There are four (4) families of manuscripts I am told. Tell me which one, if either, you are talking about and we can talk some more.
Some KJV defenders reject the claim that there are four families of manuscripts.
KJV-only author D. A. Waite asserted: “There is no proof whatsoever that Greek manuscripts are genealogically related and in ‘families.’ I agree with Dean John William Burgon who stated that all the Greek manuscripts are like ’orphaned children.’ You don’t know which manuscript goes with which family so how can you classify them as belonging to one another” (
Critical Answer to Michael, p. 118). D. A. Waite claimed that “there is no such thing as ’Text type’” (
Ibid.). Waite suggested that his readers should buy Burgon’s book and “see the proof that all of the surviving manuscripts are like orphan children with no provable connection with one another and certainly not grouped as ‘
Text-types’” (p. 98). Waite asserted: “Each manuscript is a lone and independent document” (p. 50). Waite acknowledged that “nobody on this earth has examined all the manuscripts that we have” (p. 121). John William Burgon as edited by Edward Miller noted that “of multitudes of them [MSS copies] that survive, hardly any have been copied from any of the rest” and that “they are discovered to differ among themselves in countless unimportant particulars” (
Traditional Text, p. 46). Peter Johnston wrote: “Yet as Burgon pointed out in the last century each surviving Byzantine manuscript is a genuine individual” (Green,
Unholy Hands, Vol. II, p. 10). Wilbur Pickering noted that “the main lesson to be drawn from the variation among ‘Byzantine’ MSS is the one noted by Lake and Burgon—they are orphans, independent witnesses; at least in their generation” (
Identity of NT Text IV, p. 42). Waite asserted: “There are no such things as ‘
families’ of Greek manuscripts” (
Fundamental Deception, p. 56). Waite declared: “I do not believe there are any ‘
text-types’ of Greek manuscripts, only individual manuscripts” (
Bob Jones University’s Errors, p. 11). Waite claimed: “Each manuscript is like an orphaned child with no ability to say where it came from” (p. 41). Waite asserted: “Manuscripts of the Greek language are simply manuscripts. None are related to each other” (
Central Seminary Refuted, p. 53). Waite declared: “”Every manuscript is independent of all others,” and Every manuscript stands alone” (
Critical Answer to James Price’s, pp. 64, 72). Waite again claimed: “There are no such things as ‘
textual traditions,’ or ‘
families,’ or ‘
text-types’” (p. 97). Likewise, Michael Bates asserted: “There are no families; there are only manuscripts” (
Inspiration, Preservation, p. 218). Charles Keesee acknowledged: “We do not have parent-child manuscript relations. They are all independent witnesses” (
Subtle Apostasy, p. 250).
My references to the preserved Scriptures in the original languages refer to the same multiple original-language texts on which the KJV is based. Thus, it would refer to the Byzantine family of manuscripts (although it should be noted that Erasmus added a few readings from the Latin Vulgate and a few conjectures were introduced by Erasmus and Beza that are found in no known Greek NT manuscripts). The Latin Vulgate is usually put with the Western Family of manuscripts so that the KJV was influenced by it in at least a few places.
