Part One

Many who looked at part one probably did not read it, but scrolled through the post to see if I answered the question, just to locate the particular Textus Receptus (TR) edition.  They generally don’t care what the Bible says about this issue. They’ve made up their minds.  Even if they hear a verse on the preservation of scripture, they will assume it conforms to textual criticism in some way.  I’m sure they were not satisfied with the answer that the Words of God were perfectly preserved in the TR.  That is what I believe, have taught, and explained in that first post.  However, I wasn’t done.  I’m going to give more clarity for which I didn’t have time or space.

In part one I said that I believe that scripture teaches that God preserved Words, not paper, ink, or a perfect single copy that made its way down through history.  God made sure His people would have His Words available to live by.  It is akin to canonicity, a doctrine that almost every knowing believer would say he holds.  Some believers don’t know enough to say what they think on canonicity.  I’ve written a lot about it on this blog, but normally professing Christians relate canonicity to the sixty-six books of the Bible, a canonicity of books.  Scripture doesn’t teach a canonicity of books.  It is an application of a canonicity of Words.

Along with the thoughts about the perfect preservation of scripture, perhaps you wondered if at any one time, someone would or could know that he held a perfect book in his hands.  From what we read in history, that is how Christians have thought about the Bible.  I remember first hearing the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture and thinking that it related to the Bible I used.  Any other belief would not have occurred to me.

The condition of all of God’s Words perfectly in one printed text has been given the bibliological title of a settled text.  Scripture also teaches a settled text to the extent that it was possible someone could add or take away from the Words (Rev 22:18-19; Dt 12:32), that is, they could corrupt them.  You cannot add or take away a word from a text that isn’t settled.  The Bible assumes a settled text.  This is scripture teaching its doctrine of canonicity.

When we get to a period after the invention of the moveable type printing press, believers then expressed a belief in a perfect Bible in the copies (the apographa) that they held.  They continued printing editions of the TR  that were nearly identical, especially next to a standard of variation acceptable to modern critical text proponents.  I’m not saying they were identical.  I own a Scrivener’s Annotated Greek New Testament.  However, all the Words were available to believers.

Editions of the Textus Receptus were published by various men in 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1534, 1535, 1546, 1549, 1550, 1551, 1565, 1567, 1580, 1582, 1589, 1590, 1598, 1604, 1624, 1633, 1641, and 1679.  I’m not going to get into the details of these, but several of these editions are nearly identical.  The generations of believers between 1516 and 1679 possessed the Words of God of the New Testament.   They stopped publishing the Greek New Testament essentially after the King James Version became the standard for the English speaking people.  Not another edition of the TR was published again until the Oxford Edition in 1825, which was a Greek text with the Words that underlie the King James Version, similar to Scrivener’s in 1894.  Believers had settled on the Words of the New Testament.

I believe the underlying Hebrew and Greek Words behind the King James Version represent the settled text, God’s perfectly preserved Words.  I like to say, “They had to translate from something.”  Commentators during those centuries had a Hebrew and Greek text.  Pastors studied an available original language text to feed their churches.  This is seen in a myriad of sermon volumes and commentaries in the 16th to 19th centuries.

Scripture teaches that the Holy Spirit would lead the saints to receive the Words the Father gave the Son to give to them (Jn 16:13; 17:8).  Because believers are to live by every one of them, then they can know with certainty where the canonical Words of God are (Mt 4:4; Rev 22:18-19) and are going to be judged by them at the last day (Jn 12:48).  This contradicts a modern critical text view, a lost text in continuous need of restoration.

True believers received the TR itself and the translations from which it came. They received the TR and its translations exclusively. Through God’s people, the Holy Spirit directed to this one text and none other.