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Dr. John Cereghin writes in Question #5 Erasmus had access to most of the same set of manuscripts as did modern translators with the obvious exception of Codex Sinaiticus, which was not rescued from the trash can at St. Catherine's monastery until the mid-19th century. and in Question 12 The texts used by Erasmus for his first edition: 1 - 11th century, contained the Gospels, Acts, Epistles. Erasmus did not rely very much on 1 because it read too much like Codex B/Vaticanus. (9) 2 - 15th century, contained the Gospels. 2ap - 12th-14th century, contained Acts and the Epistles. Erasmus depended upon 2 and 2ap because they were the best and most accurate texts. (10) 4ap - 15th century, containing Revelation. Erasmus mainly used 2 and 2ap, occasionally used 1 and 4ap. (11) Erasmus may have had as many as 10 manuscripts at his disposal, 4 from England, 5 at Basle and one loaned to him by John Reuchlin. (12) Thomas Strouse mentions that the earliest of his manuscripts went back to the 5th century, "advisedly." (13) Bishop Charles John Ellicott, Chairman of the Revision Committee, said about the Received Text: "The manuscripts which Erasmus used differ, for the most part, only in small and insignificant details from the bulk of the cursive manuscripts. The general character of their text is the same. By this observation the pedigree of the Received Text is carried up beyond the individual manuscripts used by Erasmus . . . This is in contradiction to what Metzger writes in The Text of the New Testament, 2nd ed., Oxford Univ Press (1968). The printing began on 2 October 1515, and in a remarkably short time (1 March 1516) the entire edition was finished, a large folio volume of about 1,000 pages which, as Erasmus himself declared later, was 'precipitated rather than edited' [praecipitatum verius quam editum). Owing to the haste in production, the volume contains hundreds of typographical errors; in fact, Scrivener once declared, '[It] is in that respect the most faulty book I know.'' Since Erasmus could not find a manuscript which contained the entire Greek Testament, he utilized several for various parts of the New Testament. For most of the text he relied on two rather inferior manuscripts from a monastic library at Basle, one of the Gospels (see Plate XV) and one of the Acts and Epistles, both dating from about the twelfth century. Erasmus compared them with two or three others of the same books and entered occasional corrections for the printer in the margins or between the lines of the Greek script. For the Book of Revelation he had but one manuscript, dating from the twelfth century, which he had borrowed from his friend Reuchlin. Unfortunately, this manuscript lacked the final leaf, which had contained the last six verses of the book. For these verses, as well as a few other passages throughout the book where the Greek text of the Apocalypse and the adjoining Greek commentary with which the manuscript was supplied are so mixed up as to be indistinguishable, Erasmus depended upon the Latin Vulgate, translating this text into Greek. As would be expected from such a procedure, here and there in Erasmus’ self-made Greek text are readings which have never been found in any Greek manuscript – but which are still perpetuated today in printings of the so-called Textus Receptus of the Greek New Testament [p99-100] and

Typical 'Metzger' nonsense.

Did Erasmus get the readings right? Yes he did.

Moreover, other editions also came out such as Stephens and Beza (which the King James is based on, not Erasmus)

The key to the manuscripts is not their 'lateness' but their purity.

A good late manuscript is better then a bad early one.

Moreover, Erasmus did reject the readings of 'B' as being corrupt.

As for the endings of Revelation, we have already discussed that.

There are 135 Greeks words at issue, 100 were shown to be correct with the 'better' manuscripts.

That leaves only 35 words left and most of these are not important in the English. Of those that are and none of these have been proven to be in error and are in fact are themselves used by other versions.

Thus the text of Erasmus' Greek New Testament rests upon a half-dozen minuscule manuscripts. The oldest and best of these manuscripts (codex I, a minuscule of the tenth century, which agrees often with the earlier uncial text) he used least, because he was afraid of its supposedly erratic text! Erasmus' text is inferior in critical value to the Complutensian, yet because was the first on the market and was available in a cheaper and more convenient form, it attained a much wider circulation and exercised a far greater influence than its rival, which had been in preparation from 1502 to 1514.[p. 102-103]

So? How many revisions did Erasmus do on his work? What about Stephens and Beza's TR (so-called-yea right!)?

Since Dr. Metzger is one of the formost authorities in textual analysis of the NT, I would expect that Dr. Cereghin and Bishop Ellicott to deal specifically with these issues, which they have not.

They do not deal with them because they are not issues!

Erasmus's text was revised and corrected.

Late manuscripts can be far more accurate then 'early' ones.

No reading of Erasmus has been proven incorrect.

It bore the fruit (with the 2nd edition) of Luther's German Bible (the beginning of the Reformation) and Tyndales (by their fruit ye shall know them Matt.7:20)

The problem here is that those who hold to the preservation of the TR have let their presuppositions determine their conclusions. The historical data just don't support the conclusions.

You keep saying that and not supplying any facts.

Yes, the translators who prepared the TR did the best that they could with what they had at the time. Given Erasmus' love of manuscripts, he would have loved to have had the wealth of manuscripts we have today. He would have used the same procedure as Metzger and others. Even Burgon advocated basically the same procedure in his writings.

No, Erasmus had access to the manuscripts he needed.

The 'wealth' of manuscripts support his text (TR) not the critical text.

Burgon never would have accepted Metzger methodology, which is simply accepting a manuscript because of its age

Burgon listed the following as criteria for accepting a manuscript,

Antiquity or Primitiveness,

Consent of Witnesses, or Number

Variety of Evidence, or Catholicity,

Respectablity of Witnesses, or weight

Continuity or Unbroken Tradition,

Evidence of the entire passage or Context,

Internal considerations or Reasonableness.

Regarding Antiquity Burgon states,

Antiquity, in and of itself, will be found to avail nothing. A reading is to be adopted not because of it is old, but because it is the best attested, and therefore the oldest. (Burgon, The Traditional Text, p.29)

Yet, while Burgon wanted the oldest manuscripts possible, he knew that the oldest may not always be the best,

And precisely in that first age it was that men evinced themselves least careful or accurate in guarding the Deposit,-least critically exact in their way of quoting it; -whilst the enemy was most restless, most assidous in procuring its depravation...Stange as it may sound-distressing as the discovery must needs prove when it is first distinctly realized-the earliest shreds and scraps-for they are first no more-that come into our hands as quotations of he text of the New Testament Scriptures are not only disappointing by reason of their inexactness, their fragmentary character, their vaguenees, but they are often demonstrably inaccurate (Ibid,p.30)

You have two lines of Bibles, the line found in the Received text (the Bible of the Reformation) or the bible found in the critical text, Rome's bible and all the modern versions (check the readings if you do not believe me).

It is just that simple-WHICH BIBLE IS GOD'S BIBLE!