To think I had thought to make a rant-post about those who think that the KJV translation is infallible. Instead, got curious and went exploring translation history. Anyone want to comment on this information? I'm still reading up on it.
Texts available to Bible translators are the Minority Texts, The Neutral Texts and the Majority Texts.
The Minority texts represent about 5% of the manuscripts we have for the Bible and Sinaticus and Vaticanus are the Minority Text's two most prominent manuscripts. Most modern translations of the Bible heavily rely on Sinaticus and Vaticanus.
The 'Minority Texts' are also known as the Alexandrian Texts because they were produced in Alexandria in Egypt.
These Minority Texts were rejected by the early Christians and also by all the Protestant Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Reformers, who were well aware of the existence of the Minority Texts, considered them unfit for translation purposes. Why did the early Christians and the Protestant Reformers reject the Minority Texts?
The answer is:
The Minority Texts were the work of unbelieving Egyptian scribes who did not accept the Bible as the Word of God or JESUS as the SON of GOD.
The Minority Texts abound with alterations, often a single manuscript being amended by several different scribes over a period of many years; something the Aaronic priests and Masorites would never have tolerated when making copies of the OT Scriptures.
The Minority Texts omit approximately 200 verses from the Scriptures.
The Minority Texts contradict themselves in hundreds of places.
The Minority Texts are doctrinally weak and often dangerously incorrect.
The Sinaiticus is a manuscript dating back to the 4th Century that was found in 1844 in a trash pile in St.Catherine's Monastery near Mt. Sinai.
The Sinaiticus is extremely unreliable, on many occasions 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through carelessness. Letters, words or even whole sentences are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately cancelled; while the biggest mistake is when it omits a clause because it happens to end in the same words as the clause preceding, something which occurs no less than 115 times in the New Testament.
On nearly every page of the Sianaticus manuscript there are corrections and revisions, done by 10 different people. Some of these corrections were made about the same time that it was copied, but most of them were made later in the 6th and 7th century.
AND THIS MESS IS ONE OF THE TWO MAIN MANUSCRIPTS ALL BIBLES AFTER THE KJV HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED FROM?
The second major manuscript of the Minority Text is known as Codex Vaticanus, often referred to as 'B'. This codex was also produced in the 4th century. It was found over a thousand years later in 1481 in the Vatican library in Rome.
This codex omits many portions of Scripture vital to Christian doctrine. Vaticanus omits Genesis 1.1 through Genesis 46:28; Psalms 106 through 138; Matthew 16:2,3; Romans 16:24; the Pauline Pastoral Epistles; Revelation; and everything in Hebrews after 9:14.
(It seems suspicious indeed that a MS possessed by the Roman Catholic church omits the portion of the book of Hebrews which exposes the 'mass' as totally useless, is that just a coincidence? The 'mass' in conjunction with the false doctrine of purgatory go hand-in-hand to form a perpetual money making machine for Rome. Without one or the other, the Roman Catholic Church would go broke)
It also omits portions of the Scripture telling of the creation (Genesis), the prophetic details of the crucifixion (Psalm 22), and, of course, the portion which prophesies of the destruction of Babylon (Rome), the great whor* of Revelation chapter 17.
Vaticanus , though intact physically, is found to be in poor literary quality, there are numerous places where the scribe has written the same word or phrase twice in succession. It has so many corrections and scribal changes that it's reliability is highly questionable and the type of mistakes and omissions made are very suspicious. In the Gospels alone, it leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 1,491 times and It shows evidence of careless transcriptions on every page.
AND THIS MESS IS THE SECOND OF THE TWO MAIN MANUSCRIPTS ALL BIBLES AFTER THE KJV HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED FROM?
The Vaticanus and Sinaiticus even disagree with each other over 3000 times in the gospels alone, the claim that they are the oldest and the best manuscripts is a fraud. Yes they are the oldest, but the best....?
The only reason they survived longer to become our oldest available Greek language copies is that they were so bad no one was using them and that protected them from being worn out through constant handling.
The Vaticanus was available to the translators of the King James Bible, but they did not use it because they knew it was unreliable and full of mistakes.
The faulty Minority texts only represent about 5% of existing Greek manuscripts. Another 5% are Neutral Texts: sometimes agreeing with the majority and at others with the minority.
And the remaining 90% of available Greek texts are the Traditional Received Text (Textus Receptus), also called the Byzantine Text or the Majority Text because it is based on the vast majority of manuscripts still in existence.
The Textus Receptus/Majority Text was the Bible of early Eastern Christianity. Later it was adopted as the official text of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was also the Bible of the great Syrian Church; of the Waldensian Church of northern Italy; of the Gallic Church in southern France; and of the Celtic Church in Scotland and Ireland
.
All these churches, some earlier, some later, were in opposition to the Church of Rome and the minority texts the Roman Catholics based their version of the Bible on.
Why did the early churches of the 2 nd and 3rd centuries and all the Protestant Reformers of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and the translators of the King James Bible choose Textus Receptus in preference to the Minority Text?
The answer is because:
Textus Receptus is based on the vast majority (90%) of the 5000+ Greek manuscripts in existence. That is why it is also called the Majority Text.
Textus Receptus is not mutilated with deletions, additions and amendments, as is the Minority Text.
Textus Receptus agrees with the earliest versions of the Bible: Peshitta (AD150) Old Latin Vulgate (AD157), the Italic Bible (AD157) etc. These Bibles were produced some 200 years earlier than the minority Egyptian codices favoured by the Roman Church.
Textus Receptus agrees wih the vast majority of the 86,000+ citations from scripture by the early church fathers.
Textus Receptus is untainted with Egyptian philosophy and unbelief.
Textus Receptus strongly upholds the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith: the creation account in Genesis, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, the Saviour's miracles, his bodily resurrection, his literal return and the cleansing power of his blood.
Textus Receptus was - and still is - the enemy of the Roman Church and their Minority Egyptian texts.
Bible students are often told that Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are older and better than other manuscripts: the implication being that they must, therefore, be more accurate. But this conclusion is wrong. We have already seen how Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are corrupt beyond measure.
They are older, but older than what? They are older than other surviving Greek copies of the New Testament. But they are not older than the earliest surviving versions of the Bible: the Peshitta, Italic, Waldensian and the Old Latin Vulgate which all agree with the Greek Majority text. These ancient translations from the original Biblical languages are 200 years older than Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
All these versions in other languages, copies of which are still in existence, agree with the Greek Textus Receptus, which is the underlying text of the King James Bible and they disagree with the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. If your objective is the water down the Bible then use the Minority or the Neutral Greek texts, but if you want accuracy then you would obviously want to use the Majority Greek texts and use the earliest translations into other languages as a double check on the accuracy of our existing copies of the Greek texts.
We've had many discussions on here where people will argue their points and whatnot. I have this one family member who will constantly speak of one belief over and over again, refusing to speak of anything else concerning the Bible, and the reason why is because it's the biggest thing we disagree on, so repeating it is a way to annoy me because I'm not allowed to talk. Now, if I do speak up to say I disagree, she'll then give an argument, refuse to let me speak by continuously reiterating herself, say to drop it and claim that the only reason I talk about these things is to argue, thus saying in another way that, if I didn't want to argue, I would shut up no matter what she said.
According to her, debating what the Bible truly means is against the Bible and, since she is obviously the one who obeys the Bible, arguing only starts when two people present arguments, not when one person gives an argument to another when they disagree and the other can't do the same.
First off, is there a part of the Bible saying to not discuss Biblical understandings to find the answer intended by God?
Two, is witnessing limited to just the matter of salvation? Not the many other truths of the Bible? Not the many other blessings?
Three, what would you do in this circumstance? Would you keep quiet and hope that they see humble confidence, even if they are leading another astray? Would you ask the person politely to stop? And stop exactly what? Or would you continue to speak true, regardless of how they accuse you of wanting to do battle? How would you go about doing such in a way to reach them? And if they still continue despite your efforts, what would be your next choice?
Thanks for bringing this up. Had a talk with someone about it just today and they think by tithing they've completed the need to witness. I'll give you a clue though as to why some would rather move. In the days of Jesus, if you were born into an area and claimed to be a prophet within it, you were usually called a liar, but go to another region and you are believed. Joseph was rebuked by his father and brothers for his dreams.
Then again, we also have the lazy that would rather give their money than their time and heart.
I like to keep every room in the house clean, but sometimes I fail to do that with my bedroom. If a room is messy, cluttered or dirty, I can't be in it. It feels like I can't think straight, because all I want to do is clean it. If furniture or paintings don't line up with the structure of the room and have a flowing feeling, things seem cramped. When it gets too much, I go on a little cleaning frenzy where everything in a room has to be gone through and put properly somewhere; it drives my grandparents nuts.
Grandpa does not like anything moved, even if it helps to make things easier. They have three frigerators and three freezers, because they don't know where anything is and keep buying stuff when they can't find it. I've found food in our cabinets dated back to when I was born! Good thing is I went through all the cold stuff these past two days and organized it all. :nahnah:
The only problem is, and I don't know if anyone else does this, I used to toss everything in a spot in the room and go through it. Grandma wouldn't stand for that so adapted the cleaning to smaller areas and wait until they are gone, so I don't have someone over my shoulder giving orders, complaining or wanting to help. I've begged opinions be reserved until they see the results.
...I'm sorry that was so long, but currently having that urge again.
Agreed there, though at the same time maybe not. If we truly wanted to have the pure word of God, we should be reading the original Bible of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. However, Jesus spoke in the common tongue. I don't think that the KJV is harder to read because of the style of writing, but but for exactly the reason you said.
Also, no problem with other versions, if they are used to bring sinners to Christ, but I also think, if we are truly desiring His Word, that we will seek out the purest reading and understanding. If you can't take time to learn Hebrew or whatever because you are supporting your family, there is the KJV for you, and many teachings that correct mistranslations and go deeper into the original languages to help you. Settling because of laziness is not a good excuse.
(3) I think back in the days of Jesus, kissing on the lips was commonplace, like a greeting. Usually I only see sound as a greeting or reassurance, so it could be kept to that.
(4) The first poster had a good response to this, but I don't know. The most I ever thought about it was lacing the fingers was more intimate than cupping the palms. The few guys I did consider boyfriends/beaus were the firsts to ask/suggest it because it was not really on my mind. I think the only time I initiated it was in protection; I have one friend who can be a bit harsh on boyfriends of her friends, so hooking arms was my way of saying to be kind to him.
While I think dating is to learn about the other and enjoy their company, I agree with you and thanks for the reply. I wish others thought the same as you, because it's been exactly what you have described when they try to convert.
Do you do your missionary work over a romantic date? Have you had it done to you? In both cases, how would or has that made you feel?
What do you think of it? Do you think someone might be inclined to agree with you or you with them just to tie the knot or get into bed? Does it make it easier to find your special someone?
If he's had sex outside of marriage while he claimed to be a Christian, I probably wouldn't date him. MAYBE I would if he was saved sometime after and wouldn't do it again. I have to admit though that this is a conclusion may have some influence from pessimism, since it's more likely to find a man who is not a virgin than a man who is one.
