The KJVO myth...

createdtoworship · Dec 28, 2019

JSRG said:
For those wishing to read them, the blog posts mentioned in the review seem to be these ones:
The Text of the Gospels: Sinaiticus Is Not a Forgery - Setting the Stage
The Text of the Gospels: Ten Reasons Why Sinaiticus Was Not Made By Simonides
The Text of the Gospels: Ten More Reasons Sinaiticus Was Not Made by Simonides

I have done much debate on this topic and will post my comments here for discussion. If you wish to quote from the links and add arguments go ahead, but I only found one debate online where there were two sides answering questions back and forth and those to me are the most accurate as you have a dialogue. Here is my reply:

I have only seen one reputable debate online or anywhere regarding this topic, there were several bullet points offered to refute the claim that the sinaiticus was a forgery: I have for the most part refuted much of it here:

1) Constantine Simonides claimed that he wrote the document based on collating pre-existing manuscripts, and that his uncle corrected the document.

Both sides agree that he so claimed. Dr. White demonstrated that these claims are essentially impossible, as explained below.

we will see if that is a false statement as we read on

2) The most sympathetic source for Simonides says that Simonides was not a truthful person.

Dr. White raised this point, and Pinto did not dispute it except to say that this source was not the only supportive source and that the source himself says Simonides did not always lie.

there is an eye witness that actually saw simonides forging the sinaiticus. In Oct 15, 1862, Kallinikos Hieromachos, wrote a letter, were it stated that

...I do myself declare to all men by this letter, that the Codex of the Old and New Testaments, together with the Epistle of Barnabas and of the Shepherd Hermas, which was abstracted by Dr. Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, is a work of the hands of the unwearied Simonides himself.Inasmuch as I myself saw him in 1843 ... in the month of February writing it in Athos...Dr. Tischendorf, coming to the Greek monastery of Sinai in 1844, in the month of May (if my memory does not deceive me), and remaining there several days, and getting into his hands, by permission of the librarian, the codex we are speaking of, and perusing and re-perusing it frequently, abstracted secretly a small portion of it, but left the largest portion in the place where it was, and departed undisturbed...And I know yet further, that the codex also was cleaned with lemon-juice, professedly for the purpose of cleaning its parchments, but in reality in order to weaken the freshness of the letters, as was actually the case."

this adds validity to the fact that 10% of the manuscript is whiter than the rest of it. It would naturally follow that that was the part that was cleaned with lemon juice.

3) There are no known examplars that could have been the source for Codex Sinaiticus.

Dr. White raised this point, Pinto’s response was to point out that the source(s) could be as-yet-unknown manuscripts on Mt. Athos.

what about the majority text, or the textus receptus? They existed at the time.

4) Codex Sinaiticus was written by several different, distinguishable scribes (as evidenced by different handwriting, different style of abbreviations, and different accuracy of work).

Dr. White raised this point, Pinto did not respond to it.

again the textus receptus probably retained those distinguishable scribal differentiations, and they were probably just copied over to the sinaiticus.

5) Codex Sinaiticus has corrections by multiple different correctors.

Dr. White raised this point, Pinto did not respond to it except to say that two other men (a monk and a scribe) may have been involved in the corrections.

I would have to see the evidence for this. I can see saying there was different scribes, but proving that there were also additional correctors is very hard to do. I would love to see a scholarly essay on this, and none have been provided by white or anyone else that I know of at least.

6) The amount of time necessary for collating multiple manuscripts of the entire Bible (plus some apocrypha) would have been prohibitive in the timeline proposed by Simonides.

Dr. White raised this point, and Pinto responded that possibly his uncle started on the project years before Simonides began.

not if you are copying it, as I suggested.

Additional notes:

1. Regarding the Mt. Athos manuscripts, there is an on-going digitization project (link). At one point, Mr. Pinto alleges that the one way to resolve the mystery was to explore the Mt. Athos library for manuscripts corresponding to Simonides’ claims. He won’t be able to stand behind that argument from ignorance forever.

that is not an argument of ignorance. An argument from ignorance is saying this "because you can't prove me wrong, I am right." And that is a fallacy because just because you don't have the resources to prove it wrong at that point, does not mean the resources don't exist.

2. Simonides himself states that the collation began after Simonides himself joined the project, as demonstrated by Dr. White. So, although the uncle allegedly had corrected the other manuscripts in advance, the collation project had not been done in advance, according to the primary source for Mr. Pinto’s theory.

I would need to see the primary source that is being talked about here. I am not sure the primary souce they are saying is primary is in fact the number one source. My number one source is the eye witness. And other discrepancies such as: the manuscript was put online in 2009 by the Codex Sinaiticus Project. It became possible to see that the 1844 Leipzig 43 leaves, about 10% of the parchment, was still a very unusual white parchment, it never yellowed with age. While the 90% of the parchment in London, which had been brought to St. Petersburg in 1859, had a more stained yellow appearance. When this disparity was connected to the specific allegations published in 1863 that Tischendorf (or his allies) had stained the manuscript in the intervening period from 1844 to 1859, you had a rather incredible before and after confirmation of tampering.

This was one of numerous elements that have arisen that has led to the questioning of Sinaiticus "authenticity". Meaning, it may not have been written in the 4th century, there is strong evidence that its production was actually around 1840.

Steven Avery

and someone else pointed out:
I am not a Greek scholar, but I've read that the date of this codex cannot be as ancient as claimed since it contains modern Greek writing (Epistle of Barnabas) and the state of the book itself has not aged as other manuscripts of any significant age. These factors seem to put more weight on it being the writing of Simonides.

that means that the part that is whiter, was the epistle to barnabas. So it was clearly added on to existing manuscripts, and then sold as an entirely new manuscript.

again if this intrigues you and you wish to know more, either visit the link to the site in this forum on the topic or read the book by cooper, it has plenty of photographs..

https://www.amazon.com/Forging-Codex-Sinaiticus-Bill-Cooper-ebook/dp/B01E1SUPRO

createdtoworship · Dec 28, 2019

robycop3 said:
Not at all. Some had portions of God's word. There were no complete Bibles in those days, but there was enough of God's word available to many so they could come to Jesus.

I am just saying that how can you prove the canon was right? Just have faith? Or do you have patristic evidence for it? But that patristic evidence goes away if the Bible they were using was false.

createdtoworship · Dec 28, 2019

ViaCrucis said:
Do you accept the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture?

-CryptoLutheran

I just did a study on it....

Apocrypha was not a part of the bible of Jesus and the early church
It is never quoted in the Bible
Church fathers separated them from the Canon
Not included as "scripture" until the counsel of Trent (hundreds of years later)
Historical and Geographical inaccuracies
Lack of prophetic spirit (lacks prophecy of future events, validating it as canonical)
lower level of writing than other books of the Bible

ViaCrucis · Dec 28, 2019

createdtoworship said:
I just did a study on it....

Apocrypha was not a part of the bible of Jesus and the early church

It is never quoted in the Bible

Church fathers separated them from the Canon

Not included as "scripture" until the counsel of Trent (hundreds of years later)

Historical and Geographical inaccuracies

Lack of prophetic spirit (lacks prophecy of future events, validating it as canonical)

lower level of writing than other books of the Bible

1. It was part of the Septuagint, which is what the Apostles themselves quote in the New Testament.
2. This isn't really relevant, but for what it's worth, neither are Esther or the Song of Songs ever quoted.
3. This claim just isn't true, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the fathers would know that.
4. This is also false, it had been present in collections of Scripture both East and West for centuries long before Trent; Trent made it official, in large part because many Protestants had rejected the Deuterocanonical books.
5. The same charge could be made against the Protocanonical books.
6. Containing prophecy about the future is not a defining feature of canonicity and never has been.
7. Subjective opinion.

-CryptoLutheran

robycop3 · Dec 28, 2019

createdtoworship said:
I am just saying that how can you prove the canon was right? Just have faith? Or do you have patristic evidence for it? But that patristic evidence goes away if the Bible they were using was false.

The OT was established as Scripture before Jesus came. And the NT writings that became part of the canon were in constant use from soon after they were written.

solid_core · Dec 28, 2019

robycop3 said:
The OT was established as Scripture before Jesus came. And the NT writings that became part of the canon were in constant use from soon after they were written.

First century Jews and Chritians used many different books and there was no firm closed canon in those times.

robycop3 · Dec 28, 2019

solid_core said:
First century Jews and Chritians used many different books and there was no firm closed canon in those times.

True. The canon wasn't establidhed among men overnight.

createdtoworship · Dec 28, 2019

ViaCrucis said:
1. It was part of the Septuagint, which is what the Apostles themselves quote in the New Testament.
2. This isn't really relevant, but for what it's worth, neither are Esther or the Song of Songs ever quoted.
3. This claim just isn't true, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the fathers would know that.
4. This is also false, it had been present in collections of Scripture both East and West for centuries long before Trent; Trent made it official, in large part because many Protestants had rejected the Deuterocanonical books.
5. The same charge could be made against the Protocanonical books.
6. Containing prophecy about the future is not a defining feature of canonicity and never has been.
7. Subjective opinion.

-CryptoLutheran

thank you for the well researched reply, I appreciate that! You have done your homework. I don't happen to agree with it, but I realize I will need further sources. I will have a broader study as well that I would have to reference to summarize it for us here. But that will be in the morning when I have more time on the desktop computer. I will bookmark this post and reply to it then, thanks.

createdtoworship · Dec 28, 2019

robycop3 said:
The OT was established as Scripture before Jesus came. And the NT writings that became part of the canon were in constant use from soon after they were written.

Yes they were but we have to prove that somehow. I have faith in God's word. But we must also take heed to provide "to every man an answer of the faith that lies within". Part of this is knowing the canonicity. The church fathers created the canon, I will do a study on it tomorrow and publish it.

JSRG · Dec 28, 2019

For some of the posts I am quoting to be fully comprehensible, they need to include the quotations that were originally there. So I had to manually insert them. They thus may be not be positioned exactly how they were originally.

createdtoworship said:
I have done much debate on this topic and will post my comments here for discussion. If you wish to quote from the links and add arguments go ahead, but I only found one debate online where there were two sides answering questions back and forth and those to me are the most accurate as you have a dialogue.

And here you are again, doing exactly what I've pointed out you do over and over: You'll make an argument. People will point out problems in it. Then you will simply ignore the counterpoints and make the same argument you did before.

Let us take your post here that I am replying to. Arguments were made against your position, both in the links I provided (back here--I should note, however, that only the second two provide arguments, the first is largely background setting) as well as the lengthy rebuttal to the book you appealed to (available here) that someone else posted, which is more important as it directly addresses the book you were appealing to. Did you respond to these points? Well, in this post you skipped over the links I provided in lieu of presenting a recycled argument of yours that was already refuted, but you did respond to the book rebuttal here. Or, rather, you claimed that after you had "downloaded and read" it, you found that "mainly the objections are that there are three different writing styles in the new testament, and that the forger could not have had enough time to complete such a volumous task"--despite the fact I don't think that argument is even mentioned in the article. If it was mentioned, it was such a minor part I missed it--certainly not the main point as you claim it was.

And now you return to making the same arguments that have already been rebutted--as if the problems hadn't already been exposed. Let us take just one example. Here is an argument you made in this post I am replying to:

there is an eye witness that actually saw simonides forging the sinaiticus. In Oct 15, 1862, Kallinikos Hieromachos, wrote a letter, were it stated that

...I do myself declare to all men by this letter, that the Codex of the Old and New Testaments, together with the Epistle of Barnabas and of the Shepherd Hermas, which was abstracted by Dr. Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, is a work of the hands of the unwearied Simonides himself.Inasmuch as I myself saw him in 1843 ... in the month of February writing it in Athos...Dr. Tischendorf, coming to the Greek monastery of Sinai in 1844, in the month of May (if my memory does not deceive me), and remaining there several days, and getting into his hands, by permission of the librarian, the codex we are speaking of, and perusing and re-perusing it frequently, abstracted secretly a small portion of it, but left the largest portion in the place where it was, and departed undisturbed...And I know yet further, that the codex also was cleaned with lemon-juice, professedly for the purpose of cleaning its parchments, but in reality in order to weaken the freshness of the letters, as was actually the case."

You claim this is your reply to the points raised in this topic--but this is simply just copying your post here. (actually, except for a small addition at the beginning and at the end, it appears to be a literal copy/paste of that post) But before we get to addressing your post from there in particular, let's look at the opening post in that topic. Observe this portion from it:

InKarpathos said:
In Oct 15, 1862, Kallinikos Hieromachos, wrote a letter, were it stated that

...I do myself declare to all men by this letter, that the Codex of the Old and New Testaments, together with the Epistle of Barnabas and of the Shepherd Hermas, which was abstracted by Dr. Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, is a work of the hands of the unwearied Simonides himself. Inasmuch as I myself saw him in 1843 ... in the month of February writing it in Athos...Dr. Tischendorf, coming to the Greek monastery of Sinai in 1844, in the month of May (if my memory does not deceive me), and remaining there several days, and getting into his hands, by permission of the librarian, the codex we are speaking of, and perusing and re-perusing it frequently, abstracted secretly a small portion of it, but left the largest portion in the place where it was, and departed undisturbed...And I know yet further, that the codex also was cleaned with lemon-juice, professedly for the purpose of cleaning its parchments, but in reality in order to weaken the freshness of the letters, as was actually the case.

Click to expand...

Now that post wasn't by you (I think I may have suggested earlier it was--if so, that was in error). But it contains the same general arguments you offer. Indeed, you made your own post later that repeated the claim in this section of it:

createdtoworship said:
There is a second source that claims He forged it:
In Oct 15, 1862, Kallinikos Hieromachos, wrote a letter, were it stated that

"...I do myself declare to all men by this letter, that the Codex of the Old and New Testaments, together with the Epistle of Barnabas and of the Shepherd Hermas, which was abstracted by Dr. Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, is a work of the hands of the unwearied Simonides himself. Inasmuch as I myself saw him in 1843 ... in the month of February writing it in Athos...Dr. Tischendorf, coming to the Greek monastery of Sinai in 1844, in the month of May (if my memory does not deceive me), and remaining there several days, and getting into his hands, by permission of the librarian, the codex we are speaking of, and perusing and re-perusing it frequently, abstracted secretly a small portion of it, but left the largest portion in the place where it was, and departed undisturbed...And I know yet further, that the codex also was cleaned with lemon-juice, professedly for the purpose of cleaning its parchments, but in reality in order to weaken the freshness of the letters, as was actually the case."

So now we have not only one person lying, but a corroborator. This complicates things.

Afterwards a poster named NT Scholar came in, responding to both the original post and yours (other posters had already given responses in the topic, but I'll be focusing on NT Scholar's). His response starts here for anyone who wants to read it the whole way through and see it in fuller context, but I am keeping the focus of this post limited to the question of the letter. To that, he said:

NT Scholar said:
In Oct 15, 1862, Kallinikos Hieromachos, wrote a letter,

Simonides actually wrote this letter but…

were it stated that

...I do myself declare to all men by this letter, that the Codex of the Old and New Testaments, together with the Epistle of Barnabas and of the Shepherd Hermas, which was abstracted by Dr. Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, is a work of the hands of the unwearied Simonides himself. Inasmuch as I myself saw him in 1843 ... in the month of February writing it in Athos...Dr. Tischendorf, coming to the Greek monastery of Sinai in 1844, in the month of May (if my memory does not deceive me), and remaining there several days, and getting into his hands, by permission of the librarian, the codex we are speaking of, and perusing and re-perusing it frequently, abstracted secretly a small portion of it, but left the largest portion in the place where it was, and departed undisturbed...And I know yet further, that the codex also was cleaned with lemon-juice, professedly for the purpose of cleaning its parchments, but in reality in order to weaken the freshness of the letters, as was actually the case.

Click to expand...

1) Your letter is both edited and incorrect. Your citation says “1843.” The actual letter – easily found online – says 1840. Not only is this bizarrely wrong, it contradicts Simonides’s own story that he had already completed it and received a letter from Constantius saying HE had received the gift of Sinaiticus dated August 13, 1841.

2) The edits hide from the inquirer the fact that this Kallinikos letter – literally – had him somehow being right “on the spot” to see Simonides writing it in 1840 (Athos), see Tischendorf steal it from Sinai in 1844, see someone clean it with lemon juice, and then see Tischendorf steal the rest of it in 1859. This guy Kallinikos popped up in more big moments in the history of this manuscript than Forrest Gump did.

He also responded to your specific post:

NT Scholar said:
In Oct 15, 1862, Kallinikos Hieromachos, wrote a letter, were it stated that

...........
So now we have not only one person lying, but a corroborator. This complicates things.

Click to expand...

Not in the real world it doesn't.

The Kallinikos letter(s) suddenly make an amazing appearance just in the nick of time to "save" Simonides. Yet not only Simonides's opponents but his ADVOCATE (Hodgkin at "The Literary Churchman") admits (but veils his admission) that Simonides wrote the Kallinikos letter(s).

Unless we believe Kallinikos managed to:
a) be right there "on the spot" (his words) to see Tischendorf steal it in 1844
b) be right there "on the spot" to see Tischendorf alter it with "lemon juice"
c) be right there "on the spot" to see Tischendorf steal the rest of it in 1859

These would be amazing enough but at least in theory possible.

But he was ALSO "on the spot" on Mt Athos in 1840 and saw Simonides ALONE writing it.

This is laughable.

Also,
this adds validity to the fact that 10% of the manuscript is whiter than the rest of it.

Click to expand...

No, it doesn't - it's the same person under a false name pretending to be a witness and making the exact same accusation. Here's an obvious problem: why did Simonides never produce the EYEWITNESS that can prove all this? He produced ALLEGED LETTERS from the eyewitness. It's amazing these guys were so intimate and yet he couldn't produce him.

So a good amount of evidence has been shown that this supposed eyewitness letter was just something that Simonides made up, and therefore NOT an eyewitness as has been claimed. And while a more minor point, it was also noted that the actual "eyewitness letter" said 1840, not 1843. So, in response to this point, what do you do? Do you respond to any of these points? No, you simply make the same argument again in that topic:

createdtoworship said:
there is an eye witness that actually saw simonides forging the sinaiticus. In Oct 15, 1862, Kallinikos Hieromachos, wrote a letter, were it stated that

...I do myself declare to all men by this letter, that the Codex of the Old and New Testaments, together with the Epistle of Barnabas and of the Shepherd Hermas, which was abstracted by Dr. Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, is a work of the hands of the unwearied Simonides himself.Inasmuch as I myself saw him in 1843 ... in the month of February writing it in Athos...Dr. Tischendorf, coming to the Greek monastery of Sinai in 1844, in the month of May (if my memory does not deceive me), and remaining there several days, and getting into his hands, by permission of the librarian, the codex we are speaking of, and perusing and re-perusing it frequently, abstracted secretly a small portion of it, but left the largest portion in the place where it was, and departed undisturbed...And I know yet further, that the codex also was cleaned with lemon-juice, professedly for the purpose of cleaning its parchments, but in reality in order to weaken the freshness of the letters, as was actually the case."

So after you were thoroughly rebutted on this point, you simply made the same argument! You didn't even fix the 1843 error. NT Scholar correctly took you to task for this:

NT Scholar said:
Your basic response that follows literally ignored every point I made that overturns the entire Simonides fantasy. You went right to quoting the discredited Kallinikos letters (selectively I would add).

And later gave a more full response:

NT Scholar said:
But this isn't EVIDENCE of anything. Not only that you're only quoting PART OF IT, as I informed you above. Now if you're going to get hung up on this truth being important kick, you better find out what's in the ellipses that take out words because the reason nobody believes this is because not only did Kallinikos see this alleged writing (note: for the second time, it was in 1840, which is the date in the actual letter, NOT 1843 - I informed you of this above so please correct it), he also was right there to see Tischendorf steal it in both 1844 and 1859 AND he was there to see this lemon juice thing.

This guy was truly amazing, he managed to somehow be everywhere in this letter and yet nobody could find him. When researchers heard from the ACTUAL Kallinikos Hiermanchos in the spring of 1863, he denied every single thing, including his own authorship of the letter. Simonides's response was to tell them they went to the wrong mountain and monastery (but......he never produced this person because phantoms don't exist)

Now we come to this topic. What did you do? You make the exact same post! (the 1843 error, noted multiple times, was still not corrected) Again, outside of a small addition to the start and a small addition to the end, the post I am replying to appears to be exactly the same as your post here. But in that topic your points were thoroughly rebutted (which makes the fact you keep linking to it as proof rather ironic), and this was pointed out to you. But then, as if that didn't happen, you simply repeated those already discredited points, both in that topic and in this one. And it's even worse in this topic, because the book review that was posted (that you claim to have read) gives more evidences as to the eyewitness letter being a fake! (see pages 74-77).

So you've made this argument that the letter proves it. The major errors in this argument have been pointed out to you multiple times, both in that topic and in this one, and yet here you are, making the exact same argument as if these problems weren't pointed out! You didn't even correct the--again pointed out multiple times--error in which the letter's writing of 1840 was changed to 1843!

Now, I know I limited my demonstration to just the claims regarding the letter, which was done for the sake of brevity (okay, this ended up being very long anyway, which just shows how much longer it would have been had I done more). But the above patterns apply to many of your other arguments (and not just those related to the Codex Sinaiticus, your claims about the central verse of the King James bible did this also, as I pointed out repeatedly earlier in the topic). You post your claim, others rebut it, and then you simply ignore those rebuttals and post the arguments again, sometimes outright copy/pasted, as if there was never any rebuttal.

Under these circumstances, what is the incentive for someone to bother arguing much with you, especially on this subject? Past behavior indicates that you will simply ignore the points made and then make the same discredited arguments. Even arguing with the goal of convincing forum readers is needless, because you just keep making the same rebutted arguments. For any such interested forum readers (who perhaps have skimmed through most of this post and are only reading this ending portion), I'll again note that a critique of "The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus" (the book by Bill Cooper that createdtoworship keeps pointing to) can be found here:
A Review of 'The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus' by Dr W.R. Cooper against detailed background of the discovery of the Codex

Note that the person wrote that critique says that he "believes in the value and importance of the Textus Receptus and the Authorized King James Version of the Bible as the best English translation" (page 2) and declares Sinaiticus to be "a hopeless witness to the text of the New Testament" (page 129), so this defender of the authenticity of the Sinaiticus can hardly be accused of having bias towards the Sinaiticus.

createdtoworship · Dec 28, 2019

JSRG said:
For some of the posts I am quoting to be fully comprehensible, they need to include the quotations that were originally there. So I had to manually insert them. They thus may be not be positioned exactly how they were originally.

And here you are again, doing exactly what I've pointed out you do over and over: You'll make an argument. People will point out problems in it. Then you will simply ignore the counterpoints and make the same argument you did before.

Let us take your post here that I am replying to. Arguments were made against your position, both in the links I provided (back here--I should note, however, that only the second two provide arguments, the first is largely background setting) as well as the lengthy rebuttal to the book you appealed to (available here) that someone else posted, which is more important as it directly addresses the book you were appealing to. Did you respond to these points? Well, in this post you skipped over the links I provided in lieu of presenting a recycled argument of yours that was already refuted, but you did respond to the book rebuttal here. Or, rather, you claimed that after you had "downloaded and read" it, you found that "mainly the objections are that there are three different writing styles in the new testament, and that the forger could not have had enough time to complete such a volumous task"--despite the fact I don't think that argument is even mentioned in the article. If it was mentioned, it was such a minor part I missed it--certainly not the main point as you claim it was.

And now you return to making the same arguments that have already been rebutted--as if the problems hadn't already been exposed. Let us take just one example. Here is an argument you made in this post I am replying to:
You claim this is your reply to the points raised in this topic--but this is simply just copying your post here. (actually, except for a small addition at the beginning and at the end, it appears to be a literal copy/paste of that post) But before we get to addressing your post from there in particular, let's look at the opening post in that topic. Observe this portion from it:

Now that post wasn't by you (I think I may have suggested earlier it was--if so, that was in error). But it contains the same general arguments you offer. Indeed, you made your own post later that repeated the claim in this section of it:
Afterwards a poster named NT Scholar came in, responding to both the original post and yours (other posters had already given responses in the topic, but I'll be focusing on NT Scholar's). His response starts here for anyone who wants to read it the whole way through and see it in fuller context, but I am keeping the focus of this post limited to the question of the letter. To that, he said:

He also responded to your specific post:

So a good amount of evidence has been shown that this supposed eyewitness letter was just something that Simonides made up, and therefore NOT an eyewitness as has been claimed. And while a more minor point, it was also noted that the actual "eyewitness letter" said 1840, not 1843. So, in response to this point, what do you do? Do you respond to any of these points? No, you simply make the same argument again in that topic:

So after you were thoroughly rebutted on this point, you simply made the same argument! You didn't even fix the 1843 error. NT Scholar correctly took you to task for this:

And later gave a more full response:

Now we come to this topic. What did you do? You make the exact same post! (the 1843 error, noted multiple times, was still not corrected) Again, outside of a small addition to the start and a small addition to the end, the post I am replying to appears to be exactly the same as your post here. But in that topic your points were thoroughly rebutted (which makes the fact you keep linking to it as proof rather ironic), and this was pointed out to you. But then, as if that didn't happen, you simply repeated those already discredited points, both in that topic and in this one. And it's even worse in this topic, because the book review that was posted (that you claim to have read) gives more evidences as to the eyewitness letter being a fake! (see pages 74-77).

So you've made this argument that the letter proves it. The major errors in this argument have been pointed out to you multiple times, both in that topic and in this one, and yet here you are, making the exact same argument as if these problems weren't pointed out! You didn't even correct the--again pointed out multiple times--error in which the letter's writing of 1840 was changed to 1843!

Now, I know I limited my demonstration to just the claims regarding the letter, which was done for the sake of brevity (okay, this ended up being very long anyway, which just shows how much longer it would have been had I done more). But the above patterns apply to many of your other arguments (and not just those related to the Codex Sinaiticus, your claims about the central verse of the King James bible did this also, as I pointed out repeatedly earlier in the topic). You post your claim, others rebut it, and then you simply ignore those rebuttals and post the arguments again, sometimes outright copy/pasted, as if there was never any rebuttal.

Under these circumstances, what is the incentive for someone to bother arguing much with you, especially on this subject? Past behavior indicates that you will simply ignore the points made and then make the same discredited arguments. Even arguing with the goal of convincing forum readers is needless, because you just keep making the same rebutted arguments. For any such interested forum readers (who perhaps have skimmed through most of this post and are only reading this ending portion), I'll again note that a critique of "The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus" (the book by Bill Cooper that createdtoworship keeps pointing to) can be found here:
A Review of 'The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus' by Dr W.R. Cooper against detailed background of the discovery of the Codex

Note that the person wrote that critique says that he "believes in the value and importance of the Textus Receptus and the Authorized King James Version of the Bible as the best English translation" (page 2) and declares Sinaiticus to be "a hopeless witness to the text of the New Testament" (page 129), so this defender of the authenticity of the Sinaiticus can hardly be accused of having bias towards the Sinaiticus.

Sorry, I apologize....I had no idea you were so sarcastic before deciding to debate you. This proves to me that this is more than just a debate, and you have made it a personal goal to disprove this. That is not open minded. The sarcasm comes from defensiveness. This to me proves that a person is already biased in one way or another. Like I said when I started reading the book I sort of believed in the fraud just from the open forum, but I had no evidence myself speaking, the book had everything just there. Instead of being underwhelmed by the conspiracy of it all, I was overwhelmed by the evidence against the vatican. But if you wish to rephrase some of your post to be a little nicer I would love to engage you on all your points. For one, I don't read links. The internet is vast and wide with error.... internet links are a dime a dozen. I have blogs that support my view as well, that I refuse to post because I simply don't like reading someone's opinion who has no credentials. But anyway, you can use those arguments, thats fine, I won't ask for credentials. Granted that you provide sources of all materials quoted. For instance if they are quoting a quote from some document of some person who knows simonedes for example, I want to see a picture of that document. Or solid proof it exists from external sources. (But I prefer pictures and The book provides all this and more.) That is why I like it, it's very and even more thorough than need be. But again anyone can say a manuscript exists, that they can no longer find. That does not work for me, I want pictures of them. If you can't provide them then those quotes are tossed out. I don't like it when people say there was a book that no longer exists, but we see it quoted in this other book. That may work for some evidence, but that is not direct evidence to me. As they could just be lying. Further more, give me your top three evidences. Sift through the top ten, and find your best three. They can be three I have not addressed that is fine. IF we are going to do this, we need to do it right and not make mistakes of misinformation as those predecessors behind us.

createdtoworship · Dec 28, 2019

solid_core said:
First century Jews and Chritians used many different books and there was no firm closed canon in those times.

robycop3 said:
True. The canon wasn't establidhed among men overnight.

I believe athanasius was the first to recognize and possess the full canon, others eventually followed suit. Then I believe trent, if i am not mistaken was the councel to officially recognize them as the Bible we currently have, but I may have that wrong so don't quote me. (I have a real bad memory, or lets just say I have a photographic memory, but it's out of film). Protestants further removed apocryphal books in the reformation. And I include a full document here on why those books are removed....(I will take down the link eventually but it's just for this discussion temporarily)...

Apocrypha

createdtoworship · Dec 29, 2019

Me and an external person on this forum repeated this test numerous times, we concluded that the center chapter of the KJV is psalm 117, so this alleged "proof" of inspiration for the KJV version does not work out the way I thought. That is why we need to be open minded at all times, I am currently debating someone on the sinaiticus forgery. Which I believe bring many photographs of evidence that the sinaiticus was "too white' in color to be a 4th century document, and there is evidence of tampering. The worm holes on one page did not continue through the next page, the water stains again would be on one page but not leaked through to next page, it looked "assembled, not written." Or written on previously semi aged material, and they didn't keep it in it's original state. For example found a a few hundred year old manuscript that was blank in a jar in qumran, picked out the best pages in random order, and copied a new version of the Bible on it, possibly for money (in which it would be very rare and worth millions), or to prove a point, or funded by vatican. I believe the forger made it just to prove He could, I don't think he fathomed that the vatican would in turn take it, set up a fake "finding and discovery" off it. Etc. All this is mentioned in excruciating detail in the book. with photographs, quotes from external eye witnesses and other source materials, that must be examined. Anyway, I fact checked the original image and will repost it here:

Inspiration of the bible translations.png

sorry it's 594.5 chapters before and after the middle chapter, so 594 before psalm 117 and 594 after it. Making it the middle, I tried counting from genesis and also from revelation I did it like four or five times with the same count.

createdtoworship · Dec 29, 2019

JSRG said:
For some of the posts I am quoting to be fully comprehensible, they need to include the quotations that were originally there. So I had to manually insert them. They thus may be not be positioned exactly how they were originally.

And here you are again, doing exactly what I've pointed out you do over and over: You'll make an argument. People will point out problems in it. Then you will simply ignore the counterpoints and make the same argument you did before.

Let us take your post here that I am replying to. Arguments were made against your position, both in the links I provided (back here--I should note, however, that only the second two provide arguments, the first is largely background setting) as well as the lengthy rebuttal to the book you appealed to (available here) that someone else posted, which is more important as it directly addresses the book you were appealing to. Did you respond to these points? Well, in this post you skipped over the links I provided in lieu of presenting a recycled argument of yours that was already refuted, but you did respond to the book rebuttal here. Or, rather, you claimed that after you had "downloaded and read" it, you found that "mainly the objections are that there are three different writing styles in the new testament, and that the forger could not have had enough time to complete such a volumous task"--despite the fact I don't think that argument is even mentioned in the article. If it was mentioned, it was such a minor part I missed it--certainly not the main point as you claim it was.

And now you return to making the same arguments that have already been rebutted--as if the problems hadn't already been exposed. Let us take just one example. Here is an argument you made in this post I am replying to:
You claim this is your reply to the points raised in this topic--but this is simply just copying your post here. (actually, except for a small addition at the beginning and at the end, it appears to be a literal copy/paste of that post) But before we get to addressing your post from there in particular, let's look at the opening post in that topic. Observe this portion from it:

Now that post wasn't by you (I think I may have suggested earlier it was--if so, that was in error). But it contains the same general arguments you offer. Indeed, you made your own post later that repeated the claim in this section of it:
Afterwards a poster named NT Scholar came in, responding to both the original post and yours (other posters had already given responses in the topic, but I'll be focusing on NT Scholar's). His response starts here for anyone who wants to read it the whole way through and see it in fuller context, but I am keeping the focus of this post limited to the question of the letter. To that, he said:

He also responded to your specific post:

So a good amount of evidence has been shown that this supposed eyewitness letter was just something that Simonides made up, and therefore NOT an eyewitness as has been claimed. And while a more minor point, it was also noted that the actual "eyewitness letter" said 1840, not 1843. So, in response to this point, what do you do? Do you respond to any of these points? No, you simply make the same argument again in that topic:

So after you were thoroughly rebutted on this point, you simply made the same argument! You didn't even fix the 1843 error. NT Scholar correctly took you to task for this:

And later gave a more full response:

Now we come to this topic. What did you do? You make the exact same post! (the 1843 error, noted multiple times, was still not corrected) Again, outside of a small addition to the start and a small addition to the end, the post I am replying to appears to be exactly the same as your post here. But in that topic your points were thoroughly rebutted (which makes the fact you keep linking to it as proof rather ironic), and this was pointed out to you. But then, as if that didn't happen, you simply repeated those already discredited points, both in that topic and in this one. And it's even worse in this topic, because the book review that was posted (that you claim to have read) gives more evidences as to the eyewitness letter being a fake! (see pages 74-77).

So you've made this argument that the letter proves it. The major errors in this argument have been pointed out to you multiple times, both in that topic and in this one, and yet here you are, making the exact same argument as if these problems weren't pointed out! You didn't even correct the--again pointed out multiple times--error in which the letter's writing of 1840 was changed to 1843!

Now, I know I limited my demonstration to just the claims regarding the letter, which was done for the sake of brevity (okay, this ended up being very long anyway, which just shows how much longer it would have been had I done more). But the above patterns apply to many of your other arguments (and not just those related to the Codex Sinaiticus, your claims about the central verse of the King James bible did this also, as I pointed out repeatedly earlier in the topic). You post your claim, others rebut it, and then you simply ignore those rebuttals and post the arguments again, sometimes outright copy/pasted, as if there was never any rebuttal.

Under these circumstances, what is the incentive for someone to bother arguing much with you, especially on this subject? Past behavior indicates that you will simply ignore the points made and then make the same discredited arguments. Even arguing with the goal of convincing forum readers is needless, because you just keep making the same rebutted arguments. For any such interested forum readers (who perhaps have skimmed through most of this post and are only reading this ending portion), I'll again note that a critique of "The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus" (the book by Bill Cooper that createdtoworship keeps pointing to) can be found here:
A Review of 'The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus' by Dr W.R. Cooper against detailed background of the discovery of the Codex

Note that the person wrote that critique says that he "believes in the value and importance of the Textus Receptus and the Authorized King James Version of the Bible as the best English translation" (page 2) and declares Sinaiticus to be "a hopeless witness to the text of the New Testament" (page 129), so this defender of the authenticity of the Sinaiticus can hardly be accused of having bias towards the Sinaiticus.

sorry I updated my last reply to you. I feel you are very defensive and will not debate you. I have not seen any evidence you have provided. But you are free to try again with less "emotion." I realize that this is very emotional. You want to protect the Bible your grandma gave you for your graduation gift from high school. I get it. I know how disheartening it can be to have someone tell you that your Bible is a forgery. I get it. I feel that. It makes me sad. But you know what makes me sadder, is the lack of cooperation trying to figure this out, and verify it in a professional way. I am a debater, I have learned that there is no belief I have that has solid proof. I live by faith. But having said that all of science lives by faith too. Scientific facts cannot be proven. You cannot even proove the earth is round except by using external evidence, photographs can be photoshopped, you can take a group of students on a flight around the earth. But unless you actually do that yourself. Do you have proof the earth is round? I believe it is, but I dont' have solid proof. Nor do I have solid proof for the Bible. But there is a mountain of evidence for it, and that is why I believe it. but being open minded is being able to at any moment let go of a prized believe if someone proves it wrong. If we were more open minded and didn't cling to things in such a personal manner debate on here would would be way more successful and cooperative. It also allows us to place these studies in God's hands, to pray more, and become less defensive and more loving and tolerant of other views. Just because I don't agree with mormonism, does it mean I have the green light to be rude to them? No. That will just solidify that they are in the right. It will justify themselves. The Bible says to do good to all those who harm you and in doing so you heap coals of fire in their lap. It's not saying to retaliate by goodness, but I believe that in giving the situation to God and allowing Him to fight for you. You will have much success. To be honest with you I would love for you to be correct here. It scares me that any christian religion could counterfeit something so genuine that the current church does not even know it. It brings me into questioning the other ones. Not really, but hypothetically speaking.

David Kent · Dec 29, 2019

I would consider myself as KJV preferred rather that KJV only. I usually use the KJV, my wife uses two French versions, the Ostervald, based on the Texte Reçu, and the Louis Segond based on the corrupt text.

Our church uses that NKJV.

createdtoworship · Dec 29, 2019

David Kent said:
I would consider myself as KJV preferred rather that KJV only. I usually use the KJV, my wife uses two French versions, the Ostervald, based on the Texte Reçu, and the Louis Segond based on the corrupt text.

Our church uses that NKJV.

Me too, I use the NKJV. I also aM looking at other majority teXT translations but they are using too modern of language. More of a dynamic equivalent than literal translations. But they are based on majority text which is a superior manuscript, rathet than othets based on forgery allegations.

ViaCrucis · Dec 29, 2019

robycop3 said:
The OT was established as Scripture before Jesus came. And the NT writings that became part of the canon were in constant use from soon after they were written.

Parts of the OT were, kind of. The Pharisees accepted the Torah and Prophets, and many/most of the Writings; but the Jewish Bible was still fluid and wouldn't be fully closed until a couple centuries after Christ. One story that floats around is that there was a rabbinical council in Jamnia toward the end of the first century and that is where the rabbis closed the Jewish Canon; this idea is entirely modern conjecture without any basis in historical fact. There's no record for anything like this anywhere, and seems to have been invented largely out of thin air in the (IIRC) 19th century. The Talmud records the disagreements among rabbinical authorities on certain books, especially the Song of Songs.

Important here is that none of this is really all that important for the Christian Canon, which developed independently of the Jewish Canon. It's the reason why the Christian Old Testament follows the order of the Septuagint, not the order of the Tanakh. In the Septuagint the last book is Malachi, in the Tanakh it is Chronicles (1 & 2 Chronicles regarded as one book). And because the early Christians relied so heavily on the Septuagint, those books in the Septuagint, but which were not in what became the Tanakh, played a far more important role in the early Church. And debates over them exist from very early on. It's why for example St. Athanasius in his list of canonical books it looks very similar to the Protestant Old Testament Canon, but Esther is excluded as canonical, whereas Baruch is canonical; though he regards Esther, along with the rest of the Deuterocanonicals, as worthy to be read (a similar sentiment expressed by Martin Luther for what it's worth).

"There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number; for, as I have heard, it is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews; their respective order and names being as follows. The first is Genesis, then Exodus, next Leviticus, after that Numbers, and then Deuteronomy. Following these there is Joshua, the son of Nun, then Judges, then Ruth. And again, after these four books of Kings, the first and second being reckoned as one book, and so likewise the third and fourth as one book. And again, the first and second of the Chronicles are reckoned as one book. Again Ezra, the first and second are similarly one book. After these there is the book of Psalms, then the Proverbs, next Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. Job follows, then the Prophets, the twelve being reckoned as one book. Then Isaiah, one book, then Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the epistle, one book; afterwards, Ezekiel and Daniel, each one book. Thus far constitutes the Old Testament.

...

But for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity; that there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. But the former, my brethren, are included in the Canon, the latter being [merely] read;" - St. Athanasius, 39th Festal Letter, 367 AD

Note also that Athanasius includes the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas as writings worthy to be read, but not properly canonical. As the matter concerning the books of the Antilegomena were still in debate at the time.

-CryptoLutheran

David Kent · Dec 29, 2019

createdtoworship said:
Me too, I use the NKJV. I also aM looking at other majority teXT translations but they are using too modern of language. More of a dynamic equivalent than literal translations. But they are based on majority text which is a superior manuscript, rathet than othets based on forgery allegations.

King James Bible 2016

You could try that, an Australian revision.

JSRG · Dec 29, 2019

createdtoworship said:
Me and an external person on this forum repeated this test numerous times, we concluded that the center chapter of the KJV is psalm 117, so this alleged "proof" of inspiration for the KJV version does not work out the way I thought.

Well, that's good.

That is why we need to be open minded at all times, I am currently debating someone on the sinaiticus forgery. Which I believe bring many photographs of evidence that the sinaiticus was "too white' in color to be a 4th century document, and there is evidence of tampering. The worm holes on one page did not continue through the next page, the water stains again would be on one page but not leaked through to next page, it looked "assembled, not written." Or written on previously semi aged material, and they didn't keep it in it's original state. For example found a a few hundred year old manuscript that was blank in a jar in qumran, picked out the best pages in random order, and copied a new version of the Bible on it, possibly for money (in which it would be very rare and worth millions), or to prove a point, or funded by vatican. I believe the forger made it just to prove He could, I don't think he fathomed that the vatican would in turn take it, set up a fake "finding and discovery" off it. Etc. All this is mentioned in excruciating detail in the book. with photographs, quotes from external eye witnesses and other source materials, that must be examined.

And all of these things that are "mentioned in excrutiating detail in the book" is rebutted in excrutiating detail in the rebuttal to that book that has been posted.

But for the benefit of those readers who perhaps do not wish to read through a lengthy essay, I'll simply post the relevant portions that answer the claims you made here for demonstration. Note that more is stated on these topics in the above document--I'm merely posting the most relevant quotes:

Which I believe bring many photographs of evidence that the sinaiticus was "too white' in color to be a 4th century document, and there is evidence of tampering.

A shortened portion from page 107 will do as a summary (footnote 240):

"Dr Cooper, David Daniels and many bloggers have led thousands astray by claiming that the 43 leaves in Leipzig are (or were until little more than a hundred years ago) ‘white’. That is not the case: they are merely a shade lighter than the most common colour of the leaves in the British Library. On the Codex Sinaiticus Project website, which these writers have used to make comparisons, only the photographs from the British Library are close to true colour, as the blue/cyan/green/yellow/red/magenta colour strips in each photograph reveal. The photographs of the Leipzig leaves are colour profiled (colour strips show blue as indigo, green too dark, yellow too light, magenta as pinkish) making their yellow leaves look a greyish white, and the photographs from St Petersburg and St Catherine’s are profiled differently again (magenta has become red, and red has become orange) making their leaves look browner. It is thus completely invalid to compare colours between locations without attempting to correct for this. Daniels on his front cover of his book Is the “World’s Oldest Bible” a Fake? shows a collage of all pages from the Codex to demonstrate differences in colour. However, the differences in the colour reproduction between locations is far greater than the real variation in colour of the parchment leaves between locations, so the result is impressive visually, but thoroughly unrepresentative. When corrected towards true colour the contrast effectively disappears and the ‘colour difference’ argument collapses."

As noted, this is essentially a summary--more detail is provided in the actual document. Indeed, this is covered in even more detail in a separate writing by the same author here. Note particularly page 9 where it compares the color strip from London and Leipzig and shows how they are visually different--this demonstrates the different color balancing, which has the effect of making the pages look different.

The worm holes on one page did not continue through the next page, the water stains again would be on one page but not leaked through to next page, it looked "assembled, not written."

The worm holes and water stains are answered on pages 102-103. For a little bit of context, the author is responding to this claim from the book:

"Again, just a brief random search of Sinaiticus’ pages reveals evidence of just the sort of tampering that Simonides was complaining of. Q12:ff.1r-2v (containing Numbers 16:7 – 19:3), for example, shows extensive water damage that has left the adjacent leaves untouched. How is that possible? Q12:f.2 likewise shows ‘worm’ damage which again has left the adjacent folios untouched (including folio 1). Suspicion is raised here by the fact that the lower and outer edges of folio 2 are completely intact, showing no line of ingress by which a worm could reach that part of the leaf. How could it possibly have got there without gnawing its way through either the adjacent leaves or through the lower edge of the leaf?"

This is responded to with:

"With regard to the first case, water damage, the reader could be forgiven for believing that the adjacent leaves are extant and evidently untouched by water damage. However, the adjacent preceding leaf, Q11-f.8, is not extant, so nothing whatsoever can be said about whether it suffered water damage. The adjacent following leaf, Q12-f.3 is water damaged, as is the next extant leaf, Q12-f.6. So here Dr Cooper has provided incomplete information in respect of the adjacent preceding leaf (not revealing that it is not extant) and false information in respect of the adjacent following leaves. The few extant leaves and fragments from Numbers were discovered in 1975 in the collapsed store (except one, taken by Uspensky, and not from that store) and were not bound tightly together but scattered, and this explains why the pattern of water damage on Q12-f.1 and Q12-f.2 is different from the pattern on Q12-f.3 and Q12-f.6.

This also explains the ‘wormhole’ issue. We do not know whether the hole in Q12-f.2 is caused by worm, but let us assume that it is for the sake of evaluating Dr Cooper’s argument. On that assumption we can see that the bottom corner of the immediately following leaf Q12-f.3 is ‘eaten away’ by worm also, and in this leaf the portion eaten away does extend to its lower and outer edges. If we overlay folio 2 over folio 3 we see clearly that the material removed on folio 2 has a region of coincidence with material removed on folio 3, so a worm that had so eaten into the corner of folio 3 from its edge would have immediate access to the preceding leaf (Q12-f.2).

Thus Dr Cooper’s suggestions are thoroughly misleading. But more worryingly, Dr Cooper’s actual statements that adjacent leaves are ‘untouched’ by two types of damage (water and ‘worm’) are false, as anyone can ascertain by checking the photographic print of Q12-f.3."

(For convenience: The images of Codex Sinaiticus are available here should one wish to "follow along")

createdtoworship said:
sorry I updated my last reply to you. I feel you are very defensive and will not debate you.

If I am "defensive" (or as you claimed earlier, "sarcastic") it is out of frustration regarding your repeated refusal to acknowledge rebuttals and instead simply re-post the same answered arguments, not even bothering to do something as basic as fix errors in the quotes you present. Others have also expressed this frustration in the past with you, so it's not just me. You've at least re-examined your claims regarding the center of the King James Version, so that criticism is lessened, but this problem remains with your claims regarding Sinaiticus.

Strong in Him · Dec 29, 2019

createdtoworship said:
Me and an external person on this forum repeated this test numerous times, we concluded that the center chapter of the KJV is psalm 117, so this alleged "proof" of inspiration for the KJV version does not work out the way I thought.

I told you at least twice that this little chart of yours is not proof of divine inspiration of the KJV; but you took no notice.
The fact that it apparently now "doesn't work" is not proof of anything either.

If you're trying to show that the KJV alone is the true and inspired translation of the Bible, you need to show the Hebrew/Greek texts, show how the KJV and others compare with them and see which is the closest.
You haven't done this; either because you don't have access to Hebrew/Greek texts, or because you haven't done an in depth study comparing ALL translations with these texts, or because you don't want to do that in case the KJV is found to be lacking in some way.

createdtoworship said:
That is why we need to be open minded at all times,

Open minded in the sense of "I could be wrong about the KJV being a perfect translation", or open minded in the sense of "I may need to find another way to prove my theory"?

The KJVO myth...

In the grip of grace

In the grip of grace

In the grip of grace

Confessional Lutheran

Newbie

Well-Known Member

Newbie

In the grip of grace

In the grip of grace

Well-Known Member

In the grip of grace

In the grip of grace

In the grip of grace

In the grip of grace

Continuing Historicist

In the grip of grace

Confessional Lutheran

Continuing Historicist

Well-Known Member

Great is thy faithfulness

Similar threads