Originally posted by Pete Richert:
1. Why is it not the same as the "majority text" (once again, defined as the reading with the most manusript evidence). 2. Why did he say (in your own words) "This isn't part of the bible"? 3. Why did he do five revisions? 4. Was his first revision not the word of God? 5. Was his second not the word of God? 6. Which revision was the word of God? (might I add in case our we forget, things different are not the same)
7. Do you believe there is a Greek text called the Receieved Text that is perfect in every word, or is the perfect in every word Bible only in English (that is the 1769 edition of english)?
It seems like a no brainer to me, the Geneva Bible is does not say the same thing as does the KJV in every instance from Genesis to Revelation there for it should not be the word of God. 8. Do you agree or disagree with this? A simple yes or no please, before your explain your answer.
Alright, I have some answers. I enumerated all of your questions in the above quote, and answer them here.
1. Because the majority text is not be the correct one. Let us take the King James, itself, for example. These are rough numbers. Say there are 2,000 first edition 1611 KJV Bibles left in the world (not counting partial ones). If there were 1,000,000 printed, and we only have 2,000 left (due to heavy use because it was the Word of God), the KJV Bibles left would represent 0.002 percent of the original number. Say there were 5,000 correct readings of Greek originally, how many correct readings would there be now at the same rate (being worn out due to use)? That would leave 10 correct readings in the Greek. This is a great simplification, but would show why there are few ancient Syriac Greek manuscripts to be had.
The reason we have more corrupt manuscripts than correct ones is because they were shelved or lost and rediscovered (Aleph and B) instead of being worn out and replaced. The corruptions simply did not get heavy use due to their subtractions and errors.
2. Erasmus may not have touched on the perfect Greek until his latest edition or maybe not even then. The perfect Bible is a thread throughout time, based on God’s promise to preserve his word, and sometimes translators touch on it perfectly (KJV), and other times, they only get the edge of it (Erasmus' first versions of the TR). It is interesting to note that the King James translators actually recompiled the Greek from which the KJV is translated. They did this recognizing that the text was handed down to them through a pure line, so, in a sense, THEY had the correct version of the recieved text, and so that's the version of the TR I would trust.
3. He did five revisions because he realized the ones he had done before did not perfectly represent God's word. Erasmus was not infallible. He was wrong, admitted it, and revised his Greek, not then called the TR, and may have died before touching on the pure Greek text.
4. The first revision was not the pure Word of God if it disagrees with the KJV, for the reasons stated above.
5. Same answer as above, but insert "second revision" where "first revision" is located.
6. It may be that none of his revisions were the word of God if they differed from the pure line of text expressed in the KJV, which is the pure Word of God.
7. Yes. The one that underlies the KJV and that was compiled by the KJV translators. Refer to answer number 2.
8. Yes. If the Geneva does not correspond to the KJV, then it is not the pure Word of God. Show me an example from the Geneva , compared to the KJV, that is critical, (in other words, not including; spelling errors, restatements, including; an omission, an addition, or otherwise stating something in direct opposition to the pure text). If it is substantially different in some area from the pure text, as expressed in the KJV, then it is a corrupted version, as the Lord promised to preserve his word and affirmed his word was "very pure." It is so pure, in fact, as to be as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times! What a promise!
So, Pete, what are the differences between the KJV and the Geneva? What are the differences between earlier versions (actually revisions) of the KJV and what we use today?
I don’t claim to be a scholar, I cannot read the languages of the Bible, but I do claim God’s promise to preserve his pure word. If we can’t trust the promise of preservation of the pure scriptures by God, then can we trust God for anything?
As a side note, in my studies, I ran across the theory of textual criticism that the shorter reading is correct because of scribal additions at a later time. I especially noticed this in the White/Waite debate. Is this conjecture or can it be proven?
Sorry for the long post. There were a lot of questions!
