Featured Is using newer versions the same as accepting alien baptism?

Don't leave so fast brother, you have made some good posts!

 

Hi again brother TCassidy,

No it is not false and I will put it in my own words for you since that is what you prefer. Paul did not say to Timothy "they were able" make you wise unto salvation, but "which are able" to make you wise unto salvation. Now was Timothy at the time Paul wrote 2 Timothy 3:15 to him already saved? Of course he was because Paul had previously said to him in prior chapters "When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also" (2 Timothy 1:5) and 2 Timothy 1:9 says, "9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began". Now that it is obvious Timothy was already legally saved, in what since did Paul mean the scriptures are "able to make him wise unto salvation"? The scriptures would more fully help Timothy comprehend the glorious plan of grace and salvation in which he already had come to believe, and thereby deliver him "from being like children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine". This salvation that the scriptures would be able to provide to Timothy is seen in the next verse: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Or as Beebe (who you didn't want to hear from rightly put it), "They (the scriptures) are not designed that the man of the world may be perfect, but the profit is unto the man of God, in furnishing him to all good works"

 

Now that I have answered your question brother in my reply to you in post 23, can you please answer the questions I posed to you previously in post # 19? Also, if you could please specifically reply to my comments on 2: Timothy 1:10 and show me where you think I am in error if you are in disagreement. I never received a response to you from that post. Here again is what I said in that post,

" I didn't know you believe in gospel regeneration brother, do you? I thought you believed regeneration must precede faith, am I wrong? As concerning if the gospel itself brings immortality, scripture already answered that, " who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:" (2 Timothy 1:10), Notice brother it says the gospel brings "immortality to light" it does not say that the gospel "brings immortality". What is the difference? If I turn a light on in a room it only illuminates and makes visible to a person that which was already in the room, in the same way this is what the gospel does to those who believe it. Also, what about Cornelius brother, was he born again before or after the gospel preacher Peter arrived?"

Gob bless,

Brother Joe

 

Brother I didn't think from your previous posting history you adhered to "gospel regeneration", but in your post # 12 on this thread you rebutted my quote where I had said, ".. I don't believe in gospel regeneration, thus I don't believe any translation can make one "born again", but only a sovereign quickening independent of means including the preached word.", you then countered that in the post by responding to me, "So are you saying you believe the bible is wrong when it says the "holy scriptures" are "able to make thee wise unto salvation?"", such a reply clearly implies you disagree with what I said in opposing gospel regeneration through the preached word.

 

Brother, I offered my reply on how the scriptures are able to make Timothy "wise unto salvation" in my post 23. In it I did not say I didn't believe that verse, therefore that doesn't make me "wrong" as you label me. That scripture is able to make Timothy "wise unto" clearly cannot be talking of making Timothy become "born again" as Paul had previously said to Timothy he was persuaded "faith" was "in thee also" (2 Timothy 1:5). Doesn't this verse mean we was already born again when Paul wrote to him, otherwise how could he have had faith in him? Rather, the aspect of "salvation" the scriptures are able to make Timothy "wise unto" is seen in the next few verses in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 in that the scriptures are "unto a man of God" (not "to become" a man of God) to make the man of God "thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (this latter part of the verse is the salvation scriptures are able to make Timothy wise unto).

Brother, in that you and I appear to #1 both believe regeneration precedes faith # 2 agree gospel regeneration is not the truth and #3 agree that the King James version is an accurate translation of the Word of God (you I believe said you use several translations including the New King James, but preach from the KJV which is enough to make my point), these three areas of agreement makes us more in agreement than in disagreement in my opinion whether you want to admit I or not.

 

Your source is incorrect. The Textus Receptus refers to printed, edited Greek NT editions, not manuscripts. All the readings in the twenty to thirty textually-varying TR editions are not found in the majority of existing Greek NT manuscripts, especially not in 95% of those manuscripts.

The TR editions have a number of readings that are found in less than 50% of Greek NT manuscripts and even readings found in no known Greek NT manuscripts. Erasmus introduced some readings into the Greek text from the Latin Vulgate. Erasmus, Stephanus, or Beza introduced some conjectures in their compiled, edited Greek text editions.

 

John William Burgon as edited by Edward Miller wrote: “Erasmus in 1516 edited the New Testament from a very small number of manuscripts, probably only five” (Traditional Text, p. 3). Bruce Metzger claimed that “the text of Erasmus’ Greek New Testament rests upon a half-dozen minuscule manuscripts” (Text of the NT, p. 102). Metzger asserted that “for most of the text” Erasmus relied on two manuscripts, “one of the Gospels and one of the Acts and Epistles” (p. 99). KJV-only author Robert Sargent maintained that Erasmus “used only two manuscripts for the bulk of his work, with another two for comparison, and a fifth for the book of the Revelation” (English Bible, p. 155). William Combs asserted: “Seven manuscripts were used by Erasmus in Basel to compile the Greek text which was printed alongside his Latin translation” (Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, Spring, 1996, p. 45). Combs claimed that “Erasmus had 3 manuscripts of the Gospels and Acts; 4 manuscripts of the Pauline Epistles, and only 1 manuscript of Revelation” (Ibid.). Jan Krans noted that “in John he [Erasmus] used min. 2 and in Acts min. 2815, which were corrected and marked-up as printer’s copy. Both manuscripts contain many errors, which affect not only spelling (itacisms etc.) but also missing words and phrases through homoeoteleuton etc.“ (Beyond What is Written, p. 62). J. K. Elliott maintained that “Acts 8:37 is not found in the Greek manuscript (now numbered 2816) used principally by Erasmus for Acts, but was nonetheless translated by him from Latin into Greek” (NT Textual Criticism, p. 291).

Concerning manuscript 1’ [min. 2814], Robert Waltz wrote: “Noteworthy primarily as the single Greek manuscript used by Erasmus to prepare the Apocalypse of his 1516 New Testament” (Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism, p. 1037). Isbon Beckwith wrote: “Cursive no. 1, of the 12th or 13th century containing the Apocalypse, with the commentary of Andreas, is of particular interest, since it was the only Greek Ms. which Erasmus had for the Apocalypse in his first edition of the Greek Testament (1516)“ (Apocalypse of John, p. 412). John David Michaelis as translated by Herbert Marsh noted: “Erasmus relates in his defence adversus Stunicam, that he used only one single manuscript of the Revelation for his edition of the New Testament” (Introduction to the NT, Vol. II, p. 312). Thomas Holland wrote: “The manuscript Codex 1r used by Desiderius Erasmus in the production of his Greek New Testament is missing the last six verses of Revelation chapter twenty-two” (Crowned With Glory, p. 168). This manuscript is one of two to four dozen of the book of Revelation that include the commentary of Andreas of Caesarea in Cappadocia.

The Greek text of this manuscript is sometimes described as the “Andreas text” because the manuscripts with Andreas’s commentary have some readings said to characterize or distinguish them from purely Byzantine Greek manuscripts. In a new translation and his commentary on the book of Revelation, Craig Koester distinguished between the text used in the commentary by Andreas and the Byzantine text (p. 149). Josef Schmid classified the Andreas text as one of the four main text types or families of text for the Apocalypse. Edward Hutton identified “the Andreas text with the great Western family” (Atlas of Textual Criticism, p. 47).

At times in this worn manuscript of the book of Revelation used by Erasmus and his copyist, it has been said that it was difficult to distinguish the commentary from the text. Henry Alford observed: “The text in the MS. is mixed up with the commentary of Andreas” (Greek Testament, Vol. 4, p. 263, footnote 8). In this manuscript, Thomas J. Conant noted: “The text and commentary alternate, without any break in the line” (Baptist Quarterly, April, 1870, p. 135). James R. White suggested that Erasmus “had an unknown copyist make a fresh copy and returned the original to Reuchlin” (King James Only, second edition, p. 91). Although some errors made by that copyist in his copying may have been corrected in later printed editions, W. Edward Glenny maintained that “the copyist made several errors that are still found in the TR text published today” (Beacham, One Bible Only, p. 82). In an edition of the KJV with commentary as edited by F. C. Cook and printed in 1881, William Lee in his introduction to the book of Revelation asserted “the sacred text is here mixed up with the commentary of Andreas,” and he noted: “Owing to this cause, Erasmus omitted, from his first three editions, chapter 21:26” (Vol. IV, p. 462). At Revelation 21:24, William Lee claimed that “the copyist has imported into the text the words of the commentary, viz. ’of them which are saved’” (Ibid.). Thomas J. Conant maintained that the words “of them which are saved” (Rev. 21:24) “rests solely on a mistake by the transcriber, who confounded the commentary of Andreas with the words of the sacred writer” (Baptist Quarterly, Vol. IV, April, 1870, p. 136). Conant suggested that “the transcriber accidentally misplaced the signs for the commencement of the text and of the commentary (as other copies of the commentary show), and thus included in the text the words, ‘of them that are saved,‘ which belong to the commentary on the preceding verse” (pp. 135-136). In the book of Revelation, Robert Waltz asserted that the Textus Receptus has “a handful” of readings “derived from the [Andreas] commentary itself” (Encyclopedia, p. 438). John Nordstrom maintained that Erasmus acknowledged in his annotations that he had translated the last six verses of Revelation 22 from the Latin Vulgate, but that the printer did not choose to print that note in the printed edition. Nordstrom asserted: “This omission can be verified by placing side-by-side Erasmus’ hand-copied notes with the actual printed copy” (Strained by Blood, p. 74). Jan Krans claimed that Erasmus wrote in his annotation on Revelation 22:20 the following as translated into English: “However, at the end of this book, I found some words in our versions which were lacking in the Greek copies, but we added them from the Latin” (Beyond What is Written, p. 55-56, footnote 11). Krans noted that Erasmus later “ordered the proofreaders of his second edition to supply the final words of Revelation from the Aldine edition of the Greek Bible” (p. 57). Krans suggested that “it seems Erasmus never realized that the text of the New Testament in the Aldine edition is derived from his own first edition” (p. 57, footnote 16).

M. A, Screech wrote: “Historically speaking Erasmus’ work as a textual critic is fascinating; our own textual and linguistic approaches today descend from the example and writings of Erasmus” (Erasmus’ Annotations, p. xiii). Jan Krans maintained that Erasmus “became a pioneer in New Testament textual criticism” (Beyond What is Written, p. 28). Halkin claimed that Erasmus “made himself the champion of textual criticism” (Erasmus, p. 276). Krans wrote: “In the preface of the Annotations, Erasmus describes the basic text-critical task as follows: ‘if I found something damaged by carelessness or ignorance of scribes or by the injuries of time, I restored the true reading, not haphazardly but after pursuing every available scent’” (Beyond What is Written, p. 31). Erasmus is translated as writing: "Here is another labor, to examine and correct the different MSS. . . and a great many of them, so as to detect which one has a better reading, or by collating a number of them to make a guess at the true and authentic version" (Rabil, Erasmus and the N. T., p. 69). Arthur Pennington cited Erasmus as writing the following in a letter: “By a collation of Greek and ancient manuscripts, I have corrected the text of the whole of the New Testament” (Desiderius Erasmus, p. 144). Jan Krans wrote: “Since Erasmus did not provide a formal list of text-critical rules, such a list has to be derived from his annotations, in which several descriptions of text-critical phenomena in general terms can be found” (Beyond What Is Written, p. 30). Jan Krans observed: “It has to be stressed that Erasmus did not apply his own ’rules’ in a consistent, methodical way. This cannot be expected, for he did not have a fixed canon of rules that could be used as a check-list to inspire and to guide text-critical reflections and decisions” (p. 51). Jason Harris maintained: “The readings in the TR were not based on consistent criteria” (Doctrine of Scripture, p. 113).

 

When compared to the KJV, which as a translation is not the proper standard for evaluating original language texts, there are at least four whole verses not found in the first two TR editions edited by Erasmus: Mark 11:27, Luke 17:36, 1 John 5:7, and Revelation 21:26.

At least three of those verses were not found in Erasmus's Greek text because they were not in the Greek NT manuscripts that he used in compiling and editing his text. In addition, Acts 8:37 was not in the Greek manuscript that Erasmus used for the book of Acts, but Erasmus added it from the Latin.

There are still three whole verses not found in the third TR edition by Erasmus: Mark 11:27, Luke 17:36, and Revelation 21:26.