Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say...?"
In Part 1, I examined claims that modern Bibles are being changed to support a New World Order (NWO) agenda. I extracted the most compelling examples from a referenced documentary video and posted some of the changes I had verified. Then I analyzed what the worst case doctrinal impact might be for each change. I decided to go back to the King James Version (KJV) as a result.
In Part 2, I examine the alternative best case scenario giving those nefarious revisionists the benefit of the doubt. What exactly are the competing methodologies and documents used to get to today's leading Bible versions? Are they fair and reasonable? Do they really impact doctrine? To my surprise, the body of reconstructed Greek texts are all in solid agreement at the doctrinal level. But I'm still keeping my King James...
It is insanely great that those two very different methodologies converge
to exactly one mutually reinforcing pair of doctrinally compatible reference texts.
That is, you can switch between the two major schools of Greek Bible reconstruction (Alexandrian Critical Text vs. Byzantine Majority Text) without losing support for the key precepts of Biblical Christianity. That doesn't mean that the various sects of Christianity won't continue to disagree on what the Greek reference texts actually mean. It just suggests that we can reasonably continue our arguments in English using any of the currently most popular versions (KJV, NKJV, NIV, ESV or NLT) that have been derived from them. This agreement does not extend as much to the Latin Vulgate used by the Roman church, nor does it imply that we will agree on any extra-Biblical doctrines that have crept into the teachings of various denominations.
...But it is a convenient place to take a stand.
Brief overview of the leading original Greek reconstruction methodologies.
Without getting too technical, let me quickly summarize how the original Greek New Testament has been reconstructed according to the leading schools of thought.
Interest in Greek Bible texts surged in the 1500s when early Protestant reformers began to suspect that the Popes were "embellishing" what the Scriptures said for various reasons (mostly wealth and power) and keeping the Scriptures locked up in the dead language of Latin where nobody could check them on it. They sought out an independent verification by going back to the original Greek, preferably from sources outside the Vatican.
In 1516, a brilliant linguist named Arasmus collected all the Greek manuscripts he could find (about six) and used them to produce a composite reference text called the Textus Receptus (Received Text) which compared that composite Greek to the official Latin Vulgate text from the Roman Church. Martin Luther used this to produce a German Translation and William Tyndale did the same for English. This launched a process of increasingly precise translations that culminated 100 years later in the King James Bible.
Arasmus (mostly) used a methodology that became known as Majority Text analysis which essentially allowed each Greek manuscript to vote, word by word, on what went into the resulting Textus Receptus. Since that time, work has continued adding more and more manuscripts to the mix, resulting in an updated version of Textus Receptus called simply the Majority Text. There are 1838 minor differences between Textus Receptus and Majority Text - but they are mostly spelling and word order differences - nothing of doctrinal importance. For this reason and to preserve historical tradition, no popular translation actually uses the Majority Text and today's King James Version and the modern english New King James Version (NKJV) both continue to use the Textus Receptus as their basis.
The Textus Receptus and Majority Text tend to favor Greek texts that came out of Turkey when Christians fled ahead of the Muslim armies in the 1400's. Hence, these are often referred to as the Byzantine Majority Text reference Greek.
But there is another source of Greek manuscripts that generally come from the dry climate south of the Mediterranean which have generally been preserved longer. These "Alexandrian" texts are preferred by another school of thought called Alexandrian Critical Text Method. Rather than letting the Alexandrian manuscripts "vote" on every work, scholars prefer to manually analyze and debate each word based on additional factors including "external evidence" (age, care, provenance, affiliation, and quotes from other documents and languages) and "internal evidence" ("shorter, less-polished readings are better", "author's writing style", etc.) Most popular modern Bible versions (NIV, NLT, ESV, NWT, et. al) use the Alexandrian Critical Text as a reference.
Meanwhile, the Vatican continues to stick with its Latin Vulgate which Jerome translated from his Greek resources circa 400 AD. This is the reference Latin on which the modern Douay-Rheims translation is based.
The family tree that leads to today's leading versions is shown below.
One other difference between the schools of thought is that English Translations derived from the Byzantine Majority Text school (KJV, NKJV) are word for word "direct translations" where as those from the Alexandrian Critical School (NIV, NLT, ESV) are phrase by phrase or sentence by sentence "dynamic equivalents".
There are 6577 trivial differences (mostly spelling, word order, etc.) between these two Greek Reference Texts. The biggest difference is the tendency of the Critical Text to leave out an occasional verse or phrase on the theory that scribes were more likely to add than subtract when making copies.
Back in Part 1 I enumerated and commented on the most worrisome of these differences. My many comments in that post discussion reflect my subsequent thoughts about it - stimulated by the helpful comments from others that I received there.
Resulting Conclusions.
Based on what I have learned from the discussion in Part 1 and my subsequent deeper study, I offer the following personal opinions for your consideration:
- I still don't like the revisionist trend. It can lead to mischief (inserting translator preferences).
- The revisions so far don't affect doctrine and amount to a tiny fraction of a percent of the overall text. Thus the current status of the most popular translations I looked at is tolerable and perhaps even better if the translators have really been faithful.
- As an engineer, I prefer the Critical Text method better the Majority Text method because it weighs more factors in the balance and avoids the potential of having the tyranny of the majority override common sense.
- I don't generally trust academic "scholars" to apply the Critical Text method without inserting their own secular or parochial agendas. There are, no doubt, honest scholars among them, but I can't tell which is which and I never trust the majority opinion on anything.
- The King James Version translators, of course, had their own open agenda too. But it is the same as mine. Sola Scriptura. They were looking to find the truth once they were convinced they couldn't trust the recklessly presumptive inventions of the popes. Subsequently derived Protestant doctrine followed the Textus Receptus, not the other way around.
- As time progresses, I expect more and more "corrections" that implement hidden agendas that will begin to affect the original doctrine.
- Therefore, it is better to live with the relatively harmless errors in the King James Version than to encourage the average student to wander off into the most popular paraphrased Text du Jour.
- Serious students willing to put in the time can benefit from discussing the fine points brought out by scholarly debate.
Bottom Line It is currently fairly safe for people of faith who aren't very curious can simply accept the mainstream Bibles I studied at face value. Those of us cursed with the need for details can find them and be satisfied! Among the authors I consulted, several agreed that for nearly 200 years there has been almost complete unanimity among those diverse schools of thought that none of those cosmetic differences between the Greek texts affects doctrine (i.e. the definition of Biblical Christianity). The Latin Vulgate, not so much.
We are still not out of the woods
What does effect doctrine is what people do with those reference Greek texts after the fact. Different people will read and emphasize different parts while ignoring other parts to arrive at their own personal preferences and can thereby wander off arbitrarily far from the truth. Or they will blatantly claim that their leaders have the authority to alter the teachings of people who knew Jesus. Many sects, having wandered away to some such non-negotiable position, then go back and modify their Bibles to match their doctrine. As soon as they do that they are permanently lost.
However, I am now fairly satisfied that, despite their cosmetic differences, the versions I examined (KJV, NKJV, NIV, NAS, ESV) are currently safely inside the bounds of a common doctrine which can be called "Biblical Christianity". Personally, I stick with KJV because it is not subject to further second guessing that could lead outside the common reference definition due to politically correct secular pressures in the future.
Nevertheless, I must repeat:
It is very gratifying to see that these two very different methodologies converge
to exactly one mutually reinforcing pair of doctrinally compatible reference texts.
This is good, because now we can focus on debating in forums like this whether a particular issue is faithful to these unanimous reference texts. At this point I am able to participate with results from my own studies and learn from the studies of others. Now I can point to several English versions which are authoritative enough to construct a Scripture based debate upon.
Such debates are fine and healthy and can lead to a deeper understanding for all concerned.
Reference Links
What about the Majority Text?
Majority Text and Original Text, Are They Identical?
English Bible History and Timeline
List of Major Textual Variants in the New Testament
Interview with Daniel B. Wallace on the New Testament Manuscripts
Some Second Thoughts on the Majority Text
25,000 New Testament Transcripts? Big Deal.
Bible Version Comparison Chart
Westcott & Hort vs. Textus Receptus: Which is Superior?