Originally posted by Winefried
reply to post by AccessDenied
Thank you for your excellent initial post and for all the hard work and time that went into it. It will take me a while to read through all of your links but I will do it. Even just reading the basic outline and a few of your suppoting references has been thought provoking. It is so refreshing to read a thread that is both interesting and of high quality, both in its content and presentation.
Originally posted by AccessDenied
Fear is a powerful force.Second only to thought in my opinion. It is what paralyzes us daily.Fear of the smallest things, like forgetting something, or losing something, to fear of death or what comes after it. How much does FEAR really rule your life?
Fear rules us all.THEY use fear to rule us all.We must all act in spite of fear. They only control us, because we are afraid.
The Alexandrian Text
This text arose in Egypt and is generally conceded to be the most important one. Westcott and Hort, who named this the Neutral Text, thought that Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus had preserved a pure form of the Alexandrian type of text. It is now evident that these manuscripts had been corrected by later scribes, but they are the most ancient uncials and preserve the Alexandrian text at an early stage. Some of the important papyrus manuscripts also represent this family.
The Byzantine Text
This family has been designated by many names. It is called Byzantine because it was adopted in Constantinople and used as the common text in the Byzantine world. It was produced in Antioch, Syria, under the direction of Lucian near the beginning of the fourth century and has been called the Syrian or Antiochene text. It was used almost universally after the eight century. Both Erasmus, who created the first printed Greek text, and the translators of the King James Version of the Bible used this type of text. It was produced by combining earlier texts and has less value than the Alexandrian text. A (Codex Alexandrinus, fifth century) and C (Codex Ephraemi, fifth century) are the oldest representatives of the Byzantine family. A great majority of late uncials and minuscules belong to this group.
The Western Text
This family of texts was clsoely related to the church in the west, particularly in North Africa. Although it can probably be traced to the second century, its value has been disputed. It was used by the erly church fathers. Its age would seem to suggest great importance, but there are clear indications that it was not carefully preserved. It is best represented by the Old Latin translations, by the Syriac versions, and the church fathers. Its most famous representative is manuscript D (Codex Bezae) for the book of Acts.
The Caesarean Text
This family of texts was widely used in Caesarea from which it derived its name. It seems to have arisen out of the Alexandrian text but was also mixed with the Western text. Consequently, its value is limited. Metzger suggests that it is necessary to distinguish between two stages in its development, the pre-Caesarean and the Caesarean (Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 215). Some of its more prominent representatives are W (Washington Codex, fifth century), P45, and two groups of minuscules and lectionaries.
A vital fact to remember is that though codices Aleph and B (produced in the 4th century) are older than other Greek manuscript copies of the Scriptures, they are not older than the Pe#ta, Italic, the Old Latin Vulgate and the Waldensian versions which were produced 200 years earlier in the 2nd century. All these versions, copies of which are still in existence, agree with Textus Receptus, the underlying text of the King James Bible. I repeat: these ancient versions are some 200 years older than Vaticanus and Sinaiticus: so the 'oldest is best' argument should not be used. All Bibles fall, basically, into one of two categories.
* Those based on the Majority Text. (Textus Receptus)
* Those based on the Minority Text. (Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus etc.)
Any study of the translation of the languages of the Bible focuses on John Wycliffe and William Tyndale. Wycliffe (1330-1384 AD) opposed the shackles of Romanism and urged England to a great spiritual revival. Wycliffe believed all men should have ready access to God's word. Wycliffe undertook and finished a translation of the Bible from Latin into English in 1382. Wycliffe's work is the first complete translation of the Bible into English. John Wycliffe's work prevailed until the sixteenth century. The true father of the English Bible, though, is William Tyndale. Tyndale wanted to provide man with a translation into English from the original Hebrew and Greek, not the Latin, which was itself, a translation. It was during this same time period that Martin Luther finished a translation in German. The Catholic Church determinedly did all within its power to stop translation work and to keep the Bible from being available to all men in their languages. Tyndale was imprisoned in 1534 and in 1536, he was strangled and burned at the stake. Tyndale's efforts were not in vain, though, his New Testament was completed in 1525 and in 1535, Miles Coverdale, a scholar and friend of Tyndale, published his translation, partly based on Tyndale's work.
When it finally came time for the protestants to translate and verify their own Manuscripts of the Bible, they took great care to make sure that they were as accurate as possible. Their knowledge of linguistics and languages and translation was phenomenal. Their knowledge easily surpasses the "expertise" of modern scholars, but even today, it is protestants who continue to translate the Bible into all languages around the world. If it were not for Protestants, the Bible would still be a banned book, which is what the Roman Catholic Church declared it to be for anyone who was not a Priest.
