In theory it's true that shorter time means less potential for there to be more copies but that fails to take into account that longer time does not necessarily mean more copies. For example Erasmus used manuscripts that existed 400 years before his time. In that amount of time you there could be multiple copies made. So there's no way to determine accuracy based exclusively on age.
Yes, but the point is that if he was using a manuscript that was written in the 1200s, that manuscript is almost certainly a product of more copying than a manuscript from the 500s, ESPECIALLY if it is on paper or parchment as opposed to papyrus or some other material, and ESPECIALLY if it's in a complete codex.
Why is it difficult for scribes to miss entire words without similar endings or beginnings? Whereas I acknowledge it is more likely in the similar endings and beginnings situation I'm sure there are other factors that could cause this as well.
Sure. I'm not saying omissions never happen aside from haplography, and indeed there are occasions where we undisputedly known that a longer reading is the correct one. Scribes would occasionally be careless and throw words out. As I mentioned before, the critical modern texts don't slavishly hold to the 'shorter reading, otherwise we would expect the Majority Text to always favour longer variants over shorter ones, when in fact the opposite is true - frequently, the reading favoured by the majority of MSS is in fact shorter than the one in, say, the Nestle-Aland text. It's a principle that holds true generally (although even this is a matter of contemporary debate in the literature, cf Head, PM, 'Observations on Early Papyri of the Synoptic Gospels',
Biblica vol 85 (2004) for more info on the contemporary discussion).
The point being - it depends on the specific variation and the most reasonable reasons for it's arising.
It is equally plausible that the scribes were aware of the correct reading and put the readings in the margins because they obviously didn't fit between the passages that surrounded the place where they belonged.
If they didn't think it was genuine, why put it in at all? Usually readings end up in the margins either because a scribe had heard of another reading at that point but it wasn't in the MS they were copying from, or it WAS in the MS they were copying from, they didn't think it should be there, but they put it in the margin just in case. This is almost certainly how the Johannine Comma arrived in the text, and indeed is how it appears in most of the Greek MS it features in (which is not many.)
Perhaps those readings were contained in the Old-Latin, I will adress this later.
Even then, they would still not constitute a majority of VSS. In any case, feel free to cit Old Latin manuscripts if you like. Speculating that it COULD have been in the Old Latin isn't going to get us very far.
The vulgate and other Latin manuscripts taken together are evidence for 1John 5:7. Only 1 of all the Vulgates don't contain it. To assume from one copy, that it was not in most of the previous copies is pure speculation. Furthermore Jerome himself testified that the verse had been erroniously removed in many Greek copies.
But you reject the Vulgate as an inerrant version of Scripture because it reads against the TR in many places. On what basis are you prepared to accept its testimony now? I think more than one of the VSS don't, though I'll have to check. Certainly, the earliest Vulgate codex (Fuldensis) doesn't contain the Comma, even though the codex also contains Jerome's Preface that makes an explicit reference to the Comma (hence why several scholars thin that Jerome's preface is actually a late forgery, amongst other reasons)
Yes a think it is concievable and probable that God, for example spoke His word through prophets who's words were not recorded in scripture. The whole of scripture is not necessarily all of the words God inspired, but that does not negate the fact that all of scripture is God inspired.
Yep
Furthermore the scriptures contain the same message that was preached by the unrecorded words of the prophets.
On what basis? You think the prophets and apostles never spoke about anything, perhaps even something spiritually edifying, other than what is recorded in Scripture?
So in a sense the scriptures do contain the entirety of God's word. The scriptures are the words God chose to give to his people and call His "word".
Yes, but that doesn't mean that contains everything that could constitute God's 'word'. It is God's word 'to us', but that's not the same thing.
I agree that God's word stands even if every Bible we had today was thrown in the fire. That's because it is written in the hearts and minds of true believers. I imagine every verse of the King James Bible could be gathered up exclusively from the minds of all the Christians who have memorized various scriptures.
God's word would still stand even if there were no true believers, and we were utterly ignorant of the things of God. God is not dependant on us knowing him.
I agree that God's word means more than a specific text on a printed page, but not that it excludes it. God's word is the printed scriptures. Jesus verified that by using the terms interchangably.
No, I don't think he does. Not interchangeably, anyway (remember, I agree Scripture is included in God's word, but not exhaustively so)
It also says that the word of the Lord "liveth". The words contained in scripture give life and are life and move us to do God's will. It has nothing to do with the ink itself but rather the words that ink represents. To interpret Isaiah 40:8 and 1Peter 1:23-25 in such an abstract way as you do is too convenient. Any religion could claim that the baisc message of their religion has been preserved throughout the ages but that doesn't amount to anything miraculous and is not at all that impressive. For example the Basic message of Bhudism and many of there scriptures still exists today.
Yes yes, but the printed page does not give us life. Christ gives us life, by his Spirit. The Scriptures are how God tells us how to be saved, but then only because they are a record of what God has said in actuality. Even then, the words are brought to life by the Spirit. I'm not talking in the abstract - I'm talking in the real. I'm just not talking exclusively about written Scriptures.
And, of course, the merits of Christianity simply do not rest in any miraculous preservation of a holy text (which is what Muslims claim about the Qur'an), but in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Nothing more, nothing less.
The reason 100% certianty about the specific wording of the text is necessary is because whatever is in the text that wasn't in the original was not given by inspiration of God. Likewise whatever is not in the text that is in our current copies also was not given by inspiration of God. If it's not inspired by God it's not God's word.
Which is why I care about knowing what was in the original text.
But that doesn't mean I want to just jump over that problem and assume a text is the same is original without checking it out.
In my view faith should be enough to convince any Christian, no more should be necessary if the Bible says something we assume that the facts fit what the Bible says even if we don't necessarily know what those facts are. I think for the Christian Biblical truth is intuitive.
Yep. But it seems to me it very much matters to you which Bible we read. At which point, then, you can't simply 'read' the Bible and 'have faith' in it unless you have worked out which Bible you should read. Hence this discussion.
Really, the caliber of a translator is more than a littel subjective? So alright then I guess my six year old nephew could do it then
I think the caliber of a translator is quite important to translating God's word. The King James translators were not just skilled in translation, they were skilled and knowledgabel about history and ancient Greek liturature as well. It is a fact that their skill and knowledge vastly outweighed that of modern day translators. They were simply more qualified to translate the Bible.
I feel you have misunderstood what the word 'subjective' means. Read what I wrote again, and you'll see the point I'm making is to do with arguing on the merits of what you perceive to be the necessary qualities of a translator.
As I understand the earliest copies of the septuagint we have date to the third century AD and were not preserved in Jewish circles but rather Christian circles. It has been suggested that it is a translation of Origen and not of the pre Christian era and was subsequently translated by later Christian scribes who attempt to bring it into conformity with the New-Testament. This would explain why the passage in 1Peter 1 is more similar to the LXX than the masoretic text. Here's more on that subject:
No LXX - Another King James Bible Believer
Well, you've understood wrong. We have BC manuscripts of the LXX (several from Qumran). It certainly existed before Jesus, although certainly Christians took a keen interest in it in the later centuries (hence the OT in Codices Vaticanus and Sinaitucs being a Greek LXX type text instead of a Hebrew or Greek Maosretic type text). The texts from Qumran, others from Oxyrhynchus, and the versions of the LXX we already have are on balance most likely descended variations from an older single text, rather than being independent translations (they also bear more relation to each other than to the Masoretic text. I'm not entirely sure what your point is, though, in your argument for why 1 Peter 1 is closer to the LXX than the MT? My point is simply - Peter apparently found it ok to quote as Scripture in his own inerrant text from a translation of Scripture which does not square with the KJV's text of the OT. I'm not sure how your argument addresses that?
I'm confused, what "specific fashion" of preservation are you refering to? What I mean by preservation is what anybody talking about preservation would mean when talking about anything other than the Bible. How is it that when we start talking about Biblical preservation that somehow the definition of preservation changes?
It could theoretically be preserved amongst the manuscript tradition, as opposed to preserved perfectly in one specific manuscript at all times.
Well I don't need proof of uncorrupted scriptures of the past to believe that Gods word has been preserved. Nor do I see the need to do so in your case, If you were an atheist then I would have to convince you since they don't believe the Bible. But since you and I both start with the assumption that the Bible is true all I should have to do is convince you that the Bible means what it says about the scriptures containing God's word lasting forever. As Christians will build our assumptions on the scriptures and believe nothing that appears to contradict them even if we don't necessarily see the evidence for our belief. (I do grant there is much evidence for the truth of the scriptures). And I don't claim that Erasmus' work was perfectly inerrant just that he started a work that lead to an inerrant Greek text.
I believe the Bible is true, yes. But I just don't believe the KJV is the only authoritative version of that word. That has nothing to do with whether or not I believe the scriptures about God preserving the Scriptures in a specific way, because that would still not mean that version was the KJV.
As a side discussion, at which point do you believe that Erasmus work turned into an inerrant Greek text? Could you identfity that specific text?
It appears that the third method of ascertaining the correct text is it's it's presence in the majority of the Old-Latin since it was used very early and cited by early Christian writers. Matthew 10:8 as well as 1John 5:7 do have Latin support.
Are Matthew 10:8 and 1 John 5:7 actually in the majority of OL (as oppose to Vulgate) VSS? Which church fathers cite those texts?
I told you I'm not sure on this issue yet. One reason it might not be necessary is because the complete Bible never existed until the reformation anyway, so it was a work in progress up until the reformation. Once God's word was completed and compiled into a book it was at that point that the fulfillment of the prophecy commenced. Most of the Christians that ever existed are alive today so it is now that Christendom benefits most from the inerrant scriptures. This still does not negate the possibility of inerrant copies of individual manuscripts existing before the reformation even if we don't have them available to us today.
Treat my questions on this manner as a friendly curious questioning, as opposed to arguing with you. I've just honestly never spoken to a KJVO advocate who thinks it could be possible God didn't need to preserve his word before 1611. I guess what I find strange is why God would leave the church without a complete and inerrant Bible for most of its life, if it's that important we have a complete and inerrant Bible today. How do you look at that?
I can't prove that the TR is inerrant I can only defend it's accuaracy based on probability. Remember I start with the premise that the Bible is true, that the true word has been in the hands of true Christians. The true Christians for the past four hundred years used the King James Bible based on the textus receptus. Also true Christians of the pre reformation era such as the Waldensese used the old Latin. Today perhaps it would be hard to find Latin manuscripts that completely agree, but today we have little to go on. As I understand the Latin is in general agreement with the TR, so why is it not possible that inerrant Latin manuscripts existed in the past?
I think if you tallied up the total number of true Christians (which is an incredibly dicey proposition if you start with the presupposition true Christians only read the KJV or TR, but no matter) over the last four hundred years, you would end up with something other than the KJV as the most used translations. That's before you even consider the question of what Bible people used before the TR for the other 1600 years of the life of the church, which is what we're discussing.
As for the Waldenesians (I assume you're relying on Wilkinson's writings here), it is actually the case, given the historical data, that they in fact mostly based their translation on the Vulgate rather than the Old Latin (although it included Old Latin readings - apparently, according to FF Bruce, these Old Latin readings tended to be of an Alexandrian rather than Byzantine character). Suffice to say, this text, on these bases, could not have been a 1:1 correspondance with the Received Text. Metzger, Bruce, and the older works by Herzog and Gilly are particularly clear here. This is somewhat academic, though, as I'm not sure that either of us can actually point the other to a copy of a Waldenesian Bible to check verses.
The Waldenses traced their roots back to the apostles and used the Old Latin text. So it stands to reason that God's word would have been retained in the hands of his people.
How did they trace their routes back any more than the church in Alexandria, or the church in Rome, or the church in Athens, or the church in Corinth, or the church in Constantinople? Which Old Latin text are you talking about? Without qualifying those parts of what you have just said, this is an empty statement, I'm afraid.
