The RSV uses the same "older, more reliable manuscripts" as ALL of the modern translations (i.e., the Critical Text). However, the RSV translators were a bit more liberal and took liberties with "correcting" the OT text whenever it did not make sense to them. So, it is replete with conjectural emendations, places where scholars recreated what they think the word "should be" regardless of the manuscript tradition and whether any actual text has the word!

If you are into the theory that the KJV preserves the true texts, then you want either the KJV or NKJV. If you believe that the Egyptian documents for the NT are the "older and more reliable ones," then you want a modern translation such as the NIV, NASB, ESV, HCSB, etc.

As you will soon learn here on the PB, there is a division of the house on whether the Critical Text (reflected in virtually all of the modern translations) or the Textus Receptus (or Majority Text) tradition (found in the KJV and the NKJV) most faithfully represents the most reliable texts. Some of our folks here, including at least one with a PhD in linguistics will tell you that the tradition represented by the majority of manuscripts, albeit a little later in time, is the correct one and that it preserves more of the orthodox readings. Others, including most of us who were taught in seminaries over the last century tend to believe that the older readings, albeit fewer, preserve for us the most reliable text tradition.

That is why I wrote my original response to you as I did. If you want to know more, just use the search feature of Puritan Board and look up "translations," TR, CT, ESV, KJV. That ought to keep you busy for a few months!

__________________
Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

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