veteran said:
More junk information. The Alexandrian manuscripts were NEVER the Majority texts of the NT.
The Textus Receptus (Received Texts or Majority Texts) agree with the earlier known NT texts of the Peshitta Version (A.D.150), the Italic Bible (A.D.157), the Waldenensian (A.D. 120 forward), the Galic Bible (A.D. 177), the Gothic Bible (A.D. 330-350), the Syriac Bible (A.D. 400), the Armenian Bible (A.D. 400, great number of copies still exist), the Palenstinian Syriac (A.D. 450), etc. It even agrees with the old Latin Bible of A.D. 150's.
The Textus Receptus the KJV uses is based on the majority of existing Greek texts, something around 5300 manuscripts. That... is why the Textus Receptus is called The MAJORITY Text.
I get the feeling you didn't actually read my post. You call my time spent replying to you, "junk information," yet it doesn't appear to me you even listened to my argument. No one is debating the fact that Byzantine manuscripts make up the majority
today. That's not the point. The point is which text-type made up the majority of manuscripts closer in time to the originals?
The Byzantine text type did not become dominant until the Minuscules writing style started to replace the historical Uncials, which was in the 9th to 10th centuries. This is because the 9th and 10th centuries is when you had a lot of recopying going on due to this new writing style. That is when the Byzantine text took off. To assert that the Byzantine text was the dominant text prior to the 9th century, as I've already mentioned, is an argument from silence. You can't argue that the Byzantine text was more dominant in that period just because we have more surviving manuscripts from the 10th century on. You're not going to have as many surviving manuscripts from the early centuries, regardless of which text-type they are.
But the point is, the majority of those prior to the 9th century which
have survived are, in fact (and by fact I mean you can simply look this up), Alexandrian. So it simply is not true to state that the Alexandrian text was never the dominant text. All the evidence points to the likelihood that before the recopying in the 9th century, it in fact was. The Chester Beatty II, Bodmer II, VII-VIII, XIV-XV; Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209; Codex Sinaiticus; Codex Alexandrinus; Codex Borgianus; Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus; Codex Washingtonianus; Codex Guelferbytanus B; Codex Freerianus; Codex Dublinensis; Codex Regius; Minuscule 33, 893 and 81; Uncial 057 and 0220; Codex Coislinianus; Zacynthius; Dublinensis; Porphyrianus; all Alexandrian text types, all some of the earliest and most important manuscripts we have, and we could go on and on. The famous Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus in particular are the oldest near-complete manuscripts we have of the New Testament, and they are almost purely Alexandrian texts.
Thus, the Byzantine text-type is called the Majority Text because it makes up the majority of the manuscripts we have today. However, that is not the case when you consider only those manuscripts
prior to the 9th century. It is only the case because the vast majority of the manuscripts that we have were copied
after the 9th century. Again, to assert that the Byzantine text-type was always the majority text is not only factually incorrect, but it is also an assertion that must rely on an argument from silence, because you can't expect for as many manuscripts from the first century to have survived as from the second century. So a comparison of the total number of Byzantine texts to the total number of Alexandrian texts, for instance, would not be an accurate comparison, because it is a disproportionate comparison. You have to compare the number of B-type to A-type after the 9th century, and the number of B-type to A-type prior to the 9th century. When you do that, what you find is the B-type is the dominant in the second millenium, but the A-type in the first, closer to the originals.
As for your list of early NT texts, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there. What evidence do you have to suggest that these texts are based on the majority manuscript evidence of that era? No one is arguing that the Byzantine text-type did not exist prior to the 9th century. Only that it was not the majority of that millenium. The simple fact is, many of these early NT texts you mention have issues associated with them that would not help either argument here. The Peshitta, for instance, differs from
both the Byzantine and Alexandrian text types more than it agrees with either. See Metzger's book Early Versions of the New Testament for a discussion on that.
Axehead said:
New Versions change the Gospel.
The NIV and NASB support New Age Philosophy.
New Versions demote Jesus Christ where several New Version Bibles follow the Jehovah Witness bible and dozens and dozens of verses in the NKJV that support New Age philosophy.
"Now the serpent was more subtil..." Gen. 3:1
This is simply a dishonest remark. One which I have already responded to in an earlier reply, which you had nothing to say about. For every case in which you can show that the modern versions state "Jesus Christ" with "he," the same exact thing can be shown the other way around. Consider just a couple examples.
John 1:18, KJV:
"No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten
Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."
John 1:18, NRSV:
"No one has ever seen God. It is
God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known."
Here's a good one. John 14:14. Jehovah's Witnesses will argue that Christ never commanded us to pray to Him, and the reason they will give is because their own translation leaves out the word "me" in the beginning of John 14:14. The KJV does the same:
"If you ask anything..." KJV
"If you ask
me anything..." NASB
Again, Revelation 1:8, KJV:
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the
Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."
Rev. 1:8, NASB:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the
Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
Here's one of my favorites. 1 John 3:1, NASB:
"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and
such we are."
1 John 3:1, KJV:
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God"
Oops! Should we conclude from this that there is a conspiracy in the KJV to remove the assurance of the adoption of sons from the text? Well, if you are consistent with your style of argumentation, you should anyway. But I don't think you will be.
So the same arguments that you raise can be raised against your own position. You're not listening to a balanced assessment of all the facts. You're choosing which facts you want to consider, and which you want to ignore, because certain ones are convenient for justifying for yourself what you've already chosen to believe.
I'm sorry, but to argue that differences as slight as this are evidence of a "New Age Agenda" is laughably absurd. Some of the most conservative, faithful Bible scholars in the world are on the translation committies of some of the better modern versions such as the NASB and the ESV (I'll gladly stand with you against the NIV, however; I
do believe there's a lot of bias read into that one). They would not water down the gospel. They preach it faithfully all the time. And besides, the message of Scripture is clear. One would have to do far more to distort that message than to make such minor translation differences as these. The doctrine of Christ's divinity is not merely based on a couple verses in the KJV that say "the Son is God"! It is clearly seen in any translation, even the bad ones for crying out loud.