Textual Criticism

How do you konw this? You don't. You have these. And using the word "apograph" doesn't make you sound smarter, by the way.

Incorrect. The MVs and the KJV are translations of texts. Until they were translated, they had no words at all.

Can you please demonstrate this? So far, in the millions of gallons of ink that has been spilled on this, no one has been able to show this.

Then how do we have them?

 

Did I say ,"KJVO"?

 

Please stop with the old wives tales about Erasmus.
Read this article by Henk Jans de Jonge:

"Conclusions
1. The current view that Erasmus promised to insert the Comma Johanneum if it could be shown to him in a single Greek manuscript, has no foundation in Erasmus' works. Consequently it is highly improbable that he included the disputed passage because he considered himself bound by any such promise.
2. It cannot be shown from Erasmus' works that he suspected the Codex Britannicus (min 61) of being written with a view to force him to include the Comma Johhanneum."

 

http://dbts.edu/journals/1996_1/ERASMUS.PDF

 

This Is Slander - Please Be Advised

Full disclosure: I am a student at Dallas Theological Seminary where Daniel Wallace is my academic advisor.

These statements of yours APPEAR to me to come from the exact same source, David W. Cloud.

Your first comment is actually applied VERBATIM to Dr. Harry Sturz in this article at Cloud's website passed on by Cloud and written by Jeffrey Khoo, a KJV Only verbal preservationist from Singapore. (Fact: Sturz was Wallace's Greek professor at Biola)

Note the words:

Dr Harry Sturz (who incidentally is no friend of TR/KJV )

The second comment about Metzger being an unbeliever is all the more shocking and also comes from the Great White Cloud Judgment seat:

Metzger has been called an Evangelical by some who should know better, but upon the authority of the man’s own writings, I declare that Bruce Metzger is an unbeliever. He is a false teacher. He is apostate. He is a heretic. Those are all Bible terms. Having studied many of the man’s works, I am convinced those are the terms which must be applied to him.

END QUOTE

Now let me set the record straight on a couple of things here. First, to say Dan Wallace is 'no friend of the TR/KJV' can be true or false DEPENDING UPON THE MEANING IMPOSED BY THE WORDS!!!

He is not a KJV Onlyist. He believes the KJV has errors. He believes the TR has errors. He is an advocate of the Eclectic Text. All of these are true. But what about the fact that at the 1993 ETS gathering in Washington DC, Wallace - of all people - made the bold move to call for the MAJORITY TEXT as a collating base of manuscripts? Dr. Timothy Ralston's doctoral dissertation notes this advocacy by Wallace.

So wouldn't that mean that instead of cherishing the MT as 'the original text' that the man is at least honest enough to investigate claims? KJVOs hate him because his common sense undercuts every one of their arguments. Wallace doesn't need me to defend him, he can do that fine on his own. But I bristle every time I hear these type of ill-informed and prejudicial comments (not directed at the poster btw but at his original source).

And now for Bruce Metzger, who died a couple of years ago at 93.

Bruce Metzger was NOT a fundamentalist Baptist. He was not an inerrantist although he DID hold to the INFALLIBILITY of Scripture per his Presbyterian upbringing. Metzger was sickened by the de-conversion of Bart Ehrman, so much so that he did not write a critique of 'Misquoting Jesus' but instead referred others to the critiques written by Birdsall and Fee. Sure, he thought some of the OT concepts were myths. But Bruce Metzger also believed in the bodily resurrection of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, as full humanity and Deity. He met the qualifications enunciated by Paul in Acts 16:31. I will not put myself in the place of Jesus Christ (as Mr. Cloud is apt to do) and decide the man's eternal destiny, but at the very least we should be fair. Cloud sets up HIS VIEW of what bibliology is SUPPOSED to be (aka KJV Onlyism) and on THAT BASIS judges a man an unbeliever.

Dare I point out that Cloud is so ignorant that he doesn't even know the difference between FORM criticism and SOURCE criticism?

This kind of 'cut and paste apologetics' really needs to be rejected. David Cloud is - as far as I know - a brother in Christ, but he really needs to learn to quit violating the eighth commandment.

 

You Know What's Funny?

What's funny is how many KJVOs think this HELPS them.

They need to read the ENTIRE ARTICLE, esp. THIS part on page 389:

It is true that Erasmus repeatedly disqualified thc Codex Vaticanus äs a
latinizing textual witness. Yet it should be pointed out nonetheless, that
Erasmus was also the first scholar who appealcd to the Codex Vaticanus for critical purposes.

On 18 June 1521 Paul Bombasius, the secretary of the
influential cardmal Lorenzo Pucci at Rome, sent a letter to Erasmus containing a copy of l John 4, l-3 and 5,7-11 from thc Codex Vaticanus47

In his Annotationes on l John 5,7 Erasmus later stated that the Comma Johanneum was missmg from the Codex Vaticanus, according to a transcript which Bombasius had made at his, Erasmus', request (neo regata)48 It appears from this that Erasmus himself had asked Bombasius to verify the passage in question in the Codex Vaticanus. It is with Erasmus that the Codex Vaticanus began to play a role
in the textual cnticism of the New Testament.

 

Askjo, as is always the case, you're absolutely wrong. There's no conspiracy to defend modern translations over the KJV. But there IS a conspiracy among KJVOs to discredit and denigrate the word of God in any translation that isn't one of the KJVs.

Askjo, this is nothing but opinion. The older and therefore more reliable texts often don't have words found in later texts. Why do you suppose that is? If you said because the older texts omitted something, you failed the quiz. If you said because the newer texts added something, you passed the quiz.

Let's try to help you understand with a simple example you should be able to follow and understand.

Let's suppose at 1:00 I said to Bill, "The red ball bounced." Now let's suppose that at 3:00 I said to Sally, "The large red ball baounced all the way to the ceiling." See how the later statement adds to what was said earlier? No one can truthfully say the earlier statement omitted anything because the later statement hadn't been made yet.

It's the same way with Bible manuscripts. The older manuscripts are closer in time to the original autographs. Since they're closer on the time line, they're also more likely to be more accurate than later manuscripts simply because the more time elapsed means there was more opportunity for changes - whether intentional or unintentional.

To paraphrase a well-known fictional detective, "Elementary, my dear Askjo!"

 

Amen, sag38! Preach it!

BTW, you had your tongue really far into your cheek when you typed that first paragraph. Did it hurt when you bit it?

:laugh:

 

Did you need to say KJVO, Askjo? Not at all! It's extremely common for KJVOs to make the false accusation that those who stand against the KJVO position hate the KJV. It doesn't need to be said, because the implication is definitely there.

Ed Edwards is a great example of someone who loves the KJVs but who stands firmly against the KJVO position. I'm another - one of the KJVs is one of the three Bible translations I use most often, the other two being the NASB and the NKJV. It can't be said truthfully that either Ed or myself hate the KJVs, but we've been falsely accused of hating the KJVs by KJVO folks many times. However, it can be said that both of us hate what we view as a man-made myth about a Bible translation.

 

They Aren't 'Wives Tales'

If you read ALL of that article, you will see that even MT scholars like Scrivener repeated the same story.

 

So it is with man-made myths.

"How often must those who lecture in the New Testament or textual criticism at universities the world over have passed on the story. . .to the students in their lecture halls!"
"Yet there a number of difficulties in the story of Erasmus' promise and its consequences, which arouse a certain suspicion of its truthfulness."

"none of the authors known to me who relate the story, refer to a specific passage in Erasmus or in other sixteenth-century literature, where such a pledge is to be found. The only exception is [Roland] Bainton. . .It is to Bainton's credit that he at least tried to find the promise somewhere in Erasmus' works; no other author so far as I am aware took this trouble. Still no such promise can be read into the passage cited."

 

There are not thousands of manuscripts with the short reading.

 

You told me what he believed, but you did not tell me what he did not believe.

 

Bruce Metzger does not believe in the Tooth Fairy nor the Easter Bunny.

 

Um, would the Gospel of John count, here? No form of the word "repent" in any manner whatsoever appears in that book, or in any of John's epistles, either, FTR. Yet John and I John are the only two books in the Bible that make a claim to be written for the express purpose of bringing one to eternal life, to my knowledge. (Jn. 20:31; I Jn. 5:13)

In fact (How many times have you ever heard these things 'preached'?), one can only find any mention of "repent", in any form of that word, in a total of 29 books of the Protestant Bible, in the KJV or NKJV, including "relent" as the NKJV renders this word where God is concerned. That means that 8 more books do not uses any form of this word, in any manner, whatsoever, than do actually use any form of the word.

In addition, only two individuals in the entire Bible are ever said to "repent", in any fashion, namely Job (Jb. 42:6), who was already saved, for God had already described him as "upright" and one who "feared God" (Jb. 1:1,8; 2:3) and would twice speak of him as one possessing righteousness, (Ezek. 14:14,18), and Judas (Mt. 27:3). We know Judas was not saved, I believe, so maybe we need to be a bit careful as to exactly what we mean by "repentance", as it relates to salvation, I'd say.

And no, I'm not going to allow anyone to get away with subtly redefining other words as "repentance", or redefining "repent" and "repentance", FTR.

Do I believe in repentance? Absolutely, despite some false allegations that have been made on the BB that I do not.

Do I believe repentance is necessary for salvation? Absolutely, despite the same false allegations that have been made.

So am I now going to allow someone else to 'force' me to accept their version of repentance, as opposed to what Scripture declares repentance is, as regards salvation? Not a chance in hell, for that is exactly where the false teaching about Biblical repentance, if followed, will eventually 'take' someone!

Ed

 

Here's another KJVO inconsistency. Usually KJVOs say the minority of mamuscripts can't possibly be right even though they're older, simply because they're the minority. But when it comes to this minority and the minority of Christians who believe the KJVO position, they can't possibly be wrong. I wish they'd make up their minds.