Peter Kirby

Praxeas,

You have a very narrow view of "true believers in the NT text" (KJV onlyism) and one that is irrelevant, to use your word of choice here, to most everyone else. Do I need to elaborate?

best,
Peter Kirby

Steven Avery

Your choice. However, I consider the Textus Receptus view, and even the Majority Text view of Professor Maurice Robinson, to qualify as true believers in the NT Text as well. Remember his article was the key to understanding the textual background of Mark 1:2. These views were basically all of evangelical "Christendom" until the Westcott-Hort disaster. The TR and Majority text folks generally believe in inspired and preserved scripture, and would similarly defend the ending of Mark, or the Pericope Adultera, or "God was manifest in the flesh" in 1 Timothy 3:16. The Tyndale and Geneva Bibles were wonderful English translations from the historic text. Also some Orthodox and Karaite Jews qualify as true believers in the Tanach text.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Peter Kirby

The Textus Receptus reconstruction has different editions, and the way that Robinson has reconstructed the Majority (Byzantine) text is different again. It seems, then, that "true believers in the NT text" can disagree on the exact text of the New Testament. Why, then, do you exclude those who use the NA-27 text from the circle of believers in the text of the NT? Or, what if someone decided just to use the Codex Bezae or Vaticanus?

best,
Peter Kirby

Steven Avery

On the overall view, you are giving good arguments for the King James Bible position, and I appreciate that. The differences in TR texts are very small, and I had that view after I left using the NIV and NAS and such and was reading the NKJV. While today I consider the TR view as slightly flawed, it still receives my respect, at least many use a Bible that they believe is truly Scripture, either in the English KJB, or the texts underneath in Greek (not in the ethereal "original autographs") While the Majority text actually does have some substantive differences, I consider the view that it is a preserved text to be held in integrity by Professor Robinson and some others. On a scale, if we put the KJB as 100, the TR is a 99, the Majority is a 95, and the alex and beze and such are a 25.
(There is easily 15+ times greater difference between KJB and alex texts than between KJB and Majority).
And the alex folks will, in my experience, never defend any actual Bible as the inerrant word of God. Undertandably, one reason is that their text is full of errors, caused by the corruption of the underlying alexandrian Greek, and this is combined with the faulty modern textcrit paradigms that deliberately places errors in the text by insipid overuse of the "harder reading" concept.

It is definitely nice when everybody uses the best and inspired Bible, but if a person moves from the NIV or NAS alexandrian to a NKJV or a Youngs or a Robinson text, they have made a major step forward.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Peter Kirby

You are overlooking something. In actuality, the difference between the KJV and the Textus Receptus (say Erasmus) is much greater than the difference between the Textus Receptus and the Codex Vaticanus. True, there are differences in wording and even at the level of verses between Erasmus' reconstruction and the fourth century manuscript. This can be measured with statistics. But there is also the more difficult to measure, but quite real, differences of a translation. The words never, or almost never, mean quite the same thing. These differences affect every word of every verse of every chapter of every book of the New Testament. Therefore, if fidelity is the criterion, the Authorized Version of King James of England cannot be the text. There is no chance. Metzger or Robinson has a chance of getting the original text of a given verse right. King James does not.

If fidelity to the first century New Testament is not the criterion, what is? Fidelity to the King James Bible?

That would involve the circularity that you say you try to avoid!

Is the important thing that a person accept a certain "actual Bible" as the inerrant word of God?

Apparently, it has been your experience that those who don't use the familiar Bible of the English-speaking world don't accept an "actual Bible" as the word of God. And that is what makes them non-believers in the NT.

So, if someone uses Luther's Bible, or if someone was a monk who used only the Greek Bible at hand, that person is a non-believer in the NT.

So, if the person is born before Jerome, when there was no universal Bible translation, then that person is a non-believer in the NT.

If a person is blissfully unaware that there is an issue with versions of the Bible, that person is a non-believer in the NT.

If a person is perfectly aware that no presentday Bible presents a 100% accurate reproduction of the words penned by the ancient compositionists, that person is by definition a non-believer in the NT, because that person doesn't adhere to an "actual Bible."

I mean, the gate is narrow, but come on!

best,
Peter Kirby

PS- The word you were searching for earlier is "tertiary" (after secondary). I believe the fourth is quaternary, but don't hold me to it.

Steven Avery

Balderdash. Rubbish. Nonsense.

Here, I honestly have no idea what your point is. I think you have been sold a bill of good from Greeks bearing Trojan horses.
When you come up with a first century NT, I will be happy to have that discussion. The Westcott-Hort/Metzger disaster moved drastically away from the original NT to a bowdlerized and drastically corrupted (scribally and textually) couple of manuscripts from fourth century gnostic Egypt
Let's be frank. Afaik, you do not accept any Bible as the Inspired and Preserved Dvar Elohim, Word of God. Even the very concepts don't have a place at your table. So you are discussing this from the outside.
Will there be conflicting inerrant Words of God ? Shouldn't the question be .. is the important thing that a person accept the inerrant word of God, which is the actual Bible ? Then.. where is this Bible ? The questions are complementary, not adversarial.

Most of the rest of the dialog below is a clever ruse from Peter, accidental or not, where he changes my phrase from..
"true believers in the NT text" to..
"non-believer in the NT"
Confusing having the true and perfect Bible with faith in Messiah.
Nonetheless, I will try to go question to question.

Nope. Lots of believers in other lands use the received texts of their own languages. I know some, like in Finland, who don't find any Bible both readable and acceptable, so they improve their English and use the King James. However, that is the exception.
Naah.. straw-man. I already shared that a Majority Text person could be a NT believer, and that text is far more different from the KJB than Luther's.

Plus keep in mind that one could know Messiah with a corrupted NT text, or no text at all. However, most assuredly they would want that situation to be transient, seeking the perfect Word of God. I was a believer in Messiah for 15 years or so using the corrupted texts.
More strawman stuff. I am grateful for what God has given us today, where we have the ability to have the Word of God for just a small investment at the local store. I'm not going to do conjectural time machine judgments based on your attempting to swiggle and twist into other cultures. ,ages and times. My concern is the Word of God we have available today, reading, acknowledging, defending and proclaiming and using and understanding.
You seem to be going haywire a bit, Kirby, I think you really didn't read my earlier posts.
I never even talked about the "ancient compositionists", when you come up with their manuscripts, please give a holla.
Yeah, but I sorta like thirdendary, it flows. Maybe I'll switch though.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Peter Kirby

Let me get this straight. What the ancient compositionists wrote doesn't matter. Why do you even bother with using text criticism to talk about the merits of the Byzantine versus the Alexandrian versus the Western, etc.? Isn't the very idea of looking at ancient manuscripts, so to put it, "irrelevant" on your view?

Is the standard of fidelity to the NT text that of fidelity to the King James edition?

And, yes, I had a perfectly good point with the imperfections of translations that you skated over by making a Trojan horse quip, making a jab against W-H, and pointing out that I'm not a Yahweh person. Oh, and the helpful 'balderdash, rubbish, nonsense.' I'm sure that most understood. If you didn't understand it, how would you know it's wrongheaded? Wouldn't the best thing to do be to ask for more explanation? Or is it that you don't want to understand? Or that you understand but don't want to address the point?

best,
Peter Kirby

edited to add PS-- the NT is the NT text. "The NT" is not Jesus, it is not the Christian faith, and it is not God. It is a text.

gregor

P

Why such anger directed at Mr. Kirby, when all he has done is demonstrate that your emperor has no clothes?

While you, Turkel, and Miller are to be applauded because you certainly have invested a lot of time researching and supporting certain points, you all come to the table with an insurmountable bias - your version of the NT is the infallible, inerrant word of god and no amount of evidence will ever dissuade you. Everything contrary will be dismissed, distinguished, or ignored.

Skeptics have bias as well, but they have the benefit of being able to concede when a point is demonstrated against their argument. You must deflect all points and can never concede anything - to the point of ridiculousness. No barbarian can ever get past your gate.

It must be tiring.

Steven Avery

Hi, Gregor. Peter and I have a reasonably long history of occasional dialog and it is generally a pleasure to vette things out with Peter. Our topics have included Jewish messianic expectations in the 1st century, the authorship of 2 Peter (or perhaps it was the Pastorals), Paul's verse in scripture that references Luke as scripture, and textual analysis of Mark 1:2 :-)

In this case Peter raised the fascinating issue of comparing the KJB view with the TR/Majority view and then asking, in essence -- "if you allow the TR view, why don't you allow the alexandrian textcrit text ?". It is a very legitimate question, and one that I usually discuss in the context of various NT believing views, more as an inhouse discussion. However, since skeptics and islamists and anti-missionaries and JW's and newagers and others will flock to the errors and problems in the alexandrian text (and the modern version Tanachs) as a point of attack against NT faith in Messiah, the issue of why we specifically reject the alexandrian text is in fact very important, in fact a foundational issue in true scripture apologetics.

btw, part of the answer I didn't give is that the TR was put together off of a type of logical and sensible (inspired :-) "textual analysis" that is 1000 times more defensible than 'modern scientific textcrit', which socalled science is built on real baloney and unbelieving paradigms (to put it bluntly).

Generally Peter and I have a great time talking (well I think so, anyway :-), above I got a little concerned that Peter built a whole long repeated argument, almost mocking, based on a misquoted phrase. And I called him on it. I think he can handle it.

Also I believe Peter's TR/KJB/Alexandrian comparison statement is so much balderdash that he oughta go back to study this a little better. It was so far in left field that it just got my three word response.

And then his succeeding paragraph was just too erudite, and maybe could use an example or two of what he is talking about. Simply didn't compute.

Actually neither Holding or Miller claim that they have a tangible NT that is the infallible, inerrant Word of God .. simply ask them to show you such a version, and let us know the response. I do agree that they are excellent researchers and writers and debaters on many issues. Glenn really set the tone for Internet apologetics with some of his articles, like on Jewish Messianic expectations and pseudonymity, it would be nice if he were more actively involved.

However, if a skeptic concedes error, or opens the gate, on his fundamental underlying concept, that there is not a true God, (and even if there was He is not expressed in the scriptures) then .. zappo.. he actually is no longer a skeptic. Or at least he is dangerously close to abandoning the camp.

However, I make tons of errors (Joe pounced on one the other day on Clement of Alexandria and the ending of Mark) and I hope that I acknowledge corrections on factual and conceptual and all types of errors with grace.

Shalom,
Praxeus
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Steven Avery

Well, I only use "modern scientific textcrit" to point out its many and manifold errors. It was a step way downhill, a means for attacking the Bible, of moving away from the ancient compositionists.
To change the inspired and preserved Bible text ? Yes, irrelevant -- (at least as an exercise to change the Bible text-- some folks call it dumpster diving, but not I :-) Right now, the push is on more to change the Tanach than the NT, however the religious Jews are far more resilient, and resistant to scripture text tampering, than have been the proclaimed Christians.

The King James Bible is the Word of God, the scriptures. A good case can be made that translation to other languages should be done primarily from the underlying Greek/Aramaic and Hebrew texts (if possible). Despite your claim in the previous post, (reply-->"balderdash") the KJB and TR are virtually identical, differences will be almost all cadence and style, rarely phrase or meaning substantive. For those who read and understand English, the King James Bible is the standard of fidelity to the NT text.

Oh, I am not a "yahweh" person at all, I consider that name as completely invalid (despite being involved with the "qodesh name" movement some years).

Any idea that the KJB is closer to an alexandrian text such as Vaticanus (and it doesn't matter English or Greek) than it is to the TR is simply absurd. (and that is the ONE point that I said "balderdash"

You can get into your translational nuance issues separately, I suggested in the previous post to another poster that you give some examples, but your original claim on KJB/TR/Alex relative closeness is simply absurd, and that is true even if the KJB and Alex are in English translations, and the TR is in Greek.

However I believe it was clear that my accusation was against the usage of an inferior text which I referred to not believing an the NT text.

In fact, I used inferior texts, as a believer in Messiah, for many years. Your conflagrating two diverse ideas for mockery-type writing I considered below your standards.

Let's go back to the original quote.

"A good example was Joe's attempt to foist erroneous Mark, without an ending, on us, and then use that for a base of subsequent theories. Let everybody be aware that his views then become irrelevant to true believers in the NT text, and he is only playing to a skeptic audience. GIGO. Please don't expect us to respond to the secondary theories when they simply do not apply to how we view the scripture text."

Notice that I was specifically saying that "true believers in the NT text" accept the ending of Mark. You rather cagily switched that to ""true believers in the NT" removing the textual aspect, in order to adopt a mocking tone. And Peter, you really would do better just being a mentsch and retracting that whole harangue about who would be "non-believers in the NT".
Lots of NT believers do not have a perfect text.

If you want to claim that I should have used, for clarity..
"believers using the true NT text"
Instead of
"true believers in the NT text"

I would accept that as an improvement and correction.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/