THE OLD TRANSLATIONS
Today we will begin our look at the testimony of the early translations of the originally inspired Words of God.
To those early Christians the Words of God were an important commodity. As the Gospel accounts and the various letters which bore the stamp of the inspiration of God upon them were passed among the various churches these original manuscripts began to deteriorate. This created a demand for more copies of those precious parchments. Also, of course, the various churches would want copies for their own edification.
In various places, in the back rooms of those early house churches, in private homes of the pious, in Scriptorium, those precious words would be carefully copied. A mistake made in one edition would not be copied in all of those places; therefore it was fairly easy to find the mistakes and weed them out. The true copyist was interested in the true Words. The same was true of the devout of the local churches.
In other places there were sects and heresies which sought to craft the Words to fit their own views and manmade doctrinal stance. These, being held by small - or large for that matter - groups would tend to stay within their own fiefdoms. Since these heretical texts were from fringe groups they would tend to be held in few places. Thus, the great weight of the True Texts would overwhelm the small weight of the false texts and make true comparison easy based on simple mathematics.
This is way the weight of the True Text, as opposed to the weight of these various aberrations, tends to be placed variously at between 85% and 95% in favor of the Traditional Text. Were the Traditional Text not the original text, were it a localized text for instance, those figures of near unanimity would not be possible.
Burton (Let�s Weigh the Evidence) comments upon these two types of copyists as illustrated above..
�In the second century, a disciple by the name of Lucian founded a school of the Scriptures in Antioch. Lucian was noted for his mistrust of pagan philosophy. His school magnified the authority and divinity of Scripture and taught that the Bible was to be taken literally, not figuratively as the philosophers of Alexandria taught.�
The idea of a literal translation of the Scripture would argue for a word for word copy. To the allegorist of areas such as Alexandria these original words would be of small consequence because this copyist would be primarily interested in his interpretation.
This is important because almost all of the evidence which is cited by the translators of the modern English language versions comes from Egypt. This is the land of the Alexandrian manuscripts where the Words were not considered as important as were the general ideas. This, of course, led to a sloppy style of copying and a lack of fidelity to the Words as God had inspired them.
In our own day we see the NIV as an example of this sort of translation methodology. The NIV is a paraphrase rather than a strict word for word, whenever possible, construction as is the King James Bible.
In Survey of the New Testament we are reminded that �The very multiplicity of manuscripts provides checks by which errors may be detected, and the numerous versions demonstrate by their ancestry that there was a common origin.�
In the coming weeks we will be examining some of these early translations as they relate to the common origin of the very text which God inspired and has preserved.
9 March 2007
THE OLD TRANSLATIONS (Continued)
This week we take up a discussion of the influence of the ancient translations upon our understanding of the originally inspired Words of God.
That phrase, �Words of God,� is important. One of the early areas of contention among the modernist and the fundamentalist of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century centered upon the very concept of inspiration as it was contained in this phrase. The modernist argued that the inspiration of God was upon the general story of the Bible. He argued for a inspiration of ideas rather than an inspiration of text.
In arguing this perception he was able to remove the authority of the Scripture as a guide to rule the lives of men and women. The emphasis was upon the understanding of the God Story. Thus, one person would see one interpretation and it would be as religiously valid as another�s perception even when the two did not agree. In so doing man was made the master of the Word as the meaning was transferred from the Words of Deity to the understanding of man.
This is the rational behind the mistranslation of II Timothy 3:16 in many of the modern translations. The Word says that �All scripture is given by inspiration of God...� Many of the modern versions will say, �All scripture that is given by inspiration of God...� The presupposition in the latter phrase is that all of the Scripture is inspired, but not all of the record is actually Scripture in the sense that it comes from God. Some of the Scripture is considered simply as the musing of the ancients as they sought to understand the nature of God and their own place in the cosmos.
The fundamentalist argument was that God had inspired the entirety of the Word down to the last word in question. All of the Words were inspired rather than just the Word, or general story. This meant that God was in charge of His Own record.
This may seem like a very minor point. It is not. Upon this understanding of the Scripture lies our concept of the goodness, power and rationality of God, Himself.
It is sad that so many fundamentalist of our day have adopted the rational of the modernist of days gone by in relation to the Words of Scripture. They, and these newer versions, argue that the Words are in question. It is only the general idea of Scripture upon which the preserving Hand of God had lain. It is only, it is argued, the intellect of man which is able to produce a piecemeal approximation of what God might have said. In essence they argue for an eclectic, man produced, text rather than for a preserved, God inspired, text.
The early translations are important in this situation because they give a picture of the Words as they existed in the day of those translations. Hills (The King James Version Defended) argues about these early translations.
�...divine guidance was by no means confined to those ancient Christians who spoke Greek. On the contrary, indications can be found in the ancient New Testament versions of this same God-guided movement of the Church away from readings which were false and misleading and toward those which were true and trustworthy.�
This is not an argument for any inspired translations. God inspired His Word as He originally gave that Word. Any translation is simply a reflection of that substance; but it is not that substance. I have a beautiful picture of a lake on a sunny fall day. All of the brightly colored trees are reflected in the water of that lake. These are not the trees, themselves. They are fairly accurate reflections of what the trees, in essence, are. They give a picture of the depth of the forest. But they do not contain that depth. A small stone tossed into the water will cause this picture to distort. This does not mean that the picture is not accurate; it means that it is only a shadow of the substance.
So are the best translations a shadow of the substance of the revealed Word of God. But, they do give a picture of the pure Words which God did inspire. Still, we must beware lest the rock of doctrinal bias, or intellectual doubt, or any other, would cast a stone into the pool of our translation. That is why we, as English speakers, need a translation which is founded upon the preserved Text and treated with due reverence to the sanctity of God and His Message as does our King James Bible. Translations from other textual bases are strewn with stones which warp the image of the Holy.
We do know, as MacGregor (The Bible in the Making) points out, that �The New Testament books, widely circulated in Greek, were translated at a very early date into other languages.� By looking at these translations we are able to see a picture of the Forest of Greek manuscript which the pool of those very early translations reflected.
Fuller (True or False) argues this point.
�The point [of the ancient translations] has an important bearing upon the question we are now examining. For, remembering that �we have no actual copies (i.e., original Greek Texts) as old as the Syriac and Latin Version (i.e., translations) by probably more than 200 years� (The Traditional Text, Burgon and Miller) and that �The oldest Versions are far more ancient than the oldest (Greek) manuscripts� (Cannon Cook), and remembering too that those venerable Versions prove the existence in their day of a standard Text agreeing essentially with our Textus Receptus, and it will be recognized that �the most ancient evidence� is all in favor of the latter.�
One of the favorite arguments of those who would disregard our Traditional Text is that there are so few old templates of this text. The oldest manuscripts available, by far, are the Egyptian text type represented by Aleph and B.
This can be explained quite easily. The pure copies were used, and used up. They were replaced by copies of equal value as they gave further evidence to the exact words. The constitution of the United States was written well over two hundred years ago. Very few persons, statistically speaking, have seen that actual constitution. Yet every law student has seen a copy of this constitution. That copy is as binding as the original because it contains the same words. So do the later copies of the inspired Words contain the same inspiration of God. It is the Words He inspired, not the parchment upon which they were inscribed.
If, then, Aleph and B disagree wildly with these ancient translations, as they do, they are rock strewn lakes which have preserved a faulty picture of the Words of God as those Words existed in a day long before these manuscripts were penned. The dry climate of Egypt, and the virtual non-use of these copies, may have made them available in our day. But, this does not make them accurate representations of the original Words which God inspired.
Thus a recent copy of those Words is more reliable and an old copy of just an approximation of those Words. MacLean (The Providential Preservation of the Greek Text of the New Testament) makes this very point.
�...scholars have recovered copies of ancient translations in Latin, Syriac, Egyptian, Armenian, Gothic, etc. Some of these originated before our oldest existing Greek copies and thus testify to the contents of still earlier manuscripts. The great weight of this evidence is favourable to the �Received Text� underlying the Authorized Version.�
When the footnotes in the margins of our Bibles say that the �oldest and best� manuscripts do not agree with the King James Bible, we need to understand that the oldest is not the best unless it is accurate.
Fuller (True or False) reminds us that one of the Divine safeguards for the true Text is the multiplicity of the ancient translations.
We can trust that the Bible God gave to man was never withdrawn by His hand. The early translations are a testimony to that fact. During our next session we will begin to take a look at some of these early translations.
16 March 2007
THE OLD TRANSLATIONS (Continued)
This week we are going to look at the Peshitta Syriac version as an evidence for the Traditional Text. Since this section concerns, mostly, history, there is not much reason for me to make comments. I will probably will not do so. Consider this an early St. Patrick�s Day gift.
As an aside, since St. Patrick�s Day is called �St.� Patrick�s Day, what do the politically correct Christianity haters call this day? Do they just ignore it an pass up their chance to have cabbage and corn beef? Just curious!
We start out with the words of John J. Ray (God Wrote Only One Bible), who noted that, �Antioch was the capital of Syria where the early believers were first called Christian (Acts 11:26). In a few years the Syrian believers could be numbered by the thousands. Their Bible, the Peshitta [translated about 150 A.D.] even today generally follows the Received Text.�
One thing I would like to note at this time was that the area where the Peshitta was translated was a hotbed of Christianity. So serious were these Christians about following Christ that they were given the name of �Christians,� or �persons like Christ.�
As opposed to the spirituality of the Antiochian Christians, those at the Scriptorium at Alexandria, from where the primary texts of our modern day English translations and versions are derived, were known for Gnostic and Platonic tendencies.
From which place should one consider that the greater care would be taken to accurately copy and transmit the precious inspired Words of God?!
Not everyone agrees with the date of the construction of the Peshitta translation. Hills (Believing Bible Study) comments on one such person. Hills argues that the Peshitta dates from the 2nd century. About 350 manuscripts are extant.
In 1904 �Burkitt ... And other naturalistic critics ... Assigned a 5th century date... But Burkitt�s hypotheses is contrary to the evidence...� Since all the sects of the Syrian church are loyal to the Peshitta, and these divisions occurred in the 5th century, it must have existed long before this time.�
Note the time line of the critics of the early date of the Peshitta. Whereas the unbroken understanding of church scholars had held to a 150 A.D. composition of the Peshitta, suddenly in 1904 - just at the time when the Traditional Text was under attack by manuscripts from the 4th century, the Peshitta was suddenly considered as a 5th century work. I submit that this was an attempt to make the facts fit the theory rather than good scholarship on the part of the critic. A better method would have been to question the aberrant manuscripts rather than shift the weight of evidence to cover the minority texts.
Hills (The King James Version Defended) spoke again about this subject.
�Until about one hundred years ago it was almost universally believed that the Peshitta originated in the 2nd century and hence was one of the oldest New Testament Versions.� [In 1904 Burkitt (Evangelion DaMapharreshe) argued that the Peshitta] �...was prepared by Rabbula�s episcopate, because it was the received text of both of two sects into which the Syrian Church became divided. Since this division took place in Rabbula�s time and since Rabbula was the leader of one of these sects, it is impossible to suppose that the Peshitta was his handiwork, for it if had been produced under his auspices, his opponents would never have adopted it as their received New Testament Text.�
Dr. Samuel Gipp (An Understandable History of the Bible) explains why it would have necessary, for proponents of a �new� text to supplant the Traditional Text, to �redefine� the age of the Peshitta.
�Some versions (i.e., translations) such as the Peshitta..., a Syrian translation, and the Old Latin Vulgate ... Are actually older than our oldest uncial MSS. The Peshitta was translated from the Greek in about 150 A. D. The Old Latin Vulgate was translated about 156 A. D.�
What we have here is a real problem for those new English translations and versions which argue that the archeologist�s spade had found the base text of the King James Bible to be in error. The oldest witnesses follow the same base text as did the translators of the King James Bible. It is these new critics, who argue that God somehow lost control of - or deliberately withheld - His pure Words for some 1500 years, who are using the newer, and aberrant, textual base.
The fact is that there have been no new readings found in the past 400 years since the composition of the King James Bible. There has been manuscripts aplenty found; but there have been no new readings found. It is a fiction to argue that there have been. All of the text �families� alluded to in the margins of your Bibles were available to the King James translation committee. These were rejected on the basis of evidence as being aberrant and unreliable.
They still are so!
Hills (The King James Version Defended), notes that �The Peshitta Syriac version, which is the historic Bible of the whole Syrian Church, agrees closely with the Traditional Text...�
This is just one voice from the early church, even earlier than those supposed �oldest and best manuscripts� in the margin of your Bibles, which supports the base text of the King James Bible. Translations which depart from this base Greek text, as do almost all of the modern English language versions, as to be considered as more than simply suspect. They are different Bibles from a different textual base.
In our next session we will take a look at the Latin Versions of antiquity.
23 March 2007
THE OLD TRANSLATIONS (Continued)
Save for the Person of Jesus Christ and His atoning work at Calvary, the most important gift which God has given to us is the God inspired and preserved Scripture. Without these Divine pages we would know nothing of the substitutionary death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christianity would be reduced to a mere collection of fables handed down from generation to generation.
Without this Book our understanding of God would be most rudimentary. We would have the witness of nature that there must have been a Creator. But, we would have no real understanding of His ways and will for the betterment of our earthly lives, let alone His plan for our eternal lives in fellowship with Him!
Because of this, The Book has always been revered by the Christian. Our worship centers upon the Lord of the Universe. We are allowed to learn of Him from the words He has given us. This is why the churches, and the Christians who make up those churches, have always been jealous to have those words in an understandable manner. Even in the early days of the infant Christian churches, the people wanted translations of the inspired words into their own language. Hills (Believing Bible Study) tells us that a �...Latin translation of the Gospels was made in North Africa during the last quarter of the 2nd century. Only about 50 manuscripts of this Old Latin version survive.�
There isn�t much more that I know about this version other than its existence. But, this very existence at this early date, shows the hunger of the common man for more than just �church teaching.� The Christian longs for the Words of God.
This is the crux of our entire study. This is the rational that we examine the issue of just what is the true text which God inspired. Is this text the Traditional Text, the text of history? Or, is this true text the eclectic text cobbled together by Bible critics, from markedly inferior textual bases, in the last one hundred and fifty years?
Was the true text lost to the churches for over fifteen hundred years? Did God somehow lose control of the originally inspired Words? Did God willfully withhold these words of life from His Own churches and people? If the new English language translations are correct in their assertion that the textual base of our God honored King James Bible was flawed, what happened? And, how did it happen? And, if this is true, how can we even consider that we have a trustworthy text in this time frame?
The truth is that we cannot know that we have the Words of God if we accept the premise that He has lost, or withheld, them in the past. Our faith is reduced to a �maybe� based on a �what if.� We can have no true understanding of God. We consider Him to be a God of love and power. What harm is done to that understanding if He has lost control of, or has withheld, His Own important message to His Own churches and people?
We have a book. Is this The Book or is it simply another collection of ancient writings subject to decay and error? If this be the case, how shaky is our rational to believe? If this be the case, how do we even know what to believe and what to dismiss as �copyist error and gloss?�
I submit that if the Traditional Text, the text of history, is not the true inspired and preserved text given and overseen by God we must place new punctuation in our song books.
I have an anchor?
That holds my soul?
Steadfast and sure?
As the billows roll?
Something happened to our Scripture in the early days of the Church of Constantine. Gipp (An Understandable History of the Bible) reminds us that, �The Old Latin Vulgate had come into existence no later than 157 A.D. The Latin version of Jerome, translated by order of the Roman Catholic Church was published in about 380 A.D.�
Unlike the new bible publishers of our day, the work of Jerome was not done so that he could secure a new copyright and make more money from his endeavor. But, as in our day this new �version� was more than a simple update. The base text was changed. Whereas the original vulgate (the Old Latin Vulgate) generally followed the Traditional Text, the New Vulgate was prone to follow the wordings of the Egyptian texts.
This is also a similarity between the work of Jerome and the newer versions of our English Language translations.
Fuller (Which Bible?) reminds us that there were groups of Christians who did not follow the leading of the Church of Rome. They remained true to the Lord Who saved their souls. They also remained true to the Words which He had given them in their Bible translations.
�...the Italic Church in northern Italy - later the Waldenses - is seen standing in opposition to papal Rome. Their Bible was of the family of the renowned Itala. It was that translation into Latin which represents the Received Text. Its very name �Itala,� is derived from the Italic district, the region of the Vaudois. Of the purity and reliability of this version Augustine, speaking of the different Latin Bibles (about 400 A.D.) says: �Now among translations themselves the Italian (Itala) is to be preferred to the others, for it keeps close to the words without prejudice to clearness of expression.�
It may seem strange that Augustine, one of the early Roman �saints,� would speak so in favor of the Itala, rather than the Jerome, translation. But, lest we forget, the slide into apostasy is not always a leap from a cliff. Often it is a gentle rolling with the spirit of intellectual pride and professional courtesy. Many in our day will say, �I honor the King James Bible, but...�
It is that �but� which displays the slide into doubt in the goodness and power of the God of the Bible.
Ray (God Wrote Only One Bible) gives us a time line to consider in this slide to jettison the preserved Words of God.
�The Text of this oldest Bible of the Roman Province is known as the Old Latin. The Old Latin was known as the Latin Vulgate many years before the days of Jerome 342 - 420 A.D. This term �Latin Vulgate� referring to the Old Latin which was translated from the Received Text, was not replaced until April 8th, 1546, when at the Council of Trent, Jerome�s Revised Latin was declared to be the authentic Bible of the Roman Church. Since then the term Latin Vulgate refers NOT TO THE OLD LATIN in harmony with the Received Text, but with the REVISED LATIN OF JEROME.�
However, the actions of the �Church� council did not wrest the translations which were true to the preserved text from the hands of the faithful. Gipp (An Understandable History of the Bible) makes note of this fact. �The Old Latin Vulgate was used by the Christians in the churches of the Waldenses, Gauls, Celts, Albingenses, and other fundamental groups throughout Europe.� It got its name �Vulgate� from the people. It was the Bible of the �vulgar� (Latin for �common�) man.
Ray (God Wrote Only One Bible) expands on this subject.
�Italy, France and Great Britain were once provinces of the old Roman Empire. Latin was then the language of the common people. So the first translations of the Bible in these countries were made from the Greek ... into the Latin. One of the first of these Latin Bibles was for the Waldenses in norther Italy, translated not later than 157 A.D. and was known as the Italic Version [Scrivener, Introduction to N. T., Vol. 2, p. 43]. The renowned scholar Beza, states that the Italic Church dates from 120 A.D. Allix, an outstanding scholar, testifies that enemies had corrupted many manuscripts, while the Italic Church handed them down in their apostolic purity [Allix, Churches of the Piedmont, pp. 11, 288].�
Once again, as Hills (Believing Bible Study) points out, Jerome�s Vulgate dates from the year 382 A.D. There are about 8,000 copies of it extant. This is a much later date of construction than that of many of the other versions. If, as the modern critics argue, the earliest translations - as they point to earlier still templates from which they were composed - would be closer to the original manuscripts of the Greek New Testament writers. Since the evidence of these earlier translations is in favor of the Traditional Text, while the much later work of Jerome is more favorable toward the Alexandrian texts, it would seem reasonable to accept the Traditional Text as superior.
Sadly, those who wish to exalt the work of man (modern day Bible critics) grasp these aberrant texts and magnify them even as they argue against the power, and the goodness, of God to preserve His Own Words to mankind.
Gipp (An Understandable History of the Bible) suggests a common problem among the revisors of this day and those of old.
�There was one problem which the Roman Catholic Church did not anticipate [when they translated a rival �Vulgate�]. The same problem which the businessmen publishing new version cannot seem to avoid. The common people recognized the true Word of God because the Holy Spirit bears witness to it!�I
The Roman Church handled this problem the same way we see Bible Colleges and publishing houses handle the Christian in the pew�s reluctance to give up his King James Bible. They resorted to the word of the �Authorities� overriding the Words of God. The priestly caste spoke and the church demanded that the people accept his word. �After all,� it was reasoned, �These are the men who have the direct line to the Church and the Church is the direct line to God.�
Gone was the need of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. After all, The Church had spoken. All voices to the contrary were deemed heretic.
Today we are assailed as �uneducated,� �unlearned,� and �troublemakers� if we dare to stand for the preserved Words of God. We are, in effect, told that we cannot trust the leading of the Holy Spirit; we must trust that the �scholars� have filtered the words we are to accept.
To do otherwise is to be divisive and unlearned. I would remind you of the Words of God in I Corinthians 1:25. �Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.�
We trust the Words of God not because some wise man has decided to allow us to enter in the gate of the library of the scholar with thanksgiving. We trust the Words of God because the Holy Spirit of God speaks to our hearts and preserves those very Words through the priesthood, not of the seminary professor, but of the believer who humbly accepts the power and goodness of the God Who gave those Words to Him via inspiration and preservation.
To do otherwise may seem wise to the world. But it is counted as foolishness unto God!
Gipp continues when he notes that when Jerome translated the Alexandrian Text into the Latin (with the Apocryphal books included) the Roman Church named it the �Vulgate.� This was a sham and a subterfuge. The purpose was to usurp the position of the old Vulgate which was based on the preserved Words of God.
This is like those versions of today which carry the words �Holy Bible� on their covers. They are not the Holy Bible. They are versions of the Bible which have been poisoned by the addition of the words of man and weakened by too many of the Words of God being deleted.
If you want to get the gist of a story in a quick manner, read the Reader�s Digest condensations. If you want to fully understand the complete story, read the book.
Read The Book, as God inspired and preserved that Book. In our English language this is reflected best in the time, and God, honored King James Bible.
Gipp notes that, �...the Vulgate of Jerome was unused and unwanted by the true Christian for over nine hundred years. ... There was only one remedy to the situation, eliminate the �other� old, archaic Bible.�
We see this happening today. The publishing houses want a return on their investments in these new versions. The seminaries seek to gain power over the people of God, and to justify astronomical tuition increases, by asking them to accept their dictates as to what is to be accepted. Preachers wishing to advance their �careers,� (Did you ever see a preacher accept a �call� to a smaller church - unless there was a real problem at his previous church?) hew the party line that the King James Bible is outdated, hard to understand, and faulty.
Meanwhile the Holy Spirit continues to lead the Christian in the pew toward the translation which is based on the God inspired and preserved text - the King James Bible.
We will pick up our next session, God willing, by looking at some of the other older translation from history as they pertain to this subject.
30 March 2007
THE OLD TRANSLATIONS (Continued)
As we discussed during our last session, the early Christians were very eager to have vernacular translations of the God inspired Words of His Scripture. Indeed, this desire is the primary focus of all of the modern day English versions.
The question arises as to whether the people of today are getting a proper translation of those God inspired Words, or are they getting a rehash of some very old, but incorrect, manuscripts with a close but differing message?
There has been a recent scare, well more than a scare as it is an actual occurrence, of tainted pet foods. Many people have seen literally thousands of their pets die because they were fed what appeared to be good food, but was a diet laced with poison. These pet foods looked like the very thing that these owners had feed their pets in the past. Even the brand names were familiar.
Likewise, the words �Holy Bible� on the cover of these new versions is an old and trusted �brand name.� These may appear to be the correct food for our souls. But, are they laced with the taint of error?
That is a question that we are addressing as we take a look at these ancient translations.
One of these old translations is called the �Old Syriac.� It is a non-Peshitta Syrian Version.
Hills (The King James Version Defended) notes that this version is not as old as the Peshitta. It, the Old Syriac, dates from the early 3rd century. It frequently agrees with the Traditional Text against the Western and Alexandrian Text types.
�One of those Traditional readings thus supported by the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript is found in the angelic song of Luke 2:13. Here the Traditional Text and the Sinaitic Syriac read, good will among (toward) men, while the Western and Alexandrian texts read, among men of good will.�
I would draw your attention to the date of this Sinaitic Syrian text. It is dated in the early third century. Those �oldest and best� versions mentioned in the margins of your Bibles, which attack the veracity of the King James translation, date from the fourth century. Thus, the Traditional readings are found prior to the existence of these, supposed, �pure� texts about which the claim is made that they predate the Traditional Text.
Again, Hills (Believing Bible Study) speaks of this Sinaitic Syrian text. He notes that there are only two manuscripts of the old Syriac surviving. This, Hills notes, is called the �old Syriac� based on Burkitt�s (Note our reference to Burkitt in our last session.) �...untenable hypothesis that the Peshitta was produced in the 5th century by Rabbula of Edessa.� The supposition is then, of course, that this version predates the Peshitta. This, of course, is not the case.
Surprisingly, there are also Egyptian translations which support our Traditional Text. These, by their very existence, are evidence that the readings of the Traditional Text were available to those editors of the Alexandrian texts. This is prima facie evidence that those Alexandrian texts are not, as Westcott and Hort argued, pure texts which predate the construction of the Traditional Text.
Hills (Believing Bible Study) speaks of these Egyptian witnesses to the Traditional Text.
�The Egyptian New Testament versions are called Coptic versions because they are written in Coptic, the latest form of the ancient Egyptian language. The Coptic New Testament is extent in two dialects, the Sahidic version of Southern Egypt and the Bohairic version of Northern Egypt. According to Betzger (Text of the New Testament), the Sahidic version dates from the beginning of the 3rd century. The oldest Sahidic manuscript has been variously dated from the mid-4th to the 6th century. The Bohairic version is regarded as somewhat later than the Sahidic. It is extent in many manuscripts, most of which are late. In the 1950's, however, M. Bedmer acquired a papyrus Bohairic manuscript containing most of the Gospel of John which was thought by its editor, R. Kasser, to date from the mid-4th century.�
The importance of these rather late documents lies in the fact of their very existence. We are assured, by those who discount the Greek base of our King James Bibles, that the Egyptians of Alexandria had transmitted �pure� copies of the ancient text which were not influenced by the �revision� which they say is the Traditional Text. The question is then, why did this very region continue to produce versions with readings from the Traditional Text? Was it not because these people understood that these, the Traditional Text readings, were themselves the actual pure Words of God?
Hills (Believing Bible Study) also makes note of the Philoxenian version.
�The Philoxenian version was produced in 508 A. D. for Philoxenus, bishop of Mabbug, by his assistant Polycarp. In 616 this version was re-issued, or perhaps revised, by Thomas of Harkel, who likewise was bishop of Mabbug. The Philoxenian - Harclean version included the five books which the Peshitta omits, namely 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation [Reference made to Metzger, Text of the New Testament).�
As we move down through time we come to the text of the Waldensian Church. As Fuller (Which Bible?) notes, �The Reformers held that the Waldensian Church was formed about 120 A.D....�
This Waldensian Church had an unbroken fidelity to the preserved Scripture. Their ancient existence pointed to an ancient text.
About the Waldensian Church, Mooreman (The Battle for the Doctrinal Heart) has spoken about their Bibles. Leaders of the Reformation were invited into the Waldensian valleys. Olivetti saw MSS which went back to the old Vulgate (per-Jerome) and beyond. He took this knowledge to France and produced a French translation, the Olivetti, which had a great effect on France.
One final note about the older versions. Hills (The King James Version Defended) speaks of a Gothic version and its relevance to the preserved Text of inspired Scripture. �The fact ... that Ulfilas in A. D. 350 produced a Gothic version based on the Traditional Text proves that this text must have been in existence before that date.�
The fact of the matter is that the assertion that the Traditional Text is of late composure, or that it is an ecclesiastical text made by some church council to unify varying textual traditions is just false. The ancient translations and versions point out the falsity of that argument.
These arguments, a late composition or an ecclesiastic text, are often used to explain why between 85% and 95% of all the evidence from antiquity supports the Traditional Text which underlies the King James Bible. Those modern day critics who would demean the Traditional Text have no real argument to explain the preponderance of the witness to this Traditional Text throughout the entire Christianized world.
The only reason that this Traditional Text is found in all areas, unlike the regional texts which are used to argue against it, in such a nearly copy machine fidelity to the Words, is that this is the Text which God inspired and preserved.
There seems no other logical explanation.
In our next session we will take a short look at some of the early English language translations.