Want Some Answers ???

Hi Kent

At last time to reply. You wrote,

>>Again, God preserved the Bible in the languages in which it was written. He preserved every word.  He did not preserve the ink and the paper, but the words themselves.  He did this by means of Israel and the churches.  He did this supernaturally.  He did this.  We receive it by faith.<<

I would agree. But you have not said anything yet that makes me want to adopt the TR or the KJV as the "preserved every word" in contrast to other text-types or versions. Just to say that 'the churches' have accepted the KJV doesn't prove much. The Vulgate was also once the main version and 'accepted' for 1300 years. The 13 million in Chinese churches today are crying out for more of their version [not based on the TR]. You wrote,

>>The preservation is not in the English words.  Your abundance of material about revisions in the editions of the KJV is all hot air with me, because I don't believe a translation is where preservation is. I have said this many times, but you choose to ignore it and continue arguing with me like I believe it is found in a translation.<<

So you don't believe "preservation is in the English words" of the KJ translation. And you don't believe "preservation of a text behind the KJV."  Wow Kent the KJ mob would throw you out. They believe the KJV alone is the "words, all of them".  And that "translation" alone is the only true Bible. You wrote,

>>You come up with a very odd view, unsubstantiated, and extremely new, with no historical basis, that the promise of preservation to be literal, would have to be the actual ink and paper, papyrus, whatever, and since they don't exist, therefore God did not preserve His Word. This is a view I have never heard and I have read a lot on this issue, but it does show how that you grasp at straws on this.<<

Why take what the KJ radicals believe and say its what I believe? It's not my view.  This odd 'literal' view belongs to radicals. Why apply it to me? They claim, "God preserved His words, all of them" in the KJV. They ask, if the KJV is not the words "where are they"? They quote Ps.12 etc and apply it literally only to the KJV. If the KJV is what they claim, it makes a mockery out of taking the gospel to the nations because it can only really be understood in the KJV. The KJ mob say we can't be sure of salvation unless we use the KJV.  You wrote,

>>You bring up 1 John 5:7,8 and misrepresent it, because I am assuming you already know something on this (something you rarely do with other people---you talk to people like they know nothing and have read nothing---this is called condescension by the way, which is a form of pride). <<

I disagree. Its the radicals writing to me that are telling me I 'know nothing' and they are the ones doing all the nasty words on others. You wrote,

>>I John 5:7,8 was found in a majority of the manuscripts that contain 1 John. You realize that the majority text represents the  Byzantine manuscripts.  And of those manuscripts that contain 1 John, a majority of them have 1 John 5:7,8. You also fail to mention that if 1John 5:7 is not in there, then there is a grammatical problem in agreement between v. 6 and v. 8.<<

Sorry it's not found "in a majority" of anything.  It has no support in the Byzantine family and Erasmus could not find the words in any Greek MS and was criticised for leaving them out. A manuscript was made [by the RCC] to fool him that the reading was genuine, so he inserted the words with reluctance and under pressure. In the footnotes he mentioned with suspicion the MS was not genuine. I have more information about this matter if you want it. You wrote,

>> I don't base my belief in preservation of the Hebrew and Greek words, all of them, based on the translators or on the "weight" (man's humanistic rules of textual criticism) of the manuscripts. It is based upon all the verses on preservation---which are numerous.<<

When I mention "weight" I'm not talking about "humanistic rules or textual criticism". By weight, I refer to something else all together. If you know anything about the best Greek MSS you will know most Greek testaments are built on the concept of following the oldest and best MSS, which are in the minority. It's the quality of a NT that counts, not the quantity of its adherents. Witnesses should be weighted, not counted. Some bad MSS were copied many times - many does not mean better, but in this case this verse has no support.

When we find out that in many MSS we have a particular reading on a particular verse which doesn't have any support from older MSS and we can track it down to the scribe and time when the reading was added to the copying process. Then we must view it as a scribal addition and correct it. You seem to think that, we must just 'receive it and believe it'. Because God said He would preserve "His Word, all of them" so it must be accepted, if it's in the TR or KJV.

You don't base your views of preservation of the verses you claim, but on whether a particular reading is in the TR or KJV. You wrote,

>>You agreed that the KJV was accepted.<<

I indicated the KJV was not accepted by many [as new translations rarely are]. It was many years after it's first publication that it gained acceptance. When the 1611 came off the press it was rubbished for it's errors. Some outstanding believers wanted to replace it. You wrote,

>>That ought to be good enough for you if you trust God.  God would not have allowed us to not have God's words.<<

It "ought to be good enough" for me if I 'trust God'? You are asking me to put aside common sense and whats right or wrong. And embrace the idea that God would not allow scribes, translations, printers and translators to make mistakes.  It's the KJ radicals who would not "allow" others "God's Words". You wrote,

>>Your point about the JWs being able to say the same thing proves nothing---the churches never did and would never approve of what the JWs do textually or in the translation.<<

The argument to the effect that what the majority of believers in the history of "the churches" have believed is true, is ambiguous at best and theological dangerous at worst. And as applied to textual criticism, the argument proves nothing very helpful anyway. The JW's would just respond to me like you, and call me a "Bible corrector" and one who is against Gods Word. You wrote,

>>You make a big to-do about me not being able to prove preservation because I don't have the originals, and yet you talk about there being additions WHICH YOU CANNOT PROVE.<<

Yes, it's true, you can't prove the KJV is the recovered originals. As for additions, deletions and errors they are easily proven by textual criticism. The KJ translators added words to the 1611 which were not in the originals. "Easter" is one. And there are thousands of other additional words in italics [I'm surprised if you don't know this].

There are two main kind of errors caused by the early scribes: unintentional and intentional. (1) Unintentional. The scribe had no intention of changing anything. He simply made a mistake. When writing down what the reader read out to him and to those working with him, he might hear something incorrectly and therefore make a mistake. For example, he might hear echõmen instead of echomen ("we have" instead of 'let us have'), or vice versa (cf Rom 5:1). The pronunciation of ou and u was indistinguishable: this explains the variants in Rev 1:5, where the KJV is based on a text that reads Lousanti ("and washed us...") whereas many others follow MSS that read lusanti ("freed us..").

The pronouns hemeis/hameis (we/you) and their declensional forms were pronounced almost exactly the same way, and therefore give rise to many uncertainties. Did John write 1 John in order that "our" joy, or "your" joy, may be complete (1 Jn.1:4)?

After the scribes had finished transcribing, a trained corrector reread and made corrections. The corrector might miss mistakes and might even introduce new ones. I have certainly done that at times when reading and writing. Other unintentional errors occurred when the scribe was copying a MSS by himself (instead of listening to a reader], he uses his own eyes to read the parent MSS. Certain Greek letters in uncial form are readily confused. Some common errors were caused by similar endings of lines or words. A scribe copies what he sees, but when his eyes return to the parent MSS he accidentally leaves out a bit because his eyes skip down to a place where the same or a similar ending occurs. Or he might unthinkingly copy an expression or line twice, because his eyes have skipped back up the page. 

Another error involves the transposition of words or expressions. The scribe retains a whole clause or verse in his memory as he writes; and his memory betrays him. It may further betray him by prompting him to substitute a favoured synonym for some particular word. Again, the scribe may unwittingly assimilate some passage in one of the Gospels to the parallel in another Gospel that he has all but memorised. Such assimilation is also frequent in certain pain of epistles. 

Other errors occurred when a scribe accidentally left out words and the corrector put them in the margin. The next scribe reinserts the words into the text at the wrong place. Alternatively, the marginal note may have been a scribe's comment rather than part of the text; but the scribe who copied that MSS might well have inserted the note into the new copy he was writing, so adding something that shouldn't be there. No malice was involved, no intentional corruption of the text just an error of judgment. Some scribes went about their task so mechanically and thoughtlessly as to perpetrate almost unbelievable blunders.

(2) Intentional. The scribe intends to change what he has in front of him, and in the vast majority of instances he changes something he thinks is wrong. By "wrong" I don't mean he feels he knows more than God; rather, in most instances he changes things that he thinks the preceding scribe has corrupted. Sometimes too scribes tried to improve on grammar, vocabulary, and spelling, preferring the literary Attic Greek, of an earlier era to the colloquial Hellenistic Greek (the Koine) in which the NT was written.

Another kind of intentional corruption came about by the desire, conscious or not to harmonize one account with another. The evidence is that some copyists smoothed over such differences. Eg, If I say "the scribes," some will think immediately of the complementary adjunct, "and the Pharisees" and, sure enough, some copyists added it, wittingly or otherwise. Again, a scribe sometimes had many MSS in front of him when he made his copy. If he saw one MS had one reading, and a second another, he either chose one and left the other, or he put the two together to make a conflated reading. If some MS preserve the reading "church of God" in Ac.20:28, and others preserve "church of the Lord," some later copyists conflate the two to produce "church of the Lord and God," providing their readers with the benefit of both readings.

I have not said that the MS tradition is entirely unreliable. The vast majority of errors have to do with details of orthography word order, and the like. And, many of the theologically significant variants can be sorted out quite easily by comparing manuscript with manuscript. The result is a certain word from God. In fact today,  as never before in the history of the church, men have had less accuse for rejection of God's Word. You wrote,

>>Why change it if you can't prove the changes are superior? There is no reason to believe they are superior, nothing Scriptural.>>

Today, there's a great deal of evidence from a great many discoveries that "the changes are superior". It would be wrong to neglect the evidence and not correct the mistakes of years of copying by scribes. I don't want a Bible that has a number of sentences or words wrongly added that should not be there. Or a Bible that I can't read because it's English is unreadable. You wrote,

>>The Valera of the Spanish and the Bible of Martin Luther did come from the TR. You are wrong on that.<<

[1] The Spanish Bible of the 12th century didn't come from the TR. And even 1909 is called "corrupt" according to the KJ mob. They say "any Bible that does not have 'Easter' in Ac.12:4 is a corrupt Bible". The La Santa Biblia by Reina-Valera, reads - Ac.12:4. Yhabiéndole preso, púsole en la cárcel, entregándole á cuatro cuaterniones de soldados que le guardasen; queriendo sacarle al pueblo después de la Pascua. [The word "Pascua" means "Passover"].

[2] The German version of the 13th century didn't come from the TR. I wasn't referring to Luther's 1522. You wrote,

>>You talk about Beza being a mess, but again, based on your own criteria, how can you know that without the originals?  Again, it is your own reasoning. Any of the very few mistakes that Erasmus made were corrected, and you can get the final edition in Scriveners. How do I know this? Because it was the text for which the churches came to agree.  Even the liberal textual critics admit this.  (And please don't tell me that this is 1894.  Yes, the printed edition you get would be done in 1894.

Oh, "mistakes that Erasmus made were corrected" but too late for the KJV. So Scriveners has fewer errors than the text behind the KJV? And today's KJV has less error than the 1611? The "Bible Correctors" have been busy. Anyway I agree that Scrivener's text differs from all previously printed editions of the RT. It was used today to produce the NKJV but that does not mean the translators thought the TR was the best Greek text available. However, Stephanus's standard textus receptus of 1550 [for the 1611] is not used today for foreign language Bibles. You wrote,

>>And Beza was 1598, by the way, not 1589).<<

Did you not know that the KJ translators of the KJV relied largely on Beza's editions of 1588-1589 and the fourth edition of 1598 ?? You still can't avoid the fact that the humanist Erasmus could only use the MSS that were available to him. Less than half a dozen and from the late Middle Ages. You wrote,

>>I think Vine's is fine for a layperson, but I usually use Kittles or Colin Brown.  They are a little more thorough.<<

I'm surprised you use Kittel's 10 vols dictionary instead of Vine's, knowing your views against neo-orthodoxy. It's well known he had a neo-orthodox viewpoint. Even more VERY surprised someone like you would have a copy.

And Browns is more of collection of 310 theological topics and discussion on concepts. Both Brown and Kittel weren't followers of the TR like you and they point out errors in the AV. You, I suppose, know more than they and would rather follow the KJV.  You say you use them. This is very strange,  KJ people will only quote the Greek if it supports the KJV. Otherwise they always reject the Greek and Hebrew word meanings if they differ to the KJV. Why? If they differ to the English meaning of a given word, the old radicals would rather follow the English meaning any day. They NEVER EVER will admit the smallest littlest error in the KJV. Otherwise they lose the whole perfect inerrant straw man. You wrote,

>>I don't need to do a word study on theopneustia because I did that one in my Freshman year of college. I know what the Greek word is behind "inspiration," and your condescending rant was again meaningless.<<

If you know the writings of the Greek scholars why not take notice of what they say? You totally ignore them. The KJV translators, although remarkable scholars, wrongly believed the NT was originally written in the Attic Greek of the Classics. The relevant MSS had not yet been discovered. We now know it was '"Koine" or 'Common Greek' of everyday life.

This "priceless" discovery makes a huge difference when translating [Forward. An Expository Dictionary of NT Words. W.E.Wine Moody Press 1985]. It also teaches us from the very beginning God intended His Word to be clearly understood by the common man.  The difference between Attic and Koine is significant for the interpretation of the NT.  Scholars give numerous examples of how 'inaccurate' the Attic Greek is when reading the NT compared to the Koine Greek. [Pg.1013 The Language of the NT. D.J.Clines Zondervan TIBC 1986].  Most speakers of the Koine were non-Greeks, for many of them Greek was a second language. So Koine did not have the precision and elegance of the classical Attic tongue. CHECK Brown & Kittel, do it now!!

Ask your self. Which has the greater authority - the NT Greek or the KJV? When it comes to understanding Scripture which do we follow, good Greek MSS or the KJV translators? Bible scholarship since 1611 has not stood still. You wrote,

>>You did make one admission for me though. You said this, verbatim, "God never promised to preserve the original words...," and "Scripture is God's Word not because of style, or phrases or even the words, but because of what the words say."  That, my friend, is thought inspiration, and that is neo-orthodox.<<

Well God never promised to preserve the original words on the original MSS, thats a fact not 'thought'.  And Scripture is God's Word because the mind or voice of God communicates through the words - it's what they say. It's not style, or phrases or even the words. All translations are designed to transfer, the meaning of the original text. And meaning has priority over grammar. If you call that modern liberalism, then you don't know the meaning of the word. God has given us lots of translations, better than one English edition so hard to read one needs to be an intellectual. What a pitiful state, if the sum total of preservation was summed up in one old English version. You wrote,

>>This is why we will never come to meet without you changing. You won't believe the multitudinous places in Scripture that teach every word preservation. This is why I say again that you do a word study on the word "keep" in its Hebrew and Greek derivatives.  Have you done this?

But Kent in one email you were eager to state "four times" that "the Scriptures do not promise the preservation of a text behind the KJV." And in another email you say you don't believe, "preservation is in the English words" of the KJV.  Sounds to me like you need to do the study on this subject and urgently.

What I'm saying is that there's nothing in the KJV or any version [whether Gk/Heb word derivatives] that proves the KJV is what radicals claim. You could list a thousand verses from any version but they do not say the KJV is something other versions are not. You are the one trying to prove the KJV something it's not. You should be presenting your overwhelming evidence than have me doing the Goose Chase.  You wrote,

>>Until you do, we should have no further discussion. You do not have a developed Biblical theology of preservation.<<

I'm quite happy to "have no further discussion" if you want. When you first started your emails, you pointed out your 'church' was different and you had the answers. You don't have answers. And I have provided a clear indication that I believe God has preserved His Word. Not for a select few English speakers but for all people. This you have taken no notice of. As I said in my last mail -

"Try as I may over and over, I seem unable to get one very simple truth into your mind.  I believe God has 'kept' His Word. Yet you offer nothing convincing that God's promise of preservation is seen in the KJV alone".

Regards,

Mark