Rob (C&H),
I did wait till 10!
You said,
“To those who hold to the Textus Receptus (including me):
If inspiration goes to the very words of the Hebrew and Greek, then how do you explain the many differences/errors found in the TR?”
And later you said,
“Errors in the TR:
One of the big ones can be found in the last verses of Revelation. Originally, Erasmus had to translate these passages out of the Latin because none of the Greek Texts he had contained it. In doing so he created a word that is nowhere found in any Greek Text (Byzantine or Alexandrian):
Summarturoumai.gar at Rv 22:18.
Another "error" that is claimed is found in 1 John 5:7-8.”
Pastor Bruce gives a good short answer in his post above, which should be helpful to all parties, whatever their choice of Scripture.
My own view, which focuses on the question you raise, pertains to the concept of “preservation in the minutiae”, which we have discussed here previously.
Let me briefly review:
There are two schools of Traditional Text defenders; one says yes, the 1894 TR compiled by Scrivener is absolutely identical with the original autographs due to providential preservation of the text-form by the Lord. The other school, championed by John Owen, Turretin, E.F. Hills, Letis, etc, own minute variants within the TR manuscripts. Hills, for instance, said he’d found 3. So while not “absolute”, it is virtually identical.
The 3 phrases Hills says are errors (
Believing Bible Study, p. 83) comprise nine Greek words. In the Greek of the Textus Receptus (1894 edition) there are 140,521 words. That is .0064% or
sixty-four one thousandths of one percent. Compare that with the variance between the Greek of the TR and the Greek of the Westcott and Hort text: 9,970 Greek words are changed. That is 7.095%. This would be equal to having the entire book of Romans (9,447 words) plus 2 and 3 John (and then some) thoroughly changed (usually the changes are omissions)! The uncertainty is 1,108.59 times greater in the Critical Text. (The word count for the TR is from D.A. Waite’s,
Defending The King James Bible, p. xii)]
From Dr. Theodore P. Letis’ books, we can see that John Owen (and perhaps Turretin) owned possible minute variants within the TR editions, and their view was that God had allowed them:
This is from Letis’
The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate:
Owen saw only the minor variants between the various editions of TR as valid areas for discrimination, staying within the broad parameters of providential preservation, as exemplified by “Erasmus, Stephen, Beza, Arias Montanus, and some others.” Within the confines of these editions was “the first and most honest course fixed on” for “consulting various copies and comparing them among themselves.”
This is both the concrete domain of the providentially preserved text, as well as the only area for legitimate comparisons to choose readings among the minutiae of differences. In fact, “God by His Providence preserving the whole entire; suffered this lesser variety [within the providentially preserved editions of the TR –TPL] to fall out, in or among the copies we have, for the quickening and exercising of our diligence in our search into His Word [for ascertaining the finality of preservation among the minutiae of differences among the TR editions –TPL] (The Divine Original, p. 301)* It is the activity, editions, and variants after this period of stabilization that represent illegitimate activity, or, as Owen says, “another way.”
Thus Owen maintained an absolute providential preservation while granting variants. (“John Owen Versus Brian Walton” fn 30, p. 160)
* Owen’s
Divine Original online:
DIVINE ORIGINAL, AUTHORITY, SELF-EVIDENCING LIGHT, AND POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES. This is from volume 16 of Owen’s works.
This would be in line with the thinking of Dr. Hills. There is another view, and that is God
completely – that is, perfectly – preserved the Greek and Hebrew texts, so that they are without any error whatever. And there is another view – ably defended by Will Kinney, among others – that the King James Bible is without error. And Kinney is no slouch, or fanatic, but an able scholar.
Now the one error you brought up (I don’t think you are turning coat and claiming for yourself that 1 John 5:7 is an error – otherwise I might as well expect you to turn and give up your paedo confession for credo as well, as another here has recently done) was in Revelation 22:18, “Summarturoumai.gar at Rv 22:18.” Of this you said,
“Erasmus had to translate these passages out of the Latin because none of the Greek Texts he had contained it. In doing so he created a word that is nowhere found in any Greek Text (Byzantine or Alexandrian)”
As for the word not being found in any Greek text, is it not also in Romans 2:15 and 9:1, albeit in slightly different form? But perhaps you meant not in any Greek ms at Rev 22:18?
Using one of the arguments you used to use (and still do?) concerning 1 John 5:7, is that there is testimony that there were texts extant in the Reformation era that contained verse 7, actually, more did than didn’t (of those that had that portion of 1 John 5), although they are not found existing today. As you know, Gill said, “...out of sixteen ancient copies of Robert Stephens’, nine of them had it”.
So why can this not be the case here with Eramus and Rev. 22:18? I have written on this portion of Scripture here:
The supposed “Erasmian Inventions”. I just give the link so as not to encumber this post with too much verbosity, as that puts some off.
The point is, it is an
assumption that Erasmus did not have the last page of Revelation, and translated it into Greek from the Latin. As you can see from Dr. Coats’ remarks (see the link in the previous paragraph), Hoskier denied this was the case, and Hoskier was well versed in the Revelation manuscripts.
I recently came across an important contribution to this issue of the Textus Receptus (particularly the 1894 of Scrivener) by Will Kinney, in an online article he wrote called,
”Tyndale, the Textus Receptus or the King James Bible?” We do not have the exact manuscripts the translators of the AV 1611 used – the Greek, other language versions, other English versions – and we do not have notes as to the reasons they made what choices they did, I believe because of one of the great London fires, which destroyed such records. What we have is the English version the Lord providentially brought into existence, from the Greek and other mss He provided the Reformation editors and the KJV translators. The Scrivener 1894 TR is but a back-translated Greek text from the English of the AV. We really don’t have a Greek text that is perfect and which we can call “exact”, although by the method of John Owen (noted above) he arrived at “an absolute providential preservation while granting variants”.
Is this not – what Owen referred to – the Greek spoken of in the WCF 1:8?
What we have, amazingly, is the English rendition of the Word of God preserved and prepared for His church. I will hold to it.
Have you more “errors”? Bring them on. I suppose we will have to fight in the trenches over them, hand to hand.