Why the King James Bible?

[placebofactor]

The following is not my opinion, but historical facts.
There are over 5,800 known Greek New Testament manuscripts, and thousands more in Latin, Syriac, and other languages. Roughly 97% of these Greek manuscripts follow the Byzantine tradition, which is the textual basis for the Textus Receptus and, by extension, the King James Bible. So, the Textus Receptus reflects the broader Byzantine tradition.

The A., Codex Alexandrian text-type is used in almost every modern Bible translation. These are based on a much smaller number, 3% of all known manuscripts, manuscripts like the B. the Codex Vaticanus. This 3% differs from the Byzantine tradition in thousands of places.

Why do they differ? Because when found, over 10,000 changes, additions, erasures, etc. had been made by unknown hands. Westcott and Hort made some 5000 more changes.

Now, the "Majority Text" is arrived at by comparing all known manuscripts with one another and deriving from them the readings that are more numerous than any others.

The "Received Text" is not a single text. It is a tradition of printed texts published during the time of the Protestant Reformation, between the 1500s and early 1600s. It includes the editions of Erasmus, Estienne (Stephens), Beza, and Elzevir. These texts are closely allied and are mostly derived from Erasmus, 1516 A.D.

The Textus Receptus has been shaped by a long line of scholars, editors, and translators since its first publication in 1516. While there’s no precise headcount, we can sketch a rough picture of its scholarly legacy:
Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536): The Dutch scholar who compiled the first printed Greek New Testament, using about 8 Greek manuscripts available in Basel.

Robert Stephanus (1503–1559): A French printer who produced several influential editions, including the first to include verse numbers.

Theodore Beza (1519–1605): Successor to Calvin in Geneva, he published multiple editions and influenced the King James Version.

The Elzevir Brothers (17th century): Their 1633 edition coined the term Textus Receptus— “the text now received by all.”

William Tyndale, Martin Luther, and translators of the King James Version used the Textus Receptus as the basis for their vernacular translations. How Many in Total? The exact number cannot be pinned down, but, hundreds of scholars, plus editors, translators, and commentators, have worked with or built upon the Textus Receptus over the past 500 years. This includes:
1. Renaissance humanists and Reformation-era theologians.
2. 17th-century translators across Europe.
3. 19th- and 20th-century defenders and revisers of the text;
4. Modern editors of translations like the New King James Version and Modern English Version, which still draw from the Textus Receptus.
So, the scholarly footprint is vast, spanning centuries, continents, and theological traditions


In the Pentateuch of the A. text, entire sentences were erased and rewritten. Also in the A. Codex Alexandrinus, Revelation 1:1 is preserved in ancient Greek and reads quite similarly to other early manuscripts, though with some minor textual variations. So, by the time it reached England in 1627, the Codex Alexandrinus was already a heavily worked-over document, reflecting centuries of scribal attention and evolving textual traditions

Here's a reconstruction of Revelation 1:1 as it appears in A. Codex Alexandrinus, with gaps filled in based on scholarly consensus:
Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἣν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ Θεός,
δεῖξαι τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει·
καὶ ἐσήμανεν ἀποστείλας διὰ τοῦ ἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ
τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ Ἰωάννῃ.

"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John." A far cry from the N.W.T. corrupt interpretation.

And so, I ask, why in the world would any serious Christian who is searching for the truth use a 3% interpretation of the scriptures versus 97%? And the 3%, for the most part, has had 1000s of changes made by unknown hands? If you are serious about the word of God, use a Bible that uses the majority of all known manuscripts, not the 3% that have had thousands of changes made to them over the past 200 years.

And why would anyone use one Bible, one in particular that disagrees with 99.999% of all Bibles? I am speaking of the New World Translation of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

[historia]

If you are having trouble reading, I'll bring my message down a few grades so you can understand.

These kind of comments make you look foolish, and are against the forum rules. For both reasons, I would advise you to refrain from making them.

Let's try this again:

The King James agrees with the 97% of the 5800 known manuscripts and modern-day Bibles use the 3%

It's silly to talk in these kind of simplistic terms.

The KJV often agrees with the majority of known NT manuscripts. But, as I said above, there are hundreds of verses in the KJV where it disagrees with the majority of NT manuscripts.

Modern-day Bibles often agree with the majority of known NT manuscripts, too. But, like the KJV, they also disagree with the majority of manuscripts in hundreds of verses. They just disagree with the majority of NT manuscripts in more verses than the KJV.

So, again, here's the pertinent question: Do you always agree with the KJV, even in the hundreds of verses where it disagrees with the majority of NT manuscripts? If the answer to that question is yes, then, clearly, what the majority of NT manuscripts say is not the determining factor in your analysis. Right?

[placebofactor]

If you are having trouble reading, I'll bring my message down a few grades so you can understand.

These kind of comments make you look foolish, and are against the forum rules. For both reasons, I would advise you to refrain from making them.

Let's try this again:

The King James agrees with the 97% of the 5800 known manuscripts and modern-day Bibles use the 3%

It's silly to talk in these kind of simplistic terms.

The KJV often agrees with the majority of known NT manuscripts. But, as I said above, there are hundreds of verses in the KJV where it disagrees with the majority of NT manuscripts.

Modern-day Bibles often agree with the majority of known NT manuscripts, too. But, like the KJV, they also disagree with the majority of manuscripts in hundreds of verses. They just disagree with the majority of NT manuscripts in more verses than the KJV.

So, again, here's the pertinent question: Do you always agree with the KJV, even in the hundreds of verses where it disagrees with the majority of NT manuscripts? If the answer to that question is yes, then, clearly, what the majority of NT manuscripts say is not the determining factor in your analysis. Right?

Your wrote, "These kind of comments make you look foolish, and are against the forum rules. For both reasons, I would advise you to refrain from making them."

I believe it would be against forum rules for you to take my posts and turn them inside out. You know what I wrote, and in your last two posts turned the numbers around. 97% agree with the King James, 3% agree with most modern-day Bibles. and less then 1% agree with the N.W.T. in verses like Colossians 1:16, John 1:1, Revelation 1:1, Hebrews 1:8-10 etc. You may not have done that intentionally, but the way you posted your comments, I believe you did, so I called you on it.

There are doctrinal verses that can cost a person their eternity, that is, if you believe a day of judgment is coming, and that judgment will send people to either heaven or hell. These 5800 manuscripts may disagree on words or phrases because of the variety of languages in which the manuscripts were written, and the many centuries the scribes copied them in. Languages change, as do the meanings of words over time. But as for major doctrines, is Jesus God, and is there a Holy Spirit, is there a heaven and hell, is God done with the Jews, they all agree, YES to all of them.

[historia]

I believe it would be against forum rules for you to take my posts and turn them inside out.

What I am doing is pointing out that there is some confusion and inconsistency in your argument. If that feels like your argument is being turned "inside out," that's because your argument was jumbled to begin with.

Needless to say, pointing this out is not against the forum rules.

These 5800 manuscripts may disagree on words or phrases because of the variety of languages in which the manuscripts were written, and the many centuries the scribes copied them in.

Your argument here is confused.

There are roughly 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts. They are all written in the same langauge, Greek.

97% agree with the King James, 3% agree with most modern-day Bibles. and less then 1% agree with the N.W.T. in verses like Colossians 1:16, John 1:1, Revelation 1:1, Hebrews 1:8-10 etc.

Your argument here is also confused.

Let's backup a second: As you noted, the New Testament of the King James Version is translated from the various printed editions of the Textus Receptus (TR). Modern Bibles are translated from various printed editions of the United Bible Societies/Nestle Aland (UBS/NA) text. The New World Translation, at least in its earlier editions, used the Wescott and Hort (WH) text.

When it comes to Colossians 1:16, John 1:1, Revelation 1:1, and Hebrews 1:8-10, there is no meaningful difference between the TR, UBS/NA, and WH . All three of these printed Greek texts are virtually identical here because there are no significant variations among the 5,800 Greek NT manuscripts when it comes to these particular verses.

To say, then, as you have been throughout this thread, that 97% of the manuscripts agree with the KJV, while 3% agree with modern-day Bibles, and 1% agree with the NWT, doesn't make any sense.

Now, there are some verses, including doctrinally significant ones, where the TR differs substantially from the UBS/NA and WH texts, such as 1 John 5:7-8. But here is where your argument becomes inconsistent. Because 99.99% of the 5,800 Greek NT manuscripts agree with the UBS/NA and WH texts when it comes to this verse. The TR (and thus the KJV following it) agrees with an extreme minority (literally just a couple of very late Medieval) Greek manuscripts on 1 John 5:7-8.

In other words, the argument you've been making thus far is a mess from start to finish, and likely obscuring whatever point you're trying to make. So what are you really trying to say here?