QUESTION: I've heard that there have been many manuscripts discovered
since 1611 that the King James translators didn't have access
to. Do these strengthen or weaken the King James Bible?
ANSWER: They strengthen the King James Bible.
EXPLANATION: There have been many manuscripts found since 1611, but
there have been no new READINGS found.
Many critics of the Word of God have used the argument of "new
evidence" that the King James translators didn't have as a basis to
degrade its authority. The fact is, the King James translators had all
of the readings available to them that modern critics have available
to them today.
One of the most prominent manuscripts which has been discovered since
1611 is the Sinaitic manuscript. This witness, though horribly flawed,
was found amongst trash paper in St. Catherine's monastery at the
foot of Mt. Sinai in 1841 by Constantine Tischendorf.
Sinaiticus is a sister manuscript of the corrupt manuscript Vaticanus.
Both read very similarly. So, although the Sinaitic manuscript was
discovered over 200 years after the Authorized Version was translated,
its READINGS were well known to the translators through the Vatican
manuscript which was discovered in 1481 and also through the Jesuit
Bible, an English translation of 1582.
So we see that there are no readings available today to scholars which
were not already in the hands of the King James translators. We might
further add that an honest scholar will admit that this "great number
of newly discovered manuscripts" that are trumpt abroad agree with the
Greek text of the Authorized Version rather than challenging it.
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