Are the TR and Critical Text “Completely Different”?
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- Опубліковано 13 бер 2024
- Leading KJV defenders say that they are. I offer direct quotes. Are they right?
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I know you don't like talking about textual criticism on your channel and I totally understand why. But I'm so glad you're doing it because you have a gift for discussing this issue at a lay level.
Sometimes I think that major KJVO defenders spend most of their time trying to find things to argue against, instead of proclaiming the Gospel. My own experience in an IFB church has shown me that their greatest fear is their "them against us" mentality that colors almost everything that they do and think.
We can all fall prey to this! But yes-this is common!
true, and it's difficult not to fall into this on the other side of the issue
@@ChurchPhone1611 I see truth in what you're saying, and I've seen that truth since I myself was a door-knocking teenage KJV-Onlyist. I persist in being grateful for the earnest evangelism practiced at that church. It was a good model to me.
R. A. Torrey said the following in 1907 - "No one, so far as I know, holds that the English translation of the Bible is absolutely infallible and inerrant. The doctrine held by many is that the Scriptures as originally given were absolutely infallible and inerrant, and that our English translation is a substantially accurate rendering of the Scriptures as originally given" [Difficulties in the Bible, p. 17] Scholastic support for a KJOist position is weak at best. Thanks Mark for your inspiring (no pun intended) work. PS. Here in NOVA, I enjoy reading the NET bible (w/notes). 😉
Give it time, they will eventually claim that Torrey was a secret Jesuit and he had an alter with a statue of Mary in his basement……🥴 By the way, I also like the NET. The one with notes is awesome.
@redsorgum
No spoilers now! 😂
Love the NET full notes too. Use it every week when preparing.
Not surprising to find fellow NET users here. Cheers!
@@BrianLassek Would you say that the translation has caught us into its NET?…..sorry. 🤪
@@redsorgum caught in a net of notes....
Thank you Mark for demonstrating the remarkable compatibility between the Textus Receptus and the Critical Text. I read translations based on both daily. Unbiased readers can easily recognize that compatibility.
Thank you for your work in the field! I appreciate your presentation of truth in a thoughtful and loving manner. I only recently discovered your channel, but it has been very useful to me!
Love your content.
Thank you for what you do!
My pleasure!
As we read the Bible, old and new testament, we see the history of ordinary, fallen people, but God used them. Furthermore, we can see that Jesus and the disciples were ok using different versions of the Old Testament. Most of the quotations are from the LXX, but some are not. It was still God’s word and message to them. My point is that it would be outside of God’s MO to suddenly start preserving the scripture so exactly. The miracle is that the Bible has so many more manuscripts and that they are so close in time to the original writing. The variants speaks more to the fact that he uses ordinary, fallen people to preserve his word.
I agree, I think we'd be hard-pressed to say that the Critical text and the TR (or even the Byzantine text) are 'Completely different books'. That's an extreme that we'd be well to do away with. I also think the other extreme is to suggest there are no important differences between the the printed editions, which is another extreme to do away with! The best thing to do is prayerfully consider the matter and have grace with one another if we come to differing conclusions.
I agree, brother!
There's one thing that does bug me, though: people will sometimes talk about certain passages being omitted from the NA28 when they're merely bracketed. For instance, Mark 16.9-20 is absolutely present in the Nestle-Aland text. I'm looking at it right now on the German Bible Society's website. The only current "major" Bible translation that leaves out the long ending of Mark is the 2013 edition of the New World Translation. Even the RSV, which did footnote it in 1946, has had it back in the main text since 1971 (or 1966 if you're Catholic).
Now, granted, the translations can sometimes go overboard in marking it as disputed. The NIV is especially irritating with its italic font for the passage and its conspicuous header embedded in the text block. (See the NKJV or the aforementioned RSV 2nd Edition for examples of how to mark the passage without sounding a trumpet before you.) But even so, the long ending is present in all major modern Christian versions, and it's unfair to talk about it as if it were dropped or condemned to the margin.
@@MAMoreno Right! It's interesting, despite the fact that most textual scholars believe it to be not original, it still finds it's ways in the modern translations :)
When we point this out, they then have to claim that God promised to preserve every exact detail to continue to justify attacking modern Bible translations
It's humorous though, because even the KJV doesn't fit those standards---For example, Song of Solomon has gender in the Hebrew which signifies who is talking. English makes very little use of gender
We also don't have exact equivalents to Ruach (Hebrew for spirit, wind, or breath), Pneuma (Greek for spirit, wind, or breath), or Phileo (Greek for a specific type of love)
So by their own claim that the Bible has to preserve every exact detail, they make the KJV no longer the Bible
God has given you, Mark, great understanding and insight and a balanced interpretation in Biblical studies, particularly found in this posting regarding the Critical Text v.s. Textus Receptus. I am blessed to hear your explanation of the seemingly 'significant' variations in the two. Thank you and God's blessing on you as you continue this journey!
Amen! And God has given you this insight, etc. through your hours and hours of diligent research and effort. Well done, brother. (Ooh, I do hope that mentioning this hasn't inflated your pride!! But honour [sic] to whom honour is due.)
@@willgadsby5246 Absolutely! Appreciation should be given and no pride borne from thus.
Thank you, Brother Mark. Thoroughly enjoy and appreciate your Holy Spirit-guided work. Proud of you,Teacher.🌹⭐🌹
You are very welcome
Going off how you ended the video and how the TRs differ, I’d love for you to cover how the different KJV editions differ from each other (Cambridge v Oxford) as well as the different revised versions. Nobody likes to talk about how the KJV they’re claiming is the only valid translation, but there’s no response to how different the 1611 KJV is compared to the 1769, aside from its spelling and grammar updates. Nobody wants to talk about how the 1769 added “Son of God” as opposed to its predecessor, the 1611, which appears to have it removed in 1st John 5:12. Or how the 1611 says in 1st Cor 12:28 that believers should be helping in our government, and how the 1769 removed that phrase “Helps in Governments” altogether. Instead it says “Government”.
I love the KJV. It’s the Bible I used when I became a believer. But the argument for KJV only ism on the believe that it’s never been changed and every jot and tiddle of its translation is absolutely original and never been changed, is completely and objectively false.
The differences between the editions are minute details. Yes. It’s less of a difference in comparison to modern translations. Yes. But as our justice system likes to put it, it’s a true or false question. Has the KJV ever been changed? The answer is True.
Thanks for the video. I had heard there were differences but I haven’t heard any examples. Thanks for your thoughtful presentation.
I love Mark Ward videos
@Mark Ward
Mark - i've recently discovered your channel and it's so amazing. Thanks for all your work. Can I ask a favour please? I seem to remember you quoting Erasmus a number of times about the textual variants in the Greek manuscripts he was using. Can you please give them here, if possible? Thanks.
You mean you want citations?
The more I've thought about "false friends" in the KJV, the more I think that God can speak through a text that technically doesn't mean what the word on the page implies. It's good to think on both meanings: the original meaning and the meaning in my head as I first read it. C.S. Lewis puts this well in his book, "An Experiment in Criticism". He's specifically referring to poetry, but the premise can still be applied:
"The literary sometimes ‘use’ poetry instead of ‘receiving’ it. They differ from the unliterary because they know very well what they are doing and are prepared to defend it. ‘Why’, they ask, ‘should I turn from a real and present experience-what the poem means to me, what happens to me when I read it-to inquiries about the poet’s intention or reconstructions, always uncertain, of what it may have meant to his contemporaries?’ There seem to be two answers. One is that the poem in my head which I make from my mistranslations of Chaucer or misunderstandings of Donne may possibly not be so good as the work Chaucer or Donne actually made. Secondly, why not have both? After enjoying what I made of it, why not go back to the text, this time looking up the hard words, puzzling out the allusions, and discovering that some metrical delights in my first experience were due to my fortunate mispronunciations, and see whether I can enjoy the poet’s poem, not necessarily instead of, but in addition to, my own one? If I am a man of genius and uninhibited by false modesty I may still think my poem the better of the two. But I could not have discovered this without knowing both. Often, both are well worth retaining. Do we not all still enjoy certain effects which passages in classical or foreign poets produced in us when we misunderstood them? We know better now. We enjoy something, we trust, more like what Virgil or Ronsard meant to give us. This does not abolish or stain the old beauty. It is rather like revisiting a beautiful place we knew in childhood. We appraise the landscape with an adult eye; we also revive the pleasures-often very different-which it produced when we were small children." (p. 81).
Is it possible to access the list of differences that you've made?
KJVParallelBible.org
Wonderful!
I have a copy of the Majority Text (with apparatus) and have occasionally pointed out that a verse, where the pastor read a translation that differs from what some congregants read, has a manuscript variation.
There is a verse (I don't remember where) that occurs only in the TR and in neither the Majority Text nor the Nestlé/Aland/UBS text.
How do you count characters? Do you count punctuation, sigla of the apparatus, or iotas subscript?
Sometimes a single-letter change in Hebrew or Greek results in several words of difference in translation. One is καυχησωμαι (I boast) vs. καυθησωμαι (I be burned) in 1 Cor. 13:3; another is לו אנחנו (somos de él) vs. לא אנחנו (no nosotros a nosotros mismos) in Psalm 100:3. The latter pair sound exactly alike, because two glottal stops in a row sound like one.
Edifying ❤
For some reason my mind wandered to comments I've encountered about whether Isaiah 7:14 should refer to a young woman or a virgin. In my younger days, a version of "don't have children until you're married" seeped into my awareness, implying that there was an expectation that young ladies kept themselves "pure" before marriage, blurring the distinction between a young woman and a virgin.
I know readability has been you main theme, but I have been hoping for a long time you would pick up on more textual critical issues. (Hope I worded that correctly) I really really hope you continue down this road that you have kind of started down!
Hey Mark
I think I may have found a false friend with "earnest" in 2 Cor 1:22.
I'm very certain by other translations (as well as a footnote in my brother's kjv study bible) that it means "deposit" or "a down payment," but I'm unable to find out if that's what it meant in 1611.
I appreciate all your work.
*edit: I was able to confirm this with an online English dictionary from the 1800s that actually used this Bible verse as a reference in the definition.*
A relevant sense is listed in the modern dictionaries I checked (e.g., Noun (2) in MW).
The following sense is listed in the OED with this verse used as a citation (from Wycliffe). It's not marked as obsolete or archaic in the OED:
"2. figurative. A pledge, foretaste, or indication of something to come."
It does strike me as an uncommon sense in today's English, though I think I would/have understood it correctly. It feels closer to archaic to me; maybe it is used more frequently in financial/lending contexts?
Google Books Ngram Viewer records a decline in the overall use of the word since about 1850. No modern translation I checked since the ASV uses the word in 2 Corinthians 1:22.
Would you ever consider recording your videos in podcast form on Spotify? Would make it tad easier to listen to on drives and such. Thanks for the work you do!
Maybe one day!
Fascinating
Brilliant!!!
Is there a link to where one may see these parallel texts?
Kjvparallelbible.org
@@markwardonwords thanks!
Excellent work! How about a video on which edition of the KJV is the prefect one?
(And why the answer is Scrivener's 1873 Cambridge Paragraph Bible, right?)
"Since when has 'omission' equaled 'denial?" I've argued that for years. Not saying Jesus is God is not the same as saying Jesus is not God.
RIGHT! I need to use that second portion of your statement.
Could you please provide a source for Erasmus quotation?
Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 41, ed. Robert D. Sider (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019) pp. 464-465.
@@markwardonwords thank you! I am really gratefull for your work!
Thanks!
Thank *you*!
But you don’t address the lizard people and the alien conspiracy about the critical text… gotcha! 😂
Thank you, Dr. Ward, for all you share with us, as well as your books & your KJV Parallel Bible website! I just don’t want to be around any who accuse Christians of being satanists or having a satanic Bible. 🤦🏼♀️ 👍🏻 to the Erasmus quotes & I wish there was a movie about him! His adventures with the Book of Revelation sound like a sitcom! 😮
Regarding the textual variant in Matthew 1:25, even the critical text has "firstborn son", it's just in Luke 2:7 instead:
Matthew 1:25 - "but knew her not until she had given birth to A SON." - ESV
Luke 2:7 - "And she gave birth to her FIRSTBORN son..." - ESV
It seems like a later scribe probably simply harmonised Matthew 1:25 with Luke 2:7 by incorporating the "firstborn son" phrase from Luke 2:7, which would explain why it's not found in Matthew 1:25 in many of the oldest manuscripts. If an early scribe intentionally removed "firstborn son" from Matthew 1:25, then why did they retain it in Luke 2:7? It doesn't make much sense to me.
Nice video
Wouldn’t it be neat to have a random passage generator right on the parallel Bible site?
A leading position for KJVO is that "God's been using it for 400 years here in America." I am curious as to how many translations there are in other countries that only have Critical Text Translations available...
Mark, you’re fighting a near-vertical uphill battle.
I post this less than 2 minutes from the beginning of this video. The objective experts from both side agree that the “texts” are over 98% in agreement. I learned that 7-8 years ago from a mid 90s YT video.
I plead 🙏🙏 over this “mess” and take peace in when Jesus call us home, it will end.
With patience the KJV parallel (TR next to CT in English) will be fruitful. The modern translation of Translators To The Readers is also a great resource. These people need to see for themselves. They also need to be accepting of the variations. People need to grow up and accept it and know that God saw fit to leave his word to us this way.
Dr Minnick was your pastor? You were blessed! I use the KJV, primarily, since that is the first Bible I was given, in 1978, and I don't find it terribly burdensome to look at side notes to understand some of the obscure words. (Being old and having read a lot of other books, some of them aren't all that obscure to me in the first place.) I appreciate other translations for clarity and comparison, though sometimes I have to switch back to the KJV to help me understand, for some reason.
I have been watching you, trying to figure out what the fuss was. I do see that you pointed out one place where the TR had the Trinity spelled out well that was omitted in the CT. I do wonder what is up with that? I also wonder why, since you point out that the TR and CT are basically the same, that some people are so all fired bent on using the CT vs the TR as a starting point for their translations? Why do they claim it is 'More accurate'? And what was the big Westcott and Hort controversy? Dr Custer was a major proponent of them and caught a lot of flak for it but I don't remember what the issue was? I appreciate your time, if you have any, to answer these questions. :)
Keep up the good work! Have a great day!
Yes, Pastor Minnick was my pastor from age 16 to age 34! I owe him an incalculable debt.
I don't know anyone who is "all fired bent" on using the CT vs. the TR. I think most CT proponents view the CT as superior for the simple reasons that it a) reaches wider into space and b) deeper into history. That is, it tries to incorporate all the textual evidence God has left us instead of a much narrower subset of that evidence (for example, all printed TR editions) or just one piece of that evidence (for example, Scrivener's TR). But I think most knowledgeable users of the CT would balk very little at using the NKJV in ministry if they needed to for some reason.
On Westcott and Hort, check out textualconfidence.com, second season! I stand with Custer on this and other text-critical issues. I only knew Custer as a revered but-I hated to say it out loud-physically weak and kinda doddering old man. My opinion of him changed massively when I listened to a recording of a debate he did with D.A. Waite in the 1980s. Custer brought straight fire. He was brilliant, energetic, and still gracious and clear. I was bowled over. If you can find that debate (I don't have it), it's well worth a listen.
People like me are concerned about this debate a little for scholarly reasons: it really is important for us to do our best to have the best text of the NT we can get. But we're more concerned for ecclesiastical and personal reasons: we don't want to see churches divided over falsehoods (like "Westcott and Hort were occultists, so the NASB is bad!"), and we don't want to see believers struggling to read the KJV when they could just pick up a modern version. You don't struggle: fine! (Though I'll bet my 50 False Friends series here on UA-cam still has something to teach you! ua-cam.com/play/PLq1Aq0ucgkPCtHJ5pwhrU1pjMsUr9F2rc.html) But many people do struggle, some mightily. It isn't right to tell these strugglers they just have to buck up because-Westcott-and-Hort.
@@markwardonwords I appreciate your response. I will look into the info you gave me re: W and H. I have lots of different versions and I wasn't arguing against the utility of modern translations at all. I am just curious as to how and if the 'superiority' of the CT vs TR (a and b) actually plays out in a practical sense? Not trying to be argumentative at all. Thank you again! Have a great day!
@@catharsis77 Totally fair questions, and no offense taken! If you want to see the differences between the TR and CT, check out my kjvparallelbible.org!
@@markwardonwords I have been attempting to educate myself. Is the KJV based upon the Byzantine text? In any case, Dr Robinson makes all kinds of sense demonstrating the superiority of the Byzantine over the eclectic readings of the Alexandrian, CT, speaking with Stephen Hackett in a series on YT. Biblical studies and Review. It all seems very complicated but his reasoning rings true.
In 1981 I met with Dr Custer over this issue due to circumstances I would like to relate to you, but privately. You had a contact point on your blog, I think, but it has been terminated. Is there some way I can reach you?
Hello, I was hoping you could help me with something. My fiancé and I are having a really hard time with version differences. She’s basically a KJV onlyist, and I prefer not to use the KJV because it’s archaic and harder to understand. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like our relationship is about to break, because I wouldn’t want our kids to be learning from the KJV, which they wouldn’t be able to easily understand. She keeps citing minor differences between the versions (2 Samuel 21:19, Colossians 4:15, and John 5:39 to name a few) and saying that they’re major differences and that it makes the versions contradictory. Can you help me? What do I do?
This is a tough one. I've had this precise question several times. If this is ALL I know, then I have to caution both of you (not just you) heavily. Each of you believes that the other is keeping the children in some measure from God's word. This is a bad foundation on which to build a marriage. As my mentor told me when I briefly dated a girl who turned out to be Pentecostal, if I persist in my cessationism (and I have indeed done so since then), she will perceive me as standing in between her and the Holy Spirit. I saw that was not a path forward for a good marriage.
This must be resolved before marriage, I would say (based on knowing **only what you've told me**). Perhaps try a book exchange? She reads my book, Authorized, and you read a KJV-Only book of her choosing? An engagement is not a marriage; breaking up is not divorce. I don't wish this on you, but I don't wish on either of you a marriage that is built on a cracked foundation.
You might consider seeing how she feels about the NKJV or (if she objects to something in it) the Simplified KJV from Barbour Publishing.
I was using the KJV for a while just to not cause arguments, but then I started talking to her more about it and asking her to just try to read the ESV (she thinks other versions are corrupted) and she keeps thinking that verse differences are groundbreaking and cause for concern. I honestly don’t know if a book exchange would work, because it’s pretty heated right now, but I guess I could ask her about it
@@MAMoreno she thinks the NKJV is corrupted, too
@@GloryToGod_gtg If you want to see if she will give the SKJV a chance, here is the link to get online access to it: www.simplifiedkjv.com/read.html
The company that edited it were interested in updating its wording, not its scholarship. She might still be able to nitpick a few things, but it won't be nearly as different as the NKJV is to the KJV.
KJV is not the only translation for me. ✌️🤠
I have used the SBLGNT and Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Text (RPBT) for quite some time. I can tell you that I usually just use the SBLGNT out of convenience because 9 times out of 10, it will be the same as RPBT. If I find a difference between the SBLGNT and the KJV, the issue isn't that the SBLGNT will be different from the RPBT, it is _actually_ that the TR is different from the RPBT, because the TR is just _one_ (inferior) text tradition of the Byzantine Text family.
A good example is Rev 1:6, where the KJV has it, "(He) hath made us kings and priests." I can tell you off the top of my head that should be, ""βασιλεῖς καὶ ἱερεῖς (basileis & iereis)," but if I look at SBLGNT, it will say, "βασιλείαν, ἱερεῖς τῷ Θεῷ (basileian, iereis to theo). That's very different -- "a kingdom, God's priests". Because the SBLGNT and RPBT have so few differences, I can be willing to bet that the RPBT will also say the same thing as SBLGNT. And sure enough, it will be the same. The TR, however, is different. NA28, SBLGNT, and RPBT all agree on this. The TR is what's different. Which is more trust worthy? the TR? no, because if you read the Old Testament passage this is referencing (Ex 19:6), it says, "and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation."
Theologically, there is only one king -- the Father -- to whom Jesus Christ will submit himself so that the Father can be over all (1 Cor 15:20-28), so we can't be kings even if we are coheirs with Christ. And what does a priest do? they serve as the mediators between non-priests and God. What was Israel's role? Jerusalem was a light unto the nations set on a hill. They were supposed to draw all nations to God and be the mediator between him and them. That is what Humans are made for in general in Gn 1:26, that is what an "image bearer" is. What is the church supposed to do? pick up where Israel failed and go be the mediators between God and humans. We are of a foreign kingdom. We are invading enemy territory and taking it back for God. Thus, royal priesthood makes more sense exegetically, so the TR can't be right. We mediate between the World and Christ, and Christ mediates between us and the Father.
And the SBLGNT marks variants from the RP! That's a big reason I use it. It gives me the text-critical data I need on the go.
Yes, we are quite safe with bibles from any of today's main sources. If anything, it's going from original language to English. (Just a kindly reminder, please check the "ad" breaks. 6 ads in less than 30 minutes, greatly spoils the smooth continuity. Thanks!)
If you have manuscripts that are shorter, and some that are longer, then mathematically I would expect the original reading to be in the middle. If it's all the way to the long end or short end, I would need to know why people only removed and never added, or why they added and never removed any material....
Excellent video as always. But strange choice in venue. I think what underlies the insistence on only the TR or KJV is the quest epistemological certitude in a singular translation. It’s the same thing that drives others to put an implicit faith in the Roman Catholic magisterium. The thinking is, without an infallible interpreter, how can have we epistemological certainty as to what to believe in? In essence the KJV -only people have done the same thing and made the King James version a Pope.
Agreed.
Great quote from Erasmus
There are numbers of these in his Collected Works, vol. 41.
@markwardonwords Thank you for this overview and helpful presentation of the issues. What would be a maximally suspicious reading of the CTs' reading at 1 Timothy 3:16 (a sticking point for me, sticking with the CTs, that is)? Tregelles presents several charitable readings.
The Vulgate reads, "quod manifestatum est in carne." Hence why the Douay-Rheims says, "which was manifested in the flesh." Roman Catholics would not deliberately go with a reading that denies the divinity of Christ. Thus, there's solid support for Greek readings that say something like ὅς ("who") instead of θεὸς ("God"). The longer reading seems like a clarification of an ambiguous pronoun.
@MAMoreno Thank you. I agree, I think, about the noun replacing the pronoun, but I wonder how ambiguous the pronoun was. Also, if we did not have Greek Codex Claromonantus, would we have to treat quod as a pronoun? I am hesitant about declaring the motives of the Old Latin translators.
Love you, Mark, but it's a little bold in the thumbnail to use the society of biblical literature (logos' partner I believe?) as the default CT, rather than Nestle or UBS. 😊
It’s the one I use most often.
And SBL helpfully includes the Byzantine RP text as well as Tregelles.
@@markwardonwordsspecific 👍
Funny how the Bible is one of the few ancient texts to have this problem of textual variances, because so many manuscripts survived to today, compared to any other ancient book. For many other books we just get the one version with no clues about where the scribe might have made a mistake. The Holy Spirit took care to provide excellent error correction for all those centuries of merely human bible scribes.
I agree!
The KJV CT parallel website was one of the first things that grounded me in my journey down the various CT conspiracy rabbit trails.
I still have plenty of opinionated but reasonable criticisms, one of them being restrictive copyright on the NA28.
This is circumvented by the Berean Bible by using the NA1904 as the base, which is in public domain.
As someone who generally dislikes the CT, I say they are no closer today to the original text than they were in 1904, but I’m curious what a CT proponent would say
FWIW, the SBLGNT that I use has a very open license. Not 100% open, but not like the NA28.
....i hope this comment does not vary significantly
from other comments i may
or may not have left here....
Those pesky facts
I love your channel, love the video. But... yikes that "slut" example! Sheesh! To me, saying that they are completely different would mean 80%-100% different. Thank you for all your hard work, especially that spreadsheet.
Yeah, that was rough! By the way, I got a terrible flu right after packing up your book. It's been sitting on a shelf waiting to be sent to you. I only got better yesterday. It was truly bad for my whole family. =(
@@markwardonwords oh no! I'm so sorry, I'm glad you're feeling better. Please don't worry about my book at all, I know you'll get it to me when you can!
hi mark, can you please refute the claims of the channels "Christ is King" and "REAL Bible Believers?" I'm tryna research and develop my own stance on the KJV only debate and I think they have good arguments.
I tried to watch a bit of Gene Kim's arguments from "REAL Bible Believers," and I'm immediately hit with one obvious problem: he's trying to appeal to Revelation 22.18-19 in defense of the KJV.
This is a problem for two reasons:
1. The Textus Receptus is especially unreliable as a Greek witness in regard to the last six verses of Revelation. Due to a problem with his Greek source text, Erasmus had to complete his edition of the book with readings from a Latin source instead of a Greek one. He did a decent job, all things considered, but the resulting text introduced a number of tiny variants that you will not find in either the Alexandrian text or the Byzantine text. (The impact on the KJV is minimal with the exception of "book" instead of "tree" in 22.19, but if you compare verses 17 and 18 in Greek, you'll see a bunch of weird little differences.)
2. Revelation has some other issues in the Textus Receptus, especially when the scholars either accidentally or intentionally emended the text with no manuscript support. Two unintentional errors are in 1.8 (where it simply says Κύριος, "Lord," instead of Κύριος ὁ Θεός, "Lord God") and 17.8 (where it says καὶπερ ἔστιν, "yet is," rather than καὶ παρέσται, "and shall come"). These were mistakes by Erasmus. The emendation by Beza in 16.5, on the other hand, was intentional. He was convinced that καὶ ὁ ἐσόμενος ("and shall be") made more sense than ὁ ὅσιος ("the holy"), so he changed it based on his own educated guess, not on evidence. (Earlier editions of the TR agree with "the holy," as do the major English translations before the KJV.)
In short, the Greek behind the 1611 version of Revelation is in a bit of disarray, and the translation is impacted by these issues somewhat. As such, it's a bad idea to invoke the curses of 22.18-19 in defense of the KJV. While one might argue that we can't be certain that the NIV or ESV gets the text of Revelation 100% right, we know for certain that the TR/KJV doesn't get it 100% right.
Jack A. Moorman in his work titled Missing in Modern Bibles: The Old Heresy Revived, posits, Would it make a difference if you knew that the New Testament of your Modern Bible did not have First and Second Peter? Yet if the total number of missing words were added up this is how much shorter the modern translations are than the King James Version ( page 7).
His work gets into the details of not only the differences in the underlying texts from which a Bible is translated, but discusses the philosophy and methodology of the translators of the KJV versus those of modern versions.
Having compared modern versions to the KJV, I can attest to these.
This comparison is meaningless. Imagine if you went into the KJV with the intent of losing the redundant phrase "answered and said," replacing it simply with "said" or "answered." You would end up cutting about 360 words once you were done. That's already over 14 verses of 1 Peter, and not a single bit of information has been lost.
The quantity of variants means nothing if the quality of the variants is nothing more than the difference between "said" and "answered and said." This is why the sheer number of word variations is irrelevant on its own.
The "missing words" are mostly redundant titles (Lord Christ God) Jacobian parsing, and run-on phrasing of sentences.
"I'm going to the store tonight to buy chocolate milk"
and
"Hark, after sunset I will travel up onto yon merchants, and upon doing so I shall thereat purchase heffer's milk with flavour of cacao beans added unto it."
Are the exact same meaning, despite the later being overly written and harder to follow.
Do you prefer the 1611 KJV over your 1769 version, even though it included the Apocrypha? Talk about adding to his words...
My claim has been one, that the Critical Text Though having the Fundamentals of our faith it weakens them. Secondly, I’ve always claimed that if they are fundamentally the same than why is it not used in accredited institutions? It is purposefully rejected and in most cases the teacher/professor will run down the TR taking pot shots at its validity. Sir, I’ve had 21 hours of N.T. Greek and with the exception of “Baby” Greek all the teachers made it a point to put down the TR/KJB. The same thing with the O.T., I’ve had 18 hours in Biblical Hebrew(I took all that they offered), the professor spoke against the Bible. Yet it’s claimed that the Chayyim text only has 9 differences.
Also, I’d like to add the “new” form of Textual Criticism abbreviated the ECM NA29 edition should be out in 2025 will have even more differences and more modern versions will come out. That’s why it’s called the “evolution” Bible, “scholars” are never finished making changes no matter how small. We see that that is a red flag.
Dr. Bob, I'm willing to engage with you, but I have a preliminary question: do you insist on the exclusive use of the King James Bible?
Having recently completed reading the New Testament chapter by chapter along with the whole family (and the KJV only own time as well), we've come to find a lot of alignment of the scriptures with much of Catholicism. Are there any suggestions for this?
I’m really not sure I understand your question, my friend! But if you’re trying to understand Catholicism vs. Protestantism, I’d send you right to Gavin Ortlund’s UA-cam channel, called @truthunites.
@@markwardonwords thank you!
KjV kid: “Oh look, Mom. He didn’t even mention the Johannine Comma when he talked about truth missing from the Critical Text! He MUST know that it was corrupted by Arians and other heretics, but tried to hide the fact!”
Please interact with the arguments made in the video.
@@markwardonwordsWith respect, Mark, inter alia, you addressed the issue of alleged "subtractions" by the Critical Text tradition, but by saying that apart from the ending of Mark, and the account of the woman caught in adultery, there were really no significant omissions from the TR tradition. My pointing out an important alleged (by the TR mob) "subtraction" was, I thought, interacting with your helpful video.
The heretics managed to erase its existence from the entirety of the Greek manuscript tradition until the 1300s? To believe that the comma is authentic, you have to accept that it was preserved solely in Latin for most of church history (even as you reject other Latin-only readings that weren't incorporated into the TR by Erasmus or his successors).
I would direct you to this article by James Snapp, someone who is generally favorable to the TR against the CT: www.thetextofthegospels.com/2020/01/first-john-57-and-greek-manuscripts.html
Check out the playlist "Jay Dyer on Sola Scriptura" for over ten hours of great discussions. Jay is not a textual scholar, but he is very knowledgeable about issues related to the canon of scripture.
I would love to discuss your belief in the trinity. As a man who clearly loves Gods word I would be fascinated to understand how you can reconcile Gods word with the Chalcedon creed?
Why that creed in particular? Are you a monophysite?
@@MAMoreno not quite sure what that means? I am a Nazarene, a follower of the way who believes YHVH alone is the one true God, the called father in the Hebrew bible and NT, and that Jesus is the anointed one of YHVH.
@@Thewatchman303
Zechariah 14.5b LXX: καὶ ἥξει κύριος ὁ θεός μου καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ
1 Thessalonians 3.13b NA28: ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ μετὰ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων αὐτοῦ
Zechariah 14.5b NKJV: Thus the LORD my God will come, And all the saints with You.
1 Thessalonians 3.13b NKJV: at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints
One question on this topic that I can’t get peace on is this: if it is the opinion of many modern scholars that the CT is most accurate, to the point virtually no new English translations consider the TR anymore; why didn’t God have the CT manuscripts be found and used rather than the TR from the beginning?
With complete sincerity I say: if you cannot get past this in your conscience, then don't! Use the NKJV or MEV!
But if you wish to get past it, then the only way forward, I think, is education. I do not think that the way you have framed the issue is correct; it just isn't that simple. Here's my favorite recommendation:
www.amazon.com/dp/1433564092?tag=3755-20
@@markwardonwords thank you Mark. I appreciate your reply
@@markwardonwords Oh yes, Mark, if we can all just become as educated as you, then all problems will be solved.
So...if the difference between the TR and Critical are virtually the same, why choose one over the other when translating? Why is there a need for the Critical Text? Does that question make sense? Why all the effort to create a text that is virtually the same?
An excellent and valid question. It's because when it comes to something as important as God's word, even the minor details matter.
If they are the same, stick with what we had. New is not necessary.
God gravely warns people about adding to or taking away from his words (see Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:5-6; Jeremiah 23:30-31, 36; Revelation 22:18-19). Comparative analyses of the underlying texts supporting the KJV and most modern versions and the KJV and modern versions themselves show important differences though they are largely left unidentified in this video. Some differences are so subtle, one would not know that they were there unless compared side-by-side.
God did not choose to give us a pamphlet that contained all 'key doctrines,' but 66 books by which believers are nourished, strengthened, and instructed (see 2 Timothy 3:16-17). God makes much of EVERY WORD that he has given and preserved in his word (see Luke 4:4 in the KJV). We are wise to do the same.
The keys to remember are
1. Do not ADD
2. Do not REMOVE
3. YOU aren't the one being warned.
Do YOU have the originals themselves? If not, you don't know what was added. Therefore, you can't address what is/isn't being removed.
(And that warning is for the scribes and translators of Revelation itself, not a general rule for the bible)
God's word is 2 things
1. The logic/wisdom/communication of God himself
2. *Jesus* is the word of God as shown in John 1.
And if the word was the KJV/AV itself, then you follow a corrupted text because you use a revision that is missing entire books that were included in the 1611 original.
Such as The Wisdom of Solomon.
So why the KJV and not Tyndale/Matthews or Geneva? Same manuscripts aren't they?
Why the KJV and not the MEV? Same manuscripts aren't they?
God's word teaches us to have a high view of the holy scriptures, his written word, saying, I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: FOR THOU HAST MAGNIFIED THY WORD ABOVE ALL THY NAME (Psalm 138:2, emphasis added).
God both gave and promised to preserve his words (see John 17:17, Matthew 24:35, 1 Peter 1:23-25, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, etc.) Bible believers must not be ignorant, however, of those who would corrupt it by adding to it or taking away from it (see 2 Corinthians 2:17) or from those who would wrest the scriptures (see 2 Peter 3:15-17).
Believers distinguish between God's inspired word and that which is not, i.e. commentary, study tips, Apocryphal books, etc.
@shirleymajor8862
"Believers distinguish..." is entirely unbiblical. (Feel free to show me the scripture that says otherwise?)
And I will go so far as to say, it's almost heretical.
God's word is absolutely NOT subject to how *you* feel. God spoke, and you don't get to say, "I feel the bible is only what that group of 47 said back in 1611."
You have the freedom to decide what you hold as holy, but you're also the one facing any/all judgments for those decisions. (If a said error is worthy of judgment)
You are free to make those errors, but I would advise against telling others they must follow your beliefs.
In conclusion, you have your beliefs, I have the word of God (as testified by countless numbers of translators and scribes.) And I stand with the translators of the KJV in that if more than 1 part of the bible (the original Greek/Hebrew manuscripts) are in any way at odds, the most likely is to be presented in the main text with footnotes to include the other(s).
@@sm8johnthreesixteen Compare the KJV to its "grandfather" translation, the Great Bible of 1539, or to its predecessor, the Matthew Bible of 1537. The KJV both adds words and takes away words found in earlier translations. And I don't just mean updating or tweaking the language of Henry VIII's time to fit the language of James I's time. I mean that the KJV has variant readings compared to its predecessors.
As the old saying goes, "Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." If it's wrong for modern versions to do it, then it's wrong for the KJV to do it.
I don’t disagree with you, but I do think you use a lot of straw-man arguments in this video.
I believe the reason Dr. Ward placed the descriptors starting around 0:30 in quotation marks is that they are direct quotes by opponents of the CT.
In my own experience, I have heard pastors call the CT (They call it the Westcott/Hort text) corrupt, garbage, and a tool of Satan.
I wish they were straw-man arguments, but, based on my experience, Dr. Ward has represented his opponents accurately.
I heard a lot of good points being made about the KJV in other videos but nobody claimed "they are completely different bibles" or that "one is much longer or shorter". So from the start your video sets up a strawman debate. I'm not KJV-only by any means but misrepresenting the points made doesn't really help your credibility.
I believe the reason Dr. Ward placed the descriptors starting around 0:30 in quotation marks is that they are direct quotes by opponents of the CT.
In my own experience, I have heard pastors call the CT (They call it the Westcott/Hort text) corrupt, garbage, and a tool of Satan.
I wish it was a strawman debate, but, based on my experience, Dr. Ward has represented his opponents accurately.
I made direct quotes from leading KJV defenders. I did not give names because I’m weary of the trouble doing so creates.
Why do you care what bible people read? What do you gain by being obsessed with a topic having to do with manuscript translation when you have no experience in that field?
His issue (like mine) is not what translation someone chooses to read.
The issue is people telling falsehoods in order to force others to read a translation that may not be the best choice for that person.
And to help dispell myths that locks people into a translation that they won't completely understand.
And lastly, to help people understand the textual variations are not a threat to any Christian doctrine (not a single one).
Aka "textual confidence".
There are two issues here:
1. If you're a preacher who's misinterpreting a passage in the KJV Bible because you don't fully understand Jacobean English, then you need to expand beyond the KJV.
2. If you're a preacher who's unjustly scaring your congregants away from decent modern translations that they can actually understand, then you need to be rebuked until you recant.
Oh, I don't know, Mark, duhhhhhhhhhhh, are they completely different? Let me watch this here video, and find out, duhhhhhhhhhh.
You've got to be kidding, Mark. No one thinks this. Duh.
I provide multiple direct quotes from leading (and one or two not-leading) KJV-Onlyists at the beginning of the video.
@@markwardonwords KJV-Onlyists? Oh, come on, Mark. That's like shooting fish in a barrel. Don't you have anything more important to do with your time? Evangelicals kill me. They sit around doing the same work over, and over, and over, and it's never a good enough patch job, so then you have to do it over again 20 years later. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that if God really intended for you to do this whole Sola Scriptura nonsense, that he would have preserved perfect transcripts for you? But your pride and arrogance will never let you to admit that the Protestant project has been a huge failure. Your verbal icon is not enough to provide unity. You'll never get these hayseed IFB people that you've aligned yourself with to let go of their KJV...cuz they ain't got nothin' else to hang their hat on. "It's not my brother, not my sister, but it's me oh Lord, standin' in the need of the Nicene Creed and the Ecumenical Councils." -Τζόνι μετρητά
So, if God promised his word to be pure and to last forever, then where is it?? Hmm.. the KJV isn’t copyrighted and all of the others are. Meaning there has to be a number of changes to have it copyrighted.
I just having a hard time believing that the God of all creation and “language “ needs hundreds of different versions to convey his word to people… God is not the author of confusion, satan is... smh.. does anyone know how satan operates today??? He is the copycat, attempting to be like God. And keep everyone blinded. So a little truth mixed in corruption is still corrupt. And if you mix the truth with tons of false versions, then how would one find the truth?? It’s amazing that if you look at the big picture and ask yourself which God of all religions is the most hated and attacked?? The God of Abraham
And Jesus. You don’t see anyone attacking Buddha, Allah, etc.
All religions say and acknowledge that Jesus is one way to heaven but Jesus says he’s the only way..
How about ask yourself, out of all the different bible transitions, which one is attacked the most??? The KJV! Why? Because it’s Gods perfectly preserved word of Truth. Cause honestly if the KJVO group decides to change and say the NIV is now the only true Bible, what do you think would happen… I know, I know. Nobody wants to acknowledge that God preserved his word in one of our English versions, but yet christiandum claims that the Bible is their final authority. Meaning this way people can inject their own vain viewpoint and make scripture line up with their beliefs instead of letting Gods word define their beliefs.. same issue with why atheists don’t acknowledge God. Cause now they have to hold themselves accountable.. I get it, and hope all of you who deny Gods authority to look at this issue with a different heart attitude.
God has made no such promise. If he did, why would it be a text from 1611 that has been revised several times?
And why a translation that its own translators said wasn't inspired?
The KJV isn't being attacked here.
It's being analyzed for faults. And you can find faults if you can bring yourself to look honestly.
(Deut 21:22 has a typo that has never been fixed to this day.
Ruth 3:15 had a typo in the original 1611 where it called Ruth "he".)
So, what is God's word being fully preserved? The answer is that it was preserved in the Greek and Hebrew.
In the Greek manuscripts, there are many variations. Yet, not a single one changes any important Christian doctrine. This is God's word preserved perfectly. God preserved it through all the faults and failings of men who copied and translated it over thousands of years.
He didn't wait to give it only to a single group of people who spoke English in 1611.
Also something that might interest you.
Everything you said, was said before about a different translation.
Those arguments were said about the Latin Vulgate to keep the Bible out of English.
Also the kjv is still under copyright to this day.
1. The KJV is copyrighted by the crown in the UK.
2. The KJV has undergone 5 revisions since 1611, and the one you use from 1769 is the 5th. Even the current one varies between the Oxford and Cambridge editions. Which one is "pure"?
3. As Mark pointed out on the previous video, there are 28 editions of the TR, and the one mostly used by KJVO's is from Scrivener, produced 200 years after the KJV. Scrivener developed it while working on the original CT Bible and was friends with Westcott and Hort. Which TR is "pure"?
3. KJVO's slanderously accuse other translations of (a) being Vatican controlled, (b) denying the virgin birth, and (c) eliminating the blood of Christ, but...the (a) the TR was developed by a Catholic priest, (b) Catholics would never deny the virgin birth, but emphasize it to the point of heresy, and (c) Catholics also emphasize the blood of Christ to the point of (to put it kindly) heresy in the false doctrine of the mass and transubstantiation.
The copyright to the KJV is spelled out on Cambridge's website: www.cambridge.org/bibles/about/rights-and-permissions/
The fact that the American colonies stopped respecting the KJV's copyright once they declared independence does not change the fact that the copyright still exists in the UK.
For an example of a Bible translation that's _actually_ in the public domain, see the World English Bible (WEB). Also, the copyright has expired on some late 19th and early 20th century versions, such as the ASV.