only one region? In contrast, the majority TR text is composed of mss from Greece, Asia Minor, Constantinople, Syria, Africa, Gaul, Southern Italy, Sicily, England and Ireland. Alexandria had no original autographs of the New Testament. Hence areas such as Rome, Greece, Asia Minor and Palestine had a better start than did Egypt to have the true text of the Holy Scriptures.1

It is unwise for present day translators to base their modern versions on recent papyri discoveries, Vaticanus B, and Sinaiticus A because all of these documents came out of Egypt.2 During the early Christian centuries Egypt was a land in which heresies were rampant. Indeed, Hills reports that the texts of all the Bodmer Papyri are error-ridden and have been tampered with, in part by gnostic heretics.3 The same is true of the texts of Papyrus 75, B, and Aleph.4

Burgon and Miller pointed out this gnostic trait in B and A back in 1896,.5 and their observations have yet to be refuted. Burgon named the infamous gnostic teacher, Valentinus (fl. A.D. 150) as the source of some of the corruptions.6 There was even a heretical character of the early Egyptian church;7 hence it is not surprising that the manuscripts from Egypt were sprinkled with heretical readings.

We shall now quote some liberal modern scholars with reference to some of the oldest witnesses so that we may ascertain the character of these witnesses. Remember the issue is - are not the oldest manuscripts the best? Again, Scripture indicates such is not necessarily true. We shall refer to these papyri as though they were men; in other words, the scribes who wrote them. Let us now consider some of the older material:

P66 editorializes and is very poor and sloppy according to E.C. Colwell. (To editorialize means to change the material and substitute the editor's thoughts.) He reports nearly 200 nonsensical readings and 400 mistaken spellings.8

P75 is not as bad as P-66 but Colwell affirms there are over 400 mistakes which include about 145 misspellings and 257 singular readings of which 25% are nonsensical.9

P45 we are told, has 90 misspellings and 245 singular readings of which 10% make no sense. As an editor, P-45 is concise but he omits adverbs, adjectives, nouns, participles, verbs, personal pronouns and frequently clauses and phrases. He shortens the text at least 50 times into singular readings.10

Clearly, P-45 did not believe he had the Word of God in his hands or he would have been more circumspect. Colwell credits P-45 with having tried to produce a "good" copy. Perhaps, if "good" means "readable" but not "faithful" - for he made many deliberate alterations as Colwell himself acknowledged.

1 Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text, op. cit., p. 105.

2 Hills, The King James Version Defended, op. cit., p. 134.

3 Hills, Believing Bible Study, op. cit., p. 78.

4 Ibid., p. 77.

5 Burgon, The Traditional Text, op. cit., pp. 287-291.

6 John W. Burgon, The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, ed. Edward Miller, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1896), pp. 215-218.

7 Hills, The King James Version Defended, op. cit., p. 134.

8 Colwell, "Scribal Habits in Early Papyri", pp. 387, 378-379; see Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text, op. cit., pp. 117-120 for an excellent more detailed summary.

9 Ibid., pp. 374-376.

10 Ibid.

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