Although most Textus Receptus readings are supported by the majority of manuscripts, there are some readings that are supported by weak manuscript evidence today. We must remember, however, that the state of evidence today is not the same as it was when the Textus Receptus was being edited. The Textus Receptus was first edited in the early 16th century. Soon after that, the Counter-Reformation and the European Wars of Religion broke out, which resulted in the destruction of Protestant and Catholic properties, including Churches and libraries. It is obvious that countless manuscripts and books were destroyed during this turbulent era of history. The Textus Receptus preceded the most turbulent era in religious history A case in point is the effort to save Codex Bezae, a New Testament codex dating to the 5th century. Beza consulted this codex to edit his editions of the Textus Receptus. This codex managed to flee from the Wars of Religion on the continent of Europe. The Wikipedia article on Codex Bezae states: "During the upheavals of the Wars of Religion in the 16th century, when textual analysis had a new urgency among the Reformation's Protestants, the manuscript was taken from Lyon in 1562 and delivered to the Protestant scholar Theodore Beza, the friend and successor of Calvin, who gave it to the University of Cambridge, in the comparative security of England, in 1581, which accounts for its double name." (Wikipedia: Codex Bezae) Codex Bezae just so happened to survive to this day because somebody cared to remove it from the continent. But not all manuscripts managed to escape the path of destruction in Europe. Knowing that countless books and manuscripts were certainly destroyed during this turbulent period in history, it would be presumptuous for us in modern times to take the absence of evidence for any Textus Receptus reading and definitively declare it as evidence of absence. Europe has been ravaged many times since the 16th century. The manuscript evidence of modern textual critics are mere scraps and debris compared to what must have existed prior to the Counter-Reformation, religious wars, Napoleonic wars, two world wars, Islam and Communism in the east (where many of the Byzantine manuscripts were kept). The idea that "evidence keeps increasing with time" is a liberal idea of linear progression that is not based on the evidence of history. There are indeed areas of evidence which has seen an increase, such as early papyri from Egypt. However, with the increase of early Egyptian evidence with the corresponding loss of potentially early European evidence (i.e. early Western and Byzantine manuscripts possessed by Protestants during the Wars of Religion) there is now a sharp inequity between Byzantine and Alexandrian witnesses. Any critical evaluation of the Textus Receptus in modern times is anachronistic. The integrity of a work must be judged while the same resources used for the work are still in existence, not 300+ years after the creation of the work. For example, the Johannine Comma (1 John 5:7 in the Textus Receptus) in Greek is a late minority reading in modern times. However, Stephanus appeared to have several manuscripts which contained the Johannine Comma. John Gill writes, "out of sixteen ancient copies of Robert Stephens, nine of them had it" (John Gill's Commentary, 1 John 5) [For further reading, go to Johannine Comma - 1 John 5:7 on this website]. The value of non-Greek witnesses Critics find fault with the Textus Receptus for including readings that have support in the Latin translations but have weak support in the extant Greek manuscripts. These passages include Acts 9:5-6, 1 John 5:7 and Revelation 22:19. These critics are of the position that since the New Testament was originally written in Greek, the true readings are preserved only in Greek manuscripts. However, most of these critics are hypocritical in the way they view the preservation of the Old Testament. The translators of the NIV, ESV and NASB had the following to say about their view of how to reconstruct the original Old Testament text:
Here
we see the hypocrisy of critics who have anything to do with these
translations. They believe that only Greek witnesses should be consulted for
editing the New Testament originally written in Greek, but they freely consult the
Greek, Syriac, and Latin for editing the Old Testament originally written in Hebrew. In
fact, these critics decry the Textus Receptus
for relying on the Latin Vulgate, yet they rely on the same Latin
Vulgate in reconstructing the Old
Testament. This is hypocrisy of the highest degree. This
double-standard is even more illogical when we consider that the
preservation methods for the Old Testament were arguably more robust
than the preservation methods for the New Testament. Hence there is
less likelihood for genuine readings to be lost from Hebrew Old
Testament manuscripts than for genuine readings to be lost from Greek
New Testament manuscripts. Anybody who uses the NIV, ESV, NASB, or any
other version that takes readings
from non-Hebrew witnesses for the Old Testament does not have the right to fault
the Textus Receptus for taking readings from the very same sources (Latin, Syriac). Genesis 4:8 (NIV)
Numbers 26:40 (NIV, ESV, NASB)
1 Samuel 14:41 (NIV 2011, ESV)
1 Chronicles 4:13 (NIV, ESV, NASB)
1 Chronicles 9:41 (NIV, ESV, NASB)
2 Chronicles 15:8 (NIV, ESV, NASB)
In
the following passages, the indicated translations depart from all
Hebrew manuscripts to side with the Septuagint/LXX (Greek translation of
the Old Testament). The texts followed by the translators are noted in
the footnotes of the verses:
To the Textus Receptus' further credit, in most cases
where the Textus Receptus sides with the Latin there are also Greek witnesses albeit in a
minority situation. If the
translators of the NIV, ESV and NASB were free to suppose that original readings
could have dropped from the original language of the Old Testament (Hebrew) and
preserved in translations (Latin, Greek, Syriac, Aramaic), then the Textus Receptus
editors were free to suppose that original readings could have dropped
from
the original language of the New Testament (Greek) and preserved in
translations
(Latin, Syriac, Gothic). One's view of preservation must be
consistent. Did God cause his words to be preserved to this day only in
the original languages - Hebrew and Greek? Or did God use translations
to preserve his words? The position of the translators of modern
versions is inconsistent because they apply different views for the Old Testament and the New Testament. |