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How textual critics do it.

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by Ehud, Nov 6, 2007.

  1. EdSutton

    EdSutton New Member

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    Ehud, that is a very good idea, I would say. BTW, Language Cop is in an onery mood, tonight, and is proof-reading everything, so don't be surprised at the 'corrections' he makes, and any errors he notes. (All emphases are my own. - Ed)
    Speaking of a "misinformed assumption". I actually posted the third post on this tread. I did not address the second post, which was by Rippon, at all, but I announced, and I do quote, from post #3
    So this "bandwagon" I allegedly jumped on (had I actually done so), was a total of one post, and since I did not even address, nor comment as to the opinions that Rippon offered, I deny that I did any such thing, at all. What other unidentified, not yet extant posters are you assuming that I read, since in your opinion I am apparently unable to 'think for myself'? Was I also somehow unable to think for myself when I purchased two of Dr. Hills' books some 35 years ago? You do recall that I have not made one derogatory statement about Dr. Hills, either as to his academics or writings, I presume. (I can speak for no others, in this regard.) Or do none of these statements count??

    Out of curiosity, how many of his books do you own? Just curious.
    In which case, I apologize for assuming that you had copied this from a "web sight". (sic) FTR, the term is web site, but don't worry, my late father was not a great speller, either, but he barely finished 8th grade. I would expect someone, who would like to be known as Dr. Ehud, to be somewhat better at spelling, than was my father, however. Anyway at least four other different individuals on this thread correctly spelled (or quoted) the gentleman's name as "Hills" before you did, on the thread. So-- Let's see if I get this right! You "copied a small portion" from an unverified e-mail, but, somehow, I am the one who needs to 'think for myself'. Hmmm! Somehow, that does not seem to compute, exactly. (Nor am I necessarily sure why you want to bring in the Biblical patriarch, Job, into this post, but I suppose you have some reason to do so. But I digress.) Oh yeah, you did say this, along the way, when I pointed out that I had quickly found the two sites where the seemingly 'quoted' material had arisen. FTR, I found these before I posted my post #3 in the thread, else, I would not have made the initial response. Sorry, no 'bandwagon', here, either.
    Would you like to try this again, please? Which one is it? Is it the "cut and paste" you mentioned from an article? Or is "the actual quote" from an an unverified (and unverifiable) e-mail? You have now made both claims about the same thing. I shall let pass your implied insinuation about my (lack of) scholarship, for it is not applicable to one (me) who has never claimed to be a scholar, in any way.
    Actually, my name is not Edward, at all. For most any on the Baptist Board, my 'on board' name is Ed or EdSutton, as that is the name I chose (just as you chose Ehud), as I have posted before. FTR, Dr. Hills identified himself as Dr. Edward F. Hills, as his books show. I shall let the rest of this post wait until later, as my alter-ego, Language Cop, is getting extremely onery and wanting to go to sleep.

    Stay tuned for page 2.

    You know, the "keepin' 'em honest" bit, and all that!

    G'nite, all!

    Ed
     
    #61 EdSutton, Nov 22, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 22, 2007
  2. Maestroh

    Maestroh New Member

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    Consistent Inconsistency

    Orignal quote: Westcott and Hort were not fundamentalist Baptists


    I find this argument quite interesting on a number of notes.

    First, God used unrepentant Christ-denying Jews to preserve the Old Testament. Secondly - according to the KJV Only theory - he used a Roman Catholic priest who not only favored the heretical concept of transubstantiation but he also dedicated his first TR to the pope.


    So according to you, God did not use Westcott and Hort BUT...


    He DID use lost people?


    Ever bother to follow this one through to logic, Ehud?
     
  3. Maestroh

    Maestroh New Member

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    No, We Cannot Do So

    Ehud's Original


    Answer: Romans 3:3-4 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea,let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

    Now could we apply the term Scripture to the modern versions??

    MAESTROH

    No because it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the question. In fact, if we want to generalize as you do, we might as well argue that if every man is a liar, that would include Erasmus, King James, and Gail Riplinger.

    EHUD
    You could if they are without era. But we know all versions after 1888 are translated from two corrupt Vatican manuscripts, (Catholic Bibles) given to us by two unsaved scholars Westcott and Hort.


    MAESTROH

    Wow, there's no so many errors here that I don't know where to begin.

    1) The W-H text was actually translated in 1881 and used for the English Revised Version. Hence, your 1888 is off by a few years. That's not a big thing but the rest of your post is quite wild.

    2) 'Two corrupt Vatican manuscripts?

    On what basis do you make this claim? Codex B might have been found int the Vatican, but there is NO EVIDENCE that it was WRITTEN there. Aleph was found in St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai - the same biblical place where Moses got the Ten Commandments if you want to start finding ridiculous parallels. I could just as easily claim that its finding there is PROOF God endorses it, couldn't I?

    Finally, you have a problem with Catholic Bibles or what you allege are such. Aside from your woeful ignorance of church history, let's talk about Catholic TRANSLATORS. Namely, Desiderius Erasmus.

    (Maestroh whispers: Now watch this everybody - this is where he tries to argue that the TR used by the KJV folks actually is based on Beza's 1598 edition - never mind the interpolations from the Vulgate including the Comma Johanneum.

    3) Who gave you authority to call Westcott and Hort 'unsaved?'

    (Please do not reference D.A. Waite here because if you do, I will go nuclear on you). Westcott was NOT an Arian as Thomas Strouse alleges - basing his work on Waite - he was an Anglican (same denomination as the KJV translators btw as well as Burgon).

    You just PROVE they were 'unsaved.'

    Now let's see you do a seance' or something and prove it.


    EHUD:

    Just do a little research you will know this is true.

    MAESTROH

    I've researched every single one of the 125 quotes Waite has smeared these guys with.

    Only one checks out and - are you ready for this? - it's meaningless since Waite's boy (Burgon) also held to baptismal regeneration.

    I hope to either see some repentance or some substnantiation of your claims.

    And btw - the fact W-H were lost (assuming it's true) does NOT prove anything about their Bibles. Jesus even managed to use a false disciple to do miracles for three years.
     
  4. EdSutton

    EdSutton New Member

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    You did just give a post that, overall, is a "rhetorical question", correct?

    Ed
     
  5. EdSutton

    EdSutton New Member

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    THIS is a good way to do it!

    I'd say Maestroh has raised several valid questions, as well as made several valid points.

    Ed
     
    #65 EdSutton, Nov 25, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 25, 2007
  6. EdSutton

    EdSutton New Member

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    Part 2 - How to NOT be a textual critic.

    Page 2!
    Still a good idea.
    First, the Westminster Confession, the Philadelphia Confession and the identify and equate "Holy Scripture" as "the Word of God written" (How strange it is that you should miss that word "written", which I am attempting to help you to notice, by emphasizing it!), for as another poster (franklinmonroe) has pointed out, there are few, if any, places in the "Holy Scriptures", that specifically apply the phrase "the word of God" to NT Scriptures, at all. Nor does the phrase "the Word of God written" ever even occur in my Bible. But the phrase is Biblically used 45 times (at least in the NKJV) including to speak of the 'private' message of Samuel re: Saul (I Sam. 9:27);
    the 'message'/revelation of God to some prophets (among them two named 'John'), including the nighttime message of God (dream?) to Nathan about David's intent to build God a temple (I Ki. 12:22;I Chron. 17:3; Lk. 3:2; Rev. 1:2);
    the preaching of Jesus (Lk. 5:1);
    presumably the OT Scriptures (Jn. 10:35; Ac. 18:11);
    the growth of the church (Ac. 12:24);
    the creative (and 'destructive') acts of God (Heb. 11:3; II Pet. 3:5-6);
    and one of the designations of the Lord Jesus Christ, himself (Rev. 19:13).
    Well, I would agree that no version produced until after the various confessions were written could have possibly been included. On this we can, I guess, agree. However this, as to the three cited Confessions, by the same logic, would prevent the usually cited edition of the KJV, namely the 1769 Edition, from being included as well. Consistency, and all that, you know.
    If, by the words "corrupt Catholic Bible", you are referring to the Apocrypha, according to these three confessions, the answer is "No!". If you mean what you implied in another post where you wrote something else, which I have not yet addressed, I would say that this is not addressed, in the Confessions, for it was not known or forseen, at the time.

    Your comments about, and I quote, ""Appointed to be read in the Churches" The fakes do not." and the crack about "a Book called the Bible you can hold in your hand, not words floating around in manuscripts" is, unfortunately, "par for the course", apparently. And, IMO, it represents a definite double standard, as well, in the attempt to 'legitimize' your own personal preference, as to versions.

    Let's review a bit of history, here, shall we? All the books of the Bible, as far as we know, were first wriitten in some sort of 'manuscript' (or scroll) form in the OT. And the NT, as well! So where do you think the "Book" you can hold in your hand came from??

    Codices Aleph, A, & C, are the only Greek NT 'manuscripts' that are even close to encompassing the entire NT before 1000 AD, from what I've been able to ascertain. [Codices B (Vaticanus) and D (Clarmontanus and Bezae) do not contain all the NT books.] However, one can find many of those complete "corrupt Catholic Bibles" in the Vulgate, (the official 'Church' bible for over a millenium, BTW), the Wycliffe/Purvey (translated from the Vulgate), and several of those that were distinctively "not approved" by the churches, including the Wycliffe, Luther's German Bible, the Tyndale Bible, and the Geneva Bible, among others.

    Actually, some of those affiliated with the above versions, were so "unapproved" by the church, that it would have had Luther killed, given the chance; and did have Tyndale, first strangled, then his body burned at the stake; would probably have done the same to John Rogers, had they actually figured out he was 'Thomas Matthew'; and finally after John Wycliffe had been dead for 50 years, actually had his remains dug up, burned, and the ashes thrown into the River Swift.

    Now, considering many of these 'unapproved' were translated in the NT from the Greek texts of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza, et. al., exactly how many of them are you calling "fakes"? If I can "hold it in my hand", it's OK, unless it is the Vulgate, or a Codex of an "Alexandrian" origin, or it happens to be an unapproved version?

    Does that make the Geneva Bible, BTW, which was still around, and even preferred by some of the 'Reformed' persuasion of the official 'Church of England' who took part in the Westminster Assembly, and the formulation of the Westminster Confession, "a fake"?

    Or is the Bishop's Bible actually "the fake"?

    No doubt, Matthew's Bible was "a fake", for it was produced under an alias.

    Yet these are all produced from the same textual lineage of the TR and the KJV.

    Where, exactly, does this insanity stop with your "logical"?

    Never mind that the KJV translators said (their words, not yours or mine) "that we do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the Word of God, nay, is the Word of God."

    When, exactly, did they change their minds about this?
    Congratulations! :rolleyes: It only took you three attempts at this, to get the first sentence about the Confessions quoted in its entirety, in your attempt to "COPY PASTE", with the result that the meaning is now not changed.

    Hopefully, you will not find the facts too "boring".

    G'nite, all.

    Ed
     
    #66 EdSutton, Nov 26, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 26, 2007
  7. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    Ed S. : The members of the Church of England who sat in on the Westminster Assembly had little to no influence on the W.C.o.F. The Assembly started out to revise the 39 Articles of the Church of England , but within 10 weeks began working on the famous Presbyterian document . The Episcopalians didn't normally attend the meetings .

    It's interesting that Daniel Featley (1578-1645 ) , as a C.o.E. member only sat in on some meetings in the early days of the assembly . He had worked on a number of the latter books of the Old Testament for the KJV project .
     
  8. EdSutton

    EdSutton New Member

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    Rippon, I do understand what you are driving at, here. But I am coming at this from a slightly different approach than you are, I believe.

    I do not question the "theology" (specifically 'Calvinism'), if you will, of the effective working majority of the 172 (151 + 21) appointed congregants (of whom, maybe half were present at the average meeting, from what I've read), especially the "divines", who were named to the assembly. However, the 'Presbyterian church' was not even permitted by the Church of England until in 1647, by an act of the "Long Parliament", and this because the 'Puritans' had gained effective control over Parliament. Granted, 'presbyterianism' was an "open secret", but still, was via the Puritans, technically a part of the Church of England. That is what I am referring to. And Baptists had no presence there, per se, at all.

    You are entirely correct that by default, the Presbyterian thinking types had the effective control of the assembly, hence "held the day". My original point, concerning this, was only to say that Baptists had no influence on the document, in any way, if you recall.

    Ed
     
  9. Maestroh

    Maestroh New Member

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    Pretty Much

    The simple point is this: virtually EVERY argument posited by those who advocate the KJV can be turned around against them. Yet show it to them and they simply move to another claim.

    If God couldn't use Westcott and Hort, I see no reason to think He used a RCC priest who taught false concepts like transubstantiation.

    If the NIV is so bad, why does the name 'Jesus' appear in the NT some 300 more times than in the KJV despite having fewer words?

    I mean it could go on and on.

    God 'must' do nothing despite what Edward Hills thought.
     
  10. EdSutton

    EdSutton New Member

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    Yeah, I 'figgered' you might have picked up "jest" a hint of a minute twinge of attempted humorous sarcasm in my post. :laugh: :laugh:

    Ed
     
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