Sun Jan 5 08:00:56 1997

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Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 07:55:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Maurice Robinson 
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Subject: Re: spread sheet of variants
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On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Julian Goldberg wrote:

> When comparing the TR of Stephanus, Bezae and Elzevirs, it was found that the
> Elzevirs TR was more similar in agreement to the Bezae TR than the Stephanus
> TR most of the time with regards to variants.  Also, the Bezae TR seemed to
> have been the closest in Greek to the English King James Version.  However,
> one cannot be most sure about this because the Scrivener TR text of Bezae was
> considered and the edition that was used did not mention and variants which
> most likely is found in other Scrivener TR that are not based on the Bezae
> TR but which were placed in the text to get as close as possible to the 
> original King James Version underlying Greek.   

In the original edition of the Scrivener TR, the differences from the
actual Beza 1598 edition and the Scrivener TR are listed in an appendix.
The Trinitarian Bible Society reprint edition does not have that appendix,
and might cause people to think that it actually is the Beza 1598 when in
fact it is not. Scrivener also has collations of the various TR editions
within his Plain Introduction, and so too Hoskier as an appendix to his
Collation of MS 704 [Greg.700] volume.  The readings placed in the
Scrivener TR which come closest to the KJV were those which had previously
been found in a printed Greek edition before 1604; this meant that
Scrivener at times had to use extreme creativity when trying to set a
Greek reading as "underlying" when items like the Latin Vulgate were
followed by the KJV translators, since Scrivener would _not_ play Erasmus
and retranslate the Latin back into Greek.

> An estimation is that the
> TR in general may have 3/4 of it based on the majority text and about 1/4
> of it based on many other different texts whether minority Greek and some
> Latin translations.   

Set your percentages higher.  Probably 98% of the Scrivener or any other 
TR is in agreement with the Byzantine/majority text. If Wallace's count of
only 1850 differences is correct, the percentage might even be higher.
The TR is a _very_ Byzantine text, except in Revelation.

> The goal is to find out in any given TR since they
> differ slightly what passages constitute this 1/4 and to make changes to it
> to get it in line if possible as a majority reading of the text.  Even 
> comparing the variations between the different TRs would be a start in 
> finding what's what.

As mentioned, the establishment of most of the "M" text is easy enough to
do, using N27 and Von Soden for the basic data.  Comparison of differences
between various TR's would contribute nothing to this goal.  There might
be value in a separate study inquiring as to the sources of TR readings
which are not "majority"; but this exercise would be only of historical
and not of ultimate text-critical concern.

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Professor of Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
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