I'm not sure what you mean by the "RT" (whether that is for you the TR or the Byzantine text type), but I have found the writing of Maurice Robinson to be very helpful with regard to Byzantine text-type arguments. In fact, I find his argumentation compelling. A lot of his stuff can be found easily online.
Critical Textual Criticism and Missionary Work
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I'm not sure what you mean by the "RT" (whether that is for you the TR or the Byzantine text type), but I have found the writing of Maurice Robinson to be very helpful with regard to Byzantine text-type arguments. In fact, I find his argumentation compelling. A lot of his stuff can be found easily online.
RT=Received Text. I’ll check out Maurice. Robinson. I’d like to see something very concise, accessible intellectually to the average lay-person, in a hard copy form. I haven’t seen anything like that.
Yeah, most of what I've seen is online. Search for interviews with him, too. He's done a few, and they are helpful.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
You are assuming what you are trying to prove. By parity of reasoning, Westcott and Hort can easily say, "We are trying to recover the original text, which is the essence of the Reformation's ad fontes."
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Exactly. CT guys like Walter Kaiser and Gleason Archer have borne fruit in my life. TR guys like Steven Anderson have done quite the opposite.
gjensen
Puritan Board Freshman
I would not call Stephen Anderson a "TR guy". I am not sure that he needs anymore publicity.
And I have been encouraged and discouraged by both sides. I continue to be troubled by both extremes, and there is two extremes.
It is understandable that men and women would be passionate about defending God's word. I am skeptical that is what much of this is though.
After Dr. Duguid (sp?) mentioned it, I read the article on the text of the KJV in the Reformation Heritage Study Bible. I found a healthy and balanced approach to introducing this subject in Study Bibles. It could also serve as a model on how to positively promote a position. Some of us do not represent our position very well.
And I have been encouraged and discouraged by both sides. I continue to be troubled by both extremes, and there is two extremes.
It is understandable that men and women would be passionate about defending God's word. I am skeptical that is what much of this is though.
After Dr. Duguid (sp?) mentioned it, I read the article on the text of the KJV in the Reformation Heritage Study Bible. I found a healthy and balanced approach to introducing this subject in Study Bibles. It could also serve as a model on how to positively promote a position. Some of us do not represent our position very well.
I have used the ESV for a number of years and purchased a Reformation Study Bible. I love this study Bible. However I recently discovered Reformation Heritage Study Bible was also an excellent study Bible (available in the KJV) so I purchased it. Thus I use two great Bibles for my devotions. I have come to the view it is helpful to read quality translations in both the RT and the CT tradition.
Logan
Puritan Board Graduate
Unfortunately that's not the sort of thing I could point to any particular source on because it's information gathered from a myriad of sources:
* Archibald Alexander's inaugural address,
* Hodge's Systematic theology and commentaries (throughout),
* any reformed commentary over the last 5 centuries where it mentions "some manuscripts" or "the true reading", or "the best manuscripts" etc.
* Even Owen's book "Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Texts of Scripture" acknowledges shortcomings, while still being more dogmatic about it (i.e., "it's good enough")
* Turretin defends the TR (as it stood in his day) but notably because he believed it was completely supported by existing manuscripts, and even he believes there are some readings that could be gathered from better manuscripts
* Warfield's numerous articles citing primary sources
* Walton's Poloyglott
* Articles in the Presbyterian Review or the Princeton Review from the 1800s on textual critical work of Griesbach, Tischendorf, or W&H
* Even Burgon advocated for changes to the TR while still being an opponent of the Alexandrian text type
Read Warfield beginning on pg 643 from the link below, including the footnotes. I am convinced that the authors of the WCF, by "kept pure", did not at all mean what some today think it means with respect to the TR, but had a more comprehensive and broad view of preservation.
https://books.google.com/books?id=W0Q9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA643&lpg=PA643#v=onepage&q&f=false
Thank you. I'll start looking up these sources. I appreciate your input.
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Erasmus, and Westcott and Hort
I have seen it said by @Taylor Sexton (post 154) that Erasmus was “a defender of Babylon”; and in post 138, “Erasmus, the known heretic? He was a papist…”. And it was also asked, regarding Westcott and Hort, where did they show themselves unregenerate, unfit to work on the Scriptures?
Here are some links giving a far more balanced view of Erasmus:
Here is an old thread where I talk CONCERNING ERASMUS:
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/what-is-the-authentic-new-testament-text.15134/#post-196909
What About Erasmus?
https://www.wayoflife.org/database/erasmus.html
Refuting the charge that Erasmus was a Catholic Humanist- Will Kinney
https://pmicenter.wordpress.com/201...-erasmus-was-a-catholic-humanist-will-kinney/
In Defense Of Erasmus, By John Cereghin
http://www.solascriptura-tt.org/PessoasNosSeculos/InDefenseOfErasmus-Cereghin.htm
This is a PB discussion (more a knock-down drag-out where I think 9th commandment violations are frequent) simply for defending Erasmus and his spiritual life (from Post 14 on) :
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/verse-differences.84468/#post-1056875
_______
And then, this, re Westcott and Hort, is from a paper I wrote a while back (in two posts) :
Although we will be going back and taking a quick look at Bible scholars who came from or were associated with Alexandria, Egypt – namely Origen, Pamphilus, and Eusebius of Caesarea – who greatly influenced the Greek text underlying the modern versions, we will focus mainly on the two scholars and textual critics, Drs. Westcott and Hort, who dominated the revision committee of the Anglican Church – which produced a Greek version that supplanted the Received Text – in the latter part of the 1800s. These two men, utilizing German secular textual theories, as opposed to believing Christian scholarship, resurrected two old Greek manuscripts, codices Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (א) or aleph, after the first Hebrew letter, both of Alexandrian origin. We will look at these two manuscripts shortly, but first let us look at the two men who gave them new life after they had lain discarded and in deliberate disuse some thirteen or fourteen centuries.
Lest anyone wonder why we will spend valuable time examining these men, hear what John Kohlenberger, spokesman for Zondervan Publishing House (which has produced the NIV, NASB, Living Bible, RSV, and other versions), has to say of them:
D.A. Carson, author of The King James Version Debate, whose book was published by Baker Books (which also publishes a number of modern versions), says in it,
Westcott and Hort (henceforth W&H), are either revered as fathers of modern textual criticism, or reviled as men unworthy to lay hands on the Book of God, and enemies of the Faith; are there verifiable facts to clarify the record?
Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892), both began their academic careers as students of Trinity College at Cambridge University. Westcott was Hort’s senior by three years at the college, and was his tutor in Classics after Hort began his graduate studies there in 1849-50, beginning what was to be a lifelong friendship and collaboration in various endeavors, most notable of which was their Revised Greek Text of the New Testament, published in 1881. Westcott was also tutor, in 1848, to two other Cambridge men (among others) who would likewise remain his friends for life, J.B. Lightfoot and E.W. Benson.
The academic and spiritual atmosphere of Cambridge in those days was unusual; there was a great conflict between “liberal” theology (pretty much the same then as now), conservative Anglicans (of the Church of England), and conservative Roman Catholicism, the latter having many allies in certain sectors of the Anglican Church (which were known by terms such as the Oxford Movement, and Sacerdotalists), which sought to elevate the Church, her traditions, and her sacraments above the Scriptures as the final authority over the people of God, after the model of Rome. Many liberals who had been ousted from other universities for theological heresy found a haven at Cambridge; to name a few: Frederick Maurice (denied eternal Hell), John Henry Newman (pro-Vatican teaching), John William Colenso (openly questioned the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch), and William Roberson Smith (he likewise opposed the Mosaic authorship, and also the doctrine of inspiration).[3] The work of Charles Darwin was in the air, and in 1877 Cambridge conferred an honorary degree upon Darwin.[4] Some of the men mentioned, and the two we are focusing our attention on in particular, held a mixture of views, that is, both “liberal” and Catholic. Cambridge had fallen greatly since the days two centuries earlier when William Tyndale and other reformers pursued studies there! Evangelicals, who were also active in these times, were looked down upon as primitive and crude “fundamentalists” (as they would be called by the liberals in the 1920s), just for holding firmly to the fundamental historic doctrines of the believing church up through the ages. Such men, along with their Bibles, were often despised by the “learned” elite.
The focus of Westcott’s and Hort’s studies was the classics, notably the Greek. Hort wrote that Dr. Maurice “urged me to give the greatest attention to the Plato and Aristotle, and to make them the central points of my reading, and the other books subsidiary.” [5] Westcott also was first and foremost a classicist. In a letter to Lightfoot he exclaims, “I can never look back on my Cambridge life with sufficient thankfulness. Above all, those hours which were spent over Plato and Aristotle have wrought that in me which I pray may never be done away.” [6]
But there was more in the air of the times then than liberalism, Catholicism, and love of the classics. Although W&H were nominal members of the Church of England (COE), they evidently had no fear of God in the Biblical sense. In 1845, as an undergraduate, Westcott and some of his friends founded a club at Cambridge which eventually took the name Hermes Society.[7] That of itself might not be so bad, even though Hermes is widely known, not only as a god in Greek mythology, but a major figure in the occult, from notorious occultist H.P. Blavatsky’s equating of Hermes with Satan [8] (this latter entity not being evil in her eyes) to Carl Jung, as editor, including in a book of his, “Hermes is Trickster in a different role as a messenger, a god of the crossroads, and finally the leader of souls to and from the underworld.…Hermes recovered attributes of the bird life [wings] to add to his chthonic [underworld] nature as serpent.” [9] Occultism and spiritualism were exploding into manifestation in 19th century England, and Hermes was esteemed in these groups. What leads us to think Westcott’s Hermes club was not innocent of occult involvement are the name and the activities of his next club, founded in 1851: the Ghostly Guild.
James Webb, a secular historian of the occult, notes in his book, The Occult Underground, in the section, “The Necromancers,”
We learn from Hort himself who some of the members were:
The Society For Psychical Research, in its history written by one of its presidents, acknowledges its origins in “The Cambridge ‘Ghost Society’” and says, under the section of that title,
The believing church, however, does not consider this “ecclesiastical eminence”! If this were all we found objectionable in W&H, it would be sufficient to disqualify them from membership in an evangelical church, much less to teach or preach in one. But I am afraid it is not all. There is much more that can be said about their continued occult involvement, including other secret societies they founded or were part of, having others be the officers in (and “founders” of) these clubs while they remained generally unnamed and (to public scrutiny) in the background, but there is not room here for a thorough exposé. That they were practicing spiritualists – “necromancer” is the Biblical word – is beyond dispute. It is enough to note the Lord’s judgment on this matter:
Another secular historian looking at this time in English history says,
It should be clear that these men were not Christians, although they were baptized when infants in the Church of England. These were worldly men, unregenerate. You might picture in your minds college youths of today who, growing up in an unbelieving culture, have prejudiced attitudes toward the evangelical Christian faith, and toward the Bible.
Westcott, for example, at 21 years of age says,
In the following year he says,
In the same letter (above) where Hort was announcing to a friend the formation of the Ghost Society, he showed a belligerent prejudice to the Universal Text – the King James Bible – of the English-speaking world, and its underlying Greek basis, the Textus Receptus, presumably because it was the Bible of the Evangelicals, and its authority supported the authority with which they preached (in those days Charles Spurgeon was preaching in London, and D.L. Moody was evangelizing all over England). In similar fashion, young and educated unbelievers of today off-handedly disdain Bible preaching and Bibles. A 23-year-old Hort wrote,
In 1858 Hort wrote,
In 1865, when trying to “understand…the ever-renewed vitality of Mariolatry,” Hort surmised it was,
In these same letters (see footnote 20) Hort opines that mediation is the proper role for each – Mary and Jesus – and not worship.
We will look at some further beliefs and statements of W&H, to get an idea of the hearts and minds of these men. It was important to them that the things they believed and did were kept secret, as they well knew they were at odds with orthodox Christian faith, even in the ailing Anglican Church. In a letter to Westcott, in April of 1861, while they were unofficially [19] working on their revision of the Greek text, Hort wrote,
Hort was worldly-wise in this, for it was not until dogged research by scholars in the 20th century unearthed their “dangerous heresy”[21] (though “damnable” be a more apt description) in many areas, that we have learned things about them their contemporaries were unaware of. In a letter to Lightfoot in May of 1860, concerning a proposed commentary they would write with Westcott on the New Testament, Hort said,
He was surely right in this! He was not a believer, and it was easily apparent in his views! Remember, both he and Lightfoot were involved in spiritualism (along with Westcott and Benson), and although having respect to the COE and its traditions, the group of them were but secular classicists highly trained in classical Greek. They approached the New Testament Scriptures as they did any other Greek classics, with worldly, rationalist presuppositions and critical methods. In other words, their spiritualism was not their only heresy.
In answer to an Oxford undergraduate’s questions (in 1886) about the COE’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith, with regard to Article IX (concerning the doctrine of Original Sin), Hort answered thus,
One might understand why he would think this way from his view of Darwin’s Origin of Species. In a letter to Westcott (1860) he says,
To his friend John Ellerton, he wrote (in 1860),
We see Westcott was of the same mind:
The implications of these views are immense. If the Book of Genesis is not true history, then it is either error, or allegory masquerading as history. If Genesis is not true history, Jesus was in error asserting the historicity of Adam and Eve,[27] and Paul likewise in error in Romans and 1 Corinthians. If there was no actual fall of an actual Adam and Eve, the atonement of Christ was but a meaningless fiction. The Book of Genesis is foundational for all of God’s revelation concerning salvation. But such supposed errors were in accord with W&H’s view of the errancy of Scripture.
In the event someone says, but this is argumentum ad hominem (criticism of an opponent’s character or motives, rather than of the person’s argument or beliefs), it is not!—as we are talking of their doctrinal and spiritual views (their characters as believers or unbelievers). As the Lord Jesus said, “…a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” (Matthew 7:17, 18)
There are mountains of further instances of W&H’s apostatizing from the Faith, but this should give an idea of these men’s hearts and minds, that is, of their unregenerate state, and actual antagonism to the Evangelical faith and the Bible which supported that faith. They had an axe to grind against these latter, and grind it they did. And when it was sharpened, they pursued an evil course!
Now I ask you, if these men were unfit to teach in a Sunday School Bible class, or to have any forum in the church to hold forth on their views, what are we doing using Bibles that these spiritualists and evolutionists put together with the express purpose of supplanting the sacred and universal text used by the vigorous Evangelical churches? Another remark of Westcott’s:
And he did replace them.
_____
1 Words about the Word, by John R. Kohlenberger (MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), page 42.
2 The King James Version Debate, by D.A. Carson (MI: Baker Book House, 1979), pages 41, 75.
3 Final Authority: A Christian’s Guide to the King James Bible, by Dr. William P. Grady (Grady Publications, Inc. 1993), page 210.
4 Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, by his son, Arthur Fenton Hort (Macmillan, London, 1896) Reprint by the Bible for Today. Volume II, page 186.
5 Ibid., page 202.
6 Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, by his son Arthur Westcott (Macmillan, London, 1903) Reprint by the Bible for Today. Volume I, pages 175, 176.
7 Life of Westcott, Vol. I, p 47.
8 The Secret Doctrine, by Helena P. Blavatsky (the Theosophical Publishing Society, 1893), Vol. II, page 30.
9 Man and His Symbols, Edited by Carl G. Jung (Dell Pub. Co., 1964); “Part 2: Ancient Myths and Modern Man,” by Joseph L. Henderson, page 155.
10 The Occult Underground, by James Webb (Open Court Pub. Co. 1974), page 36.
11 Life of Hort, Vol. I, page 211.
12 The Society For Psychical Research: An Outline Of Its History, by W.H. Salter (President, 1947-8), (London, Society For Psychical Research, 1948), pages 6, 7.
13 The Fabians, by Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1977), page 18.
14 Life of Westcott, Vol. I, pages 44, 45.
15 Ibid., page 52.
16 Life of Hort, Vol. I, page 211.
17 Ibid., page 400.
18 Ibid., Vol. II, pages 49-51.
19 They did not receive their official appointment to revise the New Testament – not the Greek text, but make minor revisions in the English text – until 1871.
20 Life of Hort, Vol. I, page 445.
21 2 Peter 2:1 more accurately classifies theirs as “damnable heresies” – there being a distinction between the two types.
22 Ibid., page 421.
23 Ibid., Vol. II, page 329.
24 Ibid., Vol. I, page 414.
25 Ibid., page 416.
26 Life of Westcott, Vol. II, page 69.
27 Matthew 19:4-6
28 Life of Westcott, Vol. I, pages 228, 229.
I have seen it said by @Taylor Sexton (post 154) that Erasmus was “a defender of Babylon”; and in post 138, “Erasmus, the known heretic? He was a papist…”. And it was also asked, regarding Westcott and Hort, where did they show themselves unregenerate, unfit to work on the Scriptures?
Here are some links giving a far more balanced view of Erasmus:
Here is an old thread where I talk CONCERNING ERASMUS:
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/what-is-the-authentic-new-testament-text.15134/#post-196909
What About Erasmus?
https://www.wayoflife.org/database/erasmus.html
Refuting the charge that Erasmus was a Catholic Humanist- Will Kinney
https://pmicenter.wordpress.com/201...-erasmus-was-a-catholic-humanist-will-kinney/
In Defense Of Erasmus, By John Cereghin
http://www.solascriptura-tt.org/PessoasNosSeculos/InDefenseOfErasmus-Cereghin.htm
This is a PB discussion (more a knock-down drag-out where I think 9th commandment violations are frequent) simply for defending Erasmus and his spiritual life (from Post 14 on) :
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/verse-differences.84468/#post-1056875
_______
And then, this, re Westcott and Hort, is from a paper I wrote a while back (in two posts) :
Although we will be going back and taking a quick look at Bible scholars who came from or were associated with Alexandria, Egypt – namely Origen, Pamphilus, and Eusebius of Caesarea – who greatly influenced the Greek text underlying the modern versions, we will focus mainly on the two scholars and textual critics, Drs. Westcott and Hort, who dominated the revision committee of the Anglican Church – which produced a Greek version that supplanted the Received Text – in the latter part of the 1800s. These two men, utilizing German secular textual theories, as opposed to believing Christian scholarship, resurrected two old Greek manuscripts, codices Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (א) or aleph, after the first Hebrew letter, both of Alexandrian origin. We will look at these two manuscripts shortly, but first let us look at the two men who gave them new life after they had lain discarded and in deliberate disuse some thirteen or fourteen centuries.
Lest anyone wonder why we will spend valuable time examining these men, hear what John Kohlenberger, spokesman for Zondervan Publishing House (which has produced the NIV, NASB, Living Bible, RSV, and other versions), has to say of them:
Westcott and Hort…all subsequent versions from the Revised Version (1881) to those of the present…have adopted their basic approach…[and] accepted the Westcott and Hort [Greek] text.[1]
D.A. Carson, author of The King James Version Debate, whose book was published by Baker Books (which also publishes a number of modern versions), says in it,
Westcott and Hort gave much weight to the Alexandrian tradition; but preeminent emphasis was laid on B and א (Vaticanus and Sinaiticus)…and designated by them the “Neutral [i.e., uncorrupted] text.” Subsequent textual critical work accepted the theories of Westcott and Hort, although with modifications…It is on [the] basis [of their theories]…almost universally accepted today…that Bible translations since 1881 have, as compared with the KJV, left out some things and added a few others…[T]he vast majority of evangelical scholars…hold that in the basic textual theory Westcott and Hort were right, and that the church stands greatly in their debt.[2]
Westcott and Hort (henceforth W&H), are either revered as fathers of modern textual criticism, or reviled as men unworthy to lay hands on the Book of God, and enemies of the Faith; are there verifiable facts to clarify the record?
Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892), both began their academic careers as students of Trinity College at Cambridge University. Westcott was Hort’s senior by three years at the college, and was his tutor in Classics after Hort began his graduate studies there in 1849-50, beginning what was to be a lifelong friendship and collaboration in various endeavors, most notable of which was their Revised Greek Text of the New Testament, published in 1881. Westcott was also tutor, in 1848, to two other Cambridge men (among others) who would likewise remain his friends for life, J.B. Lightfoot and E.W. Benson.
The academic and spiritual atmosphere of Cambridge in those days was unusual; there was a great conflict between “liberal” theology (pretty much the same then as now), conservative Anglicans (of the Church of England), and conservative Roman Catholicism, the latter having many allies in certain sectors of the Anglican Church (which were known by terms such as the Oxford Movement, and Sacerdotalists), which sought to elevate the Church, her traditions, and her sacraments above the Scriptures as the final authority over the people of God, after the model of Rome. Many liberals who had been ousted from other universities for theological heresy found a haven at Cambridge; to name a few: Frederick Maurice (denied eternal Hell), John Henry Newman (pro-Vatican teaching), John William Colenso (openly questioned the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch), and William Roberson Smith (he likewise opposed the Mosaic authorship, and also the doctrine of inspiration).[3] The work of Charles Darwin was in the air, and in 1877 Cambridge conferred an honorary degree upon Darwin.[4] Some of the men mentioned, and the two we are focusing our attention on in particular, held a mixture of views, that is, both “liberal” and Catholic. Cambridge had fallen greatly since the days two centuries earlier when William Tyndale and other reformers pursued studies there! Evangelicals, who were also active in these times, were looked down upon as primitive and crude “fundamentalists” (as they would be called by the liberals in the 1920s), just for holding firmly to the fundamental historic doctrines of the believing church up through the ages. Such men, along with their Bibles, were often despised by the “learned” elite.
The focus of Westcott’s and Hort’s studies was the classics, notably the Greek. Hort wrote that Dr. Maurice “urged me to give the greatest attention to the Plato and Aristotle, and to make them the central points of my reading, and the other books subsidiary.” [5] Westcott also was first and foremost a classicist. In a letter to Lightfoot he exclaims, “I can never look back on my Cambridge life with sufficient thankfulness. Above all, those hours which were spent over Plato and Aristotle have wrought that in me which I pray may never be done away.” [6]
But there was more in the air of the times then than liberalism, Catholicism, and love of the classics. Although W&H were nominal members of the Church of England (COE), they evidently had no fear of God in the Biblical sense. In 1845, as an undergraduate, Westcott and some of his friends founded a club at Cambridge which eventually took the name Hermes Society.[7] That of itself might not be so bad, even though Hermes is widely known, not only as a god in Greek mythology, but a major figure in the occult, from notorious occultist H.P. Blavatsky’s equating of Hermes with Satan [8] (this latter entity not being evil in her eyes) to Carl Jung, as editor, including in a book of his, “Hermes is Trickster in a different role as a messenger, a god of the crossroads, and finally the leader of souls to and from the underworld.…Hermes recovered attributes of the bird life [wings] to add to his chthonic [underworld] nature as serpent.” [9] Occultism and spiritualism were exploding into manifestation in 19th century England, and Hermes was esteemed in these groups. What leads us to think Westcott’s Hermes club was not innocent of occult involvement are the name and the activities of his next club, founded in 1851: the Ghostly Guild.
James Webb, a secular historian of the occult, notes in his book, The Occult Underground, in the section, “The Necromancers,”
In 1882 the Society for Psychical Research was founded. In effect it was a combination of those groups already working independently in the investigation of spiritualist and other psychic phenomena (telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.). Of these the most important was that centered round Henry Sidgwick, Frederick Myers and Edmund Gurney, all Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, and deriving its inspiration from the Cambridge University Ghost Society, founded by no less a person than Edward White Benson, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. As A.C. Benson wrote in his biography of his father, the Archbishop was always more interested in psychic phenomena than he cared to admit. Two members of the Ghost club became Bishops, and one a Professor of Divinity.
…The S.P.R. was a peculiar hybrid of Spiritualistic cult and dedicated rationalism; the S.P.R. fulfilled the function of Spiritualist Church for the intellectuals.[10]
…The S.P.R. was a peculiar hybrid of Spiritualistic cult and dedicated rationalism; the S.P.R. fulfilled the function of Spiritualist Church for the intellectuals.[10]
We learn from Hort himself who some of the members were:
Westcott, Gorham, C.B. Scott, Benson, Bradshaw, Laurd, etc., and I have started a society for the investigation of ghosts and all supernatural appearances and effects, being all disposed to believe that such things really exist, and ought to be discriminated from hoaxes and mere subjective delusions; we shall be happy to obtain any good accounts well authenticated with names. Westcott is drawing up a schedule of questions.[11]
The Society For Psychical Research, in its history written by one of its presidents, acknowledges its origins in “The Cambridge ‘Ghost Society’” and says, under the section of that title,
Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort were among its members…Lightfoot and Westcott both became bishops, and Hort Professor of Divinity. The S.P.R. has hardly lived up to the standard of ecclesiastical eminence set by the parent society.[12]
The believing church, however, does not consider this “ecclesiastical eminence”! If this were all we found objectionable in W&H, it would be sufficient to disqualify them from membership in an evangelical church, much less to teach or preach in one. But I am afraid it is not all. There is much more that can be said about their continued occult involvement, including other secret societies they founded or were part of, having others be the officers in (and “founders” of) these clubs while they remained generally unnamed and (to public scrutiny) in the background, but there is not room here for a thorough exposé. That they were practicing spiritualists – “necromancer” is the Biblical word – is beyond dispute. It is enough to note the Lord’s judgment on this matter:
There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire [i.e., to be burned as a child sacrifice], or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD… (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)
And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. (Leviticus 20:6)
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred…murders, drunkenness…they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19,20,21)
Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers… (Revelation 22:14, 15)
And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. (Leviticus 20:6)
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred…murders, drunkenness…they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19,20,21)
Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers… (Revelation 22:14, 15)
Another secular historian looking at this time in English history says,
In this same period a group of young dons from Trinity College, Cambridge, were also turning to psychic research as a substitute for their lost evangelical faith…spiritism as a substitute for Orthodox Christian faith.[13]
It should be clear that these men were not Christians, although they were baptized when infants in the Church of England. These were worldly men, unregenerate. You might picture in your minds college youths of today who, growing up in an unbelieving culture, have prejudiced attitudes toward the evangelical Christian faith, and toward the Bible.
Westcott, for example, at 21 years of age says,
…in the principles of the Evangelical school [there is that] which must lead to the exaltation of the individual minister, and does not that help to prove their unsoundness? If preaching is the chief means of grace, it must emanate not from the church, but from the preacher, and besides placing him in a false position, it places him in a fearfully dangerous one.[14]
In the following year he says,
I never read an account of a miracle [in the Bible] but I seemed instinctively to feel its improbability, and discover some want of evidence in the account of it.[15]
In the same letter (above) where Hort was announcing to a friend the formation of the Ghost Society, he showed a belligerent prejudice to the Universal Text – the King James Bible – of the English-speaking world, and its underlying Greek basis, the Textus Receptus, presumably because it was the Bible of the Evangelicals, and its authority supported the authority with which they preached (in those days Charles Spurgeon was preaching in London, and D.L. Moody was evangelizing all over England). In similar fashion, young and educated unbelievers of today off-handedly disdain Bible preaching and Bibles. A 23-year-old Hort wrote,
I had no idea till the last few weeks of the importance of texts, having read so little Greek Testament, and dragged on with the villainous Textus Receptus…Think of that vile Textus Receptus leaning entirely on late MSS.; it is a blessing there are such early ones…[16]
In 1858 Hort wrote,
The positive doctrines…of the Evangelicals seem to me perverted rather than untrue. There are, I fear, still more serious differences between us on authority, and especially the authority of the Bible…[17]
In 1865, when trying to “understand…the ever-renewed vitality of Mariolatry,” Hort surmised it was,
…a right reaction from the inhuman and semi-diabolical character with which God is invested in all modern orthodoxies—Zeus and Prometheus over again? In Protestant countries the fearful notion ‘Christ the believer’s God’ is the result….I have been persuaded for many years that Mary-worship and ‘Jesus’-worship have very much in common in their causes and effects.[18]
In these same letters (see footnote 20) Hort opines that mediation is the proper role for each – Mary and Jesus – and not worship.
We will look at some further beliefs and statements of W&H, to get an idea of the hearts and minds of these men. It was important to them that the things they believed and did were kept secret, as they well knew they were at odds with orthodox Christian faith, even in the ailing Anglican Church. In a letter to Westcott, in April of 1861, while they were unofficially [19] working on their revision of the Greek text, Hort wrote,
Also—but this may be cowardice—I have a sort of craving that our text should be cast upon the world before we deal with matters likely to brand us with suspicion. I mean, a text, issued by men already known for what will undoubtedly be treated as dangerous heresy, will have great difficulties in finding its way to regions which it might otherwise hope to reach, and whence it would not easily be banished by subsequent alarms.[20]
Hort was worldly-wise in this, for it was not until dogged research by scholars in the 20th century unearthed their “dangerous heresy”[21] (though “damnable” be a more apt description) in many areas, that we have learned things about them their contemporaries were unaware of. In a letter to Lightfoot in May of 1860, concerning a proposed commentary they would write with Westcott on the New Testament, Hort said,
Depend on it, whatever either you or I may say in an extended commentary, if only we speak our mind, we shall not be able to avoid giving grave offence to…the miscalled orthodoxy of the day.[22]
He was surely right in this! He was not a believer, and it was easily apparent in his views! Remember, both he and Lightfoot were involved in spiritualism (along with Westcott and Benson), and although having respect to the COE and its traditions, the group of them were but secular classicists highly trained in classical Greek. They approached the New Testament Scriptures as they did any other Greek classics, with worldly, rationalist presuppositions and critical methods. In other words, their spiritualism was not their only heresy.
In answer to an Oxford undergraduate’s questions (in 1886) about the COE’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith, with regard to Article IX (concerning the doctrine of Original Sin), Hort answered thus,
The authors of the Article doubtless assumed the strictly historical character of the account of the Fall in Genesis. This assumption is now, in my belief, no longer reasonable.[23]
One might understand why he would think this way from his view of Darwin’s Origin of Species. In a letter to Westcott (1860) he says,
…Have you read Darwin?…In spite of difficulties, I am inclined to think it unanswerable. In any case it is a treat to read such a book.”[24]
To his friend John Ellerton, he wrote (in 1860),
But the book which has most engaged me is Darwin. Whatever may be thought of it, it is a book that one is proud to be contemporary with…at present my feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable[25]. (emphasis his)
We see Westcott was of the same mind:
No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of Genesis, for example, give a literal history—I never could understand how any one reading them with open eyes could think they did…[26]
The implications of these views are immense. If the Book of Genesis is not true history, then it is either error, or allegory masquerading as history. If Genesis is not true history, Jesus was in error asserting the historicity of Adam and Eve,[27] and Paul likewise in error in Romans and 1 Corinthians. If there was no actual fall of an actual Adam and Eve, the atonement of Christ was but a meaningless fiction. The Book of Genesis is foundational for all of God’s revelation concerning salvation. But such supposed errors were in accord with W&H’s view of the errancy of Scripture.
In the event someone says, but this is argumentum ad hominem (criticism of an opponent’s character or motives, rather than of the person’s argument or beliefs), it is not!—as we are talking of their doctrinal and spiritual views (their characters as believers or unbelievers). As the Lord Jesus said, “…a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” (Matthew 7:17, 18)
There are mountains of further instances of W&H’s apostatizing from the Faith, but this should give an idea of these men’s hearts and minds, that is, of their unregenerate state, and actual antagonism to the Evangelical faith and the Bible which supported that faith. They had an axe to grind against these latter, and grind it they did. And when it was sharpened, they pursued an evil course!
Now I ask you, if these men were unfit to teach in a Sunday School Bible class, or to have any forum in the church to hold forth on their views, what are we doing using Bibles that these spiritualists and evolutionists put together with the express purpose of supplanting the sacred and universal text used by the vigorous Evangelical churches? Another remark of Westcott’s:
I…am most anxious to provide something to replace them [28] [the standard Traditional Texts of the New Testament, Westcott, in his rationalism, and his bitterness against the power and authority of the Evangelicals, felt were a “disgrace” and “falsified”] (emphasis mine).
And he did replace them.
_____
1 Words about the Word, by John R. Kohlenberger (MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), page 42.
2 The King James Version Debate, by D.A. Carson (MI: Baker Book House, 1979), pages 41, 75.
3 Final Authority: A Christian’s Guide to the King James Bible, by Dr. William P. Grady (Grady Publications, Inc. 1993), page 210.
4 Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, by his son, Arthur Fenton Hort (Macmillan, London, 1896) Reprint by the Bible for Today. Volume II, page 186.
5 Ibid., page 202.
6 Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, by his son Arthur Westcott (Macmillan, London, 1903) Reprint by the Bible for Today. Volume I, pages 175, 176.
7 Life of Westcott, Vol. I, p 47.
8 The Secret Doctrine, by Helena P. Blavatsky (the Theosophical Publishing Society, 1893), Vol. II, page 30.
9 Man and His Symbols, Edited by Carl G. Jung (Dell Pub. Co., 1964); “Part 2: Ancient Myths and Modern Man,” by Joseph L. Henderson, page 155.
10 The Occult Underground, by James Webb (Open Court Pub. Co. 1974), page 36.
11 Life of Hort, Vol. I, page 211.
12 The Society For Psychical Research: An Outline Of Its History, by W.H. Salter (President, 1947-8), (London, Society For Psychical Research, 1948), pages 6, 7.
13 The Fabians, by Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1977), page 18.
14 Life of Westcott, Vol. I, pages 44, 45.
15 Ibid., page 52.
16 Life of Hort, Vol. I, page 211.
17 Ibid., page 400.
18 Ibid., Vol. II, pages 49-51.
19 They did not receive their official appointment to revise the New Testament – not the Greek text, but make minor revisions in the English text – until 1871.
20 Life of Hort, Vol. I, page 445.
21 2 Peter 2:1 more accurately classifies theirs as “damnable heresies” – there being a distinction between the two types.
22 Ibid., page 421.
23 Ibid., Vol. II, page 329.
24 Ibid., Vol. I, page 414.
25 Ibid., page 416.
26 Life of Westcott, Vol. II, page 69.
27 Matthew 19:4-6
28 Life of Westcott, Vol. I, pages 228, 229.
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Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
More on W&H
We have looked closely at Alexandria, Caesarea, Constantinople, and at men who lived in those places, Origen, Pamphilus, Constantine, and Eusebius. We have looked at the heresies these men were involved with, and at the texts that came from these places – with embedded notations certifying they were from Origen’s hand – with omissions that supported their heresies.
The Arians we mentioned a while ago were the equivalent of today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses or Unitarian-Universalists; they denied the very Godhood of Jesus Christ – made Him to have the status of a creature, an exalted one to be sure, but a creature nonetheless, and not the Creator – and they denied the doctrine of eternal Hell, and the punishment of the wicked therein. In his book, A History of Heresy, David Christie-Murray gives us a sense of those times:
Imagine what would happen if the Jehovah’s Witnesses came into both ecclesiastical and governmental power in a small country (this is being written in the island country of Cyprus) and ruled over both the churches and the government for a period of 50 years. (Now the JWs forbid the holding of political office, so suppose a fervent JW sympathizer, yet not an official member of them.) Imagine what would happen to the Bibles of that land, and the decrees that could be issued against the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, and the Protestant / Evangelicals. When the state controls the church, or the church the state, trouble always ensues; as the Lord Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” [3]
The Bibles that came from Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea supported the Arian views, even as Westcott and Hort’s resurrecting of these deservedly neglected texts supported the Unitarian’s (and later, the Jehovah’s Witness’) heretical views of Christ.
It was the scandal of England at the time that the openly Arian, Unitarian pastor Dr. Vance Smith was on the Revision Committee [producing the W&H Critical Greek text]. When he was told by the Church of England he must resign his position Westcott threatened to resign himself if Smith were forced to leave.[4] Vance Smith caused an uproar when he attended a Communion Service and refused to say the Nicene Creed (affirming that Christ is God), although Hort loved it! He says,
For the unregenerate Hort the Christ-denying Unitarian was a true “English Christian,” part of the good-ol’-boys’ religious club of academics and intellectuals who wear the frock, and not to be denied either the Lord’s Supper or a place in determining genuine Scripture. When Hort said, “So far the angry objectors have reason for their astonishment,” he wasn’t referring only to the Communion service, but to the results of the Unitarian on the Committee for Revision. There were many small but highly significant changes to the text they would eventually be publishing. Regarding the Revision, he said, “It is quite impossible to judge of the value of what appear to be trifling alterations merely by reading them one after another. Taken together, they have often important bearing which few would think of at first…the difference between a picture say of Raffaelle and a feeble copy of it is made up of a number of trivial differences.” [6]
One of these highly significant changes – “trifling alterations” Hort would say, perhaps – was the unwarranted deletion of the word “God” in the text of 1 Timothy 3:16, where the Scripture in speaking of Jesus talks of “the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh”. The Revisers replaced it with “who”. The Unitarian Dr. Smith later wrote,
A.G. Hobbs, in his Forward to the reprint of Burgon’s The Revision Revised, wrote,
Does it not make sense what was happening? Unregenerate men had infiltrated the church, and not only the church, but the inner precincts of scholarship and textual reproduction. The enemy had taken the inner stronghold, and put unholy hands on the written Word of God, to alter it. Little wonder multitudes have left the larger institutional churches, now citadels of apostasy, and joined smaller, more conservative or “fundamentalist” churches. Little wonder also, that all modern Bibles which issued forth from the Revised Greek monstrosity spawned in 1881 have been avoided by multitudes, who choose instead the old standard of textual integrity, the King James Bible based on the Greek Textus Receptus and the old Hebrew Masoretic text.
And it is little wonder that the cults love the Westcott and Hort production. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures says, “In the broad left-hand column of the pages will be found the Greek text edited by B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, and published in 1881.” [11] They use the W&H text directly, and not the more modern Greek editions! The testimony to the Deity of Christ is weakened or removed, and this is crucial to the liberals and the cults.
____
[1] A History of Heresy, by David Christie-Murray (Oxford; Oxford University Press 1991), pages 49, 50, 51.
2 Ibid., pages 53, 54.
3 John 18:36.
4 Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, by his son Arthur Westcott (Macmillan, London, 1903) Reprint by the Bible for Today. Volume I, page 394.
5 Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, by his son, Arthur Fenton Hort (Macmillan, London, 1896) Reprint by the Bible for Today. Volume II, page 139.
6 Ibid.
7 Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament Affecting Theological Doctrine Briefly Reviewed, by Dr. Vance Smith (London: 1881), pages 39, 47. Cited in Revision Revised, by Burgon, pages 515, 513.
8 Ibid., page 45.
9 Texts and Margins, Smith, page 47. Cited in, For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Version and the Received Text from 1800 to Present, by David W. Cloud (WA: Way of Life Literature, 1997), page 31.
10 The Revision Revised, by John William Burgon (Centennial Edition, Fifth printing, 1991), Forward [no page #]. See also, Life of Westcott, Vol I, page 394.
11 The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (PA: Watchtower bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 1985), page 5.
We have looked closely at Alexandria, Caesarea, Constantinople, and at men who lived in those places, Origen, Pamphilus, Constantine, and Eusebius. We have looked at the heresies these men were involved with, and at the texts that came from these places – with embedded notations certifying they were from Origen’s hand – with omissions that supported their heresies.
The Arians we mentioned a while ago were the equivalent of today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses or Unitarian-Universalists; they denied the very Godhood of Jesus Christ – made Him to have the status of a creature, an exalted one to be sure, but a creature nonetheless, and not the Creator – and they denied the doctrine of eternal Hell, and the punishment of the wicked therein. In his book, A History of Heresy, David Christie-Murray gives us a sense of those times:
The following year [328] Eusebius of Nicomedia [a leader of the Arians] was not only recalled from exile but became Constantine’s trusted advisor. The Emperor completely reversed his position [and supported the Arians]…From 326 onwards a regular campaign against the [Biblically orthodox] Nicene bishops was conducted, some dozen being deposed. The culmination came in 335 when Athanasius of Alexandria and Marcellus of Ancyra were removed from office and driven from their sees…In 339 the Arian cause was strengthened by the accession of Eusebius of Nicomedia to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople…[So fervent and violent were the anti-Nicenes], in 357 a council at Sirium…forced Hosius, now a centenarian [a hundred years or more of age], to attend against his will and to sign [an Arian formula] after being beaten and tortured…
…Constans (the orthodox son of Constantine) continued as Emperor of the Nicene west and Constantius [the Arian son] of the anti-Nicene east…Constantius became sole ruler of the Empire in 353…[and] anti-Nicene views were imposed on all his domains…
Hope for the Nicenes seemed to die when Constantius at last made up his mind and on New Year’s Day, 360, decided for the [Arian] Homoeism of Acacius as the official faith of the Empire, thus supporting historic Arianism against Catholic [i.e. universal, not “Roman”] orthodoxy and the Nicaean Creed.[1]
Hope for the Nicenes seemed to die when Constantius at last made up his mind and on New Year’s Day, 360, decided for the [Arian] Homoeism of Acacius as the official faith of the Empire, thus supporting historic Arianism against Catholic [i.e. universal, not “Roman”] orthodoxy and the Nicaean Creed.[1]
This terrible state of affairs for the believing Church ended around 380, when the new Emperor, Theodosius, “a convinced and energetic Nicene Christian,” imposed catholic orthodoxy throughout his empire, and replaced the Arian Bishop of Constantinople by the more orthodox Gregory Nazianzus. In 383 and 384 Theodosius issued imperial edicts which furthered the Nicene cause.[2]
Imagine what would happen if the Jehovah’s Witnesses came into both ecclesiastical and governmental power in a small country (this is being written in the island country of Cyprus) and ruled over both the churches and the government for a period of 50 years. (Now the JWs forbid the holding of political office, so suppose a fervent JW sympathizer, yet not an official member of them.) Imagine what would happen to the Bibles of that land, and the decrees that could be issued against the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, and the Protestant / Evangelicals. When the state controls the church, or the church the state, trouble always ensues; as the Lord Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” [3]
The Bibles that came from Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea supported the Arian views, even as Westcott and Hort’s resurrecting of these deservedly neglected texts supported the Unitarian’s (and later, the Jehovah’s Witness’) heretical views of Christ.
It was the scandal of England at the time that the openly Arian, Unitarian pastor Dr. Vance Smith was on the Revision Committee [producing the W&H Critical Greek text]. When he was told by the Church of England he must resign his position Westcott threatened to resign himself if Smith were forced to leave.[4] Vance Smith caused an uproar when he attended a Communion Service and refused to say the Nicene Creed (affirming that Christ is God), although Hort loved it! He says,
…that marvelous Communion…It is, one can hardly doubt, the beginning of a new period in Church history. So far the angry objectors have reason for their astonishment. But it is strange that they should not ask themselves…what is really lost…by the union, for once, of all English Christians around the altar of the Church…[5]
For the unregenerate Hort the Christ-denying Unitarian was a true “English Christian,” part of the good-ol’-boys’ religious club of academics and intellectuals who wear the frock, and not to be denied either the Lord’s Supper or a place in determining genuine Scripture. When Hort said, “So far the angry objectors have reason for their astonishment,” he wasn’t referring only to the Communion service, but to the results of the Unitarian on the Committee for Revision. There were many small but highly significant changes to the text they would eventually be publishing. Regarding the Revision, he said, “It is quite impossible to judge of the value of what appear to be trifling alterations merely by reading them one after another. Taken together, they have often important bearing which few would think of at first…the difference between a picture say of Raffaelle and a feeble copy of it is made up of a number of trivial differences.” [6]
One of these highly significant changes – “trifling alterations” Hort would say, perhaps – was the unwarranted deletion of the word “God” in the text of 1 Timothy 3:16, where the Scripture in speaking of Jesus talks of “the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh”. The Revisers replaced it with “who”. The Unitarian Dr. Smith later wrote,
The old reading is pronounced untenable by the Revisers, as it has long been known to be by all careful students of the New Testament…It is in truth another example of the facility with which ancient copiers could introduce the word God into their manuscripts,—a reading which was the natural result of the growing tendency in early Christian times…to look upon the humble Teacher as the incarnate Word, and therefore as “God manifested in the flesh”.[7] …It has been frequently said that the changes of translation…are of little importance from a doctrinal point of view…[A]ny such statement [is]…contrary to the facts.[8]
The only instance in the N.T. in which the religious worship or adoration of Christ was apparently implied, has been altered by the Revision: ‘At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,’ [Philippians 2:10] is now to be read ‘in the name.’ Moreover, no alteration of text or of translation will be found anywhere to make up for this loss; as indeed it is well understood that the N.T. contains neither precept nor example which really sanctions the religious worship of Jesus Christ.[9] [Emphasis added]
The only instance in the N.T. in which the religious worship or adoration of Christ was apparently implied, has been altered by the Revision: ‘At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,’ [Philippians 2:10] is now to be read ‘in the name.’ Moreover, no alteration of text or of translation will be found anywhere to make up for this loss; as indeed it is well understood that the N.T. contains neither precept nor example which really sanctions the religious worship of Jesus Christ.[9] [Emphasis added]
A.G. Hobbs, in his Forward to the reprint of Burgon’s The Revision Revised, wrote,
Here is a real shocker: Dean Stanley, Westcott, Hort, and Bishop Thirwall all refused to serve if Smith were dismissed [in the face of the public outcry at his presence on the Revision Committee]. Let us remember that the Bible teaches that those who uphold and bid a false teacher God speed are equally guilty. ‘For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds’ (2 John 9-11). No wonder that the Deity of Christ is played down in so many passages.[10]
Does it not make sense what was happening? Unregenerate men had infiltrated the church, and not only the church, but the inner precincts of scholarship and textual reproduction. The enemy had taken the inner stronghold, and put unholy hands on the written Word of God, to alter it. Little wonder multitudes have left the larger institutional churches, now citadels of apostasy, and joined smaller, more conservative or “fundamentalist” churches. Little wonder also, that all modern Bibles which issued forth from the Revised Greek monstrosity spawned in 1881 have been avoided by multitudes, who choose instead the old standard of textual integrity, the King James Bible based on the Greek Textus Receptus and the old Hebrew Masoretic text.
And it is little wonder that the cults love the Westcott and Hort production. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures says, “In the broad left-hand column of the pages will be found the Greek text edited by B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, and published in 1881.” [11] They use the W&H text directly, and not the more modern Greek editions! The testimony to the Deity of Christ is weakened or removed, and this is crucial to the liberals and the cults.
____
[1] A History of Heresy, by David Christie-Murray (Oxford; Oxford University Press 1991), pages 49, 50, 51.
2 Ibid., pages 53, 54.
3 John 18:36.
4 Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, by his son Arthur Westcott (Macmillan, London, 1903) Reprint by the Bible for Today. Volume I, page 394.
5 Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, by his son, Arthur Fenton Hort (Macmillan, London, 1896) Reprint by the Bible for Today. Volume II, page 139.
6 Ibid.
7 Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament Affecting Theological Doctrine Briefly Reviewed, by Dr. Vance Smith (London: 1881), pages 39, 47. Cited in Revision Revised, by Burgon, pages 515, 513.
8 Ibid., page 45.
9 Texts and Margins, Smith, page 47. Cited in, For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Version and the Received Text from 1800 to Present, by David W. Cloud (WA: Way of Life Literature, 1997), page 31.
10 The Revision Revised, by John William Burgon (Centennial Edition, Fifth printing, 1991), Forward [no page #]. See also, Life of Westcott, Vol I, page 394.
11 The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (PA: Watchtower bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 1985), page 5.
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greenbaggins
Puritan Board Doctor
But, but, Logan, how can you quote the worst demon of them all, the worst underminer of inerrancy the world has ever seen...B.B. Warfield? As everyone knows, he was a closet Unitarian Universalist, who believed many heretical opinions, and was not, in fact, the face of Old Princeton at all, but rather the forerunner of modernism! Therefore, everything he said on matters of textual criticism is automatically suspect because of unrelated heresies he held to be true.
*Takes off snarky hat now* I had not seen that wonderful bit of Warfield before. Thanks for sharing it, Logan. I have been arguing the same points for years, and hadn't known that Warfield said the exact same thing long before me.
Logan
Puritan Board Graduate
Ha, you're welcome. Yes, I don't know if any scholars/theologians since have matched Warfield in clarity and breadth of knowledge. His articles span almost every aspect of Christian life and theology and all with a breathtaking depth of understanding.
For anyone who reads that passage from Warfield linked above, I strongly urge them to read the 8 pages of footnoted quotations. These are not from lightweights but from Rutherford, Lightfoot, Capel, Usher, Walton and they clearly understood that there were various readings across all the manuscripts. What they meant by "kept pure in all ages" is clear from those quotations.
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
It is clear that Westcott and Hort deliberately violated the commission they had been given by the Church of England as regards the rules given them to guide the enterprise, because of an agenda they had to replace the New Testament Greek text of some 20-30 years before the 1881 revision was completed. Their commission was to minimally revise the English translation. They were patently devious, and in correspondence between themselves talked about it openly.
The Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury—of the Church of England—appointed a committee to get a revision of the Authorized Version underway:
Further developments on the revision may be seen in the eight rules to be observed by those appointed to do the work.
From, Lectures on Bible Revision, Samuel Newth, 1881
LECTURE IX. THE REVISION OF 1881.
[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42514/42514-h/42514-h.htm#Page_105]
However:
“Each member of the [New Testament] Company had been supplied with a private copy of Westcott and Hort's [Greek] Text, but the Company did not, of course, in any way bind itself to accept their conclusions.” Hort, Vol. 2, p. 237. (Though W&H—mostly Hort—put intense pressure on the company to accept his views.) All the members were made to vow they would keep the Greek text meant to supplant the Received Text a secret.
Westcott and Hort had been working on their Greek Text, according to the memoirs their sons wrote, from the 1850s. They had a plan, early on, which they cleverly implemented. They deliberately violated the rules they were charged to observe—paying no heed to them at all—but simply proceeded with their agenda.
_____
To add a final note: how many are aware that the NA/UBS Critical Greek Text essentially underlying most modern Bibles is produced under the supervision of the Vatican, and for the purpose of furthering “interconfessional relationships”? (see the attached photo below)
“As a long-time friend of the Bible Societies Pope Francis knows that our raison d’être is the call to collaborate in the incarnation of our Christian faith,” says Mr Perreau. “We assure Pope Francis of our renewed availability to serve the Catholic Church in her endeavours to make the Word of God the centre of new evangelisation.” United Bible Societies welcomes Pope Francis
From the Intro to the Nestle-Aland Greek NT 27th Ed, pp 44-45:
The Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury—of the Church of England—appointed a committee to get a revision of the Authorized Version underway:
“Before, however, this committee reported, at the next meeting of Convocation in May, and on May 3 and May 5 [of 1870], the following five resolutions, which have the whole authority of Convocation behind them, were accepted unanimously by the Upper House, and by large majorities in the Lower House:
Source: https://biblehub.com/library/ellico...oly_scripture/address_ii_later_history_of.htm
_________‘1. That it is desirable that a revision of the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures be undertaken.
2. That the revision be so conducted as to comprise both marginal renderings and such emendations as it may be found necessary to insert in the text of the Authorised Version.
3. That in the above resolutions we do not contemplate any new translation of the Bible, nor any alteration of the language, except where, in the judgment of the most competent scholars, such change is necessary.
4. That in such necessary changes, the style of the language employed in the existing version be closely followed.
5. That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong.’
‘These are the fundamental rules of Convocation, as formally expressed by the Upper and Lower Houses of this venerable body. The second and third rules deserve our especial attention in reference to the amount of the emendations and alterations which have been introduced during the work of revision. This amount, it is now constantly said, is not only excessive, but in distinct contravention of the rules which were laid down by Convocation. A responsible and deeply respected writer, the late Bishop of Wakefield, only a few years ago plainly stated in a well-known periodical {21} that the revisers ‘largely exceeded their instructions, and did not adhere to the principles they were commissioned to follow...’.”2. That the revision be so conducted as to comprise both marginal renderings and such emendations as it may be found necessary to insert in the text of the Authorised Version.
3. That in the above resolutions we do not contemplate any new translation of the Bible, nor any alteration of the language, except where, in the judgment of the most competent scholars, such change is necessary.
4. That in such necessary changes, the style of the language employed in the existing version be closely followed.
5. That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong.’
Source: https://biblehub.com/library/ellico...oly_scripture/address_ii_later_history_of.htm
Further developments on the revision may be seen in the eight rules to be observed by those appointed to do the work.
From, Lectures on Bible Revision, Samuel Newth, 1881
LECTURE IX. THE REVISION OF 1881.
[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42514/42514-h/42514-h.htm#Page_105]
The first meeting of this second joint Committee was held on May 25th. It was then agreed that the Committee should separate into two Companies—one for the revision of the Old Testament, and one for that of the New. Of the Members of Committee belonging to the Upper House five were assigned to the former Company and three to the latter. The Members belonging to the Lower House were divided equally between the two Companies. At the same meeting the Committee selected the Scholars who should be invited to join the Companies, and also decided upon the general rules that should guide their procedure. These were:
1. “To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the Authorized Version consistently with faithfulness.”
2. “To limit as far as possible the expression of such alterations to the language of the Authorized and earlier English versions.”
3. “Each Company to go twice over the portion to be revised, once provisionally, the second time finally, and on principles of voting as hereinafter is provided.”
4. “That the Text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating; and that when the Text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorized Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.”
5. “To make or retain no change in the Text on the second and final revision by each Company, except two-thirds of those present approve of the same, but on the first revision to decide by simple majorities.”
6. “In every case of proposed alteration that may have given rise to discussion, to defer the voting thereupon till the next Meeting, whensoever the same shall be required by one-third of those present at the Meeting, such intended vote to be announced in the notice for the next Meeting.”
7. “To revise the headings of chapters, pages, paragraphs, italics, and punctuation.”
8. “To refer on the part of each Company, when considered desirable, to Divines, Scholars, and Literary Men, whether at home or abroad, for their opinions.”
To these it was added, that the work of each Company be communicated to the other as it is completed, in order that there may be as little deviation from uniformity in language as possible. (pp 107-108)2. “To limit as far as possible the expression of such alterations to the language of the Authorized and earlier English versions.”
3. “Each Company to go twice over the portion to be revised, once provisionally, the second time finally, and on principles of voting as hereinafter is provided.”
4. “That the Text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating; and that when the Text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorized Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.”
5. “To make or retain no change in the Text on the second and final revision by each Company, except two-thirds of those present approve of the same, but on the first revision to decide by simple majorities.”
6. “In every case of proposed alteration that may have given rise to discussion, to defer the voting thereupon till the next Meeting, whensoever the same shall be required by one-third of those present at the Meeting, such intended vote to be announced in the notice for the next Meeting.”
7. “To revise the headings of chapters, pages, paragraphs, italics, and punctuation.”
8. “To refer on the part of each Company, when considered desirable, to Divines, Scholars, and Literary Men, whether at home or abroad, for their opinions.”
However:
“Each member of the [New Testament] Company had been supplied with a private copy of Westcott and Hort's [Greek] Text, but the Company did not, of course, in any way bind itself to accept their conclusions.” Hort, Vol. 2, p. 237. (Though W&H—mostly Hort—put intense pressure on the company to accept his views.) All the members were made to vow they would keep the Greek text meant to supplant the Received Text a secret.
Westcott and Hort had been working on their Greek Text, according to the memoirs their sons wrote, from the 1850s. They had a plan, early on, which they cleverly implemented. They deliberately violated the rules they were charged to observe—paying no heed to them at all—but simply proceeded with their agenda.
_____
To add a final note: how many are aware that the NA/UBS Critical Greek Text essentially underlying most modern Bibles is produced under the supervision of the Vatican, and for the purpose of furthering “interconfessional relationships”? (see the attached photo below)
“As a long-time friend of the Bible Societies Pope Francis knows that our raison d’être is the call to collaborate in the incarnation of our Christian faith,” says Mr Perreau. “We assure Pope Francis of our renewed availability to serve the Catholic Church in her endeavours to make the Word of God the centre of new evangelisation.” United Bible Societies welcomes Pope Francis
From the Intro to the Nestle-Aland Greek NT 27th Ed, pp 44-45:
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Username3000
Guest
What are you proposing a person does after reading your posts?
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Hello @Rutherglen1794
I posted that information as I kept seeing things asserted that I knew were mistaken and wrong. It’s an area I’ve studied for decades, due to a desire in me to verify the infallibility of the Scripture, having come out of the ‘60s and ‘70s counterculture and the demonic depths therein and I needed certainty that the word of God is utterly true / reliable in my seeking to walk with and know my Saviour, and in my warfare with the devil and his spirits. Back in the late ‘60s (I was saved in the Spring of ’68) I became aware of differing versions. Either the word of God—every word of which we must live by (Matt 4:4)—is certain or it is not. So I started searching and studying—“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” (Prov 4:7).
What should a person do after reading my posts? Start studying the issue of the differing Bible versions; and it comes down to basically two positions, or you could say three: the Reformation Scriptures (the King James or Geneva, or if you must, the NKJV or MKJV), the modern versions based on the critical text (the fruit of W&H’s endeavors), or the Majority (or Byzantine) Text view, held by Maurice Robinson and others.
In one respect the real issue is the matter of the variant readings. All of the Bibles (not including the JW’s New World Translation) have been adequately preserved so as to be used by the Lord in the saving of souls and the nurturing and sustaining of churches. Godlier men and women than I use the modern versions and walk well with Christ.
But many of us want more than just adequate preservation in the main, we want it in the minutiae. It isn’t a translation issue really, as there are readings in the NIV ’84 (which my wife uses) I so like that I write them in the margins of my KJV.
When pastoring churches and teaching on textual criticism I am very careful not to divide the church on this issue of the versions, and I bring it down to the variants, which is a legit and non-divisive approach. That takes it to the discernment—studying evidences, as well as presuppositions re preservation—of which reading is sound. Sort of like trench warfare. I don’t, in such classes in a local church, make it an issue of “you’re wrong and I’m right”—I give information and let people do with it what they will, though I do encourage examining and holding to the view I think best, if they are receptive. But I neither push it, nor deal with a heavy hand.
Seeing as we here on PB are all Reformed, it’s easier to appeal to the confessions, such as the WCF or 1689 at 1.8. Though, some folks here being quite learnèd, and dogged researchers, seek various nuances even in understanding of the confessions, and so we have ongoing discussions. The reason it can become so heated at times is that there is likely no other physical possession we have so precious to us as our versions of the word of our God, by which we live.
So to you (and any others listening in) I would propose (since you asked) getting a copy of Crowned With Glory: The Bible from Ancient Text to Authorized Version, by Dr. Thomas Holland. It is one of the best treatments upholding the Hebrew and the Greek texts underlying the KJV, and done in an irenic and scholarly manner.
To repeat, the reasons I posted all that info above is that folks were making assertions that were mistaken, and others were asking questions that weren’t being answered, and as I’m familiar with this field I thought it fitting to share what I know. In my signature below you can see this: Jerusalem Blade's PB Collected Textual Posts, and Eschatology. In the textual posts can be seen how I deal with many aspects of textual criticism, both down in the trenches and in overviews.
I hope this is helpful!
I posted that information as I kept seeing things asserted that I knew were mistaken and wrong. It’s an area I’ve studied for decades, due to a desire in me to verify the infallibility of the Scripture, having come out of the ‘60s and ‘70s counterculture and the demonic depths therein and I needed certainty that the word of God is utterly true / reliable in my seeking to walk with and know my Saviour, and in my warfare with the devil and his spirits. Back in the late ‘60s (I was saved in the Spring of ’68) I became aware of differing versions. Either the word of God—every word of which we must live by (Matt 4:4)—is certain or it is not. So I started searching and studying—“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” (Prov 4:7).
What should a person do after reading my posts? Start studying the issue of the differing Bible versions; and it comes down to basically two positions, or you could say three: the Reformation Scriptures (the King James or Geneva, or if you must, the NKJV or MKJV), the modern versions based on the critical text (the fruit of W&H’s endeavors), or the Majority (or Byzantine) Text view, held by Maurice Robinson and others.
In one respect the real issue is the matter of the variant readings. All of the Bibles (not including the JW’s New World Translation) have been adequately preserved so as to be used by the Lord in the saving of souls and the nurturing and sustaining of churches. Godlier men and women than I use the modern versions and walk well with Christ.
But many of us want more than just adequate preservation in the main, we want it in the minutiae. It isn’t a translation issue really, as there are readings in the NIV ’84 (which my wife uses) I so like that I write them in the margins of my KJV.
When pastoring churches and teaching on textual criticism I am very careful not to divide the church on this issue of the versions, and I bring it down to the variants, which is a legit and non-divisive approach. That takes it to the discernment—studying evidences, as well as presuppositions re preservation—of which reading is sound. Sort of like trench warfare. I don’t, in such classes in a local church, make it an issue of “you’re wrong and I’m right”—I give information and let people do with it what they will, though I do encourage examining and holding to the view I think best, if they are receptive. But I neither push it, nor deal with a heavy hand.
Seeing as we here on PB are all Reformed, it’s easier to appeal to the confessions, such as the WCF or 1689 at 1.8. Though, some folks here being quite learnèd, and dogged researchers, seek various nuances even in understanding of the confessions, and so we have ongoing discussions. The reason it can become so heated at times is that there is likely no other physical possession we have so precious to us as our versions of the word of our God, by which we live.
So to you (and any others listening in) I would propose (since you asked) getting a copy of Crowned With Glory: The Bible from Ancient Text to Authorized Version, by Dr. Thomas Holland. It is one of the best treatments upholding the Hebrew and the Greek texts underlying the KJV, and done in an irenic and scholarly manner.
To repeat, the reasons I posted all that info above is that folks were making assertions that were mistaken, and others were asking questions that weren’t being answered, and as I’m familiar with this field I thought it fitting to share what I know. In my signature below you can see this: Jerusalem Blade's PB Collected Textual Posts, and Eschatology. In the textual posts can be seen how I deal with many aspects of textual criticism, both down in the trenches and in overviews.
I hope this is helpful!
U
Username3000
Guest
Thank you for your efforts. You are obviously very passionate about this topic.
Personally, I am confident in the underlying texts of the modern translations, and I have far too many pressing issues at hand to be able to give this topic any energy at the moment. Perhaps one day (if, Lord willing, I survive the coming coronavirus outbreak in North America).
But again, thank you for sharing your concerns and research.
CalvinistBaptist
Puritan Board Freshman
dean Burgon to me as always been interesting, as being acknowledged as being one of the best textual critics of all time, and yet he also was honest enough to admit that the TR Greek text had areas in it that could and should be improved upon. He also would have allowed for a revision of the KJV itself.
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