[sword-devel] Freeing up modern bible text

[Trevor Jenkins]

On Sun, 4 Feb 2001, Leon Brooks <leon@brooks.fdns.net> wrote:

> fred smith wrote:
> 
> >> I mean, calling it
> >> the biblical equivalent of McDonalds (McBible? ;-) is a but much, isn't
> >> it?
> 
> No. Well, maybe a *bit* much, but Westcott and Hort, and to a lesser 
> extent the NIV committee (and I'm sure they're not alone in this) in the 
> end gave us what they thought was best for us, not what God thought was 
> best for us. The parallel is pretty exact if you compare Genesis 1:27 
> with a Maccas ingredient list. (-:

Interesting that you deride W&H and then cite a passage outside the New
Testament to back your argument.

> Perhaps I should be clearer, Paul. W&H did a lot of the 
> ``Macdonaldisation'' of the underlying texts to suit their own ideas 
> (Mariolatry and so on down, including selective admission of miracles). 

I take it that by "Macdonaldisation" you mean Textual Criticism. Also the
claim that Westcott and Hort fiddled with the text is a lie. Some have
used one them having been involved with some occult society as a reason to
disparage their work. However, neither of them was involved in any such
society. A similar but not identically named person has been confused with
these scholars.

The Textus Receptus was as much a product of "Macdonaldisation" as was
Westcott and Hort's. Erasmus cobbled together a number of late manuscripts
to form the TR. Where there were omissions (or he couldn't have a Greek
manuscript on hand) he back translated the Vulgate from Latin into Greek.
Why did he botch this job? Because he'd heard that another scholar and
printer publisher were also collating a Greek New Testament and Erasmus
intended to be first.

> Nevertheless, even if the underlying text had been purer, NIV's 
> committee ....

Purer than what? The UBS edition available at the time, which by the way
is NOT W&H. Aland, Metzger et al have remove some of W&H's amendations.
(Those which could not be sustained by critical analysis of the
manuscripts concerned or which have been shown to be wrong with the
discovery of earlier manuscripts were removed.)

> gave an Evangelical slant to the results;

As an Evangelical I see no issue in that.

> ... Zondervan's is to turn a penny.

Merely following the example set by Erasmus then.

Regards, Trevor

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