Originally Posted by prespastor

OR, it could very well be that there are no older Byzantine manuscripts because they never existed prior to the 5th Century. Judging from the fact that we have copies reflecting the Western Text Type and the Alexandrian Text Type from these earlier centuries but no copies of the Byzantine Text Type it is extremely curious that not a single manuscript exists of this text type prior to the 5th Century if it is indeed most representative of the original.

Furthermore, what you are describing was the process for the Hebrew Masoretic Text, but you are going way out on a limb to say that this was the process for the copying of the New Testament text. There is no evidence that the original was destroyed when a copy was made of the New Testament Text during the first several centuries of its transmission (I'm not even sure one can establish that from the later stage of the transmission of the text either.).



This is pure fiction. A 'trip into cloud land' to quote one textual scholar .

The Old Italic is a representative of the Alexandrian Text as Tischendorf pointed out...

"...the Sinaitic copy, which more than any other is in closest agreement with the old Italic version. We do not mean that there are no other versions which agree as closely with the Sinaitic copy as the old Italic version, which the translator, who lived in North Africa, somewhere near our modern city of Algiers, had before him. For we find that the old Syriac version which has been recently found is quite as closely related as the Italic."

Regarding the Syriac...While the Peshitta does reflect the Byzantine Text Type, the Old Syriac copies (which pre-date the Peshitta) does not (as Tischendorf also pointed out in the quote above).

Finally, the Latin Vulgate...neither the Old Latin that preceeded the Latin Vulgate nor the Vulgate itself reflect a Byzantine Text Type. The Latin Vulgate most closely identifies with the Western Text Type.



The troublesome fact that history seperates the Byzantine Text Type four hundred years from the autographs AND the fact the the longest surviving autograph of any New Testament book probably did not survive to the end of the First Century or, at best, the very beginning of the Second put significant dents in this reasoning.



Then how under the heavens do we have the Alexandrian manuscripts (and other non Byzantine manuscripts and translations) today if God did not preserve them?

Even if you contend that God preserved it in use but the other manuscript traditions were not used, it would be fiction. Prior to the 5th Century, the textual evidence reveals the texts in use were either Western, Alexandrian or mixed. After the Byzantine gained preimmenance in the Eastern Church during the Middle Ages, the west used the Latin Vulgate which reflects more of the Western Text Type.



Finally we come to the arguement that the Alexandrian manuscripts are the deliberate result of heretics perverting the Scriptures. The doctrines which some claim are under attack in the Alexandrian manuscripts are all so thouroughly present, that these heretical copyists must have been the most inept heretics in the history of the Christian church.

I don't see how anyone could reasonably pick up a translation like the NASB and claim the text reflects the deliberate work of heretics (since translation like the NASB are essentially Alexandrian in nature).


God has preserved the scriptures in the manuscripts. In the case of the varients between the manuscripts, we deal with each one on a case by case basis weighing the evidence for each based upon the internal and external evidence of each witness. I find this approach to be far more biblical as was as reasonable than starting with the KJV and working backwards.