Jack Moorman on Revelation 16:5
In the recent James White — Jack Moorman debate on King James Onlyism, White brought up Rev. 16:5 as containing a phrase in the King James Version with no manuscipt support at all. It was added on the basis of conjectural emendation, he claimed. Several times in the debate he went back to that point, and Moorman kept saying he dealt with it already in one of his books.
Well, here’s the only section in Jack Moorman’s books that I know of which deals with Rev. 16:5. This is from When the KJV Departs from the So-Called “Majority’ Text: with Manuscipt Digest by Jack A. Moorman (published by The Bible for Today, Collingswood, NJ 1988). This is from pg. 102. I’ve tried to reproduce the format as shown in his book (my copy is the second edition).
Revelation 16:5
AV which art, and wast, and shalt be
HF CR … the Holy OneBeza.
The KJV reading is in harmony with the four other places in Revelation where this phrase is found.
1:4 “him which is, and which was, and which is to come”
1:8 “the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty”
4:8 “Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come”
11:17 “Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come”
Indeed Christ is the Holy One, but in the Scriptures of the Apostle John the title is found only once (1 John 2:20), and there, a totally different Greek word is used. The Preface to the Authorised Version reads:“with the former translations diligently compared and revised”
The translators must have felt there was good reason to insert these words though it ran counter to much external evidence. They obviously did not believe the charge made today that Beza inserted it on the basis of “conjectural emendation”. They knew that they were translating the Word of God, and so do we. The logic of faith should lead us to see God’s guiding providence in a passage such as this.
[AV = Authorized Version/King James Bible, HF = Hodges/Farstad Majority Text, CR = Critical Text (specifically the NA26/UBS3)]
When I first encountered this reasoning for maintaining the King James reading, I was troubled. He lists no witnesses except for Beza’s text. At the time, I was still of the KJV only persuasion, the TR Only variety. I wondered why Moorman disagreed with E.F. Hills a learned King James Version defender who admitted that Rev. 16:5 was a conjectural emendation. Later I learned that Beza actually tells us in his textual notes that this is a conjectural emendation inserted based on his presumption that John would be consistent with other similar phrases (which Moorman quotes above).
Well, since that time, I’ve come to see this as one of the clearest errors in the King James Bible and the Textus Receptus. Neither accepted version of the Textus Receptus contains this error. The 1550 Stephanus edition, prized in England as “the standard”, and the Elzevir’s text of 1633 preferred on the continent (of Europe), both do not contain this reading. Update: Actually the 1550 Stephanus, the standard in Europe, does not have Beza’s reading. The 1633 Elzevir’s text does, but the earlier 1624 Elzevir’s and all later Elzevir’s editions (1641-1678) go back to the Stephanus reading. I am unclear as to how much more preference was given to the 1633 text over the 1624, edition. H.C. Hoskier says the 1624 text is better, see Appendix C of his A Full Account and Collation of the Greek Cursive Codex Evangelium here). None of the previous English versions that the KJV translators referred to had this reading. The Latin didn’t have it either. In another post I have detailed the only possible, barest shred of evidence, a citation in one Latin commentary which may contain this reading. Beza is ignorant of that commentary however.
My point in bringing this up here is to show that I’m not so certain that Moorman has really dealt with this text. This is circular reasoning at its worst. This mentality belies the motivation behind many KJV Onlyists, which I believe White correctly pinpointed in the debate. It is the desire for a standard text. That’s a commendable desire, but it doesn’t excuse sloppy handling of evidence. By the way, this doesn’t mean that the TR isn’t a great text (most TRs don’t have this error). It also doesn’t impugn the Majority Text, as it obviously doesn’t have this reading.
Now I’m ready to stand corrected if in later copies of this book, Moorman actually added more evidence or took out his circular arguments. But at least in this version of the book, his arguments were quite poor indeed.
Tags: 16:5, argumentation, Beza, Bible, book, circular, debate, Elzevir, error, evidence, Jack Moorman, James White, King James, KJB, KJV, manuscript, quote, reasoning, Rev. 16:5, revelation, Stephanus, support, textual, Textual Criticism, Textus Receptus, translation, version, weak, witness
Bible Translations, Bible Versions, Debates, Historical Support, KJV-onlyism, KJVO, Manuscript Evidence, Testing the TR, Unbelievable Claims, Weighing the Evidence
Should your last paragraph say “Moorman” instead of “White”? I think you are citing Moorman’s book, not White’s.
Wow, what a major goof. Thanks. I was doing this too late last night,
.
TROs also say there is some indication from hybrid readings, where they suggest that remnants of the former reading has remained, leaving its footprint in the passage. This means examining the oldest manuscripts and papyri, and identifying that additional material is present at Revelation 16:5. Thus, what Beza conjectured being correct must have been early corrupted, leaving scant trace in the extant evidence today.
http://sites.google.com/site/kjvtoday/home/translation-issues/shalt-be-or-holy-one-in-revelation-165
As a KJBO, of course, one’s faith is not based merely on things seen in Greek and Latin copies.
BP,
What is your faith based in? Miraculous, supernatural guidance of the translators? If so, on what basis in Scripture are we to assume that in 1611 God would so guide a bunch of English translators that they make no mistake at all.
Re: the other textual variants, I cite Philip Comfort’s treatment of them in the earlier article I referenced. All those variants all include “holy one” or “holy” none of them have “and shalt be”.
Bob,
The reception of the Scripture is not merely a scientific exercise, that is to say, one based on emperical or human reasoning.
We do, of course, exercise our minds in studying the Scripture and understanding it, but the whole idea that truth must be judged solely on such carnal factors as an interpretation of textual evidence is bypassing and even undermining any work of the Spirit’s Providence.
The argument against the KJB’s Revelation 16:5 is an interpretation based on information. It does, on face value, make for quite strong evidence for those arguing against the KJB at this place. However, as must be admitted by those arguing against the KJB rendering,
1. no decision can be absolutely final, since men are fallible, and the seeming weight of evidence could always be subject to other factors other than the intent of God to preserve (as is supposed by them) the non-KJB reading.
2. likewise, the lack of absolute knowledge of all copies, and more importantly, the Autographs themselves, prohibit those against the KJB to be absolutely certain that the reading was not penned by John.
The KJBO, on the other hand, takes an entirely different approach, based on spiritual laws, consistency, certainty, received tradition and the Providence of God. Thus, whatever is said to exist in Greek (and Latin) today is not thought to be the final word on the matter.
In reality, Revelation 16:5 is one of the few places where a portion of Protestant scholarship is asserting something as belonging to the Scripture justly, and not without spiritually minded reasonings.
One does not have to appeal as such to some sort of inspiration for that item of scholarship to perceive its correctness. (After all, who then was inspired? Beza? The KJB men? Those that agreed after? Us today? I have copy edited an edition of the KJB, and I am not claiming something strange about that proces.)
From BP’s article:
This is just more circular reasoning, and bad reasoning at that. Let’s stop assuming what may have made Beza do what he did, we have his words, after all.
Here’s Beza’s comments on it:
I do give you that this is the most inventive defense of Rev. 16:5. But where is God’s preservation for the years before Beza’s 1598 when no one that we know of (and we have a lot of extant literature, by the way), when no one made use of this reading except one guy in a single Latin commentary? How does that make God’s words available to His people?
I think everyone just needs to be honest on Revelation 16:5. It is a case of the KJVO people being incapable of allowing that this is an unsupported reading. Now, I will agree with Moorman that “and shalt be” is far more consistent with John’s usage in the rest of the book, but the fact is that there is no textual evidence for Beza’s reading. He made the change for consistency’s sake. Why not just say that then? Because that means you have to admit the Greek texts available in the Reformation had lost the original reading.
Now, let me be clear. I actually do think that the Greek texts lost the original reading. I think that “and shalt be” probably is the correct reading, but there’s no way to argue that from texts. You need to argue it based on other usage in the Revelation, and that means you cannot be absolute.
Moorman’s error is that he takes an absolute position. In fact, it is one of the flaws of many KJVO proponents’ arguments. They take absolute positions because to admit any weakness is to fail. And this flaw is exploited by everyone who wishes to oppose them.
It is not my article … but I do think it gives the “naturalistic” information which to a fair degree upholds the KJB … without claiming the absolute correctness of hypothetical historical scenarios.
Rhetoric could say that Beza’s reading is “unsupported” and that “there is no textual evidence” for it. But that is not the whole of the issue. The case appears to be strong against the KJB rendering, but I must stress that that is only “appearance”, in that there are other factors to understand, besides the strident rhetoric that “no Greek or Latin manuscripts contained the reading”.
It must be admitted that for some hundreds of years of Church history, the reading was apparently lost. (This flies against the TRO argument that every generation would have all the preserved words.) However, before there is an outcry about that, we must all agree that God’s permissible will was that the American natives did not have the Gospel/Word of God for 1500 years, nor did many Africans, nor many Asians. So if much of East and West Europe did not apparently have correctly one phrase of Scripture for several centuries, it is no major problem. Thus, the KJBO view acknowledges that in time the correct words were recovered, and that the Word of God in English is now available to all the world.
I actually do think that the Greek texts lost the original reading. I think that “and shalt be” probably is the correct reading, but there’s no way to argue that from texts.
So Erik, if I am understanding you correctly, you are saying (though not absolutely) that God failed to preserve his word and used someone without manuscript evidence late in church history to restore it.
If I am wrong about that, please correct me. If I am right about that, help me understand why people of your persuasion argue against the modern eclectic texts that rely on actual manuscripts found late in church history to restore the text. Either way you are talking about a restored text, and acknowledging that most of church history did not have the full and complete Word of God, right?
It seems to me that you are picking your arguments based on your conclusion. You use an argument when it helps you get what you want, and you reject an argument when it contradicts what you want.
What am I missing here?
Huh? I don’t argue against modern eclectic texts. I think you have me confused with someone else.
I won’t apologize for coming in late on this, since we are all about 2000 years late at this point.
It seems to me there is something even more disturbing about this case, and that is the issue of consistency.
But you’re going to be surprised at what I mean by that, I think:
(1) The first problem is consistency among textual critics in the first place, and this is in my view the worst problem.
On the one hand, as honest people know, textual criticism is itself largely an act of “conjectural emendation”, as seen by the bold deletion of some 200 whole and half-verses from the NT. This was recognised as far back as Michaelis:
Michaelis on Conjecture (1802)
The fact that there is “textual evidence” is simply non-sequitous and meaningless, since no one is using that evidence in any kind of scientific fashion. In fact “fashion” is precisely the right word for the musical-chairs game being played with the text, along with “conjectural emendation“.
That having been said, here’s the rub:
It should be obvious that it is logically fallacious for modern critics to find fault with KJVOnlyists for allowing very occasional unsupported emendations (a total of what, 2?), since modern critics engage in literally thousands of them.
Lets look at it in the face:
KJVOnlyists: 1st Jn 5:7, and say, Rev. 16:5.
One reading supported only by partial Latin evidence, the other only by Beza’s mind-numbing “brilliance”. Perhaps the KJVOnlyists have indeed used two ‘iffy’ planks in their platform. Perhaps even a couple of others could be added, like “Easter” in Acts, etc.
Now compare that to the UBS4 text and modernists:
UBS4: 75 plain homoeoteleuton errors admitted into the text, because they were probably in a hypothetical ‘common ancestor’ (largely a fictional construct, as Hort admitted) of Aleph/B.
http://homoioteleuton.blogspot.com/
What is the logic? That somehow the earlier copies and copyists of the ancestors of Aleph/B were immune to the most common homoeoteleuton errors of all other scribes, and all other extant manuscripts?
No. In fact, no thinking at all has taken place, other than the ‘children’s sandbox’ type thinking that says, “…but they’re older readings.”
This is akin to the logic demonstrated in the movie “Idiocracy“, where the mediocre 20th century clerk asks the idiots in charge why they are watering food crops with ‘Brawndo’ soft-drinks. They answer by piping the ad blurb, with which they have been brainwashed:
“Its got electrolytes. The electrolytes that plants crave.”
Textual Critics are apparently morons. QED.
I don’t know that I’d argue it necessarily that way, but I will agree that the tenets of modern textual criticism are definitely inconsistently applied. KJVO proponents are too quick to believe their system is superior and any explanation they provide should be sufficient (as Moorman’s poor explanation for Revelation 16:5 at the debate demonstrates) but many proponents of modern textual criticism want their system to be air tight when it demonstrably is not. I think both camps need a serious revamp.
It’s not really a matter of consistency, Nazaroo.
I will grant that modern textual criticism may be hindered by a group-think blindness to your homoeoteleuton errors and other problems. But they are not the ones claiming to have an absolutely perfect text.
Many Textus Receptus proponents and KJV Onlyists are claiming that they have a perfect text. That claim should stand up to scrutiny.
The two conjectural emendations Beza introduced according to E.F. Hills, are this passage, Rev. 16:5 and Rom. 7:6. They have no Greek support or any support, and are inserted based on Beza’s educated hunch.
I am sure the modern texts employ some conjectural emendations as well. Even if they employ a homoeoteleuton error, it is at least a reading in a manuscript not a conjectural emendation. Their choice to include that may be faulty, yes, but it isn’t the same thing as depending on mere conjecture.
In places, especially in the Old Testament, I am ready to admit that conjecture may be our only resort given our current knowledge of the text. But that’s not the point about Rev. 16:5. The point is, there is no evidence for it, and faced with this fact, KJV Onlyists manage to come up with some rationale to keep the status quo. In effect they are turning a blind eye to evidence and just thumbing the wind on this one.
Here’s the complete structure of the modern Hortian argument for continuing with the botched 19th century critical GNT instead of admitting they blew it and fixing the problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1fKzw05Q5A&feature=related
Bibleprotector,
This is where you lose me:
My problem is, why do you think we’ve arrived? There are still places that don’t have the Word, and after 1611 more textual work has been done and more careful translations made by competent godly scholars.
The only reason for why we should say it’s all done, is opinion, or some would say re-inspiration.
If a perfect Bible is not done, when will it be? How will we know? What Scripture passages would support it?
The point is that the current idea that we have not arrived = we can never arrive.
A Biblical case can be made that we can have something perfect today without it being made by inspiration. Thus, the KJB was not made by inspiration 1604-1611 is right, but it is right because there are things which can be understood and even tested about it.
Moreover, it seems that to continually point back to a whole mass (or corpus) of imperfect and slightly disagreeing MS copies is actually somehow being taken as God’s own proof that His Word is not perfectly known today. But that is not the issue. If we ask, “what is the Word of God to us?”, it cannot be those 5500 copies and fragments in Greek. We don’t use, preach from, study or quote from such copies. They are all locked up in museums and repositories.
It seems logical to me that the reason why modern careful studies and translating doesn’t get anywhere, for all the boast of advancement, is because it can never get anywhere … this supports the assertion that the perfect Bible is already manifest, and that the rest is marking time, devolution or convolution.
It seems to me that Moorman could and should have recognized Beza’s conjectural emendation and made his case around that emendation as itself guided by God’s providential hand.
Did he deny the emendation simply because he thought it contradicted God’s providence or did he deny it because he hadn’t seen the evidence for it? From that first quotation from his book it sounds like he didn’t know of the evidence and THEREFORE didn’t believe in the emendation.
The KJVOs do suffer from a rigidity that makes their case easy to poke holes in, however, so it doesn’t seem to occur to him that even if there were such an emendation that wouldn’t undermine his belief in God’s providence anyway. Saying the KJV is perfect doesn’t say how it GOT perfect.
But their opponents are just as rigid at times. This is one of those issues where anti-KJVOs seem to me to go way overboard identifying an “error” in the KJV which could easily enough be justified as a reasonable change in the text made and acknowledged by reasonable men rather than perfection inspired by God.
As Bob says, the anti-KJVO frame of mind is set to puncture the KJVO’s claims to perfection of the KJV. The problem is that in the process they also puncture more reasonable positions short of KJVO and anyone who objects then gets lumped in with the KJVOs.
Considering that all the underlying texts have variants/errors of one sort or another, the insistence on using them for evidence in such a hard and fast way, such as against this passage in Revelation, and accusing KJVOs of simply ignoring “the evidence,” strikes me as a bit heavy-handed.
I don’t believe the KJV was inspired by God, I accept on principle that it needs changes, at least updating from time to time, but in this case I’m not sure the phrase in Rev 16:5 is an “error” that needs correction.
However, maybe it should be regarded as an error. Most of the translations previous to the King James don’t have that phrase so clearly they chose with Beza against them.
In the end I could see it either way. Too much argument over something that could be defended in either direction it seems to me.
Faith
It seems to me that Moorman could and should have recognized Beza’s conjectural emendation and made his case around that emendation as itself guided by God’s providential hand.
But based on what evidence, exactly? Conjecture to support an already conjectural emendation is a *particularly* slippery argument to make.
As Bob says, the anti-KJVO frame of mind is set to puncture the KJVO’s claims to perfection of the KJV. The problem is that in the process they also puncture more reasonable positions short of KJVO and anyone who objects then gets lumped in with the KJVOs.
What makes the KJVO position easy to puncture is the claim of infallibility. By definition, it only takes *one* error to destroy that claim.
It seems to me that Moorman could and should have recognized Beza’s conjectural emendation and made his case around that emendation as itself guided by God’s providential hand.
+++++But based on what evidence, exactly? Conjecture to support an already conjectural emendation is a *particularly* slippery argument to make.++++
Based on faith in God’s preservation of His word. That IS where the KJVOs tend to start, right? The evidence as you all look at it is quite a secondary matter with them. They start with what God HAS provided and trust it as His provision for His people.
+++What makes the KJVO position easy to puncture is the claim of infallibility. By definition, it only takes *one* error to destroy that claim. +++
Fair enough, same thing I said really. Too much rigidity about literal words.
However, I do think it’s possible to hold to a trust in God’s provision of His word without getting so literal about individual words and therefore the accusation of errors, especially errors found in the textual base.
They go way out on a limb when they don’t extend the same trust in God’s provision to all the other versions and previous translations.
Faith
Based on faith in God’s preservation of His word.
But you have no Word to preserve here; there is – essentially – a hole in the text. A gap in the page. An empty spot that needs filling. As a 21st century KJVO, how do you fill it?
On the one hand, you have this guess from Beza. On the other hand, you have several mss that point to a different reading.
You’ve ignored the manuscripts, and decided to go with the guess. But wouldn’t the manuscripts be the first evidence of God’s preservation of his Word”?
By rejecting the mss, in what way is that behaving with “faith in God’s preservation of His word”?
You’ve ignored the manuscripts, and decided to go with the guess. But wouldn’t the manuscripts be the first evidence of God’s preservation of his Word”?
Why? Why couldn’t God choose to make up for a gap in the manuscripts by moving Beza to fill it in?
As I said, I believe the KJVO position starts with the finished product, faith in God’s provision of the Bible in hand. There is no rule that says that finished product has to have been arrived at by the manuscript “evidence,” which as I also said is full of variants and errors anyway. It could just as well have been arrived at by Beza’s decision to correct the text.
I’m not saying I agree that this is what happened, you understand, I’m just saying that there is nothing illogical about this reasoning, and the insistence on the manuscript witness as the only evidence for God’s preservation is formulaic and quite limiting.
By rejecting the mss, in what way is that behaving with “faith in God’s preservation of His word”?
The mss aren’t rejected, they are merely one of the methods of God’s preservation of His word. Choices made by faithful translators are quite likely another method.
Faith, in this system (and I understand you’re not saying you agree with it), what other methods could God choose to preserve the Word? And what would be the Scriptural foundation for those methods?
I guess this gets down to my core problem with KJVOnlyism, and it is that it takes as axiomatic that the English-speaking should have a perfect translation of the Word of God while the vast majority of the world’s population went without. At its core, this axiom places the English-speaking people, which in 1611 was Britain – let’s just be honest about that – in some kind of special place in God’s favor. If we boil KJVOnlyism down, that is what it is. England gets the Word because they’re God’s people. Everyone else gets it through England because she’s special. And I know that BP actually does believe that.
I understand that you’re not arguing the KJVO position and are personally more anti-1881 than pro-KJV. I’m just pointing out an obvious issue with the anglo-centric KJVO position that would reject even the TR in favor of a reading simply because it is in the KJV.
Even the Latin commentary in question (by Beatus) contained the “Holy One” as well as the future tense. It likely reflects a desire to conform the correct reading to the pattern on display elsewhere. Note that those using Beatus to support the KJV reading mention the inclusion of the future tense but ignore this point. There was an English translation of Beatus done and you can read it here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=MBw3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA5&dq=revelation+inauthor:beatus&hl=en&ei=C5laTaHeJYWdlgfShcyHDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
The verse is on page 30.
I don’t know if you’re talking to me, Albert, but I know the mss support for Holy One is quite strong. All I’m saying is that a choice like Beza’s against it ought to be given equal weight, since it was accepted by the KJV translators who deserve that much respect it seems to me.
I concluded that I see either side as defensible so that I don’t want to call either decision an “error.” Any faithful updating to the KJV that might conceivably be done in the future could prayerfully and rightly choose either of those readings it seems to me.
Faith,
I wasn’t aiming at any previous posts. Bob mentioned the commentary in the post and I was addressing the fact that the post does not include the future tense in place of “Holy One” which is what Beza conjectured. It actually has both and it was likely an attempt to conform to the other verses or perhaps was done accidentally.
Thanks Albert, I’ll put a comment here too in case it gets lost in the shuffle. I responded with a follow up question in this comment below.
Bob,
When I first encountered this question, I found a reference to someone mentioning (who presumably had seen the Latin) this fact. To date, the only copy I have ever found of this work, despite much searching, is this English translation. It does seem, however, to cofirm what I had heard earlier. Given this was by someone presumably qualified in Latin (a far more common trait then than now), it does seem likely it is accurate.
Faith
Why? Why couldn’t God choose to make up for a gap in the manuscripts by moving Beza to fill it in?
And suppose someone else came along and said, “God spoke to me and has moved me to insert a different conjectural emendation than Beza’s version here in Revelation 16:5.” By what possible rationale could you turn such a person down?
For that matter, how will you stop someone else from coming along and saying that “God has moved me to change the entire chapter of Mark 9″? Upon what basis would you object?
You cannot object on the basis of already having mss with Mark 9 in them, because you already have mss with Rev 16:5 in them as well. Yet you rejected the mss with Revelation 16:5 in them, and allowed Beza’s conjectural emendation to trump those mss.
If you can ditch the mss in Revelation, then you can ditch them in Mark as well. Or Galatians. Or anywhere else that someone comes in with a “private revelation” from God and wants to re-write the Bible.
And suppose someone else came along and said, “God spoke to me and has moved me to insert a different conjectural emendation than Beza’s version here in Revelation 16:5.” By what possible rationale could you turn such a person down?
Oh nonsense, there’s plenty of scriptural basis to reject that sort of personal revelation.
For that matter, how will you stop someone else from coming along and saying that “God has moved me to change the entire chapter of Mark 9″? Upon what basis would you object?
Are you serious? Personal revelation of that sort is very far from anything I’ve been supporting.
You cannot object on the basis of already having mss with Mark 9 in them, because you already have mss with Rev 16:5 in them as well. Yet you rejected the mss with Revelation 16:5 in them, and allowed Beza’s conjectural emendation to trump those mss.
If you can ditch the mss in Revelation, then you can ditch them in Mark as well. Or Galatians. Or anywhere else that someone comes in with a “private revelation” from God and wants to re-write the Bible.
I’m not “ditching” anything. The mss are always the first line of evidence. I’m simply supporting the choices made IN THE PAST by FAITHFUL translators, which we know the KJV translators were. I think things are so bad now that any attempt to make a new translation by anyone should be received with extreme scepticism. Translators should be carefully chosen by a coalition of Bible-believing church bodies in my opinion. That ought to cut down on the stupid stuff.
Faith, in this system (and I understand you’re not saying you agree with it), what other methods could God choose to preserve the Word? And what would be the Scriptural foundation for those methods?
Other methods don’t come to mind, and the only scriptural foundation is the promises to preserve His word as the KJVOs understand it. I just wanted to affirm that the work of the translators themselves has to be respected because so much of this debate puts the mss ahead of everything. If the translators — anywhere along the line up to the KJV — chose a minority reading or no reading at all, that ought to be given weight. I get tired of seeing the KJV attacked for choices scholars TODAY wouldn’t make usually just because there isn’t enough manuscript support. That’s insulting to the KJV translators.
I guess this gets down to my core problem with KJVOnlyism, and it is that it takes as axiomatic that the English-speaking should have a perfect translation of the Word of God while the vast majority of the world’s population went without.
I think this is foolish too. I’d include any faithful translators of any version as deserving of the same respect. (always excepting the W-H and subsequent versions that follow on that work).
At its core, this axiom places the English-speaking people, which in 1611 was Britain – let’s just be honest about that – in some kind of special place in God’s favor. If we boil KJVOnlyism down, that is what it is. England gets the Word because they’re God’s people. Everyone else gets it through England because she’s special. And I know that BP actually does believe that.
I don’t believe it and I’m not sure why my argument should be taken in that direction.
I understand that you’re not arguing the KJVO position and are personally more anti-1881 than pro-KJV. I’m just pointing out an obvious issue with the anglo-centric KJVO position that would reject even the TR in favor of a reading simply because it is in the KJV.
But all I’m saying is that faithful translational choices have to count — and again I’m happy to extend that rule to any faithful translation.
Out of curiosity, who is considered a ‘faithful’ translator? I assume you would include Wyclif and Tyndale. Would the ESV or CSB committees make the cut? What about the NKJV committee?
I did say in one of those recent posts that I wouldn’t trust anyone starting with Westcott and Hort’s horrific mistreatment of the Bible. NONE of the translators of the modern versions. This is probably unfair to particular individuals — after all, Scrivener was on the W-H committee too, and Burgon said he’d trust some eight of that committee to have given us a faithful revision — but it’s the safest position to take at the present time.
Your position precludes the possibility of anyone ever being a ‘faithful’ translator ever again. That is a pretty bold position, and I find it untenable. But each to their own, I suppose.
Out of curiosity, who are the ‘faithful’ translators of Bibles in other languages?
Faith
Oh nonsense, there’s plenty of scriptural basis to reject that sort of personal revelation.
Then why wasn’t that “scriptural basis” used to reject Beza’s conjectural emendation?
Are you serious? Personal revelation of that sort is very far from anything I’ve been supporting.
I’m quite serious. How does personal revelation differ from conjectural emendation?
I’m not “ditching” anything. The mss are always the first line of evidence
They are?
Then why doesn’t that hold true with Rev 16:5? Why support the conjectural emendation, instead of supporting the mss?
No matter how you try to slice this, it still results in a double standard.
Your reasoning just seems off the wall to me, RG, like you make up stuff out of thin air or something.
A reasoned educated prayerful choice to make a change in a manuscript is not to be compared to a revelation in the sense of a “God told me.” For one thing such a reasoned choice is always open to correction, a revelation from God obviously isn’t. this ought to be obvious to anyone.
Then why doesn’t that hold true with Rev 16:5? Why support the conjectural emendation, instead of supporting the mss?
Because when a decision has been made by a faithful translator and confirmed by other faithful translators, I vote to give it equal weight with the mss.
I can hardly wait for your next strange misunderstanding.
Erik, RIGHT NOW yes I see no way we could have another translation or even the needed respectful and useful revision of the KJV that W and H were supposed to do but didn’t.
I’m kind of surprised you would consider this position so “bold” or unusual — don’t we have more than enough translations now?
But if by some miracle people came to see that what that revising committee did WAS unconscionable and productive only of evil results for the Church, including all the modern versions that came down from their work one way or another, if this was seriously recognized and the hundreds/thousands of good preachers and pastors who have been duped by it saw the light and came out against it instead, THEN I’d have some hope that we could finally begin to get back to finding translators we could trust.
I don’t know much about translations in other languages, though Luther’s German translation I accept of course. I would simply extend to all the same basic trust and respect who made a translation from whatever sources were available to them for the edification of their people.
BEFORE Westcott and Hort.
To be honest – too many translations? Yes. Too many good translations? Never.
So, where Luther’s Bible varies from the KJV, which was faithful?
I find your position untenable. You’re welcome to your own views, of course. Just being honest.
Erik said: “So, where Luther’s Bible varies from the KJV, which was faithful?”
Actually, I think that can be rather obviously decided and scientifically defended in 99 out of 100 instances:
The KJV with a high probability.
You are comparing a relatively uneducated German Roman Catholic pioneer, essentially an individual’s personal translation, which in hindsight had a heavy theological bias in favour of Luther’s personal interpretation of Romans and Galatians, against:
The collective amassed scholarship of 200 churchmen and professors, i.e., the full focus of both Cambridge and Oxford at the height of their Christian faith-informed productivity, after many years were spent assessing the efforts of the earlier translators and reformers, with an eye to being faithful to the Reformation vision of a clear and accurate translation into their native tongue, guided by due reverence for the the scriptures as the living oracles of the word of God.
It was Luther who rejected the Christian O.T. in favour of the Medieval Jewish Massoretic text, taking a cue from the remarks of Jerome, in a botched attempt to convert European Jewry.
The KJV translators were more conservative, considering the Hebrew text available but interepreting it carefully in the light of longstanding Christian understanding and interpretation, and giving suitable weight to both the Old Greek and Latin translations too.
The result of the KJV efforts was a more accurate and balanced text, suitable for use by many religious parties and denominations, even Roman Catholics.
Martin Luther’s efforts, while noble in their way, and pioneering, had the obvious flaws commonly found in any individual translation of the Holy Scriptures done without adequate study or counsel (see Proverbs).
So, historically, fairly, and scientifically, the KJV can be justly held to be superior to Luther’s translation, in most of the points where they differ.
peace
Nazaroo
All true – but doesn’t change the fact that Faith has included Luther’s translation as one of the ‘faithful’ in her system. My point was not that Luther was superior to the KJV or vice versa, but simply that her ‘faithful’ translators are inherently inconsistent with each other.
OK, sorry Albert, I didn’t really grasp what you were saying.
To be honest – too many translations? Yes. Too many good translations? Never.
I might even disagree with that, but when we actually HAVE too many good translations then I’ll seriously think about it.
So, where Luther’s Bible varies from the KJV, which was faithful?
I’m trying to say that the differences aren’t the important thing everybody here makes of them. If it’s possible to identify any as clear errors and to correct them, then certainly they should be corrected, but otherwise I would regard them both as faithful, differences and all. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. I’m partial to the KJV but I don’t want the responsibility of advocating conforming Luther’s work to it. Someone with the proper credentials might sometime choose to do that, however. I understand that Germany is saddled now with Westcott-Hort-derived modern versions just as we are — it’s the old Luther versus all those bad ones, much like our situation with the KJV against the hordes.
God reads the heart, He knows when someone is being honest though wrong versus someone whose motives are wrong. The letter kills but the spirit makes alive. I think there’s far too much emphasis on the letter in these discussions — that’s the basis for my conclusion that EITHER of the Revelation 16:5 readings are acceptable. HOWEVER, AGAIN, if clear errors can be identified and corrected, great, I’m just tired of this nitpicking about supposed errors in the KJV when it seems to me that the translators deserve more respect than that. They made reasoned educated and God-glorifying decisions and some upstart wannabe textual critics shouldn’t be trying to take them down. NOT THAT THEY CAN’T BE WRONG, there’s just something too cavalier and disrespectful about the usual attack on them.
I find your position untenable. You’re welcome to your own views, of course. Just being honest.
Same on this side.
Maybe I need to add for the sake of trying to clarify what is apparently an unusual point of view that if the manuscript evidence were completely trustworthy I wouldn’t be making this argument, but the point is it’s not and that is recognized by just about everybody. ALL the manuscripts have variants or errors to one degree or another, not a single one is perfect.
There IS reason to put one “family” over another in my opinion, since I believe Burgon about the corruptions in the Alexandrians, and that’s a whole discussion unto itself. But within the family of those that aren’t tainted in that way we still don’t have anything like perfection, any way to be sure what readings actually go back to the autographs.
I have to think this is God’s will. In a sense God isn’t really partial to certainty anyway. We tend to make a pharisaical mess of it when we have it, and God prefers that we put our trust in Him and stay humble with respect to all external matters anyway — do our best and then commit our errors to His forgiveness and our successes to His grace. Being a bit off balance on these questions is probably a very good thing for all of us.
ANYWAY, this being the situation, the decisions of faithful translators simply ARE evidence equal to the manuscript evidence. OBJECTIVELY equal. This isn’t just an arbitrary thing I’m saying. There is very good manuscript and version support for Holy One in 16.5, including previous English versions by faithful translators, but nevertheless Beza chose against it and gave reasonable support for his decision, and the KJV translators followed him rather than the other line of evidence.
BOTH LINES HAVE TO BE CONSIDERED FAITHFUL TO GOD’S WORD because there is no objective way of deciding one way or the other. Beza COULD have been right in his conjecture that the verse once read as he corrected it to read. WE CAN’T KNOW.
Also it’s not as if it involves a doctrinal error. Both readings are truthful enough as written, so besides there being no objective way to decide it, there’s also no compelling need to decide it.
I hope this is clarifying. If not, oh well.
So whatever the KJV translators included belongs in there – by virtue of the fact that they included it, because they were faithful men and there are no faithful men around anymore to correct them?
ANYWAY, this being the situation, the decisions of faithful translators simply ARE evidence equal to the manuscript evidence. OBJECTIVELY equal.
*boggle*
Faith
Your reasoning just seems off the wall to me, RG, like you make up stuff out of thin air or something.
No, I’m just presenting you with the ultimate ramifications of your position. Sometimes people don’t realize what their positions actually mean, when put into practice. Or they don’t realize what they’re proposing, if they’re held accountable to implement it in an even-handed manner.
In fact, Erik’s done the same thing above, when he pointed out that your position ultimately “precludes the possibility of anyone ever being a ‘faithful’ translator ever again.” What I’m doing is showing you another facet of your position; i.e., that once you open the door to mere conjectural emendation trumping actual manuscripts, then whoa nelly! – that’s a door you’re going to have a hard time ever closing again.
A reasoned educated prayerful choice to make a change in a manuscript is not to be compared to a revelation in the sense of a “God told me.” For one thing such a reasoned choice is always open to correction, a revelation from God obviously isn’t. this ought to be obvious to anyone.
I don’t see where this helps your argument at all. A revelation can also be prayerful, can’t it? There is one participant in this forum who believes that he has been given apostolic authority to declare a particular version of the KJV authoritative. He’s reached this conclusion after much prayer and spending time considering all the issues. I’ve read other testimonies of people who claim that after prayerful consideration, fasting, etc. that God has told them that the canon of the NT isn’t closed, etc. and that they will be providing corrections to the NT text.
Are they wrong? I happen to believe so. But there is no reason you can give for supporting Beza’s conjectural emendation that wouldn’t also apply to such people as I just described.
They’re both prayerful. And they both ignore the actual mss in favor of personal guesses about what should be there in the text. Any attempt to favor Beza, while turning these other people down, is just favoritism on your part.
As for being open to correction: that’s what we’re trying to do now, isn’t it? Unfortunately, we have people who believe that personal conjecture trumps actual mss evidence. People who would rather take the guess of a 17th century editor and collator, than to work with actual manuscript evidence. So being “open to correction” really isn’t so open after all, because attempts at correction run smack-dab into the KJVO wall of faith.
Because when a decision has been made by a faithful translator and confirmed by other faithful translators, I vote to give it equal weight with the mss.
Translation: because of tradition, and the fact that you are comfortable with the current reading, and like it. When you carve out exceptions for your own position and then try to rationalize that selectivity, it’s an issue.
You should also know that Beza was not a translator on the KJV; he was an editor (collector, examiner) of Greek manuscripts. And, as Erik has pointed out, there are many faithful translators in the world now – and almost none of them would agree that this emendation is confirmed, or that it should be preferred over actual manuscript evidence.
So: are we still “open to correction”?
I can hardly wait for your next strange misunderstanding.
And I can’t wait for your next dodge.
No, I’m just presenting you with the ultimate ramifications of your position.
Don’t flatter yourself. I have defended BEZA’s conjectural emendation because it was ratified by the KJV translators, it is a fait accompli and I believe their decisions deserve respect equal to the manuscript witness. My emphasis is on the decisions of the KJV translators, not on one instance of conjectural emendation. I have said nothing about always supporting conjectural emendation and only a pedantic categorical thinker could get that out of what I said.
In fact, Erik’s done the same thing above, when he pointed out that your position ultimately “precludes the possibility of anyone ever being a ‘faithful’ translator ever again.”
Erik’s deduction about my position WAS correct for conditions as they now stand, which I acknowledged.
Erik correct, you not.
I don’t see where this helps your argument at all. A revelation can also be prayerful, can’t it?
Words fail me. For this and the rest of your amazing exercise in straw man logic or whatever it is. Truly I can’t figure out how you get from one twisted point to another. Hey, why don’t you just write my posts for me. In fact why don’t you just have a conversation with yourself since what others say is only going to be turned into what YOU think anyway?
Yes I know Beza was not a KJV translator. That ought to be clear enough too. Good grief.
Forgive me if I hold an opinion that disagrees with all the “other faithful translators around the world” who think Beza’s emendation is not to be accepted.
The KJV translators made no uninformed choice. They had the other versions before them and they chose Beza’s emendation.
Albert,
Have you looked at the commentary itself or just the English translation? I’m just curious. It is said that Beatus preserved Tyconius’ earlier commentary. So the English text is that concurrent with a hodgepodge of quotes, in which Tyconius testifies to a text which reads without “Holy one”?
If you have anything else on this, that’d be great. Thanks again for dropping by.
Bob
Bob,
When I first encountered this question, I found a reference to someone mentioning (who presumably had seen the Latin) this fact. To date, the only copy I have ever found of this work, despite much searching, is this English translation. It does seem, however, to cofirm what I had heard earlier. Given this was by someone presumably qualified in Latin (a far more common trait then than now), it does seem likely it is accurate.
Here are the readings as they would appear in Greek:
Δίκαιος, Κύριε, εἶ, ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν, καὶ ἐσόμενος, ὅτι ταῦτα ἔκρινας·
versus
Δίκαιος, Κύριε, εἶ, ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν, ὁ ὅσιος, ὅτι ταῦτα ἔκρινας,
(Although modern CT editions leave out Κύριε)
In Latin, it reads thus:
iustus es qui es et qui eras sanctus quia haec iudicasti
versus
iustus es qui es et qui eras et qui venturus es qui haec iudicasti
(There are no Latin editions with this reading. I wrote it just to illustrate how different it would be.)
It was not until I read it in Latin that it occurred to me that Erasmus’ emandation does not even conform to the formula used elsewhere in the Revelation. John does not refer to “he who shalt be” (ἐσόμενος or, in Latin, fuerit) but to “he who is coming” (ἐρχόμενος, in Latin venturus es).
Thanks, Albert. That makes sense. Certainly the English translating including “shalt be” and “holy” would be unique in itself, and the Latin could be lifted from that and made to be “evidence” for Beza’s conjecture. Thanks again.
Erik,
The Latin for the Commentary on Revelation by Beatus (which preserves Tyconius’ commentary), includes this phrase:
“qui fuisti et futures es”
What Albert is pointing out is that the quotation which is parroted around on lots of websites was lifted from the larger context which also includes the title “holy one” or “holy”. So the evidence is not what they are making it. There isn’t a Latin text which just has something similar to “shalt be”, but a Latin text which includes “shalt be” alongside “holy”. At least that’s how the English translation of Beatus’ text reads, which is unusual in itself and therefore we’re assuming the Latin original for that translation is the source of these Latin words which offer KJV Onlyists the merest scrap of textual support for the reading Beza conjectured.
I think you knew all this, but I’m just reviewing for others. Maybe you could comment on the Latin phrase if it would be rendered in Greek as Beza does. I’m no Latin expert….
Ok, qui fuisti et futures es was the reading that Beatus followed, probably of Old Latin origin since it is not extant. It means “who will be (perfect tense) and is future/to be”, as opposed to what would have been Jerome’s rendering as qui eras et qui venturus which I provided above as a comparison. (Remember that the Vulgate does not read either of these things. It reads eras sanctus, following the Greek text.
Beatus’ commentary exists in 26 illuminated manuscripts – none of which have apparently been made available to the general public in facsimile. There are translations, but I don’t have access to them. I’d have to read exactly what he’s saying.
Oh, and it’s not Erasmus, but Beza…. That’s just a slip.
Erik,
If you missed it above somewhere, here is the link to the English translation on Google:
http://books.google.com/books?id=MBw3AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
The reading is on page 30.
I’m not sure what value that English translation is. They render it as ‘shalt be holy’ which is not a good translation at all. I’ll see of I can get my hands on a facsimile of one of the Beatus texts. A translation isn’t enough – especially a translation made in 1915.
One note here: I just updated the main post here to reflect a correction someone had made in the comments to my earlier post on Rev. 16:5. Actually Elzevir’s 1633 text does follow Beza’s reading of esomenos (shalt be), but their first text 1624, and all their later editions (1641, 1656, 1662, 1670, 1678) support the osios (holy one) reading. I also edited that earlier post on Rev. 16:5. This was an oversight not an intentional error. Just wanted to let you all know.
Thanks,
Bob
My point was not that Luther was superior to the KJV or vice versa, but simply that her ‘faithful’ translators are inherently inconsistent with each other.
And I agreed.
So whatever the KJV translators included belongs in there – by virtue of the fact that they included it, because they were faithful men
I keep adding the “faithful” only to distinguish the older translators from Westcott and Hort and some of the modern ones. It’s because they were excellent knowledgeable men who knew the manuscripts and knew their stuff that their judgment of how Rev 16:5 ought to read should be treated as equal to all the other qualified judges of these things.
and there are no faithful men around anymore to correct them?
To be more precise, getting away from the emphasis on the faithfulness of individual men, it’s that another faithful translation cannot be done — even by faithful men — until the mentality that supports the Alexandrian texts, and the changes for change’s sake that also comes down from Westcott and Hort, is generally recognized and discarded as the gigantic error it is.
Faith,
What makes the W & H production a “gigantic error”? The fact that they are shady characters — unfaithful men, if you will? Or the fact that they ignored manuscript evidence, and used faulty manuscripts?
If it is that they used faulty manuscripts, wouldn’t earlier translators still be able to be judged by the manuscripts too? If they ignore all known manuscripts, they get a pass because generally they follow good manuscripts?
Just trying to understand your reasoning here. I’m not quite following.
Thanks,
Bob
Faith,
I am informing you and your own blog readers that there will Lord willing, be at least an alternative in the near future for a new majority text based Greek New Testament.
The (BGNT) or Byzantine Greek NT is being planned by CSPMT and will be a Byzantine manuscript based Greek New Testament with an extensive apparatus of witnesses and for the first time will fairly represent the majority of manuscripts including the TR. This will show the essential unity of the TR with the majority of the Byzantine manuscripts and will of course show where they both stand apart from the Alexandrian readings.
You can follow this development and other research of the organization on the website of CSPMT listed below. Blessings.
In Christ,
Paul D. Anderson
President-CSPMT
http://www.cspmt.org
We are looking forward to this project – which I believe my father is a part of.
What makes the W & H production a “gigantic error”? The fact that they are shady characters — unfaithful men, if you will? Or the fact that they ignored manuscript evidence, and used faulty manuscripts?
Could I ask first if you have read anything by Dean J W Burgon?
W and H convinced the committee of revisers of which they were a part to accept Hort’s Greek text which substituted the Alexandrian mss for the mss used by the KJV translators, which was against the commitment they made to do a minimal revision of the KJV. They also made over 36,000 mostly unnecessary changes in the English, also against the commitment to do a minimal revision. As reported by Burgon in The Revision Revised. AND the Alexandrians are shown by Burgon to be faulty beyond the usual, intentionally corrupted in the early centuries. I want to get all his information into my blog eventually. Burgon spends some fifty pages on their corruptions — including the usual ordinary kinds, mistakes etc — in Revision Revised, but also has an entire book on it, which I haven’t read. He also wrote a 300-page argument against the elimination of the last twelve verses of Mark in the Alexandrian mss, and some of that argument is also in Revision Revised. I find Burgon’s information and arguments completely convincing.
If it is that they used faulty manuscripts, wouldn’t earlier translators still be able to be judged by the manuscripts too?
There is no evidence whatever that the manuscripts used by the KJV translators or any of the earlier translators had been corrupted as the Alexandrians were. Burgon says that the Church already knew of the corrupted texts before his time and had rejected them for that reason (White claims the KJV translators weren’t familiar with them, Burgon says the CHURCH was, however, and I think he may also have included the KJV men but I have to check on that), but for some reason these manuscripts had become very popular with the discoveries of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Burgon starts out his book denouncing these manuscripts as the most depraved that ever existed, and already KNOWN to be depraved. Apparently their fans refused to accept that judgment of them.
If they ignore all known manuscripts, they get a pass because generally they follow good manuscripts?
I suppose you are alluding to my posts here but I really don’t get what you are saying. What they IGNORED isn’t the point, what they USED is the point, and the issue is whether or not they were as corrupted or “depraved” as Burgon claims. I find his arguments convincing and find it terrifically sad that so many good Christians ignore Burgon and accept the Alexandrians as “older and therefore better” after all he showed about them.
Just trying to understand your reasoning here. I’m not quite following.
I’m not sure I’m following you either.
As for the KJV translators “getting a pass” there’s something really annoyingly wrongheaded about that notion. The only reason they are under attack as they are is that the Westcott and Hort work has come under attack so it’s a kind of tit for tat while few really take seriously the problems with what Westcott and Hort did. There is NO comparison between the caliber of the translators on the revising teams, the level of scholarship, the attitude to the work, the respect for previous translations, the keeping to the stated agreement, the judgment of manuscripts etc etc etc. W and H pulled a flimflam of huge proportions on the Church.
Oh and I couldn’t care less about what people say about their character on either side, I only care about what they actually DID. Some on your side of this issue make Westcott into something like a saint, while the other side makes them both into demons. I suspect they are ordinary unsaved rationalists of a typical 19th century sort, the precursors of some Anglican bishops of today. But I don’t get involved with that side of the argument. It doesn’t matter. What they actually DID and its legacy is what matters.
I hope I answered your suspicions adequately but if not maybe this will at least be a start.
Thanks, Faith. That helps to know where you’re coming from. I was trying to see if it was the translators or the manuscripts that was most important, and it sounds like you believe W & H hoodwinked the church into accepting inferior manuscripts. Ultimately it’s the poor manuscripts which are the issue.
So, that being the case, Burgon appeals to the problems with those manuscripts as opposed to the soundness of the Byzantine manuscripts to make his case, right? I’ve read some of Burgon, but more from later authors on the Bible version issue (from both sides).
So if Burgon appeals to the Byzantine manuscripts, then the KJV is only as good as the materials the translators depended on, right? These men (the KJV men) used good manuscripts and were generally trustworthy, right?
What puzzles me and some others here, is your insistence that we can and should just trust the KJV translators, even when they differ from the good manuscripts which Burgon commended. I believe that Redgreen’s point, which he is insistent on and trying to drive home, is that if we come to a position where we just trust someone implicitly without any concern for the manuscripts and what they say, we are getting close to a dangerous position (to say the least).
As was pointed out just recently by Redgreen, the manuscripts on Revelation were not abundant and widely available when the KJV translators did their work. They used Beza’s text where he admits to making an educated guess, basically about this reading. Later Greek texts compiled after the writing of the KJV, yet which used the Byzantine texts and can rightly claim still to be of the Textus Receptus variety, do not side with Beza.
So the possibility exists then, that the KJV translators just made a mistake in adopting Beza’s reading. They had some rationale, but further evidence has revealed it to be a faulty rationale.
If we hold up the KJV translators to such a high degree that whether or not they followed the Greek and Hebrew texts before them doesn’t matter, we are venerating them beyond reason, and for no apparent reason other than a predisposition to prefer the KJV.
Burgon himself claimed that the TR could use some editing. Accoring to Edward Miller, Dean Burgon’s associate, in Burgon’s textual notes for the book of Matthew, he recommended over 150 changes to the Greek text of the Textus Receptus.
Dean Burgon said, “I am not defending the ‘Textus Receptus’; I am simply stating the fact of its existence. That it is without authority to bind, nay, that it calls for skilful revision in every part, is freely admitted. I do not believe it to be absolutely identical with the true Traditional Text…” (John Burgon, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, ed. Edward Miller, p. 15).
So Burgon has no problem admitting the KJV translators are in error for following a faulty Greek points at some few places. I’m just wondering why you’re lifting up the KJV translators so highly that they cannot make an error at this place (the focus of the post here, Rev. 16:5).
Blessings in Christ,
Bob
Here is a link which goes on to quote more from Dean Burgon in this regard, proving that he was no proponent of a perfect TR. He’d be much closer to a modern day Majority Text proponent, or Byzantine priority advocate.
Faith
Don’t flatter yourself. I have defended BEZA’s conjectural emendation because it was ratified by the KJV translators,
But we know that the KJV translators were not perfect, and made mistakes. Therefore, you have to at least entertain the idea that their decision to accept the emendation was a mistake, since they were not infallible.
it is a fait accompli and I believe their decisions deserve respect equal to the manuscript witness.
A “fait accompli”? Is that to be your argument here? “What’s done is done, so get over it and stop asking me about it”?? That’s nothing but a handwave.
I’m aware that you believe this about the KJV team. But repetition of your previous axiomatic statement does not constitute support for your position. Nor does repetition address the flaw with that axiomatic statement. In other words, shouting louder is not convincing.
You’ve decided to ignore the mss and follow the conjecture. Fine. Wonderful. Bravo. But do you not see that trying to plug this hole in your argument with “I believe the translators…..” is just shoving an I.O.U into the pot?
My emphasis is on the decisions of the KJV translators, not on one instance of conjectural emendation. I have said nothing about always supporting conjectural emendation and only a pedantic categorical thinker could get that out of what I said.
However, the KJV translators chose an emendation because it was all they had to work with at the time; the Revelation mss weren’t as complete or as numerous, so they made the best choice in a bad situation. But today we are luckier; we no longer have to be stuck with an emendation today; we have mss that we can use to fill in the blank. Yet you refuse to use the mss for that purpose.
The other thing we’ve learned since the days of the KJV translators is that the emendation in Rev 16:5 has absolutely zero support in any mss. Given that inconvenient reality, why retain the emendation? Your insistence on standing by the KJV translators’ choice is nothing but tradition substituting for evidence.
Erik correct, you not.
Unfortunately, I am also correct. Once you decide that conjecture can trump manuscript evidence – as you have done, and continue to do – then you’ve already jumped off the rails. At that point, anyone can invoke inspired conjecture and you can’t rebut them by pointing to the mss, because you carved out at least one exception for yourself in that regard.
Words fail me. For this and the rest of your amazing exercise in straw man logic or whatever it is. Truly I can’t figure out how you get from one twisted point to another. Hey, why don’t you just write my posts for me. In fact why don’t you just have a conversation with yourself since what others say is only going to be turned into what YOU think anyway?
You seem to believe that I am the only one who sees this problem with your position, and the precedent you would be setting here. The rest of the participants also see the problem of conjecture trumping mss, and what a can of worms that could lead to. They may not be as direct in putting their finger on it as I am, but they do see the issue.
But we know that the KJV translators were not perfect, and made mistakes. Therefore, you have to at least entertain the idea that their decision to accept the emendation was a mistake, since they were not infallible.
Haven’t I clearly enough “entertained” that idea for you? All I’ve done is say I’m tired of hearing about this or that “error” in the KJV when that means having to completely disregard the KJV translators although they made an INFORMED DECISION with no more evidence than YOU have NOW! THEY DISAGREED WITH YOU! INTENTIONALLY DISAGREED! How can you just ignore that? Their not being “perfect” doesn’t justify this wholesale reversal of whatever they did that looks suspect to someone today. I ALSO SAID SOME FUTURE REVISION COULD REVERSE THEIR DECISION AND AS LONG AS IT IS DONE IN GOOD FAITH THAT’S FINE WITH ME.
However, the KJV translators chose an emendation because it was all they had to work with at the time; the Revelation mss weren’t as complete or as numerous, so they made the best choice in a bad situation.
As I understand it they had all the earlier translations available, the Tyndale etc., which do NOT have the Beza emendation. Isn’t that enough to show that they made an informed decision? If not, fine, I’ll take it back — but I won’t take the PRINCIPLE back. If they had sufficient information and they DID make a choice in favor of Beza’s emendation then their decision should be accorded more respect that they are getting on this forum.
You seem to believe that I am the only one who sees this problem with your position, and the precedent you would be setting here. The rest of the participants also see the problem of conjecture trumping mss, and what a can of worms that could lead to. They may not be as direct in putting their finger on it as I am, but they do see the issue.
Nobody else here has managed to misread and misrepresent me to the extent you have, and nobody else here has launched into irrelevant straw man lectures at me either. I won’t even try to deal with the rest of your post.
Hello again Bob:
Ultimately it’s the poor manuscripts which are the issue.
Mostly but also what they did with the English apart from the manuscripts.
So, that being the case, Burgon appeals to the problems with those manuscripts as opposed to the soundness of the Byzantine manuscripts to make his case, right?
He makes painstaking comparisons between the Greek of all five Alexandrians against each other and against many other Greek texts, also the Church fathers, also lectionaries, sometimes spending many pages on a single verse.
I’ve read some of Burgon, but more from later authors on the Bible version issue (from both sides).
Burgon himself is quite an experience. I don’t think anyone should read him secondhand.
So if Burgon appeals to the Byzantine manuscripts, then the KJV is only as good as the materials the translators depended on, right? These men (the KJV men) used good manuscripts and were generally trustworthy, right?
Yes, he takes the KJV and its manuscripts as the standard, as the tradition recognized by the Church, doesn’t say they are perfect but takes them as the standard, but his focus is not on defending the KJV, it’s completely on showing the corruptions in the Alexandrians. The corruptions show up not only in relation to the traditional text but to each other. You are so oversimplifying the situation I can’t just say yes or no. You really need to read Burgon. Everybody does in my opinion.
What puzzles me and some others here, is your insistence that we can and should just trust the KJV translators, even when they differ from the good manuscripts which Burgon commended.
No, you are oversimplifying again. I’ve never said that they should be trusted when the evidence is completely against them, but from what I’ve seen it isn’t that clearcut by a long shot. They also made educated decisions even against what they had of the manuscripts. I can’t ignore that. I don’t know why you can. If they made decisions because they didn’t have enough information that’s one problem, but in the case of Rev 16:5 I understood they had enough information to be consciously clearly making a decision in favor of the Beza reading against known dissenters to that view, if not in the Greek then in other versions, and other English versions particularly. If they made a conscious educated decision I just find the eagerness to pounce on them and call “error” against them to be irresponsible.
I believe that Redgreen’s point, which he is insistent on and trying to drive home, is that if we come to a position where we just trust someone implicitly without any concern for the manuscripts and what they say, we are getting close to a dangerous position (to say the least).
The point is that if THEY made CONSCIOUS decisions AGAINST the manuscripts, I DO TRUST them from what I know about them, enough to take their decision seriously and not be willing to join in the cry of “error” every time someone finds a disparity between their choice and the Greek text. And this is all the more so against the backdrop of my jaundiced view of W and H and their irresponsible dealing with the KJV and the Church, which the people who cry “error” against the KJV all align themselves with.
As was pointed out just recently by Redgreen, the manuscripts on Revelation were not abundant and widely available when the KJV translators did their work. They used Beza’s text where he admits to making an educated guess, basically about this reading. Later Greek texts compiled after the writing of the KJV, yet which used the Byzantine texts and can rightly claim still to be of the Textus Receptus variety, do not side with Beza.
So the possibility exists then, that the KJV translators just made a mistake in adopting Beza’s reading. They had some rationale, but further evidence has revealed it to be a faulty rationale.
If so, fine. As I said to him just now, I thought they had clear evidence that they were making a conscious choice for Beza against tradition, at least from the older versions available to them. If not, my error. Nevertheless if the situation was as I thought I stand by my view of it.
If we hold up the KJV translators to such a high degree that whether or not they followed the Greek and Hebrew texts before them doesn’t matter, we are venerating them beyond reason, and for no apparent reason other than a predisposition to prefer the KJV.
No, there’s a principle involved here. You are all so manuscript-focused you can’t recognize that there are other criteria involved, other valid bases for deciding on a particular reading.
I’ve quoted Burgon’s remarks on the errors in the TR at my blog, it’s not exactly new to me. His first remark on it was in the context of objecting to the mentality that refuses to hear of the problems in the Alexandrians without first complaining against the TR, a sort of tit for tat mentality. He pointed out that the condition of the TR is irrelevant in a discussion of the Alexandrians.
I think we’re getting somewhere, Faith. I really do.
Let me focus on one part of your response.
They also made educated decisions even against what they had of the manuscripts. I can’t ignore that. I don’t know why you can.
I don’t ignore that. I allow that they were educated, that they may have weighed the various factors. But subsequent to their work, we have lots more corroboration that they were wrong in their decision, and no corroboration that they were right.
If they made decisions because they didn’t have enough information that’s one problem, but in the case of Rev 16:5 I understood they had enough information to be consciously clearly making a decision in favor of the Beza reading against known dissenters to that view, if not in the Greek then in other versions, and other English versions particularly.
Actually, since they had the other English translations and available material in front of them, then Rev. 16:5 is no different than any textual decision the KJV translators made. For every single decision about which textual option to choose, they had some information available and made we should presume, educated decisions. So what now, could they ever be wrong? And if not, why not? Just because careful, educated, scholarly, Christian gentlemen in 1611 made decisions, are we to absolutely give them the benefit of the doubt every time? If so, why? What about the same caliber of scholarly men working at the Synod of Dordt in 1638 who translated the Dutch Estates-General translation. Why shouldn’t their work and their translation decisions be the standard that we presume to be true and follow their decision even when they opt for readings that have no manuscript witness?
If they made a conscious educated decision I just find the eagerness to pounce on them and call “error” against them to be irresponsible.
So, because the KJV translators made “a conscious educated decision”, they are now above reproach, and cannot be judged to be in error? How is it irresponsible to hold their work up to scrutiny? They are fallible men, after all. They were Anglicans, and not many of them were Puritans. Many were doubtless political appointees. But that’s beside the point.
If we cannot hold their work up to the manuscripts and other language translations which provide the basis for us to make textual judgments, the very same basis which Burgon worked from to conclude the Alexandrian texts were faulty and the W-H text corrupt, then why should their work ever be questioned. How can it be improved if they are above questioning.
My problem with all this, and I will allow for a Byzantine priority view, or even a Textus Receptus priority view. There are good arguments for those positions. My primary problem is that Scripture itself, the Bible, does not guide us in this, to expect a 17th Century Bible translation into English to be perfect. Nor does the Bible ratify a view which lauds the KJV translators as the best scholarly minds that ever walked the earth. With no Biblical warrant for that conclusion about the KJV, I’m simply wondering how do you get there? Why are their decisions so important and so worthy of respect that they are in effect, not able to be touched or even disputed. And if that is not an unwarranted, unBiblical veneration of men, or attribution of perfection to a translation, I don’t know what is.
No, you are oversimplifying again. I’ve never said that they should be trusted when the evidence is completely against them,
Semi-correction: Actually I did say this, but I don’t think of it as them against “the evidence” I think of it as their having other evidence that guides their decisions in such cases, whether it’s tradition, the importance of preserving the text for the sake of the people, an educated guess or whatnot.
I think we’re getting somewhere, Faith. I really do.
I am far from sharing your optimism. I’m just learning how right I was not to get into discussions about the KJV. It’s not my focus, it’s the W-H fiasco that’s my focus. But here I am again, getting sucked into it. So let’s have it out to the end.
I allow that they were educated, that they may have weighed the various factors. But subsequent to their work, we have lots more corroboration that they were wrong in their decision, and no corroboration that they were right.
If that is really truly the case, that they were definitely in the wrong and you can show this, and you aren’t just overlooking a lot of other important considerations in the process, then I’m not going to argue with you. This is then one of the places that they themselves would agree now needs to be changed in accordance with new information.
Actually, since they had the other English translations and available material in front of them, then Rev. 16:5 is no different than any textual decision the KJV translators made.
Whoa here. If they HAD the information that most of the evidence was against Beza then they DID choose against that evidence, apparently WITH Beza. For whatever reason. Do you know why?
For every single decision about which textual option to choose, they had some information available and made we should presume, educated decisions. So what now, could they ever be wrong?
Why do you leap to the “EVER” line? We’re talking about ONE instance but everybody seems to want to make it into some blanket policy. Could they EVER be wrong? OF COURSE! New evidence, even considering all the different kinds of evidence, even weighed against other important considerations, such as preserving the text insofar as possible, which I do think is important (after the wolves have already been in the hen house, but anyway), COULD turn out to be against them. They COULD be wrong. They expected it to happen. But my position is to prefer to err in the direction of conservatism, even to an extreme perhaps — all the more so because of the cavalier way I see translators have dealt with the Bible since Westcott and Hort.
In the case of the Beza emendation where is the new evidence? More manuscripts without the emendation? More versions? But ALL the earlier versions didn’t have it, and supposedly they had all those. I don’t see that a few new ones is going to shift the balance all that much. I still would like to know why they chose for Beza. Were they convinced by his reasoning? Shouldn’t we want to know? How can you call their decision an “error” UNLESS you know? I mean it’s a pretty odd thing that they would decide in favor of such a slim thing as this emendation. I have to think they must have had good reason for it — assuming again of course that they had plenty of evidence of the other reading. So YOU don’t agree with Beza’s reasoning, SO? Then you are putting yourself on a par with the KJV translators. Isn’t that a bit of a stretch? As I understand it many of them GREW UP reading Greek and other languages, they grew up knowing the scriptures inside out and backwards. Do you have that kind of knowledge? When they make a decision and the information they had isn’t all that much less than has subsequently been brought to light, I see no EASY justification for calling “error” against it. Now, if it comes to another revision of their work, by people with credentials somewhat on a par with theirs, THEN if they decide against their decision (I’ll want to know why) I’ll just have to accept it.
And if not, why not? Just because careful, educated, scholarly, Christian gentlemen in 1611 made decisions, are we to absolutely give them the benefit of the doubt every time?
Yes, because of the Bible they produced. Because of its having been learned and memorized by millions and quoted in literature and on monuments in all the anglo world, because of its standing in history, because of its influence on not only the English-speaking nations but on the whole world, because of its high quality as literature, which anyone who has any feeling for literary beauty strongly attests (unfortunately all too few), because it taught the illiterate to read and taught them the best possible English to boot, because all in all it was such a treasure that to treat it as W and H did, and now continue to deal with it with the heavy-handed tools of current textual criticism is hardly short of destroying Christendom, and what has been put in its place is so ..so shoddy by comparison, all those dozens and dozens of inferior Bibles that only serve to disunify the churches by having everyone learn a different text, and a corrupted text at that. It’s a crime.
Yes, the translators should be given every possible benefit of the doubt. BUT WHEN THEY ARE WRONG THEN THEY ARE WRONG AND MUST BE CORRECTED. WITH GREAT CARE. ONLY COMPELLINGLY NECESSARY CHANGE. Not change in this cavalier, even casual way everyone seems to be so intent on doing. Like bulls in a china shop.
If so, why? What about the same caliber of scholarly men working at the Synod of Dordt in 1638 who translated the Dutch Estates-General translation. Why shouldn’t their work and their translation decisions be the standard that we presume to be true and follow their decision even when they opt for readings that have no manuscript witness?
I’d probably say it should if it had had the impact the KJV had. And when that Bible is being revised I’d also counsel EXTREME CONSERVATISM in dealing with it. No change except COMPELLINGLY NECESSARY change.
I’m now realizing that this view of the KJVs immense influence has been lurking behind everything I’ve said here, it just never came to the surface for some reason. When you criticize the KJV translators so lightly, you aren’t appreciating the IMMENSITY of the impact of the KJV on civilization, NOR the importance of the Church’s having a consistent unified text — a need that has now been trashed and scattered to the winds already unfortunately. To see all that treated so lightly breaks my heart.
If they made a conscious educated decision I just find the eagerness to pounce on them and call “error” against them to be irresponsible.
So, because the KJV translators made “a conscious educated decision”, they are now above reproach, and cannot be judged to be in error?
There you go again leaping to the TOTAL position which I’ve never taken. “ABOVE REPROACH” NEVER in error?
How is it irresponsible to hold their work up to scrutiny? They are fallible men, after all. They were Anglicans, and not many of them were Puritans. Many were doubtless political appointees. But that’s beside the point.
If we cannot hold their work up to the manuscripts and other language translations which provide the basis for us to make textual judgments, the very same basis which Burgon worked from to conclude the Alexandrian texts were faulty and the W-H text corrupt, then why should their work ever be questioned. How can it be improved if they are above questioning.
Let it be questioned by those who have the authority, the calling and the credentials to question it, and hopefully also the respect of its greatness and its place in history. Every tom dick and harry having at the KJV makes me sick to my stomach.
My problem with all this, and I will allow for a Byzantine priority view, or even a Textus Receptus priority view. There are good arguments for those positions. My primary problem is that Scripture itself, the Bible, does not guide us in this, to expect a 17th Century Bible translation into English to be perfect.
AND THERE YOU GO AGAIN, falsely imputing to me the judgment that it is “perfect.” I think it is GREAT, I do not think it is PERFECT. I think it should be updated and corrected but only WITH GREAT CARE BY THE RIGHT MEN. That is what Westcott and Hort’s committee were supposed to do, instead they committed an act of vandalism against it.
Nor does the Bible ratify a view which lauds the KJV translators as the best scholarly minds that ever walked the earth. With no Biblical warrant for that conclusion about the KJV, I’m simply wondering how do you get there?
Partly because I know scholars today are persuaded of the W-H legacy and the modern versions, and to my mind that does not fit one for the deep requirements of the task, even engenders a shallow learning. Partly because I know enough about the world of textual criticism and translation to know that there are men involved in it who do not believe the supernatural message of the Bible OR appreciate its cultural value. Wolves in the sheep fold, maybe in sheep’s clothing. I know the KJV translators were at least all believers. Burgon thought eight of the Revision committee of Westcott and Hort could have done a good revision based on their scholarly credentials, he had nothing good to say for the other dozen of them.
Why are their decisions so important and so worthy of respect that they are in effect, not able to be touched or even disputed. And if that is not an unwarranted, unBiblical veneration of men, or attribution of perfection to a translation, I don’t know what is.
I believe it’s a veneration of history, of civilization, of the Church and its needs, of excellence, of everything of the highest value in life. And all to the glory of God. I think everything done since W-H is dreck by comparison, a dumbing-down, a cheapening, even a trivialization of the gospel.
Faith,
Here’s my final reply on this. I’ll use block quotes to make it clearer. When you quote me without quoting your own words I was responding to it does make things look differently, hopefully this will help.
This is why I think we are getting somewhere. You at least see this behind the points you’ve been making up to now. More on this later.
I’m not leaping. The italics in the quoted section above are yours, I’m responding to your assertion. I take your assertion to mean the following: If at any point I would bring forth evidence to say the KJV translators are “in error”, and at that same point you determine they had actually made “a conscious educated decision”, then according to your admission above, I am being “irresponsible”. Is not this then admitting that the KJV translators are above being wrong? If not, I struggle to see how it isn’t. Because where did the KJV translators decide upon a reading without making “a conscious educated decision”?
I’m not trying to put words in your mouth. But your resistance to admitting an error at this point, which of any point in the entire KJV is perhaps the most clear point where an error is to be admitted (because further evidence has confirmed that Beza was entirely wrong), your resistance seems to imply that you in effect consider the KJV perfect. I can’t account for your resistance to change on this point in any other way, whether or not you protest to the contrary.
Finally, to go back to the first quote I gave, this is indeed the problem. It is untenable and dangerous to base our position on an emotional attachment to the superiority of our favored Bible version. The Church in the 300-400s resisted Jerome’s fresh translation from the Hebrew. The Church by and large, preferred the old, tried and true, Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, and translations into Latin based on that. Gradually the wisdom of Jerome’s move (to go back to the source, ad fontes) was acknowledged. Later, when Erasmus did his work, the Church by and large preferred the Latin Vulgate. Jerome’s work was now practically deified, and it was above error. The Greek manuscripts couldn’t possibly suggest improvements to it. Slowly, and with the added impetus of the Protestant reformation, the Vulgate preference died off. Now we have the King James in a similar position. It is a loved translation, that is absolutely true. But endearment is not an indicator of the accuracy of the translation or its text. And these kinds of arguments ultimately are weak.
We go from Burgon’s scholarly admission of multiple errors in the KJV and the TR, to the more contemporary veneration of the KJV of being absolutely perfect and complete, lacking nothing. You aren’t to the end of this scale, by your admission. I give you that. But the slippery slope points to the bottom of the scale here. If your arguments are based on a larger than life view of the merits of the KJV translators, and a tremendous satisfaction and love for the KJV, coupled with a horror at what W-H did with the RV. Then your bias is clear and this will propel you on to an untenable position, in my opinion.
I hope this explains where I’m coming from. I don’t find Burgon’s position untenable. But the argumentation and rationale you are providing for defending Rev. 16:5 as the KJV has it, is quite different from Burgon’s tack and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
If they made a conscious educated decision I just find the eagerness to pounce on them and call “error” against them to be irresponsible.
So, because the KJV translators made “a conscious educated decision”, they are now above reproach, and cannot be judged to be in error?
There you go again leaping to the TOTAL position which I’ve never taken. “ABOVE REPROACH” NEVER in error?
I see my remark as referring to this one case only. I don’t get why you extend it to all cases. Presumably there were times when they DIDN’T make a conscious educated decision but more like a leap in the dark — because it can be shown that they had NOTHING to go on. Presumably there were times when they didn’t have the documentation now available. But in this particular case it appears they had enough documentation, as I said. Perhaps you disagree.
I’m not leaping. The italics in the quoted section above are yours, I’m responding to your assertion. I take your assertion to mean the following: If at any point I would bring forth evidence to say the KJV translators are “in error”, and at that same point you determine they had actually made “a conscious educated decision”, then according to your admission above, I am being “irresponsible”. Is not this then admitting that the KJV translators are above being wrong? If not, I struggle to see how it isn’t. Because where did the KJV translators decide upon a reading without making “a conscious educated decision”?
As I suggest above I assume there are such places, where as someone said they really had no choice or the like. If there aren’t such places then perhaps I WOULD say stick to updating and leave the rest alone. Why should a modern opinion trump theirs if there is no appreciable difference in the evidence?
I do not believe the KJV is “absolutely perfect and complete” and I don’t think anything I said implied that.
My “bias” has been arrived at over the last few years of reading on these things, I hardly started out with it.
And you are trivializing it by reducing to an emotional attachment to the KJV rather than an assessment of its objective value. You do put textual differences above things I consider to be far more important — which I hope is not going to be taken as a TOTAL rejection of the necessity of textual amendment where COMPELLINGLY NECESSARY.
I also don’t have your horror of the conservative impulse in these things. There certainly hasn’t been much of it in any case in the last century of scholarly work on the Bible. I’d really like to see the KJV revised, but the attitude of those who would do it reminds me too much of Westcott and Hort.
Burgon didn’t discuss Rev 16:5 unfortunately. His approach would have been to make textual comparisons. Perhaps he would side against Beza. Nobody seems to have noticed that I gave the KJV translators EQUAL status with the critics. I still see it as going either way in a CAREFUL REVISION.
Anyway, enough on this subject I’m sure.
.because further evidence has confirmed that Beza was entirely wrong
You say this but then why don’t you show where my assessment of the evidence the KJV translators had was insufficient by comparison because as I said it looked adequate to me.
Bob, I would like to ask you something from the opposite direction:
Do you agree that if Westcott and Hort did influence the revising committee to accept their Alexandrian-based Greek text over the Textus Receptus, that should be regarded as their taking unwarranted liberties when the task was defined as doing a “minimal revision” of the KJV?
Would you also agree that over 36,000 changes in the English, which Burgon himself describes as clearly change for change’s sake, was likewise taking unwarranted liberties?
Do you think that this should just be forgotten now as if everything done on the basis of their work is validated just because it’s been accepted by the mainstream and by the scholars?
If Burgon said their treatment of the Greek was pedantic and on the level of schoolboy Greek exercises, could that change your assessment of Greek scholarship as it is now taught?
Do you assume, as some do, that Burgon’s reasoning about the likelihood of heretical corruptions in the Alexandrians (that underlay the W-H revision and are also part of the Critical Texts that underlay most of the modern Bibles) is just conspiracy thinking or could possibly have something to it?
If you think it might have something to it, would that change anything in your attitude about this whole controversy?
underlie, not underlay
Faith
You say this but then why don’t you show where my assessment of the evidence the KJV translators had was insufficient by comparison because as I said it looked adequate to me.
The question isn’t whether they made a bad choice at the time, given the limited information that they had. The question is: knowing what we know today, do we retain their conjectural emendation or do we fix it?
The KJV translators were very learned men for their age. But given what we know today, their version of Rev 16:5 was a bad choice. That doesn’t mean that the KJV translators were stupid; they likely did the best they could, given the quality of the mss and evidence they had to work with. But history has shown that for all their good intentions, their conclusion – their conjectural emendation – has no support from any mss anywhere.
Let me try to use an example from science.
Nicolai Copernicus was a mathematician and astronomer who lived in the 15th and 16th centuries. He was the first European astronomer to finally uproot the geocentric (earth centered) view of astronomy that had been inherited from Ptolemy, a Greek. Copernicus realized that it must be the sun at the center of the solar system, not the earth. And to make the math work out, he said the planets moved in circular orbits around the sun.
It was a brilliant insight and a way to resolve the discrepancies in the data. It was resisted at first, but eventually became accepted. Only one small problem: it was also wrong.
Johannes Kepler, another astronomer and mathematician, came along 50 years later and revised Copernicus, because the evidence wasn’t matching up exactly correctly; small discrepancies in the data continued to crop up. Kepler realized that the planets actually moved in slight ellipses, not perfect circles. Once this adjustment was made, the observational data aligned with the predictions perfectly.
Nobody is savaging Copernicus for his mistake. Copernicus was a reasonable, well-educated man who made thoughtful choices. He didn’t just guess. But he was also wrong. We salute Copernicus for his work – but at the same time, we don’t hesitate to correct him, now that we have Kepler’s updated information.
You say this but then why don’t you show where my assessment of the evidence the KJV translators had was insufficient by comparison because as I said it looked adequate to me. The question isn’t whether they made a bad choice at the time, given the limited information that they had. The question is: knowing what we know today, do we retain their conjectural emendation or do we fix it?
All I’m asking is what DO we know today that’s such a huge improvement on what they knew? As I said, they had the earlier versions that clearly had the other reading, not Beza’s, yet with those they nevertheless chose with Beza.
The KJV translators were very learned men for their age. But given what we know today, their version of Rev 16:5 was a bad choice.
And what exactly IS it that “we know today” that puts them in the wrong? I’m asking honestly. If they had the versions and still chose with Beza what’s to say if they had more manuscript evidence against Beza they’d chose with the mss?
That doesn’t mean that the KJV translators were stupid; they likely did the best they could, given the quality of the mss and evidence they had to work with. But history has shown that for all their good intentions, their conclusion – their conjectural emendation – has no support from any mss anywhere.
Except Beza, which they had then and still exists, and what IS the better quality evidence now? Some mss with Revelation that they didn’t have then?
If the evidence is that strong against their decision I will assume they would accept the evidence. For some reason with all the claims of superior evidence available now I really haven’t seen it. They had the earlier versions, there were quite a few of them, none of them had Beza’s reading, and didn’t they also have many other versions in other languages as well? So why did they put his reading ahead of all those?
It’s OK, really, if there IS that much more evidence, I’m sure they’d have accepted it too.
Faith, I’m not arguing the point with you, but as to new evidence – there are hundreds upon hundreds of new manuscripts – which are categorized both as “Alexandrian” and “Byzantine”. These have all been discovered in the past two hundred years or so, and many of them were as unknown to Westcott and Hort as they were to Beza. As far as I know, none of them have Beza’s reading.
Let me be plain. I agree with Beza’s reasoning in changing ὅσιος to ἐσόμενος. It certainly fits with the usage in the rest of the book. It would make sense from my perspective. BUT the problem is that we – and by that I mean anyone – do not have the right to change a reading simply because we believe it is consistent. There must be some kind of manuscript evidence for it. Beza made the change based entirely on how he read the text – and had, at best, a tenuous reference in a commentary. There was not, and even with all the manuscripts discovered since there still is not, any support for the emandation. Beza was quite clear about why he made the change.
When the KJV translators made the change, they made it entirely based on Beza. We know this because there is no other support for it, and there never has been. They departed from Tyndale, Bishop’s, Matthew’s, Geneva, and every other known English translation. It is not in Erasmus, Stephanus or Elzevir. In short, the translation team working on Revelation read Beza and chose to include his reading despite the weight of evidence, which is truly overwhelming.
That is why everyone is making such a big deal over this. Now personally, I think Beza’s reading makes more sense contextually, but confronted with the weight of manuscript evidence, I have to admit that it has no support. At the very least, the KJV translators should have included a footnote – which they did not.
To everyone else, can we let this subject lie now? I think everyone has had their say. Faith has said repeatedly that she doesn’t want to debate this point. I think we should be respectful and step away.
Thanks, Erik.
{I hope both paragraphs end up inside the quotes. For some reason the HTML usually only works with the first paragraph for me; or maybe I’m just not being careful enough}
It really is quite an amazing situation if they had as much evidence as I was saying I thought they had against Beza’s reading, which you are confirming, and nevertheless they chose with Beza. That is why I keep thinking they MUST have had a VERY good reason to choose against it, maybe something everyone is completely wrong about. Since I feel that the KJV translators get an unfair deal from today’s textual critics I still want to have a better grasp of why they did it, but apparently that can’t be. If there is no way of knowing, then that’s that.
It’s also odd to hear that they didn’t include a footnote in this case. I meant to ask about that earlier and then forgot.
Again, if the evidence is that heavy against them they would no doubt accept it themselves, and I’m happy to leave it at that.
To everyone else, can we let this subject lie now? I think everyone has had their say. Faith has said repeatedly that she doesn’t want to debate this point. I think we should be respectful and step away.
Thanks.
By the way. I thought I made a brief post on the post about the textual project your father is on, which someone addressed to me, but maybe I didn’t. Yes, his name is on the list of … directors?
Just as I mostly try to stay away from arguing about the KJV I also avoid most textual questions, so I don’t have an opinion about this project. It’s interesting that this is being done and it sounds good but I don’t have a way of judging it. Glad to see a book by Burgon made available there though. I started to download it and realized it was going to take forever so abandoned it.
My bailiwick remains limited to what I’ve learned Westcott and Hort did and the consequences in the modern English versions — which seem to be completely dismissed by just about everybody today except the KJVOs. And I’m still learning about this mostly from Burgon.
Sorry wherever I got insulting to anyone. Seems I took a lot of it myself however. And some very rude person I’m sure was from here did come over to my blog and really lay it on me.
The KJV translators apparently did not keep what we would consider copious notes or publish their notes as modern translation committees do (as in Bruce Metzger’s A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament or the various books written to explain assorted translational philosophies. As a result, we’ll never know exactly what they did.
The KJV translators worked with unbound sheets of the Bishop’s Bible, making corrections as they went. These sheets, however, were lost – possibly destroyed in one of the many fires that swept urban England in the late 17th century or during the Commonwealth period. There are some components of a 1602 Bishop’s Bible with notations from the translation committee that was working on the Gospels (I believe). It was published in 1995.
It is probable as well that they had at their disposal at least Erasmus, Stephanus and Beza’s Greek texts. They also had access to some form of Hebrew text which was clearly Masoretic, although we really don’t know what they were using – possibly the Antwerp Polyglot or something like that.
Theories abound, but suffice to say we don’t have their drafts or notes so we really don’t know the extent of what they were using. When Scrivener reverse engineered what he believed to be the Greek text underlying the KJV, it became apparent that they did not rely on any one text and seem to have used several, making decisions as they went.
The likely reason they chose Beza’s conjecture is it made a lot more sense in the early seventeenth century than it does now. If you have limited resources, no possible mechanism for understanding the relative dates of the mss, and your resources are critical editions of the Greek text that also were built upon limited resources, such a conjecture was far more plausible than today when we have a large number of mss and know their approximate dates and connections to each other. The evidence against the KJV reading is overwhelming but only so today,
Those on both sides who either insist the KJV translators “must have known something” or insist they made a “stupid mistake” are applying standards anachronistically. They were operating within the state of evidence at a time when both the vast majority and the oldest mss were not at their disposal but in Greek Orthodox monastaries thousands of miles away in Islamic controlled lands.
Albert, I agree. Any translation is a product of its time. This is why, in a previous article, I bemoaned that the NKJV was a ‘once and done’ translation. I would much rather have seen a standing committee who took the input from their readers – which were KJV users in the vast majority – and made revisions.
Thanks Erik, that was a very informative post. I have learned from many of the posts here, despite my better instinct to stay out of all this.
When Scrivener reverse engineered what he believed to be the Greek text underlying the KJV, it became apparent that they did not rely on any one text and seem to have used several, making decisions as they went.
That was the impression I had, that they chose from many different texts. And I tend to favor them as I’ve said, so I put a lot of weight on whatever their decisions were. That means if I did have the ability to do it I’d probably choose for them in more cases than the anti-KJVO critics would, but that certainly doesn’t mean I’d ALWAYS choose for them. As they themselves expected there would certainly have to be places — I have no idea how many — where their decisions would have to be overthrown (such as “strain OUT a gnat,” for which I haplessly argued on a fundamentalist forum a few years ago.)
I favor them not because the KJV is “endearing” — I’ve had to grow into an appreciation of the KJV over the last few years — I believe it was objectively a high point in the Church and in history (this is not synonymous with “perfection”) and objectively deserves a deference I don’t see coming from most Bible scholars today, and not just to preserve their reputation but because of the way the KJV knit together Christians and edified “Christendom” for centuries — this isn’t just a case of liking the KJV, these are practical reasons not to go at it with a battering ram (as W and H did and some others). If there is an emotional component to the assessment it’s a secondary effect based ON the objective assessment and it’s not fair to dismiss this point of view as irrational subjectivity.
Got pretty far off your topic. Oh well.
Erik,
On Rev 16:5 would it be right to guess that your father would say he trusts that the KJV translators had sufficient evidence for going with Beza even if we don’t have that evidence now?
I haven’t asked him, to be honest.
Good thing that all true translators are not beholden to one language (Greek) of the bible. Since when was Greek the only original text of the New Testament? Seeing that the apostate Greek orthodox church cut the book of Revelation from thier texts (It exists in only 4% of Greek manuscripts) due to it’s condemnation of their Nicolaita practices, it goes to show that modern scholarship is still straining AT a gnat with all its might.
I am sure you can substantiate your claim with actual manuscript counts, I’m sure.
If I need to. Any scholar knows this. The Greek church denies the trinity, claims Jesus is not God, sanctions idolatry and Mariolatry, and necromancy, believes in baptismal regenerationand purgatory. Why trust them with preserving a true text?
I am sure you all realize all current editions of the Greek Textus Receptus are reconstructions. In Fact, Beza relied on the Latin translation of Tremellius for his Greek text, which was taken fron the Arabic and Syriac. Anyway, which currently available Greek edition is the preserved copy of the original?
Please don’t deflect. Clearly “any scholar” does not know this. This is not the place to disparage the Orthodox faith. I would like very much to see the multiple witness support for your statements so that they can be answered directly.
I’m not sure of Keith Whitlock’s list of what the Greek Orthodox and other Orthodox churches believe, but since I do think of them as close enough to the Roman Church for discomfort I wasn’t very happy to see a couple of Greek clergy on the list of Directors for the Majority Text project discussed on another blog entry here. Didn’t mention it there but since it came up here . . .
Faith, there is no denying that the Greek church is responsible for the preservation of the Greek text which the Nestle-Aland supplanted, so your own position supports the idea that the Greek Orthodox Church was God’s agents for preserving the text. If they were not, then there is no preserved text since Greek was all but unknown in the West until the Renaissance.
I’ve never argued one word concerning the preservation of the text. I don’t have a position on that.
But it does concern me when people of heretical beliefs (such as the Unitarian on the committee that produced the Revision of 1881) are in a position to influence translation.
Ah sorry, I forgot that you don’t really have a position on the text.
AQLL the men on the evision Committee were heretics, especially Scrivener. Read Scrivener’s Six Lectures on the Text of the New testament, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New testament, and The Authorised version of the English Bible available online at Google books for the facts on what Scrivener REALLY believed.
Who’s deflecting? May I ask you how many manuscripts contain the book of Revelation, surely you or your Dad should know if I am telling the truth. Herman Hoskier did the most extensive collation of Revelation. The point I was making is that the GOC could not endure the censors of its lukewarmness and Nicolaitanbism so it excised Revelation.
The translators compared all extant versions of the Bible in all languages. they were aware of the, then and now, corruption of the available Koine Greek texts.
May I ask you again, what is the original preserved Greek text available today?
No, Keith, you may not. I am not going to engage in a juvenile game of “I asked you first.” My views on the Greek text and preservation are well stated here on the blog, and there is no need to rehash them. I have long held the position that Greek is our primary and first stream, but not by any means the only one. The corpus of the text has a number of streams which join together – and some of them are of other languages.
I asked you for support of your position, and you have provided a name. I assume that you have your edition of Herman Hoskier available. Please answer the question I asked. Provide support for your statements or let the situation rest.
Kurt Aland states there are 287 manuscripts of the Revelation. Just looking at a list of variants from Bruce Terry of Ohio Valley University shows far more than your proposed 4%. There are a number of books that are not as well attested as the Gospels, which are by far the most widely attested books. Certainly the Revelation is not as well attested as the Gospels, but it is still attested sufficiently in Greek.
Lets make this simple.
The King James Bible, is it from heaven or from men?
Keith,
I’ll leave the hashing of texts between you and Erik. This reply of yours, however, presents a false dilemma. There are other options. The King James Version is a well translated Bible. It is also based on older manuscripts, though.
Your reply is not simple; it is simplistic.
It’s based on both, as any true translation would be.
False dilemma? How so Jason? Where was God during the translation process?
Keith,
You still present a false dilemma.
Let me phrase your question in the implied sense: “Either God was with the KJV translators, or He’s with the other translators.” Implicit in the argument is that He could not have been with both.
It is a false dilemma.
Enough is enough.
Take that sort of argument elsewhere. If you wish to deal with text, do so. But let’s not do that sort of foolishness. It gets us nowhere.
No. I am not implying that at all. You are trying to put words in my mouth. Just tell me, Jason, your answer.
Is the King James Bible from Heaven or from men?
Keith,
You know that any response will be twisted to fit your agenda.
The answer is that it is both from God and the product of the men who translated it.
It simply didn’t drop down from heaven, and the translators were not inspired, though they certainly were mightily used of God.
Keith Whitlock
Is the King James Bible from Heaven or from men
It’s from the same place that the NASB is from.
And the ESV.
And the HCSB.
And the NKJV.
And several other versions.
For you Eric. http://www.oxfordjournals.org The Distinctiveness of the Book of Reveltaion lists 303 tmanuscripts with revelation with many manuscripts with the book of Revelation only.
I am well aware of your views and oyur lying father’s, that is why I asked you questions your lack of integrity and research will not allow you to answer.
My “lying father”, Keith? I will consider you banned from comment, and will no longer respond to your hate speech. I have no tolerance for this kind of stuff.
Ένας ανόητος κατηγορεί κανένας, αλλά τον εαυτό του.
“Hate speech”? Erik, seriously…you are going to accuse Keith of “hate speech” when your father and several of his DBS colleagues have called several people whom I personally know “liars” and “frauds”? Sounds a little like the liberal politicians: It’s ok so long as they are the ones saying it, but it’s “hate speech” when someone points out their issues.
Will you answer my questions, or will you just ignore me too?
Stephen, I’m not defending anyone. If you have an issue with my father, take it up with him. I am not my father, and dragging him into this shows what I would consider immaturity. Throwing accusations around here where he is not here to present his positions is reprehensible. If you choose to take Keith’s part, then I will give you the same response. I have no interest in answering people who claim to be Christians and would attack someone who is not present. Your ad hominem attacks are inappropriate, unChristian and unacceptable.
Let me make this absolutely plain so that everyone is aware.
My father, Kirk DiVietro, is not in any way affiliated with this blog or the contributors. I am not associated with any of the work he does for the Dean Burgon Society (of which I was once an associate member but am not any longer).
Accusations of anyone – including my father – as being a liar or accusations of the contributors of this blog having a ‘lack of integrity’ are unacceptable under the guidelines that Bob Hayton, the owner of this blog, have established.
Keith’s comments that my father is a liar or that I lack integrity simply because we disagree with him (for different reasons) are unacceptable and unwarranted.
We try very hard to keep this blog from being the kind of muck-raking, mud-slinging mess that so many of the online discussion forums have become.
Please respect the guidelines for interaction, to which there is a link at the top of the page, or you will find yourself banned from interaction, as Keith will be from here on out.
ExorthodoxforChrist.com has tons of info on the apostate Greek Orthodox Church.
I am simply amazed at the absolute refusal to answer a simple question. If “the Greek” is to be the final authority (as has been claimed on this site several times), it should be obvious to any logical and honest person that “the Greek” text should be affirmed and distinguished by those holding exclusively to it, as there are several that do not agree within themselves.
Your refusal to clearly tell this information seems a bit strange, yet quite revealing to your true belief system.
There has been more than adequate affirmation of the Greek text on this site. You are free to explore the articles here and see the affirmation. It need not be retread in this comment thread when it is obvious and plain throughout the site.
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