Interesting info

I'm sure you will.


...or did you mean an intelligent answer?...

 

I must disagree.

Mt. 17:21 is omitted in most modern versions, including the NIV, but every Greek manuscript but five have the verse, and three of those are from the 9th century or later.

Mt. 18:11 is omitted in most modern versions, including the NIV, but every Greek manuscript but eight have it, and six of those are from the 8th century or later.

Mt. 23:14 is omitted in most modern versions, including the NIV, but every Greek manuscript but nine have it, and six of those are from the 8th century or later.

Mk. 7:16 is omitted in most modern versions, including the NIV, but every Greek manuscript but five have it, and three of those are from the 8th century or later.

Mk. 9:44 is omitted in most modern versions, including the NIV, but every Greek manuscript but twelve have it, and seven of those are from the 9th century or later.

Mk. 9:46 is omitted in most modern versions, including the NIV, but every Greek manuscript but twelve have it, and seven of those are from the 8th century or later.

The case is similar for Mk. 11:26, Mk. 15:28, Lk. 23:17, Jn. 5:3b-4, Ac. 28:29, Rom. 16:24.

One should not forget that although Mk. 16:9-20 is printed in the text of most modern versions, it is denounced as spurious, see e.g. the NIV's note, "[The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.]." What is amazing is that in this case, only three Greek manuscripts omit this passage of twelve verses, and one of them is from the 12th century!

Also not to be excluded from this list is Jn. 7:53-8:11, another portion of twelve verses, where the evidence against it is similar to if not more substantial than that of the passages listed above.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

Are you sure that there are not the same-type of differences in the KJV-only view's stream, line, or tree of good Bibles?

For example, the Greek text edited by Erasmus,
Luther's German Bible, Tyndale's N. T., the 1535 Coverdale's Bible, and the 1537 Matthew's Bible
did not have Mark 11:26 and Luke 17:36, and these
are still on the KJV-only view's stream or line of good Bibles.

The Peshitta Syriac Bible is placed on the KJV-only view's stream of good Bibles even though it did not include John 7:53-8:11 and Luke 22:17-18.

 

The NIV, just for an example, does not consider the verses and passages I mentioned to be Scripture or else they would have put them in the text, not in the footnote. The fact that the NIV notes say "some manuscripts..." is misleading, because ALL Greek manuscripts except the ones I mentioned, many of which are late, include the verses. From reading your diatribe it is clear you are more anti-KJVO than serious about the issue of manuscript support underlying the NT.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

Greetings, Bluefalcon. How are things in Lakeland? Better than here in Port Charlotte, I hope.

I was wondering about this quote from your last post:

I own several NIV's (as well as over 20 other translations) but I have never seen any version or edition that states "Verses quoted in footnotes are not Scripture" or "Scripture is only in the main body of the text" or some such. How did you come by this conclusion? Do you have a Bible that explicitly states this? Or perhaps, is there a rule among Bible publishers of which I am not aware? I would be very interested to see your evidence for this claim, inquiring minds want to know.

God bless.

 

Hey Stevec,

You ask a good question, and you'll not find the answer in the NIV preface, where it says: "Footnotes call attention to places where there was uncertainty about what the original text was," and, "In the New Testament, footnotes that refer to uncertainty regarding the original text are introduced by 'Some manuscripts' or similar expressions."

My observation is twofold: (1) sometimes words or verses appear in the text with a footnote saying that "some manuscripts" do not have them, while (2) sometimes words or verses are absent from the text altogether with a note indicating what the words or verses are that are absent. These two different actions indicate to the reader what the editors believe to be or not to be Scripture. If they are believed to be Scripture they are included in the text; if they are not, then they are excluded.

For example, at Mt. 16:2 the NIV has a note, "Some early manuscripts do not have the rest of verse 2 and all of verse 3." At Mt. 21:44 the NIV note says, "Some manuscripts do not have verse 44." Why are the verses included in the text if some manuscripts do not have them? Answer: because the editors believe them to be Scripture.

All of the passages in my previous post focused exclusively on those verses that were NOT included in the text, although they easily could have been under the above approach, with a note indicating that "some manuscripts" do not have them. Instead, they are absent from the text altogether with a misleading note indicating that "some manuscripts" actually have the text, where in fact all the Greek manuscripts have the text except only the few that were mentioned in the previous post.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

There is no proof. It is just another KJVO argument used to attack other Bible versions. KJVO's think that acknowledging any variants in the source (Greek and Hebrew) texts is casting doubt on the scriptures instead of just being honest. However, even the KJV translators acknowledged variants in the source texts and gave alternative renderings in side-notes (which have been deleted from most KJVs availiable today). Not as many as in modern English Bible versions, but we have more manuscripts now than the KJV translators had.

 

Perhaps I am confused on the definition of "some" and "misleading." Or perhaps you are. But if "ALL Greek manuscripts except" a few have it, then "some" do not have it. The NIV, whether right or wrong about the inclusion of these verses, is indisputably right to say that "some omit" or "some include."

I think the misleading is coming from you.

 

What we have here is both a difference in mss AND different choices by translators. The AV translators leaned toward being sure not to OMIT anything, while later translators leaned toward not ADDING anything, which is as wromg as omitting. The later translators had a lot more mss to work with than the AV translators did, and therefore had to make more careful choices.

 

I don't understand why the KJVo's have to intentionally misrepresent the NIV or other modern versions. If they look at the KJV, they will find that the KJV has had many, many, MANY revisions since 1611. Yet, they don't like to talk about that and contribute it to only misspellings, etc. Guess even with that that it would still mean that it wasn't "perfect", now was it? But, the problem doesn't just stop at the misspellings, as has been pointed out on this forum many times.

 

Maybe I don't understand. But it seems that saying "some" manuscripts have a verse when actually over a thousand have it, and not saying anything about the number of only 5 or 6 Greek manuscripts that omit the verse (which I would consider calling "some" or "a few"), is a little misleading. More informative of the facts would be to have a note that says "most manuscripts" have the verse, but that would put too many questions in the minds of readers.

Another thing. If the choices of excluding the text of whole verses is dependent only on 5-10 Greek manuscripts, as well as thousands of places of individual words and clauses, then we need to change our model of defending the Bible based on this "mass of thousands of Greek manuscripts," because only 5-10 of them are worth anything, and Josh McDowell's apologetic arguments need revising.

Yours,

Bluefalcon

 

The majority is not always right, BF. While I am not defending the NIV (it must stand or fall on its own merit), I will stand and say that just because there are numerous examples of manuscripts that do/do not include verses and such does not make them correct.

Just because a translation does not agree 100% with the King James does not make it wrong. If it did, then you are using the wrong measuring stick. The KJV is not the standard by which others are measured, it is a work of man to be measured just like any other.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

I haven't mentioned the KJV in a single one of my posts. All I've done is list a few passages and the paltry Greek manuscript support of those places and asked for a good explanation; such I have not yet been able to find on this message board. Josh McDowell says thousands of Greek manuscripts uphold the integrity of each and every word of Scripture. This point, according to the reaction on this board, I conscientiously call into question.

Yours,

Bluefalcon