"oldest and best" false argument
"oldest and best" false argument
Johnthebaptist said:
Brandplucked
You are funny and give the response of most KJV Only who use twisted facts. It is clear from manuscriptural evidence that the Alexanderian text was the earliest.
"In textual criticism there are three categories of external evidence: the Greek manuscripts, the early translations into other languages, and the quotations of the New Testament found in the church fathers' writings. If the majority text view is right, then one would expect to find this text form (often known as the Byzantine text) in the earliest Greek manuscripts, in the earliest versions, and in the earliest church fathers. Not only would one expect to find it there, but also one would expect it to be in a majority of manuscripts, versions, and fathers.
But that is not what is found. Among extant Greek manuscripts, what is today the majority text did not become a majority until the ninth century. In fact, as far as the extant witnesses reveal, the majority text did not exist in the first four centuries. Not only this, but for the letters of Paul, not even one majority text manuscript exists from before the ninth century. To embrace the majority text for the Pauline Epistles, then, requires an 800-year leap of faith.
When Westcott and Hort developed their theory of textual criticism, only one papyrus manuscript was known to them. Since that time almost 100 have been discovered. More than fifty of these came from before the middle of the fourth century. Yet not one belongs to the majority text. The Westcott-Hort theory, with its many flaws (which all textual critics today acknowledge), was apparently still right on its basic tenet: the Byzantine texttype--or majority text--did not exist in the first three centuries. The evidence can be visualized as follows, with the width of the horizontal bars indicating the relative number of extant manuscripts from each century." ( Daniel B. Wallace).
John, you are merely parroting the Alexandrian line, and this line of yours keeps changing. You seem to skip over much of the information I and Peter lay out. Peter has shown that even the early papyrus evidence (all of which comes from one small area in Egypt, and is considered a merely local text from a hotbed of Arian heretics)...that the papyrus evidence is a very mixed bag, with the Textus Receptus readiings often predominating over the Alexandrian.
You totally skipped over what even Dr. Hort himself said. This is from Hort's own words! I will repeat it for you. And then you totally missed what the NKJV "scholars" said about the very same evidence. All we have is your OPINION, and it doesn't line up with the known facts.
Now, once again John, and Pay Attention this time.
Even Dr. Hort of the famed Westcott Hort text said: "The fundamental Text of late extant Greek MSS generally is beyond all question identical with the dominant Antiochian or
Graeco-Syrian Text of the second half of the 4th century." (Hort, The Factor of Geneology, pg 92---as cited by Burgon, Revision Revised, pg 257).
Dean Burgon immediately comments: "We request, in passing, that the foregoing statement may be carefully noted. The Traditional Greek Text of the New Testament, ---the TEXTUS
RECEPTUS, in short--is, according to Dr. Hort, `BEYOND ALL QUESTION the TEXT OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.'
John, the TR is identical with the dominant text that existed when your two "oldest and best" manuscripts were written! In other words, at the very time Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were penned, the Byzantine texts were already the predominate texts of the Christian church!
And this comes from Dr. Hort himself.
Then we have the words from the NKJV editors which directly contradict both James White and Dan Wallace.
Here they are again. Pay attention this time.
"Scholars" who have all gone to the same seminaries and learned the same material, will often directly contradict the "findings" of other scholars. In the following quotes found in the 1982 edition of the NKJV. Keep in mind that these people are not KJB onlies.
In the preface of the NKJV, which was translated by some of the
same men who translated the NIV, it says on page vii "The
manuscript preferences cited in many contemporary translations
are due to recent reliance on a relatively few manuscripts
discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Dependence on these manuscripts, especially two, the Sinaitic
and Vatican manuscripts, is due to the greater age of these
documents.
However, in spite of their age, some scholars have reason to
doubt their faithfulness to the autographs, since they often
disagree with one another and show other signs of unreliability.
On the other hand, the great majority of existing manuscripts are
in substantial agreement. Even though many are late, and none
are earlier than the fifth century, MOST OF THEIR READINGS
ARE VERIFIED BY ANCIENT PAPYRI, ANCIENT VERSIONS, AND
QUOTATIONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS. This large
body of manuscripts is the source of the Greek text underlying
the King James Bible. It is the Greek text used by
Greek-speaking churches for many centuries, presently known
as the Textus Receptus, or Received Text, of the New
Testament.
John, the simple reason your Sinaiticus and Vaticanus mss. survived was because they were recognized as corrupt and inferiour, and so were not used. Sinaiticus itself shows that anywhere from 8 to 10 different scribes tried to correct and revise it, and apparently gave up on it.
The true texts were USED, copied, passed around, and handled, and that is why they ceased to exist. This is just common sense. If you use something it wears out. If you don't use a manuscript, it will stick around.
Your Sinaiticus and Vaticanus disagree with each other well over 4000 times in the New Testament alone, and many of these differences are entire verses found in one and not in the other. If these are your "oldest and best" then we are in a world of hurt.
The end result is that neither you, nor James White, nor Daniel Wallace have any Bible or any text that any of you believe is the inerrant, preserved, infallible words of God, and each of you differs from the other as to what "the originals" may have looked like.
Get over yourselves and begin the believe what The Book says about itself. God said He would preserve His wordS in a Book here on this earth. He either did this or He lied. If He did not lie to us, then where is this Book today?
Will K
