Hovind video

In another topic, DJ N'LyTe suggested that watching this video would be enlightening --

The other translations are good translations of the wrong text. Their translated from the Alexandrians who were the latter day Jehovah's witness' they took the bible and changed it and added and subtracted as they seen fit to make it mean what they wanted. check out this video on different translations its only about 6 minutes but gives a quick history http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ykbnIQocq0 ​

I'd like to examine this video information (below, and in some more posts to follow). Go ahead and watch it, and then come back.
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Within the first minute of his video Mr. Hovind states --

"...Here's the story. New Testament books were written shortly after the time of Christ. They had to make copies. It takes about 10 months to write out a copy of the Bible; so they had to write out the copy of the Bible by hand... no <unknown word>, no printing press, Gutenburg hadn't been born yet. So, it took a long time to make a copy of the Bible. They make their copies; they had either both books or scrolls, both were in use all through scripture. And they make a copy, and they check it very carefully. If they find a mistake, they're gonna' burn it. So they were very careful to get it right. They had a checking system that was really pretty goof-proof..."​

Error #1: No one was making complete copies of the "Bible" (as we use the term) shortly after Christ as implied. It is true that most of the apostolic writings were completed within a few decades after Jesus' resurrection. However, the gospel stories initially circulated individually; later they might be bound together, but still separate from Pauline letters and the other general epistles. It doesn't take 10 months to copy Philemon or Jude. It was some time before all the Greek Christian books were put together in a single volume (NT), and these books still weren't combined with Hebrew scrolls (OT) until maybe the late 3rd or 4th century. These very first complete "Bibles" would likely have had the Jewish text represented by a Greek translation (Septuagint), not the Hebrew language which is the primary source of the KJV's OT text. Translation from Hebrew into Latin was done by Jerome anout 400AD.

Error #2: While "scrolls" were used throughout biblical times, "books" (as we use the term) were not. The codex (a "book") composed of multiple leafs, or sheets, with writing on both sides and bound together, emerged about the 1st century AD. So, the apostolic writings may have been found in codex form, but the Hebrew scriptures had only been recorded as scrolls since Moses's time. Perhaps Hovind simply misspoke.

Error #3: Kent Hovind seems to be confusing professional scriptorium practices with what likely occuried in the first couple of centuries among small Christian congregations. The originals (a letter from Paul, for example) may have been copied by any unskilled individual so-inclined to make a personal reading copy, or to send to another group. The realization of the need to make a copy may not have occured until the parent documents were badly worn or damaged. The early Christians had thought Christ would return soon, so there would have been no urgency to make copies. The Jews did have dedicated, highly-disiplined scribes within their religious structure, but early Christianity had no such provisions. The first two centuries were crucial (it is doubtful that even a few autographs remained beyond 100 years).

 

I actually appreciate Kent Hovind's opening comments, for the most part. He says that he is "not afraid" of the modern translations, that he has come to his KJV preference slowly over time, and won't "fight" with Christians over the use other versions.

 

At 1:20 into the video Hovind makes these statements --

...The scrolls that are in active use are not gonna' last more than maybe 200 years. Let's be generous here; let's say a book lasts 200 years if its used every day. So, they use these scrolls or Bibles, and they're copying from it everyday and at the end of the day they roll it up and put it away; within 200 years its worn out, its rags, you throw it away. But it doesn't matter because by then you have, you know, 50 copies you've made off this thing, or maybe 100 copies. This goes on, you know, several generations, and now you're on the 4th, 5th, or 6th generation from the original and now you have thousands of exact copies of the original which is long gone, its been thrown away, you know, years and years ago...​

Notice how Kent Hovind jumps between the terms "scroll", "book", and "Bible" as if they were precisely interchangeable words; they are not (see Error #1 in previous post).

Error #4: Mr. Hovind makes the unreasonable assumption that the owners of the original documents immediately set out to make copies, even to the extent that they made copying a daily habit; by his numbers, it seems that he estimates there would be a new copy completed every 4 years or less (a production level which is difficult to accomplish if you're burning all the ones with mistakes).

I am not aware of any evidence that this was the goal or activity of most early Christians. That isn't what we do today; if I receive an ordinary letter, I don't immediately start making copies by hand, or even mechanically. Did Titus know that he should immediately begin churning out duplicates of his personal letter from Paul? Was the church at Corinth eager to widely publish their shameful behavior as recorded by Paul? Hovind's theory does not explain the absense of copies of the other Corinthian letter (1 Corinthians 5:9), the letter to Laodicea (Colossians 4:16); or for that matter, the book of Jashar (Joshua 10:13), and others.

Error #5: Hovind states that each copy was an "exact" reproduction of the original. This is demostratably false. Every extant manuscript today has variants; no two ancient documents that have been discovered are exactly alike. And 4th, 5th, and 6th generation copies are more likely to be even less faithful to the original.

 

I never met the man; I've seen some of his creationist videos and read about his IRS troubles. I think he truly loves the Lord, but his efforts are a little misguided. He does come across as somewhat arrogant, but for the record, I didn't have a prejudice against him.

 

About 2 minutes into the video Hovind states --

"...OK. About the early 1500s they've decided to put the Bible into English. And so, Erasmus, and Luther, and Tyndale, and you know, the Geneva Bible; and all this was made 1400 er, uh, early 1500s, <something> 1500s. Their making copies of the Bible, they were translating in to English. They gathered, went around, and gathered up old scrolls they could find and copies of the Bible, and the found about 5000 copies of scripture, uh, from countries all over the world. This group of manuscripts became known as the 'Textus Receptus', the Received Text. They looked at all these scrolls and found no differences, except the spelling of peoples names and spelling of cities (you know, like 'Peter' and 'Pedro', and stuff like that). So they made English translations and finally the King James in 1611 was made from these, what was called the 'Majority Text'..."​

Error #6: Hovind states that "they" decided to translate the Bible into English. Who is "they"? Well, the only "they" (specific people or groups) he goes on to describe are: Erasmus, Luther, Tyndale, and the Geneva translators. First, the Bible was already in English (Wycliffe, unfortunately unmentioned by Hovind, had done a translation about 100 years before). Second, to put the Bible in English was not a group's decision. It was mainly the work of a couple of men, Wycliffe and Tyndale primarily (and few close followers, like Purvey and Coverdale). Some of the citizens may have wanted an English Bible, but most of the Church clergy did not. Erasmus really wanted to publish his Latin version and this was made possible by putting it parallel with a highly desired commercial venture of printing a Greek critical text (New Testament only). Third, these named people didn't all the same goals (as mentioned by Ed in another post, Luther had no interest in making an English Bible, his interest was in a German Bible). They didn't really work together (although there were occassions in their lives when some of these scholars met or corresponded with one another). The Old Testament was translated into English from printed Hebrew volumes (NOT ancient manuscripts; the work had already been done by Jewish scholars). The complete Bible already existed in several English versions before the Geneva Bible was even begun.

Error #7: "They" did not gather some 5000 manuscripts. First, historians can tell us that Erasmus obtained probably less than a dozen Greek documents from nearby, plus some Latin versions to create his Greek text of the New Testament. Luther and Tyndale primarily translated from Erasmus' work. Second, there probably were not even 5000 manuscripts yet discovered in the 1500s (although Hovind is not specific as to the type of "scriptures" he is claiming were gathered). Most of the approximately 5,500 Greek manuscripts now available to us were discovered long after 1611. Third, even if thousands of useful documents of some sort existed, the scholars at this time did not have the means to gather them from "all over the world" (travel was still by horsewagon and sailing ships). Fourth, they could not have processed all that data. Today, even with computer aids, the majority of the mass of ancient manuscripts have gone unstudied in detail.

Error #8: The manuscripts that Erasmus collated never were known as the 'Textus Receptus'. It wasn't until quite sometime later that his printed Greek critical texts and some others' Greek editions (only about 20 in all) became known as the Received Text. The manuscripts were all of relatively young origin (8th-14th century) so they would have been in codex form (not scrolls).

Error #9: There were many other variants among the manuscripts, not just spelling differences of proper names and places. Erasmus himself wrote about decisions he had to make concerning choosing a text from among his sources. If the manuscripts all agreed, why would one need all that material at hand?

Error #10: The King James' New Testament is NOT based upon what is called the 'Majority Text' (as the term is used generally). The 'Textus Receptus' (TR) is a different Greek text from the 'Majority Text' (MT). Although the TR agrees with MT for the most part, they are not the same thing.

I think Kent actually knows some of the true facts himself, but in his attempt to summarize quickly he has made a confusing mess. Now in less than 2:45, he has made 10 serious errors (or about one error every 15 seconds).

 

I'm not going to address Hovind's "Alexandrian cult" theory, Origen, Catholic versions, in this portion of the video. Also, I'm not going to make a transcript of what he says in middle of the video, but I will correct one error (there definately are others) he makes in this section: the Vulgate Bible version was NOT made from just the two Greek codices, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus as he states. Certainly, it is known that Jerome translated most of his Old Testament from ancient Hebrew manuscripts, and most of the Apocrypha came into the Vulgate untouched directly from Old Latin sources.

At about 4:25 into the 6 minute video Mr. Hovind says this --

"...Two guys, named Wescott & Hort, came along in 1875 and they took these Alexandrian manuscripts, of which I think about 15 or 17 'em were found (I don't know) and they said 'These are old manuscripts. Therefore, they're better.' Well now, hold on a minute: Yes, they're older, but that doesn't mean they're better. They're older because they're worse; the people didn't use them, they didn't wear them out. But they made a modern Greek version of the Bible from this ancient one, you know, they put it on new paper, new ink, and made a new Greek edition in 1875..."​

That older manuscripts simply survived because "they're worse" is a theory at best, and certainly not a fact. First, if they're so bad, shouldn't we find even more of them? Meanwhile, all the Byzantine ('Majority Text') manuscripts also have errors and problems; does that mean all the desireable ones were lost (worn out), leaving us without any perfect examples? Near the end of the video he further illustrates this theory by stating: "My Jehovah's Witness Bible on my shelf will probably never get worn out." True, he may not personally handle it very much in his lifetime; but that doesn't mean the copy of the New World Translation he now posses will survive the next 200, 400, or 800 years in the custody and care (or lack thereof) of others.

Second, it is equally possible that these extremely valuable volumes were simply better preserved (manuscript books were rare and expensive, the property of only the very wealthy). The Jews kept several of what was considered their best copies of the Hebrew scriptures in the Temple under protection. And finally, sometimes artifacts are just preserved for us by fortuitous circumstances (perhaps even miraculously directed by God's hand).

Mr. Hovind almost implies that Westcott & Hort were effectively engaging in deception by creating a "new" Greek text (as opposed to the way he presented Erasmus' work, which was a similar situation). In fact, there had already been many other published Greek texts preceding Westcott & Hort (Tregelles in 1857 and Tischendorf in 1869, for examples).

I must commend him for some of his closing comments, where he doesn't place fault on translators of modern versions, stating that they are "probably sincere men, probably intelligent men." But I must condemn his endorsement and offering of Riplinger's New Age Bible Versions book.

It seems Hovind's opinion is that the 'Textus Receptus' is the most accurrate Greek text (or does he actually prefer the 'Majority Text'?). In either case, that doesn't necessarily mean that the KJV is the only New Testament then to be considered. There is also the NKJV, Green's, Young's, and several other translations of the TR. There are also a few versions based solely on the MT (the ALT, for example).