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Featured The real TR

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by stilllearning, Sep 1, 2015.

  1. stilllearning

    stilllearning Active Member

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    There is so much disinformation about the Bible all over the internet(even here), that at some point the truth must be stated.
    The TR(Textus Receptus or received text), is not something that some man wrote. It is a collection of thousands of manuscripts. The 27 books of the New Testament were originally written in Greek and passed from local Church to local Church and thousands upon thousands of Greek copies were made of these 27 books/letters, as they were being circulated. This continued until all the original autographs were worn out and lost. But God’s Word was not lost, because of the thousands of exact copies that were made, of each individual book/letter.

    Over the centuries that followed, a lot of these copies were discovered and kept in a safe place. Later Greek scholars discovered that each copy(or partial copy), of Acts for example, all said “the exact same thing”(word for word/jot & tittle), which was no surprise, because Christians were doing the copying and God(in his providential care, oversaw it).

    This continued for hundred of years, with bits and pieces of manuscripts of the New Testament pilling up, with each scrap of paper being examined by Greek scholars. Then every few decades or so, a Greek copy of the Bible was found and these scholars would discover that it was not “an exact copy”, therefore IT WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS, because it “was not exactly like the thousands of other documents”, even though some of them were much older than the rest.

    A couple of these corrupt copies, were not just a single letter/epistle of the New Testament, but included all the books of the of the Old and New Testaments, in Greek.

    This collecting of manuscripts went on for centuries(in fact it is still going on), even though humanity already has a completed and canonized Bible, archeology doesn’t stop. But the same thing still happens. If a Greek book or letter, is found to be an EXACT COPY of the 5 or 6 thousand other documents in the TR, than it is included to it. But if it is different(flawed), it is put to the side. Therefore, although the TR is growing, it NEVER CHANGES, because all it is, is a pile of documents that PERFECTLY agree with each other.

    Now, lets say over the centauries they found 3000 copes of Matthew and 2400 copes of John and 200 copes of Revelation and 1800 copes of Acts, for instance. What if they only found a hand full of copies of 1John or Titus.... Does that mean, that these letters aren’t suppose to be in the Bible? Of course not. But what it does mean, is that these handful of the corrupt copies of the entire New Testament, may not agree with this handful of individual letters. So it doesn’t make any sense to cast doubt upon the letters in the TR, because these same letters that are found in corrupt Bibles, do not agree with them. But here in 2015, we will hear people say,.... “only a few copies of this letter include this or that verse...”, and we will START TO DOUBT THE BIBLE!
    ------------------------
    It has always been Satan’s goal, to cast doubt upon God’s Word, as seen in Genesis 3:1, when he said to Eve, ...”hath God [really] said,....?” The fact is, there is a God in Heaven who has given us His preserved Word and if we ever DOUBT it, than we are DOUBTING God’s ability to have kept it for us! It’s that simple.
     
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  2. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    Well SL, you have begun a disinformation campaign with that initial post of yours. I will let others take your OP apart. You will learn a great deal if you are sincere.
     
  3. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    As you should know, I am somewhat sympathetic to your cause, being the lead translator of a New Testament from Scrivener's TR into Japanese. But there are some mistakes in your post. I hope you will humbly learn. I have compared the Scrivener TR with the Stephens TR with the Byzantine Textform Greek NT in almost all of the NT, so I know whereof I speak firsthand, not from some book.
    You are correct that the TR is from God, not man. It is a collection of 1000s of manuscripts if you are using the term TR to mean the Byzantine/Majority text family, as the term has been used.

    The copies that were made of the autographs in the Byz/Maj. text family were not "exact copies," but had many incidental differences. Here are some examples: in 1 Tim. 6:19 a scribe misspelled "eternal"; in John 1:29 some copies leave out "John" so it becomes "he"; in Acts 7:38 some have "word" and some have "collection," which is spelled similarly. A more significant difference would be that that most manuscripts of the Byz/Maj family omit Acts 8:37, but the Stephanus and Scrivener TRs leave it in.
    This statement is mistaken, though I would it were not. There are no manuscripts that are identical to each other, though some in the Byz/Maj family are close. There are families within the text type that are very close and are apparently done from the same exemplar (original) but even they are a little different.
    I assume here you are talking about mss (manuscripts) from the Alexandrian family, though you don't say so. It is true that these mss differ sometimes significantly from the TR, but it is a stretch to say they were not included in the TR because "it was not exactly like the...other documents," since none of the ancient scribes wrote down that this was a reason.
    This is true.
    Once again, none of the mss of the TR/Byz/Maj tradition "PERFECTLY agree." I am an eyewitness of this, having compared almost all of the Greek NT in these editions.
    This is all speculation. There are no books of the NT that have only a few copies. Other than that I'm not following this paragraph. It seems a leap of logic to me to go from "a handful of copies" to "cast doubt upon the letters in the TR. Maybe you can explain more.
    ------------------------
    I agree that God has providentially preserved His Word. But He has chosen to do so in a way that no two mss are identical. Personally, that does not make me doubt God's Word in the slightest.
     
  4. McCree79

    McCree79 Well-Known Member
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    I don't know where you got this info, but it is riddled with errors.


    Sure it was, Erasmus, Stephanus and Beza are those men. To make the claim the TR is the exact word for word of God is too make the same claim Muslims do about the Qur'an. Of the Greek TR is the word for word copy, then all other languages are not. Which means your KJV is not. It is not word for word with the TR. Your own logic, has defeated your KJVOism. Language gaps alone, will not allow a perfect translations word for word.


    Not even close. Erasmus had only 6 manuscripts. Codex 1 was his best. He also pulled from the Latin Vulgate and later from Cardinal Ximenes' Greek edition. Later revisions by Stephanie and Beza brought in used the*Codex Claromontanus*and the Syriac New Testament, are included:*Codex Bezae,*Codex Regius, minuscules*4,*5,*6,*2817,*8,*9
    Way short of the thousands. I think you have confused the TR for the Nestle-Aland or Majority Text.

    Then how come no 2 Greek manuscripts match 100%??? No exact copies exist. So this claim is false as well. There is no exact copy. textQUOTE] Later Greek scholars discovered that each copy(or partial copy), of Acts for example, all said “the exact same thing”(word for word/jot & tittle), [/QUOTE]
    Actually early witnesses of Acts diverge more than any book of the NT. The Western text type is 10% longer than others. This statement is totally in accurate.
    I assume the "thousands" you refer to here is Byzantine. It has to be. But still some issues. The TR does not match these "thousands". The TR and KJV gladly included additions from Jerome though. The Comma, and the word Lucifer for example.


    There you go again. No two Manuscripts are the same. No two hand written NT manuscripts of any book are identical. There isn't thousands that match exactly. There is zero.

    The only Christians bring doubt to the Bible are those of KJVOism. You do not have a word for word copy of God's word. Nor do you need it for his message to be infallible and inerrant. KJVOism makes this claim, not based on Greek, Latin or Hebrew text. They make it on " because we say so". That is the same argument the Vulgate supporters of old say and the same Quran supporters say today. All you have to do is look at any 2 Greek manuscripts and the KJVO argument cannot stand based on facts. KJVOism is based on bias and emotion. It lacks support of any Greek Manuscript. KJVOism, leads to only one possibility. As Peter Ruckman(a leader of KJVO movement) said, "the KJV corrects the Greek". For the KJVO argument to stand, the English Bible must be the only true Bible. In English and any other language. For all other language Bibles do not match 100% to the KJV.
    ...and the KJVO movement is doing just that.
    In now way does modern text effect preservation of God's word. If you are looking for the exact word for word preservation of God's word, you will never have. You have his message, bit not word for word accuracy. I believe there is still 37 Greek words we have no idea what they mean. So every Bible has some guess work in it. Even if today, we found the original NT Greek letters, we could not write an English Bible to match. The language gap is wide and a " thought for thought " process must be used to make a readable version. Some translations use more of this dynamic equivalency than others. But all must use it, even the KJV.

    The message of God is the same in all major, modern English translations.


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  5. McCree79

    McCree79 Well-Known Member
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    He is not correct John. I know what you are saying, as far as family goes. But the TR was not based on examining thousands of Manuscripts and then written. It was a handful. The TR should not be confused with the Majority Text. The KJV is based on the TR, not the Majority Text.



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  6. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Well, we see the repeating of falsehoods doesn't begin to make it true. What is sad is that while a true scholar of the New Testament Greek is here on our board and has disagreed with the OP, the OP will stand by his absolutely unsupportable statements. That's sad.
     
  7. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    If you read my post carefully you'll know that I corrected him on the "thousands of Manuscripts" point.

    Some of the older authors use the term "Textus Receptus" to refer to the Byzantine text type. At the least, it is a subset of the Byzantine. Metzger says, "The Textus Receptus is the latest form of the Syrian text" (meaning Byz.; The Text of the New Testament, 3rd ed., p. 131.

    I'm not sure stilllearning understands the distinctions, so I'm trying to help him here.
     
    #7 John of Japan, Sep 1, 2015
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  8. McCree79

    McCree79 Well-Known Member
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    Yes, I seen that. My point is that his description of the TR is wrong. No doubt he is confusing the TR for the Majority Text. I don't think the TR should be referred as a Majority Text. It adds to the confusion as to what the TR is. He is reffering to TR as what the KJV was based on, not the Majority Text. I brought up "thousands of manuscripts" to show his confusion. That is my point of saying he is not correct. He has confused the two. What ever site he pulled it from as lead him astray. Sorry I wasn't clear.

    I hope you can help him.

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  9. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    I respect your opinion that the TR should not be "referred to as a Majority Text," but the majority of textual critics would disagree with you, as I do. In most of the NT substantial differences between The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (Hodges and Farstad) or The New Testament in the Original Greek, Byzantine Textform (Piepont and Robinson) and the TR are rare. In the book of 1 Cor., for example, there are 38 differences between the Byzantine Textform and Scrivener's TR. However, a quick look says only 8 of those would make a difference in translation, and that difference would be slight in every case. The rest are differences in the spelling of Moses, the lack of a definite article before "Christ," and other such untranslatable differences.
     
  10. McCree79

    McCree79 Well-Known Member
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    The TR you refer is from the 19th century isn't it?

    The KJV was based on Stephanus's edtion, correct*? This would be the edition of the debate. How differences there. I know Erasmus's first edition had nearly 2 thousand differences between the Majority Text.

    *Could be Beza.....Scrivener believes it was a mix, no?

    Either way Scrivener's is not the TR of the OP. Since OP is in support of the underlying TR of the KJV, Erasmus, Beza and Stephanus would be the focus

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    #10 McCree79, Sep 1, 2015
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  11. McCree79

    McCree79 Well-Known Member
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    How would the TR not eclectic? It pulls from multiple manuscripts and languages. It seems it should be in a class of its own.

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  12. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Yes, Scrivener's TR is late 19th century.
    Actually, the KJV was based mainly on Beza, but they did their own textual criticism sometimes, so they differ from Beza and Stephanus both occasionally. Thus, Scrivener decided to do a Greek NT extrapolating the Greek text of the TR.

    Hopefully stilllearning will share with us what TR he means in his OP. :type:
     
  13. Van

    Van Well-Known Member
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    Bible translations based on the Critical Text are the most trustworthy and reliable. If you want to compare, use the NASB95 and the WEB - a more byzantine text. You will not find any doctrinally significant differences.
     
  14. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Erasmus used six Greek mss, and my memory says that all but one were Byzantine, and he used that one but little. Therefore, the TR is considered a subset (for lack of a better word) of the Byzantine/Majority.

    In textual criticism, the term "eclectic" is not used of the TR or any Byz/Maj Greek NT or method of textual criticism. David Alan Black defines reasoned eclecticism: "Reasoned eclecticism holds that the text of the New Testament is to be based on both internal and external evidence, without a preference for any particular manuscript or text type. This view of the text is represented in the Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament. This approach often represents a predeliction for manuscripts of the Alexandrian text type" (New Testament Textual Criticism, pp. 37-38).
     
  15. McCree79

    McCree79 Well-Known Member
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    Someone needs to come up with one(word)

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  16. stilllearning

    stilllearning Active Member

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    Hello John, and thanks for taking the time to respond.

    Also thank you for the education...

    I think it would be wise to further explain my statements....
    ------------------------
    When I said....
    For sure there are differing TR’s, but none of these men sat down and created them from their own mind! Each of them were copying from the same Greek texts. (Is this not right?)
    Therefore what I meant was, if 5 different men copy the same document, I have trouble saying, that “some man wrote it”, because it’s God’s Word.
    ------------------------
    When I refer to the TR, as taking about the “received text”(I was talking about the Byzantine family by the way), are not these “received texts” the “majority texts”?
    -If they are not, than why aren’t they?- Shouldn’t the majority texts be received?
    ------------------------
    When I said...
    “the exact same thing”(word for word/jot & tittle)”, I was not talking about a “photo copy”.
    I was talking about being "exact" like the 1769KJV is exactly like the 1611KJV.
    As we both know, there is a lot of difference between the two, including the spelling errors and typo’s, along with the removal of the Apocrypha, etc.
    Yet they are both the same Bible!
    What I mean is, words and verses were not intentionally removed, unless they were found to be a mistake(not in line with the received texts)!
    ------------------------------------
    I said....
    “....all said “the exact same thing”(word for word/jot & tittle)”

    And you said.......
    “This statement is mistaken, though I would it were not. There are no manuscripts that are identical to each other, though some in the Byz/Maj family are close. There are families within the text type that are very close and are apparently done from the same exemplar (original) but even they are a little different.”

    It looks like you said, that you “wished” these old manuscripts were more alike; But unfortunately they were not. From my explanation above, as to what I meant by “exact same”, you can see that if I had been one of these ancient scribes, I would have praised God for the similarities, and looked past the spelling errors.
    Alas, there are many scribes, who rejoiced in the errors and looked past the similarities!
    ------------------------
    I have go to go for now, but I am glad that you are “somewhat sympathetic to my cause”: And as you know, my CAUSE, is the defense of the truth of God’s Word!

    I will continue responding to your post later,
    Have a great day
     
  17. McCree79

    McCree79 Well-Known Member
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    Nope. Stephanus used a differing manuscripts from Erasmus and Beza used differing ones from Stephanus.

    Textus Receptus means "received text". The Majority Text does not go by this title. The work of Erasmus, Beza and Stephanus does. KJV is based on the TR, not Majority Text.

    There is no proof and no reason to believe ancient texts(used in Nestle-Aland) removed anything.





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  18. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
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    Scrivener's version of the Textus Receptus (1894) was developed from the English text of the King James Version and incorporates the variety of sources its translators used, including the Septuagint, the Vulgate and an occasional Alexandrian variant.

    Rob
     
    #18 Deacon, Sep 1, 2015
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  19. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    I agree that the TR is God's Word no matter who copies it.

    As I said, some of the older authors refer to the Byzantine/Majority mss as the TR or "received text." More recent authors, including King James only authors, reserve the term for the TR editions by Erasmus, Beza, Stephanus and Scrivener, with some KJO authors rejecting everything but Scrivener.
    The term "received text" refers to the fact that this family of mss has been widely accepted, "received," down through church history.

    No offense, but "almost the same" does not carry the same meaning as "exactly the same." The various versions of the TR might be called almost the same, but they are certainly not exactly the same. I suggest you revise your terminology.


    You might say that all of the old mss taught the exact same doctrines and I would agree with you. But if you say, "Moses" is the exact same as "Moseos" I would disagree. That is trying to change the meaning of the word "exact." Please think more about how your readers on this thread will understand what you say.
    I rejoice greatly in the Greek NTs I have, and consult them all the time. I don't rejoice in any error of copying, though. My proofreaders correct my mistakes in the Japanese NT all the time, and I'm certainly not going to rejoice in my blunders in handling the Word of God.

    I was thinking of your cause as a defense of the TR, rather than the "truth of God's Word" in the sense of what it teaches. If your cause is what the Bible teaches, then I am 100% with you.
    Thanks. :type:
     
  20. McCree79

    McCree79 Well-Known Member
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    Thank you Deacon. Good info there

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