The Early and Complete Bible

I've been digging around doing research for a new website I'm building about the Received Text (Textus Receptus). I thought I'd share come exerts from a book written in the 1930's by Benjamin Wilkinson, PhD. When Dr. Wilkerson mentions "The Received Text", it's for a lack of a better name, seeing that it wasn't really named that until Erasmus compiled it and been passed away for quite a while.

I'm digging now to see what was used in the known world for scriptures in the first 5 or 6 centuries AD. I already know the answer, but if it's not documentally proven, it's just an assertion on my part.

What I've found so far is that we have seven (7) different bibles translated from the Received Text.

• The Old Syrian Text or Peshitta (150 A.D.)
• The Old Latin, Italic or Itala Version (157 A.D.)
• The Gothic Version (350 A.D.)
• The Ethiopic Version (300+ A.D.)
• The Armenian Bible (411 A.D.)
• Slavonic Version (864–865 A.D.)
• Georgian Version (13th through 14th centurys A.D.)

All translated and the same textual family of the Received Text. The Old Syrian Peshitta and the Itala well before the time that Origen made his Greek manuscripts.
By the way, it looks like the Received Text (Textus Receptus) got it's name from it's publisher; "Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum: in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus". (So you hold the text, now received by all, in which (is) nothing corrupt.)

 

Parson, did you repost this? I notice you have Erasmus in there again. I think TG commented on that being an error.

 

The dates were in question Teddy, not Erasmus. Erasmus is the one who compiled the Received Text. The thread really wasn't ready to be started at that point. My bad. Re-posted after clarification.

 

It's like Deja Vu.

 

Deja Vu is a good term Seeking. Like "I've seen this stated before, but never really paid it any attention".

What blows my mind is that the original (Received) text is considered inferior today because of the Westcott/Hort text which is the direct result of the Alexandrian text that didn't even show up on the scene til the 3rd century. As a matter of fact, most, if not all modern versions are based on the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. These are far younger that the Textus Receptus yet for some reason considered superior by bible critics starting in the 19th century. I just don't get it.

Anyway, back to it. Not to be confused with Jerome's Vulgate, there is a much older Latin version of the Bible mentioned in the OP, used for centuries. It was called The Old Latin Vulgate (or Old Itala Bible) and is known to been in existence since 157 A.D. Turtullian wrote in his letters and commentaries dating around 200 A.D., citing the Old Itala frequently. It's known to been in use for at least a thousand years from it's translation of the original Greek Received Text (Textus Receptus) by the Waldenessian brethren.

 

I found this article regarding the Textus Receptus.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Textus-Receptus.html

From the article:
Erasmus, a 15th-century Dutch theologian, working at great speed in order to beat to press another Greek New Testament being prepared in Spain, gathered together what hand-copied Greek manuscripts he could locate. He found five or six, the majority of which were dated in the twelfth century. Working with all the speed he could, Erasmus did not even transcribe the manuscripts; he merely made notes on the manuscripts themselves and sent them to the printers. The entire New Testament was printed in about six to eight months and published in 1516. It became a best seller, despite its errors, and the first printing was soon gone. A second edition was published in 1519 with some of the errors having been corrected.

It looks as though the Textus Receptus was formed from very few late manuscripts and put together quite hastily.

 

No, the final group of the Received Text that Erasmus compiled was verified by these early translations. That's one of the reasons I'm placing this information here. Just bear with me.

 

Aye aye Skipper. Will do.

 

The majority text is preferred to the TR among biblical scholars because it has more codex support than the TR. I don't know of anyone reasonable, however, who would dismiss the TR because of this.

 

Absolutely agree with you. I own several Bibles in the KJV and NKJV

 

To me one of the things that stands out about the 1611 Bible to what is used now, is the fact that they removed the Apocryphal books.

 

Among the 'laity', perhaps. Check the Bibles of any serious Bible scholar, however, and you'll find the apocryphal books where you'd expect. Not as canon, of course, but for history (and it's a shame that we've focused so much on canon that anything 'merely' historical is looked on with suspicion).

 

Personally I've never read any of the Apocryphal books myself, but I am aware of the historical value they possess. I was just curious as to why it was included to later be removed from the KJB.

 

Well, considering that none of the writers laid claim to inspiration and none of the apocryphal books were written in the Hebrew language. One's in Latin and the rest are in Greek. The Jews never acknowledged that they were scripture and certainly rejected them. Up to the 5th century, no real Christian group accepted them either. And lastly, the Apocrypha has doctrines directly contradicting the rest of the Bible.

 

I'm not sure that any writers of Scripture claimed inspiration for themselves. Paul claimed inspiration for the OT, and Peter grouped Paul's writings in the category of Scripture, if I recall correctly.

 

Are you talking about the way Origen approached scriptures? If so, not me my friend. Dumbing down what he thought, he believed the Apostles weren't educated enough to tell us what the "will of God" really was. Imagine that... And yes, if the Apocrypha was considered bad then. what makes them any good now.

 

The Apocrypha was placed in between the testaments by the publisher and not by royal command... Here is a quote from King James himself about those books:

 

Why do we demand either/or scholarship or spirituality?

Why would one ever trump the other?

Do we believe God so inadequate that we can't have good scholarship performed by godly people?