Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:23 am
Dusty,
I am not a scholar. I have never claimed to be. When I first read your 2ND article I knew that something was wrong. So I responded with what I knew at the time. Some of it was wrong (probably a lot). I don't have much patience when it comes to these things so I responded quickly and made errors. During the past week I have learn a lot and during this process I have come to see many errors in my own belief but also many more in your article.
Let me recap everything I said, correcting my previous errors and hopefully keeping it short. Whatever I previously wrote that is not covered here you can take as an admission of me being wrong.
1.) I no longer believe that Hort & Westcott were only respected on an intellectual level. Hort is no longer a reason why I don't "give much thought" to your 2ND article.
2.) You said you were quoting "two pre-eminent" scholars on both sides of the debate to show they believed there are major differences between family A & B (Byzantine & Alexandrian). Hort did not believe that the Byzantine and Alexandrian texts contained many errors that were "of great importance". He only believed that the differences were "minor". He did not believe that they were "vile".This quote supports that:
To further show the misleading nature of your article you said on page 4 as referring to family A (Byzantine texts), "Why would Hort call one of these two MS families “vile” if the differences in it were insignificant? That’s an extremely strong word to use if the differences are indeed negligible."
To answer your question in your own words, he didn't. He didn't call one family vile. Hort only called the TR vile not the entire family A (Byzantine texts). Here is that quote:
4.) Your article is deceiving because you don't mention manuscripts by specific names. Instead you group them all together under family A or family B. You take quotes that are only true of two modern texts and not of their respective "family of texts" (ie. Byzantine & Alexandrian). Your article if I understand you correctly is to show that there are two sets of texts the Byzantine and Alexandrian Texts. From those two sets of texts one is corrupt and the other isn't. To support this you base it upon "two of the most pre-eminent scholars in favour of each family". In doing this you take quotes of one of these "pre-eminent scholars" about the KJV and apply it to the entire family A or aka. Byzantine texts. This is very deceiving.
I asked if you believe the King James Bible is God's only preserved word in the English language. I believe you are trying to get people to believe that the Alexandrian texts are corrupt and the Byzantine texts are God's only true preserved Word so you can make the case for the King James Bible because it's based on family A and most other bibles are so called "based on family B". This is why you use family A and B rather than the true text names. It allows you to hide quotes meant for the Textus Receptus under "Family A". And facts about the King James Version and the Revised Version under "Family A & B".
For those who read your 2ND article let me quote Sir Frederick Kenyon again for you comfort:
I am not a scholar. I have never claimed to be. When I first read your 2ND article I knew that something was wrong. So I responded with what I knew at the time. Some of it was wrong (probably a lot). I don't have much patience when it comes to these things so I responded quickly and made errors. During the past week I have learn a lot and during this process I have come to see many errors in my own belief but also many more in your article.
Let me recap everything I said, correcting my previous errors and hopefully keeping it short. Whatever I previously wrote that is not covered here you can take as an admission of me being wrong.
1.) I no longer believe that Hort & Westcott were only respected on an intellectual level. Hort is no longer a reason why I don't "give much thought" to your 2ND article.
2.) You said you were quoting "two pre-eminent" scholars on both sides of the debate to show they believed there are major differences between family A & B (Byzantine & Alexandrian). Hort did not believe that the Byzantine and Alexandrian texts contained many errors that were "of great importance". He only believed that the differences were "minor". He did not believe that they were "vile".This quote supports that:
.[Dr. Hort, whose authority on the point is quite incontestable, estimates the proportion of words about which there is some doubt at about one-eighth of the whole; but by far the greater part of these consists merely of differences in order and other unimportant variations, and "the amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation ...can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text" (BF Westcott, FJ Hort,Paperback, Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek, p. 2).]
To further show the misleading nature of your article you said on page 4 as referring to family A (Byzantine texts), "Why would Hort call one of these two MS families “vile” if the differences in it were insignificant? That’s an extremely strong word to use if the differences are indeed negligible."
To answer your question in your own words, he didn't. He didn't call one family vile. Hort only called the TR vile not the entire family A (Byzantine texts). Here is that quote:
3.) Next in your article you said:Please, PLEASE could you explain to me once and for all why Hort called the TR "vile" if the differences between it and his text are unimportant?
This is deceiving because you say "families" referring to the Byzantine and Alexandrian texts but this 6,000 does not refer to those "families". Those 6,000 refer to the differences between the "Authorized Version" of 1611 and the "Revised Version" of 1881. Your footnote supports this by the title of the book. Here is your footnote:What some folks don’t realize is that the differences between these two families affect nearly six thousand separate parts of the New Testament,11 impacting nearly ten thousand words.
To further support this here is a quote from Sir Frederick Kenyon11 Estimates usually vary between 5,300 and 5,900 changes. Waite counted 5,604 [D.A. Waite, Defending the King James Bible, (The Bible For Today Press, 2004), p. 40].
Also, Burgon wrote a well known paper opposing the Revised Version called, "The Revised Revision". This article only attacked the Revised Version not family B (Alexandrian texts).The Greek text of the New Testament of 1881 has been estimated to differ from that of 1611 in no less than 5,788 readings, of which about a quarter are held notably to modify the subject-matter;though even of these only a small proportion can be considered as of first-rate importance. (Sir F Kenyon, Our Bible & the Ancient Manuscripts, p.47)
4.) Your article is deceiving because you don't mention manuscripts by specific names. Instead you group them all together under family A or family B. You take quotes that are only true of two modern texts and not of their respective "family of texts" (ie. Byzantine & Alexandrian). Your article if I understand you correctly is to show that there are two sets of texts the Byzantine and Alexandrian Texts. From those two sets of texts one is corrupt and the other isn't. To support this you base it upon "two of the most pre-eminent scholars in favour of each family". In doing this you take quotes of one of these "pre-eminent scholars" about the KJV and apply it to the entire family A or aka. Byzantine texts. This is very deceiving.
I asked if you believe the King James Bible is God's only preserved word in the English language. I believe you are trying to get people to believe that the Alexandrian texts are corrupt and the Byzantine texts are God's only true preserved Word so you can make the case for the King James Bible because it's based on family A and most other bibles are so called "based on family B". This is why you use family A and B rather than the true text names. It allows you to hide quotes meant for the Textus Receptus under "Family A". And facts about the King James Version and the Revised Version under "Family A & B".
For those who read your 2ND article let me quote Sir Frederick Kenyon again for you comfort:
If I'm wrong please correct me. Please tell me you don't believe the King James is God's only Preserved Word in the English Language. I'm not trying to be rude or motivated by the wrong reasons. I could ignore it and move on. But it would drive me crazy to know that other people would read your article and get the impression that the Byzantine texts are corrupt and therefore their bibles derived from there are too. That would be wrong.[/url]One word of warning, already referred to, must be emphasised in conclusion. No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading. Constant references to mistakes and divergences of reading, such as the plan of this book necessitates, might give rise to the doubt whether the substance, as well as the language, of the Bible is not open to question. It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain. Especially is this the case with the New Testament.