Reception of Beza's Change to the Text of Revelation 16:5

Around 1611, the King James Version translators edited the Bishop's Bible at Revelation 16:5 to conform to Beza's reading.  This was a significant and intentional change on the part of the King James version translators, because the Bishop's Bible (1568) followed the original Greek: 

(Bishop's Bible, 1568)

Even the 1599 Geneva Bible (which was printed after Beza's emendation), continued to follow the original Greek and made no mention of the issue in the notes:

(Geneva Bible, 1599)

Likewise, Elias Hutter's 1599 Polyglot New Testament mostly did not follow Beza:

(Nuremberg Hutter Polyglot New Testament by Elias Hutter, 1599, p. 1037)

(Nuremberg Hutter Polyglot New Testament by Elias Hutter, 1599, p. 1036)

You may notice that there is some inconsistency amongst the various languages.  The French with "& qui seras" appears to adopt Beza's reading, whereas the Greek itself has "ἐρχόμενος" (which Erasmus hypothesized but Beza rejected).  

The Elzevier printers (a family descending from Lodewijk Elzevir) reverted to the Greek original (from Beza's reading) in the 1624 printing of the New Testament, but then returned to Beza's reading in 1633 (see comparison here), only to return to the Greek original in 1641, which was maintained in the Leers printings of 1654 and 1658.  

(source)

(source)

(source)

(1641, vol. 1 Gospels and Acts, "Ex Officinam Elseviriorum")(1641, vol. 2 Remainder)(1654, single volume "Ex Officinam Arnoldi Leers")(1658, single volume "Ex Officinam Leers").  I have not confirmed whether the text of the Amsterdam Elzevier editions (1656, 1662, 1670, 1678) also agrees.  

Scrivener's 1894 Textus Receptus, because it aimed to show the Greek underlying the King James Version, shows Beza's reading rather than the later reading of the Textus Receptus family of printed texts (the boundaries of this family are not well defined, but the term "textus receptus" was first used in the Elzevier 1633 edition in the form, "Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum").  The 1641, 1654, and 1658 printings mentioned above also maintained the textus receptus claim.

Walton's Polyglot (1657) likewise maintained the original Greek reading:

(source)

Bishop Fell (1675) maintained the original Greek after consulting the Coptic and Gothic versions maintained the original Greek:

(source)

John Mill (1707) continued the same reading (shown below), even after consulting the Ethiopic text.

Wettstein (1751-2 with additions by Semler, 1764, and further additions by Lotze, 1831) continued the same:

(source 1752 ed.)

We could go on, but the point is fairly straightforward.  New Testament textual scholars after Beza generally were not persuaded as to this change.  Thus, the only reason for the inclusion of this reading in today's "Textus Receptus" edition is because it happens to be the Greek text that corresponds to the 1611 King James Version, not because the Reformed churches "received" this text for a lengthy time.

That said, the Dutch 1637 did adopt the reading, as did numerous English editions following the KJV, and translations made from the KJV.  In some cases, such as the French by Jean-Frédéric Osterwald (1744) or the Spanish Valera 1602, I am not sure the basis for the adoption of the Beza/KJV reading.

How Dare I Appeal to the Majority of Greek Manuscripts!

In some places where the King James Version follows the wrong Greek text, it is fairly straightforward to demonstrate this from an appeal to the fact that the majority of texts disagree.  When this happens we tend to get the following kind of pushback:

Nick mistakenly assumes that "critical text guys" have such a strong partisanship with the main text reading of the NA28 (or other current critical text of the New Testament) that they will just defend its readings at all cost.  Maybe there are some folks like that, but that's more the mentality of many Textus Receptus advocates: they are examining the evidence to try to defend their initial views, as opposed to examining the evidence to try to form a conclusion from the evidence. 

I would like to believe that some folks hold to the Textus Receptus because they think that the manuscript evidence actually supports the Textus Receptus.  However, that's not the case with folks Drs. Peter van Kleek or Dr. Riddle who have abandoned the Reformation era Protestant understanding of textual criticism in favor of the Reformation era Roman Catholic understanding of textual criticism.  For them, the manuscript evidence may be interesting, but the manuscripts are not to be used to edit the text before us.

Sometimes the same error Nick is illustrating is done the other way: there is an assumption that due to partisanship for the NA28, "critical text guys" just want to attack the readings of the TR, even when such an attack is unwarranted.  From this point, the error seems even more unreasonable.  How does such a person think that the battleground texts are selected? The reason that "critical text guys" have a problem with specific TR readings is because they think that the original text is not what the TR has.

Nick's main argument is an appeal to consistency.  If we think the TR is wrong because of a majority text principle at Revelation 16:5 or Revelation 11:17 or anywhere else, then we must acknowledge on the same majority text principle that the NA28 is wrong at 1 Timothy 3:16.

The problem with Nick's argument is that it is an oversimplification of the process.

According to Bart Ehrman a low estimate for the total number of textual variants in the New Testament is around 200k.  D. A. Waite claims that there are 5,604 differences between the TR and the CT.  Thus, even if the KJV were always following the majority, that would mean the CT would be following the majority text at least 97% of the time.  

This then is an example of the saying, "the exception proves the rule."  In the 2% (or whatever the real number) of cases where TR does not follow the majority of manuscripts, there must be some good reason for doing so. I don't mean just that there must be some good reason, and maybe some day we will find the reason.  I mean instead that the editors of the text have to justify their decision. 

So does Beza.  We don't have to accept Beza's departure from the majority because he's Beza or because he was followed by the KJV translators.    

Thus, we are right to challenge Beza's adoption of a minority reading at Revelation 11:17.  What's the good reason to follow the minority of manuscripts, particularly when the minority reading is later than the majority reading?  The short answer is that there isn't a good reason to do so, which is why we don't follow Beza on this point, even though the KJV translators did.

As for 1 Timothy 3:16, if someone is going to follow the main text reading of the NA28, they should have a good reason for doing so, not simply because the NA28 editors have said so.  This isn't the post to debate that particular point, but simply to acknowledge that the scales do need to be even.  We shouldn't automatically accept the NA28 readings because they are NA28, just as the TR folks shouldn't automatically accept the TR readings because they are TR.

By default, the reading found in the majority of Greek manuscripts is right.  That method works (at least) 97% of the time or so, and is especially the cases when the contrary Greek manuscripts are alone in their reading against all the other Greek manuscripts.  As the size of the minority grows, the need for justification of the reading grows.  As the age of the minority grows (i.e. becomes older), the need for justification of the reading grows.  These are not rigid rules like "the oldest manuscript is always right" or "the reading with the most manuscripts is always right," and I understand how that can make some people feel uncomfortable.  Nevertheless, that is why we do (as our spiritual forefathers have done since at least the 2nd century) collation.

Translator's Notes - A Cautionary Tale

Thanks very much to Timothy Berg for his article, "A Newly Digitized Bible Reveals the Origins of the King James Version" (and thanks also to Nick Sayers for his video related thereto).  Most of all thanks to the Bodleian Library and UPenn who have digitized and made freely available to the public, a rare example of notes from the King James Version translators.  These notes are handwritten in a printed Bishop's Bible.

I was simultaneously pleased and annoyed by the announcement.  After all, I had managed to acquire the study by Ward S. Allen and Edward C. Jacobs, "The Coming of the King James Gospels" (1995), which was based the notes from this document.  Until this digitization, Allen's book was the most practical way to have access to the notes.  I was pleased because Allen's book contains few facsimile renderings of the text.  The majority of Allen's book is as shown below (this is not the section where I noticed the error):

The annoyance was not at the seeming waste of money for something now freely available (after all, Allen and Jacobs go beyond a mere transcription, and offer comments and analysis of the notes).  Instead my annoyance is that in the first place I looked (related to a project I have been working on for some months), Allen and Jacobs' notes show a change that is not there.

I have no explanation for Allen and Jacob's error.  At first I hoped that this was a second copy of the translators' notes, for indeed the shelf mark was different.  A further investigation, however, revealed that the shelf mark has been updated, but the document is the same.

I cannot understand why A&J would deliberately mislead the reader.  My guess is that they took handwritten notes of the differences between the KJV and the Bishop's Bible, and somehow conflated their own notes of the differences with the document itself, in at least the one place I checked.

Moreover, it seems that their error misled at least one researcher between 1995 and now (not counting myself).  God willing, more on the actual point in question in some future post.

A&J's book was subtitled: "A Collation of the Transaltors' Work-in-Progress."  Let this serve as a warning regarding getting information via collation, rather than first hand.