What text is the NKJ based on? from this thread

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Rock Hill, SC
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte

The Textus Receptus, or recieved text.

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Sterling Harmon
Coventry, CT
PCA
Deacon
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"Whatever is laudable in our works proceeds from the grace of God."
-- John Calvin, Institutes III:xv.3.

"Our Lord God must be a good man, to be fond of worthless fellows. I cannot like them, and yet I, myself, am one."
-- Martin Luther, Table Talk

Whilst the main body is based on the TR it contains the deviant readings in footnotes so I am unable to see how it can lay claim to being TR.

New King James Version

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Richard
CofE
UK

It is TR precisely because they keep those deviant readings in footnotes, and do not insert them in the text. That is what makes it TR. Isn't it?

I agree. We don't consider footnotes as part of God's Word.

We might forget that the section headings are also not God's Word, but that's another issue.

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R. Anthony Coletti
Midway Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Jonesborough, TN
[i]et venite et arguite me dicit Dominus[/i]

I've had many a KJV that did the same, though.

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Seth Stark
Member, Communion Presbyterian Church (ARP), Irvine, CA
Biola University, Graduate Student, M.A. - Science and Religion
Seth's Blog

The "main body" or entirely based on TR ? Not including the footnotes.

Yes. The Main body, or text of the New Testament is based on and translated from TR.

It is possible to buy NKJVs without footnotes if that is what you prefer.

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

The footnotes point out variant readings in the Critical Text (Nestle-Aland and UBS) and the Majority Text (MT). If you view them as deviant, fine. But I find it useful to see where these differences are, as reflected in the NASB and ESV (for example) which don't give you the benefit of TR footnotes.

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Jim
1689 LBCF
Independent Bible Church
North Texas, USA

While the NKJV claims to follow the Received Text in the transalation itself, (footnote issues aside) and for the most part does, there are certain documented instances where it actually follows the Critical text readings, not in the footnotes, but in the body itself:
II Corinthians 3.14, II John 7, Acts 19.9, 39; Philippians 2.9 and Revelation 6.11.

For more information see the latest issue of TBS's "Quarterly Record" in its critique of the NKJV.

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Rev. Adam King
Minister without a call (WPCUS)
Stated Supply: Reformed Presbyterian Church
Sterling, KS

The article is certainly correct that changes are made to the text of the NKJV from time to time but with no notice thereof.

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Chris Poe--Attending Grace Community Baptist Church, Mandeville, LA

"There never was a man in the world without a creed. What is a creed? A creed is what you believe. What is a confession? It is a declaration of what you believe. That declaration may be oral or it may be committed to writing, but the creed is there either expressed or implied."—B.H. Carroll

Here are the above texts AV first, NKJV second

2 Corinthians 3:14

2 John 7

Acts 19:9

Acts 19:39

Phil. 2:9

Revelation 6:11

What about in Acts 4:27:

KJV
NKJV
and again later in Acts 4:30:

KJV
NKJV
Holy Child? Servant? As best I can recall, all Critical text versions, such as the Nearly Inspired Version, (NIV) translate "child" as "servant".

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Chris Mangum
Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte
student, GPTS
.357 Mangum

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27

Which "quarterly report" has this? I found a list here.

I'm a little confused. I thought the "critical text" and the "Textus Receptus" were manuscripts in original language - not the translations of them. The question then should be what is the correct translation of the TR text - holy child or servant? "Child" is a translation. What is the original word from the TR and then what might be the correct translation.

I did a check and there the same word in Greek is translated child and servant. This is the KJV Concordance: So more times than not, the translation in the KJV itself has it as "servant". So there is no indication that the NKJV was using anything but the TR when it translated the word as "servant" instead of "child".

I agree with Civbert. The list provided by Daniel Ritchie (above) appear to be slight translation differences. No indication of a deviation from the TR.

My apologies for the confusion. You are correct in what you pointed out. Either way my point is the NKJV took what others translations of the critical text use. Basically, many times, like in this instance, the NKJV renders a word that the critical text translations use.

Isn't true that there is about 98% agreement between the TR and the CT manuscripts? I'd expect there to be a great deal of agreement then in the translations to modern English.

So the key verses should be those where the actually language TR and CT differ. If someone can show me where the NKJV seemed to prefer the CT over the TR in those instances, that would be something. Otherwise, I would expect a great deal of agreement between modern translations since they happen to be based on manuscripts that agree 98% of the time and they are translating into the same modern English.

P.S. I found that the last two issues of the TBS quarterly are the ones in question - issues 581 and 582.

Easy tiger. No version is inspired. If you really want to insult the NIV just call it the Northern Ireland Version.

Personally I go for "Non-Inspired Version"

You would be correct; though that is a label I would apply to every version (unless one is a Ruckmanite).