If someone wanted to start to study the variations of the manuscripts, how does one get copies of the different manuscripts? Not exactly translations of them but of the original Greek with maybe an interlinear possible English word for word side column.

I already have the Textus Receptus interlinear Greek/English book from Green and His Old Testament Interlinear, but what about the other manuscripts?

One I am looking for in particular is one called "Manuscript C", if that is the correct name and other manuscripts would be helpful also...

Any Thoughts?

__________________
Michael Daniels
Reformed, RPCNA
Denton, Maryland

[i][b]As For Me And My House, We Will Serve The Lord[/i][/b]

[SIZE="1"][I][FONT="Century Gothic"]Unum Deum in Trinitate: Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus [RIGHT]Sola scriptura - Sola gratia - Sola fide - Solus Christus - Soli Deo gloria - Solum psalterium - Lex talionis[/RIGHT][/FONT][/I][/SIZE]

Some thoughts:

Metzger's
also check this link.

__________________
Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://semperubi.rtrc.net

"Many men, after a long conversion, see more of the workings of sin in their hearts than ever they did before or at their first conversion. Now, such men have not an increase of sin, but an increase of illumination and light" (Christopher Love)


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Here are some good online resources...

Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism
About P46
Manuscripts - CSNTM
Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament
New Testament Transcripts Prototype
http://alpha.reltech.org/cgi-bin/Ebi...bleMSS/U3Tisch
http://alpha.reltech.org/cgi-bin/Ebind2html/BibleMSS/U5

Any usernames or passwords that are required...just enter "any"

__________________
Larry Bray
Elder Elect - Reformed Presbyterian Church of Boothwyn, PCA
Boothwyn, PA - http://www.rpcb.org/

Free Online Reformed Seminary - http://www.tnars.net

-----------------------------------------------------
"The best Christian is still a poor Christian" - R.B. Kuiper

I would recommend NOT getting Metzger's book as he was quite liberal in his theology...to the point of not even considering the original inspired documents to be inerrant.

I would recommend " "

__________________
Larry Bray
Elder Elect - Reformed Presbyterian Church of Boothwyn, PCA
Boothwyn, PA - http://www.rpcb.org/

Free Online Reformed Seminary - http://www.tnars.net

-----------------------------------------------------
"The best Christian is still a poor Christian" - R.B. Kuiper

Go to the Puritan Board search box and type in: "Steve Rafalsky" That should last you a couple of months!

__________________


http://www.villagecommunitychurch.org/

Certainly wasn't recommending Metzger for his theology... it seems that Michael was after information about a particular manuscript, not questions of interpretation or inerrancy...

__________________
Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://semperubi.rtrc.net

"Many men, after a long conversion, see more of the workings of sin in their hearts than ever they did before or at their first conversion. Now, such men have not an increase of sin, but an increase of illumination and light" (Christopher Love)


Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

A few thoughts, for your consideration, that I hope will be received for your edification as they are intended. I realize this is a little outside the scope of your question, I just feel obliged since I've spent 20 years in the field in which you are proposing a study, and wish someone would have told me this 20 years ago when I set out on a similar course.

I would suggest that one insure they were well grounded in the Reformed doctrine of Sola Scriptura and its historical meaning before wandering across a mine field. The gentlemen that advised you to study Elder Rafalsky's posts was good advice, he can lead you to a wealth of information. Since B.B. Warfield the Reformed community has abandoned the historic doctrine and its meaning, one needs to know this, as it can have drastic consequences to your faith if you proceed on a study of variants in possible ignorance of the underlying issues and the redefinition of the doctrine.

Romanists introduced the study of variants for one reason, to attack and undermine the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, you need to know that. I say that simply to point out that you don't enter this field of study on neutral ground, anymore than you do soteriology. Just as there are Calvinist and Arminian sides to soteriology, there is also of textual studies. The Reformed community, has almost universally adopted a "textual Arminianism," of sorts, so you will take a side once you enter the study, consciously or not. The presuppositional ground upon which you stand determines how one interprets the evidence, the same way an evolutionist examines a rock and determines it is 400 billion years old and a creationist looks at it and determines it is 7,000 years old. Any time one studies "variations of manuscripts," then you are pitting yourself as judge over the word of God, one needs to understand the gravity of what that means.

That isn't ground one needs to wander upon lightly, nor can one do so blindly as the other gentlemen advised you to beware of Bruce Metzger, that also was good advice, as he has made the faith of many souls shipwrecked. No disrespect to Todd intended who mentioned Meztger, I just say that from my personal experience, as not everyone is as strong as others.

Hence, I would strongly suggest that you consider settling which ground you stand upon in terms of what you believe about the Bible, before setting out on a study of variant texts of the Bible. You need to know if you stand with historic Reformed orthodoxy in terms of the meaning of Scripture, or if you stand with the modernists that have redefined it - and just be honest with yourself. If you believe, like many, that the Protestant Reformers were wrong for whatever reason, then just be honest with yourself, from the start, because the tendency of man is self deception.

Romans 3:4 says, "[L]et God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged." When I study these things I've learned to remember that I am just a man, a redeemed sinner that is easily deceived, when I have to judge God's words between variants. In the absence of proof, one is better off counting the advice of men between variants as liars - even yourself.

Hence, if you haven't already, it would be advisable to settle the presuppositions upon which you are entering this field of study before setting out on the journey. Our Lord tells us very plainly, "Beware of the scribes..." (Luke 20:46) and ..."a little leaven leaventh the whole lump," (Galatians 5:9) something that modern Christians seemed to have forgotten, especially when they approach the work of scribes.

In Christ's Bonds,

Thomas

__________________
Thomas Weddle
Member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Indiana

Great post!

When you say, "You need to know if you stand with historic Reformed orthodoxy in terms of the meaning of Scripture...", are you alluding to WCF 1:8 where it states, "by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages..."?

__________________


http://www.villagecommunitychurch.org/

Hello Pastor Klein,

Yes, and more, the Helvetic Consensus Formula comes to mind. However, it is the entire paradigm and approach to the Scripture that is different in historic Reformed orthodoxy as against modern textual criticism.

They didn't take their stand against Rome upon an unknown "inerrant original autograph," neither did Reformed scholasticism defend an unknown hypothetical text. Neither did they advocate a radical individualism where every man decides for himself which words are genuine; they would have viewed the state of our Churches today, where every man is a textual critic, with horror. The Westminster Divines viewed spelling errors in various printings of the Authorized Version as "dangerous to religion," and moved Parliament to outlaw the importation of bootleg reprints from Holland with spelling errors.

Cordially,

Thomas

__________________
Thomas Weddle
Member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Indiana

Thomas, thanks for your posts.

Michael, where do you find reference to a "manuscript C"? Can you put it in some context?

To find interlinear Gr-Eng NTs just Google: greek english interlinear nt. There are a number on the market. I know there is an NRSV, and an NIV, and likely others. Though, as Thomas intimated, it leads to a quicksand where there is nothing solid to hold onto.

Steve

__________________
Steve Rafalsky
Elder, International Evangelical Church (Reformed)
Limassol, Cyprus

"I am set for the defense of the gospel" (Philippians 1:17)

"Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious
power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness..." (Colossians 1:11)

Michael,

Concerning Codex C:

EPHRAEMI RESCRIPTUS (C), [located in] BIBLOTHEQUE NATIONALE IN PARIS. One of the old uncials.

Written originally in the 5th century and containing the whole of both Testaments it was in the 12th century converted into a palimpsest. That is, the original writing was washed out, and some works of a certain Ephraim Syrus were written over it. Many leaves also were thrown away. It now contains parts of all the NT books except for II Thessalonians and II John. Much of the original writing has been discerned. (Kenyon). Strouse says the text is mixed but pro-Byzantine. Kenyon (as we would expect) speaks of this Byzantine presence being due to "its correctors."

Burgon would rank this codex behind Alexandrinus as having the fewer corruptions among the "five old uncials".

--------

I got this info from the online version of Forever Settled, Part Four : A Survey of New Testament Documents, by Jack Moorman. A sound and informative book.

Hope this helps.

__________________
Steve Rafalsky
Elder, International Evangelical Church (Reformed)
Limassol, Cyprus

"I am set for the defense of the gospel" (Philippians 1:17)

"Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious
power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness..." (Colossians 1:11)

Thomas - thanks for this - can you expand a bit more to help me understand your point?

__________________
-JD
1Thess5:21
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving in the SBC
MS

My links: ChristianSkepticism.org | personal | facebook | Prescriptive Psalmody

Hello JD,

Thanks for your question, I can attempt to do so, although I'm not aware of your present knowledge of the issues. So, I'll just start here:

Our Reformation inheritance is the Received Text. We talk a lot about "What is Reformed Theology?" In so doing we are discussing the interpretations of Scripture and their meaning, but this is all presuppositional upon the question, "Why the Reformation?" We've forgotten this critical question in many ways and it's answer, which is Sola Scriptura. The creedal defense of that doctrine is the Received Text, not the "inerrant original autograph," nor various hypothetical reconstructions out of the whole body of existing manuscripts.

The issue was and still is Authority, the Reformers simply held that Authority didn't inure to the Pontiff, didn't inure to the visible Church, but was, is and always will be in the Word of God. To them, though, this was an identifiable and existing text in use by the Greek speaking Church. The "Received Text" is only a change in the transmission of this text from a handwritten manuscript form to a printed form. It is this text that they identified with the term Sola Scriptura as the physical manifestation of Christ's Prophetic Office given unto us and Providentially preserved for us. Nominally, we only still agree with this presupposition today, but it's been redefined to mean the inerrant original autograph, which we do not have nor has Providence preserved in that form. It's a hypothetical text. As such, Authority has been transferred from the actual words once again to men, the "textual critical" or Scribe as a new priest class. In order for the concept of the Priesthood of the Believer to have meaning in this paradigm it has become necessary for every man to become his own textual critic, or "Priest," as judge over the word of God.

We now have a radical individualism in our Churches because we hold to the uniformity of worship under the Regulative Principle, but we have half dozen or more different texts and translations of Scripture in our Congregations and no Confessional unity. Without Confessional unity we cannot maintain uniformity, and so we splinter and fractionalize all the more, and ultimately it's impossible to bind any man to anything that he doesn't personally define himself since every dispute becomes, at bottom, a translational dispute which is often a cloaked textual dispute.

The historic Reformation creedal and scholastic defense of Sola Scriptura was the Received Text until the 20th century when that was fundamentally altered by BB Warfield and his departure, which everyone has followed, from historic Reformed orthodoxy. This was because science was rising and assaulting Christendom on every front, it was doing so in terms of the Received Text as well, Warfield errantly believed he could stand upon enlightenment ground and defend historic orthodoxy. The concept of a Providentially "preserved" text was altered to mean a Providentially "restored" text in terms of the inerrant original autograph, as a result we have numerous hypothetical texts and translations of those texts that really have never been used by any Christian in history in that form. The propensity of science to utilize society as a sociological test laboratory has simply been brought into the Church as a sociological test laboratory in terms of the Scripture.

The Reformers simply didn’t accept every “obscure private copy…to be admitted as a various lection.” Nor did they accept the opinions of “textual critics,” on the contrary, as Owen explains:

“Let it be remembered, that the vulgar copy we use, was the public possession of many generations; that upon the invention of printing, it was in actual authority throughout the world, with them that used and understood that language….men may, if they please, take pains to inform the world, wherein such and such copies are corrupted or mistaken, but to impose their known failings on us as various lections, is of course not to be approved….[t]he generality of learned men among Protestants are not yet infected with this leaven…And if this change of judgment which hath been long insinuating itself, by the curiosity and boldness of critics, should break in also on the Protestant world, and be avowed in public works, it is easy to conjecture what the end will be. We went from Rome under the conduct of the purity of the originals, I wish none have a mind to return thither again, under the pretence of their corruption.” John Owen, Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Text of the Scripture, pg 473 to 477

To the Romanists the Reformation was heresy, for the first sixty years or so they were asking the question, "What is this theology?" When they got their ducks in a row and started asking, "Why is it?" They then developed Trent and set out with the Tridentine attack upon our Authority - Sola Scriptura. This is where the arguments over variants begins and it is a Romanist argument, they simply argued that we can't possibly hold to Sola Scriptura because we can't know for certain what those words are without Papal Authority and Church Tradition. It was about another century before they refined a weapon to combat Sola Scriptura at the hands of Romanist Richard Simon, that is "New Testament Textual Criticism." It was developed upon enlightenment and humanistic grounds and still is standing upon that ground.

It is this ground that Greisbach and Wescott and Hort worked upon and it was BB Warfield that attempted that attempted to straddle the Confessional fence with one foot on either side that established the redefinition of Sola Scriptura as the hypothetical "inerrant original autograph."

The Bible you use is the Bible you have to defend. I stand upon the Authorized Version and I comprehensively defend the Authorized Version. When I do that I end up at 1776 and an alteration of the Westminster Confession that reflects a major change of Authority in terms of historic Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura as it affects continuity between private, religious and public life. When I try to defend every other text I once again end up at 1776 with Griesbach in Germany. So, I look at the fruit of these things, the philosophies behind them, one is the American Revolution and the other is the French.

The Reformers cried "Ad Fontes," they had a controversy of religion; but once they did that and identified their Authority they stood upon it comprehensively for all of life, and worked to bring continuity in terms of life. We are crying "Ad Fontes," but I'm told repeatedly by the textual critics that they've made no fundamental change to the doctrine, what is the purpose for it then? What is the heresy we are trying to correct?

What I do find, as a result, though is a denial of the historic Reformed orthodox definition of Sola Scriptura at the beginning of the 20th century. Since Authority no longer rests in an identified text, it no longer has Authority and it no longer has Authority for all of life, private, religious and public life. In turn, this has resulted in a discontinuity of private, religious and public life; because if the Church isn't going to stand upon this, then neither is the State. Scripture as Authority, even by those that nominally claim Sola Scriptura, has been reduced to a Kantian concept of mental assent - not true Authority that men are subject to.

I believe that this textual battle we are embroiled in today isn't theological, it's political; it's an argument of Authority and for the present Rome has won the Reformed Church back to it's presupposition, and it's done it through the Tridentine plan and weapons it forged, honed and sharpened for that purpose.

While we are told that no fundamental doctrine has been changed, that isn't true, Federal Vision is a good example of the results of textual criticism. The defense mounted against that today is asking "What is Federal Vision?" It's attempting to anathematize it as a departure from Reformed theology, but it rests upon a departure from Sola Scriptura and it can't be answered until we ask and answer "Why Federal Vision?" Everyone is busy dissecting it's soteriology and ecclesiology, but it's doing so in terms of developed creedal doctrines, not in terms of the text. Federal Vision can't stand upon the Received Text, it can only stand upon Rome's text and its hypothetical twins delivered to us through textual criticism. So, we can't defend ourselves against this because the Reformed Church has abandoned the Reformed text from which its doctrines were derived, and the march back to Rome has been accelerated, as it's already won the civil realm and now it is restoring the ecclesiastical.

Anyway, we can go into much more detail and discuss this at more length if you like, but this should help you understand my points a little more.

Cordially,

Thomas

__________________
Thomas Weddle
Member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Indiana

And, this transfer of authority has been embraced by many of the Reformed community without much of a struggle!

I find your example of FV very interesting. How would their theology change if they were under the authority of the TR? Can you give specific passages where the CT is necessary for the FV?

__________________


http://www.villagecommunitychurch.org/

Thomas - thank you - do I understand you accurately to be saying that the principle of Sola Scriptura is based solely on the authority and accuracy of the Received Text? Also - does this wiki entry accurately describe the Textus Receptus position?

Apologies if I am inaccurately understanding.

__________________
-JD
1Thess5:21
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving in the SBC
MS

My links: ChristianSkepticism.org | personal | facebook | Prescriptive Psalmody

Thomas, what do you do with all the differences among TR manuscripts? Which one is original?

__________________
Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com
http://brahmsgreenglove.blogspot.com
http://accenttranslation.blogspot.com
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Hello Lane,

I have addressed your question in a number of earlier posts, some of which I excerpt here to help me conserve my time. I hope you don't mind this approach.
-------

There were a number of Greek texts in the Reformation era, the primary of which were, Stephen’s, Beza’s, and the Elzevirs. The TBS’s 1894 TR was put together by Scrivener to indicate the exact Greek text underlying the KJV. As a distinct Greek text it never existed before Scrivener compiled it. The 1611 translators picked and chose from the different Greek texts, the previous English versions – and other language versions – when rendering the AV. The TR 1894 but gives a Greek text exactly corresponding to the English of the AV.

Here is some background on the “TRs”.

The Trinitarian Bible Society's edition containing F.H.A. Scrivener's edition of "The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the text followed in the Authorized Version" (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1894 and 1902). In the Preface this TBS edition says,

The editions of Beza, particularly that of 1598, and the last two editions of Stephens, were the chief sources used for the Authorized Version of 1611.

The Elzevir partners, Bonaventure and Abraham, published editions of the Greek text at Leyden in 1624, 1633, and 1641, following Beza's 1565 edition, with a few changes from his later revisions. The preface to the 1633 Elzevir edition gave a name to this form of the text, which underlies the English Authorized Version, the Dutch Statenvertaling of 1637, and all of the Protestant versions of the period of the Reformation—"Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum, [in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus]" [thus you now have the universally received text in which we present nothing that has been changed or is corrupted]. The Elzevir text became known throughout Europe as the Textus Receptus or Received Text, and in course of time these titles came to be associated in England with the Stephens text of 1550.

The editions of Stephens, Beza and the Elzevirs all present substantially the same text, and the variations are not of great significance and rarely affect the sense. The present edition of the Textus Receptus underlying the English Authorized Version follows the text of Beza's 1598 edition as the primary authority, and corresponds with [Scrivener's of 1894 and 1902].

Scrivener has a book, The Authorized Edition Of The English Bible (1611), Its Subsequent Reprints And Modern Representatives (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1910), with a section, “Appendix E. The Greek text adopted by the Translators of the Authorized Version of the New Testament, where he examines the “TRs” the translators used. It is of interest to those doing careful study in this area. It can likely be obtained in a good seminary library or even by your local library’s Inter-library Loan System (how I got mine, and which I photo-copied).

So in one sense, there are a number of “TRs”. The TR, and the one underlying the AV is Scrivener’s work done in 1894, and published by the TBS. This, in my view, and that of KJV defenders, is the true Textus Receptus, as it depicts (gathers together in one edition) in Greek the various texts the translators chose and upon which they based their translation.

We hold that the Lord provided the Reformation editors with the manuscripts He wanted them to use (wherein the genuine readings were preserved), and guided their judgment in the translating. I do NOT mean by this they were “inspired,” as some erroneously hold.

------------

[And this is from another discussion of the TR.]


You said,

I assume the Textus Receptus is what the AV folks would state is the authoritative manuscript that translators should refer to.

Yes, this is so.

What is this based on? It is my understanding that the Textus Receptus is a critical compilation by Scrivener based on the manuscript choices of the AV translators. Accurate or no?

Yes, that is accurate.

Is the sole argument for the TR that it was chosen by the Church and it doesn't matter whether Erasmus may have made some errors and doesn't matter how or which manuscripts the AV translators used and why they made those choices?

The argument for the TR is that God had kept the Byzantine textform (the Scriptures of the Greek Church) in a very pure (but not perfect) state, and these mss were used by Erasmus, along with readings from the Latin Vulgate, and other Latin mss, to produce his Greek editions, the later ones being those used by subsequent editors, such as Beza, Stephens, and the Elzevirs.

---
[Jan 1, 2008 note]: Erika Rummel, in her Erasmus' Annotations on the New Testament: From Philologist to Theologian (Univ. of Toronto Press 1986), makes the point that Erasmus had access to (and took copious notes on) a vast array of NT manuscripts during his many travels; it is a myth that he had "access" to only a few manuscripts when he produced his NT editions.
---

Edward Hills, a textual scholar and KJV defender, says he has found 3 errors in the KJV, one of which I know he attributes to Eramsus, and that is in Romans 7:6. I am still researching that. From Ted Letis’ books, I have learned 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 Dr. Theodore P. 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 chose 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.

If one wants to understand the matter of the Greek (the Hebrew is another discussion) editions used by the Reformers and post-Reformation divines, it is helpful to learn something of the historical context of those times. Letis’ two books are excellent historical resources: The Majority Text, and The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical Authority, and the Popular Mind. Although there is some excellent work in the latter, I think the former might be the more valuable. They may be obtained at reasonable prices, along with other of his works, by contacting Russ Spees <email@kjv-ibts.org>.

Who knows that the doctrine of providential preservation, and that with regard to the Textus Receptus (the early forms of it), was developed by the post-Reformation theologians to withstand the assault of Rome’s counter-reformation? And that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura was based on God’s preserving the texts these theologians had – the Reformation texts – and it was these “texts in hand” the WCF 1:8 had i