07/08/05
THE BIBLE TEXT
RE-VISITED
Since writing the article dated 08/06/04 on the Bible Text, additional
issues have come to my attention, which deserve treatment. This article will address one in particular:
the New King James Version.
The following exchange on the r-f-w list suggests areas for concern
related to the New King James Version:
>I really don't understand the whole
copyright thing since the KJV is also
under copyright still at least in England where the rights are owned by the crown.
Again the NKJV is NOT a/the New KJV. If the NKJV was really a NEW KJV, T. Nelson
would not have been able to copyright it as such. So they had to constantly
tinker with the text in myriad minor ways, much less add to the Textus
Receptus, which was the basis for the
KJV translation, the Majority Text and the Nestle Aland/United Bible Societies
Greek New Testament, if not at least notes calling attention to the differences
between the M and NU and the TR.
But "cum privilegio" - the "
with privilege" - of the KJV helps standardize and maintain consistency
and accuracy in the text printed, rather than just letting anybody bootleg a translation in an effort
to make money and merchandise the Word of God as T. Nelson, Zondervan et al have so ably demonstrated for us with the
NIV, NKJV and now the ESV. Ten years from now, if not sooner, there will be a "new"
translation by somebody else that will marketed as the latest and greatest
since sliced bread.
Also
according to the TBS review of the copyrighted NKJV, there are many
changes in it from edition to edition, which is not something you want in a textual
standard that will be read and preached from publicly in church.
>I would encourage you though to read some of the writings of men on the issue of
translation during the period of the
orthodox reformed period.
I would encourage you to read WCF 1:8:
The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people
of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the
writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately
inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence kept pure in all
ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion,the
Church is finally to appeal unto them.s
Only the manuscripts in the original
languages are inspired. Not translations or the Apocrypha. And while the copies
of Scripture we have in Greek and Hebrew are NOT the original inspired
manuscripts, they are both sufficient and inspired because they are faithful
and authentic copies of the original autographs.
Consequently it is not enough that all
participating scholars that worked on the NKJV "signed a document of
subscription to the plenary and verbal inspiration of the original autographs
of the Bible" as the NKJV Preface (1984,p.vi) tells us. That is Warfield's
reinterpretation of WCF 1:8 as Ted Letis spent much of his career talking and
writing about. The providentially preserved text is inspired and that which the
Church is to appeal to, not the long gone original autographs, which we do not
have and never will, Raiders of the Lost Textual Ark or Autographs
notwithstanding.
Even
further the Alexandrian or Neutral text, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, the
Nestle Aland/UBS Greek New Testament are not providentially preserved but
providentially discarded copies. They
are therefore NOT "authentical"
Scripture and have no business being mentioned in a revision of a
Reformation Bible translation as the NKJV purports to be.
>They are very distant from opinions you
are expressing here.
Since you give no references for your
assertion, are you appealing to implicit faith?
>A critical edition of the KJV such as the
one Cambridge is
releasing is interesting from a historical
perspective but what real difference should it have for the average church person?
Quite a bit, if you are a member of a church
that takes again WCF
1:8 seriously in re. to the texts upon which
the church's translation of the Word of God is based upon. Ever since 1881 and
the RV the
critical/eclectic/Alexandrian/NA/UBS text has been the basis for all the
modern translations, the "NKJV" being the only exception which is
based upon the TR, Majority Text and the NA.
>If we are concerned not to get back to
what the Greek and Hebrew
say but to what the KJV originally said we
are going the way that Rome went with the Vulgate.
If. But not otherwise. (Not to mention that
Rome considers the Vulgate inspired, which the WCF 1:8 again denies.) The REAL
question rather is whether or not the KJV faithfully represents the Greek and
Hebrew text. Modern textual criticism
and versions generally say no. And your answer? Yes, the NKJV is an exception, but even then feels the need to
bring the critical texts into the picture by noting their variations with the
TR.
To do so, demonstrates that the NKJV has been
swayed by the claims of modern textual criticism, which is again a fraud. There
is no Lucianic rescension wherein the orthodox conspired to force the Byzantine
text upon the church in the fourth century over and against the critical texts.
The same is the missing link of the WH textual theory, which like Darwinism, has many followers even in
the church, who, on the basis of it, say the KJV is NOT a faithful translation
of what the Greek and Hebrew "really" say. Hence we really NEED the
NIV, NKJV, NASV, ESV ETC. ad infinitum ad nauseum.
>It's also simply not true that the NKJV is based upon the
critical
texts. Could you provide me with a single New Testament example where the NKJV
deviates from the TR to follow the Eclectic Text?
2 John 7 NKJV follows the EclecticText.
The needless
or confusing changes from KJV English: Matt.6:22, 11:23, Mk 9:25, Lk.
12:49, Jn. 5:24, 15:2, Acts 2:38, Rom.
1:28, 32, 2Cor. 2:17, Phil. 2:6, 2Tim. 3:8, Jam. 5:16, Jude 19, Rev. 6:14,
Where the NKJV follows the NIV English:
Matt. 22:10, 26:45, 2Cor. 3:14, 10:5, Tit.
3:10, Jude 3, Rev. 19:8.
Even further, the NKJV follows the NIV in
rendering the "kadesh" of Deut. 23:17, 1 King 14:24, 15:12, 22:46,
2Kings 23:7, "perverted one" instead of "sodomite." A MacGregor in his Three Modern Versions
(2004, p.81) quotes Smith's Dictionary of the Bible
(IV:3074) in re. to "Jerome's criticism
of the Septuagint, [which] could well be applied to the NKJV; he says,
"The translators of the Septuagint, with the anxiety to soften and conceal
obnoxious expressions which is a noted characteristic of their version, have in
all cases but one avoided rendering 'kadesh' by its ostensible meaning."
One only has to read Veith's Modern Fascism
(1993), particularly the chapter "The Hebrew Disease" and then Lively
and Abrams' The Pink Swastika (1995) re. the connections between sodomy and
fascism/Nazism to connect the dots. Hitler hated the Jews and the Old Testament
because while Judaism was rooted
in concrete history, and eminently
practical, neither nature nor history
were divine. That was reserved for the one true transcendent God. Monotheism, not polytheism with its natural or political idols, prevailed.
But take away the OT and it was easy enough
to co-opt the Christian churches of Hitler's day and spiritualize the NT, so
there would be no principled protestant resistance to the deification of the
state. The OT examples of resistance to tyranny, of political action and
criticism whether in a covenanted Israel or Babylon are no more available as
examples written for the church. So too, today with American arminian
"evangelical" dispensationalism. Both the sabbath and marriage are
creation ordinances. If the first is supposedly "jewish," why not the
other?
Yet in a day and an age when the sodomites
and lesbians stand at the doors of the Hall of Justice, raising the hue and cry
for the exercise of their "marital rights," that the same institution
might be brought out to them, that they might defile it, one might be excused for
presuming that the "NKJV" is a little too politically and culturally
correct. It is a lukewarm Laodician translation on this point, as well the textual basis, and deserves the same fate.
>If the same basic principles that
were followed by those during the
reformed orthodox era with the
manuscript evidence that we have today they would end up with the
byzantine/majority text.
The TR is a subset/belongs to the
Byzantine/Majority text. Or as Scrivener, who was responsible for the first
Cambridge Paragraph Bible in 1873 put it:
It is not necessary at the present day to
enter upon a prolix discussion respecting the sources of the Textus Receptus.
It will now be admitted on all hands that the learned persons who superintended
the earlier editions of the New Testament, both possessed a very limited
critical apparatus, and did not always avail themselves as they ought of the
resources which were within their reach. It is therefore most satisfactory to
discover that the text which they formed
bears, in all probability, a closer resemblance to the sacred
autographs, than that of some critics very much their superiors in Biblical
science; who, moreover, had access to a vast treasure of materials, which was
entirely unknown to their predecessors.
(A Supplement to the Authorised English
Version of the New Testament, Vol. 1, London: William Pickering, 1845, pp.6,7.)
Believe it or not, Erasmus was familiar with the critical texts. Yet he didn't
use them in his Greek New Testament. Did he err here? Modern bible versions say
yes, including the NKJV practically speaking. It at least leaves the door open
with its notes. As did the RV of 1881, contra the KJV of 1611.
>The TR was never intended to be some sort
of sealed document. By
making it such you are rejecting the
very principles upon which it is based.
Which principles are? WCF 1:8. Which reads
again:
The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people
of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the
writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately
inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence kept pure in all
ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion,the
Church is finally to appeal unto them.
The WCF teaches that God preserves Scripture
in his church, not restores Scripture through the priesthood of unbelieving and
skeptical scholars like Hort, or even the bare scientific rational mathematical
just count noses of the majority text.
That is, M. Robinson will deny that there is
any theological considerations to be made in establishing the text contra the
TR and for the Majority. See his otherwise very able defense of the Byzantine text over and against the prevailing
hypothetical Hortian skepticism in New Testament Textual Criticism: The Case
for Byzantine Priority.
http://purl.org/TC/vol06/Robinson2001.html
Even further, I am making such of nothing. I
am telling you that T.
Nelson Publishers may not make a bible and call it the New King
James,
when it is not a NKJV materially,
having compromised
textually - though
not entirely like other versions - and when they do not have the authority
formally.
An example of serious flaw involves the New King James Version’s treatment of I John 5:7. Its notes suggest the Textus Receptus is wrong. (Concerning I John 5:7-8 it says: “NU-Text and M-Text omit the words from in heaven (verse 7) through on earth (verse 8). Only four or five very late manuscripts contain these words in Greek.”) However, we rather think the Textus Receptus is right and the notes of the NKJV are wrong. Consider, for instance, this cogent argument found at http://www.isv.org/catacombs/textus_receptus_1.htm :
“The version of the TR
that I currently use is Beza's 1598 edition as edited by F. H. A. Scriebner,
and published by Cambridge University Press in 1902. Until recently I had been
using the Majority Text of Hodges and Farstad, published by Thomas Nelson, but
have gone back to the TR edition mentioned above due some research I have been
currently doing for a textual study group I lead at Raytheon. One example of
what I have seen deals with the usually deleted Trinitarian verse of 1 John
5:7. Although this text is not found in most Greek manuscripts, it is found in
several: 61, 629, 918, 2473, 2318, 221, 635, 88, 429, 636. But of much more
weight is the fact that several of the Early Church Fathers quote the Comma as
genuine: Cyprian (258 A.D.), Priscillian (385 A.D.), Cassian (435 A.D.),
Cassiodorous (580 A.D.), and many of the early African and western Bishops.
However, to me, the strongest evidence of its authenticity is the Greek text
itself, and for this I will quote from Dr. Thomas Holland:
Looking at 1 John 5:8, there are three nouns which, in
Greek, stand in the neuter (Spirit, water, and blood). However they are
followed by a participle that is masculine.... Those who know the Greek
language understand this to be poor grammar if left to stand on its own. Even
more noticeably, verse six has the same participle but stands on its own. Even
more noticeably, verse six, has the same principle but stands in the neuter
(Gk. to marturoun). Why are three neuter nouns supported with a masculine
participle ? The answer is found if we include verse seven. There we have two
masculine nouns (Father and Son) followed by a neuter noun (Spirit). The verse
also has the Greek masculine participle oi marturounte". With this clause
introducing verse eight, it is very proper for the participle in verse eight to
be masculine because of the masculine nouns in verse seven. But if verse seven
were not there it would become improper Greek grammar.
I don't
put intellectual weight to this, but it should also be remembered that the
basic TR text is that found in the manuscripts from Antioch -- which we know
from Acts was where the first followers of Jesus were called Christians, and
which church was considered clean from early heresies. The same cannot be said
for Alexandria where most of the early heresies developed, and from which the
manuscripts supporting the Critical Text came from. “
Another website, http://home.sprynet.com/~receptus/,
notes the following :
“Since 1901 versions of the Bible
in America began to omit 1 John 5:7.
From 1900 to 1994 nearly all discussions in English on this verse yield
only shallow treatment in a paragraph or a footnote, if not a page or two of
comments. In contrast, this book is the
first attempt in any language and of any century to provide a detailed history
of the debate over this verse. "Maynard concludes that many of the
arguments against the disputed text are defective, and that only fourteen Greek
manuscripts from the first eight centuries omit 1 Jn 5:7-8." New Testament
Abstracts, vol. 43, no. 3, 1999.”
Commenting on this, Mr. Al Hembd
has well said: “He doesn't say that most of
the early Greek manuscripts follow TR on I John 5:7. He does say that very few of the early manuscripts even have I John 5
in them. That is one point on which the
moderns much mislead us. Most early
Byzantine manuscripts omit I John 5:7, because they also omit all of I John 5…Only
fourteen manuscripts that have I John 5 in them, omit I John 5:7. That's NOT overwhelming. Esp considering the fact that Jerome wrote a
piece (Canonicus Prologus) in which he claimed that the Arians were
intentionally excising the text from the Scriptures. And there are three texts that have it.”
Here is how I responded to one
critic of the Textus Receptus:
Quoting tobias_crisp
<cwiese@mail.altelco.net>:
> ...Drawing upon internal evidence is always
very subjective...
[Mr. C. Wiese, in other words,
asserted that internal evidence cannot be trusted in the question of what
constitutes the inspired text.]
The course of all debates almost invariably leads disputants back to their
presuppositions. You have stated yours above, and it is thoroughly
Romish.
Rome would have us look foundationally at evidence *external* to scripture in
order to arrive at knowledge, whereas Protestantism looks upon internal
evidence as foundational for knowledge.
As a Protestant, I say we can deduce from the internal evidence that the
Johannine Comma is authentically part of the scriptural text. External evidence
is nice, but not definitive. Internal evidence is definitive.
You disagree, and in so doing, you reveal your erroneous presupposition.
> ...especially if you believe that God
preserves His Word...
Yes, indeed, and the Johannine Comma has been preserved down through the
centuries:
"Several well known Christians mention Greek texts that contained 1 John
5:7
that existed in their days centuries ago. Among these are Theodore Beza, John
Calvin and Stephanus. Beza remarks that the reading of 1 John 5:7 is found in
many of their manuscripts; Calvin likewise says it is found in "the most
approved copies"; and Stephanus, who in 1550 printed the Greek text that
bears
his name, mentioned that of the 16 copies he had 9 of them contained 1 John
5:7. John Gill, who also believed in the inspiration of this verse, likewise
mentions in his commentary that nine of Stephanus' sixteen manuscripts
contained this verse. There was a time in history when over 50% of the
providentially available Greek manuscripts contained the reading found in the
King James Bible.
Scholars often disagree with each other, but John Gill, in his well known
commentary on the entire Bible, remarks concerning 1 John 5:7: "It is
cited by
Athanasius about the year 350 (Contra Arium p. 109); and before him by Cyprian
in the middle of the "third" century, about the year 250 (De Unitate
Eccles. p.
255. & in Ep. 73. ad Jubajan, p. 184.) and is referred to by Tertullian
about,
the year 200 (Contr. Praxeam, c. 25 ) and which was within a hundred years, or
little more, of the writing of the epistle; which may be enough to satisfy
anyone of the genuineness of this passage."
200 AD - Tertullian's quote is debated, but he may well be referring to the
phrase found only in 1 John 5:7 when he says: "And so the connection of
the
Father, and the Son, and of the Paraclete (Holy Ghost) makes three cohering
entities, one cohering from the other, WHICH THREE ARE ONE entity, not one
person. Just as it is said "I and the Father are one entity" refers
to the
unity of their substance, not to oneness of their number."
250 AD Cyprian of Carthage, wrote, "And again, of the Father, Son, and
Holy
Ghost it is written: "And the three are One" in his On The Lapsed, On
the
Novatians. Note that Cyprian is quoting and says "IT IS WRITTEN, And the
three
are One." He lived from 180 to 250 A.D. and the scriptures he had at that
time
contained the verse in question. This is at least 100 years before anything we
have today in the Greek copies. If it wasn't part of Holy Scripture, then where
did he see it WRITTEN?
415 AD Council of Carthage. The contested verse (1 John 5:7) is quoted at the
Council of Carthage (415 A. D.) by Eugenius, who drew up the confession of
faith for the "orthodox." It reads with the King James. How did 350
prelates in
415 A.D. take a verse to be orthodox that wasn't in the Bible? It had to exist
there from the beginning. It was quoted as "Pater, VERBUM, et Spiritus
Sanctus".
450-530 AD. Several orthodox African writers quoted the verse when defending
the
doctrine of the Trinity against the gainsaying of the Vandals. These writers
are:
A) Vigilius Tapensis in "Three Witnesses in
Heaven"
B) Victor Vitensis in his Historia persecutionis [Corpus
Scriptorum
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. vii, p.
60.]
C) Fulgentius in "The Three Heavenly Witnesses"
[Patrilogiae Cursus
Completus, Series Latina by Migne, vol. 65, col. 500.]
157-1400 AD. Waldensian (that is, Vaudois) Bibles have the verse.
Now the "Waldensian," or "Vaudois" Bibles stretch from
about 157 to the 1400s
A.D. The fact is, according to John Calvin's successor Theodore Beza, that the
Vaudois received the Scriptures from missionaries of Antioch of Syria in the
120s A.D. and finished translating it into their Latin language by 157 AD. This
Bible was passed down from generation, until the Reformation of the 1500s, when
the Protestants translated the Vaudois Bible into French, Italian, etc. This
Bible carries heavy weight when finding out what God really said. Theodore
Beza, John Wesley and Johnathan Edwards believed, as most of the Reformers,
that the Vaudois were the descendants of the true Christians, and that they
preserved the Christian faith for the Bible-believing Christians today.
157-1400 AD. Waldensian (that is, Vaudois) Bibles have the verse.
Now the "Waldensian," or "Vaudois" Bibles stretch from
about 157 to the 1400s
A.D. The fact is, according to John Calvin's successor Theodore Beza, that the
Vaudois received the Scriptures from missionaries of Antioch of Syria in the
120s A.D. and finished translating it into their Latin language by 157 AD. This
Bible was passed down from generation, until the Reformation of the 1500s, when
the Protestants translated the Vaudois Bible into French, Italian, etc. This
Bible carries heavy weight when finding out what God really said. Theodore
Beza, John Wesley and Johnathan Edwards believed, as most of the Reformers,
that the Vaudois were the descendants of the true Christians, and that they
preserved the Christian faith for the Bible-believing Christians today.
Many critics of this passage like to say that 1 John 5:7 occurs in no ancient
language version except the Latin. Well, not only is the passage found in the
Latin Vulgate, but it is also in some Old Latin manuscripts, and the Old Latin
dates from around 200 A.D. This is 150 years before anything we have in Greek
copies. In addition to this, the newest UBS critical text has now admitted that
it is found in some Armenian manuscripts.
The first printed edition of the Armenian Bible was published in 1666 by Bishop
Uscan. It contains 1 John 5:7. Also Giles Guthier, using two Syriac manuscripts
published an edition at Hamburg in 1664. This edition places the passage in the
text. And the first printed Georgian Bible, published at Moscow in 1743
contains 1 John 5:7.
Dr. Schrivener mentions a "few recent" Slavonic manuscripts as having
the
passage.(Jack Moorman, "When the KJV departs from the majority text"
2nd.
edition.) " - http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/1John5-7.html
(I could add more evidence of continuity, but I think that will suffice for
now.)
…
>
> The early Latin Bibles omit it. It does not
appear in what is called
> the "Old Latin" Bibles until after
600 and it doesn't appear in the
> Vulgate until 750 and it is geographically
limited. Up until the end
> of the first millenium it only appears in
Latin MSS of Spanish origin
> or influence.
>
Dr. Floyd Nolen Jones, in his book Which Version is the Bible?, tells us:
"It
was part of the text of a 2nd century Old Latin Bible. It is found in
"r", a
5th century Old Latin manuscript, and in a confession of faith drawn up by
Eusebius, Bishop of Carthage, in 484."
- Parnell McCarter
Here are some websites with
additional useful information on the topic:
http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/1John5-7.html
http://www.godglorified.com/edward_hill.htm :
http://www.chick.com/ask/articles/1john57.asp?FROM=biblecenter
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/vindicationof.htm
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/authenticityof.htm
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/1john57.htm
http://www.purewords.org/kjb1611/html/m1joh5_7.htm
In light of the evidence, especially
the internal evidence of scripture, we agree with the Protestant Reformers in
accepting the Textus Receptus.
Consequently, we are justified in our concerns relating to the New King
James Version.