"Vicki" <vicpurk@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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"Didymos" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
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"Vicki" <vicpurk@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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Byzantine (what paster dave really means when he uses the term
"Majority")
manuscripts were indeed used in the preparation of the
Vicki replies,
They could be called Erasmian, or Complutensian, the Text of Stephens,
or
of
Beza, or of Elizevirs,
call it the Received or the Traditional Greek text,
or whatever other name you please, the fact remains, that a text has
come
down to us as is attested by general consensus of ancient copies,
ancient
versions, ancient
fathers.
Didymos writes,
They could be called lots of things. But we try to avoid sweeping
genralizations like that. Can we please refer to specific texts?
Please?
:-) OK, it just seems to me you don't like him using
the Majority texts because they are, what is called,
"the bulk of the witnesses." which give support
to the KJV.
The term "Majority texts" is misleading. It is a generalization. The
Majority text is an edited compilation of many hundreds of indvidual
manuscripts. It is, in effect, a critical edition of the Byzantine Family
of New Testament manuscripts. The vast majority of the Majority
manuscripts are not New Testaments containing the books in the King James,
but some are single books of the New Testament, or just the Pauline corpus,
or just Revelation, or just the gospels, or just Luke and Acts, or just the
Johanine corpus, or some combination thereof, or they are lectionaries which
contain only brief passages from the New Testament. I have not yet found an
entire Greek New Testament without major lacunae among the "Majority" texts
before that of Erasmus. Manuscript A has only the gospels in the Byzantine
reading and is the oldest Byzantine witness, but is Alexandrian in the rest
of the New Testament. I know of none of the Byzantine uncials that is a
complete New Testment: Manuscript E contains only the 4 gospels; Manuscript
F contains only the 4 gospels but with large lacunae; Manuscript G contains
only the gospels again with large lacunae; Manuscript H contains only the 4
gospels again with lacunae; Manuscript L ap[superscript] (Codex Angelicus)
contains only Acts, the Catholic and Pauline epistles; Manuscript S contains
the gospels; Manuscript V contains only the gospels with lacunae.
A truly accurate application of the term "Majority" to texts of th New
Testament would be applied to the over 10,000 Latin manuscripts that date
from the same times at the Greek "Majority" texts. Your King James only web
sites and books kind of gloss over this information, don't they? They use
silly and meaningless statistics, like all "agree within 5%" and the
majority of a Greek texts "agree." Note the language is nice and vague.
Real scholarship is specific, and not vague. Paster dave is vague. And
usually vacuous when he is not prevaricating, obfuscating, refusing to
answer, and blatantly lying.
Didymos writes,
Besides, the issue here is that paster dave made the false and stupid
statement that the "Majority" texts were not used in the preparation of
the
critical editions of the Greek New Testament. Paster dave is mistaken
and/or blatantly lying, as usual.
Vicki writes,
I understand, I am not up on this thread, however, since I am in the midst
of reading of the subject I jumped in with my new found knowledge
of things.
Don't you think one should at least read the opposition before spewing
venom?
Didymos writes,
Do not take my word for this. I
encourage you to go find a critical text that I cite in this thread and
check for yourself. You will find that manuscripts of the Byzantine
family
are cited on very nearly every page and are itemized in the textual
apparatus.
"The Greek New
Testament," Kurt Aland, et al., eds, Munster: United Bible
Societies,
1993.
I refer the reader to pages 10 and 11, which list the Greek uncial
manuscripts used in the preparation of this Greek New Testament.
Among
these are Manuscripts A, E, F, G, H, L, P, W, Psi, 051. Those are
all
Byzantine/Majority texts in whole or in part, paster dave.
Then of course
there are the dozens of minscule texts listed between 16 and 17.
Some
of
those are also Byzantine/Majority texts. And then of course there
are
the
Byzantine/Majority lectionaries listed an page 21. And then, quite
naturally, there are the few Byzantine/Majority papyri listed
between
pages
7 through 9. I encourage the reader to examine the 4th edition of
the
critical edition of the Greek New Testament. Please, do not take my
word
for it, but examine the text yourself. My word means nothing. The
evidence
is fully capable of speaking for itself, and the evidence means
everything.
Vicki writes
Yes, it does. However, which do they actually use
to base their decision on? Do they consult the manuscripts yet end up
using
the Westhort and Holt texts?
Every word of Recptus is in there. Every word of the Peshitta is in there.
A critical edition means that every manuscript type and family is considered
and when a selection amongs variant texts must be made because the sources
disagree, the other variant readings not selected are reproduced in whole in
footnotes.
How long have Westcott and Hort been dead? (Westcott 1901 and Hort 1892)
When are you King James types going to let them rest? The world of New
Testament scholarship has moved on in the past hundred years or so. The
manuscript selection has changed because of the discovery of hundreds of
manuscripts from all families and independent variants since their deaths.
An aside: How do you explain this? When P-104 (Papyrus Oxyrhyncus 4404)
which is the earliest fragment of Matthew's Gospel dated to about 125 A.D.,
was discovered and published, it agrees word for word with the critical
text, and not with Receptus with which it differs significantly. I have a
photo of the recto of this papyrus fragment. Matthew 21:44 is not now nor
was it ever on this papyrus, which predates these "pagans" and "heretics"
who supposedly "corrupted" the texts. So who added that verse? It was not
there in the second century. Apparently someone added to God's word . . .
.. .
Didymos writes,
As usual, paster dave snipped without attribution, so let's restore
that
snip here. Note that paster dave is yet again extremely short on
evidence
and very long on falsehood. The question is, does paster dave post
these
obviously false and silly statements because he is profoundly
ignorant
or
because he is stupidly malicious? You cannot falsify a single
assertion
in
the paragraphs I restored below from the original post. Neither
can
anyone
else, paster dave. I invite correction and criticism. I challenge
anyone
to prove with real manuscripts or other sources the falsehood of any
statement below.
"As usual, this declaration of fact and truth by paster dave was
something
considerably less than the unvarnished truth. Actually, that
ignorant
assertion is an outrageous falsehood because it is factually not
true.
It
is a falsehood. A central tenet of the
King-James-is -the-only-scripture
position is that the critical edition of the Greek New Testament is
"corrupt" because it relies upon "Alexandrian" manuscripts. Paster
dave,
chick.com, and other monumental intellectual and scholarly
operations
apparently believe and continuously spew forth these venomous lies.
I
offer
the following refutation and back it with evidence in the form of
real
manuscripts that genuinely exist. I, as well as anyone even
passingly
familiar with New Testament studies, can readily provide full
bibliographic
and catalogue citations for every manuscript I refer to below. To
keep
the
size of this post managable, I will not provide these lengthy
citations
for
these many Alexandrian manuscripts. Yes, folks, many Alexandrian
manuscripts. I do not know exactly how many there are. But I do
mention
at
least 26, which is considerably more than the emphatic "ONLY TWO
texts"
declared with such certainty by paster dave and chick.com. I
invite
and
challenge any and all comers to correct the evidence, data, and
sources
posted here."
Vicki writes,
I believe there is 88 Papyrus manuscript fragments.
Then 5, 255 known manuscripts, which contain all or
part of the Greek NT.
Didymos
Your data appears old and is no longer accurate. There were 115 papyri
as
of 2001. And out of those, how many are readings from the Byzantine
family?
Vicki writes,
Ok, the book I got the info from was written in 85.
I don't know how many are from the Byzantine family.
I have only seen the following, and can only speak for what I have seen:
P-1, 4, 5, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23,24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30,
35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70,
75, 77, 78, 80, 86, 87. 90, 91, 92, 95, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 107,
108, 109, 110, 111,113, 114, and 115. No two of these papyri agree word for
word any other manuscript. Most are Alexandrian, but free texts are
represented, as are Western and Caesarean witnesses. P-32, Papyrus Rylands
5, dated to the second half of the second century, does show some affinity
to Manuscripts F and G, but also with Aleph. This means it has readings
common to both the Alexandrian and Byzantine families. The Byzantine
reading is very late. It was evidently the last major family of readings to
evolve.
Didymos writes,
There are more Greek manuscripts than your figure also. But the vast
majority of those you cite are miniscules from the Middle Ages. How
many
Greek uncials are there? You know, the ones that are actually from
antiquity or earlier than the 8th century?
Did you know there are over 10,000 Latin manuscripts from the same time
frame as the Greek manuscripts you refer to? So if we really want to
discuss the "Majority" texts with any veracity and accuracy at all, we
must
speak of the Latin manuscripts.
Vicki wrote,
I have no problem with that. As I understand that some
texts were written in Latin. My problem is with
the Westcott and Holt texts, as they are known by.
(the Vat. and Sin.)
Vaticanus and Siniaiticus are not Wescott and Hort texts. These two
manuscripts were extant long before these men ever lived. By the way, these
are only known as "Westcott and Holt texts" in the King James only crowd.
What are your concerns with these? I do not understand.
"Below is a partial list of the papyri that belong to the
Alexandrian
family
of texts. All of these predate Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.
They
are
listed by the letter P (for papyrus) and catalogue number.
Alexandrian
papyri from the second century are: P-64. Some Alexandrian papyri
from
the
third century are: P-1, P-13, P-15, P-16, P-20, P-23, P-24, P-27,
P-28,
P-30, P-35, P-40, P-46, P-50, and P-75."
"All of Manuscript A, Codex Alexandrinus, is Alexandrian, except the
gospels,
which are Byzantine readings. Note that this is the oldest (5th
century)
Byzantine unical codex. And since this manuscript contains readings
from
two different families of witnesses (Alexandrian and Byzantine), it
is
screamingly obvious the scribe[s] was[were] using at least two
different
manuscript sources."
"In addition to Manuscript Aleph, Codex Sinaiticus; and Manuscript
B,
Codex
Vaticanus, the following uncials are Alexandrian: Manuscript I, the
Washington Manuscript, 5th-6th century; Manuscript L, Codex Regius,
8th
century; Manuscript T, Codex Borgianus. 5th century; Manuscript Z,
Codex
Dublinensis, 5th-6th century; Manuscript Xi, Codex Zacynthius, 7th
century.
You might note that the only mostly complete "Bibles" as we know the
term
among the uncial manuscripts, are Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and
these
contain significant lacunae."
"The following minscules, that is small letters in a more modern
hand,
are
Alexandrian witnesses: Manuscript 33, 9th century; Manuscript 81,
1044
A.D.; Manuscript 104, 1087 A.D.."
"Some scholars actually break down the Alexandrian family into
Proto-Alexandrian and Later Alexandrian, and the Alands have a
different
classification system involving terms such as 'strict,' 'normal,'
'at
least
normal,' and 'free.'
"A question for those who espouse the notion that the
King-James-is -the-only-scripture, or anyone else. What are the
oldest
papyrus witnesses to the Byzantine family?"
Is it the 2nd century?
Vicki
Didymos wrote,
Do some research on Papyrus 32, or Papyrus Rylands 5, and see what you
think. It is not a strict text, but it is related to Manuscripts F and
G,
which are typically Byzantine readings, but it also shows agreement with
Sinaiticus. P-32 has been dated anywhere from the second half of the
second
century to the middle of the third century.
The old uncial codex of the Byzantine family is Manuscript A, Codex
Alexadnrinus, dated tothe 5th century, but only the gospels are
Byzantine
readings. The remainder of this codex are Alexandrian readings.
Please, take my word for nothing. What I say is not important. Go and
check the evidence for yourself.
I will do that. I appreciate you telling me to
check for myself. First though, I must finish what I am reading otherwise
i
will get sidetracked.
By the way I go the information on numbers form
the book "Forever Settled" by Jack Moorman.
Vicki
There are serious deficiencies in that book. Factual ones. But do not take
my word for it. Look for yourself.
.
