Some questions

[gbausc]

And Chuck, excuse me if I don't go to every major library in Europe and the USA to examine every Greek ms. for its reading of Acts 20:28 so I can prove that the majority reading contains the Greek word, "Theou" -"of God", and I will excuse you for not reading every Eastern Peshitta manuscript (do you even have an idea how many Peshitta mss. are Eastern, versus Western?) at Acts 20:28. But if I need to see every Greek ms. to prove my case that the majority of Greek mss. support the Western reading, then you must do the same with the Peshitta mss. to support your claim that the Eastern mss. read as you say they do- not that I doubt it; neither do I understand you contesting the majority Greek reading; it is so listed in the apparatus of three Greek NT's that show the variant readings in Acts 20:28, in Nestle's-Aland's 26th edition, the UBS Greek NT used in most seminaries, and in Hodges-Farstad's Greek NT according to the Majority Text. Hodges-Farstad is based on Von Soden, who "completely collated all available copies (more than 900 Greek mss.) of the Pericope de Adultera" (See Hodges NT, page xxiii), and hundreds of Greek mss. for the rest of the NT.
Von Soden found different sub groups of Byzantine Greek mss. and designated them into categories- K(x), K(i), K©, K(I); "K" stands for "Koine", "c" for Complutensian; "I" for "Itala" Western Latin type text; "x" is a large group of 300+ mss. in the Gospels and "i" is only 4 Greek uncials. He produced a fuller Greek NT collation than any previous to him, though certainly not every Greek ms. available. By far most Greek mss. are 11th century and newer, and 95% of those are Byzantine text type, very like the Textus Receptus.

What is your method of ascertaining the correct reading of a verse? You seem to mock my position of accepting the 1905 Peshitta edition as the original, yet your position seems to be even more simplistic ; the 1905 text is based on approx. 80 Aramaic mss., overall. Your Eastern text is based on what? One Khabouris manuscript? How do you know whether the Eastern text represents most Peshitta mss., or that it is the original, as opposed to the Western text? What system of textual criticism principles leads you to the conclusion that only the Eastern text is needed to find the original? How many Eastern mss. are there, or doesn't that matter?

I choose not to discuss theology here with you on this forum. If you want to correspond privately, I will try to find time to respond to your questions. Let's keep it to the textual matters here.

Blessings,

Dave