09 What original language texts are you using? (World English Bible Translation)
Description
This article is from the World English Bible Translation FAQ, by Michael Paul Johnson mpj@ebible.org with numerous contributions by others.
09 What original language texts are you using? (World English Bible Translation)
Since this is primarily an update of the 1901 edition, the choices made
by the original 50 or so Evangelical scholars that made this translation
hold unless reference is made to the original languages to help with
places where the Elizabethan English is not clear, or where major
textual variants are known to exist. In this case, we are using the
Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, also called The Stuttgart Bible, in the
Old Testament, and the Byzantine Majority Text as published for use with
The Online Bible in the New Testament (M-Text). This choice of Greek
text is very close to what the KJV translators used, but does take
advantage of some more recently discovered manuscripts. Although there
are good scholarly arguments both for and against using the Byzantine
Majority Text over the "Alexandrian" text based on the dating and
critical editing work of Nestle and Aland and published by the United
Bible Societies (UBS), we find the following to be compelling reasons:
* The UBS text has a lot of "dropout" errors relative to the M-Text.
Diligent scribes with a respect for God's Word are more likely to miss
copying something (i.e. by skipping a line, etc.) than to make up a line
to add in.
* Different scribes copying the same passage aren't all likely to
make the same mistakes at the same places, even though some mistakes are
likely to be copied over many times.
* When a scribe had a choice of manuscripts to copy, he would normally
copy the one that he trusted the most, thus causing the most trusted
text to be copied more often.
* The UBS text relies heavily on the dating of the media upon which
the text was written, but those texts that are used more and trusted
more would both be copied more often and worn out from use sooner.
* The UBS text is heavily weighted to a small number of manuscripts
relative to those available to us.
* The UBS text is heavily weighted to a small number of manuscripts
relative to those available to us, and relies heavily on one manuscript
that was pulled from a trash can at a monastery.
* The Holy Spirit takes an active interest in preserving what He has
inspired.
* In those few sections where the M-Text and UBS text differ
significantly, I have taken my question of textual choice directly to
God, and God chose to answer me by confirming in several different ways
that reading which the M-Text rendered. The main passage in question is
in Mark 16, but there are others, too. While I certainly don't claim to
be infallible, I do know when to say, "Yes, Sir" and follow the
direction I see the Lord pointing me in.
Continue to:
My Books
