Moorman of the DBS and Peter Ruckman

[Logos1560]

It was not until 1937 that the Hebrew text of Ben Asher supplanted the Ben Chayyim text.

How could a Ben Asher Hebrew text supplant a Hebrew text that is said to have mainly followed the Ben Asher text?

Concerning this second edition, Gergely Juhasz wrote: “For his edition, Bomberg relied on fourteenth and fifteenth-century manuscripts that mainly followed the Ben Asher text but also showed certain influences of the Ben Naphtali text” (Arblaster, Tyndale’s, p. 94).

In an introductory article to a facsimile edition of The Leningrad Codex, Victor Lebedev wrote: “It is well known that the first editions of the Hebrew Bible were based on fourteenth- to fifteenth-century manuscripts reflecting a mixture of the Ben Asher and the Ben Naphtali traditions” (Freedman, p. xxv).

Page Kelley maintained that “these manuscripts [used by ben Chayyim] represented a mixture of traditions, which were further mixed in ben Chayyim’s text (and Masorah)“ and that “the Second Rabbinic Bible is not viewed as a pure ben Asher text” (The Masorah, p. 25).

Emanuel Tov asserted that “it has been demonstrated” that the second Rabbinic Bible “does not reflect any specific manuscript” (Textual Criticism, p. 46). Tov wrote: “No single source has been found from which the editors of the first two Rabbinic Bibles could have derived their biblical text” (p. 78).

Bleddyn Roberts wrote: “The ben Chayim text does not follow any manuscript or authority in detail, and therefore shows an eclectic text. It has been shown that though a Spanish manuscript was the basis, the text frequently deviates from it, and the divergent readings reveal traces of ben Naphtali and both Ma’arbae (Western) and Madinhae (Eastern) readings” (Old Testament Text, p. 88). Roberts added: “The text of ben Chayim was substantially that of the ben Asher recension, but, based on young and sometimes corrupt manuscripts, it included occasional foreign matter that showed adherence to the ben Naphtali and other recensions” (pp. 90-91). In his foreword, Aron Dotan claimed: “Their desire to rely on Ben Asher’s text was never more than a pious wish, for the text was only known by hearsay. All the evidence about Ben Asher’s readings was second- or third-hand. It derived from masoretic remarks in biblical manuscripts, from the writings of the grammarians and Masoretes, and the lists of differences between Ben Asher and his opponent Moses ben David ben Naphtali” (Biblia, pp. viii-ix). Norman Gottwald maintained that “Ben Chayyim used Tiberian manuscripts but he worked eclectically, drawing now from one and now from another manuscript” (Hebrew Bible, p. 121).

 

[Jkdbuck76]

JoJ, this is the word study forum!! What are you doing starting a thread that is NOT a word study? (sarcasm.....glad to see you back, brother)

 

[Rippon]

JoJ, this is the word study forum!! What are you doing starting a thread that is NOT a word study?

Yeah, what's the idea?

 

[John of Japan]

John, why is it like pulling teeth to revise a book? When I found some additional data that contradicted some point Rick Norris was trying to suggest in one of his booklets, he seemed quite unwilling to even insert an errata notice. It it really so difficult, especially when one is just using a vanity press?

Are there more logistical/contractual issues when a real publisher is involved? Maybe you know from working at Sword? Would a preacher have to wait until his book got reprinted? What if it never sells enough to get to that stage?

I can't answer for Rick, but it may be a problem of logistics. That would depend on the publisher. Even vanity publishers often have deals where if you pay more they will do the distribution for you. If that is the case, they are probably storing the books. If that is the case, the books may be physically unreachable for the author, and the publisher may have no method of inserting errata sheets.

Having said that, I have seen errata sheets in self-published books, so it ought to be possible in most cases.

Concerning getting a book reprinted, if it is done with a vanity publisher that is often a good chunk of money, and if the book is not selling or being distributed well, then the pastor/author may not feel it is worth the money.

 

[John of Japan]

JoJ, this is the word study forum!! What are you doing starting a thread that is NOT a word study? (sarcasm.....glad to see you back, brother)

What was I thinking??!! (Har, har :laugh

 

[John of Japan]

Yeah, what's the idea?

I'm so ashamed. :tear:

 

[John of Japan]

Concerning the position of Kahle (copied ignorantly by Ruckman, who was copied ignorantly by Moorman) that there was no LXX, a Greek/textual criticism scholar friend wrote me:

"The Kahle issue relative to the LXX is covered in detail (with comments refuting Kahle's claims) in Wuerthwein's Text of the OT (1979), pp. 60-63."

Also, in post #5 I quoted: "Professor Paul Kahle, in studying the Isaiah scrolls from Cave 1, Qumran, argued on the basis of differences from the Masoretic text, that the scrolls were hidden in the cave because their text was proscribed, hence not allowed to remain in circulation. The subsequent Qumran finds, representing differing textual traditions, and the archaeological evidence argue against this viewpoint" (The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible, by, p. 104).

 

[Logos1560]

influence of 1582 Rheims on the KJV

John, why is it like pulling teeth to revise a book? When I found some additional data that contradicted some point Rick Norris was trying to suggest in one of his booklets, he seemed quite unwilling to even insert an errata notice.

Perhaps I think that you failed to prove your claims or accusations that may misrepresent my booklet that listed some renderings which the makers of the KJV may have borrowed from the 1582 Rheims.

You did not actually prove that the KJV translators actually used the possible other source that you found for some renderings. Since you did not find another source in all the cases or examples listed, you did not actually refute or contradict my point.

Evidently, you did not read carefully my booklet entitled Could the 1611 KJV Have Been Better?

I wrote: "One obvious reason for these examples is to indicate the likely source of the renderings" (p. 29).

In that same paragraph, I also wrote: "It may be possible that there was another source for some of them, but it is know that some KJV translators had Fulke's book that included the text of the 1582 Rheims" (p. 29).

If you are attempted to claim that the makers of the KJV did not borrow any renderings from the 1582 Roman Catholic Rheims New Testament, perhaps you are the one advocating an error and evidently you did not actually show my actual point to be in error.

Did you actually refute my point that the known evidence shows that the makers of the KJV borrowed some renderings from the 1582 Rheims or did you actually show my point to be a supposed error as you seem to suggest in your post?

Ward Allen maintained that "the Rheims New Testament furnished to the Synoptic Gospels and Epistles in the A. V. as many revised readings as any other version" (Translating the N. T. Epistles, p. xxv). Allen and Jacobs claimed that the KJV translators "in revising the text of the synoptic Gospels in the Bishops' Bible, owe about one-fourth of their revisions, each, to the Genevan and Rheims New Testaments" (Coming of the King James Gospels, p. 29). About 1 Peter 1:20, Allen noted: “The A. V. shows most markedly here the influence of the Rheims Bible, from which it adopts the verb in composition, the reference of the adverbial modifier to the predicate, the verb manifest, and the prepositional phrase for you” (Translating for King James, p. 18). Concerning 1 Peter 4:9, Allen suggested that “this translation in the A. V. joins the first part of the sentence from the Rheims Bible to the final phrase of the Protestant translations” (p. 30). Allen also observed: "At Col. 2:18, he [KJV translator John Bois] explains that the [KJV] translators were relying upon the example of the Rheims Bible" (pp. 10, 62-63). Thus, the first-hand testimony of a KJV translator acknowledged or confirmed that the KJV was influenced by the Rheims.

 

[John of Japan]

To continue, on 113 Moorman uses that strange phrase again, "(Based on Ruckman.)" I assume this means the paragraph is based on one of Ruckman's books (which one?), but it could also mean something taken from a lecture or sermon. It's all quite vague, and what it adds up to is that there is no way to fact check Moorman's work. In fact, it would be quite difficult to fact check anything in the whole book, because he sources absolutely nothing other than with someone's name!

Moorman must know better, because he is a grad of Tennessee Temple from the 1970's as I am. I still have at least one of my papers from those days, and I was required to source all quotes and references, as well as give a bibliography. I guarantee that the DBS editor, Dr. Waite, knows better, since he has two genuine doctorates. (Not all doctorates claimed by DBS men are genuine IMO, since some of them only require a sloppy and short "dissertation" for a doctorate.) Apparently though the DBS is just fine with such an unscholarly document.

To continue, the Ruckman view that Moorman refers to is that Sinaiticus "As with other corrupted MSS, it still shows its Received Text base and in a number of cases, agrees with the TR."

I hardly know where to start. How can Sinaiticus show a Received Text base? It omits many words from the Byzantine, and adds a few. Again, far from "agreeing with the TR in a number of cases," it agrees with the TR for what we might say is almost all of it! Pick up whichever Greek text you want, it will agree a huge per cent of the time with other Greek texts. (I can say this with confidence, having in my library the TR, various UBS and Nestle's texts, Westcott/Hort, Hodges/Farstad, Robinson/Pierpont, and various older Greek texts.)

 

[Jordan Kurecki]

Great news, John! Please add me to the list of readers when it gets to that stage.

add me to this list as well.

 

[John of Japan]

add me to this list as well.

It would be nice if I can add you also. We'll see. :thumbsup: (What Jon means here, I believe, is pre-publication readers who will check for accuracy.)

 

[John of Japan]

On p. 115 Moorman refers to the Vaticanus mss and says, "However, modern scholars have abandoned the theory that Vaticanus was written there (Italy--JoJ), as they also have that it was written by or copied from Eusebius in Caesarea (Ruckman)."

This reference to Ruckman seems needless to me. Moorman could have easily done his own research in this matter. Also, the opinion of Ruckman is messed up. (Big surprise there! :tongue3 Bruce Metzger writes, ""Some scholars believe that these two manuscripts (this one and Sinaiticus--JoJ) were originally among the 50 copies of the Scriptures that the Emperor Constantine commmisioned Eusebius to have written" (The Text of the New Testament, 2nd ed., p. 68).

 

[John of Japan]

On p. 135, commenting on Tertullian's alleged assertion (I can't track this quote down, and Moorman doesn't source it as usual; I doubt that Tertullian said this per se) that there was a Latin Bible in 190, Moorman writes, "Ruckman speaks of it being the 'spontaneous effort of African Christians.'" There is no reference telling us which book of Ruckman this is from, but it actually is a quote from ISBE's article on the Old Latin versions (I have the old ISBE in e-sword), and get this, this word-for-word statement was originally made by Westcott in his book, Canon of the NT! (The ISBE article sources it.)

So, on this page we have Moorman quoting Ruckman, who is quoting ISBE, which is actually quoting Westcott--who according to Ruckman, Moorman and others was a wicked liberal. Yet apparently his scholarship (often mocked by Ruckman and his ilk) is good enough for Moorman through Ruckman. What huge irony! :laugh:

 

[John of Japan]

On p. 136, Moorman refers to Ruckman: "Ruckman says that the Old Latin bears witness to the Syrian Text type where it has not been tampered with." It would be interesting to know in what way the Old Latin Bible was tampered with, but neither Ruckman nor Moorman say exactly. It would also be interesting to know if Moorman understands that the Syrian text type was the Westcott/Hort name for the Byz./Maj.

Maybe he'll chime in on this thread. I would be delighted if he would--but Williams, erstwhile of the DBS whose diatribe against me is still on the DBS website, would tell him not to, since Internet boards like this are the den of inferior Christians. :saint: (Williams also tells people not to read or use my Japanese translation, tainted as it is by the fact that, well, I criticized his book on translation. I'm really broken up by this, of course--or not, since mine is the only TR translation in modern Japanese. :saint: )

According to Bruce Metzger, little research has been done on the subject. (See The Early Versions of the New Testament, p. 63.) So one wonders--did Ruckman do original research? Naw. He'd have to read Latin and ancient Syriac to do that.

 

[John of Japan]

On p. 137, Moorman quotes Ruckman supposedly quoting ISBE: "The Albigenses continued to use the Old Latin long after Jerome's Vulgate came out and their preservation of this text is attributed (according to Burkitt) to the fact that they were 'heretics.'"

The facts of the Ruckman quote given by Moorman are essentially correct. The problem is that this is not what it says in the ISBE article on "Latin Version, The Old." Apparently, Ruckman is giving his view of what the ISBE article says. A hint here is that the term "heretics" is given in quotes by Ruckman/Moorman, but it is not in the ISBE article where the term does appear.

It seems obvious from the quote marks that Ruckman and Moorman consider the Albigenses to be some kind of ancient Baptists, or at least evangelical. Nothing could be further from the truth. They were terrible heretics. As it happens, I am teaching "Survey of Church History" this semester, and this is from one of my handouts:

Albigenses—They were ascetics and dualists and denominationalists. “Like the ancient Manichaes, the Cathari were dualists. The Bogomiles and many of the Cathari of Italy held that the good God had two sons, Satanel and Christ—of whom the elder rebelled and became the leader of evil. The Cathari of France general asserted two eternal powers, the one good, the other malign” (A History of the Christian Church, 3rd ed., by Williston Walker, p. 228). They had two levels of membership and three kinds of clergy (A History of Heresy, David Christie-Murray, p. 106).

 

[John of Japan]

Finally got back to this. I'm almost done.

On p. 153 Moorman writes: "The Syrian church had direct contact with the Apostles and writers of the Scriptures. Therefore the Syrian version may have been written with direct access to the original autographs themselves (based on Ruckman)."

So once again Moorman quotes idle speculation by Peter Ruckman, not true historical data, not sourced quotes, not real scholarship--nothing more than Ruckman's fevered imagination. Not only that, but the first line could have been written about many other churches in the first century. The Apostle John didn't die until 96 AD! So the whole quote of Ruckman by Moorman is not only a non sequiter, Moorman himself could probably have speculated better!

 

[John of Japan]

We've been extremely busy here, so I haven't been able to post here, but hopefully this week I can finish up this thread. Almost done!

On p. 161, we have Moorman responding to Kenyon (no citation given as usual) concerning the Peshitta, ostensibly completely Byzantine in the DBS viewpoint. I don't have time here to write in detail on the Peshitta, but here is what Moorman writes: "In response to this and the above revisions, it can be said (based on Ruckman), (oddly, a new paragraph in Moorman--JJ) Corruptions did not enter the Peshitta until the middle of the 3rd century, when Origen moved from Alexandria to Caesarea, bringing his publishing company with him."

Once again, Moorman depends completely on Ruckman for his information, but once again doesn't even cite where Ruckman says this. And Ruckman, for his part, is once again inventing textual history out of whole cloth. There are no mss of the Peshitta that early to the best of my knowledge, and if there were, how in the world would Ruckman know their transmission history? We are apparently simply supposed to take as fact Ruckman's uneducated speculation as given through Moorman with no citation of sources.

 

[robycop3]

Moorman relies on Ruckman for a lot, and maybe even his belief in the KJVO myth itself.

Seems like it's part of a chain...Wilkinson put together a book fulla pro-KJVO claims, Ray plagiarized Wilkinson, Fuller copied from both W and Ray, Ruckman copied off Ray(erroneously calling Ray's book "God Wrote Only One BOOK") and added his own goofy ideas, Riplinger copied some of all the above while adding her own fantasies, and many others, including Moorman, copied off many of those others. Seems, as you say, that Moorman favors Ruckman more than he does some of the others.

But they all have one thing in common...dependence upon Wilkinson's book for at least some of their hooey. The whole current KJVO myth is laced with cultic origin and DISHONESTY, with most KJVO authors copying from other KJVO authors, acknowledging their sources very little if at all.

 

[John of Japan]

Moorman relies on Ruckman for a lot, and maybe even his belief in the KJVO myth itself.

Seems like it's part of a chain...Wilkinson put together a book fulla pro-KJVO claims, Ray plagiarized Wilkinson, Fuller copied from both W and Ray, Ruckman copied off Ray(erroneously calling Ray's book "God Wrote Only One BOOK") and added his own goofy ideas, Riplinger copied some of all the above while adding her own fantasies, and many others, including Moorman, copied off many of those others. Seems, as you say, that Moorman favors Ruckman more than he does some of the others.

But they all have one thing in common...dependence upon Wilkinson's book for at least some of their hooey. The whole current KJVO myth is laced with cultic origin and DISHONESTY, with most KJVO authors copying from other KJVO authors, acknowledging their sources very little if at all.

In spite of its public face, I have found that the DBS and its denizens flirt often with radicalism: selling Riplinger's stuff for so many years, usually denouncing Ruckman but then quoting him as a "scholarly source" as Moorman has done, lifting up H. D. Williams as a great expert on Bible translation though he got his KJVO position from Riplinger and quotes her as a "scholar" in his book on translation, etc. (Hmm. Maybe I should go through William's book and note his references to Rippy. :type: )

 

[John of Japan]

And now (ta-da-) here is the last quote of Ruckman in Moorman's book, Forever Settled. He says at the bottom of p. 162, "Ruckman is prepared to say that the Coptic along with several other early versions 'were originally true and trustworthy copies of the original New Testament documents" (italics in Moorman's book).

It's good to know that Ruckman was only "prepared to say" this and did not actually say it. :thumbsup: Or maybe he did. We can't tell because Moorman, as is his custom, does not source the quote.

My conclusion: (1) Moorman is no scholar, nor does he remember his Eng. 101-102 at Tennessee Temple in the 1970s. (I also graduated from there in the 70's, 1976 actually, so I know he was taught there to source quotes.) (2) The DBS, who published Moorman's book, is not picky about who they quote. While ostensibly distancing themselves from Ruckman publicly, yet this book shows that they still guide people towards Ruckman. (3) Since Ruckman believes that the KJV is advanced revelation beyond the original documents of Scripture (the "autographs"), it's passing strange that he makes such a big deal in is books (whichever ones Moorman is referring to) about the early date of the Byzantine/Majority text.

And with that I'm done unless someone wants to comment.