Darron Steele said:
Actually, there is good reason.
The majority of manuscripts are from 1000 years or more after the New Testament era. The ancient manuscripts are much closer. When the ancient and later majority differ, there is very good reason to doubt the majority.
Not all the ancient manuscripts came from Egypt.
That is something that the people who feed you the `funny Kool Aid' do not tell you. The ancient manuscripts were found in Egypt -- and in Europe and in Asia. Attempts to link all ancient manuscripts to Egypt are speculative at best.
Well, that is interesting, because no one knows who made these ancient manuscripts. Gnostics created their own set of `scriptures.' Conspiracy speculations about Gnostic tampering with the Christian Scriptures are contrary to evidence, as the ancient manuscripts contain readings which Gnostics would not have liked.
Also, your fourth century alteration dates do not affect ancient manuscripts of the second or third centuries.
The Old Latin is of the Western text.
It is not Byzantine.
The Western text contains a lot of wild readings contrary to both the ancient manuscripts and the KJV.Blah blah blah.
Did you know that Dr. D. A. Waite's doctoral education was not in any area of Biblical Studies? That is not something he says a lot about. His doctorate is not in the stuff he writes books and web articles about, and his personal studies show that he has failed to make an expert of himself.
No one is denying preservation of the Scriptures. The problem is your attempt to dictate the ways God `should' have preserved the text. You and D. A. Waite want it to be in a single volume in English and primarily in that manner. Well, God did not choose that mode of preservation.
Note: The original autographs of every book, epistle etc. are only a single volume.
If they are really preserved, it must be an accurate copy of each single volume.
The idea that every text, version, [when they obviously differ so much] contains the real Word of God is absurd. It contradicts the nature of truth.
Like the man said, "God only wrote one bible".
If it is preserved which one is it.
It seems to me that you and me are talking about two different things when we say majority text.
The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. From antioch accurate copies of the original autograph, in greek, were carried to different regions by missionaries. The made their way to Ireland, all over asia minor, Europe. The majority text is the unaltered greek manuscripts, some translated into other languages, that all agree with each other, and come from different lands. They are for all practical purposes accurate copies of the original words of the apostles.
The accurate copies were carried to Alexandria also. In Alexandria Oregen, valentinus (or whoever) had their Egyptian philosophic gnostic schools. The changed the scriptures producing the corrrupted Alexandrian text. They deleted many scriptures and made changes to others.
The real majority text has the scriptures that they deleted, including 1Jn. 5:7.
Accurate renderings of the real majority text were made by several men including Erasmus; this came to be known as the textus receptus or received text.
The new testament of the King James bible is accurately translated from this textus receptus.
I have the whole Robert Stewart article refuting James White's claims. Here is part of it.
According to the church historian Eusebius, the apostle John was an
elder in the church at Ephesus, Asia Minor, and John was personally
involved in collecting and forming the writings of the New Testament.
It can be safely said that the original hand written autographs of
John, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, 1 & 2
Peter, 1 & 2 & 3 John, and the Revelation were held in Asia Minor and
Greece.
The Christians who fled Jerusalem before its desolation took their
precious manuscripts with them. Scholars estimate that at least
twenty, and possibly as many as twenty-four, of the original
autographs of the twenty-seven New Testament books were held in the
region of Asia Minor and Greece.
That the church jealously guarded over these writings is easily
confirmed. For example Irenaeus (AD 140 - 202, who had moved out from
Asia Minor to Lyons, France, by AD 177) records that a disputed
reading of Revelation 13:18 had been settled by examining "all the
most approved and ancient copies" and by consulting men who had
personally spoken about the disputed reading with the apostle John in
Ephesus. Likewise Tertullian (about AD 208) is on record challenging
heretics to examine the original writings of the apostles and
specifically states that they were still available for examination in
such places as Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ephesus, etc.
With the need for accurate copies of the New Testament to be made, and
with the advent of the Christian "school of Antioch" (and affiliated
scriptoria), the early Greek speaking church went to great lengths to
ensure that reliable copies of the original autographs were made. The
New Testament of the Greek speaking churches, in the eastern portion
of the Roman Empire, was known as the Greek Vulgate.
The eastern Greek speaking portion of the Roman Empire later became
known as the Byzantine Empire (AD 330 - 1453).
In the east, the Greek churches preserved the
Byzantine text, the traditional text of the Greek speaking churches.
In the west, the Roman Catholic Latin speaking churches had the Latin
Vulgate compiled by Jerome (AD 345 - 419).
The early church had to face several perversions of the Christian
Gospel, but one of the most dangerous of those perversions was (and
is) Gnosticism. An early promoter of Gnosticism was Basilides who
taught in Alexandria about AD 125 - 150. He fabricated his own
corrupt version of the Gospel (and composed apocryphal psalms), and
founded his own School of Gnosticism in Alexandria.
Many consider the founder of the pseudo-Christian cult of Gnosticism
to be Valentinus, who was born in Egypt and educated in Alexandria.
Valentinus then went to Rome about AD 136, professing Christianity but
cultivating his own Gnostic followers, until he left in AD 165,
returning to Alexandria via Cyprus. He founded two Schools of
Gnosticism, one in Rome and the other in Alexandria. He also
fabricated his own corrupt version of the Gospel, known as the Gospel
of Truth.
Marcion and Tatian. The
Gnostic Marcion was expelled from the church in Rome in AD 144. One
of the Christian "Church Fathers", Irenaeus, wrote: "Marcion and his
followers have betaken themselves to mutilating the Scriptures, not
acknowledging some books at all, and curtailing the gospel according
to Luke and the Epistles of Paul, they assert that these alone are
authentic which they themselves have shortened." (Ante-Nicene Fathers;
Vol. I; pp 434-435)
Tatian is notorious for fabricating his Diatessaron in which he
introduced corrupt readings to a harmonisation of the four Gospels in
support of Gnosticism. Bruce M Metzger writes: "Tatian's Harmony of
the Gospels contained several textual alterations which lent support
to ascetic or encratite views." (The Text of the New Testament; Bruce
M Metzger; Oxford University Press; 1964; p 201)
Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215) attempted to fuse Gnosticism with
Christianity in a more skilful way than Basilides and Valentinus.
Clement was a follower of Tatian and succeeded Pantaenus as Principal
at the theological School of Alexandria in AD 190.
There is abundant historical evidence that Gnostics produced corrupt
manuscripts in Alexandria. In 1945/46 no less than thirteen Gnostic
bound volumes were discovered at Nag Hammadi, near Chenoboskion, in
Egypt, which contained more than fifty Gnostic sacred writings and
scriptures including, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas, the
Gospel of Philip, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel
according to the Egyptians, the Apocalypse of Peter, etc. Both
Clement and Origen refer to, and quote from, these apocryphal and
corrupt Gnostic scriptures in their own writings.
To quote but one example, the book "The Beginnings of Christianity"
(Floris Books, 1991, ISBN 0-86315-209-0), by Andrew Welburn,
highlights a letter written by Clement of Alexandria which refers to
the secret Gnostic Gospel of Mark which, it is claimed, was the
original Gnostic edition of the Gospel written by Mark in Alexandria
(they claimed Mark was a Gnostic). To quote from the letter: "Mark
came over to Alexandria ... he composed a more spiritual Gospel for
the use of those who were being initiated ... when he died, he left
his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it is even yet most
carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated
into the great Mysteries." (p 98)
I am left scratching my head as to why James R White should have made
such an erroneous and misleading statement in saying that there is "no
evidence that 'Gnostics' had anything to do with the production of
manuscripts associated with Alexandria. This is a mere assertion
without historical facts to back it up."
--by Robert Stewart
