Hi, I have a question for people who support the use of the KJV as their choice of Bible translation. It's been said that the KJV has been translated from the Textus Receptus. What makes the Textus Receptus more reliable, and from what did they translate before the King James came along?
The Textus Receptus (TR) is a critical amalgam of earlier critical texts. In other words, you won't find the TR in existence before the 17th century, it was the result of scholarly work working from several important 16th century critical texts. Critical editions by Beza, Stephanus, and three editions of Erasmus. Each of these is, again, a critical edition, meaning they took what they considered the best manuscripts available at the time, compared them, chose what they believed to be the most reliable readings.
There were differences not only between these critical editions, but even between the various editions put out by Erasmus; and the TR came about by a scholarly synthesis of these critical editions.
William Tyndale is credited as the first to translate the Bible into Modern English, for his New Testament he relied principally on several editions of Erasmus' Greek text.
Prior to Tyndale, John Wycliffe translated the Bible into Middle English from the Latin Vulgate. Earlier English translations (Old English or Anglo-Saxon) made before the year 1000 were usually sparse, for example just the Psalms, or the Gospels, and were more than likely based on the Latin text.
The original Vulgate, translated by St. Jerome in the 5th century was a fresh translation from Greek manuscripts of the Byzantine tradition, and employed Hebrew texts which are long lost, as well as the LXX, Theodotian's Greek Old Testament. It was intended to replace the older Latin translations available, and present a fresh translation of the Bible into the common (vulgar) Latin of the people (hence "Vulgata" meaning "Common").
In the Syriac-speaking world, the choice version was the Peshitta, which for a long time was markedly different from the Bibles used elsewhere, having fewer New Testament books (it lacked 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation if I recall correctly). The Modern Peshitta is still in use among Christians of the Syriac tradition, though modern Arabic Bibles also exist for those who don't speak Syriac.
There were of course other Bibles as well, such as the Gothic translations used in ancient Germania, the Armenian Bible like the Peshitta was fairly different in the past (containing the spurious 3 Corinthians). Coptic translations have been in use among the indigenous Egyptian Church, but most Copts today speak Arabic even during their services. Etc and so forth.
But to answer your question directly, the TR isn't markedly superior, indeed it contains flaws. The TR isn't magic, it's just a 400+ year old critical edition, a good enough one for its time, but not perfect.
-CryptoLutheran
