More Proof The Traditional Text (Textus Receptus) Is of Apostolic Origin
Compiled by Dr. David L. Brown
Higher Criticism of the Bible is a frontal assault upon God’s Words! Ever since this diabolical theory of dealing with God’s Word(s) was introduced in Germany
Higher criticism treats the Bible as a text created by men. Their presupposition is that the Bible is a conglomeration of works by unknown authors and editors which was assembled and modified at the authors desired. They assert that the Bible has not been carefully preserved and therefore the Bible cannot be entirely authoritative. In particular they reject the texts that underlie the King James Version of the Bible, claiming that those texts are of a much later date, an editorial “recension” or revision of the earlier true text. They promoted that lie that there were NO early manuscripts from the Traditional Text. The so called Alexandrian and Western texts were older and better.
Here is the problem. Professor Merrill M. Parvis of Harvard wrote. “The Textus Receptus (also known as the Traditional Text and Ecclesiastical Text) is not the ‘true’ text of the New Testament…” He went on to admit however, “The Textus Receptus is the text of the Church. It is that form of the text which represents the sum total and the end product of all the textual decisions which were made by the Church and her Fathers over a period of more than a thousand years.”
I submit to you that the Textus Recptus always has been the New Testament used by the Chruch! My contention is clearly supported by biblical evidence recently examined by Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede, Director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn , Germany
Dr. Thiede examined three New Testament fragments that were originally acquired in Luxor , Egypt
However, this was only the beginning. Using a very technical and accurate epiflourescent confocal laser scanning microscope, he found that the Matthew 26:22 fragment revealed the Textus Recutus reading! It head “hekasotos auton,” every one of them, as the King James reads as opposed to “heis hakastos,” each one [one after another], as the critical texts read.
This fragment clearly documents the antiquity of the Textus Receptus text to the time of Peter, Paul, John the Apostle, etc. Increasingly, the recension theory is being exposed for the lie that it is!
Even J. K. Elliott, one of the most influential textual critics in Great Britain, has recently acknowledged that the theory that the Byzantine Text is a recension is invalid. In "Recent Trends in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament," Dr. Elliott wrote:
ReplyDelete"The dissertation by Klaus Wachtel of the Institut has made it clear that the old theory that the Byzantine text arose as an ecclesiastically redaction was unsustainable, but rather what were to be seen as "Byzantine" readings had actually emerged from a very early date and without any formal church-dominated control."
A word is mistakenly missing in his sentence; something like "promoted" or "sponsored" should be between "ecclesiastically" and "redaction." Nevertheless it's clear what he meant to say: one of the foundational building-blocks of Hort's approach has turned out to be incorrect.
(That doesn't mean that Dr. Thiede's date-assignments were correct, though. His proposal has generally not been adopted by other papyrologists and palaeographers.)
Yours in Christ,
James Snapp, Jr.