Ask Dusty Peterson about his articles on Bible Translations

How has God preserved His word? How has the enemy tried to pervert the word of God?
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Ask Dusty Peterson about his articles on Bible Translations

Post by jimbaum »

Al Dager is publishing what I consider to be a very important series of articles by Dusty Peterson called: The Bible Versions Debate. Dusty Peterson's web site is http://www.bayith.org.

In part 2B in Media Spotlight's Winter 2006 issue are some very good summaries about Family A Greek Manuscripts versus Family B. Those are the author's way of summarizing the two groups of manuscripts that must be considered to understand what is at stake in these discussions.

Al Dager's site is http://www.mediaspotlight.org.

See the following topic for some summaries and discussion about the series: Al Dager's Media Spotlight Series: The Bible Versions Debate

The articles themselves are written by Brother Dusty.

Perhaps we can induce Dusty to discuss his articles with us! :D

Jim B.
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Post by wackzingo »

I have a problem with Dusty's article because he quotes one who is a well known KJV only scholar which is fine because he is making a case for both sides. But he then quotes one who is not respected even those on the other side of the issue. He did not quote a Christian on the other side of the issue, instead he conveniently chooses a man who doesn’t even believe in God.

That seems to me like quoting The Pope to support Christianity. He fails to acknowledge or quote the thousands of Godly men who have worked on modern translations, who although they acknowledge there are two sets of texts, they are not that difference, especially on the most important doctrines. The NIV translators are one example of that group. They referred to both the A and B sets of texts but when there were differences, they almost always relied upon the B texts because they are much older and therefore assumed to be more accurate.

Jim, you said above:
The following is the list that he refers to:

"The Differences Are Trivial"
"Doctrine Is Unaffected"
"No Cardinal Doctrines Are Affected"
"Every Doctrine Is Still Supportable"
"There Is Only 1% Variation"
"The Differences Don't Stop People Being Saved"
"The Alternative Is Unthinkable"
These views are held by translators not average people like us who don't know Greek and Hebrew. We quote the translators and have to have some trust in them. This view which is held by most modern Christian translators is not presented. Instead he refers to Westcott & Hort who should not even be talked about.

I agree with you that texts based on Westcott & Hort's work should not be trusted, but Westcott & Hort are equivalent to the Textus Receptus in that they are a modern copy/translation or whatever you call it of older texts. We still have those older texts from which they got their work and modern translations use those, not Westcott & Hort's work.

Is there a problem with the texts that Westcott & Hort relied upon or is it with their translation of those texts?

What about the Dead Sea Scrolls?
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Post by jimbaum »

Zach,

You can now read Dusty's part 2B at the following location. I'm sorry it's a 15 megabyte pdf file. I will try to make it a smaller file sometime.

http://procinwarn.com/bible_versions_debate.htm

Read through when you get a chance. Some of your questions might be answered.

Also, Dusty might get a chance to discuss this with us soon.

Jim B.
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At last!

Post by Dusty »

Hi there Guys,

I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to contributing. I wanted to give folks a chance to read all three parts before I got involved.

Can I say at the outset how genuinely honored I am that a thread (or even two) has been devoted to my work. This is a first for me and it means a lot.

Zach writes:
I have a problem with Dusty's article because he quotes one who is a well known KJV only scholar which is fine because he is making a case for both sides. But he then quotes one who is not respected even those on the other side of the issue. He did not quote a Christian on the other side of the issue, instead he conveniently chooses a man who doesn’t even believe in God.
Can I gently ask (a) what the details are? Who is it I've quoted "who is not respected even those on the other side of the issue"? and (b) is Zach rejecting the entire fifteen page document on the basis of one error on my part? If so, why? If not, where are the comments to this effect?

Apologies if I'm missing something.
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Post by wackzingo »

Dusty,

Thanks for posting and the articles were well written and I appreciate that you tried to make everything objective. I think the first article is very helpful for anyone when it comes to understanding bible translation.
Who is it I've quoted "who is not respected even those on the other side of the issue"?
Westcott & Hort

Their knowledge on an intellectual level was acknowledged and respected by many scholars on both sides. But that is as far as it goes with the majority of most scholars of modern translations (by modern I mean those produced after Westcott & Hort). Westcott & Hort provided mostly their textual criticism on biblical manuscripts. This textual criticism was either completely rejected by most modern scholars or referenced to in certain cases and still there were some who used it extensively. The NIV translators, acknowledged in an articles several years ago that they were familiar with the textual criticism of Westcott & Hort, they only used as reference, considered their work, but never relied upon it.
Textual criticism is a branch of philology that examines the extant manuscript copies of an ancient or medieval literary work to produce a text that is as close as possible to the original. The original is called the autograph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism


This one "error" is more than just a small error. It is one that you base almost the entire 2nd article upon; The fact that both sides agree the text is different. This is not the case as only one side (KJV ONLY) views the texts as being significantly different. In fact, many KJV only literature, admit the differences between the texts are very minimal but they point out that it only takes a little to kill and pervert because it can no longer be proven there are major differences between the two.

The fact is that the majority of modern Christian scholars say there is no major differences and nothing that affects doctrine. The disputes are over things like spellings, city names, etc. You write the article from the view that both agree there are major differences and so we must decide which one. This is not the case.

This is important because we have one group saying "these two texts are completely different and only one could be right and every other one is perverted and wrong" then you have the other group that says, "these two texts are not much different and the differences are minor and so we should not discredit a translation simply because it is based on either set of texts.

This "error" supports your side and completely ignores the opposite side. So…yes, I do not give much thought to your second article.
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Post by jimbaum »

Dusty,

Thank you so much for participating. We are privileged to have you.

I apologize for some of the tone you might see on this discussion board. It's been rough for a number of months, especially in this topic area of Bible Translations. So... you are kind of jumping into the middle of some emotional discussions. But, I'm sure that's nothing new to you, brother.

I pray our Lord Jesus would bear fruit from our discussions and turn it all for good!

Jim
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Post by wackzingo »

Dusty,

I'm sorry if it seems like I am attacking you. Personally, I don't know you and have no problem with you. I think the first part was great. I haven't read everything you've written but what I have has seem very good and helpful. But on this point I disagree with you. I'm sure we agree on a lot of things, just not this area. From my point of view this is more serious because if you and the KJV only movement is right than myself and millions of others are using perverted translations of God's Word. I just can't believe that God would allow so many of his people become deceived and only a select few to know the truth that He has only one word in the English language.
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Post by Dusty »

Hi there Guys,

Many thanks for your respective postings.

As I have extremely limited web access today, and in view of the fact that Part 2b should answer many of Zach's queries, I feel it would be best for me to hold off for 24 hours and thus give him an opportunity to reconsider his points before I attempt a response.

Hoping that's okay. I assure you I'm not hiding :)
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Post by wackzingo »

Dusty,

I have been very busy...with school and work so I may not be able to read the part 2b until later this weekend. Although I believe you honestly tried be objective, the fact is that we are both Christians and thus how we feel about this particular topic can't be ignored or taking lightly. It also is impossible for us to be objective in the end because for that to happen we must set aside the truth and that isn't and option. What I mean is it appears from the first two that you believe Group A is God's preserved Word and Group B is corrupt (please correct me if I'm wrong). Because of this I believe you have done a great job of showing Burgon's view. But because you lean towards the MSS from side A, side B is looked down upon.

I personally lean more towards side B. I'll explain later when I have more time. I think Burgon's rasoning has more faults than Hort's which is probably why more scholars lean towards B than A. But there are also more than just those two sides, those are the far left and right of the spectrum. Many scholars today are somewhere in the middle which is where I am but more towards B than A.

I have not yet had a chance to get to part 2b and I'll let you know what I think as soon as possible.

Thanks again for the articles, they are very helpful and interesting. May God help us all to discern the truth.

Zach
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Post by wackzingo »

Dusty,

I was able to reduce Part 2b from 14mb to 7mb. It's half the file size and doesn't appear to have lost any quality. If you would like to use that file instead let me know. I have put it on my website at http://www.athleo.net/BTRBVDpart2b.pdf

I can always remove, or you can put it on your site or both.
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Post by Dusty »

Hi All, It's time I finally offered some feedback :P (The following is admittedly only a response to a subset of points, as I want to give Zach (and anyone else who's visiting) a decent opportunity to read the relevant article(s) before I come to the remainder of the points. Sorry about my 24 hours comment Zach! I'll happily wait just as long as your other demands require.)

Firstly, many thanx to Zach for organizing that smaller PDF. That was very thoughtful.

Next, I do take Zach's point about the way I quote Hort at the start of Part 2a in my series. I quote Hort twice at that stage (I don't actually quote his colleague Westcott as far as I am aware though, despite what Zach states), and it is certainly fair to say that Hort's view on the "vileness" of the Textus Receptus (or "family A's text" for simplicity) is not shared (or at least not publicly expressed) by textual critics today. I was merely trying to get across (a) that most scholars hold very doggedly to one side or the other - i.e. the TR versus the "critical text" in one form or another, and (b) that this issue is therefore obviously considered important by scholars on both sides. I did this to try and encourage people to keep reading my article, but I shall reconsider my approach to this particular task in the light of Zach's input.

Regarding Hort, Zach says:
he then quotes one [i.e. F.J.A. Hort] who is not respected even [by] those on the other side of the issue. He did not quote a Christian on the other side of the issue, instead he conveniently chooses a man who doesn’t even believe in God.
I think there are one or two problems with the above, viz.

:arrow: Hort is respected by many scholars, even today. I will gladly document this if necessary. Even if we assume that Zach was excluding Hort's work on textual criticism from his comment, Hort is still respected by some who are writing on this subject. For instance, the only criticism I can find of Hort in D.A. Carson's book The King James Version Debate is that he was "not quite as conservative as modern conservative evangelicals" and that he "made some statements I regret" [p. 75].

:arrow: I think Zach still needs to explain why Hort was quite so harsh about family A if it is the corrupted family. I accept that many scholars are much more accommodating than Hort (i.e. they tolerate people who use Bibles based on family A), but it is surely worth considering why many New Agers are happy to use translations based on family B but are thoroughly opposed to the text of family A.

:arrow: My article also makes clear that Christians in some numbers (I was particularly thinking of Waldensians) have actually been martyred for holding to their Bibles based on family A - by professing believers who insisted they must instead use translations rooted in family B. It seems Hort was not the only fan of family B to detest A after all :(
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Post by wackzingo »

Regarding Hort, Zach says:
Quote:
he then quotes one [i.e. F.J.A. Hort] who is not respected even [by] those on the other side of the issue. He did not quote a Christian on the other side of the issue, instead he conveniently chooses a man who doesn’t even believe in God.

I think there are one or two problems with the above, viz.

Arrow Hort is respected by many scholars, even today. I will gladly document this if necessary. Even if we assume that Zach was excluding Hort's work on textual criticism from his comment, Hort is still respected by some who are writing on this subject. For instance, the only criticism I can find of Hort in D.A. Carson's book The King James Version Debate is that he was "not quite as conservative as modern conservative evangelicals" and that he "made some statements I regret" [p. 75].

I must admit that saying "he was not even respected" was the wrong words. What I meant to say is that if you look at the issue today (2007) there are really two major sides to the issue. First you have the KJV only advocates who are not just about family A texts but "Only about the KJV". On the other side we have the majority of scholars to don't agree with Westcott & Hort's view of textual criticism nor do they agree with Burgon's. This majority of scholars don't hold to family A or B but rather believe that there are faults with both sides and both set’s of texts should be used. Although they would consider themselves in the middle they lean toward one side.

So Hort’s textual criticism is not used by the majority of modern translations neither is Burgon’s. So to use him leads people to believe that most modern translations are based either upon family A or B texts only. The reality is that most (not all) modern translations are based upon both even though they tend to favor one side (usually B).

I think Zach still needs to explain why Hort was quite so harsh about family A if it is the corrupted family.
In my opinion this is where your article is in error. You are trying to make your case for or against by using a man who doesn't represent the majority. You should rather be asking what are the views of the translators of the NIV, NKJV, ASV, etc. towards family A & B. If we ask this question we get a completely different answer.
My article also makes clear that Christians in some numbers (I was particularly thinking of Waldensians) have actually been martyred for holding to their Bibles based on family A - by professing believers who insisted they must instead use translations rooted in family B. It seems Hort was not the only fan of family B to detest A after all
Looking at the KJV only movement they aren’t far behind when it comes to hate for bibles based off of a different family. This point really isn’t that important. Fingers could be pointed at both sides.
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Post by Dusty »

Hiya Zach. As you say, there are indeed "two major sides to the issue" today. That's the very reason why Part 2a was written. It was dedicated to finding out why these two sides still exist and are still so firmly opposed to each other's world view. I tried to make this very point when I wrote:
I was merely trying to get across (a) that most scholars hold very doggedly to one side or the other - i.e. the TR versus the "critical text" in one form or another, and (b) that this issue is therefore obviously considered important by scholars on both sides
You also state, "Looking at the KJV only movement they aren’t far behind when it comes to hate for bibles based off of a different family. ... Fingers could be pointed at both sides." The division between the two sides that you acknowledge here is precisely why I created Part 2a! I was simply attempting to go back in history to trace the causes for this fundamental disagreement.

I am very sorry if I gave the impression that I wrote the article "from the view that both agree there are major differences". As I tried to explain in the article, I actually wrote from the view that the two most pre-eminent scholars on both sides of the debate believed there were major differences (a fact you have still to explain away I believe :wink: ). I also wrote from the position that the basic disagreement between these two scholars still exists (i.e. whether we should approach the Bible like any other book or whether to treat it as God's Word when it comes to textual criticism).

It is in view of all the above, and given what I wrote in Part 1, that I do indeed believe "we must decide which one".

In conclusion, it is surely unfair to claim that "almost the entire 2nd article" is based upon those two quotes from Hort, and I believe it is therefore unreasonable of anyone to write off the bulk of the piece or "not give much thought to [my] second article" as you put it.

As I say, if you'd like plenty of evidence that the following statement is also wrong, please just say the word:
Their knowledge on an intellectual level was acknowledged and respected by many scholars on both sides. But that is as far as it goes with the majority of most scholars of modern translations (by modern I mean those produced after Westcott & Hort).
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Post by wackzingo »

You also state, "Looking at the KJV only movement they aren’t far behind when it comes to hate for bibles based off of a different family. ... Fingers could be pointed at both sides." The division between the two sides that you acknowledge here is precisely why I created Part 2a! I was simply attempting to go back in history to trace the causes for this fundamental disagreement.


I got the impression from the article and what you wrote below that you were trying to present this as proof that family A is God's true Word which is why it is persecuted. So my point is the same could be said about family B. Both family A & B are detested by those on the far right and left.

As I tried to explain in the article, I actually wrote from the view that the two most pre-eminent scholars on both sides of the debate believed there were major differences
Yes, we have two pre-eminent scholars on both sides of the debate. These scholars are on the extreme far right and left. You can't get any more extreme in their views regarding this topic. Why is it that on so many issues we have a majority in the middle between this far right and left view of things? It's because both sides take their view to the extreme and leave out a lot of logic.
(a fact you have still to explain away I believe Wink ).
I'm not sure what this is referring to here.
I also wrote from the position that the basic disagreement between these two scholars still exists (i.e. whether we should approach the Bible like any other book or whether to treat it as God's Word when it comes to textual criticism).
I agree that these views exist but they are not the majority. I said the majority is somewhere in the middle even thought they do tend to lean toward one side of the issue. I don't see how treating the bible as "God's Word" has to be in complete opposition to the way we treat any other books. Do Christians need to leave the world completely to be "separated from it"? Is there anything wrong with me going to a secular college? No, not if I take everything in light of scripture and allow the Holy Spirit to guide me as I discern right from wrong.

I see nothing wrong with treating the bible as any other book as long as that doesn't cause us to forget the added dimension that it is the Very Words of God and therefore there are certain things we need to take into consideration. This is where I believe many scholars are today, in the middle believing both sides to have some good point but also acknowledging that they both also have some faults because of their extreme views.


In conclusion, it is surely unfair to claim that "almost the entire 2nd article" is based upon those two quotes from Hort, and I believe it is therefore unreasonable of anyone to write off the bulk of the piece or "not give much thought to [my] second article" as you put it.
I think I understand why you wrote the article better now. But I don't agree with either side. It makes more sense now. But I don't agree with you that we must choose sides. It reminds me of the political debate in America where you are expected to choose to be either a Democrat or a Republican. Both sides don't see why there can be a middle.
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Post by David »

Do you know if King James I translators had the Alexandrinus, Vatinicus and Sinaticus Manuscripts available to them before 1611? If so why didn't they use them?
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