Saturday, May 3, 2025

THE BIBLE IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA— PERSECUTION AND DEATH

 

The Bible in England and America

It was worth persecution and death

                    
by Ken Connolly


The Elizabethan pests

     When Elizabeth came to the throne, the Catholic policies of
Mary were abruptly ended. During the unstable and uncertain
period before Elizabeth had established her authority, she faced
two threats from abroad; both threats were of a religious nature,
and they came from opposite extremes.
     One was the Catholic threat. Philip II of Spain and the pope
wanted to see the restoration of Catholicism in England, and many
influential families would have welcomed another Catholic
monarch. However the threat of her overthrow increased popular
support for her.
     The second threat came from Englishmen who had fled to the
continent from the fury of Queen Mary. When they returned, they
called for a stricter morality, for a reformed theology and for
new policies in church government. The characteristics of this
movement were, first, that it originated in Geneva. Strongly
influenced as they were by Luther, Calvin and other reformers,
these returning exiles were dissatisfied with the Church of
England's practices in baptism and the communion service. They
also upheld Calvinist ideas of church government which were based
on the primacy of the church over the state, and the rule of a
body of presbyters rather than individual bishops. Every attempt
was made to find a compromise between episcopacy and
presbyterianism, but they were fundamentally incompatible.
     Moreover Elizabeth saw any attack on the power of
bishops-even from Parliament-as a threat to the monarchy itself.
She felt that if the laity could dictate to a bishop, they would
soon start dictating to her!
     Second, this strongly Protestant outlook soon dominated the
academic world. Works of Reformed theology began pouring off the
presses. Cambridge had already been flooded with underground
publi cations, and now Calvin's works, especially his Institutes
of the Christian Religion, became, in effect, textbooks for a
rising generation of opposite: Cambridge-trained clergymen. By
the middle of Elizabeth's reign the position was the same in
Oxford. Since all theologians and preachers studied at Oxford or
Cambridge, Protestant ideas soon dominated the pulpits of
England.
     Third, Protestant thinking also infiltrated the homes. As we
have seen, the officially approved Great Bible (and later the
Bishops' Bible) were intended for use in church, and attempted to
influence the nation through the church, but the Geneva Bible,
smaller and cheaper, was the Bible that was found in people's
homes. Its notes and comments brought the influence of
Calvinistic theology straight to the people, bypassing pulpits
and thus diminishing the sovereign's control over the minds of
her subjects.
     The movement for reform gained ground within the Church of
England and threatened Elizabeth's control over the Church. Its
adherents, dubbed "Puritans," were angered by anything that
savored of Roman Catholicism-the wearing of vestments (in fact,
the use of any distinctive clerical dress at all); kneeling at
the reception of the holy communion; the ceremony of the ring at
weddings; and the sign of the cross at baptism. But when the
Puritans pressed for the abolition of these things, Elizabeth
turned a deaf ear to their arguments.
     In 1570, Pope Pius V published a Bull of excommunication and
deposition against Elizabeth, and asked the French and the
Spanish to carry it out. It was akin to a declaration of war
against the Queen, and it called for all Catholics to resist her
authority. From 1574 to 1581, Catholic missionaries poured into
England from France. The Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits,
entered the fray, planning to place Mary Queen of Scots on the
throne and assassinate Elizabeth. This called for drastic
measures. An oath of allegiance was imposed on all known Roman
Catholics, and on all suspected of disloyalty. Anyone who denied
the queen's right to the throne was guilty of high treason. This
turned the tables on the pope, and forced his subjects to deny
his authority, at peril of their lives. From 1571 to 1606, a
series of statues were passed which not only denied religious
liberty to Catholics, but also robbed them of the ordinary rights
of citizens. About 200 Roman Catholics, including clergy, laymen
and women, were executed. It strengthened the Elizabethan grip on
the church, and this in turn frustrated puritan ambitions.
Puritans who were dissatisfied with the established church now
fell into two groups: those who wanted to see Church of England
reformation carried further; and the independents, or
separatists, who saw no possibility of satisfaction in the Church
of England and sought freedom to worship in their own
independently organized churches.
     In the late 1580s and early 1590s there was a fresh outbreak
of hostility to the establishment following the publication of
tracts by the fictitious "Martin Marprelate." These called
bishops "incarnate devils" and the Archbishop of Canterbury "the
Beelzebub of Canterbury" or the "Canterbury Caiaphas." The group
of extreme Puritans, among whom these tracts had originated, were
led by Thomas Cartwright (c:15351603). Some went to prison rather
than take the oath of loyalty which had been designed for
Catholics.


Catholic response

     It was clear even to the Catholic faithful of Europe that
renewal was necessary in the Catholic Church. As part of that
movement, later to be known as the Counter-Reformation, the great
Council of Trent was held at Trent in Italy. It met in three
sessions between 1545 and 1563. It had been summoned to deal with
the unity of the church (which the emperor Charles V and others
saw as inseparable from political unity), and to define dogma.
The Council was adamant on the use of the Bible by the laity:
"The Holy Scriptures, though truly and Catholikely translated
into vulgar tongues, may not be indifferently read of all men,
nor by any other than such as have express license thereunto of
their lawful ordinaries, with good testimony from their curates
and confessors that they be humble, discreet, and devote persons,
and like to take much good and no harm thereby." In other words,
to buy a Bible required a license from the priest, and to read it
required an admission in the confessional.
     But Protestants were becoming familiar with their Bible in
their own language, and were quoting it in defence of their
doctrine. Catholics needed to be equipped to answer them, and
Catholics in England needed an English translation of their own
instead of reading versions which incorporated Protestant
interpretations.
     Just as there had been a migration of reformers from England
when Mary Tudor came to the throne, so there was a migration of
Catholics at the appearance of Queen Elizabeth. The three men who
were responsi ble for the Catholic translation were all refugees
from Oxford. The chief among them was William Allen, a
distinguished priest who was canon of York during the reign of
Mary. It is believed that if the Spanish Armada had succeeded
Willam Allen would have been nominated Primate of all England.
In 1568 Allen had gone to Douai, in France, where Philip II of
Spain had founded a university a few years earlier. Here he
determined to build a college for the training of English
Catholics-there were already Irish and Scottish colleges,
preparing priests for an immediate takeover in England, should
the opportunity present itself again. Allen encouraged Gregory
Martin, who knew both Greek and Hebrew, to do the translating. In
turn, Martin involved Robert Bristow, who was the main
contributor of the marginal and foot notes.
     In 1578, a political disturbance required Allen to move the
college from Douai to Rheims, and in 1593, for similar reasons,
to move it back to Douai. There was a space of nearly
twenty-eight years between the publication of the two Testaments.
The New Testament was completed and published in 1582, from
Rheims. The Old Testament was not finished until 1609-1610,
because of "a lack of good means" and the revisers' "poor estate
in banishment." Because it was eventually published in Douai, the
entire Bible has been designated the Douai Version.
     It is a translation from Jerome's Vulgate, which had been
commended by St Augustine and declared authentic by the Council
of Trent. As we have seen, the Roman Church considered the
Vulgate to be the purest form of the original Bible. They
believed that the Greek and Hebrew documents had been corrupted
by the Jews and the early church. Some use of the Greek and
Hebrew was made in the translation, but only slight traces of it
can be found. According to the translators' own admission it was
"translated ... out of the authentic Latin, diligently conferred
with the Hebrew, Greek, and other editions of divers languages."
The use of the original languages was for the "discovery of the
corruption of divers late translations." The Douai Version was
thus a revision of the Latin Vulgate rather than a translation of
the original languages.
     The Douai Old Testament had fifty books, including eleven of
the Apocrypha. In the Psalms, the translation was one further
stage removed from the Hebrew original because Jerome had
translated the Psalms from the Greek Septuagint version. The
Psalms therefore had started in Hebrew, been translated into
Greek, and from Greek into Latin, and now from Latin into
English.
     The notes were used to press Catholic interpretation and
dogma against the "false and vain glosses of Calvin and his
followers." Martin even went so far as to say that the English
Bible was "not indeed God's book, worde, or Scripture, but the
Devil's worde." But while the footnotes clash violently with
those of the reformers, the translation does not differ greatly
from the Protestant version. It was more literal, more Latinate,
less easy for people with little education to understand, but it
had some influence on the translators of the King James Version.


The jewel in the crown

     On the death of Elizabeth, a childless queen, the reign of
the Tudors came to an end. James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary
Queen of Scots, became the next king of England. Unlike his
mother, he was brought up with strong Protestant convictions, and
a new day dawned for the puritan cause. Scotland, reformed by
John Knox, was presbyterian to the core, so before he even
arrived in London, James was met by a deputation which presented
him with the "Millenary Petition." Signed by more than 800
puritan clergy, this petition requested the abolition of
confirmation, an end to the sign of the cross in baptism and of
the ring in marriage, and the elimination of the terms "priest"
and "absolution" in the Prayer Book. The petitioners assured the
king, however, that they did not want to end the ecclesiastical
state, merely reform it.
     This led to a conference at Hampton Court in 1604, called by
James to address the "things pretended to be amiss in the
church." The first meeting was held on January 14, 1604, though
the man who was thought to be the leader of the puritan group, Dr
John Reynolds, had not been invited. Reynolds was an influential
educator who has been described as the "third university of
England." When he did meet with the conference members, on
January 16, Reynolds argued, from the fact that the Bishops'
Bible had ever been undertaken, that the Elizabethan bishops
considered no translation (other than the Geneva version with its
suspect notes) to be good enough for general use. The Great Bible
was cumbersome, the Geneva spoiled by Calvinist notes, and the
Bishops' of inferior quality. His logic was inescapable: either
make the Geneva Bible the authorized version of England, or set
about the task of creating a better translation.
     The latter suggestion appealed to the king's vanity. On July
22, 1604, he announced that he had appointed fifty-four men to
work on a new translation of the Bible under the guidance of
Richard Bancroft, the Bishop of London, soon to become Archbishop
of Canterbury. Bancroft was a high churchman, unsympathetic to
puritan objectives, and it was nearly three years before the work
started in earnest. By this time only forty-seven translators
were named, but they represented the cream of England's
intelligentsia.

     A set of fourteen rules was drawn up for their guidance. The
Bishops' Bible was to be followed with as few alterations as the
Greek and Hebrew would permit. Other English translations were to
be used only when they were more accurate. The chapter divisions
were not to be altered, unless considered absolutely necessary.
The old ecclesiastical terms were to be retained (such as
"church", in preference to "congregation"). There were to be no
marginal notes, except to explain a Hebrew or Greek word where
the translation might be considered inadequate. (It is
interesting to note that these marginal references numbered about
9,000 in the early editions, but later grew to over 60,000.)
The revisers included some scholars who were proficient in
Hebrew, and some in Greek. They were divided into six committees,
two meeting in Oxford, two in Cambridge and two in Westminster.
Each committee was responsible for translating a section of the
Bible. The sections were then sent to a select committee of
twelve, composed of two scholars from each of the six committees.
Lastly, two men, Thomas Bilson and Miles Smith, carried out final
revision before the manuscript was sent to Robert Barker, the
King's Printer.
     The basis for the translation of the Old Testament was the
Massoretic (Hebrew) text which had been printed in 1514-1517 in
the Complutensian Polyglot. This was an edition which had Hebrew,
Aramaic, Greek and Latin versions printed side by side. The
translators also had a more recent polyglot, printed in Amsterdam
in 1572, and other recent scholarly Latin translations. For the
New Testament, they used the critical editions of the Greek text
published in Geneva from 1550 onwards by Estienne and by Beza.
There are at least three reasons why this Bible should be
considered the greatest translation up to that date. First, it
was not the labor of one man, so it did not incorporate one man's
weaknesses and blind spots; it was the effort of six committees,
consisting of men who were the most learned scholars of their
generation. Second, knowledge of Greek and Hebrew had greatly
increased during the forty years which had elapsed since the last
translation. Third, this was the age of Shakespeare, Spenser and
Marlowe. The flowering of poetry and drama that took place during
the Elizabethan age resulted in a Bible that was a masterpiece of
English literature.
     Unfortunately, typographical mistakes appeared in the first
edition. In fact, there were two 1611 editions, with many
hundreds of differences, and the 1613 edition differed from the
edition of 1611 in as many as 400 places. All of this required
numerous revisions, and led Dr John Lightfoot to encourage the
House of Commons to consider "a review and survey of the
translation of the Bible." It is reported that a committee for
the British and Foreign Bible Society, examining six separate
editions of the King James Bible, discovered nearly 24,000
variations in text and punctuation. A Cambridge Bible revision
made in 1762 introduced 383 changes in the text and marginal
notes; and a 1769 Oxford Bible introduced 76 changes in weights,
measures and coins. These two editions are considered to be as
nearly perfect in mechanical execution as human skill can make
them.


The saga of Brewster

     The village of Scrooby is about 146 miles north of London on
the main road between London and Edinburgh. According to the
Domesday Book, its manor house once belonged to the archbishops
of York. In the reign of Elizabeth I this manor provided a
stopping place for travelers, and a post office for the royal
mail.
     In the 1570s, the office of postmaster was held by a man
named Brewster. His son, William Brewster, matriculated at
Peterhouse, Cambridge, on December 3, 1580. Though we do not know
what he studied there, we do know that he was converted to
puritan doctrine.
     In 1583 William Brewster was at home when William Davison
arrived at the manor on the Queen's service. He stayed for an
evening on his way to Edinburgh, his assignment, to frustrate the
efforts of a French envoy who was trying to establish friendly
relations between France and Scotland. Sixteen-year-old Brewster
was so captivated by their conversation that he persuaded Davison
to make him his assistant. The job took them overseas and
introduced William Brewster to several important people; William
Davison, in 1585, became secretary of state with Sir Francis
Walsingham.
     Brewster might have climbed the ladder in politics, had it
not been for an incident in 1587. Queen Elizabeth had a death
warrant for Mary Queen of Scots on her desk, awaiting her
signature. She vacillated for a long time, but at last when
Davison was present she quickly signed it and handed it to him,
leaving him in charge of carrying it out. When she heard of
Mary's execution, she called for the arrest of Davison, for
"exceeding" her instructions. A jury fined him ú6,666 (though his
fine was subsequently remitted) and he was confined to the Tower
for eighteen months. His collapse left William Brewster without a
job, and he returned to Scrooby.
     In the summer of 1590, when William was twenty-three, his
father died, and after some controversy, William was appointed to
assume his father's responsibilities.
     That same year a child was born three miles away, whom his
parents named William Bradford. Brewster was to have a lifelong
friendship with William Bradford. In 1602, they started walking
twelve miles to Gainsborough, to worship at the first separatist
church in the north, which was meeting at the Old Hall. The
church had just called John Smith, a Cambridge-educated man, to
be their pastor.
     Robert Browne was also educated at Cambridge before settling
at Norwich. He strongly criticised the episcopal order, believing
that the church should be separate and independent, accountable
only to the local congregation. He became the founder of the
Congregationalists. Though there was no link between Smith and
Browne, the Gainsborough assembly was persecuted as "Brownists,"
and by 1606, Smith and several of his congregation were obliged
to flee into exile. They escaped to Amsterdam, where Smith became
a physician. After they had left, Brewster invited the remaining
members of the church who still wished to meet, to use his manor.
In the absence of a pastor, he became their spiritual adviser.
     
     John Robinson was a member of this new assembly. He had been
minister of a congregation in Norwich, the birthplace of
Brownisrn, and had had to flee from there for his own safety.
This subjected the new assembly to further suspicion and
persecution. Many members lost their property, paid heavy fines
and suffered stiff prison sentences, without "any liberty or
conference." It soon became apparent that they would have to go
into exile if they were to retain their freedom of worship.
Emigration was difficult. A law dating from Richard 11's time
forbade emigration without a license, so passages abroad were
clandestine and expensive. To compound the problem, a subpoena
had been issued on September 15, 1607, for the apprehension of
William Brewster. The authorities, however, were unable to locate
him.
     The group negotiated with a Dutch captain to meet them in
the marshy waters near Fishtoft, outside Boston. They had loaded
their goods and their families, and were waiting for the tide,
when they were surrounded by catchpoles-sheriff's officials,
usually responsible for tax collecting. The men were robbed, the
women immodestly searched, and they were brought to the Guildhall
in Boston. Seven of the leaders were imprisoned in two cells, and
the records show that William Brewster "was the chief of those
that were taken at Boston, and suffered the greatest loss."
Because the records are lost, we do not know how long the
imprisonment lasted, or when they were liberated. Their next
attempt to emigrate was in the early summer of 1608. This time a
Dutch captain agreed to meet them at the mouth of the River
Humber, sixty miles north of Boston. The women and children were
to travel by boat while the men journeyed overland. The men were
the first to arrive and were in the boat, waiting for the others,
when the authorities came. The frightened captain immediately
took off and headed for the open sea, leaving the women and
children behind.
     The authorities were frustrated, embarrassed, and sensitive
to public opinion. They therefore allowed the women to go free,
and by winter the families were united again in Amsterdam. This
was the first stage in the harassing of the Puritans known as the
Pilgrim Fathers.


Lands ho

     The Pilgrims had surrendered their land and livings, and
endured threats to their lives, all for the sake of liberty in
worship. Joining a group who had emigrated to Amsterdam before
them, they now numbered about a hundred. Amsterdam was an asylum
for freedom fighters, but they nevertheless had a difficult time.
All of them had left behind a farming life, but they were now
forced to compete and survive in a world of trade and commercial
transactions, an alien world to plain folk, who were utterly
honest, hard working and conscientious to a fault.
     Moreover, this readjustment in their lives had to be
accomplished through a foreign language.
     The Brewster group, under the spiritual leadership of John
Robinson, stayed in Amsterdam for one year, and then moved to
Leyden, about thirty-five miles to the south. There they lived an
exemplary life for the next eleven years. Their numbers grew to
about 300, the size of the church in Amsterdam. Their pastor
became an honorable member of the university; their products were
sought and used by other tradesmen, and any member of the church
was given credit when it was needed. In fact, traveling English
tradesmen such as Edward Winslow, Thomas Brewer, John Carver and
Myles Standish cast their lot in with them, and even sailed the
Atlantic to the new world in their company.
     By 1620 it became obvious that they had to move once more.
First, some were in financial difficulties. Second, their
children were being conscripted into the Netherlands army, and
some were submitting to the temptations of the city. Third, it
was difficult to avoid assimilation into the Dutch community.
Fourth, their safety was threatened by the war with Spain.
     Finally, they were threatened once more with persecution.
William Brewster and Thomas Brewer had written books which had
reached England, and James I wanted them brought before the
courts.
     They considered emigrating to Virginia-the leading merchant
in the Virginia Company was a personal friend of Brewster's-but
rejected this option because the company's charter enforced
strict conformity to the Church of England. Absence from daily
church service, for example, was punishable on the third offence
by six months in the galleys, and the third absence from a Sunday
service carried the death penalty. Loss of wages and whippings
were common punishments for nonconformity. Eventually the
Pilgrims accepted a proposal from a group of seventy London
merchants who had obtained a tract of land from the Plymouth
Company, with the right to self-government for settlers. The
shares in this company were sold for ú10 each. The Pilgrims were
to take their earnings after seven years, and divide them between
the shareholders. A contingent from England were to join the
Leyden group, and they were to cross the Atlantic in two vessels:
a 60-ton pinnace called the Speedwell, and the 180-ton Mayflower,
mastered by Thomas Jones. The Speedwell went to Holland to
collect the Pilgrims, and bring them to Southampton before facing
the Atlantic.
     The journey to the new world began on August 5, 1620. There
were thirty passengers on the Speedwell and ninety on the
Mayflower. After battling against contrary winds for three days,
the Speedwell sprang a leak, and had to pull into Dartmouth for
repairs. There was a complete overhaul, and then they put to sea
again. This time, 300 miles past Lands End, the Speedwell had
another serious leak, and both ships returned to the closest
port, Plymouth. Eighteen passengers became so frightened that
they decided to stay behind, but the remaining 102 passengers
crowded on to the Mayflower and took their chance.
Voyages across the Atlantic were exceedingly perilous. Of 180 men
and women from the Amsterdam church who had set out for Virginia
in March, 1619, only 50 survived the journey. Overcrowding and
disease had taken the lives of the others-and this experience was
commonplace.
     The first half of the journey was uneventful but then very
strong gales began to batter their vessel. One of the main beams
was twisted out of its place but one of the passengers had a
power screw and, with his help, they were able to secure the
beam. One storm followed another, but only one man's life was
threatened. This man was John Howland, who had ventured above
deck only to be immediately swept overboard. Miraculously, he
managed to grab a coil of topsail halyards trailing in the water,
and some sailors risked their lives to pull him back to safety.
One of Samuel Fuller's servants died during the journey, and a
baby was born. So the same number arrived as had left port in
England.
     On November 9, after nine weeks at sea, they sighted land,
only to discover that it was outside the jurisdiction of the
Plymouth Company. They were uncertain what to do, becuase there
was no established authority there. Assuming that this meant
freedom, the adult males gathered together and drafted the
Mayflower Compact. It was signed by forty-one men, using the
clothes chest belonging to William Brewster for a table. The
Mayflower Compact stipulated that its signatories must leave the
Mayflower group and settle elsewhere on their own.


Dying for a change

     For two weeks the Mayflower sat outside the harbor, the
longboat having been too severely battered by storms to be
usable. A well-wooded coastline lay immediately in front of the
Pilgrims, but rough seas prevented a landing. Eventually, on
November 21 Myles Standish led the first expedition ashore. Myles
was a soldier by profession, stationed in the Netherlands and had
been employed by the Plymouth Company to protect their interests.
He was attracted to these quiet and peaceable people but never
became a member of their church and remained a Catholic. They
landed on Cape Cod, now called Provincetown, and when they
returned to the Mayflower they reported that apart from one brief
encounter with some Indians, they were greatly encouraged.
The second expedition, on November 27, was led by Christopher
Jones and they discovered the wreckage of a French fishing boat.
The French proved to be their closest neighbors, 500 miles north
in Nova Scotia. They found no suitable harbor, and no fresh
water.
     The third expedition set out on December 6, and took
soundings in the harbor. On land they found cornfields and little
running brooks. When this expedition returned to the Mayflower,
William Bradford had sad news awaiting him. His wife, Dorothy
May, had fallen overboard and drowned during his absence. The
happy news was that the Mayflower was now able to sail into the
harbor, and the long voyage had technically come to an end,
twenty-seven days after their arrival.
     On Monday, December 28, they finally decided on the exact
location for the settlement, and that afternoon, twenty of them
started building barricades. That evening, a tempest came that
was so severe that the Mayflower had to drop all three of its
anchors to stand the strain. After the storm, the men began to
fell and carry timber. Their first job was to build a
twenty-foot-square communal cabin. Then they divided the families
into nineteen households, the single men being assigned to
families so that they would need as few houses as possible. A
street was plotted parallel to a stream. (Since 1823 it has been
named Leyden Street.) The lots were then allocated.
Because of the delays caused by the Speedwell and the fierce
storms on the Atlantic, the Pilgrims were unprepared for the
severe winter. They had to convert their first house into a
hospital, and disease raged so violently among them that there
were scarcely enough people to care
     The Pilgrim Fathers give thanks after landing, in 1620.
for those who were ill. Many died, sometimes two and three a day,
mostly women, and were buried on Coles Hill. By the end of
February, they had lost and buried thirty-one members of their
group. Almost one half of all the Pilgrims were dead after the
first two months.
     By the middle of March, the sun was warm around noon and the
birds were beginning to sing. Their first severe winter was over.
Wolves would still howl at night and prowl by day, but it was not
wolves the settlers dreaded so much as the Indians who were
occasionally spotted. Myles Standish was authorized to organize a
militia, and he brought the five cannons ashore from the
Mayflower, stationing them on the Fort Hill platform, with a
commanding view of every approach to the village. Then one
morning, near the end of March, a startling event occurred.
The settlers were about to hold a meeting in their common house,
when an Indian walked boldly down the middle of the street, and
called out a resounding and hearty "Welcome!" in English. They
prevented him from entering the common house until they found out
who he was. He told them his name was Samoset, and he provided a
rich harvest of information. He promised to bring an Indian
called Squanto to meet them, and they both appeared on the
following Thursday. Squanto was fluent in English. He was one of
twenty-four Indians who had been kidnapped in 1614 by a pirate
named Thomas Hunt and sold as slaves in Spain. Squanto had
escaped and made his way to England, eventually working for the
treasurer of the Newfoundland Company. When he had returned to
the area he had discovered that he was the sole survivor of his
tribe.
     Squanto introduced the Pilgrims to an Indian chief by the
name of Massasoit, who brought sixty of his braves with him. With
great formality, Standish and Alterton, with six musketeers,
approached a meeting point to face Massasoit and twenty of his
armed warriors. The Indian chief had his face painted a dull red,
and his warriors' faces were either red, black, yellow or white.
The meeting was most amiable, with respectful salutes and
gracious gestures, and a peace pact was organised between them
that lasted for the next fifty years.
     On April 5, 1621, the Mayflower hoisted her sails and set
out once more for the open seas, breaking the last link that
bound the Pilgrims to England. These courageous Pilgrims became
the seeds of a new nation. They sacrificed fortunes and endured
hardships solely for the freedom to worship God according to the
dictates of their conscience. Prizing that liberty above life
itself, they surmounted all obstacles to gain it.
In paying tribute to them, the forefathers of this great nation,
we must also acknowledge the source of their inspiration, their
comfort in sorrow, the magnet that drew them 3,000 miles across
the cold and stormy Atlantic waters to a country beyond the edge
of civilization. It was the book that for them was supreme in all
matters of faith and practice - the "Indestructible Book."


Correcting the teacher

     The next major undertaking in the work of Bible translation
came some 275 years after the printing of the King James Version.
The English language had changed, and independent scholars such
as John Wesley in 1755 and Noah Webster in 1832 had produced
their own revised translations of the whole Bible, or parts of
it, reflecting those linguistic changes. Knowledge of the
original languages had also developed. New manuscripts, such as
the Sinaitic, Vatican and Alexandrian manuscripts, had been
discovered, and textual criticism had become a science. In
February 1870, Archbishop Wilberforce suggested to the Church of
England's governing Convocations that there were sufficient
reasons for a revision. The Convocation of York declined to be
involved, admitting the blemishes in the King James Version but
deploring "any recasting of the text." The Convocation of
Canterbury, however, decided to proceed with the task.
     A committee was formed of sixty-five members, of which
fourteen either died or resigned. Thirty-six were Anglicans, and
the rest were of various denominations, including one Unitarian.
Cardinal Newman was invited to participate, but declined. It was
Wilberforce's desire to involve Americans, and so the famous
church historian Philip Schaff was asked to put together an
American committee. In all, Schaff had thirty-four participating
members, making an international total of ninety-nine members.
The work began in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey on
June 22, 1870. The American committee began its work in the Bible
House of New York City on October 4, 1872. A provisional revision
of a small section was made in England, and sent to America for
approval. The English then revised the draft on the basis of the
Americans' comments, and sent the new draft back to America. Then
England revised again to produce a more uniform style. The first
revisions were approved by a simple majority of the committee;
any subsequent revisions required a two-thirds vote. This meant
that revisions were made at least five times, and sometimes seven
revisions were required.
     Though it had been intended that no alterations should be
made to the Greek text used by the translators of the Authorized
Version, exceptions were made when competent scholars believed
that such changes were necessary. Therefore a new Greek text was
constructed, known as the "Revisers' Text." Westcott and Hort's
Greek text was published within five days of this revision of the
Bible, and they had both served on the revision committee, but
the Revisers' Text differed from Westcott and Hort in about 200
places, and from the text used by the King James translators in
5,788 readings.
     This version was called the English Revised Version, and it
is said that it has 36,191 changes. If anyone were to ask whether
it had any value, the answer would definitely be yes. First,
archaic and unintelligible words were replaced. The word "let,"
for example, meant "hinder" in 1611, but today means "permit."
The word "prevent" came from the Latin pre venio, to "go before"
or "precede," and did not have today's meaning of "stop."
Second, the revisers aimed at consistency in translation. They
wanted each Greek or Hebrew word to be translated by the same
English word every time it appeared. The Greek word "meno," for
example, is used 117 times in the Greek text, but is translated
by ten different English words in the King James Version. The
Greek word "dunamis" means "power," but is translated by thirteen
different English words in the King James Version. On the other
hand, in the King James Version the single English word "power"
translates seventeen different Hebrew words in the Old Testament,
and six Greek words in the New Testament.
     Third, the old chapter and verse divisions were relegated to
the margin, while the content was divided into paragraphs. The
former aids you in finding the material, while the latter aids
you in finding the message.
     Fourth, where Greek grammar differs from English grammar,
the revisers tried to give an accurate rendering of the Greek.
(Greek, for example, has fewer tenses than English, and has no
indefinite article.) As a result, however, the Revised Version
suffered from excessive literalism.
     The Revised Version was a phenomenal success when the first
copies of the New Testament came off the presses on May 17, 1881.
Oxford and Cambridge presses each had a million advance orders.
On May 20 the first shipment arrived in the United States. It was
due to be on sale in the shops on May 21, but copies were
immediately being sold on the streets of New York and
Philadelphia. On May 20 alone New York sold 365,000 copies, and
Philadelphia over 110,000 copies. Chicago was 978 miles away, and
the Tribune and the Times did not wish to wait until more New
Testaments could be shipped over. They employed ninety-two
compositors and five correctors to wire Matthew through Romans,
that is 118,000 words. This was the longest message ever sent
over the wires. The task was accomplished in twelve hours and the
text appeared in newspapers on May 22, 1881. It was estimated
that three million copies were sold in England and America within
one year of publication. Without dispute, no book can compare to
this "Indestructible Book."



Straining the gnat

     The American attitude to the Revised Version was slightly
negative. All final decisions on translation had been made in
England, and some preferences which the Americans had expressed
were rejected by the English committee. To offset this, the
English proposed that the American preferences should be
published in an appendix, and appear in every copy of the Revised
Version for the next fourteen years. By that time, the Americans
expected that scholars, and the general public, would approve the
American preferences. As part of the agreement, the American
company agreed not to sanction any revised Bibles other than
those published by Oxford and Cambridge university presses. This
tied the hands of the American committee from 1885 to 1899.
The English committee disbanded after their translation was
finished, and the publishers indicated that they had no intention
of incorporating the American preferences in any future
publications. So the American company did not disband. Under
pressure from the public, certain publishers issued unauthorized
editions of the New Testament incorporating the American
preferences listed in the appendix, and Oxford and Cambridge
published an "American Revised version" of the whole Bible in
1898. But the American committee wanted all their preferred
readings incorporated, and not just those which had been selected
for inclusion in the published appendix. When the fourteen years
of the agreement had expired and they were no longer hampered by
the English committee and publishers, they produced their own
revision. It was published in 1901 and became known as the
American Standard Revised version.
     Most of the differences between the English and American
versions seem small, but many scholars consider them to be
decided improvements. For example, the Americans used shorter
paragraphs than the English, and put blank spaces between the
main divisions, especially in the epistles. Verse divisions were
placed in the text, instead of as previously-in the margin.
There were also many changes in translation. For example, the
words "Holy Spirit" replaced all references to the "Holy Ghost."
The plural "devils" was not used, since there is only one
"devil," but many "demons" (subordinate to the devil). The word
"covenant" was consistently used in place of the word
"testament."
     There was also an attempt to drop archaic forms and
spellings, such as "holpen" for "helped," "hale" for "drag away,"
and "wot" or "wist" for "know." American words were substituted
for English words. For example, the word "grain" was used instead
of "corn" because, though in England the word "corn" implied
grain of all kinds, in America it suggested maize, or Indian
corn. The word "platter" was used instead of "charger," which in
America meant a horse.
     The reception was as expected: the American Standard Version
dominated the American market, and the Revised Version the
English market. The ASV was widely considered to be the more
accurate, and some pulpits and seminaries began using only the
ASV.
     Another offspring of the King James Version came in 1979
when Nelson published the New King James Bible. This was an
attempt to "maintain the lyrical quality" and "majesty of the
form" of the 1611 version.
     Even where they felt it necessary to introduce a new
translation, the revisers made an effort to maintain "the general
vocabulary of the 1611 version." They modernized the pronouns,
eliminated archaic verb endings, and made minor changes in other
grammatical forms.
     Nelson also introduced several new features. The paragraphs
were given headings, to enable the reader to identify the subject
matter. The poetic sections were printed in contemporary verse
forms to suggest the beauty of the original passage. Old
Testament quotations were printed in oblique type, and footnotes
indicated the Old Testament reference. Also, some of the
italicized words, used by the translators of the King James
Version to give clarity beyond the literal translation, were
eliminated in the New King James Version.
     The most important difference between this and all other
modern translations of the scripture arises from the text from
which the work was translated. The traditional Greek text
underlying the 1611 edition was replaced by the "neutral text" of
Westcott and Hort. That textual base eliminated many words,
phrases and verses used by the translators of the King James
Version. While there is heated controversy on this issue today,
it was maintained by the scholars preparing the New King James
Version that "the nineteenth-century text suffers from
overrevision, and the traditional Greek text is more reliable
than previously supposed."


So many versions

     As we have seen, the Bible was first written in Hebrew,
Aramaic and Greek. Pope Damasus had it translated into Latin but
his successors would not allow it to be made accessible to other
nations and later generations. To read the Bible, people had to
learn Latin-and even then the Bible's circulation was often
restricted to the priesthood.
     The Reformation came to England because scholars started
learning Greek, the language of the New Testament. They knew the
Bible would have the same impact on anyone who could read it-so
they translated the Bible into English. And they were right:
England was rocked by the Reformation.


A few statistics

     Even before Wycliffe there were about forty translations
into Old and Middle English, admittedly only covering sections of
the Bible, mostly the Psalms. From the time of Wycliffe's Bible,
hand-written and translated into Middle English about 1380, until
the time of the next major English translation, that of Tyndale
in 1525, there were another twentysix translations, including
Wycliffe's Bible and its several revisions. From 1525 to the
publication of the King James Version in 1611 there were some 212
editions of the Bible, complete or in part. That makes a
grand total of 277 separate efforts to translate the Bible into
the language of the English-speaking people.
     Between the publication of the King James Version in 1611
and the American Standard Version in 1901, there were no less
than 522 attempts by translators, revisers or editors to discover
the exact meaning of the original text of the Bible and express
it precisely in current English. That makes about 800 attempts to
overcome linguistic barriers, and communicate the message of the
Bible.
     Statistics are not available beyond 1985, but between 1901
and 1985 no less than 440 efforts were recorded. From the time
when the English language was in its early stages until 1985, the
grand total of translations, improved editions or independent
paraphrases comes to about 1,240.


Roman Catholic translations

     There had already been a Roman Catholic Bible Society in
existence for over fifty years when, in the mid-nineteenth
century, Pope Pius IX warned against the distribution of
scriptures without any guidance in their interpretation! That
society published the Rheims-Douai version without notes, leaving
the reader to make his own interpretation. It also produced
several other translations of the Bible into English. Between
1811 and 1816 they produced five editions of the Bible and two of
the New Testament. There have also been several Catholic
translations in the twentieth century, the most wellknown being
the Jerusalem Bible of 1966, which was translated directly from
the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic. In 1985 this was extensively
revised as the New Jerusalem Bible.


Translations by Jews

     We must not forget the English Bible produced by the Jews.
For the Jews the Middle Ages were not conducive to the sort of
scholarship required for Bible translation, but by the year 1400,
translations of the Jewish Bible began to appear in various
languages. In 1789, the year of the French Revolution, a version
of the Pentateuch appeared, claiming to be derived from the King
James Version. In 1853, a Hebrew Bible came out that became the
favorite of English and American synagogues. The Jewish
Publication Society decided to revise that work, and it was
published in 1917. Several different versions appeared in the
1960s and 70s, and in 1985 the three largest branches of
organized Judaism in America produced a monumental work of
scholarship entitled the TaNaKh, a new translation of what
Christians call the Old Testament.



A book for the world

     Because we are considering the impact of one book on the
whole human race, it is not fair to limit our survey to one
language. The Hebrew was translated in to Greek, and later into
Latin, and both those translations fathered many others. The
first printed German Bible dates back to 1466, and eighteen other
editions were printed before Luther gave the Germans his Bible.
     John Calvin revised his first French Bible as late as 1551.
The Dutch had several versions by both Catholics and Protestants;
in 1537 they were given a version based on the original texts,
and this was revised as late as 1897. The Italians also had
several versions, legal and illegal; and the Spanish, who
prohibited a vernacular Bible in the first printed Index of the
Spanish Inquisition, were given a literal interpretation in 1553,
presented by a Jewish organization.
     In Europe, complete or partial Bibles have appeared in
Czech, Danish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish,
Portuguese, Russian, Swedish and other languages. And after
William Carey arrived in India in 1793, and before 1834, there
were translations of Scripture into more than 34 far Eastern
languages. In fact, the British and Foreign Bible Society listed
10,000 versions in 628 languages between the year 1400 and the
early 1900s.
     People in many countries and through many centuries have
displayed a passion for translating the Bible. They have
willingly paid the cost, even when that cost had meant giving up
their lives, in order to break down the linguistic barriers
between men and women and this Indestructible Book.
Printer's ink
     When Bibles were first published in England it was the
policy to use only the Oxford and Cambridge university presses
and the King's Printers. (Since before Henry VII's death, there
had been an official "King's Printer.") Later on, however,
translations of the Bible, and translations into other languages,
were not so restricted. And, of course, we know from the story of
the Tyndale and Coverdale versions that publishers were always
printing unauthorized Bibles.


British and Foreign Bible Society

     Nearly two hundred years ago, a nonconformist minister named
Thomas Charles was preaching in Bala in Wales. During the
service, he asked a young girl to repeat the text of the previous
Sunday's sermon. She cried, and explained that the weather was so
bad that she had been unable to check the Welsh Bible. Charles
found out that the closest Welsh Bible was seven miles away from
her home. That incident so impressed him that he went to London
to ask for help and this led to the founding of the British and
Foreign Bible Society in 1804. By 1928, the Society had
circulated over 385 million Bibles, with versions in 608
languages. They had 5,142 auxiliary branches in England and
Wales, plus another 5,000 overseas, and they employed 900 book
agents to sell Bibles from door to door, because it was against
their policy to give any away free.
     During 1930 alone, the British and Foreign Bible Society
published 12 million copies of the Bible, in 643 languages. They
were shipped to every corner of the world in 4,583 boxes,
weighing 490 tons. And that is but one Bible Society, in one
country, in one year.
     Voltaire, the noted French infidel, predicted that within a
hundred years Christianity would be swept off the earth and the
Bible would be found only in museums. The British and Foreign
Bible Society later bought his Paris house as a depot for the
distribution of Bibles.


United Bible Societies

     While there are Bible societies which operate independently,
such as Britain's Trinitarian Bible Society, there are 110
national Bible societies worldwide, including the British and
Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible Society, which
operate under the umbrella of the United Bible Societies. In 1990
the American Bible Society distributed over six million Bibles,
New Testaments or portions (a portion usually means at least one
of the sixty-six books of the Bible) in the United States alone.
Nearly 14.4 million more were distributed overseas, making over
20.4 million altogether. They used over 60,000 volunteers
operating out of more than 1,300 centers.
     The United Bible Societies provide an ecumenical Bible, in
ordinary everyday language, and are placing copies in the hands
of millions of people around the world who would otherwise have
no access to a Bible. Their aim is to tackle the language
barriers and provide translations wherever there are more than a
million people. China may be a good example. When it was reported
that in some areas 90,000 people were sharing twenty-five Bibles
between them, the United Bible Society provided them with
printing facilities, within China, to the value of over $5
million. This one printing facility gave the Chinese an
additional capacity for 250,000 Bibles and 500,000 New Testaments
every year. According to their January 1987 report, United Bible
Societies also provided the paper for printing 300,000 copies of
a new Chinese translation of the Gospels.


Getting the Bible out

     The three leading Bible publishers in the year 1932 were the
British and Foreign Bible Society, the American Bible Society and
the National Bible Society of Scotland. Together they produced
22,626,867 complete Bibles, New Testaments and scripture portions
in many different tongues. If those Bibles had been stacked one
on top of another, they would have reached twenty-eight miles
above the earth's surface-five times the height of Mount Everest.
Today, there are 6,170 separate languages on earth, according to
the Wycliffe Bible Translators, and at least one book of the
Bible has been translated into 1,978 of these languages. Some of
these Bibles are printed from left to right, others from right to
left, and still others from top to bottom. There are some tribes
who will not read anything printed, only what is written. So
their Bible is first written, then photographed and copied on the
presses. One Bible has thirty-nine volumes, because it is in
Braille. Some of the languages and alphabets are so different
from ours that they challenge the most skilled linguists. While
the Russian alphabet has thirty-six letters, Tamil has 400 and
Maori only fourteen. But none of these obstacles has dampened the
zeal of translators or printers.
     Many organizations are dedicated to distributing Bibles free
of charge; the largest is probably the Gideons. Their estimated
distribution for the year 1992 was 35 million. They have been
producing Bibles for so long that in 1990 they were able to give
the 500 millionth to President George Bush. The remarkable
feature of this ministry is that every Bible is personally
presented, through a staff of a little over 183,000 volunteers,
all organized by only fifty-four paid employees.
     It is estimated that over 44 million Bibles are sold every
year, and another 35 million distributed free. This totals nearly
80 million every year. No other book has ever matched the
popularity of this "Indestructible Book."


The sap is in the tree

     It is not an exaggeration to say that the Bible has become
part of the warp and woof of American society. If you doubt this,
look at the people who have been influenced by the Bible, and its
effects on our society.


Mastered by the Bible

     Nearly every branch of knowledge and every sphere of human
endeavor has had its masters who have submitted to the supremacy
of this book. David Livingstone, the great explorer, died
kneeling at a cot in the heart of Africa. He had just finished
reading his Bible.
     Napoleon Bonaparte once commented to three generals who were
in his room: "That Bible on the table is a book to you; it speaks
to me; it is as it were a person."
     When he was on his death bed, Scotland's great literary
giant, Sir Walter Scott, asked his friend Lockhart to read to him
from the book. Scott had a library of 20,000 volumes, so Lockhart
asked him, "What book would you like?" Scott replied: "Need you
ask? There is but one."
     George Muller, the builder of the huge orphanage in Bristol,
said: "I have read the Bible through one hundred times and found
something new and inspiring every time."
England's King George V, as he promised his mother, read his
Bible every day.
     William Gladstone, four times Prime Minister of Great
Britain, wrote a book which he entitled The Impregnable Rock of
Holy Scripture. He professed to know ninety-five great men in the
world of his day, and eighty-seven of them, he said, "were
followers of the Bible."
     Men who publicly professed allegiance to the Bible and
served as President of the United States include George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin
Roosevelt. The Bible is in every court-room. Every hospital is a
monument to its moral influence.
     Turn the coin over and look at the subject from the other
side. Take the Bible out of literature, and what is left?
Tennyson used over 300 quotations from the pages of the Bible. It
has been calculated that Shakespeare has over 500 ideas and
phrases taken directly from the pages of the Bible. Charles
Dickens said: "It is the best book that ever was or ever will be
in the world."
     Or look at its contribution to the world of music. Take the
Bible from Bach, Handel and Mozart, and what is left? Would we
have ever heard of Handel, had it not been for his Bible"? Look
at the world of art. Where would the names of Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Donatello, Rembrandt, and Raphael be found, it they
had not been inspired by the themes of the Bible?
     Look back to the early days of many educational institutions
and you will see they are inseparably linked with the church.
Harvard, Yale, William and Mary and Dartmouth were all founded
for the express purpose of training religious ministers. Dr.
William Phelps, once Principal of Yale University, the third
oldest educational institution in the United States, is quoted as
saying: "I believe that a knowledge of the Bible without a
college course is more valuable than a college course without a
knowledge of the Bible."


Dynamite

     Then look at the effect the Bible has had. Consider John
Adams, for example, who was a member of the mutinous crew of the
Bounty. When the mutineers on Pitcairn Island died of syphilis,
leaving Adams with all the women and children, he found his
comfort and guidance in an old Bible he had found among the
debris of the wrecked ship. By the time the American ship, the
Topaz, discovered them, their jail was empty, and the church was
geographically and spiritually in the center of their life. Is
the relationship between the reform and the Bible merely
coincidental?
     John Gifford was among a small detachment of Cavaliers
cornered by Oliver Cromwell's army and offered "surrender, or no
quarter." Only Gifford was captured alive; the rest were killed.
As he was waiting for his execution, his sister managed to
distract the guard long enough to enable him to escape. He ran
and hid in Bedford, where his profligate life and drunken
debaucheries made him infamous. Eventually, someone introduced
him to a Bible. The change was so radical that he became the
minister of St John's Church in the same town. In fact, he was
the original of Mr Interpreter in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
George Whitefield made Englishmen and Americans confront the
issues of the Bible in what was then a novel way: he took the
Bible out of the church and, by open air preaching, gave it in
the country. As many as 30,000 to 60,000 would crowd together in
the open to listen to his sermons. Thousands were transformed by
their exposure to his Bible messages. Even Benjamin Franklin
admired Whitefield and his work.
     It was the Bible that influenced John Howard and Elizabeth
Fry. In obedience to its teachings they created the public
pressure which forced Parliament to reform the prison system. It
was the Bible that led William Wilberforce to crusade for the
emancipation of slaves. It was the Bible that motivated William
Booth to build an army to help the destitute and homeless. It was
the Bible that consoled Sir Ernest Shackleton in his lonely and
hazardous experience of exploring Antarctica. And that same Bible
influenced Sir James Young Simpson, who took the savagery out of
surgery when he discovered chloroform. Simpson told an audience
that the Bible was his greatest discovery.
     There can be little dispute that the "Indestructible Book"
has changed the world.


Look back over your shoulder

     And so the story is told. It is the phenomenal story of a
book that began with one man trying to care for a small nation
travelling in a wilderness, and wanting to provide them with a
moral code by which to regulate their lives. Historians and
priests took up the story, wise men, poets, and prophets
completed the message. Their writings were collected together in
twenty-two books-our Old Testament. At Jamnia, in AD 100, a
rabbinical gathering settled any dispute for the Jewish nation by
claiming that those books were the "Torah," or God's revelation
to mankind.
     After 400 years without any prophetic voice, the man whom
some called the Christ (meaning "the Anointed," or Messiah)
selected twelve unlikely men to be his apostles. They were
unlikely to succeed as a team, for they were so diverse,
including among their number a traitor and an underground
fighter. Even less did it seem likely that they would contribute
to the sacred book, being "unlearned and ignorant men" (Acts
4:13). Yet because of their words twenty-seven more books were
added to the list. In AD 397 these books were officially approved
as the complete canon of Scripture.
     The Jewish nation did not accept the last twenty-seven
books, so the Christian church became caretaker of this unique
volume. Waves of persecution broke out against the church,
leaving it bloody but unbroken; in fact, it grew in strength
during each onslaught. In AD 303 the Emperor Diocletian ordered
the destruction of every building used for a church, and every
copy of the Bible that could be found. He even built an arch to
commemorate the erasing of Christianity. But fifty years later,
the succeeding emperor ordered the reproduction of fifty Bibles,
at the government's expense. The church rose, singing a song of
victory.
     Persecution gave way to materialism. The Emperor Constantine
joined the ranks of the believers. His governmental policies
became the government of the church; his standard of living
became the life style of its clergy; and his dependence on ritual
became a passion in the church. Slowly the church deteriorated
until the authority of tradition took the place of the book.
Lust, greed, immorality and secularism came to the fore; the
Bible was hidden away, buried in a foreign language.
     But a light emerged in the dark night sky, "the morning star
of the Reformation." John Wycliffe was a man with a brilliant
mind, a tender conscience and a backbone of steel. He challenged
the decadence of his day and, when necessary, defied the pope and
his church, the king and his barons, and all the university
professors of England. He gave to a small army of preachers a
passion that burned like fire. His supreme undertaking was to
inspire men to crack the Latin shell of the Bible and reclothe
the message in the language of Middle English, bringing it out of
the convent and scattering it throughout the country. Some 135
years later reformers were breaking down the flood dams all over
Europe.
     When the humanist scholar Erasmus published the first
accessible New Testament in Greek, a new life force was
experienced among Greek scholars. Men and women saw the impact
that the Bible would have in the vernacular. Bibles started
appearing in German, in French and in English. While in Germany
it was the reform which produced the Bible, in England it was the
Bible that produced the reform. Different translations in English
became associated with the names of Tyndale, Coverdale and
Rogers; and then committees produced the Geneva Bible, the
Bishops' Bible and finally-the cream of such efforts-the
Authorized Version of King James I.
     While the reformed Church of England kept the structural
form of the Roman Catholic Church, Puritans drifted to the
periphery of the church, and eventually some broke away. The
splinters became the seeds of Protestant denominations, and
persecution led some to migrate to lands where freedom of
religion might be tolerated. So William Brewster's group came to
Plymouth Rock. What they were to this nation, the Geneva Bible
was to them. It was supremely important, vital beyond measure and
authoritative in every matter of faith and practice. Those
Pilgrim Fathers meticulously planted this book, like seeds, in
the minds of their offspring. It provided the moral fiber for
that early society. Religious meetings took priority over
commercial pursuits, and violation of the sabbath was a
punishable offense.
     Christopher Columbus claimed that his voyage which
discovered America was born while he was reading Isaiah. The
Liberty Bell bears an inscription from Leviticus 25:10. Every
single charter of the fifty states is written in words and
concepts taken from the Bible.
     Of the ten earliest colleges in America, nine were founded
by the churches, and the other by the evangelist George
Whitefield.
     During the Civil War, the American Bible Society printed
7,000 Bibles daily for each side in the dispute. In 1864, the
Memphis Bible Society sent a shipment of cotton to New York in
return for 50,000 portions of scripture.
     Today, the Bible is present at the inauguration of every
President, and it is in the courts for the swearing in of every
witness. Its sales have doubled since 1960. In 1991, 44 million
copies were sold. Why? In the Old Testament, the volume is
referred to as "the Word of God," 3,808 times.

                       .............................


300 Years Attack

The Textus Receptus under fire!

                      AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED 


CHAPTER VII


Three Hundred Years of Attack on the King Janles Bible


"Wherever the so-called Counter-Reformation, started by the
Jesuits, gained hold of the people, the vernacular was suppressed
and the Bible kept from the laity. So eager were the Jesuits to
destroy the authority of the Bible - the paper pope of the
Protestants as they contemptuously called it - that they even did
not refain from criticizing its genuineness and historical value"
(Debschutz "The Influence of the Bible," p.136).

     THE opponents of the noble work of 1611 like to tell the
story of how the great printing plants which publish the King
James Bible have been obliged to go over it repeatedly to
eliminate flaws of printing, to eliminate words which in time
have changed in their meaning, or errors which have crept in
through the years because of careless editing by different
printing houses. They offer this as an evidence of the
fallibility of the Authorized Version. They seem to overlook the
fact that this labor of necessity is an argument for, rather than
against the dependability of the translations. Had each word
of the Bible been set in a cement cast incapable of the slightest
flexibility and been kept so throughout the ages, there could
have been no adaptability to the ever-changing structure of human
language. The artificiality of such a plan would have eliminated
the living action of the Holy Spirit and would accuse both man
and the Holy Spirit of being without an intelligent care for the
divine treasure.
     On this point the scholars of the Reformation made their
position clear under three different aspects. 
     First, they claimed that the Holy Scriptures had come down
to them unimpaired throughout the centuries. 
     Second, they recognized that to reform any manifest
oversight was not placing human hands on a divine work and was
not contrary to the mind of the Lord. Dr.Fulke says
"Nevertheless, whereinsoever Luther, Beza, or the English
translators, have reformed any of their former oversights, the
matter is not so great, that it can make an heresy."
     And lastly, they contended that the Received Text, both in
Hebrew and in Greek, as they had it in their day would so
continue unto the end of time.

     In fact, a testimony no less can be drawn from the opponents
of the Received Text. The higher critics, who have constructed
such elaborate scaffolding, and who have built such great engines
of war as their apparatus criticus, are obliged to describe the
greatness and strength of the walls they are attacking in order
to justify their war machine. On the Hebrew Old Testament, one of
a group of the latest and most radical critics says:
"DeLagarde would trace all manuscripts back to a single archetype
which he attributed to Rabbi Aquiba, who died in A.D.135. Whether
this hypothesis is a true one or not will probably never be
known; it certainly represents the fact that from about his
day variations of the consonantal text ceased almost entirely."
     While of the Greek New Testament, Dr.Hort, who was an
opponent of the Received Text and who dominated the English New
Testament Revision Committee, says:
"An overwhelming proportion of the text in all known cursive
manuscripts except a few is, as a matter of fact, identical."
     Thus strong testimonies can be given not only to the
Received Text, but also to the phenomenal ability of the
manuscript scribes writing in different countries and in
different ages to preserve an identical Bible in the overwhelming
mass of manuscripts.

     The large number of conflicting readings which higher
critics have gathered must come from only a few manuscripts,
since the overwhelming mass of manuscripts is identical.
     The phenomenon presented by this situation is so striking
that we are pressed in spirit to inquire, Who are these who are
so interested in urging on the world the finds of their
criticism? All lawyers understand how necessary for a lawsuit it
is to find some one "to press the case." Thousands of wills
bequeath property which is distributed in a way different from
the wishes of the testator because there are none interested
enough to "press the case." The King James Bible had hardly begun
its career before enemies commenced to fall upon it. Though it
has been with us for three hundred years in splendid leadership -
a striking phenomenon - nevertheless, as the years increase, the
attacks become more furious. If the book were a dangerous
document, a source of corrupting influence and a nuisance, we
would wonder why it has been necessary to assail it since it
would naturally die of its own weakness. But when it is a divine
blessing of great worth, a faultless power of transforming
influence, who can it be who are so stirred up as to deliver
against it one assault after another? Great theological
seminaries, in many lands, led by accepted teachers of learning,
are laboring constantly to tear it to pieces. Point us out
anywhere, any situation similar concerning the sacred books of
any other religion, or even of Shakespeare, or of any other work
of literature. Especially since 1814 when the Jesuits were
restored by the order of the Pope - if they needed restoration -
have the attacks by Catholic scholars on the Bible, and by other
scholars who are Protestants in name, become bitter.
"For it must be said that the Roman Catholic or the Jesuitical
system of argument - the work of the Jesuits from the sixteenth
century to the present day - evinces an amount of learning and
dexterity, a subtility of reasoning, a sophistry, a plausibility
combined, of which ordinary Christians have but little idea. .
Those who do so (tale the trouble to investigating) find that, if
tried by the rules of right reasoning, the argument is 
defective, assuming points which should be proved; that it is
logically false, being grounded in sophisms; that it rests in
many cases on guotations which are not genuine ... on passages
which, when collated with the original, are proved to be wholly
inefficacious as proofs."

     As time went on, this wave of higher criticism mounted
higher and higher until it became an ocean surge inundating
France, Germany, England, Scotland, the Scandinavian nations, and
even Russia. When the Privy Council of England handed down in
1864 its decision, breathlessly awaited everywhere, permitting
those seven Church of England clergymen to retain their
positions, who had ruthlessly attached the inspiration of the
Bible, a cry of horror went up from Protestant England; but "the
whole Catholic Church," said Dean Stanley, "is: as we have seen,
with the Privy Council and against the modern dogmatists." By
modern dogmatists, he meant those who believe "the Bible and the
Bible only."
     The tide of higher criticism was soon seen to change its
appearance and to menace the whole framework of fundamentalist
thinking. The demand for revision became the order of the day.
The crest was seen about 1470 in France, Germany, England, mid
the Scandinavian countries. Time-honored Bibles in these
countries were radically overhauled and a new meaning was read
into words of Inspiration.
     Three lines of results are strongly discernible as features
ofthe movement. 
     First, "collation" became the watchward. Manuscripts were
laid alongside of manuscripts to detect various readings and to
justify that reading which the critic chose as the right one.
With the majority of workers, especially those whose ideas have
stamped the revision, it was astonishing to see how they turned
away from the overwhelming mass of MSS and invested with
tyrannical superiority a certain few documents, some of them
of a questionable character. 
     Second, this wave of revision was soon seen to be hostile to
the Reformation. There is something startlingly in common to be
found in the modernist who denies the element of the miraculous
in the Scriptures, and the Catholic Church which invests
tradition with an inspiration equal to the Bible. As a result, it
seems a desperately hard task to get justice done to the
Reformers or their product. As Dr.Demaus says:
"For many of the facts of Tyndale's life have been disputed or
distorted, through carelessness, through prejudice, and through
the malice of that school of writers in whose eyes the
Reformation was a mistake, if not a crime, and who conceive it to
be their mission to revive all the old calumnies that have ever
been circulated against the Reformers, supplementing them by new
accusations of their own invention." 
     A third result of this tide of revision is that when our
time-honored Bibles are revised, the changes are generally in
favor of Rome. We are told that Bible revision is a step forward;
that new MSS have been made available and advance has been made
in archaeology, philology, geography, and the apparatus of
criticism. How does it come then that we have been revised back
into the arms of Rome? If my conclusion is true, this so-called
Bible revision has become one of the deadliest of weapons in the
hands of those who glorify the Dark Ages and who seek to bring
western nations back to the theological thinking which prevailed
before the Reformation.


THE FOUNDERS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM 

     The founders of this critical movement were Catholics. One
authority pointing out two Catholic schorars, says:
"Meanwhile two great contributions to criticism and knowledge
were made in France: Richard Simon, the Oratorian, published
between 1689 and 1695 a series of four books on the text, the
versions, and the principal commentators of the New Testament,
which may be said to have laid the foundation of modern critical
inquiry: Pierre Sabatier, the Benedictine, collected the whole of
the pre-Vulgate Latin evidence for the text of the Bible." 
     So says a modernist of the latest type and held in high
repute as a scholar.
     Dr.Hort tells us that the writings of Simon had a large
share in the movement to discredit the Textus Receptus class of
MSS and Bibles. While of him and other outstanding Catholic
scholars in this field, the Catholic Encyclopedia says:
"A French priest, Richard Simon (1638-1712), was the first who
subjected the general questions concerning the Bible to a
treatment which was at once comprehensive in scope and
scientific in method. Simon is the forerunner of modern
Biblical criticism ... The use of internal evidence by which
Simon arrived at it entitles him to be called the father of
Biblical criticism."
"In 1753 Jean Astruc, a French Catholic physician of considerable
note, published a little book, 'Conjectures sur les memoires
originaux dont il parait quo Mosee s'est servi pour composer le
livre de la Genese,' in which he conjectured, from the
alternating use of two names of God in the Hebrew Genesis, that
Moses had incorporated therein two pre-existing documents, one of
which employed Elohim and the other Jehovah. The idea attracted
little attention till it was taken up by a German scholar, who,
however, claims to have made the discovery independently. This
was Johann Gottfried Eichhorn ... Eichhorn greatly developed
Astruc's hypothesis."
"Yet it was a Catholic priest of Scottish origin, Alexander
Geddes (1737-1802), who broached a theory of the origin of the
Five Books (to which he attached Josue) exceeding in boldness
either Simon's or Eichhorn's. This was the well-known
'Fragment' hypothesis, which reduced the Pentateuch to a
collection of fragmentary sections partly of Mosaicc origin, but
put together in the reign of Solomon. Geddes' opinion was
introduced into Germany in 1805 by Vater." 
     Some of the earliest critics in the field of collecting
variant readings of the New Testament in Greek, were Mill and
Bengel. We have Dr.Kenrick, Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia in
1849, as authority that they and others had examined these
manuscripts recently exalted as superior, such as the Vaticanus,
Alexandrinus, Beza, and Ephraem, and had pronounced in favor of
the Vulgate, the Catholic Bible.
     Simon, Astruc, and Geddes, with those German critics,
Eichhorn, Semler, and DeWitte, who carried their work on further
and deeper, stand forth as leaders and representatives in the
period which stretches from the date of the King James (1611) to
the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789). Simon and Eichhorn
were co-authors of a Hebrew Dictionary. These outstanding six, -
two French, one Scotch, and three German, with others of perhaps
not equal prominence, began the work of discrediting the Received
Text, both in the Hebrew and in the Greek, and of calling in
question the generally accepted beliefs respecting the Bible
which had prevailed in Protestant countries since the birth of
the Reformation. There was not much to do in France, since it was
not a Protestant country and the majority had not far to go to
change their belief; there was not much done in England or
Scotland because there a contrary mentality prevailed. The
greatest inroads were made in Germany. Thus matters stood when in
1773, European nations arose and demanded that the Pope suppress
the order of the Jesuits. It was too late, however, to smother
the fury which sixteen years later broke forth in the French
Revolution.
     The upheaval which followed engaged the attention of all
mankind for a quarter of a century. It was the period of
indignation foreseen by the prophet Daniel. As the armies of
the Revolution and of Napoleon marched and counter-marched over
the territories of Continental Europe, the foundations of the
ancient regime were broken up. Even from the Vatican the cry
arose, "Religion is destroyed." And when in 1812 Napoleon was
taken prisoner, and the deluge had passed, men looked out upon a
changed Europe. England had escaped invasion, although she had
taken a leading part in the overthrow of Napoleon. France
restored her Catholic monarchs, the Bourbons who "never learned
anything and never forgot anything." In 1814 the Pope promptly
restored the Jesuits.
     Then followed in the Protestant world two outstanding
currents of thought: first, on the part of many, a stronger
expression of faith in the Holy Scriptures, especially in the
great prophecies which seemed to be on the eve of fulfillment
where they predict the coming of a new dispensation. The other
current took the form of a reaction, a growing disbelief in the
leadership of accepted Bible doctrines whose uselessness seemed
proved by their apparent impotence in not preventing the French
Revolution. And, as in the days before that outbreak. Germany,
which had suffered the most, seemed to be fertile soil for a
strong and rapid growth of higher criticism.


GRIESBACH AND MOHLER

     Among the foremost of those who tore the Received Text to
pieces in the Old Testament stand the Hollander, Kuehnen, and the
German scholars; Ewald and Wellhausen. Their findings, however,
were confined to scholarly circles. The public were not moved by
them, as their work appeared to be only negative. The two German
critics who brought the hour of revision much nearer were the
Protestant Griesbach, and the Catholic Mohler. Mohler (1796-1838)
did not spend his efforts on the text as did Griesbach, but he
handled the points of difference in doctrine between the
Protestants and the Catholics in such a way as to win over the
Catholic mind to higher criticism, and to throw open the door for
Protestants who either loved higher criticism, or who, being
disturbed by it, found in Catholicism, a haven of refuge. Of him
Hagenbach says:
"Whatever vigorous vitality is possessed by the most recent
Catholic theological science is due to the labors of this man." 
While Kurtz says:
"He sent rays of his spirit deep into the hearts and minds of
hundreds of his enthusiastic pupils by his writings, addresses,
and by his intercourses with them; and what the Roman Catholic
Church of the present possesses of living scientific impulse and
feeling was implanted, or at least revived and excited by him. 
... In fact, long as was the opposition which existed between
both churches, no work from the camp of the Roman Catholics
produced as much agitation and excitement in the camp of the
Protestants as this." 
     Or, as Maurice writes concerning Ward, one of the powerful
leaders of the Oxford Movement:
"Ward's notion of Lutheranism is taken, I feel pretty sure, from
Mohler's very gross misrepresentations." 
     Griesbach (1745-1812) attacked the Received Text of the New
Testament in a new way. He did not stop at bringing to light and
emphasizing the variant readings of the Greek manuscripts; he
classified readings into three groups, and put all manuscripts
under these groupings, giving them the names of
"Constantinopolitan," or those of the "Received Text," the
"Alexandrian," and the "Western." While Griesbach used the
Received Text as his measuring rod, nevertheless, the new Greek
New Testament he brought forth by this measuring rod followed the
Alexandrian manuscripts or, - Origen. His classification of the
manuscripts was so novel and the result of such prodigious
labors, that critics everywhere hailed his Greek New Testament as
the final word. It was not long, however, before other scholars
took Griesbach's own theory of classification and proved him
wrong.


ROMANTICISM AND SIR WALTER SCOTT

     The effective manner in which other currents appeared during
this period, which, working together, contributed toward one
central point, may be seen in the unusual factors which arose to
call the thoughts of men back to the Middle Ages. All that
contributed to the glamour and the romanticism of the ages of
chivalry seemed to start forth with a new freshness of life. The
Gothic architecture, which may be seen in the cathedrals erected
while St.Louis of France and Thomas A.Beckett of England were
medieval heroes, again became the fashion. Religious works
appeared whose authors glorified the saints and the princes of
the days of the crusades. Sir Walter Scott is generally esteemed
by everyone as being the outstanding force which led the minds of
fiction readers to the highest enthusiasm over the exploits of
Catholic heroes and papal armies.
     Many forces were at work, mysterious in the unexpected way
they appeared and arousing public interest in the years which
preceded the Reformation. Painters of England, France, and
Germany, there were, who gave to Medieval scenes a romance, and
so aroused in them new interest.


WINER

     Winer (1789-1858), a brilliant student in theology, but
especially in Biblical Greek, was destined to transmit through
modern rules affecting New Testament Greek, the results of the
research and speculations produced by the higher critics,and
German theologians who had gone before him and were working
contemporaneously with him. Dean Farrar calls Winer, "The highest
authority in Hellenistic Grammar." Griesbach had blazed a new
trail, when by his classification of manuscripts, he cast
reflection upon the authority of the Received Text. Mohler and
Gorres had so revivified and exalted Catholic theology that the
world of scholars was prepared to receive some new devices which
they called rules, in handling the grammatical elements of the
New Testament Greek. These rules differed greatly in viewpoint
from those of the scholars of the Reformation. Winer was that man
who provided such rules.
     In order to understand what Winer did, we must ask ourselves
the question: In the Bible, is the Greek New Testament joined to
a Hebrew Old Testament, or to a group of Greek writings? Or in
other words: Will the language of the Greek New Testament be
influenced by the molds of pagan thought coming from the Greek
world into the books of the New Testament, or will it be molded
by the Hebrew idioms and phrases of the Old Testament directly
inspired of God? The Reformers said that the Greek of the New Te
stament was cast in Hebrew forms of thought, and translated
freely; the Revisers literally. The Revisers followed Winer. We
see the results of their decision in the Revised New Testament.
To understand this a little more clearly, we need to remember
that the Hebrew language was either deficient in adjectives, or
dearly liked to make a noun serve in place of an adjective. The
Hebrews often did not say a "strong man;" they said a "man of
strength." They did not always say an "old woman;" they said
a "woman of age." In English we would use the latter expression
only about once where we would use the former many times.   
     Finding these Hebrew methods of handling New Testament
Greek, the Reformers translated them into the idiom of the
English language, understanding that that was what the Lord
intended. Those who differed from the Reformers claimed that
these expressions should be carried over literally, or what is
known as transliteration.
     Therefore the Revisers did not translate; they
transliterated and gloried in their extreme literalism. Let us
illustrate the results of this new method.


HEBRAISMS

King James (Reformers) 
Matt.5:22 "hell fire"
Revised (Winer) "hell of fire" 
Titus 2:13 "the glorious appearing" 
Revised
"the appearing of the glory" 
Phil. 3:21 "His glorious body"  
Revised
"the body of His glory" 

     The first means Christ's glorified body, the second might
mean good deeds.
     Dr. Vance Smith, Unitarian scholar on the Revision
Committee, said that "hell of fire" opened the way for the other
hells of pagan mythology.


THE ARTICLE (ITS NEW RULES)

Matt.11:2 "Christ" ....................."the Christ" 
Heb. 9:27 "the judgment"............... "judgment" 
     Dean Farrar in his defense of the Revised Version says that,
in omitting the article in Hebrews 9:27, the Revisers changed the
meaning from the great and final judgment, to judgments in the
intermediate state (such as purgatory, limbo, etc.), thus proving
the intermediate state. From the growing favor in which the
doctrine of purgatory is held, we believe the learned Dean had
this in mind. Pages of other examples could be given of how the
new rules can be used as a weapon against the King James.
     
     So the modern rules which they apparently followed when it
suited their theology, on the "article," the "tenses," - aorists
and perfect, - the "pronoun," the "preposition," the "intensive,"
"Hebraisms," and "parallelisms," pave the way for new and
anti-Protestant doctrines concerning the "Person of Christ,"
"Satan," "Inspiration of the Bible," "The Second Coming of
Christ," and other topics dealt with later.
     On this point the Edinburgh Review, July, 1881, says:
"Our Revisers have subjected their original to the most
exhaustive grammatical analysis, every chapter testifies
to the fear of Winer that was before their eyes, and their
familiarity with the intricacies of modern verbal crititicism"


THE MOULTON FAMILY

     Let me now introduce Professor W.F.Moulton of Cambridge,
England; his brother, Professor R.G.Moulton, of Chicago
University; and his son, Dr.J.H.Moulton of several colleges
and universities.
     Professor W.F.Moulton of Leys College, Cambridge, England,
was a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee. To
him we owe, because of his great admiration for it, the
translation into English of Winer's Grammar of New Testament
Greek. It went through a number of editions, had a wide
circulation, and exercised a dominant influence upon the thinking
of modern Greek scholars.
     Professor W.F.Moulton had a very strong part in the
selecting of the members who should serve on the English New
Testament Revision Committee. Of this, his son, Professor James
H.Moulton says regarding Bishop Ellicott, leading promoter of
revision, and chairman of the New Testament Revision Committee
"Doctor Ellicott had been in correspondence on Biblical
matters with the young Assistant Tutor ... His estimate of his
powers was shown first by the proposal as to Winer, and not long
after by the Bishop's large use of my father's advice in
selecting new members of the Revision Company. Mr.Moulton took
his place in the Jerusalem Clamber in 1870, the youngest member
of the Company: and in the same year his edition of Winer
ap-peared."

     Of Professor Moulton's work, Bishop Ellicott writes:
"Their (the Revisers') knowledge of New Testament Greek was
distinctly influenced by the grammatical views of Professor
Winer, of whose valuable grammar of the Greek Testament one of
our company ... had been a well-known and successful
translator."

     Professor W.F.Moulton, a Revisionist, also wrote a book on
the "History of the Bible." In this book he glorifies the Jesuit
Bible of 1582 as agreeing "with the best critical editions of the
present day." "Hence," he says, "we may expect to find that the
Rhemish New Testament (Jesuit Bible of 1582) frequently
anticipates the judgment of later scholars as to the presence or
absence of certain words, clauses, or even verses." And again,
"On the whole, the influence of the use of the Vulgate would, in
the New Testament, be more frequently for good than for harm in
respect of text."  With respect to the use of the article, he
says, "As the Latin language has no definite article, it might
well be supposed that of all English versions, the Rhemish would
be least accurate in this point of translation. The very reverse
is actually the case. There are many instances (a comparatively
hasty search has discovered more than forty) in which, of all
versions, from Tyndale's to the Authorized inclusive, this alone
is correct in regard to the article."  All this tended to
belittle the King James and create a demand for a different
English Bible.
     You will be interested to know that his brother, Professor
R.G.Moulton, believes the book of Job to be a drama.  He says
"But the great majority of readers will take these chapters to be
part of the parable into which the history of Job has been worked
up. The incidents in heaven, like the incidents of the prodigal
son, they will understand to be spiritually imagined, not
historically narrated."
     Since "Get thee behind me, Satan" has been struck out in the
Revised in Luke 4:8, and the same phrase now applied only to
Peter (Matt.16:23), it is necessary, since Peter is called Satan
by Christ, to use modern rules and exalt Satan.
         
"Among the sons of God," R.G.Moulton further tells us, "it is
said comes from 'theSatan' It is best to use the artile and speak
of 'the satan'; or as the margin gives it, 'the Adversary': that
is, the Adversary of THE saints ... Here (as in the similar
passage of Zechariah) the Satan is an official in the Court of
Heaven ... The Roman Church has exactly caught this conceotion in
its 'Advocatus Diaboli': such an advocate may be in fact a pious
and kindly ecclesiastic, but he has the function assigned him of
searching out all possible evil that can be alleged against a
candidate for canonization, lest the honors of the church might
be given without due enquiry."

     From the study which you have had of Winer and the Moultons,
I think it will be easy to see the trend of German higher
criticism as it has been translated into English literature and
into the revised edition of the Bible.


CARDINAL WISEMAN (1802-1865)

     The new birth of Catholicism in the English world can be
credited to no one more than to that English youth later to
become a cardinal - who pursued at Rome his Oriental studies.
There under the trained eye of Cardinal Mai, the editor of the
Vatican Manuscript, Wiseman early secured an influential
leadership among higher critics by his researches and theories on
the earliest texts. "Without this training," he said later, "I
should not have thrown myself into the Puseyite controversy at a
later period." He was thrilled over the Cathohc reaction taking
place everywhere on the Continent, and, being English, he longed
to have a share in bringing about the same in England. He was
visited in Rome by Gladstone, by Archbishop Trench, a promoter of
revision and later a member of the English New Testament Revision
Committee; also by Newman, Froude, and Manning;" by the leaders
of the Catholic reaction in Germany,-- Bunsen, Gorres, and
Overbeck; and by the leaders of the same in France,--
Montalembert, Lacordaire, and Lamennais.

     Wiseman's theories on the Old Latin Manuscripts - later to
be disproved - gave a decided impetus to the campaign against the
Received Text. Scrivener, generally well-balanced, was affected
by his conclusions "Even in our day such writers as Mr.
Scrivener; Bishop Westcott, and Tregelles, as well as German and
Italian scholars, have made liberal use of his arguments and
researches." "Wiseman has made out a case," says Scrivener,
"which all who have followed him, Lachmann, Tischendorf,
Davidson, and Tregelles, accept as irresistible."  Some of the
most distinguished men of Europe attended his lectures upon the
reconciliation of science and religion. The story of how he was
sent to England, founded the Dublin Review, and working on the
outside of Oxford with the remnants of Catholicism in England
and with the Catholics of the Continent, while Newman on the
inside of Oxford, as a Church of England clergyman, worked to
Romanize that University and that Church; of how Wiseman
organized again the Catholic hierarchy in Great Britain, a step
which convulsed England from end to end, will be subjects for
later consideration. Suffice it now to say that Wiseman lived
long enough to exult openly that the King James Version had been
thrust aside and the preeminence of the Vulgate reestablished by
the influence of his attacks and those of other textual critics.


THE GNOSTICISM OF GERMAN THEOLOGY INVADES ENGLAND

COLERIDGE, THIRWALL, STANLEY, WESTCOTT

     By 1833 the issue was becoming clearly defined. It was
Premillenarianism, that is, belief in the return of Christ before
the millennium, or Liberalism; it was with regard to the
Scriptures, literalism or allegorism. As Cadman says of the
Evangelicals of that day:

"Their fatalism inclined many of them to Premillenarianism as a
refuge from the approaching catastrophes of the present
dispensation ... Famous divines strengthened and adorned the
wider ranks of Evangelicalism, but few such were found within the
pale of the Establishment. Robert Hall, John Foster. William Jay
of Bath, Edward Irving, the eccentric genius, and in Scotland,
Thomas Chalmer, represented the vigor and fearlessness of an
earlier day and maintained the excellence of Evangelical
preaching."

     How deeply the conviction, that the great prophecies which
predicted the approaching end of the ago, had gripped the public
mind can be seen in the great crowds which assembled to hear
Edward Irvine. They were so immense that he was constantly
compelled to secure larger auditoriums. Even Carlyle could 
relate of his own father in 1832:

"I have heard him say in late years with an impressiveness 
which all his perceptions carried with them, that the lot of a
poor man was growing worse and worse; that the world would not
and could not last as it was; that mighty changes of which none
saw the end were on the way. To him, as one about to take his
departure, the whole was but of secondary moment. He was looking
toward 'a city that had foundations.'"

     Here was a faith in the Second Coming of Christ, at once
Protestant and evangelical, which would resist any effort so to
revue the Scriptures as to rendor them colorless, giving to them
nothing more than a literary endorsement of plans of betterment,
merely social or political. This faith was soon to be called upon
to face a theology of an entirely different spirit. German
religious thinkingg at that moment was taking on an aggressive
attitude. Schleiermacher had captured the imagination of the age
and would soon mold the theology of Oxford and Cambridge.
Though he openly confessed himself a Protestant, nevertheless,
like Origen of old, he sat at the feet of Clement, the old
Alexandrian teacher of 190 A.D. Clement's passion for
allegorizing Scripture offered an easy escape from
those obligations imposed upon the soul by a plain message of the
Bible. Schleiermacher modernized Clement's philosophy and made it
beautiful to the parlor philosophers of the day by imaginary
analysis of the realm of spirit. 
     It was the old Gnosticism revived, and would surely dissolve
Protestantism wherever accepted and would introduce such terms
into the Bible, if revision could be secured, as to rob the
trumpet of a certain sound. The great prophecies of the Bible
would become mere literary addresses to the people of bygone
days, and unless counter-checked by the noble Scriptures of the
Reformers, the result would be either atheism or papal
infallibility.
     If Schleiermacher did more to captivate and enthrall the
religious thinking of the nineteenth century than any other one
scholar, Coleridge, his contemporary, did as much to give
aggressive motion to the thinking of England's youth of his day,
who, hardly without exception, drank enthusiastically of his
teachings. He had been to Germany and returned a ferven devotee
of its theology and textual criticism. At Cambridge University he
became the star around which grouped a constellation of leaders
in thought. Thirwall, Westcott, Hort, Moulton, Milligan, who were
all later members of the English Revision Committees and whose
writings betray the voice of the master, felt the impact of his
doctrines.

"His influence upon his own age, and especially upon its younger
men of genius, was greater than that of any other Englishman ...
Coleridgeans may be found now among every class of English
divines, from the Broad Church to the highest Puseyites," says
McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia.
     The same article speaks of Coleridge as "Unitarian,"
"Metaphysical," a "Theologian," "Pantheistic," and says that "he
identifies reason with the divine Logos," and that he holds
"views of inspiration as low as the rationalists," and also holds
views of the Trinity "no better than a refined, Platonized
Sabellianism."


LACHMANN, TISCHENDORF, AND TREGELLES

     We have seen above how Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles
fell under the influence of Cardinal Wiseman's theories. There
are more recent scholars of textual criticism who pass over these
three and leap from Griesbach to Westcott and Hort, claiming that
the two latter simply carried out the beginnings of
classification made by the former. Nevertheless, since many
writers bid us over and over again to look to Lachmann,
Tischendorf, and Tregelles.--until we hear of them morning, noon,
and night, we would seek to give these laborious scholars all
the praise justly due them, while we remember that there is a
limit to all good things.

     Lachmann's (1793-1851) bold determination to throw aside the
Received Text and to construct a new Greek Testament from such
manuscripts as he endorsed according to his own rules, has been
the thing which endeared him to all who give no weight to the
tremendous testimony of 1500 years of use of the Received Text.
Yet Lachmann's canon of criticism has been deserted both by
Bishop Ellicott, and by Dr.Hort. Ellicott says, "Lachmann's text
is really one based on little more than four manuscripts, and so
is really more of a critical recension than a critical text." And
again, "A text composed on the narrowest and most exclusive
principles." While Dr.Hort says:
"Not again, in dealing with so various and complex a body of
documentary attestation, is there any real advantage in
attempting, with Lachmann, to allow the distributions of a very
small number of the most ancient existing documents to construct
for themselves a provisional text."

     Tischendorf's (1815-1874) outstanding claim upon history is
his discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript in the convent
at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Mankind is indebted to this prodigious
worker for having published manuscripts not accessible to the
average reader. Nevertheless, his discovery of Codex Aleph 
toppled over his judgment. Previous to that he had brought out
seven different Greek New Testaments, declaring that the seventh
was perfect and could not be superseded. Then, to the scandal of
textual criticism, after he had found the Sinaitic Manuscript, he
brought out his eighth Greek New Testament, which was different
from his seventh in 3572 places.  Moreover, he demonstrated how
textual critics can artificially bring out Greek New Testaments
when, at the request of a French Publishing house, Firmin Didot,
he edited an edition of the Greek Testament for Catholics,
conforming it to the Latin Vulgate.

     Tregelles (1813-1875) followed Lachmann's principles by
going back to what he considered the ancient manuscripts and,
like him, he ignored the Received Text and the great mass of
cursive manuscripts. Of him, Ellicott says, "His critical
principles, especially his general principles of estimating and
regarding modern manuscripts, are now, perhaps justly, called in
question by many competent scholars," and that his text "is rigid
and mechanical, and sometimes fails to disclose that critical
instinct and peculiar scholarly sagacity which is so much needed
in the great and responsible work of constructing a critical text
of the Greek Testament." 

     In his splendid work which convinced Gladstone that the
Revised Version was a failure, Sir Edmund Beckett says of the
principles which controlled such men as Lachmann, Tischendorf,
Tregelles, Westcott, and Hort in their modern canons of criticism
"If two, or two-thirds of two dozen men steeped in Greek declare
that they believe that he (John) ever wrote that he saw in a
vision seven angels clothed in stone with golden girdles, which
is the only honest translation of their Greek, and defend it with
such arguments as these, I ... distrust their judgment on the
'prepon-derance of evidence' for new readings altogether, and all
their modern canons of criticism, which profess to settle the
relative value of manuscripts, with such results as this and many
others." 

     Such were the antecedent conditions preparing the way to
draw England into entangling alliances, to de-Protestantize her
national church and to advocate at a dangerous hour the necessity
of revising the King James Bible. The Earl of Shaftesbury,
foreseeing the dark future of such an attempt, said in May, 1856:
"When you are confused or perplexed by a variety of versions, you
would be obliged to go to some learned pundit in whom you reposed
confidence, and ask him which version he recommended; and when
you had taken his version, you must be bound by his opinion. I
hold this to be the greatest danger that now threatens us. It is
a danger pressed upon us from Germany, and pressed upon us by the
neogolical spirit of the age. I hold it to be far more dangerous
than Tractarianism or Popery, both of which I abhor from the
bottom of my heart. This evil is tenfold more dangerous, tenfold
more subtle than either of these, because you would be ten times
more incapable of dealing with the gigantic mischief that would
stand before you," 


THE POLYCHROME BIBLE AND THE SHORTER BIBLE 

     The results of this rising tide of higher criticism were the
rejection of the Received Text and the mania for revision. It
gave us, among other bizarre versions, the "Polychrome" and also
the "Shorter Bible." The Polychome Bible is generally an edition
of the separate books of the Scriptures, each book having every
page colored many times to represent the different writers.
Any one who will take the pains to secure a copy of the "Shorter
Bible" in the New Testament, will recognize that about four
thousand of the nearly eight thousand verses in that Scripture
have been entirely blotted out. We offer the following quotation
from the United Presbyterian of December 22, 1921, as a
description of the "Shorter Bible."

"The preface further informs us that only about onethird of the
Old Testament and two-thirds of the New Testament are possessed
of this 'vital interest and practical value.' The Old Testament
ritual and sacrificial system, with their deep lessons and their
forward look to the atonement through the death of Christ are
gone. As a result of this, the New Testament references to Christ
as the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrifices are omitted.
Such verses as, 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin
of the world,' are gone. Whole books of the Old Testament are
gone.  Some of the richest portions of the books of the prophets
are missing. From the New Testament they have omitted 4,000
verses. Other verses are cut in two, and a fragment left us, for
which we are duly thankful. The great commission recorded in
Matthew; the epistles of Titus, Jude, First and Second John, are
entirely omitted, and but twenty-five verses of the second
epistle of Timothy remain. The part of the third chapter of
Romans which treats of human depravity, being 'of no practical
value to the present age,' is omitted. Only one verse remains
from the fourth chapter. The twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew and
other passages upon which the premillenarians base their theory,
are missing. All the passages which teach the atonement through
the death of Christ are gone."

     The campaigns of nearly three centuries against the Received
Text did their work. The Greek New Testament of the Reformation
was dethroned and with it the Versions translated from it,
whether English, German, French, or of any other language. It had
been predicted that if the Revised Version were not of sufficient
merit to be authorized and so displace the King James, confusion
and division would be multiplied by a crop of unauthorized and
sectarian translations. The Polychrome, the Shorter Bible, and a
large output of hetero-geneous Bibles verify the prediction. No
competitor has yet appeared able to create a standard comparable
to the text which has held sway for 1800 years in the original
tongue, and for 300 years in its Engiish translation, the King
James.
                         ........................


 

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)