Talk:Textus Receptus

Johannine Comma

The Johannine Comma appears almost exclusively in Latin manuscripts, not in Greek. "It is found in only four Greek manuscripts, none earlier than the 14th century. 4 other Greek mss. offer it as a margin note. The remaining Greek mss., numbering in the hundreds, do not include it." ("The Comma of 1 John 5:7") Moreover, it is not in the earliest Latin translations, including Jerome's Vulgate. It is first mention by Priscillian, a Latin writer of the fourth century. John was written in Greek, so early Greek manuscripts such as Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are considered to be the most authoritative witnesses. PeterKa (talk) 22:23, 4 November 2017 (EDT)

Some of the information above is not true. See Comma Johanneum at the Textus Receptus Wiki. You say it is not in the Vulgate, when it is in fact in over 90% of Vulgate MSS. You say it was first quoted by Priscillian (4th century), but it was also quoted by Cyprian (3rd century) and possibly Tertullian (200 AD). You say it isn't found in ancient versions, even though it was in the Waldensians' Bible, and likely the Old Latin Vulgate (given that the Vulgate was based upon it). There are also traces of it in the Syriac Peshitta. You say it is only in eight Greek MSS, but Dr. Floyd Nolan Jones writes:

"As of 1997, the following cursive manuscripts are known to include the passage:

34, 88 (margin) 99, 105, 110, 162, 173, 181, 190, 193, 219, 220, 221, 298, 429, 629 (margin) 635, 636, and 918.

Thus the list of Greek mss known to contain the "Comma" is not long, but it is longer (and growing) than many of us would have believed.

It was part of the text of a 2nd century Old Latin Bible. It is found in "r", a 5th century Old Latin manuscript,

and in a confession of faith drawn up by Eusebius, Bishop of Carthage, in 484."

We can add to this the excluded evidence. For example, the fact that the internal consistency of the text requires the Comma. Furthermore, the comments added to the article saying that the TR is unreliable are not the opinions of everyone. They are the opinions of the majority of scholars, but, in my opinion, are not warranted (see for example Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text). I will change the article to reflect both sides of the argument. --Ambassador2 (talk) 13:33, 7 November 2017 (EST)

I removed the section about early Latin from the article. It's not relevant to the story. I got the tidbit about Priscillian from New Catholic Encyclopedia. Isn't that a better source than the Textus Receptus wiki? The scholarly and religious authorities overwhelmingly support the critical/Alexandrian text. There are certainly people who prefer KJV or NKJV, but that has more to do with the literary qualities of 16th century English than with text issues. NKJV doesn't admit to following TR. According to the preface, it is a translation of the "majority text." If that was true, it wouldn't include the Comma at all.
I checked out the TR wiki and I must say that I have some issues. Dividing manuscripts into TR and Westcott-Hort types is not the way scholars in this field do it. Many of these manuscripts are not even in Greek. There should be some explanation of who made these classifications and on what basis. PeterKa (talk) 22:48, 8 November 2017 (EST)

I can find you better documented sources if you want. Yes, the scholars are majoritarily on the side of the Alexandrian text, but there are dissenters (notable examples being Dr. Wilbur Pickering and Dean John Burgon). Truth isn't decided by vote, and I find the arguments of the TR side superior. Thus, I believe that the article should reflect both sides, though admitting that most scholars support the Alexandrian. Many support the Authorized Version (including myself) for multiple reasons. Accurate translation and superior underlying text are the foremost reasons. As for the NKJV, its English is modern, not early modern like the AV, so I don't see why you say people adhere to it for its English. The NKJV mostly follows the TR (being a revision of the AV) but sometimes departs. Similarly, in the OT it uses the Masoratic text (though I believe it uses Biblica Hebraica rather than Ben Chayyim) but sometimes departs, following the LXX, for example. For these reasons and others I don't endorse the NKJV. In short, it is mainly TR but not completely. As for the TR Wiki, I only found it about a week ago, and have some problems with it too, the main one being that footnotes (when used) don't seem to reference anything. I'll try to fix it up, myself. I'll also fix up this article, in a non-biased way.--Ambassador2 (talk) 21:14, 9 November 2017 (EST)