At 1:32 pm on August 31, 2019, I posted on Gab.com a link to the piece “Emerging Toward Rome and a New Dark Age” along with the following blurb:
“Now that the King James Bible has been removed from the hands of the majority of professing Christians, Satan’s false prophets are able to deceive them into thinking that the Roman Catholic Church is no longer the enemy of Bible-believing Christianity.”
On the same day, a little over three hours later, a retired pastor who posts at Gab.com under ChristianRepublic@Akzed responded with the following question:
Are you saying that it is the only inspired version?
Thus the exchange began:
My response: The Spirit in me has revealed it’s God’s preserved written word in English and the only English version of the Scripture that’s trustworthy. Does the S/spirit in you agree with this revelation?
ChristianRepublic@Akzed: So the Geneva Bible, Wycliffe’s translation, and others are unreliable? What are some signal differences between them and the KJV?
What does “textus receptus” mean and where did that phrase come from?
My response: Am I being quizzed here? Are you asking these questions because you really don’t know the answers and are seeking them, or are you compelled by a different spirit and laying a trap?
ChristianRepublic@Akzed: A man confident in his belief doesn’t mind it being questioned. In fact, he welcomes any opportunity to tell the truth. Please answer my questions, I’m not hostile. Iron sharpens iron.
My response: The KJV owes a great deal to earlier versions, particularly to William Tyndale and the Geneva Bible. I think the Geneva Bible is a good jumping off point and is not unreliable. But KJV stands head and shoulders above them and is the one version I trust above them all because of its superior scholarship and impact throughout the world. And the RCC hates it and has tried to destroy it for centuries. I’m not sure what you mean by “others” so specify. As for Wycliffe’s 14th century translation into English, it was done from the Latin Vulgate and is noteworthy for its bravery against a tyrannical church, but the Latin Vulgate is not a reliable translation of Scripture because of its corrupt manuscript strain from Alexandria, Egypt. As for the Majority Text, i.e., the Textus Receptus manuscripts, they come from Antioch, Syria, and are not corrupted with the Gnostic and pagan ideas that were incorporated into the corrupt manuscripts from Egypt. Are you sharp now? Peace.
“Often the statements made to question the KJV are made out of a lack of knowledge of the facts.” You want answers, read: The Roots of the KJV: Tyndale and the “Geneva Bible” at http://www.pennuto.com/bible/bibtabl.htm Peace.
ChristianRepublic@Akzed: Wow maybe you could just tell me your answers to these simple questions instead of referring me to a book. If you know the provanance of the Textus Receptus you could relay it to me in about five words.
My response: It’s not a book, it’s an article. Don’t be intellectually lazy.
ChristianRepublic@Akzed: I’m not aware of the Gnostic and pagan ideas in the Alexandrian texts, I’ve never seen that claim made. The various textual families were of course produced by scriptoria, and since some were more productive than others their manuscripts survive in greater numbers. The kinds of problems produced by these outfits are mainly copyists’ errors, not the introduction of heretical concepts.
Although the KJV is my go-to version, and the one I enjoy the most, there are some issues. One is e.g. its use of “bottles” for skins, which destroys the meaning of passages like e.g. Ps. 119:83 & Mark 2:22. I’m certain that the Holy Ghost doesn’t prefer “bottles” to “skins,” the latter being the word He chose to use.
Translating Elohim as “angels” in Ps. 8:5 was unnecessary, but the KJV’s Psalms committee used the Septuagint’s use of “angels” to inform their opinion here. It also carried enough weight with the Hebrews committee that it did the same with Hebrews 2:7.
The doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer in Mt. 6:13 is not found in the oldest manuscripts, but because it was so associated with this prayer in the liturgy in use at the time that it was included in the Greek NT text. There’s no proof that it was purposefully omitted from the earlier text due to some animus toward it: it was in fact an addition.
The title Textus Receptus comes from the publisher’s preface to an edition that followed Erasmus’s death, pledging that the Greek NT contained therein was the text that was received from the editor, Erasmus. It was not meant to imply that it is the text received from God, as some in your camp allege. Erasmus had six Greek testaments in his possession, not all were even complete NT’s.
There are other issues, but like I said the KJV is my favorite and these issues are explainable and understandable since they occurred in the age before the printing press or the Xerox machine. The Lord be with you.
My response: You must live a sheltered life not to be familiar with the claim that Gnostic and pagan ideas were incorporated in the Alexandrian manuscripts. Maybe you’re spending too much time with people like James White et al in your camp. You need a love for truth to find truth, you know?
You feign to be authoritative on the KJV translation, yet you don’t cite any sources to support where your information comes from. Do you actually think you’re as educated and accomplished as the least accomplished KJ translator? How accomplished and educated are the people from whom you derive your information about the unnecessary or omitted words in the KJV? You think they speak and read as many languages and know more about the ancient languages than the KJV translators?
To prove my point regarding Gnosticism and the Alexandrian text, the King James Bible reads, “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God….” The NIV reads, “Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not of God….” The NIV leaves out the word “Christ.” Why? Because it was translated from the Alexandrian line of Greek texts that had been corrupted by the Gnostics. For more information, see
“Christian” Gnosticisms Corruption of the Western/Alexandrian Manuscripts at
Pastor David L. Brown, Ph.D.
BTW, it’s not a book, it’s an article.
ChristianRepublic@Akzed: Never heard of James White.
I didn’t cite any sources because I did my own work, unlike you. The article you attached cites Encyclopedia Britannica, not a scholarly source; in other words, you would lose points for citing it in a term paper. The article is nothing but inferences claiming that the GNT’s you don’t like are Gnostic because they quoted early texts not available to the KJV committees, I guess.
It doesn’t matter how learned a KJV translator was if he had only six texts to work from and not all were even complete Greek Testaments. Your answer to that is that all other sources discovered since the 16th Century are Gnostic. This is circular reasoning that would also cost you points in a high school term paper.
Not only are there thousands of texts that differ from the Roman Catholic editor Erasmus’s text, but NT citations in e.g. works by Ireneus and Augustine and countless other Church Fathers whose citations differ with Erasmus’s GNT, not to mention ancient breviaries and liturgies and sermons and essays that have been discovered since then that cite Scriptures that do not completely agree with the mere six incomplete sources he used. This is incontrovertible.
You believe that the Textus Receptus was the text received by the Church from God, when in fact it’s a term taken from a publisher’s preface to Erasmus’s GNT indicating that the text being published was received by the publisher from Erasmus. I have no doubt that this fact is news to you since you avoided commenting on it and probably can’t cite one of your heroes who explains this away.
Given your reliance upon the RC Erasmus’s GNT I’ll leave it to you to describe why he, whom Luther went to war with in “On the Bondage of the Will,” and who kept a mistress sanctioned by the pope, is your GNT source of choice. I guess that this RC source kept all of his RC prejudices out of his decision-making process when editing his GNT. How you determined this I don’t know, but what I do know is that the ignorance and arrogance you display is typical of all hillbilly theologians I’ve encountered.
My final response appeared as five separate posts and were labeled Parts 1-5:
Part 1
Although you say you never heard of James White, your disdain for Erasmus make you kindred spirits. As for doing your own work and not citing sources, I don’t what schools you’ve attend, but unless you’re an authority or expect on a subject, sources are necessary for credibility. You need to establish bone fides to be taken seriously, and of course you haven’t.
As for the article’s author citing the Britannica, he’s not writing an article for a scholarly journal or a term paper for a professor; he’s writing for a general audience and Britannica is an acceptable, credible source. What’s important is the accuracy of the material cited, more so than the source it comes from.
You say the article is based on inferences. If by inference you mean the author draws his conclusion based on evidence and reasoning, I agree. It’s what educated people who argue their assertions do; then again, it’s a brave new world now and it might be different in the schools you’ve attended.
The author did not claim the GNTs are Gnostic because they quoted early texts that were unavailable to the KJV committees. His claim is that they are Gnostic because the Gnostics redefined, rearranged, edited, and rewrote these early texts to fit their own purposes and to advance their own false teachings.
Part 2
You make the claim that, “it doesn’t matter how learned a KJV translator was if he had only six texts to work from and not all were even complete Greek Testaments.” And you follow that with, “Your answer to that is that all other sources discovered since the 16th Century are Gnostic.”
How can that be my answer when I was never given the opportunity to address your claim? Obviously, you’re putting words in my mouth.
Then you add insult to injury and say, “This [answer, which is your answer] is circular reasoning that would also cost you points in a high school term paper.”
You erect a straw man and knock it down by pointing out fallacious reasoning that actually belongs to you but you falsely attribute to me, and knowing full well that I had never responded to the claim you raised, you then ridicule my reasoning skills saying they are not at the high school level, much less the college level. Wow! Quite shameful to say the least. You really are one pathetic piece of work.
Although it’s true that the KJV is based primarily on the Greek New Testament text compiled by Erasmus in 1516, and that he used somewhere between 6-10 Greek manuscripts for the 1st edition of his Greek New Testament, your claim that a KJV translator had only six texts to work from is factually incorrect.
You’re either ignorant, loose with the truth, or just being deceptive to claim that the translators of the KJV were limited to or used only Erasmus’ manuscripts to translate the KJV. It’s true that Erasmus used the half-dozen or so manuscripts that were available to him in Bessel to compile the 1st edition of his Greek New Testament.
That said, no reputable scholar who’s studied this subject would dispute the claim that Erasmus had studied variant readings of the New Testament throughout his life before publishing his Greek New Testament, i.e., the Textus Receptus. In other words, Erasmus spent only two years in front of a handful of Greek manuscripts to compose his first edition, but his knowledge concerning the Greek New Testament and its variants did not come solely from his study of those few manuscripts during that two-year period.
Part 3
Note also the KJV was completed in 1611, 95 years after Erasmus completed his first edition of the Textus Receptus. It’s presumptive ignorance to assume that after Erasmus’ 1516 edition the next event was the translation of the King James Bible. At least 75 years of scholarship had gone into Erasmus’ Textus Receptus before the KJV was published.
Erasmus admitted that his first edition had been rushed and there were errors in it, so he updated his Textus Receptus in 1519, 1522, and 1527. Robert Estienne, aka Stephanus edited the Textus Receptus in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551, and Theodore Beza edited it nine times between 1565 and 1604. Most likely the translators used Beza’s 1598 edition of the Textus Receptus to underline the King James Bible.
Besides Beza’s 1598 edition, the KJV translators also had access to the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, The Coverdale Bible, The Matthew’s Bible, The Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Bishops Bible, Douay–Rheims Bible, and the Latin Vulgate Bible.
Your claim it’s incontrovertible that thousands of texts (works by Ireneus, Augustine, countless Church Fathers, and ancient breviaries, liturgies, sermons, essays that have been discovered after Erasmus’ Greek New Testament was published) all differ or disagree with Erasmus’ Textus Receptus is misleading and deceptive.
The truth is most manuscripts discovered over the past four hundred years agree more with the Textus Receptus than they do with the 1881 Greek text of B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort or with the modern Nestle-Aland/United Bible Society (NA/UBS) text. Also, the majority text (the majority of manuscripts in the Byzantine tradition) generally agrees with the Textus Receptus and not with Westcott and Hort or NA/USB.
The fact is the NA/UBS text (used by most modern Bible versions today) is a highly edited, composite text of readings from Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and other Alexandrian manuscripts, all of which disagree with each other in thousands of places (John William Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. 11).
Part 4
You write, “You believe that the Textus Receptus was the text received by the Church from God, when in fact it’s a term taken from a publisher’s preface to Erasmus’s GNT indicating that the text being published was received by the publisher from Erasmus.”
You seem to have a genuine problem quoting people correctly. I never said that I “believe that the Textus Receptus was the text received by the Church from God.” I also know that the term Textus Receptus or Received Text was taken from the blurb, “textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum,” i.e., “therefore you have the text now received by all” which first appeared in Elzevirs of Leyden’s second edition of their GNT about 120 years after Erasmus’ first edition of the GNT was published.
The claim I made is that I believe the King James Bible is God’s written word in English, and that I trust the KJV over the Roman Catholic Bible and all modern Bible versions because the manuscript line that underlies the KJV came through Antioch, Syria, and not through Alexandria, Egypt, which is the manuscript line for all Bible versions except the King James.
You wrote, “Given your reliance upon the RC Erasmus’s GNT I’ll leave it to you to describe why he, whom Luther went to war with in “On the Bondage of the Will,” and who kept a mistress sanctioned by the pope, is your GNT source of choice. I guess that this RC source kept all of his RC prejudices out of his decision-making process when editing his GNT. How you determined this I don’t know, but what I do know is that the ignorance and arrogance you display is typical of all hillbilly theologians I’ve encountered.”
My reliance is not on Erasmus, it’s on the Holy Spirit revealing God’s written truth in the KJV. The manuscripts that came from Syria are trustworthy because the “word of the LORD was published throughout all the region” in Antioch (Acts 13:49 KJV), and it is the place where the disciples were first called “Christians” (Acts 11:26 KJV). One thing more, I agree with Luther’s position in Bondage of the Will, and not with Erasmus’ position regarding free will.
The fact that you’re concerned more with Erasmus’ “prejudices” than you are Jerome’s, Wescott’s and Hort’s, or the NA/UBS translators speaks volumes about your prejudices regarding this issue and your disregard for truth.
Part 5
This translation issue involves a great deal more than just determining which Bible to read or which manuscripts, Antioch or Alexandria, are more trustworthy. This issue involves the proper attitude towards God’s written word. Should a Christian’s attitude be more like the believers in Antioch who “cleave” to the Word of God, or more like the attitude of those in Alexandria who questioned, changed, corrected, added to, and deleted from the Word of God?
The number of manuscripts being found is continually growing. Virtually every year new manuscripts are discovered, and niche translations appear to satisfy various theological and social agendas. The KJV is a product of its era, so it has not been influenced by leftist theology, evolution theory, political-correctness, and ecumenicalism, and it does not change with the discovery of new manuscripts.
In actuality, the number of manuscripts is irrelevant if God providentially provides the manuscripts. A handful are more than enough to preserve His words.
In your closing remarks, you wrote that “the ignorance and arrogance you display is typical of all hillbilly theologians I’ve encountered.” Someone with even a cursory knowledge of Bible translations would know that Alexandria, Egypt is one of only two source lines from which the family of Bible manuscripts originated, and that textual line has been corrupted with pagan and Gnostic ideas.
And I’m the ignorant hillbilly? You’re sellin’ a load of crap, but nobody here’s buyin’ it.
Your hillbilly reference is not an insult; it’s a compliment, and I embrace it. After all it’s the first sign of discernment you’ve shown.
“For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh … are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” 1 Corinthians 1:26,27 KJV
Peace.
I.M. Kane
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THE MILLSTONE DIARIES 