Recently, James White debated Bart Ehrman, a former evangelical textual scholar turned agnostic on the reliability of the New Testament. I am not necessarily a White fan, and I am not going to speculate as to who really won the debate. What interests me has to do with White’s fielding some criticism from proponents of the Textus Receptus at his blog. (The Textus Receptus (Received Text), is the Greek basis for the King James Version.)
White raised four questions regarding what actually constitutes the Textus Receptus. I think those questions are spot on, and I’d like to hone in on the last one, for a few posts. As an aside, I should mention I had someone provide some KJV Only answers to White’s questions over at my King James Only Debate Research Center‘s forums. (Feel free to go over there and interact if you’d like.)
Here are White’s questions:
1) When did “the church” “received” this text?
2) What council engaged in a study of the respective texts and determined that this is the “one” text that most closely represents the original?
3) Which text IS the “TR”? Can you identify a single text as THE TR? If not, why not?
4) Please explain why I should use the TR’s readings of Luke 2:22, Revelation 16:5, and the final six verses of Revelation.
What White is doing here is testing the premise of Textus Receptus Onlyism. How is it that the Textus Receptus was received by the Church? What does that reception entail? Which text was received? How can we know which readings are correct based on this textual position?
He and others (like myself) are not splitting straws when they bring up difficult passages and possible errors in the Textus Receptus. We are testing the claims of TR Onlyism. If the Textus Receptus is truly the only Scripturally warranted text, then questions like these should not be stumpers. In fact, there should be a systematic approach to textual questions which is controlled, consistent, and guided by Scripture or in some way authoritative. Should we really expect the TR to be inerrant? If so, how do we deal with these kinds of questions.
For those who haven’t heard the term Textus Receptus Only, I should give a brief sketch of what that position entails. I used to claim the title as my own, so I am not going to try to misrepresent that view. This view holds that the Textus Receptus (TR) is the best Greek text today. It is not corrupted and full of errors as are the most commonly used text (Nestl- Aland 27 / UBS 4th edition) and even the new Majority text (ca. 1980). These other texts are critical texts, but the TR was handed down from the Reformation era. It was not pieced together by textual critics but by men who cherished Scripture. They simply collated the existing manuscripts they were aware of, and rejected incorrect readings and provided us a printed text.
After several years of editing, correcting printer’s errors, and the like, the text became stabilized with the printing of the King James Version. The text of the King James Version can be considered as a variety of the Textus Receptus, because the translators did not follow one specific text. Sometimes they sided with Stephanus’ 1550 edition, other times with Beza’s 1598. The text behind the King James translator’s choices was eventually compiled by Frederick Scrivener in the late 1800s and is available today from the Trinitarian Bible Society.
This view distances itself from a KJV Only view which claims the English corrects the Greek, or that there was some kind of second inspiration for the KJV, where its every translation choice was inerrant. The TR Only view holds that the inspired Word of God was preserved perfectly in the Textus Receptus (for the New Testament, Hebrew Masoretic Text for the Old). You will notice however, that almost every proponent of this view will claim that the Trinitarian Bible Society edition of the TR is actually inerrant (or some other edition is), and that there are no textual errors (or even serious translational mistakes) in the King James Version.
In at least 3 future posts (1 for each of the passages White mentions), I will put this position to test. In the future I may explore other problem areas for the Textus Receptus. I should make clear that I understand there are problems with my text of choice (the NA 27) too. But I am not claiming inerrancy for my text. I believe that essentially I have the Word of God in my English Standard Version, and that although in some few places there is some uncertainty as to which reading is the correct one, this does not shake my faith. That uncertainty does not mean the Bible was not verbally inspired, and it does not mean I cannot be reasonably certain as to which reading is correct, nor does it bring any major Bible doctrine into question. It does mean I’m being honest with the evidence, and should cause me to wrestle with the text in prayer as I seek to understand its meaning for my life.
Bob,
White is welcome to ask those questions. I’ve been asked all of them before. The problem with the questions are:
1) They ignore biblical presuppositions.
2) They ignore the history of those biblical presuppositions.
3) They ignore the application of those biblical presuppositions.
We settled on Words. We know what the Words are. That fits the presupposition. As it regards our position, Aland, who has no horse in this race, himself says that the TR was already received by the churches before we reached the printed edition. I’m sure he wasn’t hoping to support the KJV. White likes to use Aland as an authority.
Pastor Brandenburg,
What I find lacking in the answers to those questions are how one is to decide what the Words are. What constitutes enough church reception so that textual Word choice A wins out over textual Word choice B? To this day there are small differences between the KJV Bibles out there. Oxford editions versus Cambridge editions, etc. Which Words were received and how do we know which ones were. Should we expect a printed copy of all Greek or Hebrew words in one text? If we don’t have that copy how are the word choices settled? Particularly for those who don’t read/speak English.
First, there was massive agreement between the editions of the TR, especially compared to the agreement between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. So to start, we’re talking about a small number of disagreements, but with the words all available. Then as far as settling on which ones are correct, take the obvious. Owen and Turretin didn’t seem bothered by the obvious, as well as many others. Then see the WC and the LBC.
I’m busy or I’d spend more time now.
Okay, here’s my perspective, albeit an amateur one:
The texts varies. We all know that. The different TR’s vary…right? The CT varies…right? Sinaiticus and Vaticanus differ quite a bit. Who gets to pick which one is right? The CT guys say textual scholars get to pick. The TR guys say the Church gets to pick. Am I missing/misrepresenting something? To me this is what it all boils down to…who gets to pick which variance is right.
If this is too simplistic, I’m willing to learn.
Stay tuned to the series, joe. Glad to see you over here, by the way. Hope all is well.
You have it sort of right. CT guys aren’t one-size-fits-all. The conservative modern versions don’t always follow the NA27 text. They are guided by church principles and the faith as well.
My contention is that the Church may have at one time preferred the TR, but today it prefers the CT. It never landed on the TR because it was the best text period. They preferred it because it was basically the only option for them. When they received that text, they didn’t land on every single word and spelling of the word in every passage. They just used the text given them. When the TR disagrees with itself, we have to resort to the methodology of the CT to really understand which reading is to be preferred.
For most KJV Only folk, the TR is right because the Church received it, and because the majority of the manuscripts support it. However, in many places the majority doesn’t support it.
Stay tuned for more posts, brother. And I do respect those who disagree with my view. I used to be on their side of the fence….
Blessings in Christ,
Bob
“They are guided by church principles and the faith as well.” No.
“They preferred it because it was basically the only option for them.” No.
Hey, I’m not picking a side, but I recall reading how Erasmus disregarded Alexandrian? manuscripts in favor of the more consistently Byzantine readings. I will have to verify my source on this. I think that saying the church only had one text to choose from oversimplifies the realities of the situation. More later.
He knew of the Vaticanus manuscript and had made some notes on it, I think. He had no access to it for translating it.
What I mean by the church only having one option is this, the text that Erasmus (not a Protestant) produced, and the one that was edited later by some Protestant printers and scholars (Stephens and Beza, then Elzevirs), was the only text there. They were working with what they had. No one else made one of the Alexandrian because Vaticanus was locked away. There was no access to some of the other Alexandrian manuscripts which hadn’t been found by the West yet.
So when churches used the Greek texts approvingly, they were working with what they had. They also used the Latin texts and did do some comparisons. Some Latin readings were preferred over the Greek and vice versa.
Since there weren’t many options, the fact the church choose or received the TR doesn’t really speak to any official church action in my understanding.
[…] I mentioned earlier, Luke 2:22 is one of three passages that James White (author of The King James Only Controversy) […]
Whilst I am on the side of the TR, I think it important to note that both Alexandrian and Byzantine texts have errors in. Some of those errors are scribal and some are simple misreading of the originals from which the manuscripts were created from. I can’t give the reference off-hand but I think it was Bruce Metzger (an opponent of the TR/KJV) who said that the two sets of texts match around 90% and that the essential core doctrines remain unchanged. And that is the important part. The essential doctrines remain unchanged. We may argue over the positioning of commas, whether a word should be included or excluded, the essential truth of the bible has been preserved. And that is despite nearly two thousand years of scribal copying. It’s foolish to claim that one translation of English from Greek is superior over another especially when we consider that the language of James is not the language we speak today. The value of the King James is largely as a base reference and for it’s more poetic use of language.
I hope that helps the debate somewhat. We should as Christians, submit scripture to intense study and test everything against scripture.
I believe we need to start when the New Testament was placed in book form, around 330 A.D.. When we see how books, chapters, treaties were put together at that time then can we begin the understanding on the versions of the NT through the ages.
Just as Latin became a dead language so did King James English, but we need to go back to the beginning. Remember, numbers to the sentences that gave us verses where not introduced until the 1560 time period.
First, the NT and Paul’s letter are not in their correct order. Book bindings of the time in 300 A.D. place works or treaties in order to the longest chapters to the shortest. This is why Romans is first and Philemon is last. Just look at the table of contents of your Bible and the NT and you will see Paul’s thirteen letters in order from longest to shortest. But this is not correct and they are not in order to the chronologically of when they were written.
What does this mean? The discussion over the correct text or when the language changed like during the Reformation is important but not nearly as important as having a Bible, especially the NT in its proper order.
Words are important as is context, please don’t get me wrong but when you start off with history out of order the discussion of a word or phrase gets lost because the ‘Story’ can’t be seen and hasn’t been seen for 1800 years. When I mean story I do not mean the story of Christ and his crucifixion and resurrection. I am talking about the NT and the story of the Century One Christian church.
Someone can memorize the NT in Greek and still won’t understand it because the ‘story’ is hidden because the NT is out of order and chaotic.
As Christians we are not meant to argue with one another over these issues but have respective dialogue like the above blogs. I look forward to your responses and views.
Brother in Christ,
Christiaan
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