The PuritanBoard - View Single Post - What is the authentic New Testament text?

Jerusalem Blade · #5 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 09:51 AM

Just a few comments on the foregoing. It should be clear that the charts and evidences (such as they are) presented above support the Majority Text tradition, and not directly the King James/1894 Textus Receptus. My position is that, to use a figure of sorts, as the revelation of Christ grew organically out of the Old Testament revelation of Moses and the prophets, I conceive of the King James/1894 TR organically arising from the Majority Text view. I well realize there are difficulties in this view which must be overcome. (Please don't anyone think that I claim the same divine unity of OT & NT for the MT/KJV by the use of my figure; I do not. It is but a simile.)

And I realize that I have formidable opponents to my position, including those MT advocates within the scholastic community. I can't say, "I stand on their shoulders," as one might of academic predecessors, as they would deny me. Don't think me silly if I say I will float above their shoulders, for although I will hardly ignore the evidences, I will not be fettered by them.

For example, some years ago a book came out, I think it was called, The Bible Unearthed, with all sorts "proofs" that the stories of the patriarchs, the exodus from Egypt, the conquest of Caanan, the Davidic dynasty, etc. were but myths (apologists easily debunked it after a while). It nonetheless shook some people up, but do we live by "evidences" (which come and go, arise and are superceded) or by faith? The same dilemma no doubt hit the Christian community when Darwin's Origin of Species came out. I do not mean to have an "ostrich-head-in-the-sand" attitude, for, as I said, I will interact with evidences, yet faith will always be a component of my views.

This will be the focus of my endeavors henceforth, notwithstanding possible digressions/diversions. It is a notable lack (among others) in my paper, To Break A Sword, that I do not address the MT/TR issues.

Steve