Hello Dieter,
The OP question may be a “red herring” to
you, if your interests lie elsewhere, but to others it is to the point!
Red herring, definition: “something used to draw attention away from the real issue” or
“something introduced…in order to divert attention or mislead”
What
is the real issue? I gather you have a view of the NT text which looks askance at the AV and the idea of God’s providential preservation of the Greek (and Hebrew) underlying it. The real issue is, What is the authentic New Testament text? And if you will attempt to dismiss the TR in a scholarly way you must engage scholarship which supports it, though I understand you are “too busy with other matters” to undertake such a task.
Concerning the phrase, Textus Receptus:
Textus Receptus is a Latin term which means “Received Text.” The name itself comes from an edition of the Greek NT produced by Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevir (or Elzevier). The Elzevirs printed seven editions of the Greek NT between 1624 and 1678. Their second edition (1633) has this sentence in the preface: “Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus” (Therefore you [dear reader] have the text now received by all, in which we give nothing changed or corrupted). From this statement (Textum…receptum) comes the term Textus Receptus or TR, which today is commonly applied to all editions of the Greek NT before the Elzevir’s, beginning with Erasmus’ in 1516.*
*From, “ERASMUS AND THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS,” by William W. Combs (Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 1, Spring 1996: pp. 35-53) http://www.dbts.edu/journals/1996_1/ERASMUS.PDF
In point of fact, Dieter, the term
Textus Receptus refers to the Reformation text, the
Greek text as it was published by Erasmus, Stephens, Beza, and the Elzevirs (though these latter were not the editors but the printers), which several texts varied only minutely from one another. So this was indeed “the text now received by all” in the Reformation community, and the phrase is
no misnomer!
You are saying
you “only possess an eclectic text”? Because you are not speaking for me. You say, “The AV is based on Erasmus' revised text (sort of) which is a bit too complicated to explain.” Too complicated for whom? You? Me? If you think me, try me.
The excellent Calvin scholar and translator, T.H.L. Parker, whose cute quip you quote, was no friend of the Reformation scholars’ approach to the text. Letis points out, “…Parker subscribes to the modern, post-Enlightenment method, which places primacy on
internal criteria, [and] he cannot sympathize with Calvin’s method [of preferring the common readings]…” (
The Majority Text, by Theodore P. Letis; “Theodore Beza As Text Critic: A View Into the Sixteenth Century Approach to New Testament Text Criticism”; p. 121)
Interesting topic, where the TR/KJV departs from Beza! (A book has been written on the subject:
Where the King James Bible Leaves the Greek Text of Theodore Beza 1598, by Kirk DiVietro.) But no point in engaging you on your various points, seeing you are in such a hurry to go.
We’ve had some good discussions concerning the late Dr. Metzger, as well as 1 John 5:7, the variants, etc.
When you say, “The Westminster Confession does not assume that the TR is free from corruptions,” I beg to differ. Owen and Turretin, two architects of the Reformation doctrine of the providential preservation of Scripture (apart from the Scripture itself), allowed minute variations within the Textus Receptus manuscripts, but those variations outside of them they did not recognize.
Steve