Featured NKJV & TR

I do not have a 'modern KJV-only theory,' and if any other contributor to this thread has one, I must have missed it.
You are like a general desperately looking for a war to fight.

I have not said that you did. I was merely stating my view and my reason for using the NKJV. Peace, brother!

 

I did not say that you were KJV-only.

Nevertheless, it is true that KJV-only advocates do attempt to use allegations against the Critical Text as justification for their KJV-only reasoning. Thus, my statement has a proper purpose in sound, scripturally-based refutation of it.

 

This poster is this thread has displayed KJV-only reasoning in some of his posts, showing that there is a sound reason to point out problems with it.

 

The collations of the relatively few Greek NT manuscripts that are the basis for the varying printed TR editions were incomplete and imperfect.

Samuel Tregelles wrote: "Robert Stephens, ten years before, in editing the Latin Vulgate, had made pretty extensive use of MSS.; and in giving the work of Greek collation into the hands of his son Henry, then aged only eighteen, he might have had some thoughts of similarly applying criticism to the Greek text" (Account, p. 31). Scrivener asserted that “Robert Stephen professed to have collated the whole sixteen for his two previous editions,” but that “this part of his work is now known to be due to his son Henry [1528-1598], who in 1546 was only eighteen years old” (Introduction, II, p. 190). Edward Miller affirmed: “Robert Stephen did not collate his authorities himself, but employed the services of his son Henry” (Guide to the Textual Criticism, p. 10). J. Scott Porter also maintained that “the MSS. were collated, and their readings noted, by Henry Stephens, son of Robert, then a youth of eighteen” (Principles, p. 250). Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible contended that “the collations were made by his son Henry Stephens” (III, p. 2131). Irena Backus asserted that Robert Stephanus “used Henri’s collations as the sole source of Greek variants for his 1550 edition of the New Testament” (Reformed Roots, p. 3). John Michaelis as translated by Herbert Marsh pointed out that Robert Stephens “made use of several manuscripts which were collated by his son Henry” (Introduction to N. T., II, p. 448). Henry Baird quoted Theodore Beza as writing in a preface to his NT about a copy of “our Stephens which had been most carefully collated by his son, Henry Stephens” (Theodore Beza, p. 236). KJV-only author Laurence Vance acknowledged that the text of Stephanus included the “collations of his son Henry” (Brief History, p. 13). Jan Krans pointed out that “in a 1565 addition to the preface, Beza informs us that the collations were actually Henri Stephanus’, who was probably asked to do them by his father” (Beyond What is Written, p. 212). Krans also referred to another source revealing that the collations were done by the son of Robert Stephanus, which is “Henri Stephanus’ own words in the preface to his 1587 New Testament” (p. 212, footnote 6).

Has anyone ever checked and confirmed the accuracy of all of these collations by one teenager?

Scrivener suggested that “the degree of accuracy attained in this collation may be estimated from the single instance of the Complutensian, a book printed in very clear type” (Plain Introduction, II, p. 190). Scrivener then indicated that “forty-eight, or one in twelve [of Stephen’s citations of the Complutensian] are false” (p. 190, footnote 1). Tregelles maintained that “it may be said, that as the Complutensian text is often incorrectly cited in Stephen’s margin, we may conclude that the same thing is true of the MSS which were collated; for it would be remarkable if manuscripts were examined with greater accuracy than a printed book” (Account, p. 31). Smith’s Dictionary maintained that “while only 598 variants of the Complutensian are given, Mill calculates that 700 are omitted” (III, p. 2131). Marvin Vincent asserted: “Of the Complutensian readings many more were omitted than inserted, and the Complutensian text is often cited incorrectly” (History of the Textual Criticism, p. 57). In a note, John Eadie commented: “The margin of the New Testament of Robert Stephens, 1550, is not of great value. He did not print all the various readings which his son Henry had gathered, nor did he fully collate all the sixteen MSS” (English Bible, II, p. 214). Samuel Newth maintained that the manuscripts used by Stephanus were “imperfectly collated” (Lectures, p. 86). Frederic Gardiner claimed that the collation in this edition “is neither complete nor accurate” (Principles, p. 5). Marvin Vincent suggested that “the collation, both of the Complutensian and of the manuscripts was partial and slovenly” (History of the Textual Criticism, p. 57). Vincent wrote: “The body of manuscript evidence amassed by the Stephens were imperfectly collated in the edition of 1550. Though the authorities stand in the margin, the text is perpetually at variance with the majority of them, and in 119 places, with all of them. No fixed principles regulated the occasional applications of the manuscript readings to the construction of the text” (pp. 63-64). Richard Porson (1759-1808) asserted that “Stephen’s margin is full of mistakes in the readings and numbers of the MSS” (Gentlemen’s Magazine, May, 1789, p. 386; Letters, p. 55). Porson maintained that Stephens “has favored us with only a part of the various readings, (probably less than half) and has frequently set down a reading as from one manuscript which belonged to another” (Letters, pp. 88-89). Charles Hudson reported that the “various readings collated by his son” . . . “are known to be given very inaccurately” (Greek and English Concordance, p. xiv).

 

The Nestle 25 edition (current in 1968) merely reflected information from von Soden regarding the Byzantine (bold K) text. However, you are *misreading* the Nestle 25 apparatus: while the main text has εις σωτηρίαν present, the apparatus says the phrase is *omitted* (square box!) by bold-K al. See also p. 65* for explanation of the box symbol.

In addition, Pickering's supposed percentages simply cannot be trusted, except when taken from full collation data in Text und Textwert. Elsewhere, his resources are limited to his own collation of Family 35 manuscripts and whatever highly limited data appears in the apparatus of printed editions (which means his results are *heavily* tilted toward Family 35 data and do not reflect the actual majority of even Byzantine manuscripts).