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What does Your Grace think about this interesting website: http://www.1john57.com/?

I believe this is the first time I have seen this web site, yet it seems so familiar. There is a certain movement among fundamentalist/evangelical Protestants called the "King James Only" movement. They are adamant that only the KJV can be trusted among all the English translations. Their arguments are not based upon textual scholarship, but, it seems to me, on a deep distrust of anything modern, especially religion. I can hardly blame them. Couple this with their great love for the Bible and their unswerving belief in its inspiration and infallibility, I have to say that I have a great deal of sympathy for them. But also sadness, because their zeal is misdirected by ignorance, with a bit of fanaticism thrown in, too. For when they claim the King James Bible itself is inspired by God, they go beyond the bounds of reason. And that's what these folks do. Given the role that the KJV has played in history and how it has prevailed for so long and over so many competitors, it would certainly seem that God has blessed it in a unique way. But to say that it was literally inspired like the original apostolic writings, is to make a claim that cannot be substantiated.

The 1John57 Web site purports to list "337 changes [sic] that are removed in the modern translations." But they don't deal with the question of whether the modern translations actually removed the "changes" or simply did not add them, as may have been the case with the KJV. How do these people know that the King James translators did not add the 337 passages in question? They don't address this important question. The whole question rests on which ancient manuscripts are the most reliable witnesses to the original, inspired texts. Since there are now over 5,000 Greek texts of various portions of the New Testament, not to mention the innumerable quotations of the New Testament in the early Fathers, the answer to this question is very complicated, and does not lend itself to absolute conclusions. The 1John57 Web site does not have an appreciation for this. It attempts to address this question in a link called, "The history of who attached the manuscripts." But when the author states that "the NKJV used the corrupt Septuagint authored by Origen," they lose all credibility. Even if they are referring to Origen's Hexpla, this statement does not make sense because Origen didn't "author" any Septuagint, but  compiled texts side-by-side to examine precisely the kind of textual variations that the 1John57 are incapable of dealing with.

Upon examination, the various minor readings that differ among the 5,000+ NT manuscripts break down into "families" of manuscripts. As we know, in the ancient world manuscripts were always hand copied  from other manuscripts, so it stands to reason that manuscripts in particular regions would bear resemblances to one another. The KJV and NKJV follow the manuscript tradition of Byzantium. All other modern translations place much greater faith in the manuscript tradition of Alexandria, which the Coptic texts follow, exactly as we would expect. Where there are differences between the two traditions, the Alexandrian readings are almost all shorter than the Byzantine readings. Whether they are right or wrong, the fact is, most modern scholars believe the Alexandrian texts are more reliable witnesses to the original texts. While modern scholars are wrong on many things, and cannot be trusted on theological interpretations, I think they can be trusted on textual criticism. But I am not knowledgeable in this field. Let me quote a professor who seems to be reasonable and fair- and open-minded on this subject. Speaking of the first two centuries, he raises the question:

But where was the Byzantine family all this time? The absence of distinctive signs of this family during the beginning centuries of the Christian era is conspicuous. The earliest versional evidence of it is a Syriac translation of the fourth or fifth century, called the Peshitta. The earliest writer whose quotations of Scripture reflect this family of readings is Chrysostom who lived during the late fourth and early fifth centuries. The late appearance of the Byzantine text-type has lead most to conclude that it did not exist as a distinct family before the fourth century and that it came together as the result of an effort to bring the other families into alignment with each other. It is a longer text, and its length, at least in part, results from an effort to include as many readings as possible from the other families.

How the Byzantine text arose is as much a mystery as how the other families did. Probably it was a gradual process of revision in which many participated, but at some point an authoritative figure or church body probably issued an edition which culminated the process. At  present all we can do is recognize that it exists as a distinct family that arose later than the others.

A pertinent question about the Byzantine family is, how did it come to dominate English translations of the New Testament for so long if it is a secondary or later-in-origin text-type? The answer lies in its dominance of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament from the fifth or sixth century onward. This dominance is explainable perhaps by the relocation of the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Asia Minor in the fourth century, and perhaps by growing disuse of the Greek languages in areas outside the Byzantine area (Turkey and Greece in modern times) in these early centuries of the Christian era. In other words, the only Greek manuscripts being produced were in the territory where the Byzantine family was influential.

In his book, Robert L. Thomas "lists 165 passages where variations between the two families are noticeable to English readers. The list is by no means an exhaustive list of differences, but presents typical passages where manuscript sources have differing readings of the same passages." In speaking of "the manner in which the Byzantine reading differs from the Alexandrian," he says, "the difference in almost half the passages is traceable to the attempt of a later copyist to harmonize the passage with some other part of the Bible." In other words, the Byzantine texts add something. I haven't examined all these passages, but I have no reason not to trust Thomas.

A really interesting fact is that, concerning these 165 passages, the KJV and NKJV adopted all 165 Byzantine readings. The RSV chose 164 Alexandrian readings and one Byzantine! I would like to check all 165 to see which ones the Coptic manuscripts follow, but this would take a lot of time. The ones I have checked almost all follow the Alexandrian Greek text. No surprise there. So, by this one criterion, the RSV is closer to the Coptic New Testament.

Personally, I don't take this automatically to mean that we should choose the RSV over the NKJV. It certainly is a strong reason to do so. But the KJV text has been the Biblical text of the English-speaking peoples for so long that maybe it should continue to be used. After all, the different readings don't say anything wrong; they are in all likelihood just additions. On the other hand, if that is not what the Holy Spirit inspired, then it is troubling to keep it as part of the inspired text. Amazingly, Patriarch Athenagoras, the predecessor of Patriarch Bartholomew's predecessor, endorsed the RSV translation. So despite all of its faults and minor errors, the RSV actually has the advantage of relying of our own textual tradition and not the Byzantine. None of this is of any interest to the 1John 57 people.

Assuming that the early copyists around the world were well-intentioned, I can understand how words could have been added or changed from the original, but I don't understand why anyone would intentionally delete words from the sacred text. So, on the basis on intent, I lean toward the shorter text. But there are many, many factors to consider. It is complicated, but not really consequential – not, in my opinion, like the 1John57 people make it out to be.