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Steven Avery
There are places where the Vulgate helps preserve the pure Bible text, like Luke 2:22, her purification.
And I have not seen evidence that Erasmus, Stephanus or Beza referred to Old Latin manuscripts, distinct from the Vulgate.
Christopher Yetzer
It is rarely ever (& more than likely never) a discussion of Latin vs. Greek. At least not for Beza.
fateor pleraque Graeca exemplaria iampridem ita habere: sed apparet ex Photio (omnium Graecorum interpretum, quos ego quidem viderim, acutissimo, cuius verba in Graecis scholiis citantur) irrepsisse Tabernaculi nomen indque perperam: quum ex argumenti serio, & ultimo superioris capitis versiculo, facilè appareat subaudiendum esse διαθηκης nomen. Itaque non dubitauimus σκηνή expungere, Claromontani cod. Syri interpretis & Latinae receptae editiones auctoritatem (aut veritatem potius ipsam) sequuti.
Rick Norris
Jan Krans contended that Theodore Beza “takes the text as found in Stephanus’ editions for granted and does not see himself as the editor of the Greek text” (Beyond What is Written, p. 218).
Henry Baird pointed out that Beza was "chiefly indebted" to the previous 1550 edition of Stephanus that was based on one of the later editions of Erasmus (Theodore Beza, p. 235).
KJV-only author Floyd Jones observed: “In 1598 Beza published his fifth edition, again using Erasmus’ Greek text as his foundation” and that “it reads almost the same as the last update of Erasmus” (Which Version, p. 44).
Irena Backus asserted: "Beza's 1582 version differed from Stephanus in about 40 places" (Reformed Roots of the English N. T., p. 2).
Backus produced evidence that "suggests that Beza was largely dependent on the collations of the two Stephani for his MS variants" (p. 6). Backus pointed out that Beza says that he had an ‘exemplar’ [book of collations] from Robert Stephanus that had been collated by his son Henri and that “Beza says that this ‘exemplar’ provided the sole source for his minuscule MS variants” (pp. 2-3). Backus noted that Beza in his preface to the 1598 edition of his Greek text “referred to nineteen” manuscripts (p. 3).
Jan Krans pointed out that the nineteen “can be seen as Stephanus’ seventeen coupled with Codex Bezae and Codex Claromontamus” (Beyond What Is Written, p. 216).
Does that mean that Beza’s text is derived from this imperfect source which cited a clear minority of MS evidence so that it is not a majority text?
Jan Krans noted that “in most cases the information provided by Beza agrees exactly with Stephanus’ critical apparatus” (Beyond What Is Written, p. 211), and in his footnote [3] Krans asserted that Beza “even faithfully reproduces Stephanus’ errors.” Krans wrote: “Beza often refers to readings derived from Stephanus in ways that suggest that he actually consulted the manuscripts himself. However, this impression is deceptive, at least in case of Stephanus’ manuscripts” (p. 213). Krans observed: “It may be safely concluded that most of Beza’s text-critical information was second-hand, that is, derived from Henri Stephanus’ collations and Robert or Henri Stephanus’ editions” (pp. 242-243).
In notes under correspondence from Francis Huyshe in the March, 1834, issue of The British Magazine, this is stated concerning
Revelation 16:5: “But having discovered in the book of collations, the reading, …, (which is ever used on similar occasions), as he [Beza] says, ‘ex vetusto bonae fidei MS. Cod.,’ he restores it” (Vol. V, p. 287). Did Beza merely assume that the new reading he introduced at Revelation 16:5 was found in an old manuscript because it was in an imperfect, recent book of collations where a young collator could have looked at the wrong place in a manuscript that did not have verse divisions? Do the known facts indicate that Henri Stephanus’ imperfect book of collations may possibly have misled Beza in some cases? Isn’t it amazing that the claimed reading of one missing or lost NT manuscript can be advocated over the reading of all known preserved Greek NT manuscripts?
KJV defender Edward F. Hills surprisingly acknowledged: "Beza introduced a few conjectural emendations into his New Testament text" (KJV Defended, p. 208).
Jan Krans claimed: “There is a remarkable paradox in Beza’s editions: though he professes time and again not to change the text lightly out of mere conjecture, he offers at the same time an astonishingly high number of conjectures” (Beyond What is Written, p. 247). Jan Krans maintained that Beza’s emendations
“had not been based on a sound and consistent text-criticial method” (p. 198). Jan Krans suggested that Beza “used Erasmus’ technique of inferring [Greek] readings” based on the Latin Vulgate and even also “on the basis of Erasmus’ Latin translation” (p. 240). Krans maintained that “the existence of versional ‘evidence’ for a reading does not exclude its being a conjecture when adopted into the Greek text” (p. 90). Jan Krans also noted that “Beza’s harmonistic approach [preferring readings that bring the gospel accounts closer together] sometimes led to conjectural emendation” (p. 241).
William McKane asserted: “Fulke’s defence of Beza’s arbitrariness in the cases of which Martin complains shakes one’s confidence in his judgment as a textual critic. There is no question of producing textual evidence to support Beza’s conjectures. These guesses were made by Beza in the hope that manuscript evidence would support them at some future date” (Selected Christian Hebraists, p. 92).
Scrivener claimed: "On certain occasions, it may be, the [KJV] translators yielded too much to Beza's somewhat arbitrary decisions" (Authorized Edition, p. 60).
Jan Krans suggested that there are some “errors in Beza’s own edition which can probably be imputed to the typesetters rather than to Beza himself” (Beyond What Is Written, p. 220). Scrivener asserted that Beza’s 1598 Greek N. T. contained “manifest errors of the press” (Scrivener’s Annotated Greek N.T., p. xi).
Steven Avery
Rick Norris - this is all very vague, once not one variant is mentioned.
Likely the single most critical excellent change from Theodor Beza was “her purification” in Luke 2:22, correcting the blunder in the Greek manuscripts and explained superbly by Beza.
The number of changes from Erasmus 5 to Beza 1598 is about 200, which includes Stephanus updates.
Rick, are you criticizing even one of his updates that was used in the AV?
Even one.
(We know this is hard for you, since you have affirmed no text, in any language, of even one verse as God’s pure and perfect word.)