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What are the errors in the New American Standard?

Discussion in '2003 Archive' started by Daniel David, Dec 8, 2003.

  1. Scott J

    Scott J Active Member
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    You quoted, "Scriptural facts: God promised to preserve His Word for His people. I believe from the Bible that God preserved His Word. The reason He gave and preserved His Word."

    If you believe God preserve His Word, then Psalms 12:6-7 refer to that God preserved His Word in Hebrew & Greek apographs.

    If you do not believe it, then Psalms 12:6-7 would refer to the people.
    </font>[/QUOTE]When are you going to answer the question? You said that God said that the KJV would be the accurate manifestation of His Word. I want to know where He said that or you should acknowledge that God didn't say it... and repent of a public sin of presuming upon God.
     
  2. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
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    Agree, Archangel, and am quoting this evidence you stated as it is a PRIME EXAMPLE of the most grievious error of well-meant scribal additions to the Word of God which is the prime reason for so many differences between the text families.

    This ought to be cut-and-pasted to everyone fighting the pernicious attacks on the Word by the only sect. Thank you!
     
  3. skanwmatos

    skanwmatos New Member

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    Have you read and seriously considered the very scholarly writings of Maurice A. Robinson? Dr. Robinson is Senior Professor of New Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

    He makes a very valid point when he says:

    ==========

    76. The local text of Egypt &lt;105&gt; is not likely to reflect that which permeated the primary Greek-speaking portion of the Empire (Southern Italy through modern Greece and Turkey to Antioch on the Orontes), from which we have no MS, versional, or patristic data from before the mid-fourth century. &lt;106&gt; After that point one finds from that region a highly pervasive and dominant Byzantine stream. It is far more reasonable to assume that the predecessors of that stream simply retained the same textual complexion which earlier had permeated that region. &lt;107&gt; Otherwise, the greater task is to explain a previous non-Byzantine dominance in that region which was thoroughly overwhelmed by the Byzantine model within less than a century without a word of historical confirmation or authorization, whether from fathers, councils, or ecclesiastical or governmental decree. &lt;108&gt; Also, how to explain a reversal of dominance in the widest region without seeing a parallel change in smaller regions of the Empire, where local varieties of text maintained their regional influence with but sporadic Byzantine intrusion influencing their readings over an extended period.

    77. The silence of early testimony from the primary Greek-speaking region of the Empire leads to two opposite views. Modern eclectics assume an early dominance of a non-Byzantine text in those areas which became the stronghold of Byzantine support, despite the transmissional unlikelihood of such having occurred in history. The Byzantine-priority advocates suggest that the later existence and dominance of the Byzantine Textform in that region provides presumptive evidence favoring a similar dominance in earlier times. &lt;109&gt; It is reasonable to suppose that, as texts spread geographically from their initial locale, regional alteration would increase proportionally to distance. This is especially the case given the "uncontrolled popular text" phenomenon of the early centuries. Copies produced within a close proximity to the site of origin or initial reception of a given text would be expected to retain a more uniform textual complexion closely resembling that of the autograph; this would occur without the imposition of formal "controls" upon the copying or dissemination of the text. Copies produced at a more remote distance from the site of origin would tend to diverge in greater quantity. If such a hypothesis is correct, the primary Greek-speaking region during the period of "geographical silence" would be expected to retain a Byzantine text, just as other localized regions preserved their disparate texts in the European and African West as well as in Egypt and Palestine; this is simple transmissional theory at work.

    105 See Colin H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (London: British Academy, 1987) 3: "An overwhelming proportion of the evidence comes from Egypt, and even then ... from various provincial towns and villages... We cannot assume that ... the proportions ... which have survived from different periods, reflect the position in the ancient world generally." Further (35), "We cannot be certain either that they are typical of Egypt as a whole, or ... of the Graeco-Roman world as a whole."

    106 Epp, "Continuing Interlude," Theory and Method, 119, critiqued Kurt Aland regarding the Egyptian papyri: "It may be strictly correct to say that the early history of the text is directly and immediately visible only in these earliest papyri and uncials. Yet, can we really ... be content with Egypt as the exclusive locale for this glimpse into the earliest textual history? Was any NT book written there, and does not Egypt therefore clearly represent only a secondary and derivative stage in textual history? ... Can we proceed with any assurance that these ... randomly surviving earliest MSS are in any real sense representative of the entire earliest history of the text?" Epp's amazing 1991 reversal on this point (cited below) appeals to possibility and not probability, and fails to establish any such convincing basis.

    107 Eldon Jay Epp, "New Testament Papyrus Manuscripts and Letter Carrying in Greco-Roman Times," in Birger A. Pearson et al., eds., The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 55, makes a peculiar reversal without sufficient evidence (emphasis added): "(1) the various textual complexions ... found in Egypt--did not have to originate there, but could ... have moved anywhere in the Mediterranean area... (2) it is ... quite probable, that the present array of text-types represented in the Egyptian New Testament papyri do ... represent text-types from the entire Mediterranean region." Not only does Epp contradict Roberts and Skeat 1987, but also his own 1980 statement cited above. Epp 1991 does demonstrate a widespread communication between Egypt and other areas of the Roman Empire during the early centuries, but his evidence concerns only the carrying of personal letters and commercial or official documents--not any NT MSS. In most cited situations, letters often went astray, were lost, or remained unanswered. Epp 1991 provides no evidence proving that NT documents during the era of persecution traveled as other trans-Empire documents. Nor does he demonstrate that any NT papyrus or uncial fragment reflects a palaeography suggesting an origin outside of Egypt. Timothy J. Finney, "The Ancient Witnesses of the Epistle to the Hebrews: A Computer-Assisted Analysis of the Papyrus and Uncial Manuscripts of PROS EBRAIOUS" (PhD Diss., Murdoch University, 1999) 194-211 demonstrates that various early papyri and uncials (P13 P46 A B D I) have similar orthography, and on the hypothesis that shared orthography implies shared provenance, Finney suggests that these witnesses were copied in the same region, possibly Egypt.

    108 Eldon Jay Epp, "The Significance of the Papyri for determining the Nature of the New Testament Text in the Second Century: A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission," in Epp and Fee, Theory and Method, 274-297 [original article published 1989] anticipated his later 1991 position, but with the cautionary note that his speculation "is largely an exercise in historical-critical imagination" (274). No such caution appears in Epp 1991. Nevertheless, Epp 1989 still stated that the 45 earliest papyri "all come from Egypt and ... twenty of these ... were unearthed at Oxyrhynchus" (277); and, while it is "possible ... that one or even all of these early Christian papyri could have been written elsewhere ... it must be remembered that virtually all of the papyri are from Egyptian rubbish heaps and presumably, therefore, were in extended use--most likely in Egypt" (279). Since a non-Egyptian origin for fragments found in that region cannot be proven, all speculation to the contrary remains "historical and creative imagination" (283) rather than anything resembling fact.

    109 Tertullian, De Praescr. Haer., 36, appeals in the early third century to the apostolic cathedrae in the primary Greek-speaking region of the Empire as places where the "authentic writings" of the NT authors either had originated or were first sent and could still be found. The significant point is that Tertullian's appeal was not made to North Africa, Europe, Egypt or Palestine, but to those same primary Greek-speaking regions from which we have no extant evidence during the first three centuries.

    ==========

    The entire article can be found at http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol06/Robinson2001.html

    The above seems to me to be a much more likely explanation of the differences between the various texts than the theory suggested regarding Byzantine additions.
     
  4. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    Well, I am glad to see that this discussion didn't go down the same road as the others. However, this thread has proven that NO ONE found an ERROR in the NASB. You might not like a word, a word might have been translated better, but there have been no ERRORS.

    I will have to start one about the others versions too and then compare them.

    Off the top of my head, does "God forbid" correctly translate the underlying TR?
     
  5. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    No, "God forbid" is a phrase used in both the Old and New Testaments of the KJV Bible which is not in the underlying text (except in 1 OT case, as far as I know).

    Another is "would to God" in both the OT and NT of the KJB.

    Which BTW doesn't matter to the KJVO since "the English corrects the Greek and Hebrew".

    HankD
     
  6. skanwmatos

    skanwmatos New Member

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    "God forbid" is an excellent example of the limited use of "dynamic equivalency" in the KJV.
     
  7. Archangel7

    Archangel7 New Member

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    I'm familiar with Robinson's work. He's a very articulate defender of the Byzantine Priority position; however, I don't believe the evidence supports that position. The section from his article is long and I won't respond to every point since it would take an article of equal or greater length to do that. There are some points he makes that should be addressed, though.

    (1) The claim that we have "no MS, versional, or patristic data" prior to the mid-4th C. from "the Greek-speaking portion of the Empire (Southern Italy through modern Greece and Turkey to Antioch on the Orontes" is not true. We *do* have very early pre-Nicene patristic sources from Asia Minor and Italy in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers like Clement of Rome (c. 96 A.D.), Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107 A.D.), and Polycarp of Smyrna (d. 155 A.D.). Unfortunately, their New Testament citations and allusions are so loose and imprecise that it's impossible to determine with any confidence what kind of text they used. What it does tell us, though, is that the earliest Christian writers in Italy and Asia Minor showed surprisingly little concern for the exact wording of the NT text.

    (2) The oldest copies in the regions around early apostolic centers like Antioch would actually have been subject to *more* contamination by additions than the copies of Alexandria for one major reason: oral tradition. Remember that the Gospels were not written until many years after Christ's resurrection and ascension, and the stories and teachings of Jesus would have circulated orally before anything was written down. The first copies of the Gospels in Antioch would have had to compete with oral tradition initially regarded as having equal authority. In fact, the oral traditon may at first have had *more* authority than the written Gospels -- Jerome quotes Papias (d. 130 A.D.) as saying that he preferred the "living voice" of someone who had known Jesus to anything found in books (Jerome, Famous Men 18). The copies in Alexandria would have been spared this corruption by oral tradition.

    (3) A knowledge of church history goes a long way to explaining how the Byzantine text type became predominant. The shift from Greek to Latin in the Western part of the Empire in the early 3rd C. meant an end to Greek MS production in that region. The final result was few Greek MSS of the Western text type. In 303 A.D. Diocletian's persecution began, and by imperial edict copies of the Scriptures were confiscated and destroyed. In 313 A.D. Constantine converted to Christianity. For the first time in history ecclesiastical authorities were able to impose controls on the production and distribution of their NT Scriptures, and they did so when replacing the copies destroyed in the persecution with officially sanctioned standard copies. Bishops in Eastern regions came from Antioch bringing copies of the standard text of Antioch with them as far as Constantinople. The rise of Islam in the 7th C. saw North Africa (Alexandria's region), Palestine and Syria fall under Moslem control. Christians in these areas again found it difficult to keep and copy the Scriptures. The end result of all this was few Greek MSS of the Alexandrian text type. Only the region around Constantinople remained free of Moslem control (unlike Palestine and North Africa), and only the region around Constantinople continued to use Greek (unlike the Latin West), so the churches in that region were able to continue using, copying, and distributing the text type originally brought from Antioch. The result: a great number of Greek MSS of the Byzantine text type. (Two interesting asides -- first, Jerome in his Preface to the Vulgate Gospels speaks of NT copies attributed to the work of Lucian of Antioch, and dismisses them as inferior because of their additions. This suggests that there was indeed some sort of recensional activity associated with the name of Lucian, and that the character of these "Lucianic" copies is consistent with what we know of the Byzantine text. Second, Constantine ordered Eusebius to make fifty copies of the Scriptures for use in the churches throughout the Eastern empire. If a copy with the fuller "Lucianic" text was selected as the exemplar for those fifty imperially sanctioned copies, it would certainly explain how a recensional Byzantine text came to quickly dominate Asia Minor in the 4th C. This evidence is admittedly circumstantial, but highly suggestive.)
     
  8. Askjo

    Askjo New Member

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    I checked and looked at a few texts BEFORE 1611 KJV was published. The NIV on 2 Corinthians 6:11-13 did not match them. The NIV added some words where these texts did not have because the NIV did not derive from them directly.
     
  9. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
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    Which texts? More of the corrupt Byzantine family of documents or some of the other options?

    Thanks.
     
  10. Askjo

    Askjo New Member

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    Ok, please show me what texts the NIV derive directly on 2 Cor. 6:11-13?
     
  11. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    askjo, you missed the point entirely.

    What and where are your bowels?

    Was Paul talking to the Corinthians about their digestive and assimilation systems?

    He was using the figurative language of his day, IMO the NIV does a perfect job of conveying the thoughts in modern English words from the inspired words of the Holy Spirit in the Greek text.

    No translation can deal on a one-for-one word basis with every idiom, every grammatical difference, every figure of speech, etc.

    We MUST CONVEY the thoughts of God's Word in an understandable way to the common man in the language he speaks.

    HankD
     
  12. Askjo

    Askjo New Member

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    Thoughts for thoughts?
     
  13. skanwmatos

    skanwmatos New Member

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    What body of evidence do you offer to support your charge of corruption against the Byzantine family of documents, and how does your characterizing the Byzantine family as "corrupt" differ from the KJVOs characterizing the contemporary English versions as "perversions," something you have warned them against doing on this forum?
     
  14. skanwmatos

    skanwmatos New Member

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    The Greek text reads "The mouth of us has opened to you, Corinthians, the heart of us has been enlarged; you are not restrained in us, you are restrained but in the bowels of you; but for the same reward, as to children I say, be enlarged also you."

    The NIV reads "We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange - I speak as to my children - open wide your hearts also."

    It looks to me as if the meaning is very clear in the NIV. Admittedly they did use more contemporary idiomatic language, but it is much easier to understand in the NIV than the more literal KJV.
     
  15. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Dear skan,

    You don't understand Dr Bob and his personality (some might use the word "warped" but I would never do that [​IMG] ).

    OR, how does that feel KJVO when the tables are turned using your own words?

    HankD
     
  16. Pastor Larry

    Pastor Larry <b>Moderator</b>
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    I can't speak for Bob but "corrupt" simply means "not perfect." "Perversion" means something entirely different. The Byzantine manuscripts are corrupt and there is ample evidence that they are not the most accurate text form available.
     
  17. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Personally, to me "corrupt" has a bad nuance beyond "not perfect", for example, "he is a corrupt poltician" carries a different flavor then "he's not perfect" in today's vernacular.

    Irregardless, this issue is subjective and debatable as to which family of manuscripts (Byzantine vs Alexandrian)is more accurate.

    The undeniable truth is that there is compelling evidence on both sides which indicates that there is not enough evidience (and probably never will be).

    Also, I have found this subject to be a matter of extreme prejudice and skewed judgment on the part of the participants, so much so that I am reluctant to engage in detailed discussions about it since it divides more than unites Bible believers.

    Of course so does KJVOism, but this dogma IMO is not a subjective matter but an objective error.

    There is also the danger of entrapment here. The KJVO IN MY OPINION, use this difference between these families of mss as a smoke screen device to divide us and evade the real issue since they don't really give credence to ANY greek text as "the English corrects the Greek" even the TR when it differs from the KJV.

    The real issue is the proposition that the KJB is the one and only re-inspired Word of God correcting all others including the Hebrew and Greek of the original language mss.

    HankD
     
  18. skanwmatos

    skanwmatos New Member

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    That is what I understand "corrupt" to mean also. It is a synonym for "perverted."
    I agree. There is considerable evidence on both sides of the discussion. I believe the most valid evidence is in favor of the Byzantine text being closest to the original, and good and honest men believe otherwise. But neither of us are "corrupt" or "perverted" and neither are the texts in question, at least in the proper meaning of the word, "marked by immorality and perversion; depraved."
    I agree. It is unfortunate that adults cannot honestly discuss these issues without stooping to name calling and insults.
     
  19. Pastor Larry

    Pastor Larry <b>Moderator</b>
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    It can be ... but it does not have to be. For instance, Bart Ehrman wrote a book entitled The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, showing how the Byzantine text was corrupted by orthodox additions to it, put in by scribes who wished to protect doctrine from aberrant groups.
     
  20. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Yes, I understand what you are saying pastor Larry.

    Bottom line: No one can really know for sure if the scribes added to or conflated the text because we do not have the originals. We can make an educated guess. However until we have 5000+ Alexandrian mss/papyrii it's unfair (IMO) to put so much weight on the 2 favorite Uncials Aleph and B.

    The Papyrii have shown so-called "conflated" text pre-dating either Aleph or B. This is also important because P66 is not typically Byzantine.

    Also, we cannot know if a text has been tampered with or copied with intentional word changes because of doctrinal prejudice because again we do not have the originals.

    The best we can do is to say the evidence suggests or "strongly" suggests as some who post here but even then when we begin to use these adjectives or adverbs we enter into the realm of subjectivity and prejudice.

    On the other hand with the NWT for instance we don't have to guess at anything. Those who translated the Greek openly deny the Trinity and adjust the English text with faulty translation or always choose the Greek readings which support or lend themselves to arianism. Of course we NOW accuse each other (Arian vs Trinitarian) of doing the self-same thing according to our own theology.

    So, my own method is to use words such as "flawed" or "faulty" which do not carry the nuance of a personal judgment such as "corrupt" or even worse "perverted" until more evidence (if ever) is unearthed (except for works such as the NWT).

    HankD
     
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