The text of the Alexandrian manuscripts have alterations and changes from the standpoint of Ghnostic beliefs, as the Minority text came from these manuscripts, which even older text from the early church fathers proves where deleted or corrupted. Here is the part which makes this point at the previous site...

"If the New Testament quotes by Irenaus in Against Heresies are faithful copies of his original Greek text, then we have evidence that the wordings of many verses of the Textus Receptus ...existed at the time he wrote, in the late second century (somewhere around 175 to 185 AD). The Westcott-Hort theory says that the two Greek manuscripts associated with Alexandria, Egypt, the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, from the fourth century, are the best because they are the oldest copies available.

There are in existence fairly sizeable Papyrus fragments (p66 and p75 for example) from the second and/or third centuries which contain wordings supporting both the Textus Receptus and Westcott-Hort which suggests the Textus Receptus wordings existed at least in the late second century. Papyrus p66 is supposed to be from 125 to 200 AD, and Papyrus p75 is from 175 to 225 AD. An important consideration for p66 and p75 is that both were found in the dry climate of Egypt. Experts claim these papyri were copied from other Greek texts in about the time of the late second century. Some verses of these papyri are like Textus Receptus wordings and some like Westcott-Hort wordings.

I am not certain what implications this mixed type of wording might have for the transmission of early Greek New Testament texts. One possibility is that in Egypt during the late second century, a process of changing some verses was going on, but it was not as far advanced as it was by the time Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were copied in the fourth century. Whatever the implications of the mixed wordings in these papyri, the Textus Receptus wordings that are in the papyri came from some Greek texts existing in the second century.

If Irenaeus had the Textus Receptus wordings in the late second century (about 175 to 185 AD), this shoots big holes in the Westcott-Hort theory that the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus texts are better because they are older, as well as the claim the Textus Receptus is inferior because of its much later date. Scholars claim Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies in 175 to 185 AD."

and on the Ghnostic veiw incorporated into the manuscripts...

"If I quote all the verses in the Textus Receptus, Westcott-Hort text, the KJV, NIV, etc. that I've found on the deity of Christ where the Westcott-Hort differs from the Textus Receptus, it would go on and on. On the topic of the incarnation of Christ in human flesh, there are also verse wordings different in the two Greek texts, enough verse differences (eight or more) to suggest a possible Gnostic influence.

The Gnostics opposed the doctrine that Jesus Christ was fully God who took on human flesh in what they considered to be the evil material world. I am going to briefly go over some of the verse differences between the Westcott-Hort-NIV, etc wordings and Textus Receptus-King James Version wordings on the subject of the deity of Christ, as follows:

Matthew 16:20: "Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ." "Jesus" is left out of the Westcott-Hort Greek text and is also left out of the NIV. This seems to conform to the Gnostic view that there is a separation between Jesus in human flesh and the spiritual Christ.

Mark 1:1: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." "Son of God" is left out of the Westcott-Hort Greek text. It is in the NIV. The Gnostics did not accept the Biblical teaching that Jesus was fully God.

John 1:18: "No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." While the Textus Receptus and King James have "only begotten Son," the
Westcott-Hort text says "only begotten God." The NIV does not translate "monogenes," or "only begotten," but instead says "God the One and Only." The new translations do not clearly say that Jesus is the Son of God, making him fully God. Some Gnostics, especially Arius, said Jesus was a created being.

John 4:42: "And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." "Christ" is left out of the
Westcott-Hort text and the new translations. Gnostics did not want to teach that Christ is the Saviour.

Acts 2: 30: "Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne (II Samuel 7:12)." The Westcott-Hort text leaves out "to raise up Christ according to the flesh." The NIV says "that he would place one of his descendants on his throne," which is not saying that the descendant is Christ. Removing "according to the flesh to raise up Christ" fits the gnosic teaching that Christ was a purely spiritual being. To say that Jesus Christ was incarnated in human flesh as a descendant of David opposes Gnostic theology.

I Corinthians 5:4: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Westcott-Hort text leaves out "Christ." The NIV also leaves out "Christ." This omission is in agreement with the Gnostic view that Jesus Christ was not God.

I Corinthians 15: 47: "The first man is of the earth, earthly: the second man is the Lord from heaven." The King James Version identifies the second man or second Adam as Jesus Christ. But the Westcott-Hort text does not say who the second man is. It omits "Lord." The NIV also fails to say who the second man is. It says only "the second man from heaven." That statement is simply not as clear as saying "the second man is the Lord from heaven." Leaving "Lord" out of I Corinthians 15: 47 could weaken faith in the promises of Jesus Christ, who is the second Adam as our head.

Christ as the second Adam paid the price for our sins when, as fully God, he took on human flesh and died on the cross. As the replacement of Adam as the head of His people, he gives to us, on faith, His righteousness, so that we might come to be on the right side of the plumb line of Amos (7:7-8). Christ, as the second Adam, at his appearing will give us a body and a likeness somewhat like his own. I John 3: 2 promises "...we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

The only Greek texts that omit "Lord" are the Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Ephraemi Rescriptus. The word "Lord" is in most Byzantine texts as well as the Alexandrinus. The papyrus fragment p46 replaces "the Lord" with "the spiritual" (pneumatikos). 6.

The omission of "Lord," which identifies the second Adam as Jesus Christ to Christians, fits with some Gnostic ideas."

For more on this issue, check here..

http://www.studytoanswer.net/bibleversions/gnostic.html

http://av1611.com/kjbp/articles/young-examination1.html

This site has a great description of the Alexandrian manuscripts...
http://www.biblelife.org/word.htm

"Codex Sinaiticus (Sin.) was discovered in the library at the Monastery of St. Catherine at the foot of Mt. Sinai in 1859 by German theologian and Biblical scholar Count Konstantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874). Some of the Old Testament is missing; however, the whole 4th-century New Testament is preserved, with the Letter of Barnabas and most of the Shepherd of Hermas at the end. It was taken to St. Petersburg (Leningrad, Russia) and in 1933 sold by the Soviet regime to the British Museum Library in London for only 100,000 British Pounds Sterling. It is a partial manuscript believed to be dated about 350 A.D. as shown in the table below. Later revisions representing attempts to alter the text to a different standard probably were made about the 6th or 7th century at Caesarea.

Codex Vaticanus (B) was discovered in the Vatican Library, where it remains and is believed to have been since before 1475 A.D. It is a partial manuscript believed to be dated about 300 A.D. as shown in the table below. The New Testament is missing Hebrews from Chapter 9, verse 14, Philemon, and Revelation. The text type is mostly of the Alexandrian group.

Codex Alexandrinus (A) was discovered in the patriarchal library at Alexandria in the seventeenth century and taken to the British Museum Library in London as well. It contains most of the New Testament but with lacunae (gaps) in Matthew, John and II Corinthians, and also contains the extracanonical books of I and II Clement. In the Gospels the text is of the Byzantine type, but in the rest of the New Testament it is Alexandrian. It is believed to be dated about 450 A.D. as shown in the table below.

Beatty Papyri (P) were made available in the period between 1930 and 1960 from two wealthy book collectors, Chester Beatty and Martin Bodmer. These fragments of papyri were mainly found preserved in the dry sands of Egypt. They are all Alexandrian text type. The various papyri fragments are now located in Dublin, Ireland; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Cologny, Switzerland; Vatican, Rome; and Vienna, Austria. These fragments are partial manuscripts with the Gospel of John 18:31-33 and 18:37-38 (manuscript P52) being the oldest, dating to about 130-140 A.D. P52 is now in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England. The others are believed to be dated about 200 to 250 A.D. as shown in the table below.....

The dating of these manuscripts is possible because in 1895, a German pastor by the name of Adolf Deissmann published a rather innocent-sounding book titled Bible Studies. Deissmann was reading scraps of papyrus found in 2,000-year old Egyptian garbage dumps. These papyri did not contain Scripture but were private letters, business transactions, receipts, and marriage contracts that were dated. The grammar and vocabulary contained in the papyri had unique features that were compared and matched with the undated Scripture papyri.

All of the Egyptian manuscripts above are of poor quality with scribal errors of all sorts. They are poor copies with more than 5,000 changes compared to the Byzantine manuscripts. Most of these changes are deletions, with verses and entire books missing. Many verses are modified, and the reading does not make a complete thought or simple logic. The only writing from the Apostle Paul is the book of Romans. There are more than 3,000 variants in the Gospels between the Codex Alexandrinus (A) and the Codex Vaticanus (B). Their lack of agreement reduces their reliability even further. One Bible text researcher has called this difference "the 3,000 lies."

These manuscripts are believed to have been saved because they were stored away or discarded by the Gnostics, who were later purged from the Roman Catholic Church in the 2nd century. The first anti-Gnostic writer was St. Justin Martyr (AD 100–165). The full purging took place over many centuries until the Roman Catholic Church declared Gnosticism as heresy. The older Egyptian manuscripts are not necessarily in agreement with the original Scriptures. Nobody knows. A manuscript cannot be declared more accurate simply because of its age. This is a common error made by students of Christian history. On the other hand, the Byzantine Greek manuscripts were in constant use as the early Christian church grew. Older Byzantine manuscripts were discarded because of wear and replaced with new copies.

Gnosticism was an esoteric religious movement that flourished and spread to Egypt during the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. It presented a major challenge to orthodox Christianity. Most Gnostic sects professed Christianity, but their beliefs sharply diverged from those of the majority of Christians in the early church. It is believed that the Gnostics butchered the Greek text with these 5,000 changes, which are mostly deletions. The Gnostics can be identified because the deletions match their theology. The Gnostics did not believe:

That Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin.

That Jesus was the Son of God.

That Jesus' death on the cross removed the sins of all mankind.

That Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

That Jesus ascended to Heaven.

That Jesus was the Creator.

Gnostics also believed that mankind was wholly evil, and some sects even renounced marriage and procreation. They also believed in two gods, one evil god and one good god."

So far the first paragraph in the link you provided does not bode well for your argument. Actually, the KJV is a more gnostic rendering than the modern versions. Why? Compare John 3:13:

KJV -- And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven

NASB -- No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.

Sister White says on pg 277 of the Desire of Ages (and other places to the same effect): " This was what Satan wanted. He desired them to give the world the impression that they had been deceived and disappointed; but by faith they were to look to the sanctuary above, where Jesus was ministering for them; they were to open their hearts to the Holy Spirit, His representative, and to rejoice in the light of His presence." On page 190, she plainly states that He had "left heaven" to complete His mission. In taking human nature, He set aside His omnipresence.

Gnostics teach that Jesus never really bound Himself within the confines of human flesh. Such teaching is much more in harmony with the idea that while on earth, Jesus, unbound by the reality of the incarnation, could also be in heaven at the same time. The NASB (and other modern versions) exclusion of this clause is a move away from gnosticism.

I'll keep reading the article, but so far as gnosticism goes, its NASB - 1, KJV - 0.

Alright, I read the article in the link. All I can say is that Mr. Pyron is very, very far outside the realm of rationality. I thought this would at least have some of the discredited statements attributed to Westcott-Hort expressing their beliefs, but there was not one. He did reference the soundly debunked author Gail Riplinger as though she had got it right.

In quoting many of Irenaeus's quotes in "Against Heresies", he uses quotes that read the same in both the KJV and the modern translations. So what's the point?

Many of the so-called gnostic alterations simply don't hold water. If the gnostics altered the Alexandrian Type codices so as to remove orthodox teachings regarding Jesus Christ, they did a fabulously incompetent and incomplete job of it. The same could be said for any of the Bible doctrines. Where one clause is supposedly missing (by some sinister conspiracy to alter The Word) the same teaching can be found elsewhere in the codex -- usually in numerous places. Surely the gnostics wouldn't have been so careless to eliminate a teaching in one place, only to leave it fully intact in many others in the same volume! This leads to a more likely scenario: In battling the heresy of Gnosticism, orthodox scribes "had in some instances changed the words, thinking that they were making it more plain, when in reality they were mystifying that which was plain, by causing it to lean to their established views, which were governed by tradition." It is more likely that, rather than portions being deliberately eliminated in the Alexandrian Texts, the Byzantine Texts were conflated in an attempt to clarify the meaning of the text to preemptively confront the gnostic mental gymnastics involving those texts.

Interestingly, The New Possibility Thinkers Bible Indexed by Robert Schuller happens to be a NKJV, based on the Majority Text.

We believe not that one man by the cultivation of natural powers has striven upwards to fellowship with God, but that the Son of God has taken humanity to Himself and gained that for the race which each member can find for himself in Him, (Westcott, Christus Consummator, p. 151.
Within obvious limits man may obtain by direct observation knowledge of himself and of the world. But if he is to know God, God must reveal Himself, (Westcott, The Gospel of Life, p. 285).

It is impossible, so far as our experience yet goes, for man to have direct knowledge of God as God. He can come to know Him only through One who shares both the human and divine natures, and who is in vital fellowship both with God and with man. In Christ this condition is satisfied. He who as the Word had been declared to be God, who as the Son is one in essence with the Father, even He set forth that which we need to know, (Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John, p. 14).

And many more at THIS LINK

You ignore the evidence, all scripture iin Gods Word is written by men inspired by God, so you have to understand we are looking at words of that language expressing what God revealed to them and sometimes can be improved with a translation. But if they take the words that are written and delete or take them out altogether, for the purpose of a different or altered meaning, now you are on dangerous ground and these mens changes result in a clear corruption of Gods Word, and this is what the Alexandrian Manuscripts were and Christians of that age clearly recognized it, nothing has changed, its still the same corrupted text.

You have no evidence that it is the Alexandrian Texts that were corrupted. The evidence is that the Majority Text were conflated and Sister White even says that that is what took place "when copies were few." It is a fact that the words "even the Son of Man which is in heaven" were not in the original. The inclusion of these words is more in harmony with the docetic teaching that the Christ did not in reality become flesh, with its temporal limitations and liabilities. Once in the flesh, Jesus could not be on earth and at the same time "in heaven."

Rick, do yourself a favor and read factual material regarding textual criticism, rather than wild and reckless conspiracy theory laden stuff that is constantly recycled by people like Veith, Ruckman, Riplinger, and so on. These people start with the preconception that the KJV is the gold standard and then fabricate "evidence" that it is. Hence the libelous insinuations that Westcott was an occultist, pantheist, gnostic, evolutionist, Catholic, and so on.

And if you think the new versions are Catholic corruptions, you should be aware that the KJV1611 has almost 3,000 renderings borrowed directly from the Catholic Rheims Bible, and hundreds more translated from the Latin Vulgate rather than the Greek. In a lot of these cases, the Revised Version reinstated earlier (and more accurate) English translations of verses the the Authorized Version abandoned in favor of the Catholic Rheims renderings.

Dave,

Riplinger is definitely off-base. I've not seen all of Veith's stuff on the topic, but what I've seen seemed solid. I've never heard of Ruckman. But the real evidence to the whole matter is not what anyone says about the Bible versions so much as those versions themselves.

There is clear evidence that the Alexandrian Texts were corrupted. The Catholic church, which is never afraid to admit its changes to God's Word, says so openly.



That's just a portion of their documentation for the work that they were doing, and this is in a historical context (it appears this quote was written about 100 years ago).

From wikipedia, the following background is given on the Alexandrain text.


So those Coptic/Alexandrian/Egyptian texts that are now used in most modern translations were formerly edited by the Catholics per their own witness. Furthermore, they attest to the fact that their source was corrupted.

In other portions of their documentation they give credit to the likes of Westcott and Hort and a list of others who helped in the editing process. Here's another quote from the Catholics.



They obviously received the text from Origen which was then upheld by Westcott and Hort. So, who is Origen? A study of history will reveal of what mold he was, and his character. That which passed through his hands was corrupted.

Here's another quote from our Catholic friends.


Do you, Dave, reject the greater half of the book of Mark or the story of the adulteress? If you are going with the Catholic preferences in manuscripts, as all modern versions have done, it would appear that you would call these things "additions" to the Word of God that should not be there.

I call them "deletions" from the Word of God which should never have been done in the corrupt manuscripts. This, again, is evidence in favor of our Majority Text.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I see no added statement. I only see different English words.


But that's not true:
And again, what does "purging" mean to you? What does it mean in the Bible as I showed?

[/quote]And again, what does "purging" mean to you? What does it mean in the Bible as I showed?
[/quote]

Purging to me means to clean out. It dosen't purify anything.
Read the text. "Goes into the draught", :Is eliminated". Into the waste bowl", "It doth go out". THIS purifys anything?? This makes unclean meat clean?
What is the context of the entire subject? washing your hand before you eat. A tradidion. What did Jesus say about 'traditions'? Now, again, what has this to do with our diet??

As I said before, I don't think it says anything about diet. But according to you, it "cleans all meats". You just said so. The KJV just like other versions. You have to read the context. Bad mouthing versions doesn't change anything since the KJV says the same.