</font>[/QUOTE]Originally posted by Pastor Bob 63:
Scott J,
Apparently you and I have much different sources. Of the seven books on my shelf dealing with this issue, all seven use the terms I mentioned interchangably.
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> The Traditional text of the New Testament has existed from the time of Christ right down to the present. It has had many different names down through the years, such as Byzantine Text, Eastern Text, Received Text, Textus Receptus, Majority Text, and others.
If that is true then you need to buy better books. The two are not the same. In the quote above, the BT and MT are synonymous with each other and the Textus Receptus and "Received Text" are synonymous with each other but the first two and last to are not equivalent(I am unsure about the term "Eastern Text", I have never heard it before).
So the majority is always indicative of truth?Also the vast majority of all existing manuscripts, somewhere around ninety percent, follow the Traditional text.
If you were trying to prove a historical event from oral history, would you look for the story with the most proponents (dependent on reproduction) or the one with the fewest generations from the origin and the most written history corroboration?
Also, the BT did not become the majority until around 800-900 AD. This is a tremendous endorsement for the Alexandrian since the worst RCC and Greek Orthodox perversions of doctrine occurred a little before this time then even more after. Historically, the rise of the BT corresponds to the rise of Pope's power, indulgences, mariolatry, iconism, etc.
None the less, the text is not necessarily indicted by its association with copyists with unsound beliefs.
This is an unprovable assertion. In fact, it appears that churches down through the ages used versions of God's Word that varied much more than ours.... not only in wording but in substance as well.Churches all down through the ages have used the Traditional text.
If you read the writings of the Reformers, they used what was popularly available, namely Erasmus' text. The term Textus Receptus wasn't even coined until 1624, long after Luther and others made their landmark translations. BTW, Luther's Bible didn't include the trinitarian formula in I John 5:7-8.The churches of the reformation period all used versions based on the Traditional text.