulders – or to perfect the metaphor, we leap from their shoulders to a high rock, upon which we take our stand."


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## SolaScriptura

Steve - 

Did James White respond to you either publically or privately?


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## Jerusalem Blade

No, Ben, he hasn't.


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## TimV

> I agree that the comparison is fearmongering.



Thanks, I thought you'd think so. The hypothesis is that there is enough difference between the KJV and ESV etc.. that the widespread use of the ESV will be a major factor, and perhaps THE major factor in the weaken the moral fiber of the US to the point that Christians will be rounded up.




> Tim, you said, "I don't see the relevance between non TR uses by a population and the persecution of Christians." Nor do I. I assume you have your wits about you — *why then do you go off on such weird tangents*? You're so used to spinning it seems your own mind is caught up in its convolutions.



*Because you brought it up. You said:
The days are coming quickly when on many fronts the true church will be sorely attacked, and the text-critical attack, while not the most violent, will be the most crucial*

and used as a warning, or as you put it *An historical reminder* the Greenspan incident. 



> My remark was not "mockery of the position of those of us who aren't extreme AVers", but a genuine concern for those who are told there is no Bible they can hold in their hands and say, "This in its entirety is the infallible, inspired Word of God."



Yes, it is a mockery, since you define infallible as word for word the exact copies of the original, and the overwhelming majority of Reformed Elders and thinkers say just exactly the opposite. That no, you can't hold up a 1611 KJV and say with any certainty at all that it is exactly word for word the infallible Word of God. You should, if your children ask you, tell them "no, we can't say with any certainty at all that this Bible in your hand has exactly, word for word, the original Words as given to the authors of the New Testament". And then you explain the true doctrine of preservation, and they will understand it with no problem.



> 150 years ago in the English-speaking world the consensus was the exact opposite. Are we wiser and more knowledgeable than they were? Or has the quality of our knowledge and wisdom deteriorated?



Mangled reasoning. There is another alternative. We aren't wiser, but our knowledge has increased, so we can say along with Erasums, Augustine etc.. that more and better originals give us more information that we can wisely uses to make minor corrections to the TR, which was what after all Erasmus got famous for.



> Tim, would you kindly show me where I "stooped to the level of quoting numerologists" in my defense of "book" of life instead of "tree". But really this slur is an avoidance of confronting my saying,



No, I will not bother to look it up *AGAIN*. You posted a link to a man, in the very thread discussing Rev. 22:19 in support of your position and he used numerology.


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## calgal

NaphtaliPress said:


> Moderator: Drop the Jews in Germany tangent.


 Sorry!

-----Added 5/3/2009 at 05:21:00 EST-----



Jerusalem Blade said:


> No, Ben, he hasn't.



Steve - Sort of a tangential question (sorry to go off on a rabbit trail): I was taught that a lot of Reformed families brought the Geneva bible with them to the New World and was trying to see whether the GB is TR or something else.


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## TimV

Yes, the Geneva Bible NT was also based on the TR.


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## Hebrew Student

Hey Everyone!



> The reading her purification has a great deal of textual support among the Latin witnesses. The majority of all Latin manuscripts read, et postquam postquam impleti sunt dies purgationis eius secundum legem mosi (And after the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses). The Latin word eius (or ejus) means her and stands in the feminine genitive singular, thus of her. In order to have the translation of them, the Latin texts would have to use the word eorum. When we consider the age and the number of extant Latin manuscripts, we find the reading is both ancient and well substantiated. It is also interesting to note that the reading has some support in the forged Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (possible third century). Written in Latin, it allows us to see that the purification spoken of in Luke 2:22 was a reference to Mary. Pseudo-Matthew reads: "Now, after the days of the purification of Mary were fulfilled according to the law of Moses, then Joseph took the infant to the temple of the Lord" (15:1).



The issue on this has to do with the harder reading. The harder reading is "their," because the difficulty is who the referent is according to the law of Moses. If the original is "her purification," there would seem to be no reason for anyone to change it. However, it is easily conceivable that someone who sees "their," and has difficulty understanding who and what was meant by "their" would easily "fix" it to "her." In order to overcome this argument, one would have to explain the rise of "their" from "her," and that is difficult, if not impossible to do.

Also, there is a contradiction in methodology. If one wants to maintain that the MT is the original, and is what the reformers meant when they referred to the text being preserved to all generations, then why is it that we have a different majority text in every generation? It is not until around the ninth century that the Byzantine manuscripts are in the majority. Hence, if your methodology would give you a different text in every generation, then why would you ever consider it an acceptable methodology? For example, how was the word of God providentially preserved to a Christian living in Egypt in 525 A.D., when the Byzantine manuscripts were in the vast minority at that time?

God Bless,
Adam


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## MW

Hebrew Student said:


> t is not until around the ninth century that the Byzantine manuscripts are in the majority.



The confidence with which this is stated as fact would require one to possess all the mss. prior to the 9th century in order to determine which are in the majority. But even then it would not prove anything because the confessional position is concerned with the "text" to which the church has been able to appeal in all ages, and it is well known that numerous mss. were in circulation outside "the church." In fact, what is known of the activity of Marcion as early as the second century should be enough to dispel the idea that the earliest mss. are necessarily the most reliable.


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## Hebrew Student

armourbearer,



> The confidence with which this is stated as fact would require one to possess all the mss. prior to the 9th century in order to determine which are in the majority. But even then it would not prove anything because the confessional position is concerned with the "text" to which the church has been able to appeal in all ages, and it is well known that numerous mss. were in circulation outside "the church." In fact, what is known of the activity of Marcion as early as the second century should be enough to dispel the idea that the earliest mss. are necessarily the most reliable.



Or, one could say that we have a good enough representation of the manuscripts for the NT that we have a good idea of what the text looked like up until the ninth century, given that the NT is the best attested document in terms of manuscripts from antiquity.

Also, can you give any evidence that, for example, p66 or p75 was touched by Marcion or any other heretic?

Finally, what I find funny is that there is only one set of manuscripts, and only one set, that we can say were touched by heretics. They happen to be some of the Byzantine manuscripts of the book of Revelation. The reason why we know that they were touched by heretics is because these were part of a larger codex of books on mystery religions. What I find fascinating is that, not only are these manuscripts accurate to the Byzantine tradition, but that no one is willing to say that the Byzantine manuscripts are, therefore, unreliable.

If you want to say that the Alexandrian manuscripts were circulating "cutside the church," you are going to have to come up with some evidence to prove it. We know that the Byzantine manuscripts circulated outside the church, and yet, you do not reject them.

God Bless,
Adam


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## larryjf

Hebrew Student said:


> Also, there is a contradiction in methodology. If one wants to maintain that the MT is the original, and is what the reformers meant when they referred to the text being preserved to all generations, then why is it that we have a different majority text in every generation? It is not until around the ninth century that the Byzantine manuscripts are in the majority. Hence, if your methodology would give you a different text in every generation, then why would you ever consider it an acceptable methodology? For example, how was the word of God providentially preserved to a Christian living in Egypt in 525 A.D., when the Byzantine manuscripts were in the vast minority at that time?



Consider a few things:

Should we be asking what was providentially preserved for one year in one country (Egypt in 525 A.D.)?
In the first few hundred years of the Church the Alexandrian Text has been found in Egypt, but it would not be reasonable to use that to compare against anything as there is a historical blank spot over Byzantium during that same period...and that's where the original manuscripts were sent to.
The Muslims conquered Egypt long before Byzantium and the Western Church used Latin as their official language...therefore, the only Church that was continuing in the transmission of the Greek NT was the Byzantine Church.


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## Hebrew Student

Larry,



> Should we be asking what was providentially preserved for one year in one country (Egypt in 525 A.D.)?



Yes, because the phrase "word of God" is being interpreted in a overly literal fashion in the confession. If it has been preserved to all generations, it should have been preserved to that generation.



> In the first few hundred years of the Church the Alexandrian Text has been found in Egypt, but it would not be reasonable to use that to compare against anything as there is a historical blank spot over Byzantium during that same period...and that's where the original manuscripts were sent to.
> 
> The Muslims conquered Egypt long before Byzantium and the Western Church used Latin as their official language...therefore, the only Church that was continuing in the transmission of the Greek NT was the Byzantine Church.




Actually, part of the problem is that, although these manuscripts may have ended up in Egypt, we do not know where they started. Many of these manuscripts that are "Alexandrian" are only so called because they were found in the sands of Egypt. However, they could have started in Rome or Jerusalem, and then found their way to Egypt, expecially since the people of God wanted everyone to hear about Jesus.

I would agree that the Muslim invasion played an important role, but where is the evidence that the originals survived for this long, and also that they were transported to Byzantium?

Finally, I think it is imporant to recognize that, if readings can just disappear from a manuscript tradition like this, we can never have any assurance that we have the correct reading today, since the originals may have looked totally different than what we have today.

God Bless,
Adam


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## larryjf

Hebrew Student said:


> Larry,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Should we be asking what was providentially preserved for one year in one country (Egypt in 525 A.D.)?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, because the phrase "word of God" is being interpreted in a overly literal fashion in the confession. If it has been preserved to all generations, it should have been preserved to that generation.
Click to expand...

I think you're missing my point. One year in one region does not represent preservation, rather it represents a snap-shot of a particular region at a particular time. When a particular snap-shot like this is taken outside of historical context it becomes worthless.



Hebrew Student said:


> In the first few hundred years of the Church the Alexandrian Text has been found in Egypt, but it would not be reasonable to use that to compare against anything as there is a historical blank spot over Byzantium during that same period...and that's where the original manuscripts were sent to.
> 
> The Muslims conquered Egypt long before Byzantium and the Western Church used Latin as their official language...therefore, the only Church that was continuing in the transmission of the Greek NT was the Byzantine Church.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, part of the problem is that, although these manuscripts may have ended up in Egypt, we do not know where they started. Many of these manuscripts that are "Alexandrian" are only so called because they were found in the sands of Egypt. However, they could have started in Rome or Jerusalem, and then found their way to Egypt, expecially since the people of God wanted everyone to hear about Jesus.
Click to expand...

That's a presumption...and i don't agree with it. One of the main reasons i can't agree with it is that some of the Alexandrian copies were copied by scribes who didn't know the Greek language because many of the mistakes found in them would not have been made by someone familiar with the Greek language.





Hebrew Student said:


> I would agree that the Muslim invasion played an important role, but where is the evidence that the originals survived for this long, and also that they were transported to Byzantium?


There's no evidence that the originals survived that long. But there's also no evidence that the original line of text was ever moved out of the area that the were written to - Byzantium.
What the invasion does show is that the text could not have been preserved in the years from the Muslim invasion. And since the West used Latin, the Egyptians were under Muslim rule, the Greeks were the ones that continued in the preserving of the Greek Scripture.

One other point would be the over-emphasis of the focus on "originals." In God's wisdom He did not preserve the originals. What He did preserve was an Ecclesiastical Text.
If we look at the Church throughout the ages we can't compare anything prior to the 4th century because there's no Byzantine evidence at all from that time period to compare against. Therefore we must look at 4th century and following, and it's clear looking at that textual history that the Church moved more and more into conformity to the Byzantine Text until it dominated the scene.

Also interesting is the fact that if divergent manuscripts were copied over and over they would become more divergent...however, the byzantine text actually becomes more uniform as it is copied more and more. This indicates there was an exemplar that each region had that was close enough to the original that they were able to drive closer to the source.


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## puritanpilgrim

> Responding to James White of AOMIN
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I’ve decided to – as briefly as possible – come out of retirement from being highly active on Puritanboard so as to respond to James White’s “invitation” on the AOMIN blog, and also to things he said on the DL while talking with Rob Wieland. Due to my need to give adequate time preparing a series of sermons on Revelation, and whatever is left after tending to the church, and being a good husband to my wife (not in order of importance!), devoting the remainder to the book I’m working on, A Great and Terrible Love, I have to carefully set my time-management priorities (an update on the book will be on the blog here shortly). This response will be in one single post – I’m afraid to say – as separate continuous posts are no longer supported here at PB. Sections that would have been separate posts will be divided by red dots.
> 
> 
> Dear Doctor White,
> 
> (Allow me, please, to call you James, Dr. White)
> 
> I know your invitation pertained to callers on the DL, but as your 4 PM in Phoenix is my 1 AM in Cyprus (and talking at that hour wakes my wife who needs her sleep due to grueling days [taking care of a mom with end-stage Alzheimer’s]), I hope you will accept my writing instead. I will try to keep this brief as possible for the sake of both our schedules, although to do justice to your questions thorough answers must be provided, which will make it more lengthy than a conversation on the DL. All I simply aim to do in responding to you is present an intellectually respectable “methodology that will actually allow us to determine what the text is” (approx. 15:40 on your DL talk with Robert). Maurice Robinson said somewhat the same thing in the Intro to his Byzantine Greek Text:
> 
> A sound rational approach which accounts for all the phenomena and offers a reconstruction of the history of textual transmission is all that is demanded for any text-critical hypothesis. (p. xxxii)
> Now I don’t hope to convince you that my methodology will allow you to determine the text (for you have your own methodology), but rather that my “hypothesis” is internally consistent and can effectively be defended against detractors, whether fellow Christians or unbelievers.
> 
> You will excuse me, I hope, if in explaining my position I go to some length, bringing in the work of others, both to make clear to you where I stand, and for the sake of those who no doubt will be observing our interaction. I will, however, seek to keep my citations to a minimum, and to give links to sources rather than post them so as not to bloat the discussion.
> 
> An important point: I am all-too-aware that our exchanges have the potential to be grievously damaging to the faith our brothers and sisters have in their Bibles. You tear down the TR and Byz mss and I the Alexandrian / CT / Eclectic Text (ET), and we wreak havoc everywhere, in all quarters! So I would like to say some things I hope may offset this possibility, at least as far as my causing such damage is concerned. There are folks who use the AV / TR who imply or openly state that CT / ET Bibles are not legitimate Bibles, disparagingly calling them “per-versions”. I neither think nor will speak like this, for it is not true. I realize I will anger and alienate a multitude in my camp with this saying, but I do not care to please men as long as I please the Lord who is overseeing this exchange between you and me.
> 
> The woman through whose witness I was converted in 1968 used the Lamsa Pesh-itta Bible, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit was powerful through her, illumining and saving a wretch caught in the strong delusion of New Age and various occult influences. The men God used to minister to me up through the years used a variety of Bible versions; Jerry Bridges in The Pursuit of Holiness was used by the Lord to direct my life in a time of crisis, the NIV he used was quickened by the Holy Spirit to edify and give me divine life and guidance. Al Martin, in one of his sermons, using a Bible I do not believe was the AV, caused – through the Holy Spirit – the heavens to be opened and a new walk of faith made available to me. R.C. Sproul likewise on numerous occasions. Tim Keller used the NIV and sometimes the ESV (as well as his own Greek translations) during the five plus years he was my pastor, to my eternal benefit as the depths and wonder of the Gospel of Christ was opened for my wife and myself. Not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power these men (and that woman) were vessels of the anointing of the Lord Himself, and they could not have been such if the Bibles they used were not legitimate Bibles, and they not godly souls who walked intimately with Him. I repudiate the slurs put upon their Bibles and their souls, as I have personally seen the Lord in their ministries. The issue is, not the Bibles, but the variants and occasionally the translations. The variants may indeed not be legitimate, and there is no harm done in pointing this out, while generally affirming their Bibles. You AVers having fits over this view, consider, are you willing to tear down the faith of those for whom the Lord shed His blood so that your view may – in your own eyes – prevail? For many precious souls hold to the NIV / ESV / NASB etc, and would you take away that which they cling to, if they do not have faith that your view of the Scripture is right? The same applies to those disagreeing with the TR / KJV camp. There is a meanness and inconsiderateness over the welfare of other believers who differ in these debates, that the Lord will deal with, for you “correct ones” seek to take away that which they need to live – that being His Word, because it is not in the version you hold to be the best, and disagreeing with the variants or some translations in their versions you trash their Bibles in their entirety. Where does that leave them? Have you no mercy or love for erring brothers and sisters?
> 
> It would be better to graciously, if possible, meet people where they are, insulting neither them nor their Bibles, and demonstrate the soundness of your positions.
> 
> James, on the blog you stated these questions for the KJV / TR advocate:
> 
> 1) When did "the church" "received" [sic] this text?
> 2) What council engaged in a study of the respective texts and determined that this is the "one" text that most closely represents the original?
> 3) Which text IS the "TR"? Can you identify a single text as THE TR? If not, why not?
> 4) Please explain why I should use the TR's readings of Luke 2:22, Revelation 16:5, and the final six verses of Revelation.
> Re #1, I think informally during the post-Reformation period, when the Protestant scholars – such as John Owen (1616-1683) and Francis Turretin (1623-1687) – were formulating their responses to Rome, and more formally at the Westminster Assembly – in the mid to late 1640s – when they hammered out the Confession, and its section 1:8.
> 
> The Waldensian churches of ancient Italy and France also pay an important part in this, as an apostolic witness to doctrine and intact Scriptures were maintained by them against the corruptions in both by Rome. I realize this is a controverted historical matter, but there is much good research available. For example: The Waldenses and the Bible: http://web.archive.org/web/200801120...lc/waldbib.htm True, one of the articles is from Wilkinson’s book (an SDA), but if his research is sound and documented, why is it not as good as Metzger’s, an unbelieving liberal? If anyone throws Kutilek’s piece at me, he’s been well answered many times, and by Dr. Ken Johnson in particular in his, A Refutation Of Kutilek’s “The Truth About The Waldenses Bible And the Old Latin Version”, available at Bible For Today, item #2263 (link to online store given below). Will Kinney also addresses it: Untitled
> 
> #2 Would the Westminster Assembly count as a council? Would a general consensus among the post-Reformation scholars count? What about the assembly that produced the 1689 London Baptist Confession? Have the early Reformed churches ever had major (international) councils, apart from Westminster and Dort?
> 
> Did a council ever engage in a study of the respective texts and determine that one is the “one” text that most closely represents the original? (Hort imagined one in around 350 A.D., but that theory has been debunked.) Or did the believing church simply recognize early on which texts were in accord with the autographs still extant in apostolic churches, and which were mutilated? More on this below.
> 
> 3# I do not believe we have or even know all the texts the Reformation editors had, though some of those Stephanus and Beza used are known to us, and the texts that the King James translators used – besides primarily using Beza’s 1598 edition – have been lost to us due, I believe, to one of the London fires destroying much of the translators’ notes and minutes.
> 
> In the above link to the Bible of the Waldenses we have insight into texts that came to Beza and the Reformers. These cast a new light on why they occasionally accepted variants not in the Greek of the Byzantine.
> 
> A rhetorical question you asked just prior to talking with Robert on the DL was, “Did they [the TR editors] have access to the information we have today?” It is likewise fair to ask, Do we have access to the information they had four centuries ago? It is documented they had manuscripts that no longer exist.
> 
> David Cloud also addresses this matter in "MYTH # 2: REFORMATION EDITORS LACKED SUFFICIENT MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE": MYTH # 2 ABOUT THE KJV [Taken from his book, Myths About The King James Bible]
> 
> An interesting view into the matter of the TR mss comes from Theodore Letis’ The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate:
> 
> Owen saw only the minor variants between the various editions of TR as valid areas for discrimination, staying within the broad parameters of providential preservation, as exemplified by “Erasmus, Stephen, Beza, Arias Montanus, and some others.” Within the confines of these editions was “the first and most honest course fixed on” for “consulting various copies and comparing them among themselves.”
> 
> This is both the concrete domain of the providentially preserved text, as well as the only area for legitimate comparisons to choose readings among the minutiae of differences. In fact, “God by His Providence preserving the whole entire; suffered this lesser variety [within the providentially preserved editions of the TR –TPL] to fall out, in or among the copies we have, for the quickening and exercising of our diligence in our search into His Word [for ascertaining the finality of preservation among the minutiae of differences among the TR editions –TPL] (The Divine Original, p. 301)* It is the activity, editions, and variants after this period of stabilization that represent illegitimate activity, or, as Owen says, “another way.”
> 
> Thus Owen maintained an absolute providential preservation while granting variants. (“John Owen Versus Brian Walton” fn 30, p. 160)
> * Owen’s Divine Original online: DIVINE ORIGINAL, AUTHORITY, SELF-EVIDENCING LIGHT, AND POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES. This is from volume 16 of Owen’s works.
> 
> Incidentally, this would be in line with the thinking of Dr. E.F. Hills, who allowed there were three errors in the KJV.
> 
> There were mss extant in those days which no longer are. We often hear of John Gill asserting Stephanus had 16 manuscripts with 1 John 5 in them and 9 of them had verse 7, but they are no longer with us in 2009. We have some editions of the Majority / Byzantine Text (which differ), we have Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, Elzevir, but what definitive TR edition do we have? Even Scrivener’s 1894 “backward engineered” TR but seeks to reproduce the particular Greek readings from these (first three) editions which conform to the KJV, though we don’t know if other versions influenced their choices, such as a Waldensian Bible might have. (Kinney has an interesting article on this: http://av1611.com/forums/showpost.ph...12&postcount=1) The KJV begat the 1894 TR and not vice versa. So where is our TR? Beza 1598 and Scrivener 1894 may be very close, but neither is the definitive and perfect original text. Nor did the translators use but one text. What we do have is their King James Bible. The TR 1894 would still reproduce the Greek readings underlying the AV perfectly.
> 
> Which leads me to another point. How do I proceed from here? What evidences are available to lead me to a knowledge of the truth of this textual matter that so perplexes multitudes? How do I truly know anything? I mean with absolute certainty? Only by God’s word. So I shall look to that.
> 
> Among the promises He has given to those who love Him and keep His covenant is that He would preserve His written word for them throughout the ages.
> 
> In Matt 4:4 the Lord Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Does it not follow that what He said we must live by He would see to it we have? Has not “His divine power…given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3)? When Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away” (Matt 24:35), was He referring to His words only being kept in Heaven, and not here on the earth where we need them desperately in order to live? Is not Isaiah 59:21 something that pertains to this issue:
> 
> As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
> It is what my epistemological foundation is that matters. By that I mean, what presuppositions are operating in my worldview, and which inform my view of the Bible? First of all is, God has spoken, and revealed His heart, mind, and knowledge in written form so as to communicate these things to me. I have received true knowledge from Him. Because of what He has said, I believe that He created the world as He had revealed in the Book of Genesis. I believe His account of creation – including the creation of man and his fall – despite all supposed evidences and theories to the contrary.
> 
> I realize we all have the same data regarding the Bible, both historical and textual, but we interpret the data differently. I appreciate and use evidences but they are not my epistemological foundation. God has said He would preserve His word for us. I know you believe that also, James. Clearly we have different views on how He did / or will fulfill that promise. This is where it gets sticky!
> 
> For what you believe – and teach – on this matter you get a lot of invective, hatred, contempt, and rejection, and I get the same as well. Before I proceed, let me say – as the folks here at PB know all too well – I do not tolerate that railing style of “discourse” (which James says “is earthly, sensual, devilish” [3:15], and Paul says should not be allowed in the church [1 Cor 5:11-13]) regardless of which camp they are from, yours or mine. We are brothers to one another – and will walk in the streets of glory together – though we differ on this particular. I refuse to demonize you or those in your camp, and I resist such characterizations of myself and those in my camp.
> 
> With all my integrity, and the intelligence the Lord has given me, I believe my understanding of the matter to be correct, and no doubt you believe the same for yourself. Now this is where the acrimony often comes in: If you are able to tear down my beliefs in this matter (I trust the Lord will keep that from happening), I would have lost faith in the reliability of the Bible, for, having carefully studied the matter, I have already lost confidence in the view you uphold, the Critical Text position (and the eclectic as well). I no doubt speak for multitudes in this. Yes, you are right in that we have sufficient agreement in the various text-types so that the Lord may easily save whom He will through these. But I am expecting a preservation in the minutiae, and not simply in the main. But more on this below.
> 
> Unfortunately, many of our textual critics (the experts and scholars) have already succumbed to this loss of faith in the Bible:
> 
> “In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort and of van Soden, we do not know the original form of the gospels, and it is quite likely that we never shall” (Kirsopp Lake, Family 13, The Ferrar Group, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1941, p. vii).
> 
> “…it is generally recognized that the original text of the Bible cannot be recovered” (R.M. Grant. “The Bible of Theophilus of Antioch,” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 66, 1947, p. 173).
> 
> “…the optimism of the earlier editors has given way to that skepticisim which inclines towards regarding ‘the original text’ as an unattainable mirage” (G. Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles, 1953, p. 9).
> 
> “…every textual critic knows that this similarity of text indicates, rather, that we have made little progress in textual theory since Westcott-Hort; that we simply do not know how to make a definitive determination as to what the best text is; that we do not have a clear picture of the transmission and alternation of the text in the first few centuries; and accordingly, that the Westcott-Hort kind of text has maintained its dominant position largely by default” (Eldon J. Epp, “The Twentieth Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism,” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 43, 1974, pp. 390-391).
> 
> “…we no longer think of Westcott-Hort’s ‘Neutral’ text as neutral; we no longer think of their ‘Western’ text as Western or as uniting the textual elements they selected; and, of course, we no longer think so simplistically or so confidently about recovering ‘the New Testament in the Original Greek.’…We remain largely in the dark as to how we might reconstruct the textual history that has left in its wake—in the form of MSS and fragments—numerous pieces of a puzzle that we seem incapable of fitting together. Westcott-Hort, von Soden, and others had sweeping theories (which we have largely rejected) to undergird their critical texts, but we seem now to have no such theories and no plausible sketches of the early history of the text that are widely accepted. What progress, then, have we made? Are we more advanced than our predecessors when, after showing their theories to be unacceptable, we offer no such theories at all to vindicate our accepted text?” (Eldon J. Epp, “A Continuing Interlude in NT Textual Criticism,” Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism, (Eerdman’s, 1993), pp. 114, 115).
> This pessimism is not what the Lord has provided for His people! Granted, James, this is not your view, but the trickle-down effect of these views has already impacted the believers in the pews, and many of those in the pulpits as well. There is a steady erosion of confidence in the intactness of the Word God has left His church. When we – you and I, and others like us – go at it as we do, it furthers this process. I hope to proceed in such a way as to greatly limit this erosion. I have not only a scholar’s and warrior’s interest in this matter, but a pastor’s!
> 
> In your conversation with Robert one thing I noticed very prominent in your remarks to him was your insistence on the need for consistency in our arguments for and defenses of the Faith and its foundational Scriptures, and in particular the present issue here, Do we have a reliable Scripture, and which is it?
> 
> Note here, please, the thread of cohesion in my arguments – the point of consistency throughout: God promised to preserve His word, and this is how He did it, according to how I believe (upon which I shall be elaborating). Of course you are right, James, to say this is not the only view of preservation there is, and people may well believe He has done it in another manner.
> 
> Before I wax too theoretical, let me try to briefly address the three TR (1894) readings of Luke 2:22, Revelation 16:5, and the final six verses of Revelation. Whether I discuss the TR 1894 or the KJV it amounts to the same thing.
> 
> Permit me, please, to use the work of scholars I think sufficient to satisfy the desire for “a sound rational approach” while maintaining our faith that God’s providence arranged for these readings to be in the TR editions the 1611 translators used and – over those of other differing readings – chose. A brief discussion will follow this quote from Dr. Thomas Holland’s, Crowned With Glory: The Bible from Ancient Text to Authorized Version, pages 150-153.
> 
> Luke 2:22 – “of her purification”
> 
> And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;
> 
> Here the variant is small but the difference is profound. The Authorized Version and Textus Receptus (Beza's edition and Elzevir's edition) use the phrase, "of her purification" (katharismou autes). Modern versions and the Critical Text read, "of their purification" (katharismou auton). Contextually, the reading must stand as reflected in the KJV. Under the Levitical Law a woman was considered unclean after giving birth and needed purification. The passage in Leviticus 12: 2-4 reads,
> 
> Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.
> The citation is quite clear: this was "her purifying" and not the purifying of both mother and child. Therefore, the Authorized Version and the Greek Textus Receptus agree with the Levitical Law.
> 
> To offset this point, some have suggested that the word them is a reference to Mary and Joseph. The argument is that since Joseph and Mary are mentioned in verse 16 and referred to in the second half of verse 22, the word them referred to the married couple. The obvious doctrinal problem with this is that under the Law of Moses, as set forth in Leviticus 12, the woman and not the husband needed purification after giving birth. The best contextual reading agrees with the Authorized Version, as it would support both the Old Testament Law and the actions presented in Luke's Gospel. [1]
> 
> Admittedly, the Greek support now known for the reading as found in the Textus Receptus is extremely poor. It is found in a few Greek minuscules such as 76 and a few others. [2] There is an additional textual variant within the Greek manuscripts. Codex D05 (sixth century), which is highly acclaimed among textual scholars, has the reading autou (of it). While the reading autns (of her) is preferred, both readings stand in the genitive singular and not the plural as auton (of them). Additionally, we find the Sinaitic Syriac and the Sahidic Coptic versions supporting 2174, and D.
> 
> The reading her purification has a great deal of textual support among the Latin witnesses. The majority of all Latin manuscripts read, et postquam postquam impleti sunt dies purgationis eius secundum legem mosi (And after the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses). The Latin word eius (or ejus) means her and stands in the feminine genitive singular, thus of her. In order to have the translation of them, the Latin texts would have to use the word eorum. When we consider the age and the number of extant Latin manuscripts, we find the reading is both ancient and well substantiated. It is also interesting to note that the reading has some support in the forged Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (possible third century). Written in Latin, it allows us to see that the purification spoken of in Luke 2:22 was a reference to Mary. Pseudo-Matthew reads: "Now, after the days of the purification of Mary were fulfilled according to the law of Moses, then Joseph took the infant to the temple of the Lord" (15:1).
> 
> -------
> Footnotes
> 
> [1] There is a debate among textual critics regarding eclecticism. Most support what is commonly called "reasoned eclecticism" which tends to focus on the age and number of existing Greek manuscripts. However, scholars such as G. D. Kilpatrick and J. K. Elliot promote "rigorous eclecticism" which focuses on the internal evidence above the external textual evidence. Therefore, according to this type of eclecticism, any textual variant regardless of age or number could conceivably be the correct reading if the internal evidence is sufficient. See Kilpatrick, The Principles and Practice of New Testament Textual Criticism, 1990, pp. 33-52.
> 
> [2] Edward F. Hills, The King James Version Defended (1956; reprint, Des Moines: The Christian Research Press, 1984), 221.
> End Holland.
> 
> Before I comment I’ll also include a paragraph from Kevin James’, The Corruption of the Word: The Failure of Modern New Testament Scholarship:
> 
> An original Aramaic copy of Luke can also give a possible answer. In Aramaic, the letters for “his” or “her” are the same: THRH. The difference in meaning is determined by the vowels assigned to these four letters; “her” purification is theRaH while “his” purification is theRayH (Brown, Driver, Briggs and Gesenius Hebrew Lexicon,1979, p. 372; Alger F. Johns, A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, Andrews Univ. Press, 1982, pp. 6, 13). It is easy to see how an early copyist engaged in the translation of an Aramaic Luke into Greek, could mistakenly write “his” for “her” purification. Later copyists, finding both, wrote “their.” (p. 70)
> This reminds me of another reading where the text seems to have wide circulation and acceptance today, yet is wrong, that being the Critical Text’s Matthew 1:7 and 10, where the correct Asa and Amon – in Christ’s lineage – are replaced by Asaph and Amos. It is in the Greek of Vaticanus (and a very few others), and rendered into the English by the ESV. Metzger opines that the error was in the original Matthew wrote (the autograph!) and should remain in the Greek text. In the verse considered above, Luke 2:22, “their” is likewise wrong, though with far less textual attestation than the correct Asa and Amon have.
> 
> Now here is my point: Corruptions / mutilations did enter into the text, even the Byzantine; why should not the God, in whose hand is the heart of kings, to turn them “whithersoever He will” (Prov 21:1), why should He not turn the hearts of those editors of His word to pick the words He wants restored to the text? This is consistent with my method (though I realize not yours, James): in the main God preserved the accurate reading of the autographs in the Byzantine tradition; in some minute particulars, where the Byz lost the true reading, but by Him “kept pure in all ages” in some other manuscripts or traditions, and restored when He deigned to bring His word into the English language and those other language versions the great missionary movements sent forth throughout the world. As He is Lord of the Book, superintending it with His invincible care (“…for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” Ps 138:2 [Cf. ESV margin]), this is no big thing for the One who moved an empire to have His Son born in Bethlehem, who knows the names of all the stars in the billions of galaxies (in the known universe), who knows no limits to the care He will bestow on the Bride He has chosen for His Son, providing for her “all things that pertain unto life and godliness”, foremost of which is “every word that proceedeth out of [His] mouth” and by which we must live! (2 Pet 1:3; Matt 4:4)
> 
> Mine is a supernatural faith from beginning to end; my salvation is such, and the word by which I have been begotten is such. Why is it thought odd I should see the Book of God in this same light? My faith is not in the scientific scrutiny of men, in their theories of transmission and texts, but in the power and promises of the God of my life, His Book being one of those supernatural wonders. As the repentant emperor confessed, “...he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (Dan 4:35) And the apostle says the same, He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph 1:11).
> 
> Surely you will say to me, James, “But it is not written how He will work all things, especially with regard to His Book.” Agreed. I say those things to show how easily He could have brought readings back to His Book lost through error, accident, or design. In the realm of faith it is as sound a view – at the least – as marshalling evidences. But this does not mean we are bereft of such! Evidences are just not the foundation of our understanding.
> 
> .........
> 
> 
> Not that we are bereft of evidences! For instance, Dr. Wilbur Pickering posits a compelling view of the transmission and preservation of the NT autographs in the early years of the church (please bear with my entering this segment of his work, as it substantiates the argument I posit regarding the warranted preference of the Byzantine textform over that of the Alexandrian/CT, upon which I build):
> 
> This is from chapter 5 in Wilbur N. Pickering’s, The Identity of the New Testament Text II, where he talks about the history and factors involved concerning the copies made from the autographs. Please note that this later version of the book (the online version) is slightly different from the earlier hardcopy book:
> 
> We have objective historical evidence in support of the following propositions:
> 
> The true text was never "lost".
> In A.D. 200 the exact original wording of the several books could still be verified and attested.
> There was therefore no need to practice textual criticism and any such effort would be spurious.
> 
> However, presumably some areas would be in a better position to protect and transmit the true text than others.
> 
> Who Was Best Qualified?
> 
> What factors would be important for guaranteeing, or at least facilitating, a faithful transmission of the text of the N.T. writings? I submit that there are four controlling factors: access to the Autographs, proficiency in the source language, the strength of the Church and an appropriate attitude toward the Text.
> 
> Access to the Autographs
> 
> This criterion probably applied for less than a hundred years (the Autographs were presumably worn to a frazzle in that space of time) but it is highly significant to a proper understanding of the history of the transmission of the Text. Already by the year 100 there must have been many copies of the various books (some more than others) while it was certainly still possible to check a copy against the original, should a question arise. The point is that there was a swelling stream of faithfully executed copies emanating from the holders of the Autographs to the rest of the Christian world. In those early years the producers of copies would know that the true wording could be verified, which would discourage them from taking liberties with the text.
> 
> However, distance would presumably be a factor—for someone in north Africa to consult the Autograph of Ephesians would be an expensive proposition, in both time and money. I believe we may reasonably conclude that in general the quality of copies would be highest in the area surrounding the Autograph and would gradually deteriorate as the distance increased. Important geographical barriers would accentuate the tendency.
> 
> So who held the Autographs? Speaking in terms of regions, Asia Minor may be safely said to have had twelve (John, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Philemon, 1 Peter, 1 and 2 and 3 John, and Revelation), Greece may be safely said to have had six (1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Titus in Crete), Rome may be safely said to have had two (Mark and Romans)—as to the rest, Luke, Acts, and 2 Peter were probably held by either Asia Minor or Rome; Matthew and James by either Asia Minor or Palestine; Hebrews by Rome or Palestine; while it is hard to state even a probability for Jude it was quite possibly held by Asia Minor. Taking Asia Minor and Greece together, the Aegean area held the Autographs of at least eighteen (two-thirds of the total) and possibly as many as twenty-four of the twenty-seven New Testament books; Rome held at least two and possibly up to seven; Palestine may have held up to three (but in A.D. 70 they would have been sent away for safe keeping, quite possibly to Antioch); Alexandria (Egypt) held none. The Aegean region clearly had the best start, and Alexandria the worst—the text in Egypt could only be second hand, at best. On the face of it, we may reasonably assume that in the earliest period of the transmission of the N.T. Text the most reliable copies would be circulating in the region that held the Autographs. Recalling the discussion of Tertullian above, I believe we may reasonably extend this conclusion to A.D. 200 and beyond. So, in the year 200 someone looking for the best text of the N.T. would presumably go to the Aegean area; certainly not to Egypt.
> 
> Proficiency in the source language
> 
> As a linguist (PhD) and one who has dabbled in the Bible translation process for some years, I affirm that a 'perfect' translation is impossible. (Indeed, a tolerably reasonable approximation is often difficult enough to achieve.) It follows that any divine solicitude for the precise form of the NT Text would have to be mediated through the language of the Autographs—Greek. Evidently ancient Versions (Syriac, Latin, Coptic) may cast a clear vote with reference to major variants, but precision is possible only in Greek (in the case of the N.T.). That by way of background, but our main concern here is with the copyists.
> 
> To copy a text by hand in a language you do not understand is a tedious exercise—it is almost impossible to produce a perfect copy (try it and see!). You virtually have to copy letter by letter and constantly check your place. (It is even more difficult if there is no space between words and no punctuation, as was the case with the N.T. Text in the early centuries.) But if you cannot understand the text it is very difficult to remain alert. Consider the case of P66. This papyrus manuscript is perhaps the oldest (c. 200) extant N.T. manuscript of any size (it contains most of John). It is one of the worst copies we have. It has an average of roughly two mistakes per verse—many being obvious mistakes, stupid mistakes, nonsensical mistakes. From the pattern of mistakes it is clear that the scribe copied syllable by syllable. I have no qualms in affirming that the person who produced P66 did not know Greek. Had he understood the text he would not have made the number and sort of mistakes that he did.
> 
> Now consider the problem from God's point of view. To whom should He entrust the primary responsibility for the faithful transmission of the N.T. Text? If the Holy Spirit is going to take an active part in the process, where should He concentrate His efforts? Presumably fluent speakers of Greek would have the inside track, and areas where Greek would continue in active use would be preferred. For a faithful transmission to occur the copyists had to be proficient in Greek, and over the long haul. So where was Greek predominant? Evidently in Greece and Asia Minor; Greek is the mother tongue of Greece to this day (having changed considerably during the intervening centuries, as any living language must). The dominance of Greek in the Aegean area was guaranteed by the Byzantine Empire for many centuries; in fact, until the invention of printing. Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453; the Gutenberg Bible (Latin) was printed just three years later, while the first printed Greek New Testament appeared in 1516. (For those who believe in Providence, I would suggest that here we have a powerful case in point.)
> 
> How about Egypt? The use of Greek in Egypt was already declining by the beginning of the Christian era. Bruce Metzger observes that the Hellenized section of the population in Egypt "was only a fraction in comparison with the number of native inhabitants who used only the Egyptian languages."[21] By the third century the decline was evidently well advanced. I have already argued that the copyist who did P66 (c. 200) did not know Greek. Now consider the case of P75 (c. 220). E.C. Colwell analyzed P75 and found about 145 itacisms plus 257 other singular readings, 25% of which are nonsensical. From the pattern of mistakes it is clear that the copyist who did P75 copied letter by letter![22] This means that he did not know Greek—when transcribing in a language you know you copy phrase by phrase, or at least word by word. K. Aland argues that before 200 the tide had begun to turn against the use of Greek in the areas that spoke Latin, Syriac or Coptic, and fifty years later the changeover to the local languages was well advanced.[23]
> 
> Again the Aegean Area is far and away the best qualified to transmit the Text with confidence and integrity. Note that even if Egypt had started out with a good text, already by the end of the 2nd century its competence to transmit the text was steadily deteriorating. In fact the early papyri (they come from Egypt) are demonstrably inferior in quality, taken individually, as well as exhibiting rather different types of text (they disagree among themselves).
> 
> The strength of the Church
> 
> This question is relevant to our discussion for two reasons. First, the law of supply and demand operates in the Church as well as elsewhere. Where there are many congregations and believers there will be an increased demand for copies of the Scriptures. Second, a strong, well established church will normally have a confident, experienced leadership—just the sort that would take an interest in the quality of their Scriptures and also be able to do something about it. So in what areas was the early Church strongest?
> 
> Although the Church evidently began in Jerusalem, the early persecutions and apostolic activity caused it to spread. The main line of advance seems to have been north into Asia Minor and west into Europe. If the selection of churches to receive the glorified Christ's "letters" (Rev. 2 and 3) is any guide, the center of gravity of the Church seems to have shifted from Palestine to Asia Minor by the end of the first century. (The destruction of Jerusalem by Rome's armies in A.D. 70 would presumably be a contributing factor.) Kurt Aland agrees with Adolf Harnack that "about 180 the greatest concentration of churches was in Asia Minor and along the Aegean coast of Greece." He continues: "The overall impression is that the concentration of Christianity was in the East. . . . Even around A.D. 325 the scene was still largely unchanged. Asia Minor continued to be the heartland of the Church."[24] "The heartland of the Church"—so who else would be in a better position to certify the correct text of the New Testament?
> 
> What about Egypt? C.H. Roberts, in a scholarly treatment of the Christian literary papyri of the first three centuries, seems to favor the conclusion that the Alexandrian church was weak and insignificant to the Greek Christian world in the second century.[25] Aland states: "Egypt was distinguished from other provinces of the Church, so far as we can judge, by the early dominance of gnosticism."[26] He further informs us that "at the close of the 2nd century" the Egyptian church was "dominantly gnostic" and then goes on to say: "The copies existing in the gnostic communities could not be used, because they were under suspicion of being corrupt."[27] Now this is all very instructive—what Aland is telling us, in other words, is that up to A.D. 200 the textual tradition in Egypt could not be trusted. Aland's assessment here is most probably correct. Notice what Bruce Metzger says about the early church in Egypt:
> 
> Among the Christian documents which during the second century either originated in Egypt or circulated there among both the orthodox and the Gnostics are numerous apocryphal gospels, acts, epistles, and apocalypses. . . . There are also fragments of exegetical and dogmatic works composed by Alexandrian Christians, chiefly Gnostics, during the second century. . . . In fact, to judge by the comments made by Clement of Alexandria, almost every deviant Christian sect was represented in Egypt during the second century; Clement mentions the Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Marcionites, the Peratae, the Encratites, the Docetists, the Haimetites, the Cainites, the Ophites, the Simonians, and the Eutychites. What proportion of Christians in Egypt during the second century were orthodox is not known.[28]
> It is almost enough to make one wonder whether Isaiah 30:1-3 might not be a prophecy about N.T. textual criticism!
> 
> But we need to pause to reflect on the implications of Aland's statements. He is a champion of the Egyptian ("Alexandrian") text-type, and yet he himself informs us that up to A.D. 200 the textual tradition in Egypt could not be trusted and that by 200 the use of Greek had virtually died out there. So on what basis can he argue that the Egyptian text subsequently became the best? Aland also states that in the 2nd century, 3rd century, and into the 4th century Asia Minor continued to be "the heartland of the Church." This means that the superior qualifications of the Aegean area to protect, transmit and attest the N.T. Text carry over into the 4th century! It happens that Hort, Metzger and Aland (along with many others) have linked the "Byzantine" text-type to Lucian of Antioch, who died in 311. Now really, wouldn't a text produced by a leader in "the heartland of the Church" be better than whatever evolved in Egypt?
> 
> Attitude toward the Text
> 
> Where careful work is required, the attitude of those to whom the task is entrusted is of the essence. Are they aware? Do they agree? If they do not understand the nature of the task, the quality will probably do down. If they understand but do not agree, they might even resort to sabotage—a damaging eventuality. In the case of the N.T. books we may begin with the question: "Why would copies be made?"
> 
> We have seen that the faithful recognized the authority of the N.T. writings from the start, so the making of copies would have begun at once. The authors clearly intended their writings to be circulated, and the quality of the writings was so obvious that the word would get around and each assembly would want a copy. That Clement and Barnabas quote and allude to a variety of N.T. books by the turn of the 1st century makes clear that copies were in circulation. A Pauline corpus was known to Peter before A.D. 70. Polycarp (XIII) c. 115, in answer to a request from the Philippian church, sent a collection of Ignatius' letters to them, possibly within five years after Ignatius wrote them. Evidently it was normal procedure to make copies and collections (of worthy writings) so each assembly could have a set. Ignatius referred to the free travel and exchange between the churches and Justin to the weekly practice of reading the Scriptures in the assemblies (they had to have copies).
> 
> A second question would be: "What was the attitude of the copyists toward their work?" We already have the essence of the answer. Being followers of Christ, and believing that they were dealing with Scripture, to a basic honesty would be added reverence in their handling of the Text, from the start. And to these would be added vigilance, since the Apostles had repeatedly and emphatically warned them against false teachers. As the years went by, assuming that the faithful were persons of at least average integrity and intelligence, they would produce careful copies of the manuscripts they had received from the previous generation, persons whom they trusted, being assured that they were transmitting the true text. There would be accidental copying mistakes in their work, but no deliberate changes. It is important to note that the earliest Christians did not need to be textual critics. Starting out with what they knew to be the pure text, they had only to be reasonably honest and careful. I submit that we have good reason for understanding that they were especially watchful and careful—this especially in the early decades.
> 
> As time went on regional attitudes developed, not to mention regional politics. The rise of the so-called "school of Antioch" is a relevant consideration. Beginning with Theophilus, a bishop of Antioch who died around 185, the Antiochians began insisting upon the literal interpretation of Scripture. The point is that a literalist is obliged to be concerned about the precise wording of the text since his interpretation or exegesis hinges upon it.
> 
> It is reasonable to assume that this "literalist" mentality would have influenced the churches of Asia Minor and Greece and encouraged them in the careful and faithful transmission of the pure text that they had received. For example, the 1,000 MSS of the Syriac Peshitta are unparalleled for their consistency. (By way of contrast, the 8,000 MSS of the Latin Vulgate are remarkable for their extensive discrepancies, and in this they follow the example of the Old Latin MSS.) It is not unreasonable to suppose that the Antiochian antipathy toward the Alexandrian allegorical interpretation of Scripture would rather indispose them to view with favor any competing forms of the text coming out of Egypt. Similarly the Quarto-deciman controversy with Rome would scarcely enhance the appeal of any innovations coming from the West.
> 
> To the extent that the roots of the allegorical approach that flourished in Alexandria during the third century were already present, they would also be a negative factor. Since Philo of Alexandria was at the height of his influence when the first Christians arrived there, it may be that his allegorical interpretation of the O.T. began to rub off on the young church already in the first century. Since an allegorist is going to impose his own ideas on the text anyway, he would presumably have fewer inhibitions about altering it—precise wording would not be a high priority.
> 
> The school of literary criticism that existed at Alexandria would also be a negative factor, if it influenced the Church at all, and W.R. Farmer argues that it did. "But there is ample evidence that by the time of Eusebius the Alexandrian text-critical practices were being followed in at least some of the scriptoria where New Testament manuscripts were being produced. Exactly when Alexandrian text-critical principles were first used . . . is not known."[29] He goes on to suggest that the Christian school founded in Alexandria by Pantaenus, around 180, was bound to be influenced by the scholars of the great library of that city. The point is, the principles used in attempting to "restore" the works of Homer would not be appropriate for the NT writings when appeal to the Autographs, or exact copies made from them, was still possible.
> 
> Conclusion
> 
> What answer do the "four controlling factors" give to our question? The four speak with united voice: "The Aegean area was the best qualified to protect, transmit and attest the true text of the N.T. writings." This was true in the 2nd century; it was true in the 3rd century; it continued to be true in the 4th century. And now we are ready to answer the question, "Was the transmission normal?", and to attempt to trace the history of the text.
> 
> -------
> 
> Notes
> 
> [21]Metzger, Early Versions, p. 104.
> [22]Colwell, "Scribal Habits," pp. 374-76, 380.
> [23]K. and B. Aland, The Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), pp. 52-53.
> [24]Ibid., p. 53.
> [25]Roberts, pp. 42-43, 54-58.
> [26]K. and B. Aland, p. 59.
> [27]K. Aland, "The Text of the Church?", Trinity Journal, 1987, 8NS:138.
> [28]Metzger, Early Versions, p. 101.
> [29]W.R. Farmer, The Last Twelve Verses of Mark (Cambridge: University Press, 1974), pp. 14-15. He cites B.H. Streeter, The Four Gospels, 1924, pp. 111, 122-23.
> ----------
> 
> I post this fairly lengthy section of Pickering’s to give an idea of the text-critical hypothesis he gives to account for the existence of the Byzantine text, and also to put in perspective the phenomenon of the Alexandrian textform. Remember what Dr. Maurice Robinson said,
> 
> 
> Quote:
> A sound rational approach which accounts for all the phenomena and offers a reconstruction of the history of textual transmission is all that is demanded for any text-critical hypothesis. (From the Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Byzantine/Majority Textform, by Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont.
> 
> Please, forgive this lengthy apparent digression from the discussion of Revelation 16:5! We have not interacted before, James, and I need to establish my arguments with some substance, so both you can see my frame of reference, as well as those who are observing our discussion and unfamiliar with me – as you are quite well known from your books and AOMIN, but I am, to quote Dylan, “a complete unknown”! Henceforth I will for the most part try to give the URLs to material rather than posting them.
> 
> You must be getting impatient to see what I have to say. To Revelation 16:5:
> 
> Among us there are two schools of thought concerning this text. One of them is that of E.F. Hills, who opined that it is a “conjectural emendation” and ought not be recognized as original; this would agree with the methodology of John Owen (noted above), although I do not know Owen’s view of this particular verse. According to Hills, and in principle by Owen, this is the proper domain of discerning the true text – within the parameters of the TR editions and mss, and not elsewhere. So there is no inconsistency when this camp of the AV / TR advocates select other TR readings and deny this one.
> 
> The other school, represented by Will Kinney, Dr. Thomas Holland, and others, have a presuppositional view that holds the providential preservation of God is to be seen in the fait accompli of the King James Bible deriving from the Hebrew and Greek Texts underlying it – and that this divine accomplishment by its very existence overrides evidentiary considerations to the contrary. Let me explain that.
> 
> The Lord promised to preserve His word. Psalm 12:6, 7. I am full aware that the modern versions reflect an exegetical tradition which makes verse 7 refer to the men rather than the words, and I have read what you say of these verses in your book, The King James Only Controversy (KJOC).
> 
> It remains that an entire exegetical tradition – a tradition upheld by both Jewish and Christian exegetes – has been suppressed by mere editorial fiat with bias, and manifests in the modern version renderings of this verse. This is not the only place where suppression of textual evidence occurs, as we shall see in further discussion of the Book of Revelation below.
> 
> To substantiate this allegation I give links to some sources (as I said I would, rather than encumber the discussion with too much material):
> 
> Peter Van Kleeck on Psalm 12:6, 7: http://www.wayoflife.org/otimothy/tl040003.htm
> Will Kinney citing multiple authors on Psalm 12:6, 7: http://www.theologyonline.com/forums...1&postcount=10
> 
> Above I cited Isaiah 59:21, and then Matthew 4:4 together with 2 Peter 1:3 as Scripture affirming that God would preserve his words; you say they are spread throughout the manuscripts, and by diligent effort the scholars may ascertain which are authentic and which are not; I (speaking for the latter mentioned school on preservation) say God in His providence preserved them in the main in the Byzantine texts, and in certain particulars – which had been lost in the Byz – through other versions, or through what appears as the mere “conjectural emendation” of the all-too-human Theodore Beza (or, in other cases, Erasmus). What you see as chance I see as design. What you see as merely human (and human failing, at that) I see as divine. This is the consistency I spoke of; some things I can’t explain in evidential terms, but can according to promises of Scripture. Again, you will say, “But it nowhere says how God will keep those (prophetic) promises of preservation.” We often discern the fulfillment of prophecy with hindsight. I believe my discernment (the KJV/TR view) of His fulfilling His promises has far greater merit and credence than yours.
> 
> The Lord preserved His word in the main, I reiterate, in the Byz, even though some passages were lost from it. Were I to go into this aspect of the transmission here (the losing or changing of passages) I would have to add a lot of material, so I will pass it by for now. At the time of Erasmus and the later editors of the Byz-cum-TR the Lord brought the true reading back.
> 
> You have said, James, that for Rev 16:5 the KJV phrase “and shalt be” has no Greek manuscript support, neither is it found in any English translation before the King James. You didn’t mention the Latin, as it is found in Beatus of Liebana’s compiled commentary on the book of Revelation (786 A.D.) where he uses the Latin phrase “qui fuisti et futures es”. In this compilation he was preserving the commentary of Tyconius (approx 380 A.D.). So there is manuscript support. Whether Beza knew of it or not, the 1611 translators may well have, and we do not know what manuscripts they had at their disposal, likely many more than we know of four centuries later.
> 
> Jack Moorman, in his, Hodges/Farstad “Majority” Text Refuted By Evidence (also titled, When the King James Departs from the “Majority Text”, says,
> 
> The King James reading is in harmony with the four other places in Revelation where this phrase is found.
> 1:4 “him which is, and which was, and which is to come”
> 1:8 “the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty”
> 4:8 “Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come”
> 11:17 “Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come”
> 
> Indeed Christ is the Holy One, but in the Scriptures of the Apostle John the title is found only once (1 John 2:20), and there, a totally different Greek word is used. The Preface to the Authorized Version reads, “With the former translations diligently compared and revised”.
> 
> The translators must have felt there was good reason to insert these words though it ran counter to much external evidence. (p. 102)
> Moorman’s book available at Search Page Header search for item #1617.
> 
> I should add that in their respective commentaries on Revelation, G.K. Beale and Dennis E. Johnson both are of the view that “...the future-oriented member (‘who is to come’) of this threefold confession is deleted. When the bowls are poured out, the coming One will have come in holy justice.” (Johnson, Triumph of the Lamb, p. 227)
> 
> However, I see this as simply interpreting the text – the reading – they believed was the right one.
> 
> Sources used for 16:5:
> 
> Thomas Holland Revelation 16:5
> Will Kinney Untitled
> 
> Let me take an example from the NASB which is similar.
> 
> Deuteronomy 26:3 KJV “...I profess this day unto the LORD THY God, that I am come unto the country, which the LORD sware unto our fathers for to give us.” Here all Hebrew texts as well as the RV, ASV, NKJV, NIV, RSV, NRSV, ESV and Holman read either THY God, or YOUR God (which mean the same thing), but only the NASB follows the Greek Septuagint version and says: “unto the Lord MY God...” The footnotes in versions like Holman, ESV tell us this. Even the online NASB footnotes that the reading of “MY God” comes from the LXX, but that the Hebrew reads “your God”.
> 
> From Kinney: <font size=5><b>The NIV, NASB Apostasy</b></font>
> The NASB uses a source other than the Hebrew (i.e., without any Hebrew support), other than most of the other modern versions, and you give us grief that the King James uses a version without Greek support? You say your methodology is at least consistent, whereas mine is not. If I were to say we always go by the majority of manuscripts, or even the majority within the Byz majority, then your charge would have weight; but that is not my method. I say we go by the Byz in the main, but infrequently, in certain cases, the Lord sovereignly breaks method in lieu of a wisdom above man’s wisdom and methods. You may not appreciate this, but it is consistent.
> 
> To sum on Rev 16:5: Whether one takes the Hills / Owen position that there may be minute variations within the narrow precincts of the TR manuscripts, or the Kinney / Holland view that God was able to and actually did restore the readings He had preserved elsewhere than the Byz to the text editions available to the 1611 translators, these two AV / TR options are, to my view (and many others) certainly at least as plausible as the hypotheses you formulate.
> 
> 
> .........
> 
> 
> 
> Before I go on to the last six verses of Revelation, I’d like to make a few points. Robert said on the DL, “What we have today in the Byzantine mss are the inspired word-for-word copies of the autographs....The TR is a collation of these manuscripts and consequently contains the sacred apographa of the autographs.”
> 
> “Collation” is obviously not the right word; the TR is an edition of these manuscripts would be better. Nor is the “in the Byzantine mss are the inspired, word-for-word copies of the autographs” correct. For there are TR passages that are not in the Byz, as is clear.
> 
> It has been asked, “If only the Greek Byzantine was the providentially preserved text, what about the other locations in the world that had a different texttype – did they not have a preserved and adequate Bible?” And I would answer:
> 
> There is a preserving of the text, and there is a preserving of the text — the latter where its integrity is held even to minute readings not granted the former. That the former was nonetheless efficacious is analogous to the Bibles based upon the CT being efficacious to save and edify God’s people today, as witnessed by the multitudes regenerated and brought to maturity through those who use the NIV, NASB, ESV etc. The minute preservation occurred in the primary edition (the Masoretic Hebrew and the Greek TR and their King James translation) which was to serve the English-speaking people and the translations created for the vast missionary work they undertook, which impacted the entire world. There was a progression in the purifying of the text, so as to almost (and some say completely) perfectly reconstitute the original manuscripts of the apostles, even as there has been, in the area of theology, a restoration of apostolic doctrine, which also went through phases of deterioration and eventual renewal.
> 
> Thus, even those areas of the church which were non-Greek-speaking also had a “preserved text”—as do multitudes in this present day—though their texts were not “minutely preserved.” The texts they had were efficacious unto the salvation of souls and the sustaining of the churches. The distinction is between an adequate preservation as distinguished from preservation in the minutiae.
> 
> As regarding the Lord’s promise to preserve His Scripture (Matt 24:35; Isaiah 59:21; etc), many times the people of God have not understood how a prophecy was to be fulfilled until it was a done thing, and then they looked backward to see how He had worked. It is thus in observing how He fulfilled His promise to preserve His word. When the Lord prophesies, does it have to come about instantly? Is there not sometimes progression, as in the development seen in the Olivet discourse of events from the time Jerusalem fell till the time of the end?
> 
> Concerning the statement in the Westminster Confession, 1:8
> 
> The Old Testament in Hebrew... and the New Testament in Greek... being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical...
> I am not sure if you will agree that Warfield introduced a new understanding of this section differing from that of the framers, but such is the case (I can elaborate on this if necessary*). What I want to say concerns what this “kept pure in all ages” entailed. Does it mean that there was a pure text – intact in the sense of the autographic documents – in all generations and all locales? Does it mean every generation and geographical area had an equivalent of an autographic copy? I do not believe so. I believe this means that the Lord kept the true readings of the autographic Hebrew and Greek extant in all ages; when in certain textual traditions (I am thinking of the Greek here) some readings were removed they were retained elsewhere – and later restored to the Greek by His providence. The Hebrew and Greek copies – the apographs – the WCF divines had in hand exemplified this.
> 
> Another view that I have given my attention to recently (or it has been newly presented in such a way as to arrest my attention), is the verbal plenary preservation view (VPP). Upon initially hearing of it I thought that as regards the NT it could only have been accomplished through the Waldenses, and coming upon the link given above on the topic that does seem to be a promising approach, which I will investigate further. I have written before (here on PB) of Frederick Nolan and his investigation into the old Italik version. I have studied the Waldensian history before, and this renews my interest.
> 
> * Extended quote of Letis on Warfield and WCF 1:8: WCF 1.8 and CT
> 
> and: WCF 1.8 and CT
> 
> 
> About your saying that 94% of Majority Text mss came into existence after 900 A.D.
> 
> That statement doesn’t give the true picture. I shall give a quote from Maurice Robinson:
> 
> We do know that, after the 9th century, almost all manuscripts ceased to be copied in the uncial style (capital-letters), and were systematically replaced by the "modern" minuscule style (cursive-letters) which then predominated until the invention of printing. This "copying revolution" resulted in the destruction of hundreds of previously-existing uncial manuscripts once their faithful counterpart had been produced in minuscule script. Many truly ancient uncials may have vanished within a century due to this change in the handwriting style. Those palimpsest[34] manuscripts which survive provide mute testimony to the fate of many of those ancient uncials, the remnants of which, having been erased and re-used to copy sermons or liturgical texts, might simply have perished or been discarded once those texts were no longer considered valuable.
> 
> Since Kirsopp Lake found only genealogically-unrelated manuscripts at Sinai, Patmos, and Jerusalem, he concluded that it was "hard to resist the conclusion that the scribes usually destroyed their exemplars."[35] If strictly applied to all copying generations, this view would lead to a number of logical fallacies. Some of these have been discussed by Donald A. Carson and Wilbur Pickering.[36]
> 
> However, the real explanation of Lake's comment revolves around the "copying revolution": scribes apparently destroyed uncial exemplars as they converted the Greek text into the then-standard minuscule format. Thus, the apparently unrelated mass of later minuscules may in fact stem from long-lost uncial sources far older than the date of the minuscules containing them. This in itself adds a significant weight to the testimony of the minuscule mass, especially those copied in the ninth and tenth centuries, at the height of the copying revolution.
> 
> For modern researchers summarily to neglect the text of the minuscules because they mostly reflect a Byzantine type of text is to suggest that their text is all one and all late, in accord with Hort's thesis concerning the ultimate origin of the Byzantine Textform. Yet Von Soden and subsequent researchers have clearly shown the internal diversity found among the manuscripts of the Byzantine Textform – a diversity which cannot be accounted for genealogically. An unprejudiced consideration of the present hypothesis will impart a value to (at least) the earlier minuscule testimony which ranges far beyond that allowed by modern critics. This factor now makes the complete collation of all known minuscule manuscripts an important task which should be completed as rapidly as possible.[37]
> 
> ------
> Footnotes
> 34 From the Greek, "to rub again." The term denotes a manuscript from which the original text was erased and a second, differing text placed on top of the original writing. Through the use of various methods (e.g., ultraviolet light), the original text can often be recovered with extreme accuracy.
> 
> 35 Lake, Blake, and New, "Caesarean Text of Mark," p.349.
> 
> 36 Donald A. Carson, The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), pp. 47-48, note 5. Pickering offered a clarification and rebuttal of Carson's critique which differs at points from the present hypothesis; see Pickering, Identity, pp. 230-231, note 30
> 
> 37 See further W. J. Elliott, "The Need for an Accurate and Complete Collation of all known Greek NT Manuscripts with their Individual Variants noted in pleno," in J. K Elliott, ed., Studies in New Testament Language and Text [G. D. Kilpatrick Festschrift] (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), pp. 137-143.
> Sorry to enter such a lengthy quote, but it is crucial to begin breaking the oft-stated error that these thousands of 9th and 10th century Majority Text minuscules were “late” and thus of no consequence! Of the minuscules, Kirsopp Lake says in his book, The Text of The New Testament,
> 
> Then, in the ninth century, Theodore the Studite, or some of his associates in the monastery of the Studium in Constantinople, invented an new and extremely beautiful form of cursive writing for literary purposes. This appears to have been adopted almost at once throughout the Greek world, and, although in succeeding centuries some local differences can be noticed, it remained dominant throughout the Byzantine Empire....It must not be assumed that an uncial is necessarily a more valuable witness to the text than a minuscule. Many uncials have a late text, while not a few minuscules have rare readings which bear witness to types of text otherwise lost to us. In short, it is neither the date nor the script of a MS. which determines its value for the critic, but the textual history of its ancestors. (p. 12)
> To assume an uncial is a “more valuable witness” than a minuscule has led to a mudslide of opinion obscuring a proper apprehension of the history of the text! Not to belabor the old Westcott and Hort fallacies (held by few and far between nowadays), but Hort’s testimony is illuminating:
> 
> The fundamental Text of late extant Greek MSS. generally is beyond all question identical with the dominant Antiochian or Græco-Syrian Text of the second half of the fourth century. (The New Testament in the Original Greek, Vol II, p. 92). [Cited in Burgon’s The Revision Revised, p. 257.]
> Hort also says,
> 
> A theoretical presumption indeed remains that a majority of extant documents is more likely to represent a majority of ancestral documents at each stage of transmission than vise versa. Ibid., p. 45.
> There was a revolution in manuscript writing that reached its height in the 900s, where minuscule writing (using lowercase Greek letters) replaced the older Uncial / majuscule (uppercase) letters, and all the old uncials in use were copied in the new format and then, as text critic Kirsopp Lake suggested, were destroyed as outdated. One can only imagine what old uncials existed before that time. And in what quantity.
> 
> Even that great opponent of the Textus Receptus, Dr. Hort, conceded that the Byzantine (“Antiochian”) text was “dominant…[in] the second half of the fourth century”, and that this text “is beyond all question identical… [with the] late extant Greek MSS. generally”, that is, the majority of mss, a.k.a., the Majority Text. We have noted that Hort found a way to annul this numerical superiority with his theory, which has been thoroughly examined, and found wanting.*
> 
> *See for critiques of the Westcott-Hort theory:
> 
> Maurice Robinson and Wm. Pierpont posited in their Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Byzantine / Majority Textform,
> 
> Jakob Van Bruggen, The Ancient Text of the New Testament,
> 
> Wilbur N. Pickering’s, The Identity of the New Testament Text,
> 
> Hort on early Byz majority: Answering Alan Kurschner of aomin
> 
> 
> Perhaps you will say to me, James (as is written in your KJOC) “While modern Greek texts are not identical to that created by Westcott and Hort, one will still find defenders of the AV drawing in black and white, saying that all modern versions are based upon their work.” (p. 99) I would think this equivalent to saying, “Modern versions are not based upon the W&H Greek text.”
> 
> An extended discussion can be found here: Answering Alan Kurschner of aomin
> 
> A brief quote of David Cloud’s from that discussion will be sufficient to make the matter clear:
> 
> The W-H text of 1881 and the latest edition of the United Bible Societies’ text differ only in relatively minor points. Both represent the same TYPE of text with the same TYPE of departures from the Received Text. [Emphases his; the link to the online source is defunct, the book remains in print –SMR]
> .........
> 
> 
> Perhaps it’s time to look at the last six verses of Revelation! You said, James, “Please explain why I should use the TR's readings of...the final six verses of Revelation.”
> 
> As I know you ask that rhetorically, what follows is why I should use the TR’s verses 16–21 of Revelation 22. I will have to post rather lengthily to do justice to your question –sorry for the amount of material.
> 
> I want to quote first from a paper titled, “That Rascal Erasmus—Defense Of His Greek Text”, pages 5-8, by Dr. Daryl R. Coats (available for $2.00 at BFT – Bible For Today Webstore – item # OP2456). Most of us have heard stories of Erasmus’ poor copies of texts available to him, and especially the one about his offering to insert 1 John 5:7 into his Greek editions if but one Greek MS was shown him which contained it. Dr. Coats writes,
> 
> The supposed “Erasmian Inventions”
> 
> Modern critics such as Metzger almost gleefully repeat the story that when Erasmus put together his Greek New Testament, he had access to only one copy of Revelation, a “very mutilated” copy missing the last six verses of the book and damaged in verse 17:4. As a result Erasmus supposedly retranslated the missing verses from the Latin vulgate back into Greek, producing several readings supposedly known in no Greek manuscripts and one word (akaqavrthtoVin 17:4) which doesn’t even exist in Greek. These readings (to Metzger’s apparent distress!) “are still perpetuated today in printings of the so-called Textus Receptus” [The Text of the New Testament: its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 3rd Edition, by Bruce Metzger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 100.
> 
> Even if this story were completely true,* these “Erasmian inventions” are of no consequence unless a person believes that the New Testament exists in no language other than the “original Greek.” Pressed to prove the seriousness of his claim of supposed inventions, Metzger lists only 33 words. Of these 33 words, 18 match the text of the UBS Greek New Testament which Metzger helped edit! Of the 15 words that don’t Metzger’s own text, 11 make no difference in English translation. Of the four words that do affect translation, three are found in Codex Sinaiticus (a), the oldest existing “complete Greek manuscript of Revelation!**
> 
> There are, however, at least three good reasons to doubt the validity of the story of Erasmus and his mutilated copy of Revelation: 1) the only evidence for it is that the manuscript apparently used by Erasmus for Revelation is missing its last page;*** 2) Erasmus’s Latin New Testament doesn’t agree with the Latin Vulgate in the last six verses of Revelation (a problem if his Greek text for those verses was derived from the Vulgate); and 3) there exists Codex 141.†
> 
> H.C. Hoskier spent a lifetime collating every edition of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, several other printed Greek New Testaments, and almost all of the known Greek manuscripts of Revelation….His study and collation of Revelation in Codex 141 surprised him, because it contained substantially the same text that appears in Erasmus’s Greek New Testament. In Hoskier’s own words:
> 
> Upon reaching the end [of Revelation] and the famous final six verses, supposed to have been re-translated from the Vulgate into Greek by Erasmus when Codex I was discovered and found to lack the last leaf: the problem takes on a most important aspect. For if our MS. 141 is not copied from the printed text, then Erasmus would be absolved from the charge for which his memory has suffered for 400 years! [Emphasis in the original]
> In an effort to nullify the testimony of Codex 141, most “scholars” assign the manuscript a “young” age and simply claim that it is a copy of Erasmus’s (or Aldus’s or Colinaeus’s) printed Greek New Testament. But based on his study of the penmanship of the scribe who composed it, Hoskier determined that Codex 141 was executed in the 15th century—well before Erasmus’s Greek New Testament was printed; and based on his study of its contents (and the collation of same), Hoskier determined that MS 141 “has no appearance of being a copy of any [printed edition of the Greek New Testament], although containing their text” (Coats’s emphasis).†† There is, then, manuscript evidence to support the supposed “Erasmian readings”—as much as there is to support the reading of Revelation 5:9 that appears in all the modern “bibles”—and critics who claim otherwise are either ignorant or purposely deceitful.
> 
> -------------
> Footnotes
> 
> * By their own admissions, not all the stories which these “scholars” tell about Erasmus are true. Since 1964, on p. 101 of all three editions of Text of the New Testament, Metzger has claimed that Erasmus inserted 1 John 5:7 in his Greek New Testament only because “in an unguarded moment [he] promised that he would….if a single manuscript could be found that contained the passage. At length such a manuscript was found—or made to order!” He has claimed further (pp. 62, 101) that Erasmus wrote notes stating his suspicions that the manuscript was a forgery and the passage was spurious. Yet in the third edition, in small print in footnote 2 on p. 292, he makes this admission: “What was said about Erasmus’ promise….and his subsequent suspicion that MS. 61 was written expressly to force him to [add 1 John 5:7 to the text], needs to be corrected in light of the research of H.J. de Jonge, a specialist in Erasmian studies who finds no explicit evidence that supports this frequently made assertion” [bold emphasis mine –SMR; italic Coats’]. Why isn’t this admission in larger type in the text of the book? Why is the “assertion” (that is, lie!) still included?....
> 
> ** In Text of the New Testament (p. 100, n. 1), Metzger lists these “Erasmian inventions” in Revelation: one word in 17:14; one in 22:16; three in 22:17; seventeen in 22:18; ten in 22:19; and one in 22:21. But the “coined word” of 17:4 and the “invented words” of 22:16 & 17 are synonymous with the “original” words and make no difference in English translation.
> 
> Of the 17 words in question in 22:18, twelve match the text of the UBS Greek New Testament; two more are synonymous with the “original words” and make no difference in English translation. One word (a personal pronoun) “missing” from Erasmus’ Greek New Testament is also “missing” from many manuscripts of the Received Text, including von Soden’s subgroups c, d, and e—and including it makes no difference in English translation, because the King James translators already added a personal pronoun to the English text for clarity. The other two “invented words” appear in the scribal corrections in Codex a. (Other words in Erasmus’ text of this verse also appear in Codex A and the corrections in Codex a.
> 
> 
> Six of the ten “invented words” in 22:19 match the USB Greek text. Three more represent only differences in spelling or inflection (case; conjugation/voice) andmake no difference in English translation. Only biblou (“book”) would affect English translation (“book of life” vs. “tree of life”). The invention cited for 22:21 is almost laughable: amhvn (“amen”! The word is rejected by the UBS Greek New Testament, but it’s found in most of the manuscripts of the Received Text as well as in Codices a, 046, 051, 94, 1611, 1854, 1859, 2020, 2042, 2053, 2065 (commentary section), 2073, and 2138....
> 
> *** The audacity of “scholars” in speculating (and then basing theories and “facts”) on the contents of a missing leaf of a manuscript—or even in assuming that the leaf was missing when Erasmus used the manuscript (provided that this is the manuscript he used)—aptly demonstrates the reliability of such men in matters of scholarship.
> 
> † The manuscript is listed under several call numbers. Under Hoskier’s, Scrivener’s and the Old Gregory classification systems, it is MS 141; under the New Gregory system it is 2049; and under von Soden’s system, it is w 1684. It is located in the Parliamentary Library in Athens.
> 
> †† For full details, see H.C. Hoskier, Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse: Collations of All Existing Available Greek Documents with the Standard Text of Stephen’s Third Edition, Together with the Testimony of the Versions, and Fathers; a Complete Conspectus of All Authorities, Vol. 1 (London: Bernard Quaritch, Ltd, 1929), pp. 474-477. It was also Hoskier who noted that Erasmus’s Latin New Testament differs from the Vulgate in the last six verses of Revelation.
> -------------
> 
> There are many more interesting details to Dr. Coats’ paper, mostly regarding the integrity of Erasmus’ text vis-à-vis modern text editors and editions.
> 
> In a moment we will look more closely at Hoskier’s remarks in Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse, and in particular, at Revelation 22’s verse 19:
> 
> In the AV it reads,
> 
> 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.
> In the ESV (reflecting the CT) it reads,
> 
> and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
> The difference in the Greek is, the CT reads
> 
> xuvlou, “tree of life” instead of the TR’s biblou, “book of life”; and the 6th word from the end of the verse in the Greek, kai;, or and is absent in the CT, so that in translation the phrase “and from the things” is also omitted.
> 
> As for the sense, it makes far more to have one’s part (or share) taken out of the book of life, which phrase runs parallel with the foregoing taking away “from the words of the book of this prophecy,” than having one’s part taken away from the tree of life.
> 
> To add to the difficulty for AV adherents, the Greek of the Majority Text (Hodges and Farstad) is identical to the CT. And this aligning of the MT with the CT in the Book of Revelation is a factor to be addressed. It is to this phenomenon Jack Moorman speaks in the book mentioned above.
> 
> Above Dr. Coats talked of the misinformation concerning Erasmus and the supposed missing last leaf of the copy of Revelation he used, on which were the last six verses of the book. In bringing Codex 141 to light, Coats shows this MS has the text Erasmus used. Regarding 141 Coats refers to Hoskier, and I have the latter’s book here in front of me, Concerning The Text Of The Apocalypse Vol. 1, and I find he has devoted four pages to an examination of Codex 141. In these pages he scrutinizes the MS and determines it was not executed in the 16th century from the printed text of Erasmus, but likely in the 15th (p. 474), and shows “presumptive evidence” the last six verses (of both Erasmus and MS 141) were not copied from the Latin Vulgate (p. 477).
> 
> -------------
> 
> Further information may be seen in an article by Will Kinney on the passage we are considering; it is from his website: (Untitled).
> 
> An additional article:
> 
> “Another side point that may be of interest is that it is not quite that simple to say, ‘Erasmus took the reading from the Vulgate.’ The Clementine Vulgate does in fact read, ‘Et si quis diminuerit de verbis libri prophetiae huius, auferet Deus partem eius de libro vitae, et de civitate sancta, et de his quae scripta sunt in libro isto:’, but in a modern critical text of the Vulgate like the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft edition, one will find ‘ligno’ (tree) rather than ‘libro’ (book). Erasmus certainly could not have used the Clementine Vulgate—which became the standard Vulgate for over three centuries after it was first published in 1592—because he had been dead for over a half century when it appeared. This is not to say that the Vulgate that Erasmus knew did not (like the mss. Dr. Holland cites) read ‘libro’ rather than ‘ligno’; but it does suggest that the easy dismissal of the reading as the fault of the Vulgate--when in fact the ‘standard’ Vulgate bearing ‘libro’ for ‘ligno’ dates from several decades later, with Jerome himself apparently not responsible for the reading--is open to serious question.” - T.L. Hubeart [in online article: Revelation 22:19 and “The Book of Life”]
> I could not find how many of the 230 manuscripts Hoskier collated contained Rev 22:19, though it is clear that some of these manuscripts were but fragments, and only had a portion of the whole. I will continue to search for the number that had that passage, and what the breakdown of the readings – tree or book – amounted to. But I did find some other interesting material in my searching.
> 
> There are two basic text groupings comprising the varying readings in Revelation – within the Majority Text camp! – as well as some CT readings. The MT groups are the 046 and the Andreas.
> 
> Hodges and Farstad in their (The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text, p. xxxvi) do admit, “There is no reason why the parental exemplar of the Andreas texttype could not go back well into the second century.” And Hodges says, “…the Textus Receptus much more closely approximates Andreas than 046 – in fact, hardly resembles the latter group at all” (from “The Ecclesiatical Text of Revelation,” Bibliotheca Sacra, April 1961, p. 121). [In their edition of the MT, they favored the 046 group, so this is a significant admission.]
> 
> From Hoskier’s Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse,
> 
> We trace the origin of the B (046) group not further back than 8th or possibly 7th century. Now many cursives are identified with this family group, whereas in the main our Textus Receptus is not, and has at any rate avoided the bulk of this revision (Apocalypse p. xxxvii)
> 
> This may be the proper place to emphasize why the Textus Receptus of the Apocalypse is intrinsically good. Apoc. 1, on which it is founded, is an old text. See how it comes out in Hippolytus…
> 
> It is actually possible to reconstruct a first-class text from Hipp.—47—and Textus Receptus, and a far better one than that of any of our five uncials. Why? Well, apart from a few idiosyncrasies, which the whole body of subsequent evidence rejects, Hippolytus represents as old a text as we can get. Then 47, also apart from a few distinguishing idiosyncrasies easily identified and rejected owing to lack of other support, is throughout a straightforward, careful witness. And lastly, the Textus Receptus, apart from any instinctive and intrinsic excellence, happens to prove back to the very order of words used by Hippolytus’ codex; in places where t.r. disagrees we let 47+Hipp. guide us and they nearly always lead us in the right path, namely with the consensus of general evidence. (Ibid., p. xlvii)
> Hoskier’s basic conclusion toward the 200 plus MSS he collated for Revelation was:
> 
> I may state that if Erasmus had striven to found a text on the largest number of existing MSS in the world of one type, he could not have succeeded better, since his family-MSS occupy the front rank in point of actual numbers, the family numbering over 20 MSS besides its allies. (The John Rylands Bulletin 19-1922/23, p 118.)
> 
> Continuing to examine Revelation, particularly where the AV differs from the Majority Text. The book I noted in a previous post, Hodges/Farstad 'Majority' Text Refuted By Evidence (also titled When the King James Departs from the “Majority Text”), by Jack Moorman, is, as I have stated before, the book I would recommend as having the latest and most comprehensive information – to my knowledge, as of this writing.
> 
> This book also is the best on this particular topic (the disputed text of Revelation in the AV), and I see it available under two different titles: The one I have before me, When the King James Departs from the “Majority Text”: A New Twist in the Continuing Attack on the Authorized Version (With Manuscript Digest) is exactly the same as the one advertised at The Bible For Today online bookstore (http://www.biblefortoday.org/search_result.asp), under the title, Hodges/Farstad 'Majority' Text Refuted By Evidence, and it has the same item #: 1617, and can be purchased from them ($16). I have repeated this information for those who pick up the discussion here.
> 
> This bears upon some general principles of the AV – MT disparities. Hodges & Farstad, as well as Robinson and Pierpont, in their respective editions of the Majority Text, relied on Hermann Von Soden’s 1913 edition of a massive gathering and collation of the “majority” cursive manuscripts. Although remarkable for it enormity of information gathered, as can be seen in its apparatus, later scholars examining it have declared it “honeycombed with errors” (H.C. Hoskier; JTS, 15-1914, p. 307)
> 
> Frederik Wisse, in his, The Profile Method for the Classification and Evaluation of Manuscript Evidence (Eerdmans, 1982), says
> 
> Once the extent of error is seen, the word “inaccuracy” becomes a euphemism…
> 
> …von Soden’s inaccuracies cannot be tolerated for any purpose. His apparatus is useless for a reconstruction of the text of the MSS he used. (pp. 16, 17)
> Yet, as Moorman remarks, “…Hodges and Farstad went ahead and used von Soden to reconstruct the Received Text!” (When the KJV Departs…, p. 11)
> 
> What Moorman brings out, his collating of the MSS was very incomplete, and relatively few of the thousands of MSS were represented. It was not a depiction of how the majority of cursives read.
> 
> The “Majority Text” of the Book of Revelation, however, is different, as it does not rely on Von Soden’s work. It relies on the more comprehensive and complete work of Herman C. Hoskier, in his two-volume, Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse: Collations of All Existing Available Greek Documents With the Standard Text of Stephen’s Third Edition, Together with the Testimony of Versions, Commentaries and Fathers. Hoskier was also the author of the two-volume devastating-to-the-Westcott/Hort-(CT)-production, Codex B and its Allies: A Study and an Indictment. So why does the MT of Hodges & Farstad differ from the TR (1894) if they used the superior work of Hoskier?
> 
> Please note that I am using Jack Moorman’s aforementioned work for my writing here.
> 
> What Hoskier showed, basically, is that there are two groups of manuscripts exhibited in those that have the Apocalypse, the Andreas group and the 046 group. Moorman says, “Hoskier did not elevate 046 but merely cited the data.” (p. 17) Hodges and Farstad did not allot to the Andreas group all the MSS due it, and thus “the 046 group in the Majority Text edition is made to look much larger and appear dominant.” (Moorman, Ibid.)
> 
> How this happened is through their use of the scholar Josef Schmid’s work and their misconstruing his count of the respective MSS in Andreas and 046. The places where the MT and the TR 1894 differ in Revelation – save at the very end of the book, which we have discussed above – is due to this.
> 
> Moorman proceeds with an extended discussion of various factors and issues in this matter. He remarks,
> 
> At the outset the Bible believer will be very happy to know that [or is it “what” –SMR] Hoskier’s basic conclusion was toward the 200 plus MSS he collated for Revelation:
> 
> I may state that if Erasmus had striven to found a text on the largest number of existing MSS in the world of one type, he could not have succeeded better, since his family-MSS occupy the front rank in point of actual numbers, the family numbering over 20 MSS besides its allies. (The John Rylands Bulletin 19-1922/23, p 118)
> .
> 
> It should be noted that this exemplary MS used by Erasmus was of the Andreas group, the readings of which we find in the AV. Perhaps needless to say, we do not think it coincidence this primary manuscript fell into the hands of Erasmus. For we believe that the Lord providentially preserved His word, and the only place it makes sense to have been preserved in was the Greek Textus Receptus as discerned by Erasmus, Stephens, Beza, and the AV translators, and given to us in the AV.
> 
> I’d like to close this part of my response with a pertinent quote from an essay by Dr. Theodore Letis:
> 
> Both schools [the Critical Text and the Ecclesiastical Text –SMR] interpret the data of NT textual criticism and modern translations differently, and both groups fill in the gaps in the data with assumptions which favor their given position. I hope some are beginning to see that this is not an argument between scholarship (the established school represented by Carson) and non-scholarship (the challenging school which has traditionally been treated as non-scholarly and completely uncritical). To the contrary, the best representatives of both schools display genuine scholarship. Why is it, then, that these two schools co-exist on this all-important issue of the very wording of the NT text?
> He closes the essay with these words,
> 
> Some will fault me for not answering every objection of Carson’s, but it was only our intention to raise the old issue of presuppositions and to underscore the fact that this debate is not one between experts with data and non-experts with dogma, but rather one between experts with the same data, but different dogma—the dogma of neutrality versus the dogma of providence…(pp. 201-204). [From, The Majority Text: Essays And Reviews In The Continuing Debate, the essay, “In Reply to D.A. Carson’s ‘The King James Version Debate’ ”.]
> .........
> 
> I would like to give some links to help those explore alternatives to the Critical / Eclectic Text positions; these are mainly Majority Text proponents, and are important text critical works. I will post some responsible and scholarly TR / AV links shortly.
> 
> Maurice Robinson and Wm. Pierpont’s Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek According to the Byzantine / Majority Textform,
> 
> Jakob Van Bruggen, The Ancient Text of the New Testament,
> 
> Wilbur N. Pickering’s, The Identity of the New Testament Text II,
> Chapter 5: Chapter 5
> 
> --------
> 
> I notice that VPP advocates generally assert the preserved texts were / are maintained / kept in “immersing communities” up through the ages – that is, with the Baptists. This brings us to the bone of contention as to what were the views of the Vaudois or Waldenses on the matter of baptism. The mountain people of Italy and later, Gaul, are really key in discerning the faithful transmission of Scripture and doctrine. If it turns out they were in the main baptistic then that would be at least one error they fell to (in reaction against Rome’s perversions of baptism?), for the Covenant rule of bringing Abraham’s infant seed into the Covenant people continues. I know, IFBs and RBs, this is one – among a few – of the items we’ll have to duke it out on! It remains, however, that in these days – last century and this – it has been mostly the Independent Fundamentalist Baptists who have indeed held and defended the doctrine of God’s providential preservation of His Word, and specified the text it was done in. Yes, there have been others, Burgon, Miller, Dabney, Nolan, Hills, Letis, Kinney, etc, who were / are not Baptists, but the Baptists have been in the forefront of the fight. They are reviled, stereotyped, disdained, shunned, and discriminated against for their stand, but these are godly, courageous, scholarly men who have done the cause of the sound doctrines of Scripture great good.
> 
> I do see that the Baptists among the VPP assert that the churches formed upon Presbyterian principles are not true churches (it would follow that their ministers are not truly ordained ministers) although they cede there are genuine born-again folks among them. How very like some Presbyterian views this is! For I see Presbyterians asserting the same against the Baptist forms of church government, and their pastors as well!
> 
> For my part I do not believe a form of church government is mandated in Scripture, but is purposely left open. I may change my view, but that’s it now.
> 
> I will be posting a substantial section from Frederik Wisse’s The Profile Method..., with unusual insights on the neglect / suppression of the minuscules, shortly.
> 
> 
> ------------------
> 
> Quoting Frederick Nolan [1] as he discusses 1 John 5:7, he says this about the Waldenses and the Latin NT:
> 
> Another point to which the author has directed his attention, has been the old Italick translation…on this subject, the author perceived, without any labour of inquiry, that it derived its name from that diocese, which has been termed the Italick, as contradistinguished from the Roman. This is a supposition, which receives a sufficient confirmation from the fact,—that the principal copies of that version have been preserved in that diocese, the metropolitan church of which was situated in Milan. The circumstance is at present mentioned, as the authour thence formed a hope, that some remains of the primitive Italick version might be found in the early translations made by the Waldenses, who were the lineal descendants of the Italick Church; and who have asserted their independence against the usurpations of the Church of Rome, and have ever enjoyed the free use of the Scriptures. In the search to which these considerations have led the authour, his fondest expectations have been fully realized. It has furnished him with abundant proof on that point to which his Inquiry was chiefly directed; as it has supplied him with the unequivocal testimony of a truly apostolical branch of the primitive church, that the celebrated text of the heavenly witnesses was adopted in the version which prevailed in the Latin Church, previously to the introduction of the Modern Vulgate. [2] [Emphasis added –SMR]
> In a lengthy footnote at this point, he documents the progress of the text of this primitive Italick version up into the mountain communities of the Waldenses and into the French language in a number of texts, and he states, “It thus easily made its way into Wicklef’s translation, through the Lollards, who were disciples of the Waldenses.” [Emphasis added –SMR] [3] Nolan is a rich source of evidences concerning the transmission of the Greek text.
> -----------
> 1 Inquiry Into the Integrity Of the Greek Vulgate, Or Received Text Of the New Testament; in which the Greek Manuscripts are newly classed; the Integrity of the Authorised Text vindicated; and the Various Readings traced to their Origin, by Fredrick Nolan ((London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1815), pages 38, 39, 40, 41. Reprint available at Bible for Today ministry (see bibliography above). Nolan’s complete book online (minus the valuable Preface): http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/cl.../inquiry0.html
> 2 Ibid., pages xvii, xviii.
> 3 Ibid., Footnote #1, pages xviii, xix.
> 
> Post on Nolan: Verses ommited from the ESV thread
> Downloadable versions (with Preface): Internet Archive: Details: An inquiry into the integrity of the Greek Vulgate : or, Received text of the New Testament ; in which the Greek manuscripts are newly classed, the integrity of the authorised text vindicated, and the various readings trace
> 
> .........
> 
> Sorry to have gone on at such length, James, but, as said before, I wanted to do justice to your remarks and questions.
> 
> Sincerely in Christ,
> 
> Steve
> 
> P.S. There may be some typos and redundancies in the text above, and I'll be correcting them as I see them, and have time.



I can't believe you typed that much up on PB. That is 30 pages of material in word, single spaced and 10pt font. 16,412 words. That would take me over two hours to preach. Wow.


----------



## Hebrew Student

Larry,

First of all, I will give you any region in the sixth century. Do you have any evidence that the Byzantine manuscript tradition is in the majority at this time?

Also, it is not mere presumption to argue that these texts started elsewhere. We have several proto-Cesarian (sp?) manuscripts that were found in Egypt. As I recall, we also have some western manuscripts that were discovered in Egypt. The reason these manuscripts are discovered in Egypt has nothing to do with where they came from, but only the climate. The arrid climate of the sands of Egypt is the only way these manuscripts survived for us to have in our possession today.



> there's no Byzantine evidence at all from that time period to compare against.



Then how do you know that any Byzantine manuscripts existed from this period? Also, where is your evidence that this "original line" was the majority in the first to ninth centuries A.D.? As far as I can tell, it is only in the fourth or fifth century that we have any Byzantine manuscripts at all! They don't become the majority until the hight of the Byzantine empire.

As far as divergent manuscripts becoming more divergent, becoming less divergent is not a good thing. Why? Because those earlier readings get totally lost. Loosing all of those early readings is, again, a problem because you could never know what the original was.

Not only that, but I should point out that, for all their unity, no two Byzantine manuscripts agree with each other. So, even if you arbitrarily narrow it down to the Byzantine manuscripts, now we have to ask which readings in the Byzantine tradition are part of this "ecclesiastical text?"

Again, if early readings can just simply drop out of a manuscript tradition like this, we have absolutely positively no way of knowing what the original said. If, for nearly five hundred years there are no manuscripts that have these readings, then how do you know that there are not a whole huge set of other readings that were lost, and have not yet been recovered?

God Bless,
Adam


----------



## MW

Hebrew Student said:


> Also, can you give any evidence that, for example, p66 or p75 was touched by Marcion or any other heretic?



No need; the critics themselves do not follow them but only use them to confirm the readings of a "later" ms. tradition; this substantiates the point that earlier is not necessarily more reliable.


----------



## TimV

> What the invasion does show is that the text could not have been preserved in the years from the Muslim invasion.



Why not? There are tens of millions of Christians in Muslim controlled areas and there always have been. Not that I think it makes a bit of difference one way or the other, but that statement is just another morph on the "tale of two cities" reasoning some KJV Onlies use. Alexandria is the mother of heresy and Antioch the shining tower of purity from which the KJV descends. After all, Antioch fell to the Muslims three years after Alexandria.

So what? Even today 10 percent of Egyptians are at least nominal Christians, and Christians were in the majority in Egypt for 400 years after the Muslim invasion. 

If you are implying that Muslims regularly destroyed Bibles when they came across, or that Bible transcribing was illegal then please come out and say so.


----------



## larryjf

Hebrew Student said:


> First of all, I will give you any region in the sixth century. Do you have any evidence that the Byzantine manuscript tradition is in the majority at this time?


No, i would agree that they weren't a majority. But i don't argue for a majority text...i argue for a preserved text. As point of fact the Greek text was not preserved in all ages (up to the Reformation) except in the Greek-speaking Church.



Hebrew Student said:


> Also, it is not mere presumption to argue that these texts started elsewhere. We have several proto-Cesarian (sp?) manuscripts that were found in Egypt. As I recall, we also have some western manuscripts that were discovered in Egypt. The reason these manuscripts are discovered in Egypt has nothing to do with where they came from, but only the climate. The arrid climate of the sands of Egypt is the only way these manuscripts survived for us to have in our possession today.


The question shouldn't be where are other text-families found...and whether they are in Egypt or not. Rather, the question should be are the Alexandrian texts particular to Egypt.




Hebrew Student said:


> there's no Byzantine evidence at all from that time period to compare against.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then how do you know that any Byzantine manuscripts existed from this period? Also, where is your evidence that this "original line" was the majority in the first to ninth centuries A.D.? As far as I can tell, it is only in the fourth or fifth century that we have any Byzantine manuscripts at all! They don't become the majority until the hight of the Byzantine empire.
Click to expand...

We know that manuscripts existed prior to the 4th century in Byzantium because that's where the letters were written to by and large.
And i am not arguing for a majority text, but rather a consistently preserved text.




Hebrew Student said:


> As far as divergent manuscripts becoming more divergent, becoming less divergent is not a good thing. Why? Because those earlier readings get totally lost. Loosing all of those early readings is, again, a problem because you could never know what the original was.


I disagree with your presumption that it is due to readings being lost that texts become more divergent...rather my presumption is that they become more divergent because they don't have access to an exemplar of the original.



Hebrew Student said:


> Not only that, but I should point out that, for all their unity, no two Byzantine manuscripts agree with each other. So, even if you arbitrarily narrow it down to the Byzantine manuscripts, now we have to ask which readings in the Byzantine tradition are part of this "ecclesiastical text?"


Just as the books of the NT were canonized at a certain point, i believe the text of the NT was canonized at a certain point...with the printing press. The printing press ensured that there would be no more scribal copy errors in the text, and we could move forward with a text that has stopped changing due to copy error or due to new discoveries.

As far as the unity...i will quote Dr. Wilbur Pickering to give some numbers to what i am trying to get across:


> A typical ‘Alexandrian’ MS will have over a dozen variants per page. A typical ‘Byzantine’ MS will have 3-5 variants per page. MS 201 has less than one per page, and one of the better f35 MSS will go for pages without a variant. There is an obvious difference in the mentality that the monks brought to their task. A monk copying an ‘Alexandrian’ MS evidently did not consider that he was handling Scripture, in stark contrast to one copying a f35 MS
> 
> …the carelessness of an ‘Alexandrian’ copyist should not automatically disqualify his exemplar, but his mentality does indicate that the quality of the exemplar would not be an important factor to him—not surprising, considering his milieu, if we may take Aland’s word for it…
> 
> Our knowledge of the church in Egypt begins at the close of the 2nd century with bishop Demetrius who reorganized the dominantly Gnostic Egyptian church by founding new communities, consecrating bishops, and above all by establishing relationships with the other provinces of the church fellowship. Every church needed manuscripts of the New Testament—how was Demetrius to provide them? Even if there were a scriptorium in his own see, he would have to procure “orthodox” exemplars for the scribes. The copies existing in the Gnostic communities could not be used, because they were under suspicion of being corrupt [emphasis added]. There is no way of knowing where the bishop turned for scribal exemplars, or for the large number of papyrus manuscripts he could give directly to his communities. (“The Text of the Church?” Kurt Aland, Trinity Journal, Vol. 8, Nº 2, Fall, 1987, p. 138 [actually sent out in the Spring, 1989].)​
> Since it is impossible to reconstruct an ‘Alexandrian’ archetype on an objective basis, the possibility that there never was one must be at least entertained. Certain it is that the exemplars did not inspire respect in the copyists, and the mentality of a copyist is crucial to the quality of his work. In the Gospels the ‘Alexandrian’ conglomerate (it is not a family) scarcely makes up 1% of the extant MSS, a percent that reflects shoddy workmanship. What objective basis is there for preferring a shoddy 1% above 98% that reflect better workmanship? [I allow 1% for the wild ones, but even if someone wishes to make it 2 or 3, the ‘conglomerate’ is only 1%.]


 

I would like to commend you for your continued irenic attitude in this discussion.

-----Added 5/4/2009 at 06:40:57 EST-----



TimV said:


> What the invasion does show is that the text could not have been preserved in the years from the Muslim invasion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why not? There are tens of millions of Christians in Muslim controlled areas and there always have been. Not that I think it makes a bit of difference one way or the other, but that statement is just another morph on the "tale of two cities" reasoning some KJV Onlies use. Alexandria is the mother of heresy and Antioch the shining tower of purity from which the KJV descends. After all, Antioch fell to the Muslims three years after Alexandria.
> 
> So what? Even today 10 percent of Egyptians are at least nominal Christians, and Christians were in the majority in Egypt for 400 years after the Muslim invasion.
> 
> If you are implying that Muslims regularly destroyed Bibles when they came across, or that Bible transcribing was illegal then please come out and say so.
Click to expand...


Yes, i am implying that it was illegal in the Muslim-run Egypt to make copies of the NT Greek text.


----------



## TimV

> Yes, i am implying that it was illegal in the Muslim-run Egypt to make copies of the NT Greek text.



And do you have a source for that?


----------



## larryjf

TimV said:


> Yes, i am implying that it was illegal in the Muslim-run Egypt to make copies of the NT Greek text.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And do you have a source for that?
Click to expand...


I don't recall the source...i think it may have been in Van Bruggen's "The Future of the Bible"


----------



## Jerusalem Blade

I don't know why it is hard to understand, what I have said concerning what is to come upon the church. On many fronts she will be attacked, and one front will be the text-critical. She can endure by the sustaining presence of our Lord all manner of pain and hardship; however, those assaults which seek to destroy confidence in the Bible will be very serious, as it is our source of strength and very life.

The many-fronted attack will not be in any way related to the version issue; it will come regardless of that issue. It will come because of "our testimony to the risen Lord, His sovereignty over the nations, and the Holy Spirit thereby reproving the world of sin, righteousness and judgment".

I think that's clear enough. My reference to an incident in another country where a violent act precipitated a retaliation against a people-group as something that could also happen here — despite great differences between there and here — is certainly not farfetched. Even the DHS is envisioning such possible scenarios, and looking at "extremist groups" (the Christians specifically mentioned) as potential perps. Many in the general culture already hold those Christians who have a fervent faith in disdain and suspicion (especially when they read "Theonomic" treatises, and generalize their abhorrence to the entire camp).

[Aside: I think it likely PB has been infiltrated by gov't intelligence to locate and surveil gun-toting hotheads, and keep an ear to the ground.]

Where the version issue comes in is regarding our spiritual health, and that of the upcoming generation(s). Many CT stalwarts will be able to stand firm, their faith strong, as well as entire churches. But there are weaker souls who already greatly struggle over the reliability of the Bible (and by extension, the Faith), and these will be in jeopardy of being shipwrecked. [I am aware of a theological malaise called sovereignitis, wherein we overlook and excuse the role and responsibility of men because of our knowledge of the overriding sovereignty of God. Of course no elect soul will be lost, or not respond to His irresistible grace, yet the things we do as regards the Biblical text will have a great impact nonetheless.]

To misconstrue and confuse these things I say (whether one believes them or not — that's another matter), and I am thinking of TimV specifically here, in my view derives from a state of mind whose clarity has been damaged due to the bad habits of seeing AV "conspiracy buffs" behind every tree, allowing "sarcastic, dismissive and even contemptuous" feelings to overwhelm and poison the soul, and indulging in ridiculing spin to such an extent that the mind becomes disordered by its own spin. How else explain the weird lack of clarity over simple statements?

I've avoided dealing directly with you, Tim, for a long time, but now I've put my tie on (as you can see) and jumped down into the pit with you. And we'll take it from here.


------------


Hello Adam (Hebrew Student), welcome to the PB!

The Hortian maxim (now part of critical text methodology), "The more difficult reading is to be preferred over the easier reading," seems to be what informs your objection to the reading "her" in Luke 2:22. But Hortian methodology has been set aside by many text critics as invalid. As though the Holy Spirit could not have His writers write smoothly and simply when He wanted!

"a different majority text in every generation?" you say? Perhaps you haven't read the OP (opening post) in this thread where I give Dr. Pickering's analysis of the transmission of the autographs; it's in the beginning of the 2nd section (sections divided by red dots), or run "Not that we are bereft of evidences!" in the search feature of your browser to get there.

The providential preservation of the NT in Egypt around 525 AD? That also has been discussed, where a distinction is made between _adequate_ preservation and preservation _in the minutiae_. A very important point this, and it's good you are concerned with it, but to go over it again in this thread would be redundant.

You say, "the phrase 'word of God' is being interpreted in a overly literal fashion in the confession. If it has been preserved to all generations, it should have been preserved to that generation." What do you mean, "in a overly literal fashion in the confession"? The Confession itself, or those who read it? But regarding the preservation, see immediately preceding paragraph.

You say, 

Actually, part of the problem is that, although these manuscripts may have ended up in Egypt, we do not know where they started.​
We don't? I beg to differ, at least as far as the majority of them goes. See the section by Pickering referred to above.

You seem to have jumped in without reading what preceded, which puts you at a disadvantage.

-------

P.S. Regarding your "numerology" allegation, Tim, if you won't / can't cite what you refer to then it is mere verbiage without substance, and unworthy of this discussion. _*And*_ I perhaps ought to bring out, as regards the significance of numbers in the Bible, and the Book of Revelation in particular, that numbers play an important symbolic role. Commentators G.K. Beale and Dennis E. Johnson both bring this out. In Johnson's book, _The Triumph of the Lamb_, in chapter 1, "A Strategy for Seeing", he has a section, _Numbers Count in Revelation_, and discusses seven, ten, and twelve and some of their multiples as "especially important". But this would not classify as "numerology".


----------



## Whitefield

Jerusalem Blade said:


> [Aside: I think it likely PB has been infiltrated by gov't intelligence to locate and surveil gun-toting hotheads, and keep an ear to the ground.]



Maybe there is an intercept position at NSA with a sign over it "PB Monitoring".


----------



## Jerusalem Blade

Lance, given the intrusiveness of the government into the lives of private citizens it would not surprise me in the least to know that somewhere in an intelligence branch the PB along with other serious Christian sites are indeed monitored, as well as Muslim, white supremacists, and such. Especially after the recent DHS memo to police units all over the country on extremist factions, where profiling according to political and religious views (_Christians included!_) are encouraged. I'm not a paranoid type at all, but neither am I blind or dense. We Christians also have our intelligence operations, and understand many things not apparent to the world.


----------



## Whitefield

Jerusalem Blade said:


> Lance, given the intrusiveness of the government into the lives of private citizens it would not surprise me in the least to know that somewhere in an intelligence branch the PB along with other serious Christian sites are indeed monitored, as well as Muslim, white supremacists, and such. Especially after the recent DHS memo to police units all over the country on extremist factions, where profiling according to political and religious views (_Christians included!_) are encouraged. I'm not a paranoid type at all, but neither am I blind or dense. We Christians also have our intelligence operations, and understand many things not apparent to the world.



Having worked in a branch of the NSA, I am convinced that the sheer volume of traffic would be too much to monitor. There are software programs that "crawl" the internet and trigger flags when certain words or phrases are used, but even that would result in billions of alerts each day. 

I know I'm  so I will step away and observe the real conversation.


----------



## Hebrew Student

Jerusalem Blade,



> The Hortian maxim (now part of critical text methodology), "The more difficult reading is to be preferred over the easier reading," seems to be what informs your objection to the reading "her" in Luke 2:22. But Hortian methodology has been set aside by many text critics as invalid. As though the Holy Spirit could not have His writers write smoothly and simply when He wanted!



No, that is not the point. The point is that, if the easier reading were original, there would be no reason to change it to the harder reading. Why would someone intentionally change a reading that the Holy Spirit made easy to understand to a reading that is difficult to understand? It doesn't make any sense.



> "a different majority text in every generation?" you say? Perhaps you haven't read the OP (opening post) in this thread where I give Dr. Pickering's analysis of the transmission of the autographs; it's in the beginning of the 2nd section (sections divided by red dots), or run "Not that we are bereft of evidences!" in the search feature of your browser to get there.



Yes, but the fact that I am aware of the arguments majority text advocates make does not mean I agree with them. The problem with Majority text arguments is that one cannot reason from probability to the original text. The copying of manuscripts is not a matter of probability. If you have bad eyesight, and terrible lighting, I don't care how well you know Greek, you are going to have a terrible time copying a manuscript. Pickering also mentions persecution, which plays a very important role. You are not going to have great professional copies when you are in terrible conditions like this and running for your life. What is amazing is that, even given all of these factors, the Alexandrian text still differs from the Byzantine in less than two percent of the instances of the text!

As far as silly and stupid mistakes, the argument cuts both ways. For every Byzantine manuscript, there are at least six to ten variations per chapter for even the closest two Byzantine manuscripts we have. Yes, most of these are unintelligable, and hence, if this is an argument against p66, it is an argument against the Byzantine tradition too.



> The providential preservation of the NT in Egypt around 525 AD? That also has been discussed, where a distinction is made between adequate preservation and preservation in the minutiae. A very important point this, and it's good you are concerned with it, but to go over it again in this thread would be redundant.



But that argument is self-refuting. The difference between the Alexandrian text type and the Byzantine text type is less than two percent of the text, and no major Christian doctrine hinges on that less than two percent! I would say that this is quite "adequate," don't you? Again, I know these things, but the fact that I know them does not mean I have to agree with them!



> You say, "the phrase 'word of God' is being interpreted in a overly literal fashion in the confession. If it has been preserved to all generations, it should have been preserved to that generation." What do you mean, "in a overly literal fashion in the confession"? The Confession itself, or those who read it? But regarding the preservation, see immediately preceding paragraph.



When I say that, I mean that "word of God" is not referring to textual variation at all. To take the term "word" there literally is not a good example of interpreting either the Bible or the confession. The confession is not talking about literal "words" at all, and hence, is not even beginning to address the topic of textual criticism. I would say that the confession is referring to the doctrines and teachings that are contained in any manuscript tradition, both Byzantine and Alexandrian. No matter which set of manuscripts you use, if you apply the proper standards of exegesis and hermeneutics, you will not come up with two different doctrines.



> You say,
> 
> Actually, part of the problem is that, although these manuscripts may have ended up in Egypt, we do not know where they started.
> We don't? I beg to differ, at least as far as the majority of them goes. See the section by Pickering referred to above.
> 
> You seem to have jumped in without reading what preceded, which puts you at a disadvantage.



Well, then, you need to explain to us how we can have non-alexandrian text type manuscripts in Egypt. We do and that is an irrefutable fact. Again, the only reason we have these manuscripts in Egypt is because the climate is dry enough to preserve the papyrus reeds. It has nothing to do with where these manuscripts were prepared.

God Bless,
Adam


----------



## larryjf

Hebrew Student said:


> ...if the easier reading were original, there would be no reason to change it to the harder reading. Why would someone intentionally change a reading that the Holy Spirit made easy to understand to a reading that is difficult to understand? It doesn't make any sense.


There are too many presumptions in this to be an objective way of doing textual criticism. The biggest presumption is that those scribes who copied the text knew Greek. It can be seen from some of the mistakes in the alexandrian manuscripts that many of the scribes copied based on how the text looked and did not understand what it meant, therefore weren't proficient in Greek.
If someone who doesn't know Greek copies a Greek text you would find harder readings, but that doesn' make them more authentic readings.



Hebrew Student said:


> For every Byzantine manuscript, there are at least six to ten variations per chapter for even the closest two Byzantine manuscripts we have. Yes, most of these are unintelligable, and hence, if this is an argument against p66, it is an argument against the Byzantine tradition too.


Where do you get the data that there is so much variation within a Byzantine manuscript.




Hebrew Student said:


> But that argument is self-refuting. The difference between the Alexandrian text type and the Byzantine text type is less than two percent of the text, and no major Christian doctrine hinges on that less than two percent!


I disagree. The Alexandrian Texts that are considered of great value have more than 2% difference simply by their containing books that aren't found in the Byzantine. I would like to know where you get this number so that we can look into the credibility of it.




Hebrew Student said:


> ...the only reason we have these manuscripts in Egypt is because the climate is dry enough to preserve the papyrus reeds. It has nothing to do with where these manuscripts were prepared.


Another presumption that i don't agree with. I don't think the "only reason" we have old manuscripts in Egypt is because of the climate. It has to do with other factors as well...like the Diocletian persecution affecting Byzantium more intensely than Egypt, scribes copying good manuscripts over, and getting rid of the original that they copied.

Manuscripts are particularly hard to read for us because they are over 1,000 years old...but they weren't as difficult to read for those who were transcribing them into a new copy. With a new copy why would they hold on to the exemplar that's older and harder to read?


----------



## TimV

> I don't recall the source...i think it may have been in Van Bruggen's "The Future of the Bible"



Larry that statement of yours seemed absolutely incredible to me, but I went a head and contacted the Coptic University and just put down the phone. The scholar that I talked to said that you were talking nonsense, and even today at the Coptic Museum in Cairo there are examples of both Greek and Coptic Scripture made, perfectly legally in Egypt during the Muslim occupation, and even today millions of Bibles in Arabic are printed in Egypt by the Coptic Church, and sent all over the world. But by all means try again.

This whole theory rests on a tissue of lies, bad scholarship, faulty reasoning and conspiracy theories, and tie or no tie someone's gonna tap out ;-)


----------



## larryjf

TimV said:


> I don't recall the source...i think it may have been in Van Bruggen's "The Future of the Bible"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Larry that statement of yours seemed absolutely incredible to me, but I went a head and contacted the Coptic University and just put down the phone. The scholar that I talked to said that you were talking nonsense, and even today at the Coptic Museum in Cairo there are examples of both Greek and Coptic Scripture made, perfectly legally in Egypt during the Muslim occupation, and even today millions of Bibles in Arabic are printed in Egypt by the Coptic Church, and sent all over the world. But by all means try again.
> 
> This whole theory rests on a tissue of lies, bad scholarship, faulty reasoning and conspiracy theories, and tie or no tie someone's gonna tap out ;-)
Click to expand...


Please let me know who you spoke with...and what years the manuscripts that you are referring to were made.


----------



## NaphtaliPress

This thread needs some Moderator evaluation; so closing for a break.


----------



## NaphtaliPress

Quick break. 1. Someone substantiate the Van Bruggen citation or let the claim drop. If a reference is provided then evaluate it like scholars and not like brawlers. General charges of lying will not be acceptable and will be dealt with. This thread can carry on if it remains behaved.


----------



## larryjf

I am more than happy to drop the claim as i do not remember the source.
I am sorry for bringing it up without the source...i should have anticipated that the source would be important to the discussion.

Tim, I ask your forgiveness for bringing up a claim that i was unable to validate. Please forgive me.


----------



## MW

Hebrew Student said:


> The point is that, if the easier reading were original, there would be no reason to change it to the harder reading.



The "lectio difficilior potior" canon of criticism only concerns intentional changes; but the critic cannot prove that the change was intentional. This is what makes the application of the rule somewhat arbitrary, because one must assume intentional change in order to be able to enforce it. Pertinent to this particular case, it should be kept in mind that accidental change of pronouns is known to exist amongst ancient texts. In fact, one can read the Hebrew Bible and find instances where pronouns do not grammatically comport with the nouns to which they refer.


----------



## TimV

> I am more than happy to drop the claim as i do not remember the source.
> I am sorry for bringing it up without the source...i should have anticipated that the source would be important to the discussion.
> 
> Tim, I ask your forgiveness for bringing up a claim that i was unable to validate. Please forgive me.



Not a problem. But I was penalized again by the Moderators for defining what you wrote as a lie, so I'll let you and Steve post whatever you want.


----------



## NaphtaliPress

*Tim,
You were warned and given zero points. If truth be told*.


TimV said:


> I am more than happy to drop the claim as i do not remember the source.
> I am sorry for bringing it up without the source...i should have anticipated that the source would be important to the discussion.
> 
> Tim, I ask your forgiveness for bringing up a claim that i was unable to validate. Please forgive me.
> 
> 
> 
> Not a problem. But I was penalized again by the Moderators for defining what you wrote as a lie, so I'll let you and Steve post whatever you want.
Click to expand...


----------



## TimV

> You were warned and given zero points. If truth be told.



I got sent another warning. I didn't look at the points. I was told never to do that again, even though a billion people were slandered. I call that a penalty.


----------



## NaphtaliPress

Tim, the charge of lying will not be tolerated on this board. If you find that unacceptable; then maybe leaving this subject alone is best. If you have a problem with that, you can appeal to the moderators per the board rules; but we will not discuss it further here. 



TimV said:


> You were warned and given zero points. If truth be told.
> 
> 
> 
> I got sent another warning. I didn't look at the points. I was told never to do that again, even though a billion people were slandered. I call that a penalty.
Click to expand...


----------



## TimV

That was petulant of me, sorry.


----------



## puritanpilgrim




----------



## ThomasCartwright

> Yes, but the fact that I am aware of the arguments majority text advocates make does not mean I agree with them. The problem with Majority text arguments is that one cannot reason from probability to the original text. The copying of manuscripts is not a matter of probability. If you have bad eyesight, and terrible lighting, I don't care how well you know Greek, you are going to have a terrible time copying a manuscript. Pickering also mentions persecution, which plays a very important role. You are not going to have great professional copies when you are in terrible conditions like this and running for your life. What is amazing is that, even given all of these factors, the Alexandrian text still differs from the Byzantine in less than two percent of the instances of the text!
> 
> As far as silly and stupid mistakes, the argument cuts both ways. For every Byzantine manuscript, there are at least six to ten variations per chapter for even the closest two Byzantine manuscripts we have. Yes, most of these are unintelligable, and hence, if this is an argument against p66, it is an argument against the Byzantine tradition too.
> 
> But that argument is self-refuting. The difference between the Alexandrian text type and the Byzantine text type is less than two percent of the text, and no major Christian doctrine hinges on that less than two percent! I would say that this is quite "adequate," don't you? Again, I know these things, but the fact that I know them does not mean I have to agree with them!



Perhaps, I could cite the leading contemporary textual critic Bart Ehrman (the guy you are all trusting to restore the lost Princeton Bible for CT advocates) who has a very different view of your opinion on percentages. This is what he replied to James White in his debate,



> Despite the fact that scholars have been working diligently at these tasks for 300 years, there continues to be heated differences of opinion. There are some passages where serious and very smart scholars disagree about what the original text said, and there are some places where we will probably never know.
> 
> If James wants to insist that we have the original text, then I want to know: How does he know? In any given place, and I can cite dozens of them, he will have differences of opinion not only with me, who is an expert in this field, but with every other expert in the field. If God preserved the original text intact, where is it? Why don’t we have it, and doesn’t he know where it is? I don’t know the answer to that.
> 
> Where he disagrees is in the statement that the differences actually can matter a lot. He points out most of the differences don’t matter for much of anything, and that is something that I myself have said. My point here—now I’ll tell you my rhetorical point—I have nine theses in this book, and he agrees with eight and a half of them. So let’s deal with the half that he disagrees with, that these differences actually can matter a lot. Well, during the break, I just decided to jot a few things down, just off the top of my head, without knowing in advance what he’s going to say, or what I was going to say in response.
> 
> So, there’s one textual variant in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus got angry at a leper who wanted to be healed. In another variant in the same passage, it says that Jesus loved him. Is there a difference between loving him and getting angry? I say there’s a difference. Did Jesus feel anxiety going to His cross in the Gospel of Luke, or did He not? That’s a big difference. Is Jesus ever called “the Unique God” in the New Testament? It depends which manuscript you read and it’s a big difference. Is the doctrine of the Trinity explicitly taught in the New Testament? It depends which manuscript you read, and it’s a big difference. Did Jesus pray for those killing Him, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing?” It’s a big difference whether He did or not. Did the voice at the baptism indicate that it was on that day that Jesus became the Son of God? It depends which manuscript you read. These differences matter. Don’t let James’ assurances otherwise lull you into thinking that in fact there’s not a big deal here. There is a big deal here. These differences matter. Yes, most of the hundred thousand—hundreds of thousands—don’t matter, but many of them do matter. There are places where we don’t know what the text originally said.
> 
> Let me respond to a couple of specific comments that he made. This is difficult to do because we are getting into the realm of scholarship and it’s hard to simplify what this is about in my five minutes and forty three seconds. At one point he pointed out that we have an early manuscript, P75, from the late 2nd century, early 3rd century, and Codex Vaticanus that would be 150 years later that are very similar to one another. So he claims, therefore, because there’s accurate copying between P75 and B, we know that there are no primitive corruptions. This is a completely bogus argument. You can take other
> manuscripts from the same vein as P75 and put them up against Codex Vaticanus, and they differ a lot. He put a manuscript on the screen that was the oldest manuscript that he says that he had studied; I actually looked at this manuscript, held it in my hand for two hours one afternoon two summers ago, P52. And he pointed out that this is very similar to the wording that you find in the trial of John before Pilate in John’s Gospel—the trial of Jesus before Pilate in John’s Gospel—in later manuscripts. He doesn’t point out that there is a significant textual variant even in this credit card sized fragment of a manuscript: A significant textual variant involving the addition and subtraction of certain words.
> 
> We don’t know how often the earliest scribes changed their text. Let me bring up one datum that has not been brought up yet. The later scribes of the Middle Ages don’t disagree from one another very much because they’re trained scribes. The earliest copyists were not trained scribes. The fact that later manuscripts agree a lot don’t tell you what the early manuscripts did. Did the earliest manuscripts agree a lot, with themselves or with the originals? As it turns out, most of the variants that we have in our textual tradition are from the earliest manuscripts. That means that the earliest copies were the least— copyists—were the least qualified copyists. What about the copyists who were copying earlier than the surviving copyists? Are we to believe that all of a sudden they were virtually perfect? I don’t think so. I think that in fact, they probably changed their manuscripts a lot. What’s the evidence? The surviving early manuscripts differ a lot.
> 
> James came up with a very strange statistic that I don’t understand where he said that there’s some kind of 95% agreement at different ends of the spectrum. So that virtually we’re certain about the entire text of the New Testament. I don’t know if James has ever actually looked at manuscripts before, but I can tell you that it isn’t that simple. When people try to classify manuscripts, to group them together, so that you’ve got—say that you’ve got a thousand manuscripts and you want to know which manuscripts are most like other manuscripts, you compare them all with one another. If manuscripts agree in 70% of their variations, you count that as extremely high, because it doesn’t happen very often. So, I don’t know where this 95% figure came from, but you shouldn’t rest assured that these manuscripts are all like one another, because they’re not all like one another.
> 
> Let me end my final two minutes and twenty seconds with the issue that he really does want to talk about: The issue of preservation. He thinks that the point of my book Misquoting Jesus is that God did not preserve the text, therefore God did not inspire the text. That is not the point of my book, it is not the point of any of the major chapters in my book, it is simply the point that I begin and end the book with to explain why this matters to me, personally. It matters to me personally. It matters to me personally. There are scholars that disagree, but it’s not the main point of the book at all; as you’ll see if
> you simply read the chapters where I don’t even mention the issue.
> 
> I found his discussion of preservation to be convoluted and obscure and I didn’t really understand it, so let me put it to you in simple terms and see if this makes sense. This is the way I look at it: If God did inspire the words of the Bible to make sure that the human authors wrote what He wanted to be written (that’s the doctrine of inspiration), why did He not preserve the words of the Bible, making sure that the human scribes who copied the text wrote what He wanted to be written? James replied, “Well they didn’t have photocopy machines.” I know they didn’t have photocopy machines, but if God can inspire people to write His text, why can’t He inspire people to preserve His text? I don’t know the answer to that. If you want to say that God inspired the Bible, which Bible did He inspire? The one you read in English? The Greek manuscript on which it is based? Which Greek manuscript? All of them are different from one another, which ones did He inspire? Were they all inspired so that the different versions of Jesus’ words in all these manuscripts—even though they’re all different, they’re all inspired? How would you know which words are inspired if you don’t know which words are originally in the Bible? I don’t have good answers for that. These are the reasons I gave up my view of inspiration, but it’s not the point of Misquoting Jesus, and it’s not really the subject of this debate. The debate is, “Does the Bible Misquote Jesus?” And I’m afraid the answer is yes.



The truth is that every believer, using either Biblical or philosophical presuppositions, is led to some conclusion as to the content of the original autographs. The Scriptures do not simply promise the preservation of God’s “truth” or “message” but the Words. The church has historically held fast to these promises concerning the Words of God; not only in respect of divine inspiration, but also in regard to perfect providential preservation throughout the ages. However, since the Enlightenment, Protestantism has granted science increasingly independent authority and has surrendered the Bible’s authority whenever any supposed conflict arose between the two. The Enlightenment brought the age of the “sovereignty of reason” which attempted to verify everything in Scripture by modern critical methods of historical research. Just as in the case of creationism, until the eighteenth century the Church held to the historic doctrine of the perfect inspiration and preservation of the Words of God in all ages.

The _zeitgeist _of our contemporary apostate age now demands a “new and improved” version of everything including the Scriptures. Our places of worship have dropped the name “church,” reduced worship to entertainment, and promoted effeminate “preacher gurus” in Hawaii shirts to share the latest psychological fad. We have also now a marked subservience to scientism as the dominant cultural standard. Did the church make such a gross error in over 500 years of interpretation? What has primarily changed since the Reformation is the way man defines and uses science. Modern scientific opinion has been elevated to the status of general revelation giving it an absolute a priori veto over how we interpret Scripture. So much for singing, ‘Immortal, invisible, God only wise!’ Textual criticism is built on the intolerant foundation of prejudice against the promises of Scripture. Its motive is driven by the axiom that modern man always seeks out a way of removing His Creator from the source of truth, as autonomous man aspires to fill the vacancy.

Critical Text (CT) advocates, such as James White, have no ultimate and certain standard for determining objective truth. Without the Biblical doctrine of perfect providential preservation, we are left with non-answers in these areas. This is not a minor shift but one of seismic proportions. Fortunately, most CT advocates of the past were better believers than theologians and have been able to live with the inherent contradiction of their system by simply declaring the gospel from the Textus Receptus (TR). They were incapable of following their own premises out to the end of the road they were on. This has now been challenged by the belligerent approach of the new breed of CT adherents, the proliferation of translations, and the ever mutating latest edition of the evolutionary Greek Text.

The CT text position is a fallacy as it claims to reach conclusions that conform to the Bible, which are not derived from the Bible. It is true that some CT advocates talk about “preservation” but only by investing in their exegesis of preservation passages such as Matthew 5:18 entirely new meanings. In effect, they act like Humpty-Dumpty who retorted scornfully to Alice’s ignorance of his meaning, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less .” Their position is not some imaginative or honest attempt to follow the truth where it leads, but radical interpretations of biblical texts based on Enlightenment premises. However, the preservation promises are clear to those that are willing to accept their conclusions. These fundamentalist and evangelical “scholars” need correcting for when theologically educated men make absurd statements they are no less absurd than when the lay person make them. We reject their arguments because they are fundamentally illogical, and believers should not utilise unsound arguments nor appeal to unbelievers to place their confidence in them. The objections to the doctrine of perfect preservation are rooted in philosophical pre-commitments and not exegetical concerns. True fundamentalists, especially those of the Reformed faith, will not surrender our historic faith for the gods of Enlightenment thinking just to be seen as acceptable by “progressive Evangelicals.” Like Ezra we will prepare our hearts “to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it” (Ezra 7:10) whatever the cost.

It is axiomatic to even the most ardent critic of the KJV that the recovery of the “autograph text” is outside the possibility of recovery simply by a neutral Textual scientific methodology. Even the leading exponents of textual criticism candidly concede this. By eliminating God’s work of preservation, they have left the church disarmed, vulnerable and in total confusion. They are like those of old of whom God says in the last verse of the book of Judges “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg 21:25). These multi-versionists have no final authority, save for their own reasoning or outsourcing to a scholar to tell them what God probably said. They are attempting to compartmentalize their faith and their scholarship into separate worlds. However, since no one is viewpoint neutral and everyone has presuppositions, why do the CT advocates want to exclude Biblical presuppositions on the issue of the text?


----------



## MW

ThomasCartwright said:


> We have also now a marked subservience to scientism as the dominant cultural standard.



Regrettably, yes. Hopefully infidel "scientists" will keep correcting the misguided claims of evangelical "scholars" to the point that they drive the evangelicals back to the self-attesting revelation of God as the only sure ground on which to stand.


----------



## CDM

It may be useful to readers of this thread to have a list of the major verses that teach the doctrine of preservation of all of God's words.


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## TimV

> The Scriptures do not simply promise the preservation of God’s “truth” or “message” but the Words. The church has historically held fast to these promises concerning the Words of God; not only in respect of divine inspiration, but also in regard to perfect providential preservation throughout the ages.



Repeating a statement over and over doesn't make it true. The fact of the matter is that the Church has historically taught that adding to, subtracting from and changing words and phrases in the Bible is THE NORM.

In speaking of Matt. 27:9 Augustine says




> "Now, if any one finds a difficulty in the circumstance that this passage is not found in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah, and thinks that damage is thus done to the veracity of the evangelist, let him first take notice of the fact that this ascription of the passage to Jeremiah is not contained in all the codices of the Gospels, and that some of them state simply that it was spoken “by the prophet.” It is possible, therefore, to affirm that those codices deserve rather to be followed which do not contain the name of Jeremiah.



So we find Augustine DIFFERING from what got into the TR and KJV. Which isn't to say that he was right. But it is to say that comparing varying readings of existing manuscripts was the NORM. And that includes the Puritans, who did the same thing all the time.

As I've shown, Christ Himself quoted from both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testament, and there is more differences between these two traditions than between the TR, MT and CT.

And to anticipate the argument that the Septuagint was part of a conspiracy and didn't exist, the number of scholars who think that the Septuagint was part of a conspiracy are the same percentage as the percentage of civil engineers who think 9-11 was a government conspiracy.


----------



## larryjf

TimV said:


> The Scriptures do not simply promise the preservation of God’s “truth” or “message” but the Words. The church has historically held fast to these promises concerning the Words of God; not only in respect of divine inspiration, but also in regard to perfect providential preservation throughout the ages.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Repeating a statement over and over doesn't make it true. The fact of the matter is that the Church has historically taught that adding to, subtracting from and changing words and phrases in the Bible is THE NORM.
> 
> In speaking of Matt. 27:9 Augustine says
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Now, if any one finds a difficulty in the circumstance that this passage is not found in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah, and thinks that damage is thus done to the veracity of the evangelist, let him first take notice of the fact that this ascription of the passage to Jeremiah is not contained in all the codices of the Gospels, and that some of them state simply that it was spoken “by the prophet.” It is possible, therefore, to affirm that those codices deserve rather to be followed which do not contain the name of Jeremiah.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...

How does this show that adding and subtracting from the Bible is the norm? That's a much different statement than saying that comparing varying readings was the norm as you do later.



TimV said:


> As I've shown, Christ Himself quoted from both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testament, and there is more differences between these two traditions than between the TR, MT and CT.


Where the OT is quoted in the NT, whether by Christ or the apostles, it is inspired Scripture. This can't be compared equally to how we quote Scripture as uninspired individuals.



TimV said:


> And to anticipate the argument that the Septuagint was part of a conspiracy and didn't exist, the number of scholars who think that the Septuagint was part of a conspiracy are the same percentage as the percentage of civil engineers who think 9-11 was a government conspiracy.



That's quite a statistic to throw out there. Please show some facts to back you up on this.
% of engineers who think 9-11 was a conspiracy?
% of scholars who think the Septuagint was a conspiracy?
The % of both of the above being the same?

It is my understanding that the only proof of a pre-Christian Septuagint comes from the Letter of Aristeas. Are you aware of evidence that goes beyond that letter?


----------



## TimV

> Where the OT is quoted in the NT, whether by Christ or the apostles, it is inspired Scripture. This can't be compared equally to how we quote Scripture as uninspired individuals.



You could not possibly be more wrong. The argument of the extreme AVers is what Ferguson said above, namely that the exact words were preserved in all ages, and available to the church. During the time of Christ there were two main textual schools, just like today, and the FACT that Christ and some authors of the New Testament chose from BOTH traditions shows clearly as daylight that the promises God made to preserve His Word COULD NOT have mean that an exact, word for word rendering of the Old Testament was generally available to the Church.



> That's quite a statistic to throw out there. Please show some facts to back you up on this.
> % of engineers who think 9-11 was a conspiracy?
> % of scholars who think the Septuagint was a conspiracy?
> The % of both of the above being the same?



No, it's really easy, since in both cases it's a small handful who reject the overwhelming testimony of expert in their fields.


----------



## larryjf

Tim,

If it's real easy then please tell me what % of scholars think the Septuagint is a pre-Christian document.

If it's not pre-Christian then your point about quotes in the NT coming from the Septuagint is moot.


----------



## TimV

> If it's real easy then please tell me what % of scholars think the Septuagint is a pre-Christian document.



99%

If you go back and look through these type of threads it all comes out.


----------



## larryjf

TimV said:


> If it's real easy then please tell me what % of scholars think the Septuagint is a pre-Christian document.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 99%
> 
> If you go back and look through these type of threads it all comes out.
Click to expand...


I was hoping that you would cite a reference rather than just throwing a number out there. What reference do you have for the 99% number?


----------



## TimV

> I was hoping that you would cite a reference rather than just throwing a number out there. What reference do you have for the 99% number?



Larry, the reason so few people post on these threads is that they are usually a re-hash of things written before, time and time again. 99 percent is a low figure. The simple fact of the matter is that the extreme AVer theory represents a teeny, tiny minority opinion, since it's based on, well, we've covered that. 

Why don't you make a list of 10 people who have studied this issue, with degrees from accredited institutes of higher education, who think that the Septuagint is a post-Christian document. Then for every one you name, I'll name 100 who hold to what every single main Christian denomination has always held to.

You can save yourself a bit of time and use the search function of this forum and type in Edersheim and Keil and Delitzsch. Two people used by Steve to show that the universal Christian view of the Septuagint is a myth. Unfortunately for him, both say the exact opposite, with Edersheim in particular calling the Septuagint the equivalent of the KJV version during the last century in the time of Christ. Yes, the common man's Bible. During the time of Christ. 

A word of advice; don't pick that hill to die on.


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## larryjf

TimV said:


> I was hoping that you would cite a reference rather than just throwing a number out there. What reference do you have for the 99% number?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Larry, the reason so few people post on these threads is that they are usually a re-hash of things written before, time and time again. 99 percent is a low figure. The simple fact of the matter is that the extreme AVer theory represents a teeny, tiny minority opinion, since it's based on, well, we've covered that.
Click to expand...

Tim, i made a statement earlier in this post that you asked for a reference to, which i was unable to provide. I did the appropriate thing and retracted my statement because i could not find the reference to back it up.

Based on your requiring references from me i would think that you would be glad to list your references...but, alas, you are not. I'm not speaking of referencing threads in the discussion board but from outside sources. Perhaps you don't cite your sources because you have none.




TimV said:


> Why don't you make a list of 10 people who have studied this issue, with degrees from accredited institutes of higher education, who think that the Septuagint is a post-Christian document. Then for every one you name, I'll name 100 who hold to what every single main Christian denomination has always held to.


Because i'm not the one who started spouting off figures relating to the Septuagint...you did. If you're unwilling to provide any references to back up your statistics then you should be willing to recant your statements as unverifiable.
Further, your statistic above (100/110) is not 99%, but closer to 90...so again, this brings even more suspicion to the legitimacy of your numbers.


----------



## TimV

> Tim, i made a statement earlier in this post that you asked for a reference to, which i was unable to provide. I did the appropriate thing and retracted my statement because i could not find the reference to back it up.



You couldn't back it up because it was fantastic; the kind of thing you'd hear from Rush Limbaugh but not from an historian.



> Based on your requiring references from me i would think that you would be glad to list your references...but, alas, you are not. I'm not speaking of referencing threads in the discussion board but from outside sources. Perhaps you don't cite your sources because you have none.



That's also fallacious, since the burden of proof is on the person making an extraordinary claim.

But I'll meet you half way. Please name an institute of higher learning that you respect, and I will contact the relevant School there and get an opinion.

So please don't say I won't back up my claim. I am now anxious to do so. And the institute can be either Christian or secular; it will be your choice. Or, name 10 institutes, and I'll contact all of them.

I do it all the time on these threads. Another pillar this people need to support their theory is that Aramaic is a form of Hebrew. It isn't of course, and everyone who is familiar with the subject knows, but Steve does what he normally does in these situations and works from reverse, In other words, working backwards, picking through reams of information and picking out what fits into his theory rather than TRYING TO DISPROVE IT, which is the only real way to test an hypothesis.

I posted the comments of three leading, living scholars, one of whom is at the University of Tel Aviv, who's probably the greatest living expert on Aramaic, and like all of them, he said that Aramaic isn't a form of Hebrew. 

So please be aware, I'm game.


----------



## larryjf

TimV said:


> You can save yourself a bit of time and use the search function of this forum and type in Edersheim and Keil and Delitzsch. Two people used by Steve to show that the universal Christian view of the Septuagint is a myth. Unfortunately for him, both say the exact opposite, with Edersheim in particular calling the Septuagint the equivalent of the KJV version during the last century in the time of Christ. Yes, the common man's Bible. During the time of Christ.
> 
> A word of advice; don't pick that hill to die on.



Please don't misrepresent me in this way.
To the best of my recollection I never said the Septuagint was a myth, nor did i say that it wasn't pre-Christian...i simply want references to the statistics that you have thrown into this thread.


----------



## TimV

> Please don't misrepresent me in this way.
> To the best of my recollection I never said the Septuagint was a myth, nor did i say that it wasn't pre-Christian...i simply want references to the statistics that you have thrown into this thread.



Sorry! I may (and probably am) being too touchy. The extreme AVers need that sort of historical revisionism to keep their theory floating, and I assumed you were contesting rather than asking. It's just that these threads take on a pattern, and lately I've been trying to cut to the point.


----------



## larryjf

TimV said:


> Tim, i made a statement earlier in this post that you asked for a reference to, which i was unable to provide. I did the appropriate thing and retracted my statement because i could not find the reference to back it up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You couldn't back it up because it was fantastic; the kind of thing you'd hear from Rush Limbaugh but not from an historian.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Based on your requiring references from me i would think that you would be glad to list your references...but, alas, you are not. I'm not speaking of referencing threads in the discussion board but from outside sources. Perhaps you don't cite your sources because you have none.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That's also fallacious, since the burden of proof is on the person making an extraordinary claim.
Click to expand...

Your 99% is an extraordinary claim. The one who cites statistics is the one with the burden of proof to also cite the references.
And what does Rush Limbaugh have to do with it? 



TimV said:


> But I'll meet you half way. Please name an institute of higher learning that you respect, and I will contact the relevant School there and get an opinion.


You're the one who made the statistical claims...now you're wanting to get references? The references should come before making the claims.
And why would i help to find references for you? I'm not the one who made statistical claims about the Septuagint.

-----Added 5/6/2009 at 11:05:20 EST-----



TimV said:


> Please don't misrepresent me in this way.
> To the best of my recollection I never said the Septuagint was a myth, nor did i say that it wasn't pre-Christian...i simply want references to the statistics that you have thrown into this thread.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry! I may (and probably am) being too touchy. The extreme AVers need that sort of historical revisionism to keep their theory floating, and I assumed you were contesting rather than asking. It's just that these threads take on a pattern, and lately I've been trying to cut to the point.
Click to expand...

I forgive you.
Let's just be careful that we act in Christian charity while discussing this matter.
I am by no stretch of the means an "extreme AVer"


----------



## TimV

> You're the one who made the statistical claims...now you're wanting to get references? The references should come before making the claims.
> And why would i help to find references for you? I'm not the one who made statistical claims about the Septuagint.



Fine. Give me an institute of higher learning that you trust, and I'll get the reference from an expert rather than troll the net.


----------



## larryjf

TimV said:


> You're the one who made the statistical claims...now you're wanting to get references? The references should come before making the claims.
> And why would i help to find references for you? I'm not the one who made statistical claims about the Septuagint.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fine. Give me an institute of higher learning that you trust, and I'll get the reference from an expert rather than troll the net.
Click to expand...


I feel like your getting a bit irritated again.

You are missing the main point. You should have references to cite BEFORE you post statistics.


----------



## PuritanCovenanter

TimV said:


> I posted the comments of three leading, living scholars, one of whom is at the University of Tel Aviv, who's probably the greatest living expert on Aramaic, and like all of them, he said that Aramaic isn't a form of Hebrew.
> 
> So please be aware, I'm game.



Tim,

Just let me remind you that numbers are not always the proof in the pudding. A majority of scholars today may hold to one view over an older view based upon some skewed belief that science has supposedly uncovered. For example my kids have had Evolution crammed down their throats because it has become a majority view in the scientific community. For every 1 museum that holds to the biblical view of Creation their are thousands (and I am being generous here because the number of evolutionistic museums is probably much higher) that don't. So numbers in scholarship can be a farce. 

And Hebrew Aramaic dialects have adopted to each other. Some even use the Hebrew alphabet.


----------



## larryjf

F. F. Bruce tells us that "The Jews might have gone on at a later time to authorize a standard text of the rest of the Septuagint, but . . . lost interest in the Septuagint altogether. With but few exceptions, every manuscript of the Septuagint which has come down to our day was copied and preserved in Christian, not Jewish, circles." (The Books and the Parchments, p.150).

Add to this that the LXX manuscripts that we have are from the 3rd century AD, and they are not in substantial agreement with each other. These would be the Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus - 4th and 5th century AD.


----------



## NaphtaliPress

Let's dial back the frustration level and while it may have been done before simply list your sources and deal dispassionately with them on this matter of the Septuagint.


----------



## ThomasCartwright

> Repeating a statement over and over doesn't make it true. The fact of the matter is that the Church has historically taught that adding to, subtracting from and changing words and phrases in the Bible is THE NORM.



As someone who makes great claims to being accurate on this forum, you should really do a modicum of research before issuing puerile statements. I can only assume you are not a Confessional adherent.

Let me set forth a simple summary of what the Reformed Church historically taught. Cognizant of the role the Received Text had in damaging the Romanist cause and giving authority to the Protestant cause, the Council of Trent (1545 – 1563) declared Erasmus was a Pelagian heretic, rejected his New Testament, and edicted that only Jerome’s Latin Vulgate was the authentic Bible . Trent’s argument was that the Scriptures are corrupted at the fount and we need an infallible church to determine the Word of God, as one can never be sure of the true text of Scripture. The Reformers argued the opposite and maintained that the Scriptures guide the church, as we have, by God’s providence, the uncorrupted fount, “by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages.” Ironically, now many Protestants are positing that Rome was right when it sought to undermine our doctrine of Sola Scriptura on the basis of the variants they showed in their manuscripts. They argue that notwithstanding Rome’s other errors in theology, they were right about the Scriptures, and the post-Reformation dogmatists were wrong.

To try and influence the English people back to Rome, the Jesuits prepared an English New Testament translation in 1582 based upon the Vulgate which was immediately sent to England, and secretly distributed through the country. As one historian observed, “The English Papists in the seminary at Rheims perceiving that they could no longer blindfold the laity from the scriptures, resolved to fit them with false spectacles; and set forth the Rhemish translation in opposition to the Protestant versions .” The preface to this Rheims translation expressly states its purpose,



> It is almost three hundred years since James Archbishop of Genoa, is said to have translated the Bible into Italian. More than two hundred years ago, in the days of Charles V the French king, was it put forth faithfully in French, the sooner to shake out of the deceived people’s hands, the false heretical translations of a sect called Waldenses.



Catholic priest, Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623) in his History of the Council of Trent recalls,



> On the contrary, the major part of the Divines said, that it had been necessary to account that translation, which formerly hath been read in all the churches [Latin Vulgate], and used in the schools, to be divine and authentical, otherwise they should yield the cause to the Lutherans, and open a gate to innumerable heresies…The Inquisitors will not be able to proceed against the Lutherans, in case they know not Hebrew and Greek, because they will suddenly answer, “the text is not so,” and “that translation is false.”



Queen Elizabeth (1533 – 1603) was so concerned of the threat to English unity by the Jesuit Rhemist Bible that she sent to Beza for assistance to refute this perversion of the Received Text. It is recorded that he told her, “that one of her Majesty’s own subjects was far better qualified to defend the Protestant cause against the Rhemists; and this person, he said, was Thomas Cartwright .” It was said of Thomas Cartwright (c. 1535 – 1603), that he regarded the Vulgate as, “the Version adapted by the Rhemists… …that all the soap and nitre they could collect would be insufficient to cleanse the Vulgate from the filth of blood in which it was originally conceived and had since collected in passing so long through the hands of unlearned monks, from which the Greek copies had altogether escaped .” Brook records that,



> Mr. Cartwright defended the holy Scriptures against the accusation of corruption, and maintained that the Old and New Testaments written in the original languages were preserved uncorrupted. They constituted the word of God, whose works are all perfect, then must his word continue unimpaired; and, since it was written for our instruction, admonition, and consolation, he concluded that, unless God was deceived and disappointed in his purpose, it must perform these friendly offices for the church of God to the end of the world. If the authority of the authentic copies in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek were lost, or given up, or corrupted, or the sense changed, there would be no high court of appeal to put an end to disputes; so that the exhortation to have recourse to the law, the prophets, and the New Testament would be of very little effect. In this case our state would be worse than theirs under the law, and in the time of Christ; yea than those who lived some hundred years after Christ, when the ancient fathers exhorted the people to try all controversies by the Scriptures. Their own Gratian directs us, in deciding differences, not to the old translation, but to the originals of the Hebrew in the Old Testament, and of the Greek in the New.



Thomas Cartwright observed this about preservation,



> Woe unto the churches, if the Scriptures, the charters and records of heaven be destroyed, falsified, or corrupted. These divine charters were safely kept in one nation of the Jews; and though they were sometimes unfaithful, yet they kept the keys of the Lord’s library: but now, when many nations have the keys, it is altogether incredible that any such corruptions should enter in, as the adversaries unwisely suppose. If the Lord preserved the book of Leviticus, with the account of the ancient ceremonies, which were afterward abolished, how much more may we conclude that his providence has watched over other books of Scripture which properly belong to our times and to our salvation? Will not the Scriptures bear witness to the perpetuity of their own authority? “Secret things belong to God;” but things revealed belong to us, and to our children forever. Jesus Christ said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.” Notwithstanding the sacred writings were disregarded, and even hated by most persons, they had been preserved entire as they were the first day they were given to the church of God. More than fifteen hundred years had elapsed, during which not any one book, nor part of any book, of canonical Scripture had been lost: and it was evident not only that the matter of the Scripture, but also the words; not only the sense and meaning, but also the manner and form of speech in them remained unaltered.



English Presbyterian clergyman, John Flavel (1627 - 1691) argued in response to a question: “What was the end of writing the word?” answered, 



> That the church to the end of the world might have a sure, known, standing-rule, to try and judge all things by, and not be left to the uncertainty of traditions.



Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, William Whitaker (1548-1595) wrote the one extensive work on the subject of the Bible written by an English Reformer. In a classic riposte to the Romanist translation posited perfect preservation as an absolute necessity,



> Now we, not doubtfully or only with some probable shew, but most certainly, know that this Greek edition of the New Testament is no other than the inspired and archetypal scripture of the new Testament, commended by the apostles and evangelists to the Christian church….. If God had permitted the scripture to perish in the Hebrew and Greek originals, in which it was first published by men divinely inspired, he would not have provided sufficiently for his church and for our faith. From the prophetic and apostolic scripture the church takes its origin, and the faith derives its source. But whence can it be ascertained that these are in all respects prophetic and apostolic scriptures, if the very writings of the prophets and apostles are not those which we consult?



Whitaker went on to say he accepted the Received Text handed down by faith,



> Now the Hebrew edition of the old, and the Greek of the New Testament, was always held the authentic scripture of God in the Christian churches for six hundred years after Christ. This, therefore, ought to be received by us also as authentic scripture. If they doubt the major, we must ask them, whether the church hath changed its authentic scripture, or hath not rather preserved, and commended to all succeeding generations, that which was in truth authentic from the very first? If it lost that which was published by the prophets and apostles, who can defend that negligence, who excuse so enormous a sacrilege?



Whitaker also cleverly rejected the argument that the Masoretes had corrupted the Hebrew Text,



> Besides, if the Jews had wished to corrupt the original scriptures, they would have laid their sacrilegious hands specially upon those places which concern Christ and confirm the faith. But in those places these fountains run so clear that one feels no lack: nay, they sometimes run far clearer than the Latin streams.



He also showed how that God protected the Scriptures in the ages,



> God protects the scriptures against Satan, as being their constant enemy. Satan hath frequently endeavoured to destroy the scriptures, knowing that they stand in his way: but he hath never spent any trouble or thought upon these unwritten traditions; for he supposed that his whole object would be gained if he could destroy the scriptures. In pursuance of this plan he hath raised up such impious tyrants as Antiochus, Maximin, Diocletian, and others, who have endeavoured utterly to quench the light of scripture. Now, if religion could remain entire even when these books were lost, it would be in vain for Satan to labour with such furious efforts to remove these books.



Bishop of Salisbury and eminent Divine, John Jewel (1522-1571), who was a strong apologist against the Church of Rome, also makes clear the need of perfect preservation,



> By the space of so many thousand years, the word of God passed by so many dangers of tyrants, of Pharisees, of heretics, of fire, and of sword, and yet continueth and standeth until this day, without altering or changing one letter. This was a wonderful work of God, that having so many, so great enemies, and passing through so many, so great dangers, it yet continueth still without adding or altering of any one sentence, or word, or letter. No creature was able to do this, it was God’s work. He preserved it, that no tyrant should consume it, no tradition choke it, no heretic maliciously should corrupt it. For His name’s sake, and for the elect’s sake, He would not suffer it to perish. For in it God hath ordained a blessing for His people, and by it He maketh covenant with them for life everlasting. Tyrants, and Pharisees, and heretics, and the enemies of the cross of Christ have an end, but the word of God hath no end. No force shall be able to decay it. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.



Commenting on Isaiah 59:21, Calvin affirmed his belief in the perfect preservation of all the Words of Scripture in every age in the true Church, 



> The word of Christ shall always continue in the mouths of the faithful; there shall be some in every age who, believing with the heart unto righteousness, shall with the tongue make confession unto salvation. The word shall never depart out of the mouth of the church; for there shall still be a seed to speak Christ's holy language and profess his holy religion. Observe, The Spirit and the word go together, and by them the church is kept up. For the word in the mouths of our ministers, nay, the word in our own mouths, will not profit us, unless the Spirit work with the word, and give us an understanding. But the Spirit does his work by the word and in concurrence with it; and whatever is pretended to be a dictate of the Spirit must be tried by the scriptures. On these foundations the church is built, stands firmly, and shall stand for ever, Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.




Cambridge-educated Puritan preacher, Nicholas Gibbens also retorted in 1602, 



> For by these authorities it may seem apparent, that the Hebrew Text has been corrupted by the Jews: which if it be; where is the truth the Scriptures to be found, but either perished, or only remaining in that translation which the Papists so greatly magnify. For answer whereunto, we affirm and testify by the authority of the Scriptures themselves, (which is the voice of God) of the Fathers, and of the adversaries themselves; that the Scriptures in the Hebrew tongue are pure, and unspotted of all corruption.



Johannes Andreas Quenstedt (1617 - 1688) the German Lutheran dogmatician argued, 



> We believe, as is our duty, that the providential care of God has always watched over the original and primitive texts of the canonical Scriptures in such a way that we can be certain that the sacred codices which we now have in our hands are those which existed at the time of Jerome and Augustine, nay at the time of Christ Himself and His apostles.



English Puritan and theologian, Edward Leigh (1602 - 1671) explained why we needed confidence in a pure text for our Bibles,



> If the authority of the authentical copies in Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek fall, then there is no pure Scripture in the Church of God, there is no high court of appeal where controversies (rising upon the diversity of translations, or otherwise) may be ended. The exhortations of having recourse unto the Law and to the Prophets, and of our Saviour Christ asking “How it is written,” and “How readest thou,” is now either of none effect, or not sufficient ”



The great Puritan Thomas Watson (c. 1620 - 1686) makes clear, 



> The devil and his agents have been blowing at Scripture light, but could never blow it out; a clear sign that it was lighted from heaven….The letter of Scripture has been preserved, without any corruption, in the original tongue.



The prodigious Puritan scholar, John Owen, who entered Oxford at 12 years old, adopted the same stance, 



> It can, then, with no colour of probability be asserted (which yet I find some learned men too free in granting), namely, that there hath the same fate attended the Scripture in its transcription as hath done other books. Let me say without offence, this imagination, asserted on deliberation, seems to me to border on atheism. Surely the promise of God for the preservation of his word, with his love and care of his church, of whose faith and obedience that word of his is the only rule, requires other thoughts at our hands.



Samuel Tregelles notes,



> Beza’s text was during his life in very general use among Protestants; they seemed to feel that enough had been done to establish it, and they relied on it as giving them a firm basis....After the appearance of the texts of Stephanus and Beza, many Protestants ceased from all inquiry into the authorities on which the text of the New Testament in their hands was based.



Even the Anabaptist leader, Balthasar Hubmaier took this position and wrote in 1526,


> Thou knowest, Zwingli, that the Holy Scripture is such a complete, compacted, true, infallible, eternally immortal speech, that the least letter or tittle cannot pass away in this book.



So strongly did the Reformers and their heirs fall back on the TR that textual critics such as Richard Bentley in 1716 derided it as “the Protestant Pope Stephens,” but admitted that “Stephens’ edition, set out and regulated by himself alone, is now become the standard. The text stands, as if an Apostle was his compositor.” Swiss Hebraist, Johannes Buxtorf (1599 –1664) defended the preservation of even the Hebrew Vowel points against the attack of Louis Cappel with studies published in 1624 and 1650. Buxtorf also affirms the purity of the Received Text in 1620,



> From the extremity of the East to the extremity of the West the word of God is read with one mouth and in one manner; and in all the books that there are in Asia, Africa, and Europe, there is discernible a full agreement, without any difference whatever.



John Woodbridge notes of Rome’s influence in this attack and states, “Cappel was able to publish one of these works only with the help of the Roman Catholic apologist, Jean Morin .” Martin Klauber also notes the staunch defence of the Masoretic Text by the Reformers by noting, “Reformed scholars of the mid-seventeenth century, following the lead of Buxdorf, considered all other versions of the OT as subordinate to the Masoretic text. . . .Cappel’s theories were generally rejected in Reformed circles.” A typical pre-suppositional approach based on providential preservation was that of the Principal of the University of Edinburgh, Robert Rollock (1555-1599). He argued for the “the preservation of the divine oracles of God unto our times ” and the retention of may disputed passages such as I John 5:7, Mark 16, John 8 based on the fact that these are, “our Greek books, which we hold for authentical, have this verse and our Church receives it.” He rejected all the textual critical assaults of Rome on the Received Text by summarizing,



> Thus we see then the adversaries cannot prove by these places that the Greek edition of the New Testament is corrupted, and so act authentical. Wherefore it resteth that the Hebrew edition of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament is only authentical.


 
Henry Walker in 1642 also discerned the wiles of the Jesuit plot and argued it the supposed textual problems were “vanity” and “inventions” as, “the Pope is glad of these distractions amongst us, and would now take the opportunity to snatch away the Bible from us; he would fain take our religion away; but we hope to send him back to Rome again with a powder. Dr Narcissus Marsh (1638-1713), provost of the College of Dublin and later Archbishop of Armagh writes against one sceptic who attacked the Hebrew Masoretic Text,



> It may be suspected, that the intention is to bring it into doubt, whether we have any such thing, as a true Bible at all, which we may confide in, as God’s Word…However, I doubt not, but that, by God’s Providence, as the Hebrew Text hath hitherto stood firm, so it will stand on its own bottom to wear out all assaults against it, and be, what it always was, received as the undoubted Word of God, when all the arguments and objections against it are vanish’d into smoke.



One "Reformed" critic of the TR, Greg Bahnsen admits,



> Some Protestants have argued for the inspired infallibility of the vowel points in the Hebrew Old Testament (e.g., the Buxtorfs and John Owen; the Formula Consensus Helvetica more cautiously spoke of the inspiration of “at least the power of the points”). The errorless transmission and preservation of the original text of Scripture has been taught by men such as Hollaz, Quenstedt, and Turretin.



The Rhemist version was later revised by Richard Challoner in the mid-eighteenth century. He was an English convert from Protestantism who knew well the nuances of the King James Version and deliberately sought to revise the Douay-Rheims into closer conformity with the diction of the King James Version . Notwithstanding, so successful was the Authorised Version and Cartwright’s rebuttal of the Rhemist version that the devil was forced to change his strategy and attack not by the Latin but by the Greek. 

Now, Tim - over to you for a list of Reformed theologians who posited an eclectic text, CT view, "inerrant in autographs only" view (you choose). When you are at it, perhaps you could set forth a Biblical presuppositional position that guides us to all the Words of God today. Despite numerous requests, this is something you seem unable to do.


----------



## Prufrock

This will be my only post in the thread; I learned my lesson last time and have no desire to get involved in another textual thread -- but, I feel I have to point out, Tim, that I have cited for you before that it was quite common among the orthodox Systematicians to have reservations (to say the least) about the LXX and the text thereof as we have it today. Yes, perhaps 99.9% of scholars in the last two hundred years have had no problems saying, "Sure, Christ quoted from the LXX." But the detached, objective scholar of today does not of necessity face the same challenges as the orthodox divines did in their struggle for credibility against Rome; nor are they _necessarily_ doing their scholarly textual work in conjunction with a profound recognition of the relationship of textual issues to other fields of theology.

I am not arguing for any of the positions below, but I will observe again four positions common amongst the orthodox theologians, all of which (except #4) I have cited for you before:

1.) Represented by Whitaker, who held that the LXX is "wholly lost" and the text of today is "a mixed and miserably corrupted document," so as to make any comparison between the NT readings and the LXX is a most fruitless endeavor (_Q. 2, ch. 3_)

2.) Represented by Owen, who held it not improbable at all that Christian scribes "corrected" the LXX to match the NT texts. (_Heb. 10:5-7_)

3.) Represented by Turretin, who held that, Yes, the apostles did sometimes make use of the LXX's reading if it satisfactorily matched the original, simply because it was in common usage in their day and so as not to trouble the minds of their readers; when, however, there was divergence, they left the LXX as corrupt and followed the true reading. (_Inst. II.XIV.VII_)

4.) Finally, represented by Calvin, who held that the apostles would freely quote from the LXX (_see Comm. on Heb. 10:5_)

With the above, I simply would request that you acknowledge the fact that hesitancy to allow the fact that the NT quotes the LXX is _not_ simply an "AVer" or "extreme AVer" or "cult-ish" notion, wherein is constructed a fable of the LXX. Rather, it was a standard issue to which theologians were pressed in their polemic, without which they felt they could not win against Rome, for then we would need her authority to determine what the text of the OT _really_ was; this is something with a (clearly) _highly_ respectable Reformed pedigree and does not solely belong to "crazy, modern, minority sects." Agree or disagree, this position regarding the LXX cannot simply be brushed off hand as modern conspiracy theories, and in the spirit of Christian charity, we all should acknowledge this from now on.

And do remember, there is not an "extreme AVer" lurking in every nook and cranny; nor do all things come back to the AV or have their motivation therein, as I have assured you many times. Nor do I have any desire to convince you or any other of the truth of _any_ position regarding the LXX (or even to argue my own position! which I have not mentioned, by the way). *Again, my sole purpose in this post (so as to remove any ambiguity) is to point once and for all that distrust of the fact that the apostles quoted the LXX is not a new and novel strange position, but one that was quite important for many (not all!) of our orthodox divines.*

Peace, brother.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Sorry I can't participate in the discussion at the moment, but I gotta prepare for this — aka, Gone fishin' — could use prayer the Lord draws many into the net. Ads hit the papers on Friday. Already a good bit of interest.







Thanks, 

Steve


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## CalvinandHodges

Jerusalem Blade said:


> Sorry I can't participate in the discussion at the moment, but I gotta prepare for this — aka, Gone fishin' — could use prayer the Lord draws many into the net. Ads hit the papers on Friday. Already a good bit of interest.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Steve


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## Prufrock

Hermonta,

Yes, I believe you are correct; but I thought it best to divide him from someone like Whitaker, since I don't _recall_ (note, he may have) Whitaker suggesting that the reason for the apparent similarities is that Christian scribes had fixed the LXX to match the NT, as Owen did. In other words, there is certainly not disharmony between the two positions; it is merely that Owen gave further explicit explanation where Whitaker remains either silent or implicit. Below is a relevant passage from his commentary on Heb. 10:5-10.



> The words, therefore, in this place are the words whereby the apostle expressed the sense and meaning of the Holy Ghost in those used in the psalmist, or that which was intended in them. He did not take them from the translation of the LXX., but used them himself, to express the sense of the Hebrew text. For although we should not adhere precisely unto the opinion that all the quotations out of the Old Testament in the-New, which agree in words with the present translation of the LXX., were by the scribes of that translation transferred out of the New Testament into it, — which yet is far more probable than the contrary opinion, that the words of the translation are made use of in the New Testament, even when they differ from the original, — yet sundry things herein are certain and acknowledged; as,
> 
> (1.) That the penmen of the New Testament do not oblige themselves unto that translation, but in many places do precisely render the words of the original text, where that translation differs from it.
> 
> (2.) That they do oftentimes express the sense of the testimony which they quote in words of their own, neither agreeing with that translation nor exactly answering the original Hebrew.
> 
> (3.) That sundry passages have been unquestionably taken out of the New Testament, and inserted into that translation; which I have elsewhere proved by undeniable instances. And I no way doubt but it hath so fallen out in this place, where no account can be given of the translation of the LXX. as the words now are in it.


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## larryjf

Steve,

I will be praying for you.
If there is any kind of mp3 or other media of the event be sure to pass it along!


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## TimV

> Just let me remind you that numbers are not always the proof in the pudding. A majority of scholars today may hold to one view over an older view



That's of course true, but there has never been a point in history where any significant number of people have held to the view that the Septuagint is a conspiracy. Only today, among a really tiny group of mostly Fundie baptists has there ever been any questioning of this.

Really! We're talking the Byzantine tradition of all things! I hope you know, Larry, which Old Testament the Greek churches use today.



> And Hebrew Aramaic dialects have adopted to each other. Some even use the Hebrew alphabet.



True, and we use the Latin alphabet, but no educated person would say we're speaking Latin. It's the same with Hebrew and Aramaic. There are people who speak it, speak dead forms of it including forms of it used in Christ's time, and every single one of those people who speak it say they are different languages.

That's got to count for something.....

-----Added 5/6/2009 at 09:07:29 EST-----



> Yes, perhaps 99.9% of scholars in the last two hundred years have had no problems saying, "Sure, Christ quoted from the LXX."



Larry, do you accept that? Or do I need to start contacting universities?


----------



## larryjf

TimV said:


> Yes, perhaps 99.9% of scholars in the last two hundred years have had no problems saying, "Sure, Christ quoted from the LXX."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Larry, do you accept that? Or do I need to start contacting universities?
Click to expand...


We need a reference...and that's not a reference. Even if it was a reference, the word "perhaps" throws it out as a legitimate statistical reference.

You posted statistics without giving any references...now you're looking for references? That's quite a strange way to go about it.

And it won't count if you merely post that some scholars you spoke with agreed with you. I want in print references that i can personally look at to make sure you don't take it out of context.


----------



## TimV

> Let me set forth a simple summary of what the Reformed Church historically taught.



Why do your summaries have to be pages long?

Last time we got down to you saying that Rob shouldn't be willing to make minor changes in the TR based on Byzantine readings. I asked why. You quoted verses like



> Rev 22:19 And if any man shall diminish of the wordes of the booke of this prophecie, God shall take away his part out of the Booke of life, and out of the holie citie, and from those things which are written in this booke.



and said the "wordes of the booke of this prophecie" meant the AV. Then in the same breath you said that "God shall take away his part out of the Booke of life" didn't apply to Rob or anyone who would diminish the words of the AV. I'm still trying to figure out what you mean, and the regular cut an paste jobs don't help.

-----Added 5/6/2009 at 09:12:54 EST-----



> We need a reference...and that's not a reference. Even if it was a reference, the word "perhaps" throws it out as a legitimate statistical reference.
> 
> You posted statistics without giving any references...now you're looking for references? That's quite a strange way to go about it.



I assumed that you had done a bit of research on the subject like Prufrock. I'll start getting a hold of people.


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## larryjf

TimV said:


> I assumed that you had done a bit of research on the subject like Prufrock. I'll start getting a hold of people.



Again, it's not about me and the research i did or didn't do, it's about you backing up your claims with references.

Frankly, i'm not sure why you aren't understanding this. I'm at a loss that you are not convinced that someone who spouts off statistics also has the responsibility to cite sources.

-----Added 5/6/2009 at 09:16:27 EST-----

And Tim, don't forget this part of my post...



> And it won't count if you merely post that some scholars you spoke with agreed with you. I want in print references that i can personally look at to make sure you don't take it out of context.


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## Prufrock

[In the interest of not seeing the thread wholly derailed, is this modern statistical argument truly necessary to the conversation? I think it can be readily acknowledged by all parties that the extreme majority position among textual scholars of the last century or two has been that the NT quotes the LXX; and I have already provided adequate citation that, whoever the minority are who reject that position that today, it has until recent times been *an* accepted orthodox position by many important theologians that the NT does _not_ do so. Must the matter be pressed any more than this?]


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## TimV

Thanks, Paul. In addition to what you say, the question is even more basic, that of the Septuagint being pre-Christian, and we don't even have to make the qualifying two centuries statement with that one.

But if Larry needs that information to help him make up his mind, I'm willing to do a bit of work.


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## MW

TimV said:


> That's of course true, but there has never been a point in history where any significant number of people have held to the view that the Septuagint is a conspiracy. Only today, among a really tiny group of mostly Fundie baptists has there ever been any questioning of this.



Tim, it seems that you have as much riding on the existence of a "Septuagint" as those Fundie Baptists have on the non-existence of it, which means that the presentation of your case becomes no less rabid than theirs.

The fact is that modern scholarship speaks of different Greek versions of the OT Scriptures, and disowns your theory of a "Septuagint" as if it can be considered one homogonous entity.


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## TimV

> The fact is that modern scholarship speaks of different Greek versions of the OT Scriptures, and disowns your theory of a "Septuagint" as if it can be considered one homogonous entity.



I could be more specific and say "Greek translations of the Hebrew that Christ and several NT authors quoted from" but most understand when I say Septuagint. After all, any introduction to a copy of the Septuagint covers that. It's really basic. If it's a problem for you though, then I'll use the longer version.

But your argument falls if (Paul's numbers) 99.9 percent of the specialist in the last 200 years are right.


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## larryjf

armourbearer said:


> TimV said:
> 
> 
> 
> That's of course true, but there has never been a point in history where any significant number of people have held to the view that the Septuagint is a conspiracy. Only today, among a really tiny group of mostly Fundie baptists has there ever been any questioning of this.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tim, it seems that you have as much riding on the existence of a "Septuagint" as those Fundie Baptists have on the non-existence of it, which means that the presentation of your case becomes no less rabid than theirs.
> 
> The fact is that modern scholarship speaks of different Greek versions of the OT Scriptures, and disowns your theory of a "Septuagint" as if it can be considered one homogonous entity.
Click to expand...


Yes, Matthew. And i quoted scholars previously in this thread to show that the Septuagint is not homogeneous, and that it was preserved by the Christian community not the Jewish community.
http://www.puritanboard.com/611823-post89.html


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## MW

TimV said:


> I could be more specific and say "Greek translations of the Hebrew that Christ and several NT authors quoted from" but most understand when I say Septuagint.



But this begs the question as to how a NT author can be proven to have quoted from a "version" which has no stable literary tradition. It can't be empirically proven, which makes one wonder why you keep arguing the point in Fundie Baptist style.


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## Prufrock

In the interests of clarification, Tim, I only used 99.9% as a hypothetical concession to you; I thought the "perhaps" made that clear.

Incidentally, since you have not directly interacted with that post -- does this mean you will henceforth acknowledge that the position that the NT does not quote the LXX is _not_ in actuality a modern, crazy, fundamentalist conspiracy, but rather a position with a rich Reformed pedigree? I just want to know if we'll be playing on the same page with respect to this from now on. This is my only interest in participating in this thread -- to clear this one issue up.


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## TimV

> Incidentally, since you have not directly interacted with that post -- does this mean you will henceforth acknowledge that the position that the NT does not quote the LXX is not in actuality a modern, crazy, fundamentalist conspiracy, but rather a position with a rich Reformed pedigree? I just want to know if we'll be playing on the same page with respect to this from now on. This is my only interest in participating in this thread -- to clear this one issue up.



It's important to remember (whether all participating on the thread know it or not) that by me saying that the Septuagint (or whatever Pastor W. wants it to be called) was quoted by NT authors, and was pre-Christian according to all but a teeny, tiny, mostly fundie group of scholars.

Perhaps something insightful written on this thread by one of the specialists in the subject will change the overwhelming majorities minds, though.


Paul, whenever you say you will only post once in a thread, you can't help yourself, so just forget what you said and keep posting.


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## Prufrock

Tim, I can't tell if you answered the question or not: will you acknowledge from now on that the position is one of important and respectable Orthodox Reformed pedigree? Will you stop claiming that it is a conspiracy created by modern, cult-like Extreme AVers?


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## PuritanCovenanter

TimV said:


> Paul, whenever you say you will only post once in a thread, you can't help yourself, so just forget what you said and keep posting.



*Moderator note*
Tim,

This isn't necessary and makes you sound the lesser here. He has been trying to get you to respond to something particular. I am stepping in here to warn you to keep posting in a manner that is gracious.


----------



## TimV

> Tim, I can't tell if you answered the question or not: will you acknowledge from now on that the position is one of important and respectable Orthodox Reformed pedigree? Will you stop claiming that it is a conspiracy created by modern, cult-like Extreme AVers?



No, but if a significant number (say 10%) of orthodox Reformed (or Lutheran or Orthodox or Anglican) scholars who specialise in the subject, with the data that has been available for the last 100 years doubt that the Septuagint (or whatever Pastor W. wants to call it) existed BC and that NT authors didn't quote it I'll stop calling this a conspiracy theory.

Otherwise it's down there with John Gill's dragons, KJV Onlies unicorns and that scribbled on text of Revelation used by Erasmus in the making of the TR.


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## Prufrock

Tim, I have presented evidence: please interact and tell me whether _that_ position is part of a fundie conspiracy. Please avoid the issue the wording of generic Greek texts being made use of, and stick with the specific issue at hand.

I, personally, am not prepared to say that Owen and Turretin were involved in a KJV conspiracy; but they, too, had the LXX, the Masoretic text, and the New Testament -- they had the same data, and arrived at this conclusion. 

Are you willing to say that _this_ position (that the NT _does not_ quote the LXX) is a modern conspiracy theory by cult-like fundamentalists? Does this position have a respectable Reformed pedigree or not? I am sorry to any readers who find this line of inquiry extremely tedious, but I want to remove any ambiguity here so that this issue can stop being raised perennially.


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## PuritanCovenanter

Evidently Tim, some of the Reformers had discussions on reliability concerning the Greek Old Testament. Notable men of the reformation have been presented to you and you seem to be neglecting that. You brought in accusations of conspiracy from KJV only fundies and such. None of us are in that camp in my opinion. None of the Reformers quoted above are in that camp. So If I were you I would cool your jets a bit.


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## TimV

> Tim, please read carefully -- the question is not whether a Greek text (call it what you will) existed BC; it is whether that text is identical with that which we have today under the name LXX, and whether the NT quotes this text


.

Why on earth would I say that?????? That would put me into a morph of the extreme AV position!!!!!!!! That somehow God perfectly preserved a Greek OT in the same way AVers say He preserved the original autographs of the NT word for word in the TR?

Please just come out and tell me where you're going with this.




> Are you willing to say that this position (that the NT does not quote the LXX) is a modern conspiracy theory by cult-like fundamentalists? I am sorry to any readers who find this line of inquiry extremely tedious, but I want to remove any ambiguity here so that this issue can stop being raised perennially.



I've made it as clear as I can. Owen was a great man, but he didn't have the resources we do today. Refer to my post above.


----------



## PuritanCovenanter

TimV said:


> Tim, please read carefully -- the question is not whether a Greek text (call it what you will) existed BC; it is whether that text is identical with that which we have today under the name LXX, and whether the NT quotes this text
> 
> 
> 
> .
> 
> Why on earth would I say that?????? That would put me into a morph of the extreme AV position!!!!!!!! That somehow God perfectly preserved a Greek OT in the same way AVers say He preserved the original autographs of the NT word for word in the TR?
> 
> Please just come out and tell me where you're going with this.
Click to expand...


Just say it is or no it isn't Tim. Your answer doesn't have to lead you to the extreme you are saying it will necessarily. You are avoiding the question in my opinion.


----------



## TimV

> Evidently Tim, some of the Reformers had discussions on reliability concerning the Greek Old Testament. Notable men of the reformation have been presented to you and you seem to be neglecting that. You brought in accusations of conspiracy from KJV only fundies and such. None of us are in that camp in my opinion. None of the Reformers quoted above are in that camp. So If I were you I would cool your jets a bit.



Yes, we have covered that. Now we're into the last 100 years of scholarship by orthodox scholars. No neglect, just focus. You can re-read my original post on the subject, which deals with the number of scholars today who doubt that the Greek OT was pre-Christian.


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## Prufrock

Sorry if I misrepresented you; you will note that I edited my post just in case you would think that. I think where I am going is extremely clear: I simply want you to acknowledge that the position has a respectable Reformed pedigree and is not a modern conspiracy theory by cult-like Extreme AVers. If you are unwilling to do this, then I fear that any further dialogue on textual issues will be entirely fruitless, as you will always be able to marginalize a position by saying it can only be sustained on account of a mockable conspiracy theory.

-----Added 5/6/2009 at 10:28:43 EST-----

Also, I don't think it forces you into the AV morph at all -- extreme confidence that the NT quotes the LXX based upon identical readings intrinsically supposes that we have the original wording of the LXX available.


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## TimV

> Just say it is or no it isn't Tim. Your answer doesn't have to lead you to the extreme you are saying it will necessarily. You are avoiding the question in my opinion.



Sorry, brother, but if you can't see



> Why on earth would I say that??????



means "no" then you as a mod are the one who needs to cool it on this thread. Mods typically aren't allowed to be too heavy handed on threads that they are participating in, and we all know your stance on the subject. I don't think it's fair to have to be tippy toeing around answering you on this thread. Piling on can be fun (I don't mind it) but I do like to be able to defend myself without worrying about points.

-----Added 5/6/2009 at 10:33:18 EST-----



> Also, I don't think it forces you into the AV morph at all -- extreme confidence that the *NT quotes the LXX based upon identical readings intrinsically supposes that we have the exact original wording of the LXX available.*



No, it doesn't. At all. Those quotes just have to be different than the Hebrew, and have some similar readings from the Septuagint family. If there was any intrinsic supposition based on an AVer type of preservation the overwhelming number of learned men who specialise in the subject wouldn't make the claim.


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## Prufrock

All right, Tim. We appear at an impasse. Could you at least grant, before closing, that those among us who are not as versed yet in modern scholarship have an excuse for clinging to older positions regarding the LXX without being a part of a modern conspiracy?


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## MW

TimV said:


> Those quotes just have to be different than the Hebrew, and have some similar readings from the Septuagint family.



This is a specious burden of proof. (1.) It cannot be proven that they are quotations if there is no verbal equivalence. (2.) It cannot be proven they are quotations from written sources if there is no stable textual tradition, because an oral tradition can be shown to have preceded literary production. (3.) It cannot be proven that the Christian tradition has not altered Greek mss. to conform to NT statements, and all specialists in the field acknowledge that this has at least partially occurred.


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## TimV

> All right, Tim. We appear at an impasse. Could you at least grant, before closing, that those among us who are not as versed yet in modern scholarship have an excuse for clinging to older positions regarding the LXX without being a part of a modern conspiracy?



No, I think we should look into it further. Let's all start contacting orthodox scholars and

1: find out what they believe about NT authors quoting from Greek OT versions.
2: find out why or why not.

Clinging to unicorns and dragons existing like many AVers even here on this board isn't an option for me, or many who are following along, so old, non-confessional opinions on subjects like that can In my humble opinion still be called marginal or conspiratorial under a range of conditions.

"Edersheim said Aramaic was a form of Hebrew, and I can prove he said it, therefore it is a legitimate source" just doesn't cut it. People make mistakes, and the knowledge of the Kingdom advances.

-----Added 5/6/2009 at 10:45:06 EST-----



> This is a specious burden of proof. (1.) It cannot be proven that they are quotations if there is no verbal equivalence. (2.) It cannot be proven they are quotations from written sources if there is no stable textual tradition, because an oral tradition can be shown to have preceded literary production. (3.) It cannot be proven that the Christian tradition has not altered Greek mss. to conform to NT statements, and all specialists in the field acknowledge that this has at least partially occurred.



All the more reason to start contacting specialists. Let's do it.


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## MW

TimV said:


> All the more reason to start contacting specialists. Let's do it.



Prudence might have suggested to you to have followed such a course and to have made sure of your facts before you publicly, dogmatically, and rudely denounced another person's defence of a position which differed from your own.


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## Prufrock

Tim, as much as I appreciate the offer, I really don't have time to go line-by-line with you through Beale and Carson's _Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament_ right now. I do sincerely appreciate your willingness to do this; but it is both unnecessary for answering the question I posed, and also just not something I have time to do at this point.

I need to let the issue stand for now. Grace and peace, brother.


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## PuritanCovenanter

First off Tim. I don't consider myself an extremist. And you were classifying all of us who hold to a position or listen to the Reformers concerns as being in line with extremist AVers. That was what I was wanting you to cool down on. 

BTW, here is my stance on the subject. I am not fully convinced either way. But I do like the majority text better. I am not necessarily a defender of the Textus Receptus. I still have a lot to learn on the subject. I am mostly put off by your condescending attitude and the way you discuss this and how you are grouping others in a conspiracy fanatical mind set when that isn't necessarily true of the people who are discussing it here. 

I am not piling on. I truly thought you were avoiding the question. I have a head cold and I might be a bit slow tonight. Sorry. I do feel you are disrespectful to others in your approach here. 

As you may have noted I did say that I don't believe an affirmative to the question necessarily would lead you into the place you claim it would. I was not being strong handed.


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## NaphtaliPress

I specifically asked that sources be adduced on this question somewhere above. All other topics we discuss here we resort to literature. This subject will not be any different. No one is calling anyone and dragging them into a conversation they did not start. If you cannot adduce scholarly literature, drop it. This thread is on ice for 24.


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## PuritanCovenanter

One more thing. I want to see reference materials. Calling specialists is not a good way to dialogue here. Written words are a bit more concrete and no misrepresentation or partial understanding can be adduced as easily with a written reference. That isn't true with hearsay. 

I am tired of the extremist label in this discussion. As someone noted to me...Tim V's view amounts to this it seems. "Owen is merely wrong, but if moderns today don't think so, you're an AV only cultist".


This will stop. You can disagree with someone without using ad hominems.


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