The Notre Dame Cathedral, a monument of the Dark Ages

[User]

2 hours ago, blackbird said:

The Historic Roman Catholic Suppression of Bible Reading and the Reformation’s Response

This is essentially a Gish gallop.

Rather than making one clear argument and defending it, you've pasted pages of claims, quotations, historical assertions, theological conclusions, manuscript arguments, and character attacks on Westcott and Hort. The sheer volume isn't evidence that the conclusions follow.

A few observations:

1. "The Roman Catholic Church banned the Bible from the common people."

[Overstatement]

We've already gone over this exact claim in this very thread.

Simply reposting the article doesn't answer the objections that were raised.

The historical evidence shows there were restrictions on certain vernacular translations in particular times and places, especially in response to heretical movements.

That is a far narrower claim than "Rome banned the Bible from the common people for centuries."

Repeating the broader assertion doesn't make it any more accurate.

2. Councils of Toulouse and Trent are cited as if they prove the broad conclusion.

[Cherry-picking]

Quoting a regional council or a Church council addressing specific historical circumstances does not establish a universal policy across all places and centuries.

Real historical events do not automatically support the sweeping conclusion being drawn from them.

3. Tyndale, Wycliffe, and Hus are presented as though they were persecuted simply for translating the Bible.

[Missing context]

Translation was certainly part of their story.

It was not the entirety of their conflict with Church authorities.

They also challenged doctrine, ecclesiastical authority, and broader theological issues. Leaving that out oversimplifies history.

4. Westcott and Hort's personal theology.

[Genetic fallacy]

Even if every criticism of Westcott and Hort were true, it would not demonstrate that the Critical Text is incorrect.

Textual criticism stands or falls on manuscript evidence, not the personal beliefs of two nineteenth-century scholars.

If Vaticanus contains an earlier reading, it doesn't become false because someone dislikes Westcott or Hort.

5. "Catholic-preserved manuscripts are suspect."

[Unsupported assertion]

This assumes what it needs to prove.

A manuscript's place of preservation says very little about whether its text is closer to the originals.

The question is textual evidence, not whether the manuscript happened to reside in the Vatican Library.

6. "Majority equals original."

[Debatable premise presented as settled]

This is one school of textual criticism.

It is not an established historical fact.

Many textual critics argue that an earlier reading preserved in fewer manuscripts can still be original if later copying naturally produced a majority reading.

Reasonable scholars disagree here.

7. Appeals to confessions.

[Appeal to authority]

Quoting the Westminster Confession or the 1689 London Baptist Confession tells us what those confessions teach.

It does not demonstrate which Greek manuscript tradition is historically original.

Those are separate questions.

8. The overall tactic.

[Gish gallop]
[Cherry-picking]
[Genetic fallacy]
[Appeal to authority]
[Overstatement]
[Conflating theological claims with historical claims]

This post mixes history, theology, textual criticism, manuscript statistics, church history, and personal opinions into one enormous block, making it difficult to address every point individually.

But quantity isn't quality.

If the goal is to have a discussion, I'd suggest we pick one claim and examine it carefully.

For example:

• Did the medieval Church universally ban the Bible from ordinary Christians?

• Is the Majority Text necessarily original because it is the majority?

• Does the existence of Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican tell us anything about its textual reliability?

Those are all worthwhile discussions.

Simply pasting thousands of words containing dozens of independent claims doesn't make any one of them established.

 

[blackbird]

9 hours ago, User said:

Textual criticism stands or falls on manuscript evidence, not the personal beliefs of two nineteenth-century scholars.

Unfortunately, the modern versions follow the Greek N.T. brought out by these two heretics.  Yes, it was their personal belief that the KJV was to be rejected and replaced with something based on two corrupt manuscripts.  They rejected the Majority Text that had been used all through history and was the basis for the KJV.

9 hours ago, User said:

A manuscript's place of preservation says very little about whether its text is closer to the originals.

The question is textual evidence, not whether the manuscript happened to reside in the Vatican Library.

I gave you part of the article on the the two main manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, and the link to the full article, but you obviously didn't read much or any of it.  It is strong evidence to show the corruption of the work of Westcott and Hort and their Revised Greek New Testament and their theory that those two manuscripts are the best.  Those two men were heretics, involved in their Ghostly Guild, and they started the shift away from the King James Version, which they hated.  The modern versions are built on their faulty theory and those two corrupt manuscripts.  The KJV is based on the Received Text which is based on the Traditional Text, Byzantine manuscripts or Majority Text.  Those comprise over five thousand manuscripts, parts of manuscripts, and church lectionaries, and early church writings.  There is no debate really about which manuscripts are the true ones.  The ones used from the beginning are the ones I referred to, not the two corrupt manuscripts found in the Catholic church and which came from the depraved city of Alexandria, Egypt and were probably changed by the heretics Origen, and others and then latched onto by Westcott and Hort in the late 1800s because were older than the majority manuscripts.  Age of them doesn't prove anything.  They could have survived simply because they were rejected by the early church and never used because they were considered corrupt.  Someone moved the Vaticanus manuscript to the Vatican library which is likely how it received its name.  The other Manuscript, Codec Sinaiticus, ended up in a waste paper basket in a monastery in the Sinai desert when it was discovered and retrieved as some great discovery.  The majority text were later dated because the original autographs and earlier copies were likely worn out through constant use.

Edited 13 hours ago by blackbird

[User]

4 hours ago, blackbird said:

Unfortunately, the modern versions follow the Greek N.T....

"Unfortunately, the modern versions follow the Greek N.T. produced by these two heretics."

Whether Westcott and Hort were heretics is a separate question from whether a particular manuscript reading is original.

That is still a genetic argument.

A textual variant is not determined by the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of the person who edited or favored it.

---

"Yes, it was their personal belief that the KJV was to be rejected and replaced..."

Again, this doesn't answer my point.

Their opinion of the KJV has no bearing on whether a reading in Codex Vaticanus or Codex Sinaiticus is closer to the original autograph.

The manuscript evidence stands or falls on its own.

---

"They rejected the Majority Text..."

That's true. They favored an eclectic text based on what they believed was stronger manuscript evidence.

The question is whether they were right, not whether they rejected the Majority Text.

Simply restating that they disagreed with the Majority Text isn't an argument that they were wrong.

---

"Those two men were heretics..."

You've repeated this several times.

But repeating it doesn't make it relevant.

If an atheist discovered a first-century manuscript tomorrow, its textual value wouldn't depend on his theology.

Likewise, if an orthodox Christian copied a manuscript incorrectly, the copy wouldn't become accurate because the scribe held sound doctrine.

---

"The two corrupt manuscripts found in the Catholic church..."

This is another unsupported assertion.

Calling Vaticanus and Sinaiticus "corrupt" is the conclusion you're trying to prove.

The fact they were preserved in the Vatican or in a monastery does not itself demonstrate textual corruption.

Their readings must be evaluated on textual evidence.

---

"They came from the depraved city of Alexandria, Egypt and were probably changed by the heretics Origen..."

Notice the progression:

• Alexandria was corrupt.

• Origen was a heretic.

• Therefore the manuscripts are corrupt.

That is still guilt by association.

Where is the manuscript evidence demonstrating that Origen altered these manuscripts?

"Probably" is not evidence.

---

"There is no debate really about which manuscripts are the true ones."

This is simply incorrect.

There is an entire academic discipline devoted to New Testament textual criticism.

Majority Text advocates, Byzantine Priority advocates, Textus Receptus advocates, and Critical Text scholars have debated these questions for centuries.

You may conclude the Majority Text is correct.

It is not accurate to claim there is no debate.

---

"Age of them doesn't prove anything."

I agree.

Age alone does not prove a manuscript is superior.

But neither does numerical majority.

Every textual critic weighs multiple factors, including age, geographical distribution, manuscript families, internal evidence, scribal tendencies, and external attestation.

Very few scholars argue that age alone settles the matter.

---

"They could have survived simply because they were rejected by the early church..."

They could have.

Or they could have survived because Egypt's dry climate preserved manuscripts exceptionally well while heavily used manuscripts elsewhere simply wore out through centuries of copying and public reading.

Both are possible explanations.

Neither is proof.

---

Ultimately, I think you're illustrating the point I originally made.

The discussion keeps returning to Westcott, Hort, the Vatican, Alexandria, and Origen.

But textual criticism is ultimately about the manuscripts themselves.

If we're going to argue that Vaticanus or Sinaiticus are corrupt, then let's examine the textual evidence demonstrating that corruption, rather than primarily appealing to where they were preserved or the theological opinions of nineteenth-century editors.

[blackbird]

3 hours ago, User said:

Whether Westcott and Hort were heretics is a separate question from whether a particular manuscript reading is original.

Actually what they believed is very relevant.  They opposed the Anglican church and they despised the King James Version because they were closet Catholics.  They also were dangerous because they were into the occult and according to the article I posted written by Mark Stronge, they rejected the basic beliefs of the Reformation and Protestants.  They leaned toward Catholic beliefs even though they were Anglicans.  They admired Rome.  Of course I expect you as a Romanist would agree with them.  But I am just explaining the problem with them as far as Protestants are concerned.  Their bias explains why they abhorred the King James Bible and worked on bringing in a Revised Greek New Testament based on a a small number of corrupt manuscripts.

3 hours ago, User said:

But textual criticism is ultimately about the manuscripts themselves.

That is true and I gave you the website that closely critiques the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts.  You would have to read that to understand that those two manuscripts disagree with the Majority manuscripts, also called Byzantine manuscripts as that is the area they came from) used down through the ages and in fact disagree with each other in thousands of places.  They are really depraved manuscripts.

Again I will give you the link to read about those manuscripts if you want to know more.  Go to this website.   

maranath.ca/OLDBEST.HTM

The article I posted from Mark Stronge also goes into it.

You ask where's the proof.  There it is.

 

Edited 14 hours ago by blackbird

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, blackbird said:

You ask where's the proof.  There it is.

Do you really need to understand all this stuff before you make it into heaven - there's a test at the end?

[User]

12 hours ago, blackbird said:

You ask where's the proof.  There it is.

 

"Actually what they believed is very relevant."

It's relevant if we're discussing their motivations.

It is not, by itself, evidence that their textual conclusions were wrong.

Those are two separate questions.

A historian may have political bias and still correctly translate an ancient document. Likewise, a devout Christian may make a textual error.

The manuscript evidence does not become true or false because of the editor's theology.

---

"They despised the King James Version because they were closet Catholics."

Even if I granted that premise for the sake of argument, it still wouldn't establish that the textual decisions they made were incorrect.

It would only suggest a possible motivation.

To demonstrate they were wrong, you must show that their textual choices were wrong.

---

"Their bias explains why they... worked on bringing in a Revised Greek New Testament..."

That is still assuming the conclusion.

You are arguing from motive rather than evidence.

Even if someone had an anti-KJV bias, that does not prove every textual decision they made was incorrect.

The decisions still have to be evaluated on manuscript evidence.

---

"Of course I expect you as a Romanist would agree with them."

[Ad hominem]
[Guilt by association]

Whether I were Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or atheist has absolutely no bearing on whether Codex Vaticanus preserves an earlier reading than the Byzantine tradition.

Let's keep the discussion on the manuscripts rather than each other.

---

"Vaticanus and Sinaiticus disagree with the Majority manuscripts..."

Of course they do.

That's why there is a textual debate.

The question isn't whether they disagree.

The question is which reading is more likely original.

Simply observing that two manuscript traditions differ doesn't resolve that question.

---

"They disagree with each other in thousands of places."

So do Byzantine manuscripts.

No two handwritten manuscript traditions are completely identical.

The existence of textual variation is precisely why textual criticism exists.

The relevant question is whether the differences materially affect reconstruction of the original text, not whether differences exist.

---

"They are really depraved manuscripts."

That's a conclusion, not an argument.

To establish that conclusion, you would need to demonstrate that their readings are consistently secondary or corrupted using textual evidence.

Calling them "depraved" simply restates your position.

---

"You ask where's the proof. There it is."

No, you've provided sources that argue your position.

That is not the same as proof.

Those articles represent one side of a long-standing scholarly debate.

Appealing to an article that reaches your preferred conclusion doesn't end the discussion any more than my citing a critical-text scholar would end it.

The evidence still has to be weighed.

That's why the debate has continued for generations among scholars who have examined the same manuscripts.