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Question #41
QUESTION: I've heard that there have
been many manuscripts discovered since 1611 that the King James translators
didn't have access to. Do these strengthen or weaken the King James
Bible?
ANSWER: They strengthen the King James
Bible.
EXPLANATION: There have been many manuscripts
found since 1611, but there have been no new READINGS
found.
Many critics of the Word of God have used the argument
of "new evidence" that the King James translators didn't have
as a basis to degrade its authority. The fact is, that the King James
translators had all of the readings available to them
that modern critics have available to them today.
One of the most prominent manuscripts which has been discovered
since 1611 is the Sinaitic manuscript. This witness, though horribly
flawed, was found amongst trash paper in St. Catherine's monastery at
the foot of Mt. Sinai in 1841 by Constantine Tischendorf.
Sinaiticus is a sister manuscript of the corrupt manuscript,
Vaticanus. Both read very similarly. So, although the Sinaitic manuscript
was discovered over 200 years after the Authorized Version was translated,
its READINGS were well known to the translators through
the Vatican manuscript which was discovered in 1481 and also through
the Jesuit Bible, an English translation of 1582.
So we see that there are no readings available today to
scholars which were not already in the hands of the King James translators.
We might further add that an honest scholar will admit
that this "great number of newly discovered manuscripts" that
are trumped abroad, agree with the Greek text of the Authorized Version
rather than challenging it.
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