THIS PREFACE IS TAKEN FROM THE NKJV - PERSONAL STUDY
EDITION, Publisher Thomas Nelson (Nashville - Atlanta - London -
Vancouver) - 1990, 1995.
Please note this preface may not be in all NewKJV Bibles. It is
in the one above, a Bible that I personally have and use.
I will give what I consider to be the most important parts of
this preface. All CAPITAL words are mine - Keith Hunt.
QUOTE
PURPOSE
In the preface to the 1611 edition, the translators of the
Authorized Version, known popularly as the King James Bible,
state that it was not their purpose "not to make a new
translation....but to make a good one better." Indebted to the
earlier work of William Tyndale and others, they saw their best
contribution to consist of revising and enhancing the excellence
of the English versions which had sprung up from the Reformation
of the sixteenth century. In harmony with the purpose of the King
James scholars, the translators and editors of the present work
have not pursued a goal of innovation. They have perceived the
Holy Bible, New King James Version, as a continuation of the
labors of the earlier translators, thus unlocking for today's
reader the spiritual treasures found especially in the Authorized
Version of the Holy Scriptures.
A Living Legacy
For nearly four hundred years, and throughout several
revisions of its English form, the King James Bible has been
deeply revered among the English-speaking people of the
world. The precision of the translation for which it is
historically renowned, and its majesty of style, have enabled the
monumental version of the word of God to become the mainspring of
the religion, language, and legal foundation of our civilization.
Although the Elizabethan period and our own era share in
zeal for technical advance, the former period was more
aggressively devoted to classical learning. Along with this
awakened concern for the classics came a flourishing companion in
interest in the Scriptures, an interest that was enlivened by the
CONVICTION that the manuscripts were PROVIDENTIALLY handed down
and were a TRUSTWORTHY RECORD of the INSPIRED Word of God.
The King James translators were committed to producing an
English Bible that would be a precise translation, and by mo
means a PARAPHRASE or a BROADLY APPROXIMATE rending. On the one
hand, the scholars were almost as familiar with the ORIGINAL
languages of the Bible as with their native English. On the other
hand, their reverence for the divine author and His word assured
a translation of the Scriptures in which only a principle of the
utmost accuracy could be accepted.
In 1786 Catholic scholar Alexander Geddes said of the King
James Bible, "If accuracy and strictest attention to the letter
of the text be supposed to constitute an excellent version, this
is of all versions the most excellent."
George Bernard Shaw became a literary legend in our century
because of his severe and often humorous criticism of our most
cherished values. Surprisingly, however, Shaw pays the following
tribute to the scholars commissioned by King James: "The
translation was EXTRAORDINARILY WELL DONE because to the
translators what they were translating was not merely a curious
collection of ancient books written by different authors in
different stages of culture, BUT THE WORD OF GOD DIVINELY
REVEALED through His chosen and expressly INSPIRED scribes. In
this conviction they carried out their work with boundless
reverence and care and achievement a beautiful artistic result."
History agrees with these estimates. therefore, while
seeking to unveil the EXCELLENT FORM of the traditional English
Bible, SPECIAL CARE has also been taken in the PRESENT edition to
PRESERVE the work of PRECISION which is the legacy of the 1611
translators.
(While all of the above may well be true of the 1611 translators,
for the overall MAIN, there did indeed creep into the 1611
Authorized translation some errors and some "bias" - or shall we
say a few places where English religious custom and practice,
even clouded the minds of those careful translators. A classic
example would be Acts 12: 4. The Greek is "Pascha" meaning
Passover, but the 1611 translators inserted "Easter." There is a
difference, not so much in the thoughts of the minds of people,
as Passover and Easter to most mean basically the same
foundational thing, the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ. But it does show that now and again, even with the best
intentioned scholars, who were trying to translate literally from
the Hebrew and Greek, did not always abide by their rule of
translating.
The New King James Version does CORRECT this error, and
reads "intending after Passover...." in Acts 12: 4. Keith Hunt).
COMPLETE EQUIVALENCE IN TRANSLATION
Where new translation has been necessary in the New King
James Version, the most complete representation of the original
has been rendered by CONSIDERING the HISTORY of usage and
ETYMOLOGY of the words in their CONTEXT. This principle of
COMPLETE EQUIVALENCE seeks to preserve ALL of the information in
the text, while presenting it in good LITERARY form. Dynamic
equivalence, a recent procedure in Bible translation, commonly
results in PARAPHRASING where a more LITERAL rendering is
needed to reflect a SPECIFIC and VITAL sense. For example,
complete equivalence truly renders the original text in
expressions such as "lifted her voice and wept" (Gen. 21: 16);
"I gave you cleanness of teeth" (Amos 4: 6); "Jesus met them,
saying, 'Rejoice!' " (Mat. 28: 9); and "Woman, what does your
concern have to do with me?" (John 2: 4).
Complete equivalence translates fully, in order to provide
an English text that is both ACCURATE and READABLE.
In keeping with the principle of complete equivalence, it is
the policy to translate interjections which are commonly omitted
in modern language renderings of the Bible. As an example, the
interjection "BEHOLD," in the older King James edition, CONTINUES
to have a PLACE in English usage, especially in dramatically
calling attention to a spectacular scene, or an event of profound
importance such as the Immanuel prophecy in Isaiah 7: 14.
Consequently, "BEHOLD" is RETAINED for these occasions in the
PRESENT edition.
However, the Hebrew and Greek ORIGINALS for this word can be
translated VARIOUSLY, depending on the circumstance in the
passage. Therefore, in addition to "behold," words such as
"indeed" - "look" - "see" and "surely" are also rendered to
convey the appropriate sense suggested by the CONTEXT in each
case.
IN FAITHFULNESS TO GOD AND OUR READERS, it was deemed
APPROPRIATE that ALL participating scholars SIGN a statement
AFFIRMING their BELIEF in the VERBAL and PLENARY INSPIRATION of
Scripture, and in the INERRANCY of the ORIGINAL autographs.
(And there were many indeed, with PhD's, who were part of
the complying of this particular New KJV Personal Study Edition -
Keith Hunt).
DEVOTIONAL QUALITY
The King James scholars readily appreciated the intrinsic
beauty of DIVINE REVELATION. They accordingly disciplined their
talents to render well-chosen English words of THEIR TIME, as
well as a GRACEFUL, often MUSICAL arrangement of language, which
has stirred the hearts of Bible readers through the years. The
translators, the committees, and the editors of the PRESENT
edition, while sensitive to the late-twentieth-century English
idiom, and while adhering faithfully to the Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek texts, have sought to MAINTAIN those LYRICAL and DEVOTIONAL
qualities that are so HIGHLY regarded in the Authorized Version.
This devotional quality is especially apparent in the POETIC
and PROPHETIC books......The Koine Greek of the NT is influenced
by the Hebrew background of the writers, for whom even the gospel
narratives were not merely flat utterances, but often SONG in
various degrees of rhythm.
THE STYLE
Students of the Bible applaud the timeless devotional
character of our historic Bible. Yet it is also universally
understood that our language, like all living languages, has
undergone PROFOUND CHANGE since 1611. Subsequent revisions of the
King James Bible have sought to keep abreast of changes in
English speech. The PRESENT work is a further step toward this
objective. where obsolescence and other reading difficulties
exist, present-day vocabulary, punctuation, and grammar have been
carefully integrated. Words representing ancient objects, such as
"CHARIOT" and "PHYLACTERY," have no MODERN substitutes and are
therefore RETAINED.
A SPECIAL feature of the NKJV is its conformity to the
thought flow of the 1611 Bible. The reader discovers that the
sequence and selection of words, phrases, and clauses of the NEW
edition, while much CLEARER, are so close to the TRADITIONAL
that there is remarkable EASE in listening to the reading of
EITHER edition while FOLLOWING with the other.
In the discipline of translating Biblical and other ancient
languages, a standard method of transliteration, that is, the
English spelling of untranslated words, such as names of persons
and places, has never been commonly adopted. In keeping with the
design of the present work, the King James spelling of
untranslated words is RETAINED, although made uniform throughout.
For example, instead of the spellings ISAIAH and ELIJAH in the
OT, and ESAIAS and ELIAS in the NT, ISAIAH and ELIJAH now appear
in BOTH Testaments.
King James doctrinal and theological terms, for example,
PROPITIATION, JUSTIFICATION, and SANCTIFICATION, are generally
familiar to English-speaking peoples. Such terms have been
RETAINED except where the original language indicates need for a
more PRECISE translation.
Readers of the Authorized Version will immediately be struck
by the absence of several pronouns: THEE, THOU, and YE are
replaced by the simple YOU, while YOUR and YOURS are substituted
for THY and THINE as applicable. THEE, THOU, THY and THINE were
once forms of address to express a special relationship to human
as well as to divine persons. These pronouns are no longer part
of our language. However, reverence for God in the present work
is preserved by capitalizing pronouns, including, You, Your, and
Yours, which refer to Him. Additionally, capitalization of these
pronouns benefits the reader by clearly distinguishing DIVINE and
HUMAN persons referred to in the passage......
In addition to the pronoun usages of the seventeenth
century, the -ETH and -EST verb endings, so familiar in the
earlier King James editions, are now obsolete......Because
these forms are obsolete, contemporary English usage has been
substituted for the previous verb endings.
In older editions of the King James Version, the frequency
of the connective AND far exceeded the limits of present English
usage. Also, Biblical linguists agree, that the Hebrew and Greek
original words for this conjunction may commonly be translated
otherwise, depending on the immediate context. Therefore, instead
of AND, alternatives such as ALSO, BUT, HOWEVER, NOW, SO, THEN,
and THUS are accordingly rendered in the present edition, when
the original language permits.
The REAL CHARACTER of the Authorized Version does NOT reside
in its ARCHAIC pronouns or verbs or other grammatical forms of
the seventeenth century, but RATHER in the CARE taken by its
scholars to IMPART the LETTER and SPIRIT of the original text in
a MAJESTIC and REVERENT style.
THE FORMAT
The format of the NKJV is designed to ENHANCE the VIVIDNESS
and DEVOTIONAL quality of the holy Scriptures.
SUBJECT headings assist the reader to identify topics and
transitions in the Biblical content.
WORDS or phrases in ITALICS indicate expressions in the
original language which require clarification by additional
English words....
VERSE numbers within a paragraph are easily distinguishable.
OBLIQUE TYPE in the NT indicates a quotation from the OT.
PROSE is divided into paragraphs to indicate the structure
of thought.
POETRY is structured as contemporary verse to reflect the
poetic form and beautY of the passage in the original
language.
The covenant name GOD was usually translated from the Hebrew
as "LORD" or "GOD" (using capital letters as shown) in the
King James OT. This tradition is MAINTAINED......
THE OLD TESTAMENT TEXT
The Hebrew Bible has come down to us through the scrupulous
care of ancient scribes who copied the original text in
successive generations. By the sixth century A.D. the scribes
were succeeded by a group known as the Masoretes, who continued
to preserve the sacred Scriptures for another five hundred years
in a form known as the MASORETIC Text. Babylon, Palestine, and
Tiberias were the main centers of Masoretic activity; but by the
TENTH century A.D. the Masoretes of Tiberias, led by the family
of ben Asher, gained the ascendancy. Through subsequent editions,
the ben Asher text became in the twelfth century the ONLY
recognized form of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Daniel Bobmberg printed the FIRST RABBINIC Bible in 1516-17;
that work was followed in 1524-25 by a SECOND edition by Jacob
ben Chayyim and also published by Bomberg. The text of ben
Chayyim was adopted in most subsequent Hebrew Bibles, including
those used by the King James translators. The ben Chayyim text
was also used for the first TWO editions of Rudolph Kittel's
BIBLICA HEBRAICA of 1906 and 1912, In 1937 Paul Kahle published a
THIRD edition of BIBLIA HEBRAICA. This edition was based on the
OLDEST dated MS of the ben Asher text, the LENINGRAD MS B19a
(A.D. 1008), which Kahle regarded as SUPERIOR to that used by ben
Chayyim.
For the New King James Version the text used was the
1967/1977 STUTTGART edition of the BIBLIA HEBRAICA, with FREQUENT
comparisons being made with the BOMBERG edition of 1524-25. The
Septuagint (Greek) Version of the OT and the Latin Vulgate also
were consulted. In addition to referring to a VARIETY of ancient
versions of the Hebrew Scriptures, the New King James Version
draws on the resources of relevant MSS from the Dead Sea caves.
In the FEW places where the Hebrew was so obscure that the 1611
King James was compelled to follow one of the versions, but where
information is NOW available to RESOLVE the problems, the New
King James Version follows the Hebrew text. SIGNIFICANT
variations are recorded in the center reference column.
THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT
There is more MSS support for the NT that for ANY other body
of ancient literature. OVER FIVE THOUSAND Greek, EIGHT THOUSAND
Latin, and MANY MORE MS in other languages ATTEST the INTEGRITY
of the NT.......
SOME VARIATIONS exist in the SPELLING of Greek words, in
word ORDER, and in similar details. These ORDINARILY do not show
up in TRANSLATION and do NOT effect the sense of the text in ANY
WAY.
Other MSS DIFFERENCES such as omission or inclusion of a
word or a clause, and two paragraphs in the Gospels, should NOT
overshadow the OVERWHELMING degree of AGREEMENT which exists
among the ancient records......
The New King James Version follows the historic precedent of
the Authorized Version in maintaining a LITERAL approach to
translation, except where the idiom of the original language
cannot be translated directly into our tongue.
The King James New Testament was based on the TRADITIONAL
TEXT of the GREEK-speaking churches, first published in 1516, and
later called the TEXTUS RECEPTUS or Received Text. Although based
on the RELATIVELY FEW available MSS, these were representative of
many more which existed at the time but only became KNOWN LATER.
In the Late nineteenth century, B. Westcott and F. Hort
taught that this text had been officially edited by the
fourth-century church, but a TOTAL LACK of HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
for this event has FORCED a revision of the THEORY. It is now
WIDELY HELD that the Byzantine Text that largely supports the
Textus Receptus has as much right as the Alexandrian or ANY OTHER
tradition to be weighed in DETERMINING the TEXT of the NT. Those
readings in the Textus Receptus that have WEAK support are
indicated in the center reference column as being OPPOSED by BOTH
the CRITICAL and MAJORITY Texts (see "Center-Column Notes").
Since the 1880s more CONTEMPORARY translations of the NT
have RELIED upon a relatively FEW MSS discovered chiefly in the
LATE nineteenth and EARLY twentieth centuries. Such translation
depend PRIMARILY on TWO MSS, the Codex Vanticanus and Codex
Sinaiticus, because of their greater age. The Greek text obtained
by using these sources, and the relative papyri (our most ancient
manuscripts) is know as the Alexandrian Text. However, SOME
scholars have GROUND for DOUBTING the faithfulness of the
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, since they OFTEN DISAGREE with one
another, and Sinaiticus exhibits EXCESSIVE OMISSION.
A THIRD viewpoint of NT scholarship holds that the BEST text
is based on the CONSENSUS of the MAJORITY of existing Greek MSS.
This text is called the MAJORITY TEXT. MOST of these MSS are in
SUBSTANTIAL AGREEMENT. Even though many are late, and none
earlier than the fifth century, usually their readings are
VERIFIED by papyri, ancient versions, quotations from the early
church fathers, or a COMBINATION of these. The MAJORITY TEXT is
similar to the Textus Receptus, but it CORRECTS those readings
which have LITTLE or NO support in the Greek MSS tradition.
Today, scholars agree that the science of NT textual
criticism is in a state of FLUX. Very few scholars favor the
Textus Receptus as such, and then often for its historical
prestige as the text of LUTHER, CALVIN, TYNDALE, and the King
James version. For about a CENTURY MOST have followed a CRITICAL
Text (so called because it is edited according to specific
principles of textual criticism) which depends HEAVILY upon the
Alexandrian type of text. More RECENTLY MANY have ABANDONED this
Critical Text (which is quite similar to the one edited by
Westcott and Hort) for one that is more ELECTIC.
Finally, a SMALL but GROWING number of scholars PREFER the
MAJORITY text, WHICH IS CLOSE TO THE TRADITIONAL TEXT EXCEPT IN
REVELATION.
In light of these facts, and also because the New King James
Version is the fifth revision of a historic document translated
from specific Greek texts, the editors decided to RETAIN the
TRADITIONAL text in the body of the NT and to indicate major
Critical and Majority Text variant readings in the center
reference column. Although these variations are duly indicated in
the center-column notes of the present edition, it is most
IMPORTANT to EMPHASIZE that fully EIGHTY-FIVE percent of the NT
text is the same in the Textus Receptus, the Alexandrian Text,
and the Majority Text.
(The last sentence may well be true, but the remaining 15% can
make a huge difference in the various MANY NT translations out
there in the market place. Some simply leave out verses,
sentences, or paragraphs, and say nothing to you, either in a
footnote or center-reference column. Some leave out certain
phrases or sentences, and only give a footnote on some of what
they have left out. Some will give you a footnote on everything
they have left out of the main text, as found in the Textus
Receptus or Majority Text. All of this can be VERY CONFUSING,
especially to NEW Christians, depending on what version or
versions of the NT they buy or have given to them - Keith Hunt).
CENTER-COLUMN NOTES
Significant explanatory notes, alternate translations and
cross-references, as well as NT citations of OT passages, are
supplied in the center reference column.
Important textual variants in the OT are identified in a
standard form.
The textual notes in the present edition of the NT make no
evaluation of readings, but do clearly indicate the manuscript
sources of readings. They objectively present the facts without
such tendentious remarks as "the best manuscripts omit" or "the
most reliable manuscripts read." Such notes are VALUE JUDGMENTS
that DIFFER according to varying VIEWPOINTS on the text. By
giving a clearly defined set of variants the New King James
Version benefits readers of ALL textual persuasions.
Where SIGNIFICANT variations occur in the NT Greek MSS,
textual notes are classified as follows:
1. NU - Text
These variations from the traditional text generally
represent the Alexandrian or Egyptian type of text.....
2. M - Text
This symbol indicates points of variation in the Majority
Text from the traditional text.....It should be noted that M
stands for whatever reading is printed in the published
Greek NT According to the Majority Text, whether supported by
overwhelming, strong, or only a divided majority textual
tradition.
The textual notes reflect the scholarship of the past 150
years and will assist the reader to observe the variations
between the different manuscript traditions of the NT.
Such information is generally NOT available in English
translations of the New Testament.
END QUOTE
Certainly the New King James Personal Study Edition (with Study
Notes, Maps, Charts, Book Introductions, Center-Column
References, Study Articles, Concordance, Words of Christ in Red),
Thomas Nelson Publishers, is a Bible I highly recommend for
the Christian's library - Keith Hunt.
.............................
Compiled 2003
Preface to Green's Interlinear #1Has God's Word been Preserved?HERE IS WHAT I CONSIDER TO BE THE MOST
IMPORTANT PASSAGES (Keith Hunt)
QUOTE
"Every Scripture (is) God-breathed, and (is) profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness; so that them of God mat be fitted out, having
been fully furnished for every good work" - 2 Timothy 3: 16
You now have in your hand the fourth and final volume of THE
INTERLINEAR HEBREW - GREEK - ENGLISH - BIBLE, which is presented
to you and to all the Christian community with much exultation,
tempered by fear and trembling and awe towards our almighty God
and Savior, Jesus Christ.
It is hoped that you will discern that we have fully
believed all the words of this holy Book, handling it with
reverence, knowing that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" - Matthew 4:
4. For we recognize that these words did not come "by the will of
man, but men spoke from God, being borne along by (the) Holy
Spirit" - 2 Peter 1: 21. It has also been written that each of
the sons of men shall be judged by the words of this Book, "And
if anyone hears My words, and does not believe, I do not judge
him.....the word which I spoke is that which will judge him
in the last day" - John 12: 47, 48.
Considering that the words of this Book are the ones that
will judge every person who has lived in all ages, how important
it must be that the very words of God, and no other, shall be
contained in a portable book, to be distributed far and wide, in
a form and in a commonly understood language which can be easily
and immediately taken into the heart and into the consciousness
of all who have the privilege to read them.
With these considerations in mind, and in holy fear
inculcated by our God, we have sought to provide in The
Interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English Bible all the original God-
breathed Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words.
And after much prayer laborious study, it was concluded that
this could best be done by providing you with the two attested
texts that alone have been uniquely preserved whole, and accepted
in all generations, in all lands, by the vast majority of God's
people as their 'received text.'
Other texts have been put forth from time to time, but none
have been powerful enough to displace these two texts: The
Masoretic Text of the Old Testament, and the Received Text of the
New Testament.
WHY ANOTHER INTERLINEAR NEW TESTAMENT NOW
The market-place is being glutted with new books which are
being represented as "versions" of the Bible. Each one claims to
be the very word of God, there are literally thousands of
differences between them - and such differences as to cause one
to discern that there is much disagreement as to which Greek
words are to be translated, or paraphrased.
In one way these new versions agree: they all leave out
dozens of references to the deity of Jesus Christ, and they add
words which tend to question His virgin birth, His
substitutionary, fully satisfying atonement. This is due to their
decision to depend on an Alexandrian textbase, instead of that
body of God's words which have been universally received and
believed in for nineteen centuries, known to us as the Received
Text.
These new versions are not only marked by additions, but
also by subtractions, since some four whole pages of words,
phrases, sentences, and verses have been omitted by these new
versions. And these are words attested to as God's words by
overwhelming evidence contained in all the Greek manuscripts, in
the ancient versions, in the writings of the early fathers, and
these from every inhabited land on earth where Christianity has
been.
It is for these reasons we conclude another interlinear New
Testament is needed, so that those who love every word of God,
and who live by every word of God, may be able to compare any
version to the original Greek, and to know if any of the words of
God are being withheld from their hearts. Then they will know
that it is important to their spiritual life to be reading the
right version of the Bible, complete with all the words of
God.
Again, then, let this question be posed: Has Satan, like a
slight-of-hand shell-game artist, finally brought God's children
to the point where they are searching desperately for the true
Word of God? Are we to believe that it cannot now be in tact,
having been run through the shredder of unholy hands and heads?
Let it not be said! Let your answer be a resounding, crashing,
NO!
For remember that it has been written, "For I say to you,
Until the heavens and the earth pass away, in no way shall pass
away one iota or one point from the Law; until all things come to
pass" - Matthew 5: 18. Who then will you believe? If our Almighty
God assures us that not even an iota, or a point, of His Word
shall pass away, then an important word, or phrase, or a
sentence, or verse, surely cannot be lost! But still we see
version after version after version pouring off the presses,
without hundreds and hundreds of authentic, well-attested words
which have always been held to be the very words of
God.
Should you not ask, Who are these men who tell us these are
not God's words? And what evidence do they give to you to
persuade you to give up these historically accepted, venerable
words that have stood the test of time - and this despite the
onslaughts of emperors, heathen hordes, philosophers, popes, and
fleshly inducements?
How did these words come to be questioned in the first
place? What is behind these omissions?
A cardinal rule for the Bible reader should be: "Let God be
true, and every man a liar" - Romans 3: 4. Then Lord Jesus did
not trust Himself to men, and not one of us should do so.
Instead, let the read put his faith in God, for it is only by
faith that the word of God can be apprehended. Being thus armed
with faith towards God, depending on him to very the words which
are truly His words, and at the same time being armed with a
healthy suspicion of men, one can ask, Who are these men who are
assuring us that this or that word, or phrase, or verse does not
belong in our Bible?
If they are learned scholars, should we not allow their
scholarly minds guide us as to what words to believe? No! for it
is written, "And we have not received the spirit of the world,
but the Spirit from God, that we may know the things freely given
to us from God, which things we also speak, not in words taught
of human wisdom, but in (words) taught of (the) Holy Spirit" - 1
Corinthians 2: 12, 13. And, "But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit
which the Father will send in My name, that One will teach you
all things, and remind you (of) all things which I have said to
you" - John 14: 26. And, "But when that One, the Spirit
of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth" - John 16: 13.
Through faith, we believe. And through faith it is that we
are equipped to judge which words to believe.
What then is the evidence these Bible-alterers offer to
persuade you to give up the precious words they have removed from
their versions? Mainly, they cite two manuscripts, admittedly
old, but also admittedly carelessly executed. The Sinaiticus was
so poorly executed that seven different hands of 'textual
critics' can be discerned as they tried to impose their views on
the Bible. They twisted it like a nose of wax to meet their
purposes at the time. It is no wonder it was discarded, found in
a wastebasket fourteen centuries after it was executed. The
Vaticanus manuscript lay on a shelf in the Vatican library at
Rome until 1431, and was considered so corrupt that none would
use it (Erasmus, the noted Roman Catholic scholar, refused to
consider it as a source when he formed the Received Text).
The Vaticanus has errors so absurd that the books purporting
to teach 'technical science' carefully avoid mentioning these
gross errors in their favorite manuscript. They take this one and
add to it a handful of other manuscripts from the Alexandrian
textbase, all of them very loose in their handling of the
Scriptures. From these they give you their theories, their
hypotheses, their glosses. And year by year one or another
explodes the theories of the past year.
But let them be known by their fruits. What are these words
which they have so freely removed from their version of the
Scriptures? (a) They have made Joseph to be the begetter of
Jesus....; (b) they have made Jesus to be a begotten
creature.....He is an eternal Being, having always existed ; (c)
they have deleted 'Son of God' from Mark 1:1; (d) they have
removed from their so-called versions Christ, or Jesus, or Christ
Jesus, or Christ of God, twenty-five or more times; (e) and in 1
Cor. 5: 7, they have Christ suffering, but not 'for us'; (f) in 1
Pet.4: 1, they have Christ sacrificed, but not 'for us'; (g) in
Luke 24: 3, 6, 12, 37, 40, 51, 52, they have systematically
removed Luke's witness to the ascension of Christ - and of course
they have done away entirely with Mark's witness to the
ascension, simply because these last twelve verses do not appear
in those two corrupt manuscripts, the Vaticanus and the
Sinaiticus (yet the scribe of the Vaticanus has left an empty
space exactly large enough to contain those twelve verses - he
must have seen them in older manuscripts, else how would he know
how much space to leave? And the last 12 verses of Mark in the
Sinaiticus manuscript are written in much larger letters, very
loosely, to fill up the space which would contain these last
twelve verses if the same size letters had been used throughout.
.......why should we give them up without overwhelming
evidence......The fact is, history is repeating itself again. In
the beginning it was the old Serpent, Satan, who was the first
textual critic, as well as the first murderer. He succeeded in
insinuating into the itching ears of Eve, "You shall not surely
die....you shall be as God" - Genesis 3: 1-5. From that point on,
men became sinners, and as sinners without saving grace they have
preferred to believe a lie, if that lie suited their fancy better
that what God has written for us.
Like Origen, an early textual critic, too many men believe
what he said, that "The Scriptures are of little use to those who
understand them as they are written," (quoted by McClintock and
Strong Cyclopedia, article on Origen). And given the opportunity,
many like Origen will actually alter the manuscripts to make them
say what they understand them to mean. In fact the apostles,
Paul, Peter and John all warned that corruptions of the word of
God were already plying their trade within the first century
churches. For example, God warned His children through Paul, "I
am amazed that you are quickly being transported away from him
who has called you by (the) grace of Christ, to a different
gospel, which is not another, except there are some troubling you
and desire to pervert the gospel of Christ" - Galatians 1: 6-7.
And....the apostle John wrote, "For many false prophets have gone
out into the world" - 1 John 4: 1. And through the apostle Peter
we learn perverters of the Scriptures were already rampant among
those calling themselves Christians, "even as our beloved brother
Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given him....among
which things are some thing hard to understand, which the
ignorant and the unsettled ones pervert, as also the other
Scriptures, to their own destruction" - 2 Peter 3: 15, 16.
By these and other Scriptures, we see.....the
Bible-tinkerers began to distort and to adulterate the word of
God. By the time the apostle John died, gnosticism had gotten
a toe-hold in many Christian churches. And quickly thereafter
they expanded their poisonous influence at a rapid pace.
Justin Martyr, Valentinus, Clement of Alexandria, Marcion,
Tatian, and a horde of others practiced their 'textual science'
by operating on manuscripts, or by writing their own 'version.'
To this we have many testimonies, such as this one, "The worst
corruptions to which the New Testament had ever been subjected
originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that
Ireneus (A.D.150), and the African fathers, and the whole
Western.....used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by
Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens, thirteen centuries later, when
moulding the Textus Receptus" - Scrivener, Introduction to the
New testament, third edition, p. 511. And Eusebius, quotes a
second century father as writing, "Wherefore they have no fear to
lay hands on the divine Scriptures under pretence of correcting
them....As for their denying their guilt, the thing is
impossible, since the copies were written in their own hand; and
they did not receive the Scriptures in this condition from their
teachers, nor can they show the originals from which they made
their copies" - Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, LCS, Vol. 1,
pp. 522-
524.
Even Origen condemned Marcion and Lucian for altering the
Scriptures, though he himself can be shown to have quoted the
same verse of Scripture in two contradictory wordings in many
places. Like many 'textual critics' of our day, Origen moulded
the Scriptures according to his philosophy, or his fancy based on
the allegory of the day, having no twinge of conscience for doing
so. It is this Origen, considered by his pupils Jerome and
Eusebius to be the master technical critic, that we owe so many
of the invidious deletions from our modern versions. Do we see
the Godhood of Jesus being surreptitiously removed from these
modern versions? Origen believed Jesus Christ was a created
being, and by his reputation, and his influence on his pupils,
the Latin Vulgate, the ornate manuscripts made for the libraries
and rulers of his day, our latter-day attackers of the Majority
Text attempt to keep out many references in the Scriptures
which plainly reveal Jesus Christ to be God the Son, our original
Creator ("because in Him were created all things, the things in
the heavens, the things on the earth, the visible and invisible,
whether thrones, or lordships, or rulers, or authorities, all
things through Him and for Him have been created...." Colossians
1: 16).
We who love every word that proceeded from the mouth of God
are asked by nearly all of the modern 'versions' to do without a
host of testimonies to the Godhead of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ......
THE PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATION OF THE SCRIPTURES
We believe wholeheartedly that God has preserved His word,
that He guided His true followers to carefully copy, and to use
the whole Bible, as is represented in the majority of the extant
manuscripts. We believe that this was done in the same way God
guarded the Canon of the New testament, using the Greek Orthodox
Church and the Greek manuscripts used by the churches in all the
habitable world to safeguard the deposit which He had given to
us.......All modern day critics will admit that the text as
essentially displayed in the vast majority of the extant
manuscripts has been virtually identical in copy after copy from
the period from the fourth century until the invention of
the printing press.
In fact the Received Text was so widely and so completely
accepted in all countries, and in all the denominations except
the Roman Catholic, that Wescott and Hort felt compelled to
invent a mythical council of church fathers, who supposedly met
and fixed the text as we now know it. Such a council is unknown
to history, and being totally demonstrable by evidence, it must
be considered a myth proposed in order to deceive.
Truly God in His mercy did not leave His people to grope
after the true New Testament text.......First, many trustworthy
copies were produced by faithful scribes. Secondly, these were
read, used, and recopied by true believers when those original
copies were worn out. Thirdly, untrustworthy copies (such as the
Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus) were laid aside, not copied,
consigned to oblivion. Today there are more than 5,00 manuscripts
and lectionaries in Greek as witness to the New Testament text.
And 95% of them witness to the Received Text readings.
Partly due to the fact that ancient manuscripts containing
the Received Text were worn out by use, while the Alexandrian
textbase manuscripts were preserved by the dry conditions in
Egypt, some have sought to discredit the Received Text because
they say it is not ancient. But now that manuscript portions from
the second century are being unearthed, it is found that many of
the readings of the Received Text which had been tagged
scornfully as 'late readings' by nearly unanimous consent of the
'textual scientists' are appearing in these ancient manuscripts.
Reading which were before called 'late' and 'spurious' have been
found in these early-date manuscripts. For example, the Chester-
Beatty Papyri contained 65 readings which had before been
rejected from the versions of the critics. And Papyrus Bodmer II,
of the second century, actually was found to contain 13% of all
the so-called late readings of the critic-despised Majority Text.
Yet, strangely, in textual criticism classes, such
discoveries are swept under the rug, not reported to the class.
and so it goes, day by day we see the conjectures of these
reputed experts being swept away, along with their hypotheses.
Next we trust, will be the discrediting of their 'version.'
In the light of these facts, should we then allow these
'scientists' (falsely so-called - "O Timothy, guard the deposit,
having turned away from the profane, empty babblings and opposing
theories of the false-named knowledge, which some having asserted
have missed the mark concerning the faith" - 1 Timothy 6: 20,
21). A man of faith is not spiritually blind, and should not be
found following these men who pretend to be able to tell us which
are and which are not the words of God. All who follow them will
wind up in the spiritual ditch.......
Keep in mind that which is written, "You shall not add to
the word which I (am) commanding you, and not take away from it"
- Deuteronomy 4: 2; and "Do not add to His words, lest He reprove
you, and you be found a liar" - Proverbs 30: 6; and, "If anyone
take away from the words of (the) Book of this Prophecy, God will
take away his part from the Book of Life" - Revelation 22: 19.
Do not be misled by an appeal to your logic. Try the
spirits, whether they are of God.
END OF QUOTE OF PART ONE
Jay P. Green Sr. next comments on:
The Greek Text in this Volume (Greek/English Interlinear)
The English Translation
Interpretations
Distinctive Translations
Translation Problems and Challenges
The Majority Text Notes
Responsibility for the Translation
I shall give you the important sections of all the above in the
second part - Keith Hunt.
..............................
Compiled 2003
Preface to Green's Interlinear #2The Greek Text and other PointsQUOTE
THE GREEK TEXT IN THIS VOLUME
The Greek text herein is purportedly that which underlines
the King James Version, as reconstructed by F.H.A. Scrivener in
1894. It thus differs to a degree from all previously printed
editions of the Received Text (there are over 250 differences -
most of them quite minor - between this text and the Stephens
1550 "standard" Textus Receptus). The present text was typeset in
England for the Trinitarian Bible Society, and corresponds to The
New Testament in the Original Greek according to the text
followed in the Authorized Version, edited by F.H.A. Scrivener,
and originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1894
and 1902. The present Trinitarian Bible Society edition was fist
printed in 1976.
Careful study, however, will show that this present text
does not agree 100% with the text used by the KJV translators,
though it virtually always does so. In places it has a different
reading than that found in the KJV (e.g. Matthew 12: 24, 27, Gr.
Beelzeboul; KJV, 'Beelzebub' - John 8: 12. Gk. 'sin'; KJV, 'sins'
- John 10: 16, Gk. 'one flock'; KJV, 'one fold' - 1 Corinthians
14 : 10, KJV 'of these' omitted in Gk. - 1 Corinthians 16: 1, KJV
'churches;' Gk. 'church;' this with no MSS support at all!).
In other places, the present text gives Greek words where
the KJV translators indicated by italics that they had none (the
following KJV italicised words are actually given in the Greek of
this TBS edition; Mark 8: 14, 'the disciples;' Mark 9: 42,
'these;' John 8: 6, 'as though he heard them not;' Acts 1: 4,
'them;' 1 John 3: 16, 'of God.' Some of these readings do have
minority MSS support - see Majority Text Notes in this volume
- but it seems clear that these readings were not in the text
chosen by the KJV translators.
Nevertheless, to all intents and purpose the TBS edition
faithfully reproduces the KJV Greek text, as nearly as could be
done at this date.
Although it is admitted that Erasmus has added to his
Received Text two or three readings from the Latin Vulgate,
without Greek manuscript authority (e.g. Acts 9: 5, 6), and one
from the Complutension Bible which as no Greek manuscript
authority (1 John 5: 7), we have not deleted these from the Greek
text as supplied by the Trinitarian Bible Society - though we do
not accept them as true Scripture.
THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
There are two translations in this volume, one appearing as
the literal translation of the Greek words, with English
equivalents directly under each of the Greek words, and the
other, The King James 2 Version, on the side of the page, which
serves to provide a straight-forward translation for the purpose
of making it easy for the reader to see the proper word order in
English, and to thus easily essiminate the message given in God's
word on that page. Both translations are accomplished in a
word-for word translation.
The 'conceptual idea' form of "translating" the word of God
has been rejected, studiously avoided because no person has the
right, nor the inspiration, to rewrite God's word to conform it
to his own cincepts.
Those passing off their conceptual ideas are, in our
opinion, despising the words originally given, and carefully
preserved.......
It is hoped that these literal word-for-word translations
will demonstrate that a true word-for-word translation can also
be a readable and easily understood representation
of the Scriptures.
INTERPRETATIONS
In the matter of interpretation, or as some would call it,
bias, there is no hesitation on our part to admit to the fact
that there are many interpretive decisions that must be made in
any translation of the Bible. It has been our determination to
let the text say what is says. And so no particular set of
beliefs have been inserted into the text by these translations.
Nevertheless, by the very fact that a true translation must take
into consideration the entire context of a word, or phrase, or
sentence, or verse, interpretation must be present in making that
translation - especially in those places where a Greek
word, apart from the context, may be correctly translated by
several different English words. For instance, it does make a
difference whether a person is "saved," or "cured."
And conceivably there could be a difference of opinion in the
choice of an English word to express a Greek word in such a
cases.
If a list of interpretive renditions were to be compiled,
these at least should be noted as present in this volume: (a)
Punctuation has been added, and the original manuscripts have
none; (b) Capital and small letters have been added....especially
we have attempted to aid the reader by capitalizing pronouns
connected to a Person of the Godhead. Without a doubt there is
room for differences of opinion here. In those placed quoted from
the OT, the NT writers nearly always fix the deity of the Person
quoted, therefore these are not so interpretive. But in another
class of places, where we have endeavored to capitalize, or not
to capitalize pronouns - according to whether the persons
addressing Jesus acknowledge Him a God - there is room for much
differences of opinion; (c) Words have sometimes been added to
aid the English reader to follow the sense, in which case those
supplied words are in parentheses under the Greek, or in italics
in the marginal English translation.
PRESUPPOSITIONS
Being a willing slave of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
and joyfully submitting to His higher calling thoughts, we gladly
admit to a number of presuppositions: (a) We have acted on the
premise that "the Scriptures cannot be broken," meaning that not
an iota or a point of them has been lost; having the firm
conviction that each word was God-breathed, and that having such
an origin, God Himself has preserved His words for us even unto
this day. Therefore we did not dare to change a word, or supply a
word without designating it as uninspired by parentheses or by
italics. If God appear to use an ambiguous word we tried to
translate it that way; (b) We have presupposed that Jesus
Christ is not only our personal savior and Lord, but that the
Scriptures clearly reveal Him as equal with God the Father...that
He came to earth to give Himself a fully-paid ransom for many;
that He both lived and died as a substitute for the sins of all
those who shall come to a saving knowledge and belief in Him;
that He has risen to sit at the right hand of God the Father,
ruling the world from there, interceding for and providentially
guarding His own, until that day when He will destroy the earth
by fire, and shall come to receive all of them to a place at His
right hand; and finally that He will sit as supreme Judge of all
men of all ages, and that He will use the words of the Bible to
judge the deeds of each and every person who will have inhabited
the earth, casting all unbelievers into the Lake of Fire, with
the Devil, and sitting all true believers at His feet to learn
from Him "the depths of the riches and of (the) wisdom and
knowledge of God" during all eternity.
DISTINCTIVE TRANSLATIONS
For easy apprehension, and continuity with the OT, we have
translated the Greek representing the OT characters and places by
the same English names that were used there.
Due to the principle of translating each Greek word
literally, a number of translatings have emerged that are quite
different from other versions.
The Greek word designating the mother of Jesus has always
been translated "Mary," but the Greek word actually stands for
"Mariam" (or "Miriam"); therefore we have so given it. It is not
that we think we can at this late date change her name in the
mind of others from Mary to Mariam, but that we simply translated
literally. It does answer to the objection by some that there
would not be two Marys in one family.
In translating the Greek words for "I am" in certain places,
we have capitalized these words: viz. I AM (see John 8: 59 and
other places). It is our firm conviction that in those cases
Jesus is identifying Himself as Jehovah (Jehovah properly
translated meaning, I AM THAT I AM). Jesus is of course the
English name assigned to a word which means Jehovah is salvation.
Under the Greek we have translated literally, "to the ages,"
though we surely believe that the words are clear idiomatic
expressions for "forever." In the marginal translation we have
reversed this. Likewise we have translated "clean" heart, when we
firmly believe that "pure" could be idiomatically used.
We have tried to translate various places in a way that
would not be misleading as to sex. Many times other translators
have put "any man" where "anyone" was literally correct. Male
pronouns and male references abound in the Scriptures. There is
no good reason for supplying additional male references.
This is now the only interlinear NT in current, proper
English - all others continuing to use Elizabethan age English.
The Bible was written in simple, common Hebrew and Greek words,
with no special language used when addressing God. Why now encase
the Bible in a stilted language of another age, whether it be
Latin or Elizabethan English. As Tyndale said, every plowboy
should be able to understand the Scriptures in their own
language. Otherwise, why not leave it in the original languages?
Our constant aim in translation has been to present the
meaning of the Greek words in English as precisely and accurately
as the English language will allow. This has include an attempt
to display the meaning of compound Greek words so that the parts
of them are expressed in the translation. For example, in John 8:
7, Jesus did not merely rise, and stand up - He had bent down,
and now He was bending back up - by which words we can visualize
exactly what He was doing. The principle may have been
imperfectly applied, but in succeeding editions an attempt will
be made to achieve more of thus type of accuracy.
There has been a conscious recognition of the value of
consistency in translation. And though we believe we have
achieved more consistency than in other versions, there is
recognition that there is yet more to be done in this area.
TRANSLATION PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES
Just as there are difficult places to understand, so there
are difficult places to translate. And sometimes the difficulty
is not so much in assigning meaning to the Greek words as it is
in punctuating them so as to catch the apostle's meaning. One
example of this is 1 Corinthians 12: 2.
Among the many decisions made, some may want to challenge
the translation made. For instance, in many places a Greek word
has been left untranslated, usually a particle or an article,
where it would be redundant or otherwise unsuitable to English
transmission.
Where the Greek order of words is difficult, superior
numbers have not been used, because it is believed that the
reader may more easily see the English order by referring
to the marginal translation. In most cases the literal
translation of each word is given, rather than an idiomatic
phrase, where it was considered more explanatory of the
meaning than the idiom would supply. In some places where the
present tense in the Greek takes an English past tense for proper
English, the past tense has been used in the translation. But in
a great many cases this has not been done, depending on the
reader to realize the differences in the two languages.......
Due to space problems, a true translation of the participle
has not always been given under the Greek. For example, where the
English words "having been" would be proper; "being" has often
been given. In other places where the Greek word is short, but
the English equivalent is long, a substitution many have been
given (e.g. "by" instead of "through"). In the case of
double-negative construction in the Greek, it is often left as
literal translated, rather than to change one negative to a
positive in order to make good English out of it.
In some cases the added strength of the double-negative, as
intended in the Greek, has been transmitted by the use of the
punctuation.
Many other problems are encountered in rendering Greek into
English. The read is referred to other introductions to the Greek
New Testament, especially to those in other interlineary New
testaments.
THE MAJORITY TEXT NOTES
A healthy debate is beginning to rage between adherents to
the Alexandrian textbase (which underlines most of the modern '
version,' and those who believe that the Byzantine/Majority
textbase is the only true text of the NT.
William G. Pierpont of Wichita, Kansas has prepared "The
Majority Text Notes" that appear in the appendix. By the use of
these notes, one can make a direct comparison between the
Received Text in this volume, and the manuscript evidence. These
notes represent years of research, and it is a privilege to share
them with the reader in this volume.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TRANSLATION
The English translation in this volume, both the literal
translation under the Greek words, and the translation named "The
King James 2 Version" in the margin, are the work of Jay P.
Green, Sr., improved and corrected by the suggestions of others
who have reviewed the manuscript pages, and (subsequently the ten
printings of this volume since - Editor). The responsibility for
the assignment of English equivalents belong to Jay P. Green,
Sr., since he was the sole judge of what would, or would not, be
allowed in either of the English translations.
In each printed volume an invitation will be given to all
lovers of God's word to submit suggestions for improvement of
these translations.
May God be pleased to use us collectively to achieve the
most accurate translation possible in the English language!
JAY P. Green, Sr.
General Editor
END QUOTE
...............................
Compiled 2003
Apocrypha Books?Are they Inspired? THE APOCRYPHA BOOKS
SHOULD THEY BE CONSIDERED INSPIRED SCRIPTURE?
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BIBLE CONTAINS SOME OF THEM!
The word apocrypha can mean, simply, a work of fiction or a
far-fetched tale. When applied to books that are often mentioned
alongside those in the Bible, however, apocrypha has a different
connotation - that of "hidden" or "spurious."
The history of the term indicates that it sometimes referred
to a body of religious, mystical, or philosophical teachings or
practices with a private or secret meaning or purpose. It was
considered difficult to understand except by those receiving the
necessary knowledge or training.
OLD TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA
In biblical literature, Apocrypha most often refers to
writings judged by Protestants to be outside the accepted canon
of Scripture. These 14 books (1 and 2 Esdras; Tobit, Judith,
the rest of Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon; Ecclesiasticus;
Baruch, with the Epistle of Jeremiah; the Song of the Three Holy
Children; the History of Susannah; Bel and the Dragon; the Prayer
of Manasses; 1 and 2 Maccabees) cover a wide variety of Jewish
topics from the period between the Bible's Old and New
Testaments. Written between 300 B.C. and A.D.100, they were at
first prized, later tolerated, and finally excluded from the
accepted canon of Scripture. The Douay, or Roman Catholic,
Version of the Bible does induce them.
The OT apocryphal texts, originating mostly before the rise
of Christianity, were regarded as canonical in the early church
but contain no Christian passages. As the Gnostic and Hellenistic
movements left the early church to pursue their own theology,
those who adhered strictly to the truth of Christ and the
apostles rejected the apocryphal writings and preserved the
integrity of the sacred Scriptures for all who would follow in
the truth of God's Word.
The Apocrypha, per se, is outside the Canon and considered
neither divinely inspired nor as reliable as the canonical
writings. It is, however, regarded worthy of study by the
faithful and may fill in some historical gaps between Malachi and
Matthew. Martin Luther wrote that, the apocryphal writings, while
not sacred Scripture, are useful and good for reading.
When Greek was the common language in the Mediterranean
region, the Hebrew Bible was beyond understanding for most of the
population. For this reason, Jewish scholars produced a Greek
translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament. It came to
be called the Septuagint.
That version incorporated a number of works, including the
Apocrypha, that later the non-Hellenistic Jewish scholarship at
the Council of Jamnia (A.D.90) identified as being outside the
Hebrew canon.
In modern usage, Apocrypha is the term for Jewish books that
are canonical for Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches
but are not part of the authentic Hebrew Bible. When the
Protestant churches returned to the Jewish canon (Hebrew Old
Testament) during the Reformation (16th century), the Roman
Catholic works became for the Protestants apocryphal, or non-
canonical. On April 8, 1546, at the Council of Trent, the Roman
Catholic Church declared most of the Apocrypha to be canonical
and included it in its version of the Bible based on the Latin
Vulgate text.
NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA
Just as a number of older Hebrew and Jewish writings were
not included in the Old Testament canon, so it is with many books
and letters of interest to Christians shortly after the time of
Christ. Indeed, the church was invaded with numerous gospels,
histories, epistles, and apocalypses beyond the 27 that were
inspired and endorsed by the Spirit and gladly adopted by most
believers in the first four centuries of the common era.
Canonicity refers to the eligibility of a writing to be
included in the Bible. The primary criteria for determining the
New Testament canonicity for a writing in the first centuries of
Christianity included 1) apostolicity, the quality of being
produced by, or in the tradition of, one of the first apostles;
genuine and authoritative; 2) true doctrine in harmony with other
accepted books and letters; and 3) widespread geographical usage
and acceptance. These criteria must all be satisfied together,
then, for a book to be judged canonical and included in the
Christian Scriptures.
Two factors were probably responsible for most of the
writings not in the New Testament canon. First, there was
understandable curiosity - the desire for Christians to have more
data about the life of Jesus and the work of the apostles.
Second, there was the desire of those with heretical
tendencies to foist their errors on believers with the supposed
endorsement of Christ or His apostles. For this reason, movements
such as Gnosticism and Montanism gave birth to a great body of
spurious works allegedly written by a biblical figure. In the
early days of the Christian faith, no orthodoxy had been
established, and various parties, or factions, were vying for
authoritative recognition in the young church. All sought through
their writings, as through their preaching and missions, to win
believers. Most of these works arose from sects that had been or
would be declared heretical.
Most, but not all, of the New Testament apocryphal writings
are either fraudulent or of obviously inferior or frivolous
quality when compared to the 27 books regarded as New Testament
canon.
Pastor Jerry Morgan, Tulsa, OK
...............
WHY NOT REGARD THE APOCRYPHA AS PART OF INSPIRED CANON?
1. While most of the 39 Old Testament books are quoted from
repeatedly by Jesus and the apostles, the Apocrypha is not
directly quoted in the New Testament.
2. The New Testament links itself directly with the end of
the Old Testament prophets and does not lead us to look for other
inspired writings to intervene between the two.
3. There is absence of inherent power and beauty in the
Apocrypha compared to canonical writings. Apocryphal writers do
not claim that the word of the Lord came to them, as do Moses and
the prophets.
4. Unscriptural fables and doctrinal errors are found in the
Apocrypha (prayers for the dead etc.).
THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
The word "canon" means simply a "straight rod" or "ruler" by
which anything is measured. In the context of Scripture, the word
refers to the collection of writings that forms the original and
authoritative rule of faith and practice for the Christian
church.
The Canon, then, is the set of books that becomes the rule
of the church and the rule of truth for those who believe....is a
study all its own. Here we can only summarize by saying that it
happened under the direction of God to reveal and preserve His
Word.....
...............
The above article was published by the Bible Advocate magazine
(December 2004). A publication of the Church of God (7th Day),
Denver, CO. USA, website www.cog7.org
..............
POST SCRIPT
The idea and teaching by the Roman Catholic Church that it was
THEY who canonized the New Testament, and only after many
centuries of debate on the matter, is TOTALLY A FALSE DOCTRINE!!
Dr.Ernest Martin (now dead) wrote and published a book in 1984
called "THE ORIGINAL BIBLE RESTORED" which clearly shows from the
New Testament itself that the canonizing of the books of the New
Testament was already finalized and completed by the time John
the apostle was writing and adding the book of Revelation to the
other already accepted canonized books that are the true
Scriptures of the New Testament.
Dr.Martin also shows in great detail how the canon of the Old
Testament came to be what is today the Old Testament of the
Jewish and Protestant world.
I highly recommend this book by Dr.Ernest Martin if it is still
being published. It was originally published by "FBR
PUBLICATIONS" - Foundation for Biblical Research.
Keith Hunt (January 2005)
Corruptions of Modern BiblesThere are Dozens - but here's a start COMPARISONS TO SHOW HOW THE JESUIT BIBLE
REAPPEARS IN THE AMERICAN
REVISED VERSION
We continue with chapters taken from "OUR AUTHORISED BIBLE
VINDICATED" by Benjamin Wilkinson, PhD
"I have been surprised, in comparing the Revised Testament with
other versions, to find how many of the changes, which are
important and valuable, have been anticipated by the Rhemish
translation, which now forms a part of what is known as the Douay
Bible. . . And yet a careful comparison of these new translations
with the Rhemish Testament, shows them, in many instances, to be
simply a return to this old version, and leads us to think that
possibly there were as finished scholars three hundred years ago
as now, and nearly as good apparatus for the proper rendering of
the original text" (Dr. B. Warfield's Collection of Opinions,
Vol.2, pp, 52,53).
The modern Bible we have selected to compare with the Jesuit
Bible of 1582, is the REVISED VERSION. t led the way and laid the
basis for all Modern speech Bibles to secure a large place. On
the following passages from the Scriptures, we have examined The
Twentieth Century, Fenton, Goodspeed, Moffat, Moulton, Noyes,
Rotherham, Weymouth, and Douay. With two exceptions, these all in
the main agree with the change of thought in the REVISED; and the
other two agree to a considerable extent. They all, with other
modern Bibles not mentioned, represent a family largely built on
the Revised Greek New Testament, or one greatly similar, or were
products of a common influence. Therefore, marshalling together a
number of recent New Testaments by different editors to support a
changed passage in the REVISED, proves nothing: perhaps they all
have followed the same Greek New Testament reading.
1. MATTHEW 6:13
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE of 1611. "And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, for ever, Amen."
(2) JESUIT VERSION of 1582. "And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil, Amen."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED VERSION of 1901. "And bring us not into
temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
The Reformers protested against this mutilation of
the Lord's prayer. The Jesuits and Revisers accepted the
mutilation.
2. Matthew 5:44
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you, sad persecute you."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "But I say to you, love your enemies, do good
to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and abuse
you."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "But I say unto you. Love your enemies, and
pray for them that persecute you."
The phrase "bless them that curse you" is omitted from both
the Revised and the Jesuit. On this Canon Cook says, "Yet this
enormous omission rests on the sole authority of $ and B." (Cook,
Revised version, p.51) [That is, on the Vatican Manuscript and
the one found in 1859 in a Catholic monastery.] Thus we see that
the Revised Version is not a revision in any sense whatever, but
a new Bible based on different manuscripts from the King James,
on Catholic manuscripts in fact.
3. Luke 2:33
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And Joseph and His mother marvelled at
those things which were spoken of Him."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And His father and mother were marvelling
upon those things which were spoken concerning Him."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED: "And His father and His mother were
marvelling at the things which were spoken concerning Him."
Note that the Jesuit and American Revised Versions give
Jesus a human father, or at least failed to make the distinction.
Helvidius, the devout scholar of northern Italy (400 A.D.), who
had the pure manuscripts, accused Jerome of using corrupt
manuscripts on this text (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
[Christian Lit. Ed.], Vol.6, p.338). These corrupt manuscripts
are represented in the Jesuit Version of 1582 and are followed by
the Revised Version of 1901.
4. Luke 4:8
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get
behind me, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And Jesus answering, said to him, It is
written, Thou shall adore the Lord thy God and Him only shalt
thou serve."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And Jesus answered and said unto him, It
is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only
shall thou serve."
The expression, "get thee behind me, Satan," was early
omitted because Jesus used the same expression later to Peter (in
Matt. 16:23) to rebuke the apostle. The Papal corrupters of the
manuscripts did not wish Peter and Satan to stand on the same
basis. Note again the fatal parallel between the Jesuit and
Revised Versions. We were revised backwards.
5. Luke 11:2-4
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And He said unto them, When ye pray, say,
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by
day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive
every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into
temptation; but deliver us from evil."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And He said to them, When you pray, say,
Father, sanctified be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Our daily bread
give us this day. And forgive us our sins, for because ourselves
also do forgive every one that is in debt to us, And lead us not
into temptation."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And He said unto them, When ye pray, say,
Father, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us day by
day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we ourselves
also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And bring us not
into temptation."
This mutilation of the secondary account of the Lord's
prayer needs no comment, except to say again that the Jesuit
Version and the American Revised agree.
6. Acts 13:42
(1) KING JAMES "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue,
the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them
the next Sabbath."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And as they were going forth, they desired
them that the Sabbath following they would speak unto them these
words."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And as they went out, they besought that
these words might be spoken to them the next Sabbath."
From the King James, it is clear that the Sabbath was
the day on which the Jews worshipped.
7. Acts 15:23
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And they wrote letters by them after this
manner: The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto
the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and
Cilicia."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "Writing by their hands. The Apostles and
Ancients, brethren, to the brethren of the Gentiles that are at
Antioch and in Syria and Cilicia, greeting."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And they wrote thus by them, The apostles
and the elders, brethren, unto the brethren who are of the
Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting."
Notice in the Jesuit Bible and Revised how the clergy
is set off from the laity. Not so in the King James.
8. Acts 16:7
(1) KING JAMBS BIBLE. "After they were come to Mysia, they
assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And when they were come into Mysia, they
attempted to go into Bithynia: and the Spirit of Jesus suffered
them not."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And when they were come over against
Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus
suffered them not."
Milligan, who echoed the theology of the Revisers, says:
"Acts 16:7, where the striking reading 'the Spirit of Jesus' (not
simply, as in the Authorized Version, "the Spirit") implies that
the Holy Spirit had so taken possession of the Person of the
Exalted Jesus that He could be spoken of as 'the Spirit of
Jesus.' (George Milligan, The Expository Value of Revised
Version, p.99).
(This is a mute point, which only "Trinitarians" would argue
over, as 2 Corinthians 8 26-34 with 1 Timothy 2:5 shows that the
Spirit and Christ are the same. The Holy Spirit NOT being a
bodily third person of the Trinity Godhead, is a possession of
both the Father and the Son - Keith Hunt).
9. Romans 5:1
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "Therefore being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "Being justified therefore by faith, let us
have peace toward God by our Lord Jesus Christ."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "Being therefore justified by faith, let us
(margin) have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
" 'Beginning in the Spirit' is another way of saying 'being
justified by faith.' " (Benjamin Jowett, Interpretation of the
Scriptures, p.454).
If, therefore, the phrase, "Being justified by faith," is
simply a beginning, as the Catholics think, they feel justified
in finishing with "let us have peace." The Reformers saw that
"let us have peace" is a serious error of doctrine, so
Dr.Robinson testifies (Dr.G.L.Robinson, Where Did We Get Our
Bible? p.182
10. I Cor.5:7
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that
ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our
Passover is sacrificed for us."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "Purge the old leaven that you may be a new
paste, as you are azymas. For our Pasch, Christ is immolated."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a
new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath
been sacrificed, even Christ."
By leaving out "for us," the Jesuit Bible and Revised
Version strike at the doctrine of the atonement. People are
sometimes sacrificed for naught; sacrificed "for us," which is
omitted in the Revised, is the center of the whole gospel.
11. I Cor.15:47
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the
second man is the Lord from heaven."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "The first man of earth, earthly; the second
man from heaven, heavenly."
(3; AMERICAN REVISED. "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the
second man is of heaven."
The word "Lord" is omitted in the Jesuit and Revised
Versions. The Authorized tells specifically who is that Man from
heaven.
12. Ephesians 3:9
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And to make all men see what is the
fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world
bath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And to illuminate all men what is the
dispensation of the Sacrament hidden from worlds in God, who
created all things."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And to make all men see what is the
dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God
who created all things."
The great truth that Jesus is Creator is omitted in
both the Jesuit and the Revised.
13. Col.1:14
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "In whom we have redemption through His
blood, even the forgiveness of sins."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "In whom we have redemption the remission of
sins."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "In whom we have our redemption, the
forgiveness of our sins."
The phrase "through His blood" is not found in either the
Jesuit or American Revised Versions; its omission can be traced
to Origen (200 A.D.), who expressly denies that either the body
or soul of our Lord was offered as the price of our redemption.
Eusebius was a devoted follower of Origen; and Eusebius
edited the Vatican Manuscript. The omission is in that MS. and
hence in the American Revised Version. Moreover, Jerome was a
devoted follower of both Origen and Eusebius. The phrase "through
His blood" is not in the Vulgate and hence not in the Jesuit
Bible.
Here is the fatal parallel between the Jesuit Version and
the American Revised Version. This omission of the atonement
through blood is in full accord with modern liberalism, and
strikes at the very heart of the gospel.
14. 1 Timothy 3:16
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And without controversy great is the
mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in
the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed
on in the world, received up into glory."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And manifestly it is a great Sacrament of
piety, which was manifested in flesh, was justified in spirit,
appeared to Angels, hath been preached to Gentiles, is believed
in the world, is assumpted in glory."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And without controversy great is the
mystery of godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the
nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory."
What a piece of revision this is! The teaching of the
divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ upheld by the King James Bible
in this text is destroyed in both the other versions. The King
James says, "God" was manifest in the flesh; the Revised says,
"He who." "He who" might have been an angel or even a good man
like Elijah. It would not have been a great mystery for a man to
be manifest in the flesh.
15. 2 Timothy 4:1
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "I charge thee therefore before God, and
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at
His appearing and His Kingdom."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "I testify before God and Jesus Christ who
shall judge the living and the dead, and by His advent and His
kingdom."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "I charge those in the sight of God, and of
Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by His
appearing and His kingdom."
The King James in this text fixes the great day of judgment
as occurring at the time of His appearing, and His kingdom. The
Jesuit and Revised place it in the indefinite future.
16. Hebrews 7:21
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "(For those priests were made without an
oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord
sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the
order of Melchisedec)."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "But this with an oath, by him that said unto
him: Our Lord hath sworn, and it shall not repent Him: Thou art a
Priest forever."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "(For they indeed have been made priest,
without an oath; but he with an oath by him that saith of him,
The Lord swore and will not repent Himself, Thou art a priest
forever)."
The phrase "after the order of Melchisedec" found in
the King James Bible is omitted in the other two versions.
17. Rev.22:14
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "Blessed are they that do His
commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and
may enter in through the gates into the city."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "Blessed are they that wash their stoles:
that their power may be in the tree of life, and they may enter
by the gates into the city."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "Blessed are they that wash their robes,
that they may have the right to come to the tree of life, and may
enter in by the gates into the city."
This passage, in the King James, gives us the right to
the tree of life by keeping the commandments. The passage was
changed in the Rheims New Testament. It was restored by the
Authorized, and changed back to the Rheims (Jesuit Bible) by the
Revised.
We might continue these comparisons by using other passages
not here given. We prefer to invite the reader to notice other
instances as they present themselves in later chapters.
NOTE - The heat of the fierce battle over the Jesuit Bible in
1582 had not yet died down when thirty years later the King James
of 1611 appeared. Both versions were in English. This latter
volume was beneficiary of the long and minute searchings which
the truth of the day underwent.
Any thought that Catholicism had any influence over the King
James Bible must be banished not only upon remembering the
circumstances of its birth but also by the plea from its
translators to King James for protection from a Papish
retaliation.
We find in the Preface to the King James Bible the following
words:
"So that if, on the one side, we shall be traduced by Popish
Persons at home or abroad, who therefore will malign us .... we
may rest secure .... sustained without by the powerful protection
of Your Majesty's grace and favor."
........................
I will give a few more important passages where most modern
translations have followed the corrupt Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
MSS - Keith Hunt.
Acts 8:37
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE records, "Philip said, 'If you believe with
all your heart, you may.' And he answered, 'I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God'."
(2) The NIV translation leaves it out, but in one edition I have
they do give it as a footnote, saying some MSS contain it.
(3) Many modern translation just simply leave it out period.
Acts 18:21
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE reads, "But bade them farewell, saying, 'I
must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem, but I
will return unto you, if God will.' And he sailed from Ephesus."
(2)NIV and others modern Bibles read, "But as he left, he
promised, 'I will come back to you if it is God's will.' Then he
set sail from Ephesus."
The moderns would not like you to know that Paul (who to
many of them "did away" with Sabbaths and Festivals) was going to
Jerusalem to keep and observe a Festival, and in the first
century A.D. that was not Easter or Christmas, Halloween or
Valentines Day).
Mark 16:9-20
(1) I have given a separate study to this on the Website. Proving
the truth of the matter.
(2) Most modern Bibles will either simply leave it out period, or
leave it out and put some kind of a footnote stating (as the NIV
does) "The most reliable and early manuscripts omit Mark 16:9-
20."
There are DOZENS MORE passages that the modern Bibles (using
the corrupt Vanticanus and Sinaiticus MSS as their foundation)
DIFFER in small or LARGE ways from the RECEIVED TEXT that the KJV
was based upon.
I refer the read at this point to read the studies on this
Website as the Preface to the NEW KJV and to Green's preface or
Introduction to his Greek/English Interlinear, and the MAJORITY
Greek Text, which is just about the very same as the so-called
"Received Text."
I would also like to note here that though I have put on
this Website Richard Nichol's "Errors of the King James Bible" I
do want to state that many of what Nichol's thinks are errors are
not errors at all, and some are just a matter of semantics - the
meaning of words changing over a period of time. But, yes, there
are some legitimate "errors" in the KJV. The KJV was not
"perfect" The NEW KJV has in the most part corrected the errors
of the old original KJV.
I recommend that your daily English reading and study Bible
be the NEW KING JAMES VERSION - Keith Hunt
..................
Westcott and HortThe rise of Romanism AUTHORIZED BIBLE VIDICATED
CHAPTER IX
Westcott and Hort
IT IS interesting at this juncture to take a glance at
Doctors Westcott and Hort, the dominating mentalities of the
scheme of Revision, principally in that period of their lives
before they sat on the Revision Committee. They were working
together twenty years before Revision began, and swept the
Revision Committee along with them after work commenced. Mainly
from their own letters, partly from the comments of their
respective sons, who collected and published their lives and
letters, we shall here state the principles which affected their
deeper lives. (Wilkinson gives the footnotes, as he does in all
chapters - which I have mainly omitted - Keith Hunt)
THEIR HIGHER CRITICISM
WESTCOTT writes to his fiancee, Advent Sunday, 1847:
"All stigmatize him (Dr.Hampden) as a 'heretic' ... If he be
condemned, what will become of me! ... The battle of the
Inspiration of Scripture has yet to be fought, and how earnestly
I could pray that I might aid the truth in that."
WESTCOTT'S son comments, 1903:
"My father ... believed that the charges of being 'unsafe' and of
'Germanizing' brought against him were unjust."
HORT writes to Rev.Rowland Williams, October 21, 1858:
"Further I agree with them (authors of "Essays and Reviews") in
condemning many leading specific doctrines of the popular
theology ... Evangelicals seem to me perverted rather than
untrue. There are, I fear, still more serious differences between
us on the subject of authority, and especially the authority of
the Bible."
HORT writes to Rev.John Ellerton, Aprii 3, 1860:
"But the book which has most engaged me is Dawin. Whatever may be
thought of it, it is a book that one is proud to be contemporary
with ... My feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable. If
so, it opens up a new period."
THEIR MARIOLATRY
WESTCOTT writes from France to his fiancee, 1847:
"After leaving the monastery, we shaped our course to a little
oratory which we discovered on the summit of a neighboring hill.
... Fortunately we found the door open. It is very small, with
one kneeling-place; and behind a screen was a 'Pieta' the size of
life (i.e. a Virgin and dead Christ) ... Had I been alone I could
have knelt there for hours."
WESTCOTT writes to Archbishop Benson, November 17, 1865:
"I wish I could see to what forgotten truth Mariolatry bears
witness."
HORT writes to Westcott:
"I am very far from pretending to understand completely the
oft-renewed vitality of Mariolatry "
HORT writes to Westeott, October 17, 1865:
"I have been persuaded for many years that Maryworship and
'Jesus'-worship have very much in common in their causes and
their results."
HORT writes to Westcot:
"But this last error can hardly be expelled till Protestants
unlearn the crazy horror of the idea of priesthood."
HORT writes to Dr Lightfoot, October 26, 1867:
"But you knew I am a staunch sacerdotalist."
DR.HORT FALLS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF MAURICE, COLERIDGE, WINER,
AND COMTEHORT - writes to Dr.Harold Brown, (Bishop of Eli),
November 8, 1871:
"Moreover, Mr.Maurice has been a dear friend of mine for
twenty-three years, and I have been deeply influenced by his
books." Frederick Maurice, the son of a Unitarian minister, and
brilliant student of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, became a
clergyman in the Church of England. He had a commanding influence
upon the leaders of his day, especially upon Dr.Hort. Maurice was
dismissed from his position as principal of King's College,
London, on charges of heresy.
HORT'S son says of his father:
"In undergraduate days, if not before, he came under the spell of
Coleridge."
HORT writes to Rev.John Ellerton, October 21, 1851:
"You cannot imagine his (Carlyle's) bitter hatred of Coleridge,
to whom he (truly enough) ascribes the existence of 'Puseyism.'"
HORT writes to W.F.Moulton, July 17, 1870:
"It has long been on my mind to write and thank you for a copy of
your Winer which reached me, I am shocked to find, four months
ago.... We shall all, I doubt not, learn much by discussion in
the New Testament Company."
WESTCOTT says in the preface to a volume of Westminster Sermons:
"Those who are familiar with recent theories of social morality
will recognize how much I owe to two writers who are not often
joined together in an acknowledgment of deep gratitude - Comte
and Maurice."
THEIR SPIRITUALISM WESTCOTT'S son writes:
"The 'Ghostlie Guild,' which numbers amongst its
members A.Barry, E.W.Benson, H.Bradshaw, the Hon. A.Gordon. F.J.
A.Hort, H.Luard, and C.B.Scott, was established for the
investigation of all supernatural appearances and effects.
Westcott took a leading part in their proceedings, and the
inquiry circular was originally drawn up by him."
WESTCOTT'S son writes, speaking of his father:
"The Communion of Saints, sums peculiarly associated with
Peterborough ... He had an extraordinary power of realizing this
communion. It was his delight to be alone at night in the great
'Cathedral,' for there he could meditate and pray in full
sympathy with all that was good and great in the past. I have
been with him there on a moonlight evening, when the vast
building was haunted with strange lights and shades, and the
ticking of the great clock sounded like some giant's footsteps in
the deep silence. Then he had always abundant company. Once a
daughter, in later years, met him returning from one of his
customary meditations in the solitary darkness of the chapel at
Auckland Castle, and she said to him, 'I expect you do not feel
alone?' 'Oh no,' he said, 'it is full.'"
HORT writes to Rev.John Ellerton, December 29, 1851:
"Westcott, Gorham, C.B.Scott, Benson, Bradshaw, Luard, etc., and
I have started a society for the investigation of ghosts and all
supernatural appearances and effects, being all disposed to
believe that such things really exist, and ought to be
discriminated from hoaxes and mere subjective disillusions.
THEIR ANTI-PROTESTANTISM
WESTCOTT wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury:
"It does not seem to me that the Vaudois claim an ecclesiastical
recognition. The position of the small Protestant bodies on the
Continent, is, no doubt, one of great difficulty. But our church
can, I think, only deal with churches growing to fuller life."
HORT writes to Westcott, September 23, 1864:
"I believe Coleridge was quite right in saying that Christianity
without a substantial church is vanity and disillusion; and I
remember shocking you and Lightfoot not so long ago by expressing
a belief that 'Protestantism' is only parenthetical and
temporary."
"Perfect Catholicity has been nowhere since the Reformation."
THEIR ANTI-ANGLICANISM
WESTCOTT writes to his fiancee, January 6, 1848:
"You can scarcely tell how I felt when I found we had to sign
some declaration before the degree (A.B.). I feared it might be
of an assent to the Thirty-nine Articles, and that I dare not
give now."
WESTCOTT'S son writes:
"In 1881 he was appointed by Mr.Gladstone a member of the
Ecclesiastical Courts Commision ... It did valuable service to
the Church of England in that it asserted its continuity, and
'went behind the Reformation.' In speaking of Archbishop Benson's
work on this Commission, my father says: 'It was my happiness to
it by Benson's side, and to watch as he did with unflagging
interest the gradual determination of the relations in which a
national church must stand to the nation....
The ruling ideas of the Lincoln Judgment were really defined by
these inquiries.'"
It will be remembered that Archbishop Benson's ruling in
this judgment constituted the greatest victory for ritualism, and
the most serious defeat for Protestantism. In fact it discouraged
the Protestants.
WESTCOTT:
"Nothing remains but to assert our complete independence of
Convocation ... If the (Revision) Company accept the dictation_
of Convocation, my work must end." These words he wrote to Dr.
Hort when Southern Convocation practically asked them to dismiss
the Unitarian scholar from the New Testament Revision Committee.
HORT writes to Westcott, September 23, 1864:
"Within that world Anglicanism, though by no means without a
sound standing, seems a poor and maimed thing beside great Rome."
THEIR ANTI-METHODISM
HORT writes to his father, December 14, 1846:
"In fact his (Dr Mill's) whole course lay in misrepresentation,
confounding Evangelicalism with Methodism, which last is worse
than popery, as being more insidious."
THEIR ANTI-AMERICANISM
HORT writes to Rev.John Ellerton, September 25, 1862:
"It cannot be wrong to desire and pray from the bottom of one's
heart that the American Union may be shivered to pieces."
"Lincoln is, I think, almost free from the nearly universal
dishonesty of American politicians (his letter to Greely I know
nothing about). I cannot see that he has shown any special
virtues or statesmanlike capacities."
THEIR ANTI-BIBLE DOCTRINES
WESTCOTT writes to Mr.Wickenden, October 26, 1861:
"I was much occupied with anxious thoughts about the possible
duty of offering myself for the Hulsean Professorship at
Cambridge. I had little wish, and no hope, for success, but I was
inclined to pretest against the imputations of heresy and the
like which have been made against me."
HoRT writes to Mr.A.Macmillan:
"About Darwin, I have been reading and thinking a good deal; and
am getting to see my way comparatively clearly, and to be also
more desirous to say something."
HORT writes to Westcott:
"You seem to me to make (Greek) philosophy worthIess for those
who have received the Christian revelation. To me, though in a
hazy way, it seems full of precious truth of which I find
nothing, and should be very much astonished and perplexed to find
anything, in revelation."
THEIR TENDENCY TO EVOLUTION
WESTCOTT writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury on 0.T.
Criticism, March 4,1890:
"No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of
Genesis, for example, give a literal history - I could never
understand how any one reading them with open eyes could think
they did."
HORT writes to Mr.John Ellerton:
"I am inclined to think that no such state as 'Eden' (I mean the
popular notion) ever existed, and that Adam's fall in no degree
differed from the fall of each of his descendants, as Coleridge
justly argues."
THEIR TRACTARIANISM
WESTCOTT writes to his fiancee:
"Today I have again taken up Tracts for the Times and Dr.Newman.
Don't tell me that he will do me harm. At least today he will,
has, done me good, and had you been here I should have asked you
to read his solemn words to me. My purchase has already amply
repaid me. I think I shall choose a volume for one of my
Christmas companions."
WESTCOTT writes to Hort, September 22, 1864:
"My summer was not as fruitful as I had wished; or rather, it was
not fruitful in the way I had wished. Dr.Newman's 'Apologia' cut
across it, and opened thoughts which I thought had been sealed
forever. These haunted me like spectres and left little rest."
HORT writes to Rev.John Ellerton, February 25, 1869:
"It is hard to resist a vague feeling that Westcott's going to
Peterborough will be the beginning of a great movement in the
church, less conspicuous, but not less powerful, than that which
proceeded from Newman."
HORT writes to his wife, July 25, 1864:
"How inexpressibly green and ignorant (Blank) must be, to be
discovering Newman's greatness and goodness now for the first
time."
The above quotation shows Hort's contempt for anyone who is
slow in discovering Newman's greatness and goodness.
THEIR RITUALISM
We have already noticed Westcott's associated work with
Archbishop Benson in protecting ritualism and giving the most
striking blow which discouraged Protestantism.
HORT writes to Mr.John Ellerton, July 6, 1848:
"The pure Romish view seems to me nearer, and more likely to lead
to, the truth than the Evangelical ... We should bear in mind
that that hard and unspiritual medieval crust which enveloped the
doctrine of the sacraments in stormy times, though in a measure
it may have made it unprofitable to many men at that time, yet in
God's providence preserved it inviolate and unscattered for
future generations.... We dare not forsake the sacraments or God
will forsake us."
THEIR PAPAL ATONEMENT DOCTRINE
WESTCOTT writes to his wife, Good Friday, 1865:
"This morning I went to hear the Hulsean Lecturer. He preached on
the Atonement ... All he said was very good, but then he did not
enter into the great difficulties of the notion of sacrifice and
vicarious punishment. To me it is always most satisfactory to
regard the Christian as in Christ - absolutely one with him, and
then he does what Christ has done: Christ's actions become his,
and Christ's life and death in some sense his life and death."
Westcott believed that the death of Christ was of His human
nature, not of His Divine nature, otherwise man could not do what
Christ did in death. Dr.Hort agrees it the following letter to
Westcott. Both rejected the atonement of the substitution of
Christ for the sinner, or vicarious atonement; both denied that
the death of Christ counted for anything as an atoning factor.
They emphasized atonement through the Incarnation. This is
the Catholic doctrine. It helps defend the Mass.
HORT writes to Westcott, October 15, 1860:
"To-day's post brought also your letter ... I entirely agree -
correcting one word - with what you there say on the Atonement,
having for many years believed that 'the absolute union of the
Christian (or rather, of man) with Christ Himself' is the
spiritual truth of which the popular doctrine of substitution is
an immoral and material counterfeit ... Certainly nothing could
be more unscriptural than the modern limiting of Christ's bearing
our sins and sufferings to his death; but indeed that is only one
aspect of an almost universal heresy."
THEIR COLLUSION PREVIOUS TO REVISION WESTCOTT writes to Hort, May
28, 1870:
"Your note came with one from Ellicott this morning ... Though I
think that Convocation is not competent to initiate such a
measure, yet I feel that as 'we three' are together it would be
wrong not to 'make the best of it' as Lightfoot says ... There is
some hope that alternative readings might find a place in the
margin."
WESTCOTT writes to Lightfoot, June 4, 1870:
"Ought we not to have a conference before the first meeting for
Revision? There are many points on which it is Important that we
should be agreed."
WESTCOTT writes to Hort, July 1, 1870:
"The Revision on the whole surprised me by prospects of hope. I
suggested to Ellicott a plan of tabulating and circulating
emendations before our meetirg which may in the end prove
valuable."
HORT writes to Lightfoot:
"It is, I think, difficult to measure the weight of acceptance
won beforehand for the Revision by the single fact of our
welcoming an Unitarian."
HORT writes to Williams:
"The errors and prejudices, which we agree in wishing to remove,
can surely be more wholesomely and also more effectually reached
by individual efforts of an indirect kind than by combined open
assault. At present very many orthodox but rational men are being
unawares acted on by influences which will assuredly bear good
fruit in due time, if the process is allowed to go on quietly;
and I cannot help fearing that a premature crisis would frighten
back many into the merest traditionalism."
Although these last words of Dr.Hort were written in 1858,
nevertheless they reveal the method carried out by Westcott and
himself as he said later, "I am rather in favor of indirect
dealing." We have now before us the sentiments and purposes of
the two men who entered the English New Testament Revision
Committee and dominated it during the ten years of its strange
work. We will now be obliged to take up the work of that
Committee, to behold its battles and its methods, as well as to
learn the crisis that was precipitated in the bosom of
Protestantism.
......................
Revision to DefameThe Received Test on the chopping block! AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED #16
CHAPTER X
Revision at Last!
BY the year 1870, so powerful had become the influence of
the Oxford Movement, that a theological bias in favor of Rome was
affecting men in high authority. Many of the most sacred
institutions of Protestant England had been assailed and some of
them had been completely changed. The attack on the Thirtynine
Articles by Tract 90, and the subversion of fundamental
Protestant doctrines within the Church of England had been so
bold and thorough, that an attempt to substitute a version which
would theologically and legally discredit our common Protestant
Version would not be a surprise.
The first demands for revision were made with moderation of
language. "Nor can it be too distinctly or too emphatically
affirmed that the reluctance of the public could never have been
overcome but for the studious moderation and apparently rigid
conservatism which the advocates of revision were careful to
adopt." Of course, the Tractarians were conscious of the strong
hostility to their ritualism and said little in public about
revision in order not to multiply the strength of their enemies.
The friends and devotees of the King James Bible, naturally
wished that certain retouches might be given the book which would
replace words counted obsolete, bring about conformity to more
modern rules of spelling and grammar, and correct what they
considered a few plain and clear blemishes in the Received Text,
so that its bitter opponents, who made use of these minor
disadvantages to discredit the whole, might be answered.
Nevertheless; universal fear and distrust of revision pervaded
the public mind, who recognized in it, as Archbishop Trench
said, "A question affecting ... profoundly the whole moral and
spiritual life of the English people," and the "vast and solemn
issues depending on it." Moreover, the composition of the
Authorized Version was recognized by scholars as the miracle of
English prose, unsurpassed in clearness, precision, and vigor.
The English of the King James Bible was the most perfect, if not
the only, example of a lost art. It may be said truthfully that
literary men as well as theologians frowned on the revision
enterprise.
For years there had been a determined and aggressive
campaign to take extensive liberties with the Received Text; and
the Romanizing Movement in the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, both ritualistic and critical, had made it easy for
hostile investigators to speak out with impunity. Lachmann had
led the way by ignoring the great mass of manuscripts which
favored the printed text and built his Greek New Testament, as
Salmon says, of scanty material. Tregelles, though English, "was
an isolated worker, and failed to gain any large number of
adherents. Tischendorf, who had brought to light many new
manuscripts and had done considerable collating, secured more
authority as an editor than he deserved, and in spite of his
vacillations in successive editions, became notorious in removing
from the Sacred Text several passages hallowed by the veneration
of centuries.
The public would not have accepted the extreme, or, as some
called it, "progressive" conclusions of these three. The names of
Westcott and Hort were not prominently familiar at this time
although they were Cambridge professors. Nevertheless, what was
known of them, was not such as to arouse distrust and
apprehension. It was not until the work of revision was all over,
that the world awoke to realize that Westcott and Hort had
outdistanced Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles. As Salmon
says, "Westcott and Hort's Greek Testament has been described as
an epoch-making book; and quite as correctly as the same phrase
has been applied to the work done by Darwin."
The first efforts to secure revision were cautiously made in
1857 by five clergymen (three of whom, Ellicott, Moberly, and
Humphrey, later were members of the New Testament Revision
Committee), who put out a "Revised Version of John's Gospel."
Bishop Ellicott, who in the future, was to be chairman of the New
Testament Revision Committee, believed that there were clear
tokens of corruptions in the Authorized Version. Nevertheless,
Ellicott's utterances, previous to Revision, revealed how utterly
unprepared was the scholarship of the day to undertake it. Bishop
Coxe, Episcopal, of Western New York, quotes Ellicott as saying
about this time:
"Even critical editors of the stamp of Tischendorf have
apparently not acquired even a rudimentary knowledge of several
of the leading versions which they conspicuously quote. Nay,
more, in many instances they have positively misrepresented the
very readings which they have followed, and have allowed
themselves to be misled by Latin translations which, as my notes
will testify, are often sadly, and even perversely, incorrect."
The triumvirate which constantly worked to bring things to a
head, and who later sat on the Revision Committee, were Ellicott,
Lightfoot, and Moulton. They found it dffcult to get the project
on foot. Twice they had appealed to the Government in hopes that,
as in the case of the King James in 1611, the King would appoint
a royal commission. They were refused.
There was sufficient aggression in the Southern Convocation,
which represented the Southern half of the Church of England, to
vote Revision. But they lacked a leader. There was no outstanding
name which would suffice in the public eye as a guarantee against
the dangers possible. This difficulty, however, was at last over
come when Bishop Ellicott won over "that most versatile and
picturesque personality in the English Church, Samuel
Wilberforce, the silver-tongued Bishop of Oxford." He was the
remaining son of the great Emancipator who was still with the
Church of England; the two other sons, Henry and Robert,
influenced by the Oxford Movement, had gone over to the Church of
Rome. Dr.Wilberforce had rendered great service to the English
Church in securing the resurrection of the Southern Convocation,
which for a hunderd years had not been permitted to act. When
Ellicott captured the persuasive Wilberforce, he captured
Convocation, and revision suddenly came within the sphere of
practical politics.
First came the resolution, February 10, 1870, which
expressed the desirability of revision of the Authorized Version
of the New Testament:
"Whether by marginal notes or otherwise, in all those passages
where plain and clear errors, whether in the Hebrew or Greek text
originally adopted by the translators, or in translation made
from the same, shall, on due investigation, be found to exist."
An amendment was passed to include the Old Testament. Then a
committee of sixteen - eight from the Upper House, and eight from
the Lower House--was appointed. This committee solicited the
participation of the Northern Convocation, but they declined to
cooperate, saying that "the time was not favorable for Revision,
and that the risk was greater than the probable gain."
Later the Southern Convocation adopted the rules which
ordered that Revision should touch the Greek text, only where
found necessary; should alter the language only where, in the
judgment of most competent scholars, such change was necessary;
and in such necessary changes, the style of the King James should
be followed; and also, that Convocation should nominate a commit-
tee of its own members who would be at liberty to invite the
cooperation of other scholars in the work of Revision. This
committee when elected consisted of eighteen members. It divided
into two bodies, one to represent the Old Testament, and the
other to represent the New. As the majority of the most vital
questions which concern us involve New Testament Revision, we
will follow the fortunes of that body in the main.
The seven members of this English New Testament Revision
Committee sent out invitations which were accepted by eighteen
others, bringing the full membership of the English New Testament
Committee to the number of twenty-five. As we have seen before,
Dr.Newman, who later became a cardinal, declined, as also did the
leader of the Ritualistic Movement, Dr.Pusey. It should be
mentioned here also that Canon Cook, editor of the "Speakers
Commentary," declined. W.F.Moulton, who had spent some years in
translating, from the German into English, Winer's Greek Grammar,
and himself a member of the Committee, exercised a large
influence in the selection of members. Dr.Moulton favored those
modern rules appearing in Winer's work which, if followed in
translating the Greek, would produce results different from that
of the King James. How much Dr.Moulton was a devotee of the
Vulgate may be seen in the following words from him:
"The Latin translation, being derived from manuscripts more
ancient than any we now possess, is frequently a witness of the
highest value in regard to the Greek text which was current in
the earliest times, and ... its testimony is in many cases
confirmed by Greek manuscripts which have been discovered or
examined since the 16th century."
From this it is evident that Dr.Moulton looked upon the
Vulgate as a witness superior to the King James, and upon the
Greek manuscripts which formed the base of the Vulgate as
superior to the Greek manuscripts which formed the base of the
King James. Furthermore, he said, speaking of the Jesuit New
Testament of 1582, "The Rhemish Testament agrees with the best
critical editions of the present day." Dr.Moulton, therefore, not
only believed the manuscripts which were recently discovered to
be similar to the Greek manuscripts from which the Vulgate was
translated, but he also looked upon the Greek New Testaments of
Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles, built largely upon the same
few manuscripts, as "the best critical editions." Since he
exercised so large an influence in selecting the other members of
the Committee, we can divine at the outset, the attitude of mind
which would likely prevail in the Revision Committee.
The Old Testament Committee also elected into its body other
members which made the number in that company twenty-seven. Steps
were now taken to secure cooperation from scholars in America.
The whole matter was practically put in the hands of Dr.Philip
Schaff of the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Of Dr.
Schaff's revolutionary influence on American theology through his
bold Romanizing policy; of his trial for heresy; of his
leadership in the American "Oxford Movement," we will speak
later. An appeal was made to the American Episcopal Church to
take part in the Revision, but that body declined. Through the
activities of Dr.Schaff, two American Committees were formed, the
Old Testament Company having fourteen members, and the New
Testament, thirteen. These worked under the disadvantage of being
chosen upon the basis that they should live near New York City in
order that meetings of the committee might be convenient. The
American Committee had no deciding vote on points of revision. As
soon as portions of the Holy Book were revised by the English
committees, they were sent to the American committees for
confirmation or amendment. If the suggestions returned by the
American committees were acceptable to their English coworkers,
they were adopted; otherwise they had no independent claim for
insertion. In other words, the American committees were simply
reviewing bodies. In the long run, their differences were not
many. They say:
"The work then went on continuously in both countries, the
English Companies revising, and the American Committees reviewing
what was revised, and returning their suggestions ... When this
list is fully considered, the general reader will, we think, be
surprised to find that the differences are really of such little
moment, and in very many cases will probably wonder that the
American divines thought it worth while thus to formally record
their dissent."
Dr.Schaff, who was to America what Newman was to England,
was president of both American committees. The story of the
English New Testament Revision Committee is a stormy one, because
it was the battle ground of the whole problem. That Committee
finished its work three years before the Old Testament Company,
and this latter body had three years to profit by the staggering
onslaught which assailed the product of the New Testament
Committee. Moreover the American Revised Bible did not appear
until twenty years after the work of the English New Testament
Committee, so that the American Revisers had twenty years to
understand the fate which would await their volume.
When the English New Testament Committee met, it was
immediately apparent what was going to happen. Though for ten
long years the iron rule of silence kept the public ignorant of
what was going on behind closed doors, the story is now known.
The first meeting of the Committee found itself a divided body,
the majority being determined to incorporate into the proposed
revision the latest and most extreme higher criticism. This
majority was dominated and carried along by a triumvirate
consisting of Hort, Westcott, and Lightfoot. The dominating
mentality of this triumvirate was Dr.Hort. Before the Committee
met, Westcott had written to Hort, "The rules though liberal are
vague, and the interpretation of them will depend upon decided
action at first." They were determined at the outset to be
greater than the rules, and to manipulate them.
The new members who had been elected into the body, and who
had taken no part in drawing up the rules, threw these rules
completely aside by interpreting them with the widest latitude.
Moreover, Westcott and Hort, who had worked together before this
for twenty years, in bringing out a Greek New Testament
constructed on principles which deviated the farthest ever yet
known from the Received Text, came prepared to effect a
systematic change in the Protestant Bible. On this point Westcott
wrote to Hort concerning Dr.Ellicott, the chairman:
"The Bishop of Gloucester seems to me to be quite capable of
accepting heartily and adopting personally a thorough scheme."
And as we have previously seen, as early as 1851, before
Westcott and Hort began their twenty years labor on their Greek
text, Hort wrote, "Think of that vile Textus Receptus." In 1851,
when he knew little of the Greek New Testament, or of texts, he
was dominated with the idea that the Received Text was "vile" and
"villainous." The Received Text suffered fatal treatment at the
hands of this master in debate.
We have spoken of Bishop Ellicott as the chairman. The first
chairman was Bishop Wilberforce. One meeting, however, was
sufficient for him. He wrote to an intimate friend, "What can be
done in this most miserable business?" Unable to bear the
situation, he absented himself and never took part in the
proceedings. His tragic death occurred three years later. One
factor had disturbed him considerably,--the presence of Dr.G.
Vance Smith, the Unitarian scholar. In this, however, he shared
the feelings of the people of England, who were scandalized at
the sight of a Unitarian, who denied the divinity of Christ,
participating in a communion service held at the suggestion of
Bishop Westcott in Westminster Abbey, immediately preceding their
first meeting.
The minority in the Committee was represented principally by
Dr.Scrivener, probably the foremost scholar of the day in the
manuscripts of the Greek New Testament and the history of the
Text. If we may believe the words of Chairman Ellicott, the
countless divisions in the Committee over the Greek Text, "was
often a kind of critical duel between Dr.Hort and Dr.Scrivener."
Dr.Scrivener was continuously and systematically outvoted.
"Nor is it difficult to understand," says Dr.Hemphill, "that many
of their less resolute and decided colleagues must often have
been completely carried off their feet by the persuasiveness, and
resourcefulness, and zeal of Hort, backed by the great prestige
of Lightfoot, the popular Canon of St.Paul's, and the quiet
determination of Westcott, who set his face as a flint. In fact,
it can hardly be doubted that Hort's was the strongest will of
the whole Company, and his adroitness in debate was only equaled
by his pertinacity."
The conflict was intense and oft-times the result seemed
dubious. Scrivener and his little band did their best to save the
day. He might have resigned; but like Bishop Wilberforce, he
neither wished to wreck the product of revision by a crushing
public blow, nor did he wish to let it run wild by absenting
himself. Dr.Hort wrote his wife as follows:
"July 25, 1871. We have had some stiff battles today in Revision,
though without any ill feeling, and usually with good success.
But I more than ever, felt how impossible it would be for me to
absent myself"
On the other hand, Westcott wrote:
"March 22, 1886. I should be the last to rate highly textual
criticism; but it is a little gift which from school days seemed
to be committed to me."
Concerning the battles within the Committee, Dr.Westcott
writes:
"May 24, 1871. We have had hard fighting during these last two
days, and a battle-royal is announced for tomorrow."
"January 27, 1875. Our work yesterday was positvely distressing.
... However, I shall try to keep heart today, and if we fail
again I think that I shall fly, utterly despairing of the work."
Same date. "Today our work has been a little better - only a
little, but just enough to be endurable."
The "ill-conceived and mismanaged" attempts of the Revision
Committee of the Southern Convocation to bring in the radical
changes contemplated violated the rules that had been laid down
for its control. Citations from ten out of the sixteen members of
the Committee, (sixteen was the average number in attendance),
show that eleven members were fully determined to act upon the
principle of exact and literal translation, which would permit
them to travel far beyond the instructions they had received.
The Committee being assembled, the passage for consideration
was read. Dr.Scrivener offered the evidence favoring the Received
Text, while Dr.Hort took the other side. Then a vote was taken.
Settling the Greek Text occupied the largest portion of time both
in England and in America. The new Greek Testament upon which
Westcott and Hort had beer working for twenty years was, portion
by portion, secretly committed into the hands of the Revision
Committee. Their Greek Text was strongly radical and
revolutionaiy. The Revisers followed the guidance of the two
Cambridge editors, Westcott and Hort, who were constantly at
their elbow, and whose radical Greek New Testament, deviating the
farthest possible from the Received Text, is to all intents and
purposes the Greek New Testament followed by the Revision
Committee. And this Greek text, in the main, follows the Vatican
and Sinaiticus manuscripts. It is true that three other unicals,
the Codices Beza, Ephraemi and Alexandrinus were occasionally
used, but their testimony was of the same value as the other two.
Hort's partiality for the Vatican Manuscript was practically
absolute. We can almost hear him say, The Vaticanus have I
loved, but the Textus Receptus have I hated. As the Sinaiticus
was the brother of the Vaticanus, wherever pages in the latter
were missing, Hort used the former. He and Westcott considered
that when the consensus of opinion of these two manuscripts
favored a reading, that reading should be accepted as apostolic.
This attitude of mind involved thousands of changes in our
time-honored Greek New Testament because a Greek text formed upon
the united opinion of Codex B and Codex ( - not printable on my
keyboard - Keith Hunt)) would be different in thousands of places
from the Received Text. So the Revisers "went on changing until
they had altered the Greek Text in 5,337 places. Dr.Scrivener, in
the Committee sessions, constantly issued his warning of what
would be the outcome if Hort's imaginary theories were accepted.
In fact, nine-tenths of the countless divisions and textual
struggles around that table in the Jerusalem Chamber arose over
Hort's determination to base the Greek New Testament of the
Revision on the Vatican Manuscript. Nevertheless, the Received
Text, by his own admission, had for 1,400 years been the dominant
Greek New Testament.
It was of necessity that Westcott and Hort should take this
position. Their own Greek New Testament upon which they had been
working for twenty years was founded on Codex B and Codex (not
printable for me - Keith Hunt), as the following quotations show:
"If Westcott and Hort have failed, it is by an overestimate of
the Vatican Codex, to which (like Lachmann and Tregelles) they
assign the supremacy, while Tischendorf may have given too much
weight to the Sinaitic Codex."
Dr.Cook, an authority in this field, also says:
"I will ask the reader to compare these statements with the views
set forth, authoritatively and repeatedly, by Dr.Hort in his
'Introduction,' especially in reference to the supreme excellence
and unrivalled authority of the text of B - with which, indeed,
the Greek text of Westeott and Hort is, with some unimportant
exceptions, substantially identical, coinciding in more than
ninetenths of the passages which, as materially affecting the
character of the synoptic Gospel; I have to discuss."
Another quotation from Dr.Hoskier, an authority who worked
in this field many years after the appearance of the Revised
Version:
"We always come back to B, as Westeott and Hort's text is
practically B."
Of course the minority members of the Revision Committee,
and especially the world in general, did not know the twenty
years' effort of these two Cambridge professors to base their own
Greek New Testament upon these two manuscripts. Hart's "excursion
into cloudland." as one authority describe his fourth century
revisions, was apparent to Dr.Scrivener, who uttered his protest.
Here is his description of Hort's theory as Scrivener later
published it:
"There is little hope for the stability of their imposing
structure, if its foundations have been laid on the sandy ground
of ingenious corjecture: and since barely the smallest vestige of
historical evidence has ever been alleged in support of the views
of these accomplished editors, their teaching must either be
received as intuitively true, or dismissed from our consideration
as precarious, and even visionary."
As Westcott and Hort outnumbered Scrivener two to one, so
their followers outnumbered the other side two to one, and
Scrivener was systematically outvoted. As Professor Sandy writes:
"They were thus able to make their views heard in the council
chamber, and to support them with all the weight of their
personal authority, while as yet the outer public had but partial
access to them."
As a consequence, the Greek New Testament upon which the
Revised Version is based, is practically the Greek New Testament
of Westcott and Hort. Dr.Schaff says:
"The result is that in typographical accuracy the Greek Testament
of Westcott and Hort is probably unsurpassed, and that it
harmonizes essentially with the text adopted by the Revisers."
THE REVISERS PROFESSEDLY LIBERAL, ACTUALLY NARROW
We meet the paradox in the Revisers, as they sit assembled
at their task, of men possessing high reputation for liberalism
of thought, yet acting for a decade with extreme narrowness.
Stanley, Thirlwall, Vaughan, Hort, Westcott, Moberly - men of
leading intellect - would naturally be expected to be so broad as
to give most sacred documents fair consideration. Dean Stanley
had glorified the Church of England because within her ranks both
ritualists and higher critics could officiate as well as the
regular churchmen. When Bishop Colenso, of Natal, was on trial,
amid great excitement throughout all England, for his destructive
criticism of the first five books of Moses, Dean Stanley stood up
among his religious peers and placed himself alongside of Col-
enso. He said:
"I might mention one who ... has ventured to say that the
Pentateuch is not the work of Moses ... who has ventured to say
that the narratives of those historical incidents are colored not
unfrequently by the necessary infirmities which belong to the
human instruments by which they were conveyed, and that
individual is the one who now addresses you. If you pronounce
against the Bishop of Natal on grounds such as these, you must
remember that there is one close at hand whom ... You will be
obliged to condemn."
Bishop Thirlwall, of "princely intellect," had a wellknown
reputation for liberalism in theology. He introduced both the new
theology of Schleiermacher and higher criticism into England. In
fact, when Convocation yielded to public indignation so far as
essentially to ask Dr.Smith, the Unitarian scholar, to resign,
Bishop Thirlwall retired from the committee and refused to be
placated until it was settled that Dr.Smith should remain.
Evidence might be given to show liberalism in other members.
These men were honorably bound to do justice to thousands of
manuscripts if they assumed to reconstruct a Greek Text. We are
informed by Dr.Scrivener that there are 2,864 cursive and uncial
manuscripts of the New Testament in whole or in part. Price says
there are 112 uncials and 3,500 cursives. These represent many
different countries and different periods of time. Yet
astonishing to relate, the majority of the Revisers ignored these
and pinned their admiration and confidence practically to two,
the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
Doctor Moberly, Bishop of Salisbury, Bishop Westcott, and
Dr.G.Vance Smith, came to the Committee with past relationships
that seriously compromised them. Bishop Moberly "belonged to the
Oxford Movement, and, it is stated in Dean Church's 'Life and
Letters' that he wrote a most kind letter of approval to Mr.
Newman as to the famous Tract 90." During the years when he was a
schoolmaster, the small attendance at times under his instruction
was credited to the fact that he was looked upon as a Puseyite.
While with regard to Dr.Westcott, his share in making the
Ritualistic Movement a success has been recognized. Dr.Vaughan,
another member of the Revision Committee was a close friend of
Westcott. The extreme liberalism of Dr.G.Vance Smith, the
Unitarian member of the Committee, is well known through his book
on the "Bible and Theology." This amounted practically to
Christianized infidelity. Nevertheless, the worshipful attitude
of these men, as well as that of Lightfoot, Kennedy, and Humphrey
toward Codex B, was unparalleled in Biblical history. The year
1870 was marked by the Papal declaration of infallibility. It has
been well said that the blind adherence of the Revisionists to
the Vatican manuscript proclaimed "the second infallible voice
from the Vatican."
THE RUTHLESS CHANGES WHICH RESULTED
Even the jots and tittles of the Bible are important. God
has pronounced terrible woes upon the man who adds to or takes
away from the volume of Inspiration. The Revisers apparently felt
no constraint on this point, for they made 36,000 changes in the
English of the King James Version, and very nearly 6,000 in the
Greek Text. Dr.Ellicott, in submitting the Revised Version to the
Southern Convocation in 1881, declared that they had made between
eight and nine changes in every five verses, and in about every
ten verses three of these were made for critical purposes. And
for the most of these changes the Vatican and Sinaitic
Manuscripts are responsible. As Canon Cook says:
"By far the greatest number of innovations, including those which
give the severest shocks to our minds, are adopted on the
authority of two manuscripts, or ever of one manuscript, against
the distinct testimony of all other manuscripts, uncial and
cursive ... The Vatican Codex ... sometimes alone, generally in
accord with the Sinaitic, is responsible for nine-tenths of the
most striking innovations in the Revised Version."
WRECKERS, NOT BUILDERS
A force of builders do not approach their task with swords,
spears, bombs, cannons, and other instruments of destruction. If
the Greek New Testament of Westcott and Hort marks a new era, as
we are repeatedly informed, then it was intended that the Revised
Version would mark a new era. The appointees to the task of
Revision evidently approached their work with the intention of
tearing down the framework of the teachings which sprang from the
Received Text and of the institutions erected for the spread of
such teachings. The translators of 1611 organized themselves into
six different companies. Each company allotted to each of its
members a series of independent portions of the Bible to
translate, so that all would act as checks and counterchecks on
one another, in order that the truth might be transmitted. Above
all, their inter-relations were so preserved that the world would
receive the gift of a masterpiece. Their units were organizations
of construction. The units of the 1881 Revision did not make for
protection and independence, but rather for the suppression of
individuality and freedom, and for tryannical domination. The
instruments of warfare which they brought to their task were new
and untried miles for the discrimination of manuscripts; for
attacking the verb; for attacking the article; for attackirg the
preposition, the pronoun, the intensive, Hebraisms, and
parallelisms. The following quotations show that literal and
critically exact quotations frequently fail to render properly
the original meaning:
"The self-imposed rule of the Revisers." says the Forum,
"required them invariably to translate the aoristic forms by
their closest English equivalents; but the vast number of cases
in which they have forsaken their own rule show that it could not
be followed without in effect changing the meaning of the
original; and we may add that to whatever extent that rule has
been slavishh followed, to that extent the broad sense of the
original has been marred."
One of the Revisers wrote, after the work was finished:
"With reference to the rendering of the article, similar remarks
may be made. As a rule, it is too often expressed. This sometimes
injures the idiom of the English, and in truth impairs or
misrepresents the force of the original."
The obsession of the Revisionists for rendering literally
Hebraisms and parallelisms have often left us with a doctrine
seriously, if not fatally, weakened by their theory. "The
printing in parallelisms spoils the uniformity of the page too
much and was not worth adopting, unless the parallelism was a
good one."
Probably no one act of Germany during the war brought down
upon her more ill feeling than the bombing of Rheims Cathedral.
We felt sad to see the building splintered and marred. It was the
work of centuries. The Revisionists approached the beautiful
cathedral of the King James Version and tunneled underneath in
order that they might destroy the Received Text as its
foundation, and slip into its place another composed of the
Vatican and Sinaitic Manuscripts. In thousands of places the
grandeur of the sacred building was chipped and splintered by the
substitution of various readings. In the form of the Revised
Version we no longer recognize the strong foundation and glorious
features of the old edifice.
This is a case where a little means much. "If one wonders
whether it is worth while," says Dr.Robertson, speaking of the
Revision, "he must bear in mind that some of the passages in
dispute are of great importance." The Bible should more probably
be compared to a living organism. Touch a part and you spoil it
all. To cut a vital artery in a man might be touching a very
small point, but death would come as truly as if he were blown to
pieces. Something more than a crushing mass of accumulated
material is needed to produce a meritorious revision of God's
Holy Book.
THE REVISERS' GREATEST CRIME
Ever since the Revised Version was printed, it has met with
strong opposition. Its devotees reply that the King James met
opposition when it was first published. There is a vast
difference, however. Only one name of prominence can be cited as
an opponent of the King James Version at its birth. The King, all
the church of England, in fact, all the Protestant world was for
it. On the other hand, royal authority twice refused to associate
itself with the project of revision, as also did the northern
half of the Church of England, the Episcopal Church of North
America, besides a host of students and scholars of authority.
When God has taught us that "all Scripture is given by
Inspiration" of the Holy Spirit and that "men spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost," the Holy Spirit must be credited with
ability to transmit and preserve inviolate the Sacred Deposit. We
cannot admit for a moment that the Received Text which, by the
admission of its enemies themselves, has led the true people of
God for centuries, can be whipped into fragments and set aside
for a manuscript found in an out-of-the-way monastery, and for
another of the same family, which has lain, for no-one knows not
how long, upon a shelf in the library of the Pope's palace. Both
these documents are of uncertain ancestry, of questionable
history, and of suspicious character. The Received Text was put
for centuries in its position of leadership by divine Providence,
just as truly as the star of Bethlehem was set in the heavens to
guide the wise men. Neither was it the product of certain
technical rules of textual criticism which some men have chosen
the last few decades to exalt as divine principles.
The change of one word in the Constitution of the United
States, at least the transposition of two, could vitally affect
thousands of people, millions of dollars, and many millions of
acres of land. It took centuries of training to place within that
document a combination of words which cannot be tampered with,
without catastrophic results. It represents the mentality of a
great people, and to change it would bring chaos into their
well-ordered life. Not of one nation only, but of all great
nations, both ancient and modern, is the Bible the basis of the
Constitution. It foretold the fall of Babylon; and when that
empire had disappeared, it survived. It announced beforehand the
creation of the empires of Greece and Rome, and lived to tell
their faults and why they failed. It warned succeeding kingdoms.
All ages and continents have their life inwrought into the fabric
of this Book. It is the handiwork of God through the centuries.
Only those whose records are lifted high above suspicion, can be
accepted as qualified to touch it. Certainly no living being or
any number of them ever had authority to make such astounding
changes, as were made by those men who were directly or
indirectly influenced by the Oxford Movement.
The history of the Protestant world is inseparable from the
Received Text. A single nation could break loose and plunge into
anarchy and license. The Received Text shone high in the heavens
to stabilize surrounding peoples. Even many nations at one time
might fall under the shadow of some great revolutionary wave.
But there stood the Received Text to fill their inner self with
its moral majesty and call them back to law and order. On what
meat had this great critic, Dr.Hort, fed, when, even by his own
confession, at the time he had read little of the Greek New
Testament, and knew nothing of texts and certainly nothing of
Hebrew, he dared, when only twenty-three years old, to call the
Received Text "villainous" and "vile"? What can be the most
charitable estimate we can put upon that company of men who
submitted to his lead, and would assure us in gentle words that
they had done nothing, that there was really no great difference
between the King James Bible and the Revised, while in another
breath, they reject as "villainous" and "vile" the Greek New
Testament upon which the King James Bible is built? Did they
belong to a superior race of beings, which entitled them to cast
aside, as a thing of naught, the work of centuries? They gave us
a Version which speaks with faltering tones, whose music is
discordant. The Received Text is harmonious. It agrees with
itself, it is self-proving, and it creeps into the affections of
the heart.
But, they say, there are errors in the Received Text. Yes,
"plain and clear errors," as their instructions informed the
Revisers. It is to the glory of the Textus Receptus that its
errors are "plain and clear." When God showed us these errors
were "plain and clear," we recognized them as errors of the copy
its and therefore, like printer's errors, they can be promptly
and certainly corrected. They are not errors of the Author. Man
made them and man can correct them. Neither are they "errors"
which man made and only God can correct. They do not enter into
the core of any question. They are not, like the errors of the
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, the product of Systematic Depravation.
They are the scars which witness to the terrible struggles
endured by the Holy Word throughout the centuries.
The glorified body of Christ will always have five scars
where the nails pierced His hands and feet, and where the sword
entered His side. A captious critic might cry out that the
eternal form of Christ is not perfect; it has five scars. But
another of deeper insight would point out that by those scars we
know that Christ does not bear an untried form. Those
reminiscences of His humiliation testify to it; struggle and His
triumph. Christ's perfection would not have been complete without
those scars. Without them, He would not have been our Saviour.
The errors of the Received Text, are the scars which tell of
its struggles throughout the centuries to bring us light, life,
and immortality. The Living Word and the Written Word correspond.
How vastly different are the errors of the Revised! They are
the product of a well-laid, designing scheme to incorporate in
the text the theology of the Revisers. Westcott, writing to Hart
before the committee was under way, rejoiced that the future
chairman, Dr.Ellicott, was "quite capable of accepting heartily
and adopting personally a thorough scheme." And when the new book
was published, Bishop Westcott recommended it to the Bible
student, because the profound effect on doctrine was produced by
changing "here a little, there a little." He clearly convicted
the Revised Version of being the product of a designing scheme
with an ulterior purpose. He said:
"But the value of the Revision is most clearly seen when the
student considers together a considerable group of passages,
which bear upon some article of the Faith. The accumulation of
small details then produces its full effect. Points on which it
might have seemed pedantic to insist in a single passage become
impressive by repetition ... The close rendering of the original
Greek in the Revised Version appears to suggest ideas of creation
and life and providence, of the course and end of finite being
and of the Person of the Lord, who is the source of all truth and
hope, which are of deepest interest at the present time."
All must see that it was a "thorough scheme." The dominant
minds on the Revision Committee approached their task, committed
beforehand to this "thorough scheme." The errors therefore of the
Revised Version are not incidental and accidental, as those of
the Received Text, but are so systematically interlinked that
they constitute with cumulative effect vital changes in doctrine.
The Revised Version bears the stamp of intentional Systematic
Depravation.
When we consider the men who dominated the Committee and
consequently determined the content of the Revised work, and when
we consider their critical bias, their sympathy with the germinal
ideas of modern 'religious liberalism;' their advocacy of
Ritualism, and their fondness of Rome, simple intelligence com-
pels us to wonder if the "scheme" does not embrace a subservience
to these predilections.
When a company of men set out faithfully to translate
genuine manuscripts in order to convey what God said, it is one
thing. When a committee sets itself to revise or translate with
ideas and a "scheme," it is another thing. But it may be objected
that the translators of the King James were biased by their
pro-Protestant views. The reader must judge whose bias he will
accept, that of the influence of the Protestant Reformation, as
heading up in the Authorized Version, or that of the influence of
Darwinism, higher criticism, incipient modern religious
liberalism, and a reversion back to Rome, as heading up in the
Revised Version. If we select the latter bias, we must remember
that both higher criticism and Romanism reject the authority of
the Bible as supreme.
The predominant ideas of the respective times of their
births influenced and determined the essential characteristics of
the Authorized and Revised Versions. The following chapters will
establish the truthfulness of the position just stated.
.....................
To be continued
NOTE:
MOST modern New Testaments of many Bibles are based upon the
Vaticanus and Siniaiticus Greek MSS, the latter found in a
garbage basket ready to be throw in the trash, as trash, and that
from a Catholic Monastry in the Holy Land.
The reader, if they have not yet done so, is encourage to read on
this Website, the "Introduction" to Green's Greek/English
Interlinear Bible.
We shall see in Wilkinson's next two chapters some of the
difference between the Received Greek Test and the "modern"
Westcott and Hort - wild and horrid - text of many modern New
Testament Bibles.
According to Westcott and Hort, we really did not have the
correct New Testament till the middle of the 19th century. Well
just another of the MANY deceptions that have bathed the world in
the false Babylon Whore church of Rome's spiritual fornications.
God says she is not only full of the blood of the saints, but her
many false doctrines and practices have truly covered this earth.
And she continues to increase her spiritual adultery all the
time, now she claims over ONE BILLION members - one in every six
person on the planet.
Keith Hunt
Blow after Blow!Against the KJV Greek! AUTHORIZED VERSION VINDICATED #17
by
Benjamin Wilkinson PhD
CHAPTER XI
Blow After Blow Against the Truth
(Revised Texts and Margins)
THERE are many who claim that the changes in the Revised
Version did not affect any doctrine. Bishop Westcott reveals the
contrary. His utterances prove that the Revisers worked
systematically during the ten years of their task to make
alterations that by a repetition of details they might alter
articles of faith. This we have shown in the previous chapter.
They did not use the margin to indicate changes in the Greek text
as directed by Convocation; on the contrary they choked the
margin with preposterous readings designed to carry out "the
scheme" of Westcott, Hort, and Lightfoot. "There is some hope,"
wrote Westcott to Hort, before revision began, when prospects of
a complete textual revision seemed small, "that alternative
readings might find a place in the margin." And they did, only
to sow, broadcast, doubts about the sacred utterances.
A further word from Bishop Westcott to show how
systematically the Revisers worked in making changes:
"For while some of the variations which we have noticed are in
themselves trivial, some are evidently important; but they all
represent the action of the same law; they all hang together;
they are samples of the general character of the Revision. And,
even if we estimate differently the value of the particular
differences which they express, we can certainly see that they do
express differences; and they are sufficient, I cannot doubt, to
encourage the student to consider in any case of change which
comes before him, whether there may not have been reasons for
making it which are not at once clear."
To show that it was the settled purpose as well as the
definite expectation on the part of the leaders in the movement
for revision, that doctrine should be changed, I will now quote
from the outstanding agitator for revision, who was also chairman
of the English New Testament Revision Committee, Bishop Ellicott:
"Passages involving doctrinal error. Here our duty is obvious.
Faithfulness, and loyalty to God's truth, require that the
correction should be made unhesitatingly. This class of cases,
will, however, embrace many different instances; some of real and
primary importance, some in which the sense will be but little
affected, when the error, grammatically great as it really may
be, is removed, and the true rendering substituted. For instance,
we shall have, in the class we are now considering, passages in
which the error is one of a doctrinal nature, or, to use the most
guarded language, involves some degree of liability to doctrinal
misconception."
I. Tradition Equals Scripture According to the Revised
1.
2 Tim. 3:16
KING JAMES: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God."
REVISED: "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable."
In this, the Revised follows the thought of the Douay. This
change in the Revised indicates that parts of the Scriptures may
not have been inspired. Therefore; as we are not able to judge
what is, and what is not inspired, the Catholics say that
tradition tests the inspiration and gives us the correct meaning.
The tradition of the Catholic Church corresponds to the higher
criticism of the so-called Protestants, only with this
difference, that the Catholics claim their higher criticism to be
infallible. On this point we will quote the note in the Douay on
this very passage, 2 Tim. 3:16.
"Every part of divine Scripture is certainly profitable for all
these ends. But, if we would have the whole rule of Christian
faith and practice, we must not be content with those Scriptures,
which Timothy knew from his infancy. That is, with the Old
Testament alone; nor yet with the New Testament, without taking
along with it the traditions of the apostles, and the
interpretation of the Church, to which the apostles delivered
both the book, and the true meaning of it."
The Dublin Review (Catholic), July, 1881, speaking of the
changes in the Revised Version, shows clearly that Catholics see
how the Revised reading robs Protestantism of its stronghold, the
Bible. It says:
"It (Protestantism) has also been robbed of its only proof of
Bible inspiration by the correct rendering of 2 Tim.3:16."
Also the "Interior" says on this change:
"It is not very probable that Paul would utter an inconsequential
truism of that kind. No one need be told that a Scripture
inspired of God would be profitable, that would be taken for
granted; but what has needed to be known was just the truth that
Paul wrote, that'all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.'"
Knowing the views held by the Revisers, such a change as
this
could be expected. Many controlling members of the English New
Testament Revision Committee believed that "there may be parts of
the canonical books not written under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit."
2. John 5:39
KING JAMES: "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have
eternal life."
REVISED: "Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in
them," etc.
The command of the Saviour to search the Scriptures, as given in
the King James; establishes them as the source of life eternal
and the authority of true doctrine. The Revisers destroyed this
command. Is not this changing a fundamental doctrine?
On this point the Dublin Review (Catholic), July, 1881,
says:
"But perhaps the most surprising change of all is John 5:39. It
is no longer 'Search the Scriptures,' but 'Ye search;' and thus
Protestantism has lost the very cause of its being."
Other changes of passages, which we investigate following
this, affect the great doctrines of truth; the change now under
consideration affects the very citadel of truth itself. The
Church of England Convocation, which called the Revision
Committee into existence, authorized that Committee to correct
only "plain and clear errors" in the Received Text. Neither
Convocation, nor Protestant England expected it to be changed in
thousands of places.
When the Revised Version declares that parts of the Bible
may not have been inspired of God, (as in 2 Tim.3:16), the
defendant is forced to bear witness against itself. So far as the
Revised Version is concerned, the change destroys the
infallibility of that glorious citadel of revelation which for
centuries had been the standard of truth.
11. A Deadly Blow Against Miracles
I.
John 2:11
KING JAMES: "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of
Galilee."
REVISED: "This beginning of signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee."
The word "miracle" is found, singular and plural, thirty-two
times in the Authorized Version of the New Testament. Alas! What
desolation has been wrought by the Revised! In twenty-three of
these instances, the word "miracle" has entirely disappeared. In
the case of the other nine, although the term is used in the
text, its force is robbed by a weakening substitute in the
margin. While in the Old Testament, it has disappeared from the
Revised in the five instances where it occurs in the Authorized.
Modern religious liberalism finds consolation here. So the
Revisers have exposed believers in the Bible to the ridicule of
unbelievers because they describe the supernatural events of the
New Testament by belittling words. To describe the supernatural
in terms of the natural, indicates doubt in the supernatural. If
we persist in calling a mountain a molehill, it is evident that
we do not believe it is a mountain.
The Revisers, in persistently describing supernatural events
by ordinary terms, have changed doctrines respecting miracles.
And if they made such fundamental changes in these thirty-two New
Testament texts, all there was on the subject, what is this, but
systematic depravation of doctrine?
III. Doctrine of Conversion Undermined
1.
Matt.18:2,3
KING JAMES: "And Jesus ... said ... Except ye be converted,
and become as little children."
REVISED: "And He ... said ... Except ye turn, and become as
little children."
FERRAR FENTON "Then Jesus ... said: I tell you indeed, that if
you do not turn back."
Not only in this text but in all the rest (seven texts
altogether), "be converted" has been changed to "turn." On this
point we will use the following quotation which speaks for
itself:
"The Rev.Homersham Cox writes to the 'Church Times' in favor of
the New Revision because (as he says) it alters 'be converted'
into 'turn,' the former implying that the sinner is converted by
another, that is, the Holy Spirit, and the latter that he turns
or converts himself. He says: 'I have here given every passage
without exception in which the word converted in the passive
voice occurs in the older translation. In every one of these
instances the passive form is avoided in the new translation. The
change seems to be one of incalculable importance. The former
version teaches men that they are converted by a power external
to themselves; the later version teaches them to turn themselves.
In other words, the doctrine of superhuman conversion disappears
from the New Testament, and thus the main foundation of modern
Evangelicalism. is destroyed. Only a few Sundays ago it was my
misfortune to have to listen to a long 'Evangelical' sermon, the
whole burden of which was that men could not convert themselves.
This pernicious tenet is preached every year in myriads of
sermons, books, and tracts. I rejoice that it is now shown to be
unscriptural.'"
Also Dr. Milligan, commenting on this change in Matt.18:3
and in Acts 3:19, says that "the opening verb, though passive in
form, is properly rendered actively, and the popular error of men
being mere passive instruments in the hands of God thereby
exploded."
The dangerous doctrine of salvation by our own effort is
exalted; and the miracle-saving power of God in conversion, so
far as these texts are concerned, is thrust out of the New
Testament.
The Revised changes the doctrine of conversion, and that
change is a complete reversal of the doctrine.
IV. No Creation: Evolution Instead
We shall present a series of Scripture texts to exhibit how
the Revisers made the Bible teach the origin of the material
universe by evolution instead of by creation.
S.Parkes Cadman explains clearly how the German brain,
working in theology and higher criticism, manifested itself in
science and history, thus influencing Sir Charles Lyell to
produce his "Principles of Geology," which heralded the advent of
Evolution and contravened the cosmogonies of Genesis. Lyell
altered the whole tone of Darwin's thinking, and Darwin's
inquiries were vindicated in a revolution foreshadowed by
Newman's "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine." In
this, Newman followed Mohler of Germany, and started the great
ritualistic movement in the Church of England, which blossomed
out into Revision. Both Westcott and Hort leaned heavily toward
Ritualism and Evolution.
Bishop Westcott says:
"Again 'world' answers to a plural or singular, 'the
ages,' or 'the age,' (Greek ....), in which creation is
regarded as a vast system unfolded from aeon to aeon, as an
immeasurable and orderly development of being under the condition
of time, of which each 'age,' or 'this age,' and 'the age to
come,' has its distinguishing characteristics, and so far is 'the
world.'"
This truth, he says, is "consistently preserved" in the
margin. That is, the unfolding of the 'vast system" from "age to
age" (evolution), is consistently preserved in the margin. In
other words, the Revisers consistently, consciously, and
intentionally, by their own confession, maintained the basal
theory of evolution in the margin. On the importance of "age" and
"ages" in the margin, I quote from Dr.Samuel Cox, editor of the
Expositor:
"And here I may remark, in passing, that in such marginal
readings as 'this age' and 'the coming age' which abound in our
New Version, there lie the germs, latent for the present, of far
larger doctrinal changes than either of those which I am now
suggesting."
1. Hebrews 11:3
KING JAMES: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were
framed by the word of God."
REVISED: "By faith we understand that the ages have been framed
by the word of God." (Margin.)
On this Westcott says:
"In this connection we see the full meaning of the words used of
creation in Hebrews 11:3: By faith we understand that the worlds
(the ages, i e. the universe under the aspect of time) have been
formed by the Word o f God ... The whole sequence of life in
time, which we call 'the world' has been 'fitted together' by
God. His one creative word included the harmonious unfolding on
one plan of the last issues of all that was made. That which is
in relation to Him 'one act at once' is in relation to us an
EVOLUTION apprehended in orderly succession." (Caps. Mine).
Bishop Westcott's interpretation of God's work in creation
is evolution, making room for the long geological ages.
Hort considered Darwin's theory of evolution "unanswerable."
Westcott and Hort, whose Greek New Testament was the basis
of the Revised, injected evolution into the Revised Version.
2.
Col. 1:15,16
KING JAMES: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature: For by Him were all things created."
REVISED: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of
all creation; for in Him were all things created."
Dr.G.Vance Smith, a member of the English New Testament
Revision Committee, commenting on Colossians 1:15,16
says:
"Is it not therefore probable that, in the very different
phraseology of Colossians, he is speaking of the promulgation of
Christianity and its effects under the figure of a spiritual
creation? ... Is it possible to think that this language can
refer to the material creation?"
The new language of the Revised in the judgment of this
Reviser, hinders the application of these texts to a material
creation, as in the King James, and limits them as a spiritual
application to Christianity.
3.
Hebrews 1:2 (last part)
KING JAMES' "By whom also He made the worlds."
REVISED: "Through whom also He made the ages." (Margin.)
By this change the door is opened to spiritualizing away
creation.
V. The Person of Christ
The "Person of Christ" is the evangelical phraseology used
to express a doctrine which is taught in a way that tends to
Rome.
Some make it the central principle of all doctrines, and
especially of ritualistic practices. This is shown by the
following words from a ritualistic clergyman:
"Let every one who hears you speak, or sees you worship, feel
quite sure that the object of your devotion is not an idea or a
sentiment, or a theory ... but a real personal King and Master
and Lord: present at all times everywhere in the omnipresence of
His Divine nature, present by His own promise, and His own
supernatural power in His Human Nature too upon His Altar-Throne,
there to be worshiped in the Blessed Sacrament as really, and
literally, and actually, as you will necessarily worship Him when
you see Him in His beauty in Heaven."
This ritualistic clergyman believed that preachers (or
priests) have power to change the wafer into the actual body of
Christ.
1.
1 Tim.3:16
KING JAMES: "And without controversy great is the mystery of
godliness: God was manifest in the flesh," etc.
AMERICAN REVISED: "And without controversy great is the mystery
of godliness; He who was manifest in the flesh," etc.
On the change of "He who" for "God," Bishop Westcott says:
"The reader may easily miss the real character of this deeply
instructive change. The passage now becomes a description of the
essential character of the gospel, and not simply a series of
historical statements. The gospel is personal. The gospel 'the
revelation of godliness' is, in a word, Christ Himself, and not
any propositions about Christ."
The Revisers made this change which confounds Christ with
the movement He instituted, the gospel, and leads our minds away
from Christ, the person on His heavenly throne, to Christ, the
bread of the Lord's supper, (Mass), on the ritualistic
altar-throne.
What is this, if not a change of doctrine? Bishop Westcott
was conscious of the change the Revisers were making in this
reading.
On this the Princeton Review says:
"Making Christianity a life - the divine-human life of Christ -
has far-reaching consequences. It confounds and contradicts the
Scriptural and church doctrine as to the Person of Christ."
2.
Acts 16:7
KING JAMES: "But the Spirit suffered them not."
AMERICAN REVISED: "And the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not."
The Douay is like the Revised. On this change Dr.George Milligan
says:
"Acts 16:7 ... the striking reading, 'the Spirit of Jesus' (not
simply as in the Authorized Version 'the Spirit') implies that
the Holy Spirit had so taken possession of the Person of the
Exalted Jesus that He could be spoken of as 'the Spirit of
Jesus.'"
By this change they identified Jesus, the second Person of
the Trinity, with the Holy Spirit, the third Person. (Well
technically, the Godhead is not three individual persons sitting
together in heaven - it is God the Father and Christ at His right
hand - that is all you can find in the New Testament - Keith
Hunt). The evident purpose of this change is to open the way to
teach ideas of the Person of Jesus different from the generally
accepted Protestant view. As the Princeton Review says concerning
the doctrine of the Person of Christ as held by Dr.Philip Schaff,
President of both American Committees of Revision, and by his
former associate, Dr.Nevin:
"It is impossible to understand the writings of Drs.Nevin and
Schaff on this whole subject without a knowledge of the
pantheistic philosophy ... It led men to look on the church as
the development of Christ, very much as that philosophy regards
the universe as the development of God."
VI. The Virgin Birth
1.
Isaiah 7:14
KING JAMES: "Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son."
REVISED: "Behold the maiden (margin) shall conceive and bear a
son."
This change gives room to doubt the virgin birth of
Christ. Dr.G.Vance Smith says:
"The meaning of the words of Isaiah may, therefore, be presented
thus: 'Behold the young wife is with child.'"
VII. Change in the Doctrine of Atonement
1.
1 Cor.5:7
KING JAMES: "For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for
us."
REVISED: "For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even
Christ."
One writer thus registers his indignation upon the
change made in this passage:
"Mad? Yes; and haven't I reason to be mad when I find that grand
old passage, 'For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for
us' - a passage which sounds the keynote of the whole doctrine of
redemption - unnecessarily changed into, 'For our Passover also
hath been sacrificed, even Christ'? And we have such changes
everywhere. They are, I believe, called improvements in style by
their authors - and certainly by no one else."
That Christ our Passover was sacrificed is an historical
fact; that He was sacrificed "for us" is a doctrine and the very
basis on which the gospel rests. Take away the fact that He died
"for us," as the Revisers did in this text, and there is no
gospel left.
The leading Revisers, in particular, Westcott and Hort,
rejected the idea that Christ was our "substitute and sacrifice"
Of course, Dr.G.Vance Smith, the Unitarian member of the Revision
Committee, did the same. The widespread refusal today by
Christian ministers of many churches to admit we owe this debt to
our Lord Jesus Christ, who in His divine Person died in our
place, is largely due to those influences which gave us the
Revised Version. Changes which on first reading seem slight, when
examined and read in the light of the intentional change, are
seen to be fatal.
VIII. A Blow Against the Resurrection of the Body
1.
Job 19:25,26
KING JAMES: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall
stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."
AMERICAN REVISED: "But as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and at last He will stand up upon the earth: and after my skin,
even this body, is destroyed, then without my flesh shall I see
God."
What need is there of a resurrection of the body, if,
without our flesh, we can see God? The tendency to make the
resurrection from the tomb only a spiritual event is as great
today as in the first Christian centuries.
2.
Acts 24:15
KING JAMES: "That there shall be a resurrection of the dead
both of the just and unjust."
REVISED: "That there shall be a resurrection both of the just and
unjust."
The omission of the phrase "of the dead" makes it easier to
spiritualize away the resurrection.
IX. Doctrine of the Second Coning of Christ Radically
Changed
1.
Matt.24:3
KING JAMES: "What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end
of the world?"
REVISED: "What shall be the sign of Thy presence (margin) and of
the consummation of the age." (Margin.)
"The consummation of the age" in no sense means the same
thing as "the end of the world." "The end of the world" is the
appointed time for human history, under the reign of sin, to
close. The earth must be purified by fire before being again
inhabited by man. "The consummation of the age" might mean only
some change from one epoch to another, national, scientific,
educational, or dispensational. How systematically this
substitution is thrust forward in the margin by the Revisers is
shown by its recurrence in the other passages in which the phrase
"end of the world" occurs, namely, Matt.13:39,40,49; 24:3; 28:20.
A similar substitution is found in Heb.13:21.
Another depravation in the doctrine of the Second Coming of
Christ is the substitution of "presence" for "coming" in the
margin of the text under consideration. "Presence" does not mean
return; it rather signifies continuous nearness. But "coming"
refers to Christ's Second Advent in glory, at the end of the
world, to raise the righteous dead and confer immortality on all
righteous living or resurrected. How systematically the Revisers
have gone about this, displacing the true idea of the Advent, may
be seen in the twenty other verses where "coming" as it refers to
Christ's Second Advent is changed into "presence," namely, Matt.
24:27,37,39; 1 Cor.15:23; 2 Cor.7:7; Phil.1:26; 2:12; 1 Thess.
2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thess.2:1,8,9; Jas.5:7,8; 2 Peter 1:16;
3:4,12; 1 Jno.2:28. These marginal changes give notice that the
ordinary orthodox interpretation of these verses is not a sure
one. Westcott, one of the Revisers, says:
"His advent, if it is in one sense future, is in another sense
continuous."
According to Westcott, Christ came at the time of Genesis,
first chapter, at the fall of Jerusalem, and many times in the
past: in fact, is "coming" to us now.
2.
Phil.3:20,21
KING JAMES: "Who shall change our vile body that it may be
fashioned like unto His glorious body."
REVISED: "Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation that
it may be conformed to the body of His glory."
The change in us indicated by the King James according to
this
and other Scriptures, is a change that occurs only at the Second
Coming of Christ; it is a physical change of tangible reality.
But the change called for by the Revised may occur at any time
before His Coming, or be continuous; it may be a change from
abstract vices to abstract virtues.
3.
2 Thess.2:2
KING JAMES: "That you be not soon shaken in mind ... as that
the day of Christ is at hand."
REVISED: "That ye be not quickly shaken from your mind ... as
that the day of the Lord is now present."
When an event is "at hand" it has not yet come; but when it
is "now present" it is here. Without offering an opinion which is
the correct rendering, there is certainly here a change of
doctrine. If the day of the Lord "is now present," it is in no
sense, "at hand."
4.
Titus 2:13
KING JAMES: "Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious
appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ."
REVISED: "Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory
of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."
By changing the adjective "glorious" to the noun "glory,"
the Revisers have removed the Second Coming of Christ from this
text.
In the King James Version the object of our hope is the
appearing of Christ, which is a personal and a future and an
epochal event. In the Revised Version, the object of our hope is
changed to be the appearing of the glory of Christ, which may be
the manifestation among men, or in us, of abstract virtues, which
may appear at any time and repeatedly in this present life.
5.
Rev.1:7
KING JAMES: "He cometh with clouds ... and all kindreds of the
earth shall wail because of Him."
REVISED: "He cometh with the clouds ... and all the tribes of
the earth shall mourn over Him."
How great is the change intended here, let the Reviser,
Bishop Westcott himself, state:
"All the tribes of the earth shall mourn over Him in penitential
sorrow, and not, as the Authorized Version, shall wail because of
Him, in the present expectation of terrible vengeance."
It is well known that many of the Revisers believed in what
they called, The Larger Hope, or Universal Salvation, which the
translators of the King James did not believe. Westcott admits
the Revisers made the change, in order to make the change of
doctrine.
6.
Acts 3:19
Here again the Revisers plead guilty to changing doctrine.
That the reading of Acts 3:19,20 was changed because the Revisers
held different views on the Second Coming of Christ from the men
of 1611, a member of the English New Testament Committee, Dr.
Alexander Roberts, testifies:
"Acts 3:19,20. An impossible translation here occurs in the
Authorized Version, in which we read: 'Repent ye therefore, and
be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times
of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He
shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you.' For
eschatological reasons, it is most important that the true
rendering of this passage should be presented. It is thus
given in the Revised Version: 'Repent ye, therefore; and turn
again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so seasons of
refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He
may send the Christ who hath been appointed for you, (even)
Jesus.'"
"For eschatological reasons" he says, that is, for reasons
springing from their view on last things, not for textual
reasons, it was "most important" to change the rendering. Most of
the Revisers did not believe there would be a personal return of
Jesus before the restitution of all things which the Authorized
rendering of this passage teaches.
Hort, another Reviser, says: "There is a present unveiling
of Him simply as He is, without reference to any special action
of His, such as came to St.Paul on his conversion. There are
apparently successive unveilings of Him, successive Days of the
Lord. There is clearly indicated, a supreme unveiling, in which
glory and judgment are combined."
G.Vance Smith, another Reviser, says: "This idea of the
Second Coming ought now to be passed by as a merely temporary
incident of early Christian. Like many another error, it has
answered TO transitory purpose in the providential plan, and may
well, at length, be left to rest in peace."
Thus this Reviser dismisses the Second Coming of Christ as a
temporary, erroneous idea among the early Christians.
X. Blows Against the Law of God--The Ten Commandments
1.
Rev.22:14
KING JAMES: "Blessed are they that do His commandments, that
they may have right to the tree of life."
REVISED: "Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may
have the right to the tree of life."
Man keeping the commandments of God, and man washing his
robes in the blood of Christ, are two different doctrines, the
latter applies to forgiveness for past sins, the former applies
to so abiding in Christ as to avoid sinning, or breaking the
commandments. No man washes his robes by keeping the
commandments; that would be salvation by works. Shall we be
sinning and repenting (that is, washing our robes) as we enter
through the gates into the eternal city? Evidently not, since
three verses previous, verses 11 to 13, present the eternally
redeemed as settled in a holy and righteous condition obedient to
His commandments and ready to enter through the gates into the
city. The Revisers have dislocated this verse from its place
in the scheme of the last chapter of the Bible. If, instead of
being holy and righteous still, that is, keeping God's
commandments, the redeemed are sinning and repenting still, or
"washing their robes," they are not ready to say, "Even so, Lord
Jesus, come quickly." The entire book of Revelation is in
agreement with the King James translation of this verse, since
commandment keeping is an outstanding characteristic of those who
wait for the return of their Lord. (See Rev.12:17; 14:12.)
Revelation 22:14 gives final emphasis to this characteristic. The
Authorized rendering is clear and definite, but the Revised is
obscure and misleading.
2.
Acts 13:42
KING JAMES: "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue,
the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them
the next sabbath."
REVISED: "And as they went out, they besought that these words
might be spoken to them the next Sabbath."
The Authorized Version pictures to us the congregation,
composed of Jews and Gentiles. By this distinction it reveals
that a number of the Gentiles were present and desired all their
Gentile friends to hear the same message the next Sabbath. Since
the Sabbath came in for special mention (see verse 27), and since
the Gentiles requested a special meeting on the following
Sabbath, and waited for it, we see that the great truth announced
by Christ, that "the Sabbath was made for man" (Mark 2:28), was
brought home to the Gentiles. All this is lost in the Revised
Version by failing to mention the Jews and the Gentiles. Thus the
Authorized Version is consistent with itself throughout, a divine
harmony. Here the Revised strikes an absolute discord. Does not
this affect fundamental doctrine?
XI. Affecting Scientific Teaching of the Bible
1.
Mark 7:19
KING JAMES: "Because it entereth not into his heart, but into
the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?"
REVISED: "Because it goeth not into his heart, but into his
belly, and goeth out into the draught? This he said, making all
meats clean."
In the Old Testament system of sacrifices, God never
accepted the offering of an unclean beast. Moreover, He forbade
the use of unclean meats as food. In translating the above
Scripture, there is nothing in the King James which breaks down
this distinction.
Who said that the Revisers had the right to alter what God
anciently ordained?
"But by the change of a single letter in the Greek," says
Milligan on this passage, "a new reading is gained, and the verse
now concludes--'This He said, making all meats clean,' being the
Evangelist's comment upon what he has just recorded, a comment
that gains still further in significance when we remember that
St.Mark's Gospel was in all probability largely dependent upon
the recollections of the apostle Peter, who was taught in so
striking a manner that in God's sight nothing is
common or unclean. Acts 10:9-16."
Peter said that by the vision of Acts 10, "God hath chewed
me that I should not call any man common or unclean." Acts 10:28.
And later he said that "God made choice amongst us, that the
Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel." Acts
15:7. Who gave the Revisers the right to say that the vision sent
by God to Peter to break down the differences between Jew and
Gentile was sent to abolish the age-long distinction between
clean and unclean meats, and which exists in the very nature of
the unclean animals as contrasted with the clean?
2.
Luke 23:44,45
KING JAMES: "And there was a darkness over the whole earth until
the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened."
REVISED: "A darkness came over the whole land until the ninth
hour, the sun's light failing."
MOFFATT: "And darkness covered the whole land till three
o'clock, owing to an eclipse of the sun."
The Greek text of the Revisers on this passage and the Greek
text of Moffatt is the same; the Greek text of the King James is
different. The Greek text of the Revisers says there was an
eclipse of the sun, (Greek .... ). Moffatt honestly translated
his mutilated Greek thus, "owing to an eclipse of the sun." The
Revisers failed to do it. Since an eclipse of the sun is
physically impossible at the time of a full moon which was
shining the night of Christ's burial, this shows that the Greek
text of the Revisers, heralded among us with high praises, was
scientifically incorrect and impossible. Moffatt was true to his
Greek, even if he had adopted the same Greek MS. as the Revisers.
The Revisers were not.
X11.
The Ascension
1.
Mark 16:9-20
These verses which contain a record of the ascension are
acknowledged as authority by the King James, but separated by the
Revised from the rest of the chapter to indicate their doubtful
value. This is not surprising. Dr.Hort, the evil genius of the
Revision Committee, cannot say anything too derogatory of these
twelve verses. In this he is consistent; for he believes the
story of the ascension was not entitled to any place in any
Gospel:
"The violence of Burgon's attack on the rejectors of the
conclusion of St.Mark's Gospel seems somewhat to have disturbed
Hort's calmness of judgment, and to have made him keen-sighted to
watch and close every possible door against the admission of the
disputed verses. In this case he takes occasion to profess his
belief not only that the story of the Ascension was no part of
St.Mark's Gospel, but that it ought not to find a place in any
Gospel."
The rejection of the last twelve verses of Mark's Gospel, or
rather setting them off to one side as suspicious, either indicts
the church of past ages as a poor keeper and teacher of Holy
Writ, or indicts the Revisers as exercising an extreme and
unwarrantable license.
WHOLE SECTIONS OF THE BIBLE AFFECTED BY THE REVISED VERSION
The Revised Version mutilates the main account of the Lord's
prayer in the Gospel of Matthew, by leaving out the words, "For
thine is the kingdom; and the power and the glory forever, Amen."
Matt.6:13.
It mutilates the subsidiary account of the Lord's prayer in
Luke 11:2-4, so that this last prayer could be prayed to any
man-made god. It omits "which art in heaven," from "Our Father,
which art in heaven;" leaves out the words, "thy will be done, as
in heaven so in earth," etc.
It is worthy to remark here that this mutilation of the
Lord's prayer in both these places was the subject of fierce
controversy between the Reformers and the Jesuits from 1534-1611,
the Reformers claiming Jerome's Vulgate and the Jesuit Bible in
English translated from the Vulgate were corrupt. The Revisers
joined the Jesuits in this contention, against the Reformers. Dr.
Fulke, Protestant, said in 1583:
"What your vulgar Latin translation hath left out in the latter
end of the Lord's prayer in St.Matthew, and in the beginning and
midst of St.Luke, whereby that heavenly prayer is made imperfect,
not comprehending all things that a 'Christian man ought to pray
for, besides many other like omissions, whether of purpose, or of
negligence, and injury of tim, yet still by you defended, I spare
to speak of in this place."
Matthew 17:21 is entirely omitted. Compare also Mark 9:29
and 1 Cor.7:5. On this the Dublin Review says: "In many places in
the Gospels there is mention of 'prayer and fasting.' Here
textual critics suspect that an ascetic bias, has added the
fasting, so they expunge it, and leave in prayer only. If an
'ascetic bias' brought fasting in, it is clear that a bias, the
reverse of ascetic, leaves it out."
It sets off to one side and brands with suspicion, the
account of the woman taken in adultery. Jno. 8:1-11. See how Luke
9:55,56 is shortened:
KING JAMES: "But He turned, and rebuked them and said, Ye know
not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not
come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to
another village."
AMERICAN REVISED: "But He turned, and rebuked them. And they went
to another village."
Acts 8:37. This text is omitted in the English and American
Revised.
Notice Eph.5:30:
KING JAMES: "For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and
of His bones."
AMERICAN REVISED: "Because we are members of His body."
Behold how greatly this verse is cut clown in the Revised!
See how, in 2 Timothy 4:1, the time of the judgment is
obliterated, and Christ's Second Coming is obscured:
KING JAMES: "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord
Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His
appearing and His kingdom."
AMERICAN REVISED: "I charge thee in the sight of God, and of
Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by His
appearing and His kingdom."
It changes Revelation 13:10 from a prophecy to a general
axiomatic statement, and, in the margin, places a black mark
against the passage:
KING JAMES: "He that leadeth into captivity, shall go into
captivity."
AMERICAN REVISED: "If any man is for captivity, into captivity he
goeth."
Without presenting any more examples, and the changes are
many, we will offer the words of another which will sum up in a
brief and interesting way, the subject under consideration:
"By the sole authority of textual criticism these men have dared
to vote away some forty verses of the inspired Word. The Eunuch's
Baptismal Profession of Faith is gone; and the Angel of the Pool
of Bethesda has vanished; but the Angel of the Agony remains -
till the next Revision. The Heavenly Witnesses have departed, and
no marginal note mourns their loss. The last twelve verses of St.
Mark are detached from the rest of the Gospel, as if ready for
removal as soon as Dean Burgon dies. The account of the woman
taken in adultery is placed in brackets, awaiting excision. Many
other passages have a mark set against them in the margin to show
that, like forest trees, they are shortly destined for the
critic's axe. Who can tell when the destruction will cease?"
Dublin Peview, July, 1981.
...................
NOTE:
As Wilkinson says, many indeed are the alterations and just
"vanishes" of words and phrases and sentences, in all the modern
New Testament Bibles that follow the Greek of Westcott and Hort,
based mainly upon TWO Roman Catholic manuscripts, ONLY coming to
light in the middle of the 19th century. These revisers gave the
modern Bible to modern people, who read every little if any, of
the Bible. Go to some modern Sunday observing churches, as I have
done over the years, and you will find few carrying a Bible
period! You will find music, and all kinds of entertaining
"stuff" thrown up on a stage and screen, to please the people,
but little real Bible reading or studying is done. And that study
which may be done by some churches, is often from the corrupt
Greek manuscripts of Westcott and Hort. And so as Revelation 12:9
says, Satan the Devil has indeed deceived the WHOLE world!
Keith Hunt
Modern TranslationsTheir rise to popularity AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED #21
CHAPTER XV
The Rising Tide of Modernism and Modern Bibles
"The Revisers had a wonderful opportunity. They might have made a
few changes and removed a few archaic expressions, and made the
Authorized Version the most acceptable and beautiful and
wonderful book of all time to come. But they wished ruthlessly to
meddle. Some of them wanted to change doctrine. Some of them did
not know good English literature when they saw it ... There were
enough modernists among the Revisers to change the words of
Scripture itself so as to throw doubt on the Scripture." (Herald
and Presbyter [Presbyterian]), July 16, 1924, p.10.
BECAUSE of the changes which came about in the nineteenth
century, there arose a new type of Protestantism and a new
version of the Protestant Bible. This new kind of Protestantism
was hostile to the fundamental doctrines of the Reformation.
Previous to this there had been only two types of Bibles in the
world, the Protestant, and the Catholic. Now Protestants were
asked to choose between the true Protestant Bible and one which
reproduced readings rejected by the Reformers.
A NEW PROTESTANTISM WHICH IS NOT PROTESTANT
The new Protestantism arose from the new doctrine concerning
the Person of Christ. The deep love of all Christians for Christ
makes them ready listeners to any teachings which seem to exalt
Jesus and increase the glory of Christ. For this reason
Protestants easily fell in with the new doctrines concerning
Christ which were entirely different from those held by the
Reformers. The new Protestantism rejected the sole authority of
the Scriptures. They held that the church was instinct with a
mysterious life which they called the Person of Christ.
They taught that this life came into all humanity when Jesus
was manifest in the flesh; not simply the flesh of Jesus of
Nazareth, but in the flesh of all humanity. They held that this
life was progressive, and therefore, from time to time, it led
the church to new doctrines. The Bible was secondary. This life
was communicated through the sacraments, and the participants in
the sacraments graduated from one experience to a higher
experience. So Christ had two bodies, His own body in which
divinity and humanity were united, and His "theanthropic" life
common to all believers, which life constituted the body of the
church, or Christ's second body.
This new Protestantism captured most of the Church of
England, permeated other Protestant denominations in Great
Britain, and flooded the theological seminaries of America. One
college professor, alarmed at the atmosphere of paganism which
had come into American universities and denominational colleges,
investigated them and reported that "ninety per cent or more
teach a false religion as well as a false science and a false
philosophy."
False science teaches the origin of the universe by organic
development without God, and calls it evolution. German
philosophy early taught the development of humanity through the
self-evolution of the absolute spirit. The outstanding advocates
of this latter philosophy, Schelling and Hegel, were admitted
pantheists. Their theory was applied to theology in the hands of
Schleiermacher whose follower was Dr.Schaff, and whom Dr.Schaff
characterizes as "the greatest theological genius" since the
Reformation. He also said, "There is not to be found now a single
theologian of importance, in whom the influence of his great mind
is not more or less to be traced." The basis of Schleiermacher's
philosophy and theology was acknowledged by such men as Dorner to
be "thoroughly pantheistic."
One definition of pantheism is the belief that "the totality
of the universe is God." God is in the grass, the trees, the
stones, earth, man, and in all. Pantheism confounds God with
matter. Gnosticism is essentially pantheistic. "Dr.Schaff says
there is 'a pantheistic feature which runs through the whole
system' of Popery." Both Gnosticism and Pantheism are at war with
the first verse of the Bible which reads, "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth" This verse places God before
matter, makes Him the Creator of matter, and hence apart and
distinguished from the material universe.
Modernism, or the new Protestantism, is essentially
pantheistic and therefore anti-Scriptural and anti-Protestant.
Schaff says that by following this new theology, modern
evangelical Germany is as widely separated from the Reformation
as the Reformation was from Roman Catholicism. The Reformers
taught that every child of God is in immediate contact with
Christ and grows in grace and the knowledge of God through the
Word and through the Spirit. The new theology taught that
Christianity was not "a system of truth divinely revealed,
recorded in the Scriptures in a definite and complete form for
all ages," but that Christianity is Christ. The church is the
development of Christ very much as in this false philosophy, the
universe is the development of God. This, of course, is
pantheistic, though perhaps all who profess this teaching are not
avowed pantheists. The new theology changed the Protestant
conception of Christ; then very naturally it changed all the
fundamental doctrines and consequently made the Bible secondary
as the fountain of faith, while nominally giving to the Bible its
customary usages. However, like the Gnostics of old, this new
theology would not scruple to change sacred passages to support
their theology.
THE GLORIFICATION OF THE VATICANUS AND SINAITICUS
Why was it that at so late a date as 1870 the Vatican and
Sinaitic Manuscripts were brought forth and exalted to a place of
supreme dictatorship in the work of revising the King James
Bible? Especially when shocking corruptions of these documents
betray a "systematic depravation"? On this Dean Burgon says: "The
impurity of the texts exhibited by Codices B and (Z) is not a
matter of opinion, but a matter of fact. These are two of the
least trustworthy documents in existence ... Codices B and (Z)
are, demonstrably, nothing else but specimens of the depraved
class thus characterized."
Dr.Salmon declares that Burgon "had probably handled and
collated very many more MSS than either Westcott or Hort" and
"was well entitled to rank as an expert." Nevertheless, there has
been a widespread effort to belittle Dean Burgon in his
unanswerable indictment of the work of Revision. All assailants
of the Received Text or their sympathizers feel so keenly the
powerful exposures made by Dean Burgon that generally they labor
to minimize his arguments.
Concerning the depravations of Codex (a), we have the
further testimony of Dr.Scrivener. In 1864 he published "A Full
Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus." In the "Introductions" he
makes it clear that this document was corrected by ten different
scribes "at different periods." He tells of "the occurrence of so
many different styles of handwriting, apparently due to penmen
removed from each other by centuries, which deform by their
corrections every page of this venerable-looking document." Codex
(Z) is "covered with such alterations, brought in by at least ten
different revisers, some of them systematically spread over every
page."
Each of these manuscripts was made from the finest skins and
was of rare beauty. "The Codex Sinaiticus of the fourth century
is made of the finest skins of antelopes, the leaves being so
large, that a single animal would furnish only two ... Its
contemporary, the far famed Codex Vaticanus, challenges universal
admiration for the beauty of its vellum."
Evidently these manuscripts had back of them royal gold.
They were reasonably suspected to be two of the fifty Greek
Bibles which the Emperor Constantine ordered at his own expense.
Why should ten different scribes, through the centuries have
spread their corrections systematically over every page of the
beautiful Sinaiticus? Evidently no owner of so costly a document
would have permitted such disfigurements unless he consideredthe
original Greek was not genuine and needed correcting.
As the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are evidently the product of
Gnosticism, what would be more natural than that the Catholicism
of Cardinal Newman and the Gnosticism of his followers, who now
flood the Protestant churches, would seek, by every means
possible, to reinstate in leadership, Gnosticism's old
title-papers, the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus?
THE GNOSTICISM OF THE REVISERS
Cardinal Newman believed that tradition and the Catholic
Church were above the Bible. Westcott and Hort, great admirers of
Newman, were on the Revision Committee in strong leadership. Dean
Stanley believed that the Word of God did not dwell in the Bible
alone, but that it dwelt in the sacred books of other religions
as well. Dr.Schaff sat in the Parliament of Religions at the
Chicago World's Fair, 1893, and was so happy among the Buddhists,
Confucianists, Shintoists, and other world religions, that he
said he would be willing to die among them. The spirit of the
Revisionists on both sides of the ocean was an effort to find the
Word of God by the study of comparative religions. This is the
spirit of Gnosticism; it is not true faith in the inspiration and
infallibility of the Bible.
MODERN BIBLES
How far the new theology has been adopted by the editors of
the many different kinds of modern Bibles, is a question space
does not permit us to pursue. In the main, all these new editions
conform to the modern rules of textual criticism. We have already
mentioned Fenton, Goodspeed, Moffatt, Moulton, Noyes, Rotherham,
Weymouth, Twentieth Century, the Polychrome, and the Shorter
Bible. To these the names of others might be added. The Fenton
Farrar translation opens thus in Genesis, first chapter:
"By periods God created that which produced the Solar Systems;
then that which produced the Earth ... This was the close and the
dawn of the first age."
Here is plenty of scope for evolution, Gnosticism, and the
aeon theory.
The latest sensation is "A New Commentary," by Bishop Gore
(formerly of Oxford, and a descendant of the Tractarians), and
others. According to this publication David did not kill Goliath,
Noah never had an ark, Jonah was not swallowed by a whale, the
longevity of Methuselah was an impossibility, and certain Gospel
miracles are regarded with skepticism.
"Every theological seminary of standing in this country, we are
told," says one of the most widely read weeklies of America, "has
been teaching for a quarter of a century almost everything
contained in the new Commentary."
Under these circumstances, how can these theological
seminaries regard the Hebrew and the Greek of the Bible as
dependable or attach to them any degree of inspiration?
When Doctors Westcott and Hort called "vile" and
"villainous" the Received Text which, by the providence of God,
was accounted an authority for 1800 years, they opened wide the
door for individual and religious sects to bring forth new
Bibles, solely upon their own authority.
It will be necessary to cite only two texts to show why the
Protestants cannot use the Douay or Catholic Version in its
present condition:
Genesis 3:15 reads: "I will put enmities between thee and the
woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and
thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."
This rendering opens the way to exalt the Virgin Mary as a
redeemer instead of her divine Seed.
Heb.11:21 reads: "By faith Jacob dying, blessed each of the
sons of Joseph, and adored the top of his rod." What is this, if
it is not image worship? One has only to read the 13th chapter of
Daniel in the Douay, a chapter which does not exist in the King
James, to be shocked at one of the corruptions of the Word of
God, which the martyrs rejected.
What becomes, then, of the statement that all versions are
good, and that all versions contain the true, saving Word of God?
The numerous modern Bibles, translated from the Westcott and Hort
text, or from one built on similar principles, are no better in
many respects than the Douay.
Will not God hold us responsible for light and knowledge
concerning His Word? Can we escape His condemnation, if we choose
to exalt any version containing proved corruptions? Shall we not
rather, avoid putting these versions on a level with God's true
Bible?
And what is the practical result of this tide of modernism
which has largely engulfed England and is sweeping the
theological schools and popular Protestant churches in America?
It renders such a missionary useless in the foreign field. He
will find that the heathen have been in possession of a
philosophy like his for 3,000 years. He is no more certain of his
ground than they are. It is sad to see the heathen world deprived
of the Bread of Life because of modernism.
Uniformity in expressing the sacred language of the one God
is highly essential. It would be confusion, not order, if we did
not maintain uniformity of Bible language in our church services,
in our colleges and in the memory work of our children. "For God
is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches
of the saints." I Cor.14:33.
It is not those who truly love the Word of God, who wish to
multiply various versions, which they design shall be authorized
for congregational use or exalted as authority for doctrine. Let
the many versions be used as reference books, or books for study,
but let us have a uniform standard version.
NOTE:
How revolutionary have been the effects of that movement in
England which embraced Ritualism and Revision, let the following
statements from a book just off the press (1929), by H.L.
Stewart, entitled, "A Century of Anglo-Catholicism," speak:
"Condemned or sanctioned, the Movement is now admittedly beyond
all stopping. What seemed chimerical a hundred years ago seems
irresistible today. Four bishops, out of forty-three, are still
definitely hostile. On the other hand, two thousand two hundred
Anglican priests have lately published their unalterable
conviction about the Sacrament in terms which no honest man can
pretend to think different in any essential respect from those of
the Church of Rome."
Speaking of "Reservation," the practice of consecrating the
sacramental elements some time in advance of the hour when they
are to be used, and of worshiping them, H.L. Stewart gives good
authority to indicate over 800 churches and institutional chapels
"where the sacramental Elements were not only reserved but
adored." And, "One finds in Crockford's Clerical Directory for
1927, a forecast that ten years of further decline like that of
the ten just ended would wipe the Church of England out of
existence."
In referring to the "Prayer Book" controversy, which lately has
repeatedly convulsed England and which arose from the new Prayer
Book so arranged as to make a ritual like the Catholic legal in
the Church of England, this new volume says:
"Mr Rosslyn Mitchell told the House of Commons that if the
English clergy were armed with the Alternative Prayer Book, they
could make England Roman Catholic within a generation."
Speaking of the controversy in England between Higher Criticism
and belief in the Bible, he further says:
"Making its normal speed of progress, according to the rate at
which new thought travels westward, it has now reached America,
to divide the churches of the United States into Modernist and
Fundamentalist."
.......................
MY NOTE:
Indeed today we have more and more people and "churches" using
modern versions based upon the corrupt MSS of the Vaticanus and
Sinaiticus, popularised by Westcott and Hort. Put that together
with a huge chunk of "Christians" that do not read much of the
Bible anyway, and you have a mixture of luke warm Laodicea church
attenders that fit very well indeed the prophetic 7th church of
Revelation chapter three. They think they are in need of nothing
on the spiritual side, but Jesus tells them to anoint their eyes
with eye slav (get true spirituality of mind-set) that they made
truly see correctly spiritual truths; they are admonished to
REPENT!
Keith Hunt
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