Textus Receptus questions answered

[bibleprotector]

James White (at his blog) asks concerning the TR:

1) When did "the church" "received" this text?

Answer: First of all, it is evident that there is always a general reception of truth, and general retention of truth by the true people of God.

The various traditions of the Church before the Reformation, particularly the Eastern Orthodox, tend to exhibit a manuscript tradition which overall exhibits a general agreement. However, the immergence of the Reformation allowed for taking the widest view of Scripture evidence and attempted to settle it. This process of the printed editions of the Reformation ensured that in time a finality and a fixity would be reached.

2) What council engaged in a study of the respective texts and determined that this is the "one" text that most closely represents the original?

Answer: The translators of the King James Bible viewed the corpus of evidence, and then produced an independent variety of the Received Text. However their conclusion or judgment was not displayed in the original languages, but in an English translation. This would not only represent the actual text of the originals, but present it perfectly in the English language. Therefore, unlike any other Bible, the King James Bible is perfectly the entire Scripture that was originally inspired as given in the world’s favourite language: English. Nothing about this is coincidence.

3) Which text IS the "TR"? Can you identify a single text as THE TR? If not, why not?

Answer: The King James Bible then is the traditional received text of the Scripture, and is superior to any particular form of it, whether an edition by Erasmus, or an edition printed by the Trinitarian Bible Society. The King James Bible must therefore be the definitive representation of all the varying TR editions, and be superior to any particular one.

4) Please explain why I should use the TR's readings of Luke 2:22, Revelation 16:5, and the final six verses of Revelation.

Answer: Why should we follow the King James Bible in the above examples? There are several reasons. First is that if we see that the King James Bible is correct, every part of it should be seen to be correct on examination. Likewise, if it is right in every other particular, then it must be right in the particulars addressed above.

There is doubtless a great amount of information vindicating the historical, traditional and critical usage of the above verses, which may be understood and taken from various writers and sources from the Reformation to authors like Edward Hills, Thomas Holland, etc.

Remembering that the KJB is a definitive representation of the TR editions (which themselves consider the Latin witness when judging the Greek), and that Protestant Versions also are counted as TR editions.

Luke 2:22 — Geneva, Bishops, Beza 1589, Beza 1598 and Complutensian.

Revelation 16:5 — from Beza’s last three editions (also Elzevir 1633).

Revelation last 6 verses — Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, and Ethiopic, some later Greek manuscripts, the Vulgate (Erasmus’ Greek translation of the Vulgate and MS 141), the Complutensian, and Reformation English Versions.

References: Scrivener, Hills, Holland, Kinney.

“The Book of Revelation has more textual variants than any other New Testament book. The reading found in the King James Bible in Revelation 16:5 represents one of the hundreds of such textual variants. It is admittedly a minority reading, but it should be noted that for every One minority reading found in the KJB, there are at least 20 such minority readings found in the modern versions like the NASB, NIV, ESV. These modern versions often do not even agree with each other. One will follow a particular minority reading while the other will disagree and follow another.” (Will Kinney).

The reason why the King James Bible should be used is because it represents the definitive and final form of the Received Text. Clearly, the correct readings are not always going to be the ones found in numerical majority, but they will have all kinds of signs showing why they are correct.

P.S. This logic of faith may also be utilised to explain the correctness of the rendering “Geba” in Ezra 2:26 in the King James Bible.