Two philosophies

He just showed you in the OP.:smilewinkgrin:

 

Seems yall tend to forget, God has His Church and the Vatican has it's "church".:thumbsup:

 

Assumme, Assummmmmmmmmmmmmmme, UhAssummmmmmmmmmmme.

 

One Philosophy

Bible Versions/Translations
Two philosophies

Pastor Larry: //BTW, the original KJV included some
similar marginal comments if my memory serves me correctly.//

Above I list some such marginal comments found in the KJV1611 Edition.
These show that the translators of the AV 1611 thought that
it was HONEST to show that they had access to THE RECEIVED TEXTS
and what those RECEIVED TEXTS said.

Originally Posted by Pastor_Bob
//The aspects of beliefs that are presented are:
1. Providential preservation
2. Guidance of the Holy Spirit
3. Preservation through the church

//All three of these aspects can be easily defended
by Scripture, whereas, the critical text position
is based upon uncertainty, human logic, and subjectivity.
It is clear to me which position has the Scriptural support.

//We need not have a verse that tells us specifically
that the King James Version of the Bible is the preserved
Word of God for English speaking people;
it is senseless to ask for such a Scripture.
The issue is the text that underlies the KJV.
When the text is the issue, the Scriptural support is plenteous.//


Unfortunately, the deliniation of the two postures,
by using pejortives "the critical text position
is based upon uncertainty, human logic, and subjectivity".
is an invalid logical spliting.
In fact, I've shown above that the AV 1611 KJV Translators
used the critical text position with the received texts
they had. They put in the text the most likely 'original text'
and put next the most likely, but present in
the received texts, reading.
Starting from the same three points of logic listed in the
(and again above) and the the received texts they had,
the translators practices the critical text position.

Likewise today, even those who follow these three beliefs
practice the critical text position.

So these two philosophies are used together both by the
AV 1611 KJV Translators and 19th century reviled/malined
Greek Editors (to wit, Westcott & Hort), and by modern
day received texts preferred translators.

Whomever: " ... the underlying text is the issue."

Actually the false dichotomy in the OP (opening post) is
NOT "the underlying text is the issue". Here are the
issues:

1. The truth is established by mulitple witnesses.
NOT: 1. the truth is established by one and only one witness

2. The received texts are documented in translator
notes so those who believe in the Priesthood of the Believer
can determine by themselves alone how to approach GOd
and God's truth.
*NOT: 2. the translator notes cause unbelief.

These are the issues.

* note, usually seen as: "I don't understand
the received texts so i don't want anybody in
my church reading the translator margin notes

TC: //What about other Bibles that use
the same underlying texts as the KJV?
How come they are rejected by so many that claim
that the underlying text is the issue?
If that were the case, I think they would welcome
a modern English translation of those same texts.//

You won that point !!!
The other side of the debate has no counter argument.
The case is even worse, there is denial that there are
multiple King James Versions (KJVs).

I've seen the New King James Version (about 1985) from it's
start (it was news for me, not history).
The specification LAID DOWN BY THE KJV ONLYISTs
was "the underlying text is the issue".
The received texts should be used as the
main source for the translation. It took TEN YEARS
after the produciton of the full nKJV translation before
the major attack against it from the KJV ONLYISTS was
mounted: against a publisher's symbol on a page the
nKJV translators hadn't translated, to wit, the title page.

So the issue isn't the source, the issue is DOCUMENTING
THE SOURCES USED. Yes, the translators of the nKJV had
Bible Witnesses that the translators of the KJV didn't have.
Not to deal with these Witnesses is to LIE TO THE PUBLIC -
a bad, bad Baptist no-no, eh?

IMHO, pastors who deny the Translators their footnotes are
of the same type as the middle age RCC priests who wouldn't
let their reading people read the Latin Vulgate Bible.

 

Here is a poll on this matter:

http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=30187

Consider these three doctrines:
1. Providential preservation
2. Guidance of the Holy Spirit
3. Preservation through the church

Can "the critical text position" be derived from these three Doctrines?

Yes
No
Apathy/ignorance - don't know, don't care, etc.

The correct answer is, of course, yes.
"The critical text position" is a natural result of
the three propositions. :Fish:

 

I have not accused you of being disingenuous, nor of acting in bad faith. I was simply pointing out that there is more than you are telling to the story.

We are way past Westcott and Hort, and DA Waite is not always a good source. Waite may be well intentioned, but he is not always accurate or complete in his analysis. I am sure you have posted your information in good faith that it is accurate. But that is not always the case that it is accurate. And therein lies the problem.

Your information is incorrect. If youlook at the text apparatus or the textual commentary, you will see that they indeed did consider the Byzantine textform as evidence.

That's not a disagreement with what I said. Erasmus did look at the information available to him. He simply didn't have all the information available. He had limited information available.

But if your belief is that God inspired His words and preserved them (as mine is) and your research indicates that the most accurate texts are the older, harder, and shorter texts, then you will view it differently.

The mistake you are making is that "inspiration/preservation=byzantine." That is an assumption, not a biblical position. Your position may be right, but it is not right because of your bibliology. A belief in inspiration and preservation goes just as well with the totality of manuscripts posiiton, as it does the majority position, or the TR position.

You haven't yet shown why the church used the Byzantine text type during those years. You haven't shown how you approach textual differences once you are in the Byzantine family. There are a number of inherent weaknesses and inconsistencies in your position.

Most of all, you haven't shown any biblical support for your choice of a text.

That would be an unfortunate and incorrect offense, since I never accused your of intentionally presenting known falsehoods. I merely said you were doing it.

But you are not presenting facts. You are presenting interpretations of facts, such as "belief in inspiration preservation leads to the Byzantine family." You have implied that people such as myself don't really believe in inspiration and preservation . The problem is that people are listening to you and believing this. People like AA and AskJo and Salamandar are believing your incorrect assertions. Rather than fighting against false teaching and helping these folks understand where they are incorrect, you are helping it. Brothers, these things ought not so to be.

If your position cannot stand on the evidence, then allow room for variation among good brothers.

 

But don’t they list the Byzantine texts separately depending on the significance of readings when the Byzantine texts differ. I think a key point to be made is that we are not really comparing numbers of manuscripts, so much as we are comparing readings. As has often been said, 1000 copies of an error is still an error. So we are not comparing 1000 copies of a variant as over against 1 instance of a variant. We are comparing one variant against another. The introduction to the UBS text (and I presume the NA) discusses the various notations and how to read them.

But it would be incorrect to say that he had as much evidence as we do today, would it not?

With respect to the harder and shorter, I think it doesn’t require a pro-Alexandrian bias, per se. I think it is a pretty recognized canon of text criticism of all kinds that later copyists had a tendency to make things longer and easier. So there may have been a pro Alexandrian bias, but I don’t think these canons necessarily depend on that.

In text criticism (for those who don’t know … I am not insulting Thomas’s intelligence here since I am sure he does know), simply speaking, the modern text critical procedure is looking for the reading that best accounts for the other readings. For instance, would it make more sense for reading A to have arisen from reading B, or for reading B to have arisen from reading A? It is not a foolproof science, but neither is counting.

I am not sure that they are viewed as “neutral” although if they agree together, I would argue that it would take a mountain of evidence to offset that. I do recognize that is a viewpoint not demanded by Scripture, and so we should not be dogmatic on it.

I think the “why” does matter though. Let’s use an off the wall analogy. I know analogies always fall short, but let’s give it a shot. Let’s say that a church says we shouldn’t use a sound amplification system because historically, churches didn’t use sound amplification systems. They would argue that the churches of history will have always used the proper means of voice transmittal. (Some churches argue essentially this in psalmody arguments, or musical instruments). So we default to “they didn’t use it, so we shouldn’t.” Yet in considering the “why,” we figure out they didn’t use because it wasn’t available to them. We surmise that indeed they would have used it, had they had it.

Now transfer that to texts. Why didn’t they use the Alexandrian? The fact that the Alexandrian textform was not “discovered” until relatively recently could present a very strong case that the churches of history didn’t use it because they didn’t know about it. That could be a false argument, but we simply don’t know. So again, we should not be dogmatic about it.

My point all along is that there is no text basis, no scriptural support for one textform over another. We do see, IMO, a couple of important facts however. We see in the NT quotations of the OT that they often quote a text that does not match the OT Hebrew texts that we know about. That lends credence to the idea that exact preservation of the words may not be as important as some would demand. You see the classic example of Jacob’s leaning on his staff vs. leaning on his bed. The KJV reads one way in the OT and one way in the NT. The Hebrew text can read either way depending on the pointing, but the Masoretes pointed it “bed” while the LXX reads “staff.” The NT citation depends on the LXX, or at least on an LXX prototype. Other NT citations have similar issues. They are not identically worded to OT texts that they are citing. I have not totally concluded all the ramifications of this, but it can hardly be overlooked while we pretend in some notion of perfection that doesn’t match the evidence.

Whoa …

 

Irregardless of the number, Erasmus used some form of texual criticism in making in making his choices.

I know modern translators that clearly believe in the inspiration and preservation of God's word, so you bear false witness if you claim that only Erasmus and others before him do and modern translators do not.

I have not read Sorenson's book, but I have read some other books on the subjects - both pro and con.

They are refused by many who claim to understand the issue. I know people that have claimed that they read the KJV because it is based on the better texts and then reject other Bibles based on the same texts because it reads slightly different than the KJV.

 

If I say a certain person believes in inspiration and preservation of the scriptures, it is not false witness if they do - irregardless of whether you think I know them well enough or not. However, by your standards, you certainly bear false witness against Wescott and Hort, whom you have said does not have this belief, because you can never know them that way.

I think we need to be very careful in what we attribute to others. We may see their actions and hear their words, but only God know what is truly in their hearts.

So can I.

Although, I don't think we are as far off in our beliefs as you might think. I do lean much more closely to the traditional Byzantine texts than the critical text.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed Edwards
//Yes, assuming the KJVs alone are Word of God.
But, assuming that my NIV is the Word of God,
we see others have ADDED to the written word of God.//

Name suppressed: // ... Response edited to remove vulgarities ... //

Ah, i see a lack of understanding about 'logic'.

Some say that God's langague is mathematics.
Logic is a branch of mathematics.

What was called an 'axiom' up to then end of the 19th
century (i.e. 1900) is now called an 'assumption'.

The history of the term 'axion' is written in
it's dictionary definition:

AXIOM - n
1. self-evident truth
2. a universally accepted principle or rule
3. LOGIC, MATH a proposition
that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying
the consequences that follow from it.

1. There is no 'self-evident truth' for men who reject the Truth
2. there is no more 'universally accepted' anything
3. this is alsp the defintion of 'assumption'

BTW, the opposite of 'assumption' is
'jumping to a conclusion'.

Above I said:
//They put in the text the most likely 'original text'
and put next the most likely, but present in
the received texts, reading.//

I should have said concerning the translators of
the KJV:
They put in the text the most likely 'original text'
and put next the most likely, but present in
the received texts, reading IN THE MARGIN NOTE.

 

Thanks for the kind response, Thomas. Please allow a couple of comments/questions/thoughts. I am writing quickly and mostly going from memory on this, so forgive any errors.

I have the third edition and it seems to me that quite often, the Byzantine witnesses such as A E F G H K P S and V are listed separately in the apparatus, similar to Aleph, B, P45, 46, 66, 75, etc. The lectionaries are usually listed together.

Are you sure? What about, for instance, the last six verses of Revelation that he took from a commentary? I think there are many readings he did not have.

This is true, but I don't think the canons arose out of a desire to be faithful to the Alexandrian text, did they? They didn't start with the text and then formulate a method to get there while looking legitimate.

INterestingly, Metzger called this a "question begging title."

Because of their age. The closer one is to the source, the less time and copies have given opportunity for corruption, however unintentional it may have been. It is a function of a presupposition, but I think it is solidly based in experience. The closer one is to the source, the more likely that they will be accurate.

But I would again emphasize that good men can and do differ on the answers to these questions. I don't think we can be dogmatic because Scripture does not give us the answers to these questions.

 

Now, you are changing standards. You just told me that if I did not actually know them, I bear false witness aganist them irregardless of whether or not it is true. However, you claim to be able to use others books about them as long as it has adequate personal quotes. Why did you not give me the same leeway that you take for yourself? If you would have, I probably would not have said anything because different books say different things based on the point of view of the author.