The KJV is a variety of the TR?

B. Ehrman writes in his book, Misquoting Jesus that the KJ scholars/translators leaned very heavily on the translation of Erasmus. Erasmus said after finishing his translation that he knew it had errors, but he had hurried so his translation would be first.

 

What exactly is the textus receptus?
It's the name we give to the collection of Greek manuscripts that form a majority of the readings. Generally these are from the Byzantine family of manuscripts.

Through the ages, as each manuscript was hand copied, small errors crept in;
none of the manuscripts we have read exactly alike.

This presents a problem for a translator.
The first job of every translator is to ESTABLISH THE TEXT.
They must examine the variant readings and CHOOSE which one they will use.

The NASB translators had to choose, the editor of the Message had to choose,
yes, even the translators of the Authorized Version made choices.

As these choices were collected in the version, they created a new text.
One never before arranged in that manner.

It would allow the adherents greater room for maneuvering in text critical augments.

In that the NKJV used a similar body of texts (albeit larger) it's a poor reason.

Rob

 

I must admit I was troubled by this statement as well for the same reasons you brought up. I can understand why a person would be TRO (even though I would respectfully disagree with them). But to make this claim seems to move beyond just a preference for a particular textual position to a position that very easily leads to double inspiration.

To use Dr. Moritz´s words, this statement fails to make the distinction between the transmission of Scripture (inspiration) and the translation of Scripture.

 

You are absolutely correct, C4K! Clearly, the proper use of Textus Receptus is as an inclusive term to refer one or more particular Greek texts (most being published in the late 16th century) from among the approximate two dozen that represent that textual body type. Hills and others have made some outlandish statements, and KJVOs frequently take commonly accepted terms and redefine them for their own purposes. Sometimes it is unclear if this is actually an unethical strategy intended to confuse the issues, or simply poor scholarship. Calling all English editions based upon the 1611 Authorized Version the 'KJB' is yet one other example of this unflattering behavior.

 

"Yes!" And "Yes!"

Wow!! That was easy! :tongue3:



Seriously, I have easy access to what would appear to be fairly reliable reproductions of three Greek texts on-line through Bible gateway, namely, W/H; TR1550; and TR1894. (I can get some on-line access to a few others, I believe, but am not sure on exactly how much, here.) "I hold in my hot little paws" two others, namely the MT (Hodges/Farstad et. al., - 2nd Edition), and the NTG (Aland/Black/Metzger et. al., UBS-2). The really strange thing about all 5 of these (and every other one I have ever viewed. both on-line, and when I was privileged to see a traveling tour that included some manuscript pages of Greek tests) was that not one of them had any "O" any where as the last lettern in the 'name' of it.

I have some 20-odd different versions or editions of the Bible in the English language (including several in the KJV, and the NKJV, which is the Bible I normally use on an everyday basis), and although I have yet to find one in my own native 'dialect' (KY 'Redneck') (Sorry, couldn't resist this chance for a 'funny'.), that I "can hold in my paws", and can find another 30-40 'on-line' fairly easily, not one of them has any "O" 'ending' in it, either.

With all respect to the late Dr. Edward F. Hills, he is/was simply wrong, in this statement. 3/4 of the KJV (or any Bible, for that matter) is the OT whether with or without, the Apocrypha. Thus any "TR" designation does not properly apply to it at all. The NT is (in every instance, at some point or another) a translation of the Greek language. While the texts that were used were mostly those that got edited to eventually become known as the TR is/are the primary basis for the KJV, even that is not 100% the case, in every instance.

It is entirely correct to say that the KJV NT is very predominately based on the TR tradition; IMO, it is incorrect to say that any translation of the Greek NT, into any other language, any time, anywhere, at any place, is any variety, independent or no, of the Textus Receptus.

Now, having laid this groundwork, again, the answer to your first question is still "Yes!". And the second answer is still "Yes!", as well.

BTW, I'll still note (as you, C4K, have previously responded to) that none of the "O" crowd can ever seem to say exactly which edition (or revision) it should be that should specifically be the one with the "O" after it.

I'll also note here, that I previously dropped out of a discussion with another BB poster, in this forum, who said, in essence, that he wanted to translate 'the Received Text' (there is no such thing as any 'TR' manuscript) into a "modern day 'coloquial' English" vernacular, who could not indentify 'which' TR edition he was intending to use, and which sounded, to me at least, as an ill-disguised 'cover' to re-do the KJV, yet once again, into a 'more modern usage of the English'. That can be found here, for anyone interested.

http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=44651

You might notice I dropped out of it, about halfway through the thread. It was not that I was bored, or that I forgot about the thread. But I was unwilling to continue under what were questionable premises, IMO. FTR, I have since cited both that individual and another BB poster, whom I know are both working on translating, in a positive way, in other posts supporting translating the Scriptures.

Ed

 

You might wanna' check on this wording, if this is specifically what was written.

The "Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum" of Erasmus (his first edition - 1516), is not a translation per se of the Greek, but is a Greek text, compiled and edited by him, from some extant manuscripts, he had access to. It does includes, aparently, a Latin text, as well. Whether this is Erasmus'' translation or merely some compilation/ edition of other Latin texts, I do not know. Erasmus' Greek text(s) are "critical text(s)", by definition, but this is not to be confused with the modern nomenclature of a specific tradition(s) that include W/H and are called the "Critical Text" or "CT", a shorthand (and sometimes pejorative designation) for this "alternative" tradition to the TR and "MT" lines.

The second edition of the now called the "Novum Testamentum" (1519) was used by Luther; the third (1522) is apparently the one (at least primarily) used by Tyndale [and basically, this edition was later used by Estienne (Stephanus) in his editions]; the fourth (1527) is a parallel 'polyglot' with the Greek, Latin, and the Vulgate all side-by-side, and the fifth and final Erasmus edition (1535) is similar to the fourth, but drops the Vulgate.

Again, the questionable word here is "translation".

Ed

 

To quote the late US President Harry S. Truman:

:thumbs:

Ed

 

Well, Erasmus did somewhat 'translate' the last few verses of Revelation into Greek from the Latin. :laugh:

 

Do you (the collective "you" of all BV/T regulars, not just Ed) know why the first edition is a the 'New Instrument' and the following editions were simply called the 'New Testament'? If no one comes up with the correct answer shortly, I'll reveal the reason in a later post.

 

Cute!

BTW, Congratulations on hitting 1K on posts. :thumbs:

Ed

 

Is this your view???

A derivation from the KJV could be made by choosing different variants with the family of texts that form the TR.
And note: the KJV doesn't always follow the TR

The same manuscripts family used in making the KJV was also used in the earlier Bishop's Bible, the Geneva Bible and the Coverdale Bible.

To be absolutely accurate about the above statement, one should define the TR, so we know which one is being referenced.
There isn’t just one TR but many.

Erasmus developed the first printed Greek text; also see Stephen's, the Elzevir and Beza's Greek texts, all of which became what was eventually called the textus receptus (TR).

These early printed Greek texts were based upon a limited number of manuscripts.

The men that developed these Greek texts made textual decisions when a variant occurred within the manuscript family that were available to them.

And variants certainly do exist within the textus receptus!

Some might define the TR as only the manuscripts that make up the KJV.

But this is a very limiting choice.
Since the 1600’s many thousands of manuscripts have been found that fall within that same Byzantine or TR family of manuscripts.

The most recent attempts to define the textus receptus are the Robinson/Pierpont Byzantine text (1995) and the Hodges/Farstad Majority text (1985).

Rob

 

Below is the complete paragraph in which Hills' statement is found in the fourth edition of his book The King James Version Defended. This paragraph begins a section entitled "(a) The King James Version a Variety of the Textus Receptus." The same paragraph is also found in the third edition of his book Believing Bible Study with the same section title but letter (k) instead of (a) [p. 206 in this book].

Edward F. Hills wrote: "The translators that produced the King James Version relied mainly, it seems, on the later editions of Beza's Greek New Testament, especially his 4th edition (1588-9). But also they frequently consulted the editions of Erasmus and Stephanus and the Complutensian Polyglot. According to Scrivener (1884), out of the 252 passages in which these sources differ sufficiently to affect the English rendering, the King James Version agrees with Beza against Stephanus 113 times, with Stephanus against Beza 59 times, and 80 times with Erasmus, or the Complutensian, or the Latin Vulgate aginst Beza and Stephanus. Hence the King James Version ought to be regarded not merely as a translation of the Textus Receptus but also an independent variety of the Textus Receptus" (KJV Defended, p. 220).

 

Here's the quote in context again:

Hence the King James Version ought to be regarded not merely as a translation of the Textus Receptus but also an independent [translation of a] variety of the Textus Receptus

With the insertion of just 3 words, it makes plenty of sense to me now. I'm not saying this is what he was getting at, but it's possible that he just worded it poorly.

 

I don´t think he saying that the KJV is an independent translation of the TR but an actual variety or "version" of the TR. Hills is completely overlooking the fact the KJV is a TRANSLATION not a type of the TR.

 

As promised, the reason given by Christopher de Hamel in his The Book. A History of The Bible (page 225) --

Even in the title, Erasmus could not resist being clever. The words Novum Instrumentum are what everyone else would call the 'New Testament'. He afterwards explained that a 'testament' is strictly a statement of intent: a person leaving a will or covenant, for example, might make an oral testament. The written document which subsequently embodies that statement, however, is called an 'instrument'. Therefore Christ may have left a testament to his disciples but when it was written down it became an instrument, and so the Bible was formed of Old and New Instruments, not Testaments. Erasmus enjoyed being provocative. No one accepted his ingenious improvement, however scholarly and plausable,... ​

 

While the first part of Hills' statement acknowledged that the KJV was "a translation," he clearly maintained that it should not be regarded or considered to be just or merely "a translation." He may have worded it poorly, but some of it seems intentional. Hills seemed to be intending to suggest that the KJV should be considered equal with or the same as if it was an edition of the Textus Receptus Greek N. T. text.

In my opinion, the statement would not make plenty of sense even with the insertion of the 3 words you suggested. The KJV is not actually an "independent translation." Since the KJV is a revision of earlier English translations, it cannot accurately be claimed to be an "independent translation." Hills himself acknowledged: "A comparison of Tyndale's version with the King James Version is said to indicate that from five sixths to nine tenths of the latter is derived from the martyred translators word" (KJV Defended, p. 214). Hills also wrote: "The King James Version, however, is mainly a revision of the Bishops' Bible, which in turn was a slightly revised edition of Tyndale's Bible" (p. 215). It would seem to be contradictory to admit that the KJV is derived from Tyndale's and that it is "mainly a revision" and at the same time suggest that it is an "independent translation." The KJV is a translation that is very dependent on the earlier English Bibles of which it was a revision.

Hills' statement seems to have been intended to be an answer to the problem or the fact that the KJV does not match or is not a 100% faithful accurate translation of any one edition of the printed Textus Receptus that was available for use by the KJV translators. The actual reason that the KJV does not match any one TR edition seems to be the fact that the KJV is more of a revision of earlier English translations than it is an original, independent, new translation. Thus, the KJV translators seem to have chosen renderings from the various pre-1611 English Bibles [which had been made from varying editions of the Textus Receptus] without perhaps considering that the particular rendering that they chose may differ in some way from a literal rendering of the edition of the Textus Receptus that the KJV translators supposedly usually followed. In other words, the actual reason that the KJV may not faithfully followed any one specific edition of the Textus Receptus is the fact that the KJV is more of a revision of the earlier English Bibles than it is a new, independent translation.

 

I do not know if you had read Edward F. Hills' complete statement or not, but your statement above [It claims that the KJV is not just a translation of the TR, but an actual variety of it] seems to represent accurately the intended meaning of his statement.