Why We Use the King James Bible, Lesson 6: Two Streams of Manuscripts

Welcome to Authorized Sword Ministries. This is Lesson 6 in our series, Why We Use the King James Bible. Today's lesson is called Two Streams of Manuscripts.

We're so glad you're here.

In Lesson 1 we introduced a fact many people have never been told: not all Bibles are translated from the same Hebrew and Greek texts. Today we go deeper into those two streams, still in plain language, and still with a kind heart toward anyone who reads a different version. We want you to see where the difference started.

Our Key Verse

"The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever."
— Psalm 12:6-7 (KJV)

God promised to keep His words. Jesus said the same thing:

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
— Matthew 24:35 (KJV)

"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."
— Isaiah 40:8 (KJV)

If God promised to preserve His words, then those words are somewhere His people can hold them. The question is not whether God was able to keep them. The question is which stream of manuscripts we trust as the kept Word.

The Old Testament Stream

For the Old Testament, the King James translators used the Hebrew Masoretic Text, the text carefully copied by Jewish scribes for centuries. That is the same basic Hebrew text that has been the standard for the Jewish Scriptures. We are not going to pretend there are never questions about a rare word or a spelling. We are saying that the Old Testament behind the King James Bible stands in the line of the text God's people actually received and preserved.

The Received Text

For the New Testament, the King James Bible rests on what is called the Received Text, or in Latin, the Textus Receptus. That name became common after a 1633 edition printed by the Elzevirs, but the text itself is older than the name. It comes from the great family of Greek manuscripts that the churches read, copied, and preached from, generation after generation, especially in the Greek-speaking churches of the East. That family is often called the Byzantine text, or the Majority Text, because it represents the large majority of the Greek manuscripts we still have.

The printed Greek New Testament of this stream begins with Desiderius Erasmus in 1516. Later editions by Robert Stephanus (also called Estienne) and Theodore Beza were used by the King James translators. We looked at that history in Lessons 1 and 4. The point for today is simple. This was not a text invented in 1611. It was the text that had been in the hands of the churches, now gathered into print.

The Other Stream

Most modern versions come from a different place. In the 1800s, scholars gave great weight to a few old manuscripts that differ, in many places, from that received text.

One is Codex Vaticanus, often called manuscript B, which has long been held in the Vatican library and is usually dated to the fourth century. Another is Codex Sinaiticus, often called manuscript Aleph, which was brought to wider attention in the 1800s by Constantin von Tischendorf at the monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai, and is now held chiefly at the British Library. These are old, and they are important historical witnesses. We do not deny that.

In 1881, two Cambridge scholars, Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton Hort, published a new Greek New Testament that leaned very heavily on this narrower stream. We will look more closely at those men and their method in Lesson 8. Today's Greek editions, called Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Societies text, carry on that same basic approach. It is often called the Critical Text. The NIV, the ESV, and most other modern English versions are translated from it.

Older Is Not Always Better

The argument is that older must be better, because those two manuscripts are centuries earlier than most of the copies in the majority family. But older is not always better. A copy can be old and still be a poor copy. A manuscript may have survived because it was little used, while the text the churches were actually reading was worn out by use and copied again and again.

These two famous manuscripts also disagree with each other in many places. That fact alone should slow us down. If the "oldest and best" witnesses often do not say the same thing, we should not quickly throw out the Bible that God's people had been using for centuries.

We believe a text that survived because the churches kept reading it, preaching it, and copying it is not less trustworthy than a text that sat unused on a shelf. Preservation is not only about ink lasting in a dry climate. It is about God keeping His words in the usage of His people, "from this generation for ever."

Why This Matters for You

You may be thinking, "This sounds like a fight for scholars." It becomes a family matter as soon as you open your Bible and a verse is missing, or a name of God is softened, or a confession of faith is moved to a footnote. We saw examples of that in Lesson 1, and we will see more in Lesson 7. The two streams are not a theory. They show up on the page.

If you read another version, we are not here to look down on you. We are here to show you that the differences have a source, and to invite you to hold a Bible that, we believe, stands in the stream God preserved.

A Simple Step for This Week

Read Psalm 12:6-7 and Matthew 24:35 each day this week. Then, if you have a King James Bible and another version, look at one of the verses from Lesson 1, such as Acts 8:37 or 1 Timothy 3:16, and notice again which text is in the main line and which is not. Ask the Lord to give you a love for the words He has kept.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You that Your words are pure words, and that You have promised to preserve them for ever. Give us wisdom to discern, humility toward other believers, and a firm trust in the Book You have kept for Your people. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Thank you for spending this time with us. This is Authorized Sword Ministries. God bless you.

Study Questions

1. What promise do Psalm 12:6-7 and Matthew 24:35 give us about God's words?
2. What Hebrew text did the King James translators use for the Old Testament?
3. What is the Received Text, and why is it also connected with the words "Byzantine" and "Majority Text"?
4. Name two early printed editors whose Greek New Testaments stand in this stream.
5. What two old manuscripts did later scholars lean on so heavily, and where has each been kept?
6. What is meant by the Critical Text, and which English versions are commonly translated from it?
7. Why is "older" not always the same as "better"?
8. How does the idea of preservation among God's people differ from the idea that the best text is the one that sat unused?
9. How does this lesson help you understand the verse differences you saw in Lesson 1?
10. How can you talk about this subject with meekness, not pride, if a friend reads another version?

Sources

Historical points in this lesson follow and expand the account already given in Lessons 1 and 4 of this series, and were reviewed against standard descriptions of the Masoretic Text, the Textus Receptus (Erasmus 1516; later Stephanus and Beza; the Elzevir 1633 phrasing), Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus (brought to wide attention by Tischendorf; principal portion now at the British Library), Westcott and Hort's 1881 Greek New Testament, and the later Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies editions that underlie most modern English versions.