[Manny Rodriguez]

Originally Posted by Brother Tim

Manny, one question that I have had about Scrivener's edition is that since it was produced well after the KJB, and was "retrofitted" to the KJB, if Scrivener referred to the KJB for matching wording, then the KJB takes authority over his Greek edition. If Scrivener used other sources to produce his edition, then those sources become the authority. Which direction did he follow? (I have a copy from Dr. Waite, but it is Greek to me. [sorry] )

Bro. Tim, Scrivener used the KJV as the standard (since the goal was to produce the exact Greek words that underlie the KJV in order to compare it to Westcott & Hort's text which underlied the RV 1881). He simply collated 18 different editions of the Greek TR to find the Greek word that matches the KJV. The end result was the reading in Greek that matches the KJV.

The following is something I wrote that has yet to be published:

First off, Scrivener’s Annotated Greek NT is not necessarily a “new Textus Receptus”. According to Scrivener’s own testimony (see the preface of Scrivener’s Greek NT), his text is basically Beza’s 5th edition (1598) save in 190 places. For these 190 places, Scrivener replaced those readings with Greek renderings that matched the KJV more closely. But these replacements were not new TR readings nor were they a back-translation of the English into Greek as some have suggested. These renderings already existed in prior editions of the TR and were borrowed from those editions to replace the 190 instances in Beza’s 5th edition which did not match up as closely with the KJV. So there is really nothing new about Scrivener’s TR text. It is simply an edited version of Beza’s text in just 190 places with renderings that already existed in prior TR texts.

The following is the statement by the Trinitarian Bible Society:

“F. H. A. Scrivener (1813-1891) attempted to reproduce as exactly as possible the Greek text which underlies the Authorized Version of 1611. However, the AV was not translated from any one printed edition of the Greek text. The AV translators relied heavily upon the work of William Tyndale and other editions of the English Bible. Thus there were places in which it is unclear what the Greek basis of the New Testament was. Scrivener in his reconstructed and edited text used as his starting point the Beza edition of 1598, identifying the places where the English text had different readings from the Greek. He examined eighteen editions of the Textus Receptus to find the correct Greek rendering, and made the changes to his Greek text. When he finished he had produced an edition of the Greek New Testament which more closely underlies the text of the AV than any one edition of the Textus Receptus.” The Received Text: A Brief Look at the Textus Receptus by G.W. & D.E. Anderson

The following is a statement by Dr. Edward Hill's:

“The texts of the several editions of the Textus Receptus were God-guided. They were set up under the leading of God’s special providence. Hence the differences between them were kept down to a minimum. … But what do we do in these few places in which the several editions of the Textus Receptus disagree with one another? Which text do we follow? The answer to this question is easy. We are guided by the common faith. Hence we favor that form of the Textus Receptus upon which more than any other God, working providentially, has placed the stamp of His approval, namely, the King James Version, or more precisely, the Greek text underlying the King James Version. This text was published in 1881 by the Cambridge University Press under the editorship of Dr. Scrivener and there have been eight reprints, the latest being in 1949. In 1976 also another edition of this text was published in London by the Trinitarian Bible Society. We ought to be grateful that in the providence of God the best form of the Textus Receptus is still available to believing Bible students."