8:07 Amen. As a layperson, I think it is better to stick with 2 or 3 solid translations (KJV, NKJV, ESV, along with the NETS LXX) with textual notes, rather than try playing amateur text critic! Trust your editors. Thanks for another session with Dr. Robinson! 🙏📖
Loving this series of videos. I’m at the very beginning of trying to settle my opinion on these issues and I appreciate hearing the perspective well-articulated.
Good video, again a joy to continue learning with you and Dr. Robinson I pray that more and more pastors, scholars and believers will see the great value of the Byzantine text. An interesting topic to discuss could be the question of preservation, given that many ignore, misunderstand or disparage this doctrine. God bless you and thank you, blessings from Spain.
If you go to a school and learn doctrine A is correct, and doctrine B is false, and here are some resources you can read that support this claim, then it is obvious that the majority of the people who leave that school are going to reject doctrine B. Secondly, to be accepted in that world you usually need to promote doctrine A, and/or come up with something new, new ideas, new theories, new readings. If you come up with the same old Byzantine text that has been done already, then there is no $ and no advancement in scholarship. You have to come up with a new reading, like mark 1:41 or 2 Peter 3:10
Excellent perspective of the history of the Biblical Greek New Testament. Once again, I have completed my studious reading of the premier books on Biblical Greek New Testament textual criticism by Erasmus, Stephanus, Mills, Von Sidon, Mills, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Lockman, Westcott & Hort, Metzger, Aland, Comfort, and a few dozen others. The results are the UBS5 and NA28 Greek Texts. My Agreement w/ You: Referring to the discussions of this video, my questions are: 1) How many of the "few dozen" textual critics alive today that you refer to are practicing Christians? 2) How many of the above 19th and 20th c. scholars were practicing Christians? 2) How many of these textual critics were / are Roman Catholics? (It fascinates me that the Catholic Church has not issued a "Critical Text of the Greek New Testament." Nor has the Orthodox Church of Greece and Russia. Why not?) My Disagreement w/ You: Isn't it fascinating that the vast majority of "textual criticism" scholars of the 19th and 20th century were either: (a) secular scholars or (b) quasi-believing Protestant Christians? (Yes, forgive me for answering my own question.) Synthesis Observation: The Emperor Constantine's bishops had all of the manuscripts of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries A.D. at their disposal. His bishops produced the Byzantine (aka "Textus Receptus" ('TR') text behind the King James Version of the Bible. If Constantine's bishops had the entire "universe" of early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, why would they purposefully before God and their worldly emperor, produce a faulty Greek text of the New Testament? Why? Did they want money? Did they want position? Money and title and position are big motivators... Did they not really believe in God and Jesus Christ? Were they purely corrupt high church officials "for sale" like the next political hack and lobbyist today in Washington, D.C.? My sense is that after nearly 250 years of Christian persecution, the bishops were a mixture of the best minds of their time and a few sleezy, opportunistic types. Frankly, I don't know if they were a honest and capable as our WWII congress members. Probably not. But I suspect they were leaning Christian, both in terms of their own religious convictions and certainly politically in alignment with Emperor Constantine. The more serious and faith-minded of them surely saw an opportunity to recover from the persecutions of the "bad Emperors of the last two hundred years." The majority of these bishops knew that the ancient Greek and Roman pantheon of gods was dead. And the Jewish God and his son Jesus Christ presented a new way forward for western civilization. And most of them truly had a sense of faith in God and Jesus Christ. Why, then, would they not want to produce the most accurate Greek New Testament? Okay, maybe they would want to sort out the divinity of Christ. And a few later modifications of the Greek text point to this. But only much later in the Middle Ages, do we see slight wording changes regarding the doctrine of the Virgin Mary. And that is it! That is the whole story of the Greek New Testament...! Again, this is a storm in a teacup. And I am happy to conclude this! There is absolutely nothing core to our faith and practice that is called into question by this nearly 200 years of Greek New Testament "textual criticism." The critics are dead an gone. God is the ultimate critic of the thoughts and intents of the mind of man. And God loves us. And he sent his only son to bring us back to God our father. Christ's whole ministry was to teach us that we do not have the answers. Only God has the answers for our lives. By making Jesus Christ our lord and master, and believing deep inside us that God raised Christ from the dead - then too we will be saved (aka "made whole" in the Greek). Made whole? Whole with what? Why, with God. Apart from God we are like a slice of pie... A clutch of Canada geese goslings cannot survive unless they are part of the entire family. No offspring can survive without its portents. Look at the geology of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. It says, "Adam, the son of God." That is it! God creator our progenitor, the first human Adam. And God made Eve. And God made the second Adam (I Cor. 15) to redeem all humanity and bring us back into the "clutch" of humanity with God our Creator. And God revealed his new covenant through Christ to us in the Greek New Testament -- and any good English translation thereof. The rest is weekly dusting of furniture in the living room in Kansas in 2023! Be well! Thank you! You got me thinking!
~6:00. So, we must defer to experts? I think the Pharisees would be proud. I was on a personnel committee one time and the question came up if we should require certain degrees for certain positions. I stated that that would eliminate most of the Disciples of Jesus and of course Jesus. I wasn’t on the personnel committee the next year. AI will be far superior to all these experts soon, will we defer to AI at that time?
With his logic of rejecting the witnesses of the versions we could also if we took this to the Old Testament textual criticism ignore when the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint gang up and disagree with the masoretic text on some very important Messianic prophecies such as the psalm 22 where Jesus hands and feet are pierced and in Isaiah 53 when Jesus sees the light which is bible speak for Resurrection.
For your next interview, in addition to finding out the current status on his projects, would you also ask which textual criticism programs he considers worth attending?
Hey why don't we get somebody on this channel to defend the critical text and see what they say I keep hearing from Byzantine people but I never hear the other side it's usually those who hold to a position that gives the best arguments in favor of it
One of the goals of the channel was to get this perspective out there. When I started this channel, there were lots of people defending the Textus Receptus and a lot of people defending the Critical text. This position had precious few videos on it. So I’m trying to fill that gap. Although I’m not opposed to having, CT advocates on, I think their position is already well represented on UA-cam.
I don’t think anyone rejects the Byzantine. Most scholars just want to weigh its readings against the other families when looking at a text. There are people who only want to use the Byzantine text and ignore the other families - including the earliest manuscripts. That doesn’t make sense to me.
For me I don't think you spent enough time on this. The beginning was more of a discrediting of the opposition, which I didn't find particularly compelling or helpful. The latter part seemed rushed with a bunch of assumptions with respect that your audience knew or understood background, context, etc... I like this series, but this episode seemed unfocused and rushed.
8:07 Amen. As a layperson, I think it is better to stick with 2 or 3 solid translations (KJV, NKJV, ESV, along with the NETS LXX) with textual notes, rather than try playing amateur text critic! Trust your editors.
Thanks for another session with Dr. Robinson! 🙏📖
I am going to check out the WEB version based upon the Byzantine text now.
I really appreciate that you make scholarship available and understandable to lay person like myself. Thank you so much. God bless you.
Loving this series of videos. I’m at the very beginning of trying to settle my opinion on these issues and I appreciate hearing the perspective well-articulated.
I think the expectation of the UBS text is that the reader picks and chooses the readings out from the apparatus.
Great stuff Stephen! So glad you two were able to connect :D
Good video, again a joy to continue learning with you and Dr. Robinson I pray that more and more pastors, scholars and believers will see the great value of the Byzantine text. An interesting topic to discuss could be the question of preservation, given that many ignore, misunderstand or disparage this doctrine. God bless you and thank you, blessings from Spain.
excellent video again... always so edifying to listen to Dr. Robinson... he's swimming against the TC tide, for sure... thank God.... 🙂👍
If you go to a school and learn doctrine A is correct, and doctrine B is false, and here are some resources you can read that support this claim, then it is obvious that the majority of the people who leave that school are going to reject doctrine B. Secondly, to be accepted in that world you usually need to promote doctrine A, and/or come up with something new, new ideas, new theories, new readings. If you come up with the same old Byzantine text that has been done already, then there is no $ and no advancement in scholarship. You have to come up with a new reading, like mark 1:41 or 2 Peter 3:10
That makes sense. What greek text or methodology then should people like us rely on?
@@nsptech9773 People like us as in lay people who can read Greek? Or lay people dependent on a translation?
@@yahrescues8993 lay people who can't read greek
@@nsptech9773 A TR translation. I use the NKJV, I think the translation itself is fine. But I wouldn’t have a problem using Stephanus.
@@yahrescues8993 But doesn't it have few variants like 1 John 5:7 and 1 Timothy 3:16?? Is there any version of the TR that is 100% accurate?
Excellent perspective of the history of the Biblical Greek New Testament. Once again, I have completed my studious reading of the premier books on Biblical Greek New Testament textual criticism by Erasmus, Stephanus, Mills, Von Sidon, Mills, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Lockman, Westcott & Hort, Metzger, Aland, Comfort, and a few dozen others. The results are the UBS5 and NA28 Greek Texts.
My Agreement w/ You: Referring to the discussions of this video, my questions are: 1) How many of the "few dozen" textual critics alive today that you refer to are practicing Christians? 2) How many of the above 19th and 20th c. scholars were practicing Christians? 2) How many of these textual critics were / are Roman Catholics? (It fascinates me that the Catholic Church has not issued a "Critical Text of the Greek New Testament." Nor has the Orthodox Church of Greece and Russia. Why not?)
My Disagreement w/ You: Isn't it fascinating that the vast majority of "textual criticism" scholars of the 19th and 20th century were either: (a) secular scholars or (b) quasi-believing Protestant Christians? (Yes, forgive me for answering my own question.)
Synthesis Observation: The Emperor Constantine's bishops had all of the manuscripts of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries A.D. at their disposal. His bishops produced the Byzantine (aka "Textus Receptus" ('TR') text behind the King James Version of the Bible. If Constantine's bishops had the entire "universe" of early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, why would they purposefully before God and their worldly emperor, produce a faulty Greek text of the New Testament? Why?
Did they want money? Did they want position? Money and title and position are big motivators... Did they not really believe in God and Jesus Christ? Were they purely corrupt high church officials "for sale" like the next political hack and lobbyist today in Washington, D.C.?
My sense is that after nearly 250 years of Christian persecution, the bishops were a mixture of the best minds of their time and a few sleezy, opportunistic types. Frankly, I don't know if they were a honest and capable as our WWII congress members. Probably not. But I suspect they were leaning Christian, both in terms of their own religious convictions and certainly politically in alignment with Emperor Constantine. The more serious and faith-minded of them surely saw an opportunity to recover from the persecutions of the "bad Emperors of the last two hundred years."
The majority of these bishops knew that the ancient Greek and Roman pantheon of gods was dead. And the Jewish God and his son Jesus Christ presented a new way forward for western civilization. And most of them truly had a sense of faith in God and Jesus Christ.
Why, then, would they not want to produce the most accurate Greek New Testament? Okay, maybe they would want to sort out the divinity of Christ. And a few later modifications of the Greek text point to this. But only much later in the Middle Ages, do we see slight wording changes regarding the doctrine of the Virgin Mary.
And that is it! That is the whole story of the Greek New Testament...! Again, this is a storm in a teacup. And I am happy to conclude this! There is absolutely nothing core to our faith and practice that is called into question by this nearly 200 years of Greek New Testament "textual criticism." The critics are dead an gone. God is the ultimate critic of the thoughts and intents of the mind of man.
And God loves us. And he sent his only son to bring us back to God our father. Christ's whole ministry was to teach us that we do not have the answers. Only God has the answers for our lives. By making Jesus Christ our lord and master, and believing deep inside us that God raised Christ from the dead - then too we will be saved (aka "made whole" in the Greek). Made whole? Whole with what? Why, with God.
Apart from God we are like a slice of pie... A clutch of Canada geese goslings cannot survive unless they are part of the entire family. No offspring can survive without its portents. Look at the geology of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. It says, "Adam, the son of God." That is it! God creator our progenitor, the first human Adam. And God made Eve. And God made the second Adam (I Cor. 15) to redeem all humanity and bring us back into the "clutch" of humanity with God our Creator.
And God revealed his new covenant through Christ to us in the Greek New Testament -- and any good English translation thereof. The rest is weekly dusting of furniture in the living room in Kansas in 2023!
Be well! Thank you! You got me thinking!
~6:00. So, we must defer to experts? I think the Pharisees would be proud. I was on a personnel committee one time and the question came up if we should require certain degrees for certain positions. I stated that that would eliminate most of the Disciples of Jesus and of course Jesus. I wasn’t on the personnel committee the next year. AI will be far superior to all these experts soon, will we defer to AI at that time?
Are many believers, unknowingly, are being lead into error by many of these translations not based on Byzantine versions of the Bible?
My view is that most of the differences are pretty minor.
With his logic of rejecting the witnesses of the versions we could also if we took this to the Old Testament textual criticism ignore when the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint gang up and disagree with the masoretic text on some very important Messianic prophecies such as the psalm 22 where Jesus hands and feet are pierced and in Isaiah 53 when Jesus sees the light which is bible speak for Resurrection.
For your next interview, in addition to finding out the current status on his projects, would you also ask which textual criticism programs he considers worth attending?
Hey why don't we get somebody on this channel to defend the critical text and see what they say I keep hearing from Byzantine people but I never hear the other side it's usually those who hold to a position that gives the best arguments in favor of it
One of the goals of the channel was to get this perspective out there. When I started this channel, there were lots of people defending the Textus Receptus and a lot of people defending the Critical text. This position had precious few videos on it. So I’m trying to fill that gap. Although I’m not opposed to having, CT advocates on, I think their position is already well represented on UA-cam.
I don’t think anyone rejects the Byzantine. Most scholars just want to weigh its readings against the other families when looking at a text. There are people who only want to use the Byzantine text and ignore the other families - including the earliest manuscripts. That doesn’t make sense to me.
exactly
Yah I agree it seemed to me like he was poisoning the well. It would be helpful if he explained why he disagrees with them.
For me I don't think you spent enough time on this. The beginning was more of a discrediting of the opposition, which I didn't find particularly compelling or helpful. The latter part seemed rushed with a bunch of assumptions with respect that your audience knew or understood background, context, etc...
I like this series, but this episode seemed unfocused and rushed.
Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts! Blessings!