The
New Choice of today's Eastern Orthodox Leaders: Departing from their own Greek Manuscripts
The Manuscripts that the Eastern Orthodox Church has historically used: Byzantine Manuscripts
Believe it or not, there are thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in Ancient Greek still around today. There are multitudes of these manuscripts that are dated to BEFORE the First Church Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.
The existence of these manuscripts is one of the ways we know which books of the Bible were used Prior to their official canonization at the Church Councils (at the council of Nicea, Hippo, etc). Most people would be surprised to learn that 99% of these ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament AGREE with each other.
The concept of confusion and multiple versions in Greek of the New Testament is an invention of Modern Textual Criticism and Dialectics. Historically, the confusion does not exist. The manuscripts are in Ancient Greek, and they are known as BYZANTINE Manuscripts.
The reason is because those are the Ancient Greek copies of the New Testament that was used by the Byzantine empire and the churches within it.
If the IDEA that the Eastern Orthodox church VALUES and Cares About the Ancient Sources and the Ancient Documents, then the logical conclusion is that the Eastern Orthodox Church would be using Byzantine manuscripts as its basis for its Bibles, even its Bibles in English.
What many Eastern Orthodox do not know is that the Protestants - historically - used the Same Byzantine Ancient Greek manuscripts. They are the same source, and the Protestants obtained their manuscripts from Byzantine sources.
Later on, the Protestants also verified those sources with the Bibles that came from the Italian Church, the part of it that had RESISTED the Roman Catholic Church. These Italian Christians were originally part of the first Early Churches in Italy. But as time marched forward, the Roman Emperor co-opted one of the Bishoprics of Rome, and installed his own choice and changed their doctrine. The results of the Roman Emperors in the West was the Roman Catholic Church.
The Christians in Italy spoke out Against the Roman Catholic Church and its grants of land, title, power, and its funding from the Roman Imperial Treasury. All of this happened when Constantine gave the Roman Catholic Church its own lands now called The Vatican.
Newly armed with wealth and power, the Roman Catholic church CEO took the Title of Pontifex Maximus, armed himself with Roman Legionaires and went on a hunt of those who spoke out against the Roman Catholic Church. This happened after 325 A.D.
When these events transpired, the Italian Christians knew that the Bishop of Rome was even more corrupt than before. Those Christians fled to the Italian alps and took their manuscripts of the Bible with them. For hundreds and hundreds of years, they lived in the Alps, away from the power of the Roman Empire to reach them. From there, they continued to preach true Christianity.
When it finally came time for the protestants to translate and verify their own Manuscripts of the Bible, they took great care to make sure that they were as accurate as possible. Their knowledge of linguistics and languages and translation was phenomenal. Their knowledge easily surpasses the "expertise" of modern scholars, but even today, it is protestants who continue to translate the Bible into all languages around the world. If it were not for Protestants, the Bible would still be a banned book, which is what the Roman Catholic Church declared it to be for anyone who was not a Priest.
The Protestants knew their own sources but they had not had much contact with the Waldensians at all. Access to the Alps was difficult. But when they reached them and were able to meet, both side rejoiced not only because of the teachings which they had in common from learning and studying the Bible, each group on their own, but because their Bibles were the same.
Both sides had fears that the Bibles could be corrupted because they had seen many examples of this in the Roman Catholic Church, through its use of the Latin Vulgate.
The Protestants had used Byzantine Greek copies of the New Testament (which is what the Textus Receptus is). The Waldensians had their copies of the Bible in several languages, including Italian, Latin, German and French. (The Alps straddle several countries and the Waldensians traveled over many places in Europe, bringing the Bible to Europeans).
What Olivetain wrote in the preface to his own Bible was that his Bible (though in French) had been verified and compared to the Waldensian Bibles. And both sources, the Bible of the Protestants (using Byzantine manuscripts) and the Bibles of the Waldensians agreed with each other.
The conclusion is simply that the two sources agree with each other: the Byzantine manuscripts historically used by the Eastern Orthodox Church are the AUTHENTIC source for the Greek New Testament.
All of this was prior to the King James Version in English. The Geneva Bible and the King James are both direct translations from Byzantine manuscripts. When we hear that the King James Version is from the Greek "Textus Receptus", it is good to remember that the Textus Receptus is a Byzantine text.
The Eastern Orthodox Church Leaders of Today and their use of Anti-byzantine Manuscripts.
Today's Eastern Orthodox Church has departed from their historic standard of using Byzantine Manuscripts. They did adhere to the continued use of Byzantine manuscripts past the 1800s into the 1900s, depending on which country or Patriarchate one is referring to. Recently, and especially in the U.S., the Eastern Orthodox Church abandoned its use of Byzantine-Manuscripts based Bibles.
Most of you can tell where this is going: The Eastern Orthodox Church not only claims to be the legitimate descendant of the Original Early Christian Churches, but also claims to VALUE the Ancient ways. One would think that this would apply to the Bible, since 1) Its age makes it one of the few authentic sources to actually come from the Early Christians and the Early Church and 2) The Abundance of Greek manuscripts allows us to determine what is the accurate Greek New Testament.
Unfortunately, what the Eastern Orthodox Church
teach that they value, and what they actually value or esteem are not often the same. This is why when they speak ABOUT the Church Councils, they are quick to give lavish praise. But when we ask priests to show copies of the 6 Church Councils and authenticate and prove that their recent sources come from copies that existed BEFORE the 1800s, they either fall strangely silent, or become rather hostile.Of course, to ask an EOC priest to demonstrate anything is itself often treated as a cardinal offense. The reason is that behind their frustration at being questioned, they have precious-little to actually offer as the basis for their own authentication. When they can or do offer sources, the sources almost always are Roman Catholic, hence the conclusion - once again - that the EOC is often found to be advocating the same conclusions and the same materials as the Roman Catholic Church.
(The Test of this is simple: Try it with your priest and find out what happens...and if you ever receive solid and documented evidence. And if you do, it won't come from your priest, because they are not equipped. )
In English, the Eastern Orthodox Church has used the Revised Version. But the Revised Version (which is what that particular version is called) did not exist Before 1881. The Revised Version of the Bible is not particularly reliable, to be kind. More accurately, there are Three Thousand differences [actually more] between it and the Byzantine Manuscripts (Textus Receptus).
These things are true not because we state them but because they are objectively true. If you write to us and ask us for sources and documentation, we are happy to answer your requests about sources that you can use to do your own research.
[Note: We do sometimes offer some of these sources in order to make things easier for your research, but if you are concerned about that, then please do NOT buy those items from us, we will STILL help you to find independent verification for the facts]
The Eastern Orthodox Church has used the Revised Version in English, until recently, when they have started to substitute the NEW King James Version (which is also called the NKJV).
But instead of resolving the problem of manuscripts, the use of the NKJV actually creates many problems. The reason is that the NKJV is NOT what it pretends to be. The NKJV was simply supposed to be the King James in Modern English.
But that is not what the NKJV is. The NKJV departed from the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the original 1611 King James Version, which has been the most reliable and excellent English Bible since 1611.
The 1611 King James Version uses Byzantine Koine Greek Manuscripts.
The NEW King James Version does Not.
It claims to. But you have to go to the sources and read carefully what they state. The NKJV is based on a Greek Text. This Greek Text is ALSO a New Greek Text and is based on the work of a german Textual Critic named Von Soden which was published in 1911.
Lets summarize, just to be clear:
1. The 1611 King James was based on the same manuscripts as the Eastern Orthodox Church, which are the Byzantine Manuscripts written in Ancient (Koine) Greek.
2. The 1882 Revised Version was based on the invented Greek Text of two Fake Scholars (Westcott and Hort) who CHANGED the Revised Version in more than 3000 places. The EOC decided on this text for use in Churches in the U.S. This was an unfortunate mistake as it DISCARDED the Eastern Orthodox Historic use of Byzantine-Manuscript based Bibles
3. The NEW King James Version is Not based on the same Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts as the Original 1611 King James Version. The NKJV uses Different Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts. The Greek Text that the NKJV uses is Not based on the Textus Receptus or Byzantine Manuscripts, but rather is the work of a german Textual Critic named Von Soden which was published in 1911. This also was a New Greek Text.
IF the Eastern Orthodox Church cared about the traditions that they CLAIM to care about, the result would be that they would be using a Bible based on ancient copies based used before in the Eastern Orthodox Church. But the EOC really does not care what it uses, so long as you don't find out what they are doing.