A Message From The President

Renewed Greetings from the Majority Text Society (MTS). I hope that by God's grace all is well with you. First of all I want to apologize for a lack of correspondence from us since the passing away of Dr. Arthur Farstad on September 1, 1998. His death was a major loss to all of us who knew him, but at the same time, we rejoice that he is with the Lord. This past May, I met with Zane Hodges (Vice President) and Frank Carmical (Secretary) to discuss reviving the work of MTS. At this meeting we discussed the status, limitations, and future direction of MTS. We decided to change the format of our mailings to be written on a more popular level with shorter articles distributed in the form of an annual newsletter. Zane shared a personal testimony of how long ago it was a brief pamphlet that started him thinking along the lines that the current critical Greek text may have significant flaws in the textual theory behind it. This does not mean that a longer article wouldn't be welcome, but as we have learned by experience, such articles from a MTS perspective are time consuming to write as well as difficult to come by. I hope that you enjoy this issue and new format.

Other goals we discussed is the continued distribution of the Logos 21 Gospel of John English translation of the Majority Text, the MTS pamphlet and the existing supply of scholarly articles that were previously written for MTS. For various reasons we decided not to pursue a complete modern English translation of the Majority Text at this time. Unfortunately, the death of Dr. Farstad has on a practical level stopped the completion of Logos 21. On a brighter note, I will say that other Bible translation work is going on with some translations using Majority Text readings much more than the critical text would recommend, while others are following a Majority Text philosophy. For example, see the ALT bible at www.dtl.org/books/preview/alt.htm and the World English Bible at www.ebible.org. The MTS viewpoint is having an impact!

Another area we would like to develop is to have a MTS web site. As you know most organizations are now accessible by the Internet which would further expand the influence of MTS. (Any volunteers to help with this?) We are thankful that the MTS brochure is available online at www.thelordjesus.com/majtext.html since we have gotten a significant amount of inquiry based on this web site.

Thanks for your interest in Majority Text issues.

Sincerely in Christ,

Dr. James F. Davis

 

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