Instead of *thinking* that I made such a statement, you should track it down and quote it.
Is Knowledge of the Original Languages Necessary for KJV Believers?
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One-sided arguments? You mean... like yours? Come on, man, don't make my job of refuting you so easy.
I said, I quote:
"Jesus and His followers never shared today's post modernist view that God's words contained errors."
~ Quote by Bible Highlighter.
You said in reply, I quote: "Most of your critics here probably don't believe that either."
~ Quote by Dino246.
This implies that you are a part of the group called the "critics" who are against my position on the Bible because I mentioned the post modernist view that the Bible contains errors.
If you are not a part of that group and you are simply talking in cryptic or mysterious terms about some other group I am not aware, then please enlighten the rest of us. If not, then remain a cloud of mystery. Your reply suggests or implies that you there are a group of post modernists here who believe that the Bible does not contain errors today. if that is not what you were saying, then please tell us what you meant.
But if I have pull teeth to get a reply out of you, then there is no real point to continue this conversation.
Granted, I see such tactics. by you as a way to avoid the weakness of the flaws and problems in the Modern Bible Movement that you are a part of.
....
So you take my words, filter them through your agenda, and claim that I said something I did not say.
No, I won't play that game. Get some integrity and then we can continue.
In our many conversations on this topic, you have not once offered any truly meaty arguments in refutation of the points I have made for the biblical doctrines of the purity and preservation of God’s words, which naturally means that His preserved words would exist for us today. I highly doubt that you have suddenly turned over a new leaf in your approach. If you have, I would love to really hammer out the issues that you apparently do not regard as serious problems within your own movement, especially when contrasted with the Received Text and the King James Bible. In other words, from my perspective, it is like I am showing you gold bars in the TR/KJV and then, by contrast, showing you the dumpster fire of the Critical Text and its ridiculous modern versions, while you somehow remain unable to see a contrast that seems painfully obvious to anyone willing to look at the evidence.
....
No, you are the one playing games by refusing to talk to me straight and simply tell me what you really mean. Instead, I have had to practically pull teeth just to get clear answers out of you. Rather than addressing the topic directly, you keep making vague or mysterious comments and then shifting the discussion toward defending your own character when I press you on what you actually meant.
Why not just talk to me straight, man to man, about the issue itself?
Again, as I said before, I believe you engage in these kinds of games because they allow you to avoid dealing directly with the serious problems within your own movement. As long as the conversation stays focused on vague comments, misunderstandings, and defending yourself personally, you never have to squarely confront the actual arguments I am raising.
....
I went through Bible Hub to check what translator say about "Alpha and Omega". Not one says, "I became". Everyone of the 40 or so that I read says, "I am........"
The KJV is has its roots in a Latin translation, the Vulgate which was organised by the Catholic organisation. The Wycliffe was the first English translation, followed by Tyndale and the Geneva Bibles. KJV translators did not go back to the original languages. By all means stick to the KJV. But it was not revealed directly by God to infallible men.
There is nothing new about critics pulling God's word to pieces. That goes back to the late 1800's. Those "scholars" started with the false premise that the Bible was just another book. There are many, many translations that are satisfactory.
There is nothing new about critics pulling God's word to pieces. That goes back to the late 1800's. Those "scholars" started with the false premise that the Bible was just another book. There are many, many translations that are satisfactory.
First, the NA 29 was published not too long ago. So that most likely is the reason why many Modern English Bibles do not contain this reading.
Second, the Family 35 New Testament with Commentary says:
“I have become the Alpha and the Omega," (Revelation 21:6).
Also, from the creators of the NA 29, they say this in the description for NA 29:
"This resulted in over 160 textual changes, some of which significantly alter the meaning of the text."
Novum Testamentum Graece NA29. | Die Bibel
Der neue Nestle-Aland NA29Gründlich überarbeitete 29. Auflage:Der »Nestle-Aland« gilt weltweit als autoritativer Standard unter den Ausgaben des grie…
shop.die-bibel.de
Personally, I don't want even one textual change in my Bible let alone 160 with them affecting the meaning of the text.
That is what is so dumb about the Modern Bible Movement. In the Critical Text camp: You have a God that keeps changing His own word every few years. That doesn't make any sense.
Side Note: Try using ChatGPT next time. You will be able to find links like the ones above within seconds.
I can see that you know absolutely nothing about the history of the KJV and the Textus Receptus.
If you don't believe me, just ask various Ai models and tell them to be unbiased.
If you were to even read the KJV preface, you would learn that it says this:
"“If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New.... If truth be to be tried by these tongues, then whence should translation be made, but out of them?”"
Anyway, even Scrivener, who was not a TR advocate and who worked on the Revised Version alongside Westcott and Hort, whose Greek text relied heavily upon Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, found that the KJV agreed primarily with Beza’s 1598 Greek text. The roughly 50 translatable differences that remain can be traced to other printed TR editions, the Complutensian Polyglot, and other Greek witnesses.
Uh, they said in their own preface that they did and we can actually verify it with the work of Scrivener and other TR editions. So you really don't know what your talking about.
The KJV is a translation of the received text tradition and it has led to three of the great revivals, and was the Bible in public schools for hundreds of years before they took it out. There are many other special things about the KJV in history, but I see you really don't know much about the translation at all.
Ah, so you are not for the Westcott and Hort / Nestle and Aland text?
Then why do you appear to be so skeptical against my claim about the ECM reading?
Even if it was not in any English translation (which is not true), its still a big problem because folks who look to Greek will read it that way in Greek because that is what the Greek says.
In other words, my point is that they are introducing heresy.
So what English translation do you use?
What Greek text do you use?
Do you consider any of them to be without error?
If they are not without error, then who becomes the authority?
....
Absoltuely correct: We repent of sins and trespasses, and Jesus gives us His faith toward God, instead of our own faith in ourselves:
Mark{1:15}
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
Eph{2:8}
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Heb 6:1
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
Rev 14:12
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
His faithfulness toward God in pleasing Him, becomes our faithfulness toward the Father to please Him, even as the Son.
Jhn 8:29
And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
We no longer live by our own faith we had as a sinner, when we believed in contuinued sinning. Now with repentance from transgressions, we have recieved the free gift of Jesus' faith to believe in doing good and not evil.
Gal 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Phl 4:13
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
As unrepentant sinners, our faith was for more sinning on earth. As repented sons of God, our faith is now only for keeping God's commandments and doing righteousness, which can only come by the faith of the Son of God, Jesus Christ the righteous.
The Son's faithfulness to God on earth, to always do the good that pleases God, becomes by grace our faithfulness to God to walk as the Son on earth;
1Jo 2:6
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
1Th 4:1
Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
And so, we preach the faithfulness of Jesus in us, being our own faith now to please God in all things. But, if we preach another faith that continues in sins and trespasses, then we preach our own sinful faith, not the righteous faith of the Son of God:
2 Cor {4:5}
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
Let's walk through the "logic" of your statement:
(You say) I have not offered meaty arguments in refutation... which means that His preserved words would exist for us today.
That does not follow.
I neither have nor am part of a "movement".
, especially when contrasted with the Received Text and the King James Bible. In other words, from my perspective, it is like I am showing you gold bars in the TR/KJV and then, by contrast, showing you the dumpster fire of the Critical Text and its ridiculous modern versions, while you somehow remain unable to see a contrast that seems painfully obvious to anyone willing to look at the evidence.
[/QUOTE]
"Received text" is nothing more than the translation of an advertising slogan from the 1630's.
The text colloquially called the "Textus Receptus" is the result of textual criticism, just like the NA28 is the result of textual criticism.
Do you accept these facts?
Hi Bible_Highlighter,
Secrecy? No, you seem studious, it is always best if one sees for themselves. I posted the issue to @OMC
He also thought I was raising up the controversy in respect to the genitive case of πίστεως Ἰησοῦ
It is nice that you see the importance of correctly translating that, but what of ἐὰν μὴ. This is where the KJV fails.
Modern scholarship? I could care less what anyone thinks unless it is based on objective facts.
What gave you that idea?
I am not really interested in playing games where I have to pull teeth just to get basic facts out of people. Tell me your position on the Bibliology topic upfront. Are you for the Critical Text and its scholarship? Are you Byzantine Priority? Are you for the Majority Text? Or do you hold another position that I have not mentioned here? Please just tell us plainly. In other words, I do not have time to keep guessing what your actual position is.
Again, I am not really into playing games where I have to pull teeth just to get basic facts out of people. Tell me your position on this topic upfront, and let’s not turn this into a guessing game or a character-assassination issue instead of dealing with the biblical issues involved.
Also, notice that I said “may” in my question. I was not stating it as a fact. I am asking because I am trying to understand what you actually believe, and because this is a popular belief within Christianity today.
So, do you believe that our trust in the faithfulness of Christ overrides conditional salvation or sanctification?
A simple “yes” or “no” is all I need.
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Sure it does. Unless you have posted these arguments in some alternate universe or something.
If I missed anything you said in this thread on your so-called-meaty arguments that would hold up as evidence in a court of law, then please provide post numbers. However, I do not think you will be able to really do that. Hence, why folks here will be able to see the hollowness of your position. It's like the Comma debate. The Critical Text side loves to spin wonderful theories and create false lies about why the Johannine Comma is not legit, but they are simply arguing against actual basic facts or evidences that our side has for the Comma. People who are real truth seekers and who desire evidence will naturally fall into the TR/KJV camp. Those who are for Critical Text theories, and a shape-shifter text with no end in sight and they want to have a "Pick-And-Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-Bible" mentality will fall into the Modern Bible Movement camp. Those who are a part of the Modern Bible Movement will naturally fail to see "perfect preservation" of the Scriptures today as the Bible plainly teaches.
- Psalm 12:6–7 — “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”
- Psalm 119:140 — “Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.”
- Psalm 138:2 — “…thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.”
- Proverbs 22:21 — “…that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth…”
- Proverbs 30:5–6 — “Every word of God is pure… Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”
- Deuteronomy 4:2 — “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it…”
- Deuteronomy 12:28, 32 — 28 “Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever...” 32 “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.”
- Jeremiah 26:2 — “…speak unto them all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word:”
- Isaiah 40:8 — “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”
- Genesis 3:1 — “…Yea, hath God said…?”
- Genesis 3:4 — “…Ye shall not surely die:”
- Matthew 4:4 — “…Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
- Matthew 5:18 — “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
- Matthew 24:35 — “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
- Luke 16:17 — “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”
- Luke 21:33 — “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”
- John 10:35 — “…the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;”
- John 17:17 — “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
- 1 Corinthians 1:10 — “…that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
- 2 Corinthians 2:17 — “For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God…”
- 2 Corinthians 4:2 — “…not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully…”
- Ephesians 4:5 — “One Lord, one faith, one baptism,”
- 1 Thessalonians 2:13 — “…when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God…”
- 2 Timothy 3:16 — “All scripture is given by inspiration of God…”
- Hebrews 4:12 — “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword…”
- 1 Peter 1:23–25 — “…the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever… But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”
- Revelation 22:18–19 — “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
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We are all part of some movement, tradition, or group within Christianity based on particular beliefs that we understand to reflect the teachings of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture. None of us approaches the Bible in a complete vacuum, entirely disconnected from what other Christians have believed and taught. Surely you are not claiming to be some kind of rogue believer with a completely unique system of beliefs outside historic or orthodox Christianity that no other believers share.
When it comes to Protestant Bibliology topic, there is:
The TR/KJV movement.
The Critical Text/ Modern Bible movement.
The Majority Text movement.
The Byzantine Priority movement.
These movements are only reflecting only a body of people or believers who believe these are the words of God.
Dino246 said:
First, I accept that Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza practiced textual criticism. My point is that their textual criticism was fundamentally different in its historical setting, underlying assumptions, and methodology from the later system that developed through Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and eventually Nestle and Aland.
Simply saying that both groups practiced “textual criticism” does not mean they practiced the same kind of textual criticism. America and China both practice politics, but nobody would argue that they therefore operate according to the same political philosophy, principles, or methods. In the same way, calling Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, Westcott, Hort, Nestle, and Aland all “textual critics” tells us very little until we examine the very different principles and methods they employed.
The Reformation-era editors worked within a Greek textual tradition that had been transmitted, copied, read, and used throughout Christian history. They compared manuscripts, earlier editions, ancient versions, Church Fathers, and other historical evidence while working within that received stream of transmission. Their work was therefore connected to a historical chain of custody. The readings they printed were not simply the product of constructing an entirely new Greek text from a modern theory about what the original text might have looked like.
The later Critical Text developed under very different circumstances. German Rationalism and the rise of historical-critical biblical scholarship formed part of the intellectual environment in which modern textual criticism developed. Griesbach studied under Johann Salomo Semler, a major figure in German biblical criticism, and later textual critics increasingly relied upon reconstructed textual families, genealogical theories, and internal criteria. The nineteenth-century revision movement even included the Unitarian George Vance Smith on the New Testament Revision Company. Westcott and Hort themselves were not Unitarians, but this was plainly a very different theological and intellectual environment from that of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza.
With Westcott and Hort, the objective was to reconstruct a Greek text that had never existed as a historically received printed text or as any single known manuscript. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were the two manuscripts they primarily relied upon in constructing their Greek text, with especially great weight given to Vaticanus. I am not saying that they followed these two manuscripts exclusively. There are places where they rejected their readings and followed other evidence. My point is that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus formed the primary manuscript foundation of their reconstructed text, even though these two manuscripts disagree with each other thousands of times.
When I describe the process more bluntly as “smashing Vaticanus and Sinaiticus together,” that is what I mean. They took two manuscripts to which they assigned exceptional authority, chose between their competing readings according to their textual theories, and at times selected readings from other witnesses. The resulting text was therefore an artificial composite. There is no manuscript from antiquity containing “the Westcott-Hort text,” nor can that complete text itself be traced backward through a continuous historical chain of custody as a Greek text received, copied, and used by Christians through the centuries.
That is where I see the fundamental chain-of-custody problem. You cannot point to Christians in the tenth century, the twelfth century, or the fifteenth century and show them possessing and using the Westcott-Hort Greek text. The complete text appeared as a nineteenth-century scholarly reconstruction produced by selecting readings from different witnesses according to a reconstructed theory of textual history.
That is very different from the Received Text position I am defending. My concern is not merely, “Which manuscript is oldest?” The question is also, “Where was this reading throughout Christian history?” I am looking for readings that can be traced through the historical transmission of the text, including Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, Church Fathers, and eventually the printed Greek editions, rather than accepting a complete nineteenth-century reconstruction simply because its editors believed that certain surviving manuscripts preserved a more ancient form of the text.
Both approaches can therefore be called “textual criticism,” but that does not make them the same method. The earlier approach worked within the historically received and transmitted stream and evaluated variants within that history. The later approach sought to reconstruct an earlier text through theories concerning the relationships and relative value of surviving witnesses. Those are two substantially different approaches to textual criticism.
...
After investigating this more, I need to make a few corrections on this. The Family 35 English translation is based on a Byzantine text and not the Critical Text. But it has the same Greek word that the ECM and UBS 6 has. Also the NA29 is not coming out until February. The UBS 6 is currently available, which is virtually identical to the NA 29. Anyway, my point is that this Greek word in Revelation 22:6 has been translated by a scholar in a Modern Bible as "become', even if it is not based on the Critical Text. This new change is heretical.First, the NA 29 was published not too long ago. So that most likely is the reason why many Modern English Bibles do not contain this reading.
Second, the Family 35 New Testament with Commentary says:
“I have become the Alpha and the Omega," (Revelation 21:6).
Also, from the creators of the NA 29, they say this in the description for NA 29:
"This resulted in over 160 textual changes, some of which significantly alter the meaning of the text."
Novum Testamentum Graece NA29. | Die Bibel
Der neue Nestle-Aland NA29Gründlich überarbeitete 29. Auflage:Der »Nestle-Aland« gilt weltweit als autoritativer Standard unter den Ausgaben des grie…
Personally, I don't want even one textual change in my Bible let alone 160 with them affecting the meaning of the text.
That is what is so dumb about the Modern Bible Movement. In the Critical Text camp: You have a God that keeps changing His own word every few years. That doesn't make any sense.
Side Note: Try using ChatGPT next time. You will be able to find links like the ones above within seconds.
I can see that you know absolutely nothing about the history of the KJV and the Textus Receptus.
If you don't believe me, just ask various Ai models and tell them to be unbiased.
If you were to even read the KJV preface, you would learn that it says this:
"“If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New.... If truth be to be tried by these tongues, then whence should translation be made, but out of them?”"
Anyway, even Scrivener, who was not a TR advocate and who worked on the Revised Version alongside Westcott and Hort, whose Greek text relied heavily upon Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, found that the KJV agreed primarily with Beza’s 1598 Greek text. The roughly 50 translatable differences that remain can be traced to other printed TR editions, the Complutensian Polyglot, and other Greek witnesses.
Uh, they said in their own preface that they did and we can actually verify it with the work of Scrivener and other TR editions. So you really don't know what your talking about.
The KJV is a translation of the received text tradition and it has led to three of the great revivals, and was the Bible in public schools for hundreds of years before they took it out. There are many other special things about the KJV in history, but I see you really don't know much about the translation at all.
Ah, so you are not for the Westcott and Hort / Nestle and Aland text?
Then why do you appear to be so skeptical against my claim about the ECM reading?
Even if it was not in any English translation (which is not true), its still a big problem because folks who look to Greek will read it that way in Greek because that is what the Greek says.
In other words, my point is that they are introducing heresy.
So what English translation do you use?
What Greek text do you use?
Do you consider any of them to be without error?
If they are not without error, then who becomes the authority?
....
....
You're missing the whole cause-and-effect thing. Do you understand what "That does not follow" means?
Lexical and Greek Support for ἐὰν μὴ Having the Sense of ἀλλά (“But”) in Galatians 2:16:
Galatians 2:16 in Beza’s 1598 Textus Receptus reads:
οὐ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ἐὰν μὴ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
The KJV renders the construction:
a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ
The following sources specifically support understanding ἐὰν μὴ in Galatians 2:16 as having an adversative sense corresponding to ἀλλά, “but,” or “but only.”
1. Johann Caspar Suicer, 1651, p. 187
Citation: Johann Caspar Suicer [Johann Caspar Schweizer], Ratio syntaxis apud Graecos, selectioribus ex novo maxime foedere et Patrum monumentis illustrata exemplis (Tiguri [Zürich]: Johann Jacob Bodmer, 1651), p. 187.
Under the heading V. Enallage Conjunctionis, Suicer explains that one conjunction may be placed in the position of another:
una Conjunctio pro alia ponitur
He then gives εἰ μή and states:
Pro ἀλλὰ, sed.
Meaning:
In place of ἀλλά, “but.”
Immediately afterward he directs the reader to:
Vide quoque ... Gal. II. 16.
Meaning:
See also ... Galatians 2:16.
Suicer therefore specifically points to Galatians 2:16 in a discussion where εἰ μή is said to stand pro ἀλλά, sed, “in place of ἀλλά, but.” Galatians 2:16 itself has the closely related form ἐὰν μὴ.
Suicer's evidence is especially useful because he is discussing Greek syntax, not merely supplying a dictionary gloss.
2. William Greenfield, revised by Thomas Sheldon Green, 1849, p. 50
Citation: William Greenfield, A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament, with additions and alterations, revised by Thomas Sheldon Green (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1849), p. 50.
Under ἐάν, the lexicon states:
Ἐὰν μή, except, unless; also equivalent to ἀλλά, Gal. 2.16.
This is direct lexical testimony. Greenfield/Green explicitly identifies Galatians 2:16 as a passage in which ἐὰν μή is equivalent to ἀλλά, “but.”
The correct printed page is p. 50, not p. 51.
3. Joseph Henry Thayer, 1889, p. 171
Citation: Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Being Grimm’s Wilke’s Clavis Novi Testamenti (New York: American Book Company, 1889), p. 171.
In his discussion of εἰ μή, Thayer explains that following a negative the expression can have the force of the Latin:
sed tantum
meaning:
but only
Thayer then explicitly states:
ἐὰν μή is so used in Gal. ii. 16.
Thayer therefore recognizes Galatians 2:16 itself as an example of this usage. This is particularly important when Thayer is being appealed to as an authority, since Thayer's own discussion allows the sense “but only” in this verse.
Actual 1889 Thayer scan, see printed p. 171 (Or do a search for "Gal. ii. 16").
4. Panagiotis N. Trembelas, 1886–1977
Panagiotis N. Trembelas (1886–1977) was a Greek theologian and professor at the University of Athens. He was born in Stemnitsa, Greece, lived and carried out his academic career in Greece, and Greek was his native language.
In an article reproducing Trembelas’s interpretation of Galatians 2:16, the biblical Greek first reads:
ἐὰν μὴ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
This is the same ἐὰν μὴ construction found in Beza’s 1598 Textus Receptus.
The article then gives Trembelas’s interpretive rendering in modern Greek:
ἀλλὰ μόνο με την πίστη στον Ιησού Χριστό
Meaning:
but only by faith in Jesus Christ
The source therefore places ἐὰν μὴ in the biblical text and ἀλλὰ μόνο, “but only,” in Trembelas’s modern Greek interpretive rendering of the same sentence.
Thus, a native Greek-speaking scholar who was born, lived, studied, and taught in Greece understood the construction naturally enough to express its sense in modern Greek with ἀλλὰ μόνο, “but only.”
Summary
Suicer, 1651, p. 187: explains the substitution of conjunctions, gives εἰ μή ... pro ἀλλά, sed, “in place of ἀλλά, but,” and specifically directs the reader to Galatians 2:16.
Greenfield/Green, 1849, p. 50: explicitly states that ἐὰν μή is “also equivalent to ἀλλά, Gal. 2.16.”
Thayer, 1889, p. 171: explains the relevant construction with the sense sed tantum, “but only,” and explicitly says that ἐὰν μή is so used in Galatians 2:16.
Trembelas, 1886–1977: a native Greek-speaking theologian and University of Athens professor, takes the ἐὰν μὴ of Galatians 2:16 and expresses its thought in modern Greek as ἀλλὰ μόνο, “but only.”
Therefore, saying that ἐὰν μὴ has the sense or force of ἀλλά, “but,” in Galatians 2:16 has substantial grammatical and lexical support. This does not mean that ἀλλά is the ordinary lexical definition of ἐὰν μὴ in every context. It means that in this particular construction and context, recognized authorities have explicitly understood ἐὰν μὴ adversatively, with the sense “but” or “but only.”
Side Note:
Here is a friendly suggestion, my friend. Next time, instead of assuming the KJV has an error, try asking ChatGPT if there is any lexical support in history for the rendering and you will be amazed. Ask if people who lived in Greece, and whose native tongue is Greek also understood it with wording that is supported by the KJV (Note: You may have to connect the modern wording with the older sense of words in the Middle English dictionary in some cases like "faith" meaning "faithfulness."). In other words, once you employ this method, all these so-called errors in the KJV you see will disappear. Granted, some so called errors have to be resolved by looking at the context, though, too.
....
Not sure how this even contributes to the issues involved.
You seem to be interested in just making one liner jabs as if that somehow proves anything.
Once you grow up and you desire to talk about the actual issues involved, let me know.
So far, it just seems like you are making clever one liner statements and you are not dealing with the actual points I am raising in any kind of depth or detail.
In the mean time, may he Lord Jesus bless you.
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