JD says "Of course there are variations. But that is not the issue, is it. "
Of course the variations ( the wildest variations are found in Aleph & B ), is one of the issues if you can not even grasp the issue what hope is there for you, to refute it?
In Final Authority, William P Grady provides further interesting details about Textus Receptus, the Received Text: "For instance, over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament exist today ranging from small fragments containing two or three verses to nearly entire Bibles. Their ages vary from the second to the sixteenth century; the manuscripts are ending with the arrival of printing. By comparison, there exist only ten quality manuscripts of Caesar's Gallic War composed between 58-50BC
"Once again, the outstanding features of the Received Text is its high percentage of agreement among so many thousands of independent witnesses. This agreement is often placed at about 90 percent; in other words, 90 percent of all existing manuscripts agree with one another so miraculously that they are able to form their own unique text
If the critic of your King James Bible is correct in his rejection of the underlying Textus Receptus, then he is also under the greatest pressure to account for its existence. To complain of fabrication is one thing, but to account for its universal prevalence is quite another. Whenever a large body of ancient documents are seen to be in agreement, this inexplicable harmony becomes their greatest evidence for legitimacy. Simple arithmetic confirms that the nearer a particular reading is to the original, the longer the time span will be for descendants to follow. The longer the family is, the older the original source must be."
If the critic of your King James Bible is correct in his rejection of the underlying Textus Receptus, then he is also under the greatest pressure to account for its existence. To complain of fabrication is one thing, but to account for its universal prevalence is quite another. Whenever a large body of ancient documents are seen to be in agreement, this inexplicable harmony becomes their greatest evidence for legitimacy. Simple arithmetic confirms that the nearer a particular reading is to the original, the longer the time span will be for descendants to follow. The longer the family is, the older the original source must be."
You FAIL to Grasp the issue! maybe intentionally.
Textus Receptus is based on the vast majority (90%) of the 5000+ Greek manuscripts in existence. That is why it is also called the Majority Text.
Textus Receptus is not mutilated with deletions, variations, additions and amendments, as is the Minority Text.
In addition to it's internal agreement, Textus Receptus agrees with the earliest versions of the Bible: Peshitta (AD150) Old Latin Vulgate (AD157), the Italic Bible (AD157) etc. These Bibles were produced some 200 years before the minority Egyptian codices favoured by the Roman Church. Remember this vital point.
Textus Receptus not only agreement among the MSS but it agrees wih the vast majority of the 86,000+ citations from scripture by the early church fathers.
Textus Receptus is untainted with Egyptian philosophy and unbelief.
Textus Receptus strongly upholds the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith: the creation account in Genesis, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, the Saviour's miracles, his bodily resurrection, his literal return and the cleansing power of his blood!
Textus Receptus was - and still is - the enemy of the Roman Church. This is an important fact to bear in mind.
DR Sam Gipp qoutes Professor Hodges of Dallas Theological Seminary
"Thus the Majority text, upon which the King James Version is based, has in reality the strongest claim possible to be regarded as an authentic representation of the original text. This claim is quite independent of any shifting consensus of scholarly judgment about its readings and is based on the objective reality of its dominance in the transmissional history of the New Testament text.' "
Hear the end of the Matter:
"The manuscript of an ancient book will, under any but the most exceptional conditions, multiply in a reasonable regular fashion with the result that the copies nearest the autograph will normally have the largest number of descendants."
Is the above understandable or over your head?
Another words how do you account for all these copies in agreement with one another?
Some from every corner of the known world at the time.
Some from early dates some from late dates again in agreement
All in agreement with the ancient TRANSLATIONS that predate the GREEK MSS!
All in agreement with the majority of patristic quotes thru the ages.
The only reasonable conclusion is:
They point to a common ancestor!
Whenever a large body of ancient documents are seen to be in agreement, this inexplicable harmony becomes their greatest evidence for legitimacy. Simple arithmetic confirms that the nearer a particular reading is to the original, the longer the time span will be for descendants to follow. The longer the family is, the older the original source must be."
CASE CLOSED!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Of course there are variations. But that is not the issue, is it. You believe that the original manuscripts have been lost, and that God gave the KJV to the modern church as an inspired text !! For you and your buds, it is not a translation. So you reject any and all textual comparisons or studies. All of your information comes from web sites written and supervised by KJVonlyists. Those are the ugly facts, my friend. The King James is an inspired TEXT. That's why you ridicule all who appeal to textual criticism -- because you do not believe there are any MSS that are not from Satan's pit.JD
-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Deegan <openairmission@yahoo.com>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 19:44:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [TruthTalk] Oldest & most CORRECTED MSS
"The Codex Sinaiticus has been corrected by so many hands that it affords a mostinteresting and intricate problem to the palaeographer who wishes to disentanglethe various stages by which it has reached its present condition?" Kirsopp Lake,Codex Sinaiticus - New Testament volume; page xvii of the introductionThis from a PROponent?Tischendorf said he "counted 14,800 alterations and corrections in Sinaiticus."Alterations, more alterations, and more alterations were made, and in fact, most ofthem are believed to be made in the 6th and 7th centuries.Tischendorf inspected the document and said "On nearly every page of the manuscriptthere are corrections and revisions, done by 10 different people."Tischendorf "?the New Testament?is extremely unreliable?on many occasions 10, 20,30, 40, words are dropped?letters, words even whole sentences are frequentlywritten twice over, or begun and immediately canceled. That gross blunder, wherebya clause is omitted because it happens to end in the same word as the clausepreceding, occurs no less than 115 times in the New Testament."CORRECTED THRU OUT ALL AGES
Kirsopp Lake says there were three groups and even a four groups of correctorsthat altered the codex. First, there were the "post Caesarean" possibly even those"at the monastery of St. Catherine?s on Mt. Sinai." Second, there were "theintermediate correctors, of which certainly the earliest, and possibly all belongedto Caesarea. They are probably no earlier than the fifth nor later than the seventhcentury." Third, there are the early correctors, all probably "belonging to theforth and certainly no later than the fifth century." Finally, the latestcorrectors altered the manuscript probably in the twelfth century.Maybe this is where the saying came from?Too many cooks spoil the broth
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