KJV Part 2

Here's the rest of that section of the lecture after the first bit:
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The King James Version of 1611 was based on the so-called “Textus Receptus,” of an editor named Stephanus, dated to 1550. “Textus Receptus” means “received text.” The Greek, in other words, the Greek text for the New Testament that had come to be accepted or received as the text of the New Testament. This text ultimately came from a Roman Catholic by the name of Erasmus, in the days before the Reformation. And Erasmus, of course, remained Roman Catholic after the Protestant Reformation. He was a humanist who argued against Martin Luther. Although he was friends with Martin Luther, he argued against Martin Luther when Luther began to protest and withdraw.

And so it is somewhat ironic in the sense that those who are most strongly in favor of the King James are also usually very anti-Catholic. And so it is interesting that the fountainhead of the Greek text behind the King James Version was somebody who opposed the Protestant Reformation. It’s true he was, you know he was more of a liberal than a dyed-in-the-wool Roman Catholic or papist, so to speak.

But more about the King James. Erasmus, in the late 1400s, only had about 12 Greek manuscripts from which to assemble the New Testament, the Greek New Testament from. The oldest copies he had were from the 900s. And, again, it is sometimes hard to realize that the manuscripts that modern scholars now use to reconstruct the original text, how it's worded, are over 700 years older than what Erasmus had.

I know when I first read the NIV, for example, I was a little annoyed by, for example, Mark 16. You come across a note that says something like, "The oldest and most reliable manuscripts don't have these verses." That's a little annoying, especially if you've grown up reading Mark 16:9-20.

But you have to realize that the manuscripts on which the NIV is based are, you know, 700, 800, 900 years older. So it defies our common sense. To us, the King James seems old and the NIV seems new. But in terms of the manuscripts (a manuscript is a handwritten copy—this is pre-printing press, in other words)… in terms of the manuscripts, the NIV tradition is about 1000 years older than the manuscripts behind the King James. So even though the King James is old and the NIV is new, in terms of the copies of the New Testament they're based on, the NIV is much older.

So what modern scholars would say is not that the NIV took words out. That's what you hear sometimes. But in fact, the King James reflects words that were added in over time. Again, you have to make up your decision on these things. Erasmus – I like Erasmus – Erasmus was an entrepreneur. You've probably heard of the Gutenberg Bible, but the Gutenberg Bible was in Latin. There was not at that time, in the late 1400s, there was no Greek, printing press version of the New Testament.

And there were some scholars in Spain, who were working on a very scholarly, parallel Bible, including the Greek New Testament. But Erasmus and a friend just thought that they could beat them, that they could be the first. I like this. I like this about Erasmus. It reminds me of Wesley Seminary and Indiana Wesleyan University. Erasmus began to scramble to put a copy together [of the Greek New Testament]. And he did, in fact, win. But, again, it's important to realize that he only had about 12, about a dozen manuscripts. He used six especially.

But the oldest one was from the 900s. He didn't actually use that one as much as the ones that were later medieval. We now have manuscripts from the 200s, the 300s, the 400s. We have two nearly complete copies of the New Testament from the early 300s. They're called 1) Codex ¬(a codex is a book) Sinaiticus, which was discovered in the East around Mt. Sinai, and 2) Codex Vaticanus, which was discovered in the Vatican. Both of these were discovered in the 1800s.

There were some – if you like Indiana Jones – Indiana Jones type stories of manuscripts. There was a guy named Tischendorf who went around finding these things in the 1800s. Again, those who oppose modern translations sometimes villanize Codes Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. But it's important to realize that since then, since that point in the 1800s, we've discovered older manuscripts than them. And so you know you can't malign Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and undermine modern translations anymore because we discovered older ones.

And guess what. The older ones pretty much agree with Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. So, again, you get all kinds of coping mechanisms with these new realities. You get individuals maligning the character of B. F. Westcott and Fenton Hort, two individuals who put together the method that I'm presenting, the method of how scholars go about deciding how the original text read. But just because you assassinate the character of Westcott and Hort, or assassinate the reliability of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, it doesn't work.

It doesn't work because these two, Westcott and Hort, really only systematized the science of textual criticism. The ideas that Westcott and Hort put in their famous book on the science of textual criticism, the message that they set down, they didn't come up with. The principles had been recognized by scholars of this area for well over a century before them. Also since then and the manuscripts that they used, we have found older manuscripts that basically agree. You're welcome to disagree. I certainly could be wrong.

But from a standpoint of objectivity, I do not see how anybody whose primary interest is in the truth, rather than reinforcing something that's an idea you're comfortable with, I do not see how anybody, who's approaching the evidence objectively, can conclude that the King James tradition is more likely to be the original tradition.

I didn't always think that way. I started off resistant to modern translations. It was only after finally admitting to myself that the evidence was against me, that I eventually changed my mind. Everyone has to take their own path. So, there will certainly be blind spots for generations. You'll have to think through the issues yourself and make your own decision.

Now, Erasmus, being such an entrepreneur, at times he translated back to Greek from Latin. So he did not have a complete copy of Revelation when he did his initial translation. And so, Revelation 22:14, I think, says something in the King James about the works of the righteous, whereas other versions say something about washing robes.

There are Greek manuscripts that have something about washing robes. I can't remember which is which. I think that "the works" is the King James and the robes are modern translations. There are Greek manuscripts that have both readings. Whether or not Erasmus would have gone with "works," or whether, whether he would have gone with, with "robes" if he'd had a complete copy of Revelation, I don't know. However, it is worth mentioning that, after his first printed Greek edition came out, he did eventually secure an actual copy of Revelation.

His initial version had some Greek readings that weren't in any manuscripts because he just freely translated back from Latin, which is kind of interesting. But this verse in Revelation 22 probably remains the way it is because of that situation, because the Latin version he used had "works."

But I really do admire Erasmus. He got the job done. People like Erasmus get the job done, while the more pedantic scholars ( and there's a place for pedantic scholars; I'm not saying they’re useless). But the more pedantic scholars have a tendency not to get things done.

Now Catholic politics may have gotten in 1 John 5:7. 1 John 5:7 is the most explicitly Trinitarian verse in the whole New Testament. The problem is, it doesn’t appear in any Greek manuscripts before about 1500 when Erasmus himself was compiling the Greek New Testament. It does appear in the margins of a few older manuscripts but in a later hand, as I understand the situation.

And, of course, this verse, this most Trinitarian verse in the whole New Testament, is never mentioned in the entirety of the Trinitarian debates of the early centuries. Now, to me, that means there's just not any chance at all that this is original. There's no chance, because in the Trinitarian debates of the 300s they would have mentioned the most Trinitarian verse in the Bible. There is clearly nothing wrong with the verse. That's another important thing to say. When we're asking how the original text read, what was its original wording, we're not asking which reading has the best theology.

The King James has great theology. In fact, maybe we should use it for its theology. We just shouldn't use it if our goal is to have the most original text. This is an interesting thing to ponder, that the King James might be a better theological text, from a Christian standpoint, regardless of the fact that it is not likely to be the most original text. That's something you might want to think about.

But the story goes that Erasmus was not going to put this Trinitarian verse in his Greek New Testament – in fact, I don't think it was in his first edition. But he was pressured by the Roman Catholic Bishop or a person of some authority to put it in. After all, it's a great verse on the Trinity.

And so Erasmus, so the story goes, claimed that he would put it in if they could show him one Greek manuscript that had it in it. And in his journal he notes that the ink was still wet when they presented him with one. Now, again, there's nothing wrong with 1 John 1:7. The question is strictly whether it was in the first copy of 1 John. And that does not at all seem likely...
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The lecture goes on to talk about internal and external evidence, as well as the Majority Text option.

The Greek text of the King James Version 1

I'm cleaning up a transcription of a video lecture for a class. It is on the text of the Bible. I thought I'd post some of my comments in it on the King James Bible.
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Let me talk for a second about the King James Version, because in some circles, the King James Version remains the version. Now in most churches, this is a debate of 40-50 years ago. Well, more like 30 or 40 years ago.

Most churches don't have an issue with what versions you use. Most churches would say, "Use whatever version in which you think you hear God's voice most clearly." Well, I don't know whether most would say that, but I would say most healthy churches have that view. Use the version of the Bible through which you hear God's voice the most. And if that's the King James, the New King James, that's great. If it's something else, that's great. You do hear people who are against The Message or against the TNIV. You do find a lot of that kind of version warfare out there.

And, and, some of that has to do with the philosophy of translation more than it has to do with the question of the text. Translation is a different subject. How do you translate? Do you translate very “woodenly,” or do you translate very freely. That's a different issue and one that will be covered elsewhere. This particular vidcast is about how the original text read. What were the words that were there and what were the words that weren't there? Of the variations among manuscripts, how did the original read?

And here, we basically only have two alternatives. There are two alternatives. To start off with, I'm going to call the old alternative the “King James alternative.” This is the textual tradition that has the ending of Mark, for example, Mark 16:9-20. This is the longer version. It has more verses, more words. Not a whole lot more. I mean, like I said, 90-plus percent the same.

You do have this one textual tradition that I'm going to call right now the King James tradition. And then the other one is everything else. That is, all the modern, pretty much all modern versions of the Bible. Basically you only have two choices when it comes to this question of how you think the original manuscripts of the Bible read.

And, and once you've made your decision as to which you buy into, then you're once again pretty clear about what the original text read, depending on which choice you make. If you go with the King James tradition, then you're pretty sure you know pretty much what the text read. If you go with the majority of modern translations, then you pretty much know what you think the original text read. But I want to, in this vidcast, explain what the issues are in making that choice.

The King James Version came out in 1611. If you were listening to this vidcast in 2011, that was the 400th anniversary of the King James Version. Of course, the King James Version that you would typically buy in a Christian bookstore is not the 1611 version. It was updated over the 150 years or so afterthe first King James came out. It was edited as many as five times. Not all of those were massive revisions, but now the King James Version that you would buy in a bookstore today is not the 1611 version.

So we want to make it very clear that the King James Version was never intended to be set in stone for all eternity. Now, over the first 200 years of its existence, there was an understanding that language changes, that things need to be updated. And so there are those who insist, "No, we must use the original King James Version in English. And we cannot even use the New King James Version." There are individuals who would say even the New King James Version shouldn't be used. That whole view reflects, just be honest, a, a pretty significant ignorance of how language functions.

Language changes. I mean the word, "Google," didn't exist in the English language 15 years ago, if you're listening to this in 2011. Language changes. Meanings change. Language doesn't mean the same thing. There are things in the King James Version that its readers probably think they understand, but don't, because the word doesn't mean the same thing. Now, when the King James Version says, "Let your conversation be known," it's not talking about speaking, like I'm doing now. The word “conversation” in 1789, or whenever the last King James revision was done, meant manner of conduct.

And so it's very easy to suppose that there are many King James Version users who think they understand what that verse means, when they don't even understand the English, because the English has changed meaning. Language has to be updated for it to be understood. And, eventually, of course, language changes to where you can't even understand the way people spoke before. Shakespearean English is very difficult for me to understand without some notes to explain. If you've ever read Beowulf, Beowulf is in English, but man, it's not an English that I speak.

Language changes. This the nature of things. And so it has to be updated if people are going to understand it. Either that or, eventually, you'll have to take a language class just to be able to understand the King James Version. We're at that now in terms of the everyday person on the street. They're not going to understand the King James for what it meant originally. So let’s just get that out of the way there.

But the King James Version was not the first English version by any means. In fact, it was a compromise translation between the Geneva Bible, which was actually the Bible of the Puritans, the Bible that was most popular among the English at the time, at least the English Puritans. And then there was the Bishops' Bible. The Bishops' Bible was resented by the Puritans because it had notes [they didn’t like]. Both of these Bibles had notes as I recall. The Geneva Bible had notes that were perceived to be against the king, anti-monarchist notes. The Bishops' Bible had notes that were perceived not to take the biblical text with enough authority.

And so King James, who was himself, probably not a particularly liked man, of course he didn't translate it. He just commissioned it. But King James commissioned this compromise translation. And it didn't catch on immediately. In fact, if I remember correctly, the Puritans who first came to America in the 1600s brought the Geneva Bible, not the King James Bible so much to America. But the King James Version did catch on and did become the primary English version...