Now Ellen White said that the Waldenses were the first of all the peoples of Europe to obtain a translation of the Holy Scriptures, so how did that happen. Well lets follow the manuscripts of the various versions that followed the Textus Receptus in a timeline so we can see how it was preserved till the Reformers came across it and the KJV came into widespread use.
These versions include:
The Vaudois/Waldensian (AD 120 & onwards),
The Peshitta Version (AD 150),
The Italic Bible (AD 157),
The Gallic Bible (Southern France) (AD177),
The Gothic Bible (AD 330-350),
The Old Syriac Bible (AD 400),
The Armenian Bible (AD 400 There are 1244 copies of this version still in existence.), The Palestinian Syriac (AD 450),
The French Bible of Oliveton (AD 1535),
The Czech Bible (AD 1602),
The Italian Bible of Diodati (AD 1606),
The Greek Orthodox Bible (Used from Apostolic times to the present day by the Greek Orthodox Church).
[Bible Versions, D.B. Loughran]
http://home.sprynet.com/~eagreen/kjv-3.htmOr looking at it from the origins or where it comes from:
THE OLD TESTAMENT
The ancient Masoretic Text
1524-25 Bomberg Edition of the Masoretic Text also known as the Ben Chayyim Text
THE NEW TESTAMENT
All dates are Anno Domini (A.D.)
30-95------------Original Autographs or original documents
95-150----------Greek Vulgate (Copy of Originals)
120---------------The Vaudois/Waldensian Bible
150---------------The Peshitta (Syrian Copy)
150-400--------Papyrus Readings of the Receptus
157--------------The Italic Bible - From the Old Latin Vulgate used in Northern Italy
157--------------The Old Latin Vulgate
177--------------The Gallic Bible
310--------------The Gothic Version of Ulfilas
350-400-------The Textus Receptus is Dominant Text
400--------------Augustine favors Textus Receptus
400--------------The Armenian Bible (Translated by Mesrob)
400--------------The Old Syriac
450--------------The Palestinian Syriac Version
450-1450------Byzantine Text Dominant (Textus Receptus)
508--------------Philoxenian - by Chorepiscopos Polycarp, who commissioned by Philoxenos of Mabbug
500-1500------Uncial Readings of Receptus (Codices)
616--------------Harclean Syriac (Translated by Thomas of Harqel - Revision of 508 Philoxenian)
864--------------Slavonic
1100-1300----The Latin Bible of the Waldensians (History goes back as far as the 2nd century as people of the Vaudoix Valley)
1160------------The Romaunt Version (Waldensian)
1300-1500----The Latin Bible of the Albigenses
1382-1550----The Latin Bible of the Lollards
1384------------The Wycliffe Bible
1516------------Erasmus's First Edition Greek New Testament
1522------------Erasmus's Third Edition Published
1522-1534----Martin Luther's German Bible (1)
1525------------Tyndale Version
1534------------Tyndale's Amended Version
1534------------Colinaeus' Receptus
1535------------Coverdale Version
1535------------Lefevre's French Bible
1537------------Olivetan's French Bible
1537------------Matthew's Bible (John Rogers Printer)
1539------------The Great Bible
1541------------Swedish Upsala Bible by Laurentius
1550------------Stephanus Receptus (St. Stephen's Text)
1550------------Danish Christian III Bible
1558------------Biestken's Dutch Work
1560------------The Geneva Bible
1565------------Theodore Beza's Receptus
1568------------The Bishop's Bible
1569------------Spanish Translation by Cassiodoro de Reyna
1598------------Theodore Beza's Text
1602------------Czech Version
1607------------Diodati Italian Version
1611------------The King James Bible with Apocrypha between Old and New Testament
1613------------The King James Bible (Apocrypha Removed) (2)
These early Greek text that followed the Textus Receptus or Received Text as it was later called, was soon translated into old Latin before Jerome’s Latin Vulgate and was called the Italic Bible. The Vaudois (later called Waldensians) of northern Italy used the Italic Bible. There was a school in Antioch of Syria in very early Christian times that had the ancient manunscripts pf the Scriptures. Preachers like Chrysostom held to the Syrian Text that agrees with our KJV. The Vaudois (Waldenses) the Albigenses, and more importantly the Reformers (Luther, Calvin and Knox) all held to the Received Text or the Textus Receptus .
Now from "OUR AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED" by
Benjamin Wilkinson, PhD. had the following on the connection to Calvin...
"FOUR Bibles produced under Waldensian influence touched the
history of CALVIN: namely, a GREEK, a WALDENSIAN vernacular, a
FRENCH, and an ITALIAN. Calvin himself was led to his great work by OLIVETAN, a Waldensian. Thus was the Reformation brought to Calvin.......FAREL, also a Waldensian, besought him to come to Geneva and open up a work there. Calvin felt that he should labor in Paris. According to LEGER, Calvin recognized a relationship to the Calvins of the valley of St. Martin, one of the Waldensian Valley(Allix, Churches of Piedmont, pp. 288, 11).
Finally, PERSECUTION in Paris and the solicitation of Farel
caused Calvin to settle at GENEVA, where, with, BEZA, he brought out an edition of the Textus Receptus......Of BEZA, Dr. Edgar says that he "astonished and confounded the world" with the Greek MSS he unearthed. This later edition of the Received Text is in reality a Greek NT brought out under
Waldensian influnce. Unquestianbly, the LEADERS of the Reformation, GERMAN,FRENCH, and ENGLISH, were CONVINCED that the Received Text was the GENUINE NT, not ONLY by its OWN irresistible history and INTERNAL evidence, but ALSO because it MATCHED with the Received text which the Waldensian form came down from in the days of the apostles."
This one connects the Waldensian bibles with another Reformer, Martin Luther....
The Waldensian Church. It is not certain how far back this church can be dated, but they were using a Bible that corresponds to the Traditional Text long before the Reformation. They lived in the valleys of Northern Italy and Southern France, in the regions of Turin, Milan and Lyons. There is a popular belief that the Waldensians were founded by Peter Waldo in 1174. However, they are mentioned by name in a document called the Noble Lesson, written about 1100, so Peter Waldo could only have consolidated and strengthened a movement that already existed. There are reasons to believe that the Waldensians have a very early history which has become obscured because many documents were destroyed during persecutions by the Roman Catholic Church. The Waldensians have beliefs and practices that are similar to the Protestant Churches of today, and can be regarded as the predecessors of the Protestant Reformation. The Waldensian Bible is believed to be the source text for the German Tepl Bible, which was in turn used by Martin Luther when he produced his own Lutheran New Testament.
and here is some more background....
"The precise origin of the mediaeval German Bible is still unknown. Dr. Ludwig Keller of Münster first suggested in his Die Reformation und die älteren Reformparteien, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 257-260, the hypothesis that it was made by Waldenses (who had also a Romanic version); and he tried to prove it in his Die Waldenser und die deutschen Bibelübersetzungen, Leipzig, 1886 (189 pages). Dr. Hermann Haupt, of Würzburg, took the same ground in his Die deutsche Bibelübersetzung der mittelalterlichen Waldenser in dem Codex Teplensis und der ersten gedruckten Bibel nachgewiesen, Würzburg, 1885 (64 pages); and again, in self-defense against Jostes, in Der waldensische Ursprung des Codex Teplensis und der vor-lutherischen deutschen Bibeldrucke, Würzburg, 1886."
and finally some more of what Ellen White says on this:
Behind the lofty bulwarks of the mountains,--in all ages the refuge of the persecuted and oppressed,--the Waldenses found a hiding-place. Here the light of truth was kept burning amid the darkness of the Middle Ages. Here, for a thousand years, witnesses for the truth maintained the ancient faith. {GC88 65.2}
and note in a later passage what she says on how the true faith was preserved:
The gospel had been planted in Bohemia as early as the ninth century. The Bible was translated, and public worship was conducted in the language of the people. But as the power of the pope increased, so the Word of God was obscured. Gregory VII., who had taken it upon him "to pull down the pride of kings," was no less intent upon enslaving the people, and accordingly a bull was issued forbidding public worship to be conducted in the Bohemian tongue. The pope declared that "God was pleased that his worship should be celebrated in an unknown tongue, and that a neglect of this rule had given rise to many evils and heresies." Thus Rome decreed that the light of God's Word should be extinguished, and the people should be shut up in darkness. But Heaven had provided other agencies for the preservation of the church. Many of the Waldenses and Albigenses, driven by persecution from their homes in France and Italy, came to Bohemia. Though they dared not teach openly, they labored zealously in secret. Thus the true faith was preserved from century to century. {GC88 97.1}
So the Bible at the heart of the Reformation seems to date back to that which the Waldenses and others had as the Received Text or Textus Receptus and what Ellen White what shown is confirmed by history.