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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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