Textual Criticism and the TR Live from CBTS

All right, greetings and welcome to the dividing line My name is James white and we're coming to you live from Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary in Owensboro, Kentucky and We have the largest studio audience.

I think we have ever had we warned the students sitting down front I don't know what the camera angles look like But we had one guy over here saying can

I eat almonds during the program? I've never had anyone ask that question before but congratulations, you're now famous for that.

We got another brother who is Just not good at providing sufficient numbers of protein bars for all the rest of us to to utilize but I Was thinking, you know,

I'm gonna be gone most of January I know when I'm in Russia the chances of getting a dividing line in are pretty small and Since this class is on new testament reliability textual criticism one of the topics that I have wanted to address it's in my

Files in my notes for the dividing line Came about because of a conversation that I had on Twitter And I had a conversation

With someone whose name on Twitter is Texas receptus now before you say you shouldn't be picking on people

I want to point out that that conversation began with criticism from Texas receptus

About some of the comments that I had made on the subject of revelation 16 -5 during the seminar that I gave at Covenant of Grace Church in st.

Charles, Missouri first weekend in December I've been going to that church for that was my 17th year going at that particular time of the year and evidently someone took the time to listen to the presentation and to Disagree with the brief comments that I made on the subject of revelation 16 -5

It fits in perfectly because this is a class on Textual criticism we've spent all day yesterday looking at background issues

Manuscripts the issues that are relevant to why we need to be engaged in textual criticism and so far this morning after some biblical study

We spent time looking at the origins of what is generally called the textus receptus

This is the Trinitarian Bible Society edition. This is Scrivener's text I think it's important to emphasize that if you carry this around this is a

Greek text based upon an English translation Called the King James Version of the

Bible that is Scrivener took the 1598 Beza the Stephanus text the

Erasmus versions the five that he did between 1516 and 1535

Compared them with one another and then whatever the King James translators various groups of King James translators

Let me point out those various groups did not necessarily use the same reasoning for their textual choices all the way across the

New Testament of the of the King James Version of the Bible but Where they made a decision where those those different versions

Erasmus Stephanus Beza differ That became the basis of this. So this is the

King James New Testament in Greek. I Think it may be the best way to describe is the King James New Testament in Greek Rather than the ancient

Greek New Testament that has come to us and been Received by the church and all the rest of stuff, which is normally what people believe over against the modern

Versions the Greek New Testament. We have the Nessie Island 28th edition UBS 5th edition and I also have with me the

Tyndale house Greek New Testament just came out which is a very very interesting edition as well.

So what I'm gonna do during this time for period for the students and for everyone in the in the audience is to demonstrate how not to do textual criticism and That use that methodology to shine light upon how we need to be doing textual criticism

I've already been talking all day yesterday all this morning. And so unfortunately there will be a few coughs along the way

It's a little bit colder back here Then it is in in Phoenix not all that much to be perfectly honest with you.

It's been fairly cold there But I may have picked up something on the plane in the airport, whatever it was

We'll see about that the example is found in Revelation 16 5 and if you'll turn your

Bibles there Or in your Greek New Testament for that matter. This is the third bowl the third bowl judgment and I'd like to look at it in context because I think

What's fascinating here is the argumentation we're gonna see from our textus receptus representative utterly ignores the close context of Revelation chapter 16 verse 5 then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters and they became blood and I heard the angel

This is a new American standard that I'm reading and I heard the angel of the waters saying righteous

Are you who are and who were Oh Holy one

Because you judged these things for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets and you have given them blood to drink

They deserve it and I heard the altar saying yes Oh Lord God the Almighty true and righteous are your judgments now what

I want to point out is that there is a consistent theme in the third bowl and that is judgment

Judgment on the part of God so at the beginning of verse 5

Righteous Dikaios are you he is described as righteous and then the end of verse 5

Because you have Ekranos you have judged these things So God is being described.

The one upon the throne is being described as a righteous judge The judgment that he judges with is righteous and why?

because verse 6 they poured out the blood of the Saints and the prophets and You have given them blood to drink they deserve it

Worthy are they of this and I heard the altar saying and we really

I think learned something about how far we can Push literalism in the book of Revelation at that point.

I heard the altar saying yes. Oh Lord God the Almighty true and righteous are your judgment, so there's really a a summary statement of the emphasis of this particular

Bowl judgment and that is that the Almighty God is

True and righteous when he acts as judge there is no capriciousness

There is consistency in that judgment, so there is the context and so we go back to where the variant is and It is found in the phrase ha own

Kai ha ain ha Hacias who was The one being and who was the

Holy One One now when we look over at the Nestle all in 28th edition apparatus

Which is on the the screen and I realize that probably is not visible to the dividing line folks

But I'll describe it for you here You will notice as we have mentioned in this class already

The textual history of the book of Revelation is incredibly complex

Partly because of its history of transmission the issue of its canonization And partly because there are so few manuscripts of the book of Revelation that they tend to be much later manuscripts

We have very few early manuscripts of the book of Revelation, but you will notice that there is a variant and You you first have has ain

Then p47 and 2329 add Kai And then you have Hacias Now, please note right here

P47 having the word and that's gonna come up in one of the tweets. So I want you to see that before The person that was dialoguing with brings up that issue.

There is the word and in p47 and 2329 But you have

Hacias and then notice something we haven't seen before yesterday we were talking about the majority text and You have a

K next to the majority text here and down here you have majority text with a the majority text is split in the book of Revelation and so There the splits are fairly easy to recognize

There's lots of theories as to why this is but the majority text is split There is no one

Byzantine text or one majority text in the book of Revelation But here's the point

If we look at all of them, we have has ain Hacias. We have ha ain Kai ha

Hacias We have ha ain Hacias What do all of them have in common the word

Hacias and Hacias means holy the holy one Now if Hacias has the article then that's going to be more

Easily translate as the holy one or something along line those lines

So there there could be some minor translational differences but the point is all the manuscripts that are cited by the

Nessie Olin text say Hacias holy one the problem is and I'll go ahead and close the

Nessie Olin here and what I will do is I will add a parallel column and we'll go over here and we will grab the

Greek New Testament Where to go textus receptus right there and I will not leave the print so small that not even

I can read it So, what do we have we won't make it bigger than the others though, what do we have in Revelation 16 5 in the textus receptus

And I heard the angel of the waters saying Dikaios kuri and So there is the use of the term kurios there, which was not noted as a as a variant

I haon kai ha ain kai ha esamonos Hati tauta ekranos because you've judged these things

Righteous are you O Lord? And we're not even looking at that variant

The one is who is and who was and who will be a samanos is the future participial form of I mean

Because you have judged these things so the variant that we are discussing is

The fact that the textus receptus uses ha esamonos rather than ha

Hacios at Revelation 16 5 now Again the

Nessie Island text is Going to give you more variants, but less information

Because the UBS text is designed for translators So they give you primarily the variants that are going to impact translation over time and give you more information on it

But the Nessie Island does not even list Esamonos as one of the variants let alone kuri either

So, where did this come from? Well, it comes from Theodore Beza Theodore Beza in his 1598 edition reads esamonos

Now if you go back to the earlier printed manuscripts, I'm sorry printed editions

Erasmus has Hacios Stephanos Hacios The first one to have this in a printed edition is

Beza. Well, did Beza find new Greek manuscripts? What was where does this come from?

Beza's argumentation is that what you have in the phrase ha on kai ha ain is

What's called a nomina sacra It's a it's a phrase the one who who is and who was and it is to come

This is this has to be all one phrase. It's it's used back in Revelation chapter 1 it didn't use esamonos it used their commonos there, but The idea of God as eternal and that that that language is who is and who was and who is to come

Beza's like well, that's what fits here Hacios doesn't fit here

To which I would say wait a minute two objections all the

Greek manuscripts read the same way and Secondly, who are you to say that just because there are full names of God Like who is and who was and who is to come and that is used in Revelation That in this place because of what?

Because of the emphasis upon what judgment and the righteousness of that judgment that the angel says

Holy One ha Hacios Now right now you start seeing where interpretation can enter into the issue of textual criticism and that's a dangerous area why well

Because If you say well, I want my theology to be accurate in Whatever Greek New Testament I have.

Well, where do you get your theology from? Will you get it from the text? so if you use your theology to determine the text you're now stuck in a super tight circle

And we've already and this is one of the problems I think I've seen far too many people

Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses Baha 'i groups like this who gets stuck in this interpretational circle and they can't see what the

Word of God is saying because they have an external authority that they have identified as the Word of God that Now becomes a tradition that gets involved in this in this mix and they they just can't see

What the word is really saying? Because they're allowing their theology to determine what the text actually is supposed to say

This is on the most basic level what it's supposed to say as in the very words of it Something to always keep in mind but What you have here is a reading that Anywhere else in any

Greek New Testament including the Textus Receptus Would be more than sufficiently warranted because it's all the

Greek manuscripts Every majority text says what? Hacios So the

Robinson Pierpont Byzantine textual platform the majority text Hodges Farstad.

What does it say? Hacios because that's what the Greek text says and So what you've got is

Beza going. Yeah, but that doesn't really fit Well, I'm sorry, you don't get to determine that now if you had a bunch of manuscripts that said something else then fine

Then you could make your argument, but you don't This is now you're gonna see that there's gonna be an argument

But I call this a conjectural inundation because you don't have evidence of this. Well, actually, you know, there's there's a

Ethiopic text someplace that has a future in it So that means it's not an inundation when you have nothing in the original language.

You have nothing from the fathers He's gonna try to argue it. There are but we're gonna we're gonna demonstrate there isn't

That's conjectural inundation and that's what's in the Textus Receptus So what do we have here?

What are we gonna see in in in all of this? We're gonna see you have the text You have the reading we know how it arose historically, but doesn't matter

This is our standard now and we will now use whatever standards of argumentation.

We need to defend this reading even though Those are not the standards you used to derive 99 .99999999

% of the rest of the words in this book That's how you determine when someone is stuck in a tradition and that tradition is something that must be rejected so let's

Escape out of the large screen there. Here is the first of the

Statements I posted on Twitter a list a link To the videos and you'll notice

I'm wearing a Coogee sweater in the picture there as well. So I am consistent This weekend seminar on the

New Testament King James only ism and Textus Receptus Respond to that by saying it seems the

Revelation 16 5 argument has not been advanced in iota since James since white got it from Nestle that would be

Nestle Olin, which is not where I got it, by the way I guess with James refusing to even read the evidence.

He asked for proving that every Manuscript in the world reads like Beza and the

KJV would stifle that train of logic every Manuscript.

Wow. Well, what what is that supposed to mean every single? Manuscript reads the same as Beza and the

KJV. Hmm. Well, let's look at the next one I had said and By the way, whether Nestle had an argument

Revelation 16 5 I do not know. I didn't get it from anyone. The evidence is right in front of one's eyes when reading the text

And he said the holy Is clearly nomena sacra art and Waston shall be is the expansion of the

I am and of hova in Jehovah now

As soon as someone uses the term nomena sacra to me in a textual critical context

I'm assuming they're talking about well the nomena sacra That is the abbreviations of divine names that are used in the papyri.

That's not what he's referring to What he's arguing is That the phrase who is and who was and who is to come is a nomena sacra

It is a sacred name as a phrase But how the holy

Becomes a nomena sacra at this point that should be replaced with shall be

I don't know I don't know and I'm not going to be able to figure out from what comes after this to be perfectly honest with you

But I'm showing it to you as it as it came along He responded and said, okay.

Well Nestle mentions it in his introduction of the 1904 edition mistakenly not reading Bayes's notes

According to Revelation 1 4 Revelation 1 4 is where this phrase appears but It's not identical.

It's not what we have in the the the TR of the somnolence It's their common us.

It's a different term, but he'll say well, they're all related. So it doesn't really matter Pointing to holy being nomena sacra.

It is in the Vulgate Ethiopic and several commentaries and that sounds really great. Oh It's in the

Vulgate. It's in the Ethiopic version, which I would assume means going all the way back to the earliest

Ethiopic Manuscripts and things like that. That's not what is the case either and Several commentaries now just stop for a second.

How many different readings? That are differ from the TR. Could we find in?

commentaries Not just modern commentaries, but commentaries that existed say in 1611 tens of thousands

This person would never agree to amending a single word of this based upon Commentaries or something from the

Ethiopic But this is the one place where those things are relevant

You see the inconsistency see the double standard. This is the exact Example of not only not how to do textual criticism, but how to detect traditionalism in the doing of textual criticism

And by the way, the Vulgate does not read Shall be there may be some manuscripts of a dude, but the vast bulk do not read them

In all Greek text it is in the Nomina Sacra form, which is a nice way of saying somehow that Hosea's is a

Nomina Sacra that should be changed at The end of the 16th century to a different word.

I don't get it. I don't understand it It doesn't make any sense. We'll we'll see if it ends up making more sense as we get a little bit farther along here

He says I I had said Oh pray tell I have never seen even the semi rational argument for the

TR reading of a somnolence Versus the entire body of Greek text Byzantine and all others Hosea's Hopefully you won't do the there was a

Latin commentary somewhere that might have well, he already did but that's the problem with Twitter conversations

They go all over the place And even trying to find them and put them in a logical order is frequently next impossible to do

He says I found it in an early Latin Bible and in the ready for this 1549

Ethiopic 1549

Ethiopic I Expanded the triadic declaration Who is and who was and shall be

By looking at the I am as you may know and the expanded name of Jehovah Hova meaning to be that is

Not even close to Yahweh and and Yahweh who? It's way off Erasmus has air common

OS in all five annotations now think think about that for a second Erasmus has air common

OS Which is not a somnolence It's a different word, but as their common

OS in all five annotations Well, what's what's the relevance of that? He may be discussing what the triadic formula would normally be but what is the textual reading of his text?

Hosea's Not air common OS. So in a note, he discusses it and somehow that becomes evidence for changing

The actual reading of the text itself to something that no Christian reading

Revelation 16 5 had ever seen before 1598 That becomes your that becomes a part of the evidence.

You see once you enshrine this Everything that could in any way be supportive of this now becomes evidence

Even if in every other verse in this you would never use any of that as evidence to overthrow this

See the difference between having sets of principles taking your data Applying it and coming up with a text which you could then defend and then you can then

Take in new information as it's discovered. Like I said, we had a new discovery of papyri or something like that Bring it in apply the same standards.

Voila Can not do that here at all because you're using Bunches of different standards.

You've got one stared over here Revelation 16 5. You got another standard over at the first John 5 7 and What you're willing to accept as evidence changes all dependent upon your ultimate authority

That's not textual criticism. That's a defense of a tradition That's a defense of a tradition

So, oops Next now check this out

He mentions the one of the Erasmus's annotations, which has ha own ha a higher common offs, but he doesn't say that's

Erasmus was saying That's what it should read here. It's just that Erasmus made reference to the triadic formula

So what same thing here Gregory of Nyssa? Referred to Christ as ha is ominous.

Ah, Christ. I saw own Kai pro own Kai is ominous Blessed now and forever.

Amen. Amen. Amen. So I just I just stopped and I go Okay, so Gregory of Nyssa Referred to Christ as ha is ominous.

Did Gregory of Nyssa do that? It's Revelation 16 5 No, but somewhere in Gregory's writings he referred to Christ as the one being and Pro own isn't even used in in in Revelation 16 5 and then he uses a son of us

Blessed now and forever Amen, so he used it in a blessing of Christ.

So since he used to summon us Somehow that means something this is desperation

This is pure desperation. Well, it's ominous was to use someplace Think with me for just a moment because there's more how much time

Has this poor fellow invested in digging through original language text of The early church fathers probably used the

TLG CD -ROM Well, actually, it's TLG website now, but way back in the 90s when

I was working on my first first doctorate I used the TLG CD -ROM Which was basically all the

Greek literature in Greek On one CD so you could do searches for words. So he probably did a search for a

Samanos and Pulled up Gregory of Nyssa here and Oh good.

Someone used that term Okay, not in Revelation 16 5 not in the same way, but hey, he used the term

Think I mean the amount of time that that would have taken and yet from a textual critical perspective

Is it even slightly relevant? It's not. It's not slightly relevant because if you were consistent, well

Gregory of Nyssa actually used a Samanos Well, he also used Eulogatos and so maybe we could insert that in places in the

Texas Receptus too because Gregory of Nyssa used it of Jesus and so that must be a good thing and therefore we should insert it in the

TR, right? Of course not. Of course not. Not gonna make that argument. Two different standards

Different standards. It is really amazing to see this. You'll see

I'm only I'm all not even halfway down here Well, that's number eight, okay

Number nine Concerning the Tetragrammaton, Clement third century and Clement at some point in his voluminous writings had ha -on kai -ha a

Samanos and Beza had kai -ha a Samanos therefore we should change the reading of the text even though Clement is not quoting

Revelation 16 5 But he's simply saying the one being and the one who shall be so, okay people describe

God as being eternal in the early church writings So therefore we should change what's found in every single

Greek manuscript in Revelation 16 5 on that basis, right? No, of course not has nothing to do with it

Has nothing to do with at all, but I found somebody else using a Samanos and look I can put it in parallel Okay, and who was isn't there but it's still in parallel.

Doesn't that look really? cool, I Sort of feel sorry for someone who has spent this amount of time on there's just so many more important things to be pursuing in life

Art and was and shall be Would be the purest form of the expansion of the

I am and also hova Again, I'm just sorry

Jehovah is a mispronunciation It's a it's a Germanic mispronunciation.

It's got too many syllables to it. Hey, yeah. Hey. Hey There is lots of discussion about what the

Hebrew means and Then the Greek translation Ego, I me ha own in Exodus chapter 3 all that's wonderful and great

But it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you have every single

Greek manuscript Reading the same way at Revelation 16 5 and when you start dragging that stuff in this is a huge flag

That's you that's being waved back and forth in front of you. This is somebody who is trying to justify a traditional issue under the guise of textual criticism

Then when the word LORD and notice he puts it all caps Appears in Revelation by a heavenly being the triad always appears with it

Shall be more accurately expands the most holy name as is to come is less specific

Now the reality is that when kurios appears now Kurios actually doesn't appear in Revelation 16 5 that again is another issue we could look at in the

TR but I Can show you other places where kurios appears in in Revelation where it's not followed by the triadic formula so,

I don't know what he has in mind here, but there is the Assertion that is being being made.

It sounds good if you want to believe it Being the purest form the triad and the expansion of the most holy names of God I am and Jehovah With its own

Strong's number number 3801 This noun phrase is the most significant name of God in the

New Testament Okay, I don't think anything can compare except perhaps a staurogram or a

Christogram, okay So because it's really important to me that's the way it needs to read it

Revelation 16 5 Or that's that at least explains why I'm I'm digging through everything on the planet to find some way of substantiating this

Vala Erasmus and others pointed out that the Vulgate had been corrupted That is a true statement that we've already made earlier today, right?

Remember Lorenzo Vala How did he know the Vulgate had been corrupted? He went to Jerome Jerome's commentaries.

This is why two two Latin commentaries have shall be

But in the main text it has Sanctus Sanctus being the Latin for what the Holy One So in the commentary someone makes a reference to shall be but in the text itself it says

Sanctus this was the main reason for a clarified edition by Erasmus which raises the question

Did Erasmus? Make the change that is being suggested here

I don't know what Erasmus is reading is it in his Latin, but I know what it is in the Greek And it's

Hacias so Here you you say something that's true the

Latin Vulgate has corruptions in it and Therefore we should corrupt the

Greek New Testament based upon our reconstruction of what we think might be a corruption of the Latin look

That's not how you do it, but that's how it's being done P47 remember

I told you remember this P47 has the and That Beza pointed to which was going which was going on to fulfill the triad

Now, you know remember we was talking about here, let me pop it up again real quick Um Let's take the

That out so P47 had right here And I'll blow it back up again

Right there. Chi is done in p47 and 2329 who was and and so he's saying see the the writer p47 was gonna say the the whole triad who was and shall be

Ha as ominous, but he what? Put Chi and then went.

Oh, it says something else and just wrote something else and didn't erase Chi is Do you see what's being done here what's being done is well

I'm going to speculate That the reason Chi is there in p47 is that all the way back in that early period

This was the original reading But somehow everybody always ended up putting

Hacias Instead and all the manuscripts that survived But I'm going to assume that described p47 was was going to fulfill the triadic formula.

Well, maybe he was Because that is the natural that is the natural if you were writing who is and who was what's the next thing?

I mean even our hymns We have it, right? I mean, holy. Holy. Holy who is and was and is to come

I mean And if you are copying by phrases

Hacias and asaminos do look a little bit alike. They both end with an OS So it would be natural for a scribe

To go that direction so Maybe there is but but you see that would be an error on the scribes pocket

That would be the natural scribal error to be made not something you want to point to and say

Oh that substantiates my changing that 1 ,600 years down the road. Well 1 ,500 years down Because that would be the more natural way of doing when we look at John 118 again

Well, we looked at John 118, but when we analyze it That's that's likewise part of the argument when you write ha monogamous the unique what's the normal term that comes after monogamous a child either a

Huyas or a Pideos Child son something like that.

That's the normal term that comes after monogamous So that would be much easier to explain a scribe doing that because it's natural than to put for us

Which would never come after monogamous That has to be done purposefully That's part of the process of a textual criticism is considering those particular things

Just a few more here Okay, I Said nothing you gave me even begins to approach a serious attempt to give a defensible basis of adopting the

TR reading against the entire Greek manuscript tradition. It is backwards start with a conclusion use anything to support it period

He said Theodore Beza explained in his 1582 footnote that the triadic declaration appears when

Jehovah Greek Kurios appears in Revelation The KJV translators did not slavishly follow

Beza but chose to adopt shalt be knowing that Beza was correct now again only a very small proportion of the

King James translators worked on the book of Revelation so to try to Grab the entire authority of all those august men is a little bit unfair probably a very small number of men were involved in the translation of Revelation and Probably not the leading men were involved in the translation of the book of Revelation But we know that Theodore Beza argued for this amendation.

We know that he did But we've already shown that there is contextual reason not to do it.

And the most important thing is Let's put this way. What do we know that Theodore Beza didn't know?

Theodore Beza had access to let's be kind and say well remember

Erasmus did not have a manuscript of the book of Revelation. I forgot to mention this earlier

But this it's important here Erasmus gets to Revelation. He assumed he could find one in the library

He asked his friends I I need

I need a Greek manuscript of Revelation it's last book I got to work on and I'm and the printer is a mean nasty dude and and Nobody had anything what he eventually borrowed was a commentary on Revelation and What he had to do

He had to extract The Greek text from a Latin commentary on the book of Revelation that took a little while and then he gets to the end of the book and the last pages have fallen off and That's where the story of his back translating from Latin into the

Greek comes from the last six verses the book of Revelation which have all these readings that are not found in Greek manuscripts anywhere

He did a pretty good job. I mean most of us couldn't do what he did But the fact is he had almost nothing and Beza had almost nothing as well

We have literally hundreds of times the manuscript evidence revelation today than they had at that time and When I say manuscript evidence,

I mean from the original language not from secondary languages

Such as Latin which was still given I would say more weight in that day because everyone spoke

Latin Then it should be given Given the history of the New Testament text itself

So we have so much more to say Okay Beza argued for this but Beza did not would

Beza have argued for it today Against a hundred times more Greek evidence than he had ever seen

We don't know I doubt it I Doubt it

But this is one of those issues where you got to be very very careful with someone said well You know Theodore Bayes II Calvin successor

Geneva and is a brilliant scholar and he's wonderful and double blah blah That's fine. But he still didn't have what we have today.

It's like it's like when people point you to Dean Bergan Who Opposed Westcott and Hort and defended the traditional texts and stuff like that.

People loved Dean Berg a brilliant scholar Yeah, but he lived before the papyri were discovered How do you know what position he would have in light of the data we possess today?

How do you know he would accept the same presuppositions of textual study that he used then? in light of having papyri that go back to the second century, you don't know that and so Citing him and bringing him in as as as evidence or Bayes a here in the modern context means red flag traditions once again and Believe me if we can recognize that Bart Ehrman's disciples can too and that's why this is stuff is simply indefensible in that context

Check this out Hutter in his 1599 the deca glut

That's a lot of translations Has shall be in his Hebrew version

Wow Okay, that's nice. This is supposed to tell us something about the original readings of the book of Revelation from the first century a 1599

Hebrew version Beatus of Liebana has shall be in his text and his commentary both of them

I mo halber stotensis Has shall be in his commentary exactly how

Jerome has it and the Ethiopic Bible of 1549 has shall be none of which none of which is actual evidence because he would never accept any of those things as Having the slightest bit of relevance to ever changing a word of what's in here.

Never never do it double standards all the way

Along that's what we're seeing only a few more I had pointed out that in chapter 1 hot air commonos is used

However, the TR reads a Salman off for my me not our common offs from Eric am I different terms? So I make reference to this he says the phrase ending in our common offs a

Salman offs are linked Even strong in his Greek dictionary definitions gives the entire triadic declaration its own

Strong's number Spiro Sodiati's has two and a half pages on this one Strong's number

Well, I'm sorry, but hopefully everybody in this room realizes if someone's primarily dependent upon Strong's numbers

They're probably actually not able to use the original language And the reality is once again that I me

Is not Eric am I and these are two different terms that are used? They're both used in the book of Revelation, but I mean our common offs is but they are two different terms

Beza said the usual publication is Kai ha ha see us which shows a division

Contrary to the whole phrase, which is foolish Distorting what is put forth in Scripture the

Vulgate? However, whether it is articularly correct or not is not proper in making the change to ha see us

So all he's doing here is quoting what Beza's argumentation was. I'm sorry that's not overly good argumentation at all and again fairly irrelevant in the modern context in light of the massive multiplication of a

Greek manuscript evidence for the book of Revelation that would exist today in comparison to what existed at that particular point in time

Yeah listen to this I Said so you include all readings found in all

Latin Bibles back translated into Greek in your edition of the Greek New Testament So what I'm saying is are you being consistent in applying the same standards to the

TR or just this one verse? This is the central error of TR only ism

You start with your conclusion then use whatever method is needed to arrive at the conclusion That's what

I've been saying a number of times this morning His response was Erasmus Beza Stephanos used

Latin and other language version evidence early church writings and internal consistency to acquire genuine readings the

TR used all available evidence stop and What was Erasmus's conclusion? It wasn't what you have in the

TR Beza changed Erasmus's reading But let's let's let's say let's let's say they all had it

They use Latin and other language version evidence early church writings and internal consistency to acquire genuine readings so what you're saying is even when every single

Greek manuscript says the exact same thing you can overthrow that based upon the Latin and the early church fathers and That you did this consistently in the

TR you didn't You did it here But you didn't do it in 99 % of the rest of the

TR. Where is the consistency? You can talk about internal consistency, but there is no internal consistency from what we looked at a revelation 16 in any way shape or form

The TR used all available evidence. That's not true First of all, there wasn't any one

TR Erasmus knew about Codex Vaticanus Even asked his friend

Bombasius to look at Codex Vaticanus about first John 5 7 When the controversy first erupted you'd have loved to have used

Vaticanus if you could have gotten hold of it But when you talk about available evidence, okay, let's say that they used all available evidence.

That's not true. But let's say they did in Comparison to what is available today

How much evidence was that in comparison to having? the papyri today

Having p72 p75 p66 p45 In comparison to having all that we have so much more today

Wouldn't they have used that information and it would have resulted in something different than the TR Then why shouldn't we use that today because they would have are you not turning them into icons and their work into some type of of Monument that you're defending at all costs.

Yeah, you are defending it at absolutely all costs and the cost is your consistency and Then we have the

Arabic Bible in the London polyglot of Walton at Revelation 16 5 has an accompanying

Latin Translation which says eternity Wow. Oh now we're now we're now we're a millennium and a half removed

Going from Arabic into Latin and trying to make a connection with that.

That is the definition of Desperation that is the definition of desperation.

I remember doing a debate at Boston College years ago guy named Scott some

Janice and Scott Butler and One of the arguments that Scott Butler liked to used was that at the

Council of Nicaea See the Council of Nicaea is a problem for advocates of papal primacy because the canons

They passed limited the power of the Bishop of Rome but hundreds of years later there was a translation of the canons which were written in Greek Into Arabic that didn't limit the power of the

Bishop of Rome. So, you know what he does He defaults the citation of the Arabic version of the canons of the

Council of Nicaea As soon as you find somebody pulling that that type of stunt, you know, you've got somebody who's got a tradition

They're trying to defend and they don't have much to do the defense with and so we're gonna throw everything

But the kitchen sink out there and we'll throw the kitchen sink in along with it to try to defend

The position that we are that we are holding to I haven't gotten any texts from rich saying we're having any problems

Everything working pretty good back there so far. Excellent. Good I had said p47 does have

Chi, but what does it then read at the key term? P47 says Hacias How can you cite the manuscript but not see that you are turning it on its head?

All in a desperate attempt to substantiate a reading outside the Greek manuscript tradition He says well many critical text advocates believe in a

Lucianic recension in which almost all traces of a manuscript family can disappear So why is it hard for them to concede that one word which most certainly preserved as a rare nomena sacra became misunderstood and corrupted?

well Do you I hope you can see the error of that kind of argumentation?

It's a it's the tukokwe Fallacy. Well you too. It doesn't actually

Defend the error that you're making even if what was said was true and notice This is many critical text advocates believe in a

Lucianic recension in which almost all traces of manuscript family can disappear that's not an accurate description of Even the people who and this is this is old stuff that that goes way back that isn't overly relevant to us today

But it's it's a standard error of saying well you do the same thing

That doesn't change the fact that you've engaged in a logical fallacy even if you're right and I engage in a logical fallacy over here all that means is we've both engaged in logical fallacies and we both need to change our perspective and that would mean he'd need to change his perspective at this particular point in defending this and there's only two more and The time is just about right

Metzger and Ehrman differ with you on the definition of a conjecture Which does not apply when a version or a quote from the father is found now

That would be true Except that this version you have is from is an

Ethiopian from 1549. That does not count. I'm sorry Something that comes along a millennium and a half later is not going to be considered relevant textual information

Or a quote from a father again. I kept challenging him on this Just because you can find an early father using a

Saman us does not mean they're quoting Revelation 16 5 So no, this is a conjectural amendation

Ethiopic version futurist of Beatus is manuscript support within the closed class of Greek and Latin sources used for the

TR Ethiopic you're really going to go with the Ethiopic Are you going to make the other changes that the

Ethiopic tradition would require in the TR? Of course not Of course not

Total inconsistency last one. This is also about conjectural amendations

And two in the Nestle Allen 28th, which I reject I Reject all conjectural amendation.

I do not believe there is any need for conjectural amendation whatsoever and tomorrow We'll talk about CBGM. CBGM has introduced a conjectural amendation.

I reject it and I'll tell you why So he asked why a double standard there isn't a double standard

All of this again to Kokwe Fallah say You do it. Therefore I can do it

No, what we've just seen is someone who has spent an incredible month.

Give the guy credit whoever he is an incredible amount of effort to defend a tradition

Most of us would not spend that kind of time would be no way most of us don't have that kind of time But what's he doing?

That's my standard and Since this is how God speaks to me. I'm gonna defend it to the nth degree and If and the mindset is if there's anything wrong in here, then

God hasn't spoken. That's where the problem is Because you're making your understanding of the current state of the text and what this

Represented as the current state of the text at that particular time in history These standard is whether God has spoken or not or whether he's spoken consistently

That's a problem. That's a serious problem. So there you have I think a a glowing example of this kind of reasoning

And how far people will go I know one guy Interestingly enough.

He worked as a professional librarian Librarians are scary people You know

When you spend your entire life in a library, then you can get into a lot of trouble Especially when you become disconnected from the world around you

But I remember a guy back in the 90s wrote an entire book on nothing

But the Latin version of evidence for the coming of honey first on 5 -7 and Again if that's the original if if it was originally a

Samanas Revelation 16 5 we have no reason to believe that we continue to possess the original readings of the

New Testament and any other place of textual variation The Greek manuscript tradition is hopelessly corrupted.

That's what they're saying. They don't want to say that But by taking this and reasoning backwards

That's what they end up with that's they end up with that's a high cost to pay and Unfortunately in my experience these folks do not

Go out and take on the Bart Ehrman's of the world They do not go out and take on The Muslims of the world that have read

Bart Ehrman and are doing research and textual critical issues themselves Because they have no way to do it because unless you believe you accept their presupposition

And that is we're gonna start with this and don't ask me why? Because I'm not gonna

I can't explain it to you We just start here and I'm gonna demand that you accept this as the final authority

Well, they're not gonna be able to do that And you might say well, isn't that the same what we're doing? We talk about the

Bible as a whole and this is where I think we need to make a category distinction The Bible as a whole as a revelation and hence as an epistemological foundation for understanding the world and everything else around us is

One proper category that even Jesus himself uses the scriptures cannot be broken For example, it doesn't bother to say this one particular verse

But the scriptures cannot be broken as something that Jesus says in John chapter 10 That is an understandable category but when you take this and you identify this as the

Word of God To the exclusion of anything else that's where you walked over the line

Because you see this didn't exist At the Council of Nicaea this didn't exist in the 5th century this didn't exist in the 10th century in this particular form and When you then ask the question, well, what about what would the

Apostles have thought? Well, then we come back to that question

Why did the writer to the Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 8 quote from the

Greek Septuagint in talking about the New Covenant and Whereas Jeremiah 31 in the

Hebrew text says I was a husband to them in the Greek Septuagint says

I did not care for them and He quotes the Septuagint against the

Hebrew text. Now. There's only one letter difference between two but all in all We can get into it later on but the point is

Once you do this establishment of a traditional form of the text you're now you're running up against Apostolic usage of the

Septuagint and the Masoretic text itself in the New Testament and you can't explain it You can't explain it

So Down through the years my emphasis in doing apologetics has always been

Consistency you can't define the word truth without using the word consistency and so There's a lot of argumentation that other people use in Islam Roman Catholicism Mormonism.

I can't use because I don't find it to be consistent with how I defend my own faith consistent with meaningful

Interpretation of their own sources that kind of stuff But it's vitally important and it's vitally important in this area as well

And I am concerned that amongst reformed men today there is this movement to go back to a text

My position is God has given us tremendous gifts in the papyri the great unseals

That we needed at the very time we needed them in This day when the attacks upon the

New Testament are so vociferous and so many He has given us so much to close our eyes to that and turn our backs upon that Even if you do it in the name of the great reformers, which they would not have done

Calvin corrected the TR at places. He engaged in textual criticism. He didn't just Said make it sacrosanct and we can never be touched

But you can use their names all you want. They did not live in our day. They did not have the information we have

Don't bring their name in and claim that they're on your side That is inappropriate and I really believe that fundamentally it will result in The devastation of our ability to give a meaningful defense for our faith.

We don't need that. It's a distraction Let's not go there. Let's keep an eye out for it when it comes be gracious to those who present that perspective

But you run into someone who will go this far You've got someone who's gonna be so zealous they're probably not gonna accept your pastoral authority either

They're gonna keep spreading this stuff amongst your people. I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen more than once Be careful be aware of it.

So those of you in the dividing line audience. Thank you very much for joining in the class today Normally, we would have had ten minutes

Of or at least five minutes of question and answer there toward the end But since you all were with us, we weren't able to do that We'll catch up with that at another point very much appreciate

Both the staff here as well as rich back home making this a possibility. Hope it was useful to you

Lord willing We'll see on the dividing line next week Once I get back sounds like I'll be bringing something with me all the cold, but we'll still try to make it