The Niv Challenge

[Socrates]

Yesterday @ 01:53 AM post located here
praxeus:

Let me give some thoughts about the Dean John Burgon questions.

He was a textual giant and disassembled lots of erroneous argumentation from the Westcott-Hort crew.

Ah yes, here come the abusive ad hominems against Westcott and Hort. But then why not reject the TR as well because it came from the Romanist Erasmus, who opposed Luther and the Reformation?

Now if those of you who embrace the modern versions would understand what Dean John Burgon taught, you would simply discard all the alexandrian eclectic texts you use, and use a version that is vastly superior. Even moving to the New James James Version, with all its weaknesses, would be a vast improvement from your current alexandrian bibles.

Who says it's weaker? How about dealing with my Post 9 on this thread, which shows the superiority of the Alexandrian-based texts on doctrine.

If you would just study with a sincere heart, and accept the basic textual teachings of a Dean John Burgon, you would
be making a giant, huge, humongous step forward, even
if you still were nervous and unsure of the Authority of the
King James Bible. Please do try to understand these textual
issues, and approach them with a humble heart.

This is NOT a fair method of arguing between Christians who believe in biblical inerrancy. Please demonstrate your case with facts without such pious-sounding emotional manipulation.

[Socrates]

Today @ 02:51 AM post located here
Jaltus:

There are a few newer guys who buy it, but they are not really text critics (as can be seen by their acceptance of the fallacious I John 5:7-8 passage).

And James White did NOT buy the Comma Johanneum.

I can understand buying into some of the theory, but I see no reason to take the MT over the papyri, which are nearly unanimously Alexandrian, thus validating in general the Alexandrian text.

Which one could argue is theologically better anyway -- see Post #9.

You argue that older does not mean better, but more does not mean better either, and there is no other reason to argue for the MT position than to say there are more for the MT than any other tradition. Otherwise, everything else makes sense for the eclectic version, not the MT.

Looking at a number of examples that Carson and White gave (and they are staunch inerrantists and Trinitarian) convinced me that the eclectic version best reflects the original, while the MT shows evidence of harmonization, filling out OT quotations and expansion of piety. Probably Jaltus has studied textual issues at least as deeply as either of them.

Stop fighting the strawman of the Wescott - Hort position and come into at least the 20th century, if not the 21st.

Also, the ad hominems should cease. First, such arguments commit the genetic fallacy, and as I said, could equally well (or rather, equally fallaciously) to Erasmus and the TR. Second, many of the charges by the likes of Riplinger are slanderous. E.g. they were not spiritists -- rather, they formed what was later nicknamed the "ghostlie guild" to investigate the spiritualism that was rife in Victorian England, and concluded that nothing good could come of it!

Furthermore, the following quotes by Westcott demonstrate his basic orthodoxy on the Deity of Christ and the Resurrection, which many KJVOs accusing him of denying:

• From The Gospel According to St. John (Eerdmans, 1958 reprint), p. 3.
  
  

  The predicate (God) stands emphatically first, as in v.24. It is necessarily without the article (theos not ho theos) inasmuch as it describes the nature of the Word and does not identify His Person... No idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression, which simply affirms the true deity of the Word.

• From The Gospel of the Resurrection, MacMillan, London, 4th Ed., p. 115, 1889
  
  

  Taking all the evidences together, it is not too much to say that there is no single historic incident better or more variously supported than the Resurrection of Christ. Nothing but the antecedent assumption that it must be false could have suggested any idea of a deficiency in the proof of it. … In any ordinary matter of life, the evidence would be amply sufficient to determine our action and belief.

[EdJones]

Speaking of Ruckman, Have you read his work called "The Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence"? Wouldn't you think a man who can critique the ones who critiqe AT Robertson and Warfield and who has been teaching Greek and Hebrew for over 40 years is very qualified?

[kingsword]

I would like to know where did you Alexandrian text believers find the following:
Gen:1-1 to Gen 46:48, Ps 106-138, the Pauline Pastoral Episltles, Heb 9:14 to Heb 13:25, and all of Revelation, since there are no where to be found in the Vaticanus or Siniaticus? Could it be that you had to use that "dreadful" Textus Receptus, by that " rotten papist" Erasmus?

" woe unto ye, hypocrites..."
by the way, that has been omitted by your NIV.

[kiwimac]

AH, KJV-Onlyism, it is a crock of fetid dingoes kidneys.

[John Reece]

I really miss GrayPilgrim, Jaltus, and Socrates in this forum... and Etcetera here and elsewhere...

[kiwimac]

Westcott & Hort were fine, Christian men. I really get sick and tired of attacks on them from the KJV-only brigade.

[kiwimac]

I would like to know where did you Alexandrian text believers find the following:
Gen:1-1 to Gen 46:48, Ps 106-138, the Pauline Pastoral Episltles, Heb 9:14 to Heb 13:25, and all of Revelation, since there are no where to be found in the Vaticanus or Siniaticus? Could it be that you had to use that "dreadful" Textus Receptus, by that " rotten papist" Erasmus?

" woe unto ye, hypocrites..."
by the way, that has been omitted by your NIV.

You do realise that no one here is saying that only Vaticanus or Sinaiaticus are SOLELY to be used?

[Pilgrim]

You do realize that the last post in this thread is nearly 8 years old?

[kiwimac]

Yes, but I'm trying to match the pace of my comments to the thinking speed of the average KJV-Onlyist.