Featured When translations are older...

GenevanBaptist has noticed that older English translations mention consulting other languages.

Don't recent ones do as well? In a brief search of such translations' websites, I see things like:

 

Guess to some, that would explain how the Alexandrian sources had any better renderings in them! The "corrupt monks" stumbled across a good text from outof their "trash bins"

 

The actual Greek manuscripts used by Erasmus may not have been as accurate as you seem to think.

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).

 

So he really did not have a single received as the only and accurate Greek NT being used? How can KJVO look to him as having that perfect text source to have used?

 

The modern versions had many more of them to access, and what main source did Geneva use that KJV did not?

 

You do not demonstrate that faithful men were perfect, infallible translators who would only have used the most accurate sources and who could not make any mistakes in translating their underlying sources. The Geneva Bible translators made use of the English text of the Great Bible, which was not the most accurate in all its readings and in all its renderings. Great Bible editions had some added readings from the Latin Vulgate that were not always kept in the Geneva Bible.

The doctrine taught in the English translated text does not actually prove whether the underlying sources were accurate since the translators could sometimes translate according to their own doctrinal bias or could sometimes translate inaccurately or imperfectly.

 

If translators could possibly introduce their own doctrinal views through their own bias towards them, it would not prove that it was the fault of their underlying source texts.

Some imperfect sources, such as the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate of Jerome, the Syriac Pes hitta, and others, had an influence on all the pre-1611 English Bibles including the Geneva Bible.