THE OLD MSS. (Continued)
I am beginning anew where I left off several months ago. These three months have been a time of introspection and soul searching for me during which I did not feel comfortable in writing. Be it known, however, that my own malaise does not diminish that fact that God did, indeed, pour out His grace upon mankind in preserving His important message for our edification and salvation!
In our past few issues we had been observing some witnesses which are hostile to the Traditional Text which underlies our King James Bible. Most notably we have focused on the Alexandrian texts, especially of Origen.
Many modern critics would argue that the voice of antiquity is hostile to this Traditional Text.
We disagree. History disagrees. A theology which postulates an Almighty Sovereign God
Who loves mankind and seeks to impart His ways and message of salvation to a lost and dying world would also disagree.
It takes more faith than I am able to muster to suggest that God would cede control of His inspired Words to humanity to the vagaries of the very lost humanity with whom He was attempting to communicate.
Fuller (Which Bible?) notes of Helvidius, a scholar from antiquity:
�In the fourth century, Helvidius, a great scholar of northern Italy, accused Jerome, whom the pope had empowered to form a Bible in Latin for [Roman] Catholicism, with using corrupt Greek manuscripts. How could Helvidius have accused Jerome of employing corrupt Greek manuscripts if Helvidius had not had the pure Greek manuscripts?�
There should be two things noticed from this citation. The first, of course, is that there existed a pure manuscript text type in the fourth century. The Alexandrian text type, from which Jerome made his Vulgate translation was considered in opposition to the other text type. Variations to what we today would call the Traditional Text are not a new phenomena; they are as old as the Scriptorium. These are simply manuscripts which have been corrupted by man for whatever the reason. Aside from these God has preserved His inspired Word.
The second thing to be noticed is that this is a citation from the fourth century. We need to understand that the battle today is not over the familiarity of our King James Bible. The battle is for the pure unadulterated Word of God which He originally inspired and historically preserved.
Some have also argued that, although we have the witness of the writings of the early �Church Fathers� as to the veracity of the Traditional Text, that there are few copies of this text type which predate the 10th century. Hills (The King James Version Defended) has argued that this is not an indictment of this text type. Hills notes that Lake [Harvard Theological Review] has argued that the copyist destroyed the manuscripts from which they copied as the new template was prepared. It follows that these true copies would be the most destroyed as they were the most copied. That would explain why so few of the early copies are currently available.
Hills further notes:
�By the same token, the survival of the old uncial manuscripts of the Alexandrian and Western type, such as Aleph, B, and D, was due to the fact that they were rejected by the Church and ... allowed to rest relatively undisturbed on the library shelves of ancient monasteries.�
With the multitude of �bibles� on the market today, and the fact that almost all of them are translated from a faulty, and eclectic, text which relies more on the competence of the �critic� than on a faith in a God preserved Message, one is led to wonder which of the many versions and paraphrases are founded on the God preserved Traditional Text.
The answer to this quandary is quite simple: For all intents and purposes, if the Bible you carry is not the King James Bible it is not founded on the Traditional Text. Although there are many differences between the many versions (so much so that one is tempted to doubt the possibility of having a message from God if he trusts the cacophony of voices from the modern �sacred� texts!)they do all tend to agree in one point: God did not, or could not, preserve His Word to mankind. Only the modern day critic is able to tell us what God probably did say.
In Did Jesus Have a Beginning (Battle Cry, Jan/Feb 1990) we are given a simple test to see if the Alexandrian text type has poisoned the Bibles we carry to church:
�How can you tell if your Bible relies upon the two ... Manuscripts that disagree with 95% of the evidence? One easy way is to look at Mark 1:2 - 3. There are quotations from two prophets there, Malachi and Isaiah. If your Bible says they both came from Isaiah, it is simply wrong.�
Next issue, God willing, we will begin to look at the voices of the Reformation as they pertain to the doctrine of Scriptural preservation.
12 January 2007
THE OLD MSS. (Continued)
We have taken a look at some of the old manuscripts and their testimonies either for or against the Traditional Text. In doing so we have found that those text types which disagree with the God preserved Traditional Text have come up lacking in the voice of authority. Simply speaking, those ancient witnesses which stand opposed to the Traditional Text give an evidence of unreliability. They do not evidence the mark of the Hand of God upon their pages.
But, what does the mark of history have to say about the Traditional Text?
In answer to this question we will take a very short look at the testimony of the Protestant Reformation. This great spiritual upheaval was based in a simple doctrinal stance: What saith the Scripture? It is obvious, then, that the position of these �reformers� plays and important part in the transmission of that Sacred text. It was, after all, upon the sole authority of that text which the entire movement rests.
Fuller (Which Bible?) makes the claim that, �...the Protestant Reformation was thoroughly established. The great contributing factor to this spiritual upheaval was the translation by Luther of the Greek New Testament of Erasmus into German.�
I can�t argue with Fuller as to the German portion of the Reformation. However this Reformation, actually a great revival of faith which spread over much of the Western World, had to do with the translation of the Bible into the native dialect of peoples across Europe - and from there across the world as the great missionary fervor, which was engendered by the Spirit of God speaking through the Words of inspired and preserved Scripture, drove men to share the Divine Message which God had spoken to humanity.
This was not simply the result of the German translation, the English translations, based as they were upon the same Traditional Text type, also flourished. So did other translations of those same God preserved words of the Traditional Text, flourish in other lands.
It has been said by many that the great Protestant reformation, and all of the great revivals of the world and the men used as vessels in those revivals, have come about because of a fidelity to the Word of God as preserved in the Traditional Text.
This is seen throughout the history of the past five centuries since the Bible message has been given back to the people, via the native language translations based on this Traditional and God preserved Text.
Fuller, again (Which Bible?), notes that it is, �...the Traditional Text ... Which was adopted by Protestants at the time of the Reformation and used by them universally for more than three hundred years, and which forms the basis of the King James Version and other early Protestant translations.�
This simple citation might make those unfamiliar with the works of Fuller to misunderstand. He does not teach that the Traditional Text was ever lost. Far from that misconception. Fuller, and many others, would argue that this Traditional Text had been suppressed for centuries by the ruling Roman Church. Still, as Jesus promised to Peter that the even the gates of hell would not destroy His true churches, there were everywhere groups which had maintained a fidelity to the preserved Traditional Text throughout the dark ages of the Romanization of the Western churches.
There were always those churches, free of ecclesiastical control, which maintained a faithfulness to Christ and the true text of the New Testament. It is these churches, maintaining a trust in the true Word of God, which were the repositories of the blessed Words of God. It is among these that the preserving power of the Holy Spirit worked His work in giving us today a true, the trustworthy, and preserved Message from God.
So, what happened to change all this in the minds of so many modern church leaders? There were many factors involved as Satan attempted to destroy the Written Word of God from the earth. Satan will never be completely victorious in this plan. But, as in the dark ages of yore, He has beguiled many from a faith in God and the Words of God.
One of the seminal points in the history of Satan�s plan was seen in the 1881 publication of the English Revised Edition. In this edition two men, primarily, were responsible for the current season of doubt about the doctrine of the preservation of Scripture. These two men are the Dr�s Westcott and Hort.
We will begin a study of these two men, and the great change they�ve wrought, in our next session.
19 January 2007
WESTCOTT AND HORT
The 19th century was a time of great ferment in the world. The old theories of the divine rights of kings was crumbling with an incessant march towards new forms of governance. Many of the old social structures were giving way. In England the concept of slavery gave way to an abolitionist stance. British colonialism may have continued but the practice of slavery was phased out. Even in the United States this issue was of such importance as to be one of the underlying causes of the great Civil War between the States. The great industrial revolution changed forever the way people worked in industry.
Trains were becoming more prevalent as a means of mass transit and trade. Never before had the world saw such energy in science and invention. The photograph not only made portraiture available for the masses who could not afford to pay for a skilled artist, the photograph also made the news, especially of the battlefield, more readily available to the masses. Telegraph, and later telephone, made the information of the day flow swiftly around the world. Biology saw the concept of Darwinian evolution come to the fore.
It was into the quickly changing world which religion began to be seen as unneeded. Darwin had explained origins. The inventors had conquered the present. Surely, it was reasoned, the march of mankind toward a utopia of the future was simply the next new invention away.
There were many who sought to �restore� religion to its rightful place. That �rightful place� began with the tacit assumption that the Scripture needed updating as much as had the other facets of society. Men such as Tishendorph began to scour the world for older manuscripts to replace a Scripture which had fallen way to the evolution of time. Surely even the Scripture must have changed. Darwin had argued, society and science added their readily observable voices to the argument, that the only constant was change.
Into this religious ferment came the translating committee of the English Revised Version of 1881. Although not commissioned to tamper overmuch with the base text of Scripture, this committee jettisoned the old Traditional Text in favor of a new eclectic text of Scripture. The purpose of this Westcott and Hort led committee seemed to be to sweep away the cobwebs which had infested man�s understanding of Scripture and to establish another standard of which �modern man� could approve.
The work of this committee has influenced translation committees down to this day. All of the modern day translation committees, and hence all the modern day Bible versions and translations can trace their lineage and rational back to this seminal committee.
But, what about the work of this committee of 1881? How sound was their methodology?
I believe that their work was flawed from a thematic standpoint. Fuller (Which Bible?) points out this fact.
�The Westcott-Hort method [of textual criticism] is certainly basically rationalistic, for it exalts the judgement of the individual critic. They were influenced either consciously or unconsciously by the liberal tendencies of their time. It was a period when the theory of evolution had been thrust before the popular attention with the production of Darwin�s Origen of the Species in 1859. This theory had tremendous repercussions in every area of life. Both Westcott and Hort seem to have been theistic evolutionists.�
Those naturalistic theories of Westcott and Hort extended to Bible preservation. They considered the proper way to study the Bible was to treat it just as if it were another book from antiquity. This is madness from a religious standpoint. Homer, for instance, did not write under the direct inspiration of God. The writings of Homer were not intended to be a message from the God of eternity to the men of history. The writings of Homer did not give mankind the only message which would allow an eternal life of bliss or any real understanding of God.
Rather than accepting that the Scripture was the very breath of God (the meaning of �inspiration�), the Scriptural record was accorded no reverence. Mortal man was considered as possessing the proper rational and spiritual powers to differentiate between which words were allowed to be considered the Words of God and which were dismissed as merely the work of a sloppy copyist. This made man the final arbitrator of what God was allowed to have said in His Own message.
As if this were not enough of a misapplication of trust, McLean (The Providential Preservation of the Greek Text of the New Testament) says more.
�Those who [examine the theories of Westcott and Hort] will find that the whole theory was based upon a fundamental error, namely the assumption that the reliability of those fourth century documents [Aleph and B] was in proportion to their age. There were no doubt bad copies in every age, some corrupted by accident, some by ignorance and some by design. These two exhibit the most amazing number of incorrect readings.�
We have gone into the unreliable character of those documents, Aleph and B, in earlier discussions. If they are indeed a �pure� text, why do they have nearly three thousand differences between themselves in the four gospels alone? Why have they devalued the references to the deity of Jesus Christ? Why was one of them found in the burning barrel of a Roman monastery? For that matter, why were both of them in the hands of the Roman church - the same Roman church which had fought the distribution of the Gospel record in the vernacular for hundreds of years? Why did both see had their lineage traced back to the Scriptorium at Alexandria where the noted heretic Origin had labored?
The slavish dedication of Drs. Westcott and Hort to the theory that the oldest had to be the best failed to consider any of these questions. To this one more question could be asked. Why had these two copies survived so long when other copies from antiquity had decayed and passed from history? The answer to this question is really quite simple. The true templates had been used, and reused, until they were completely worn out. These two, Aleph and B, had survived partly because of non use. The Spirit had not drawn anyone toward them so that they would be perused.
Also, we must recall that Egypt�s dry and warm climate had much to do, as well, with the preservation of these two manuscripts. But, while we consider this, we must also consider that Egypt was the land where the Gnostic was hardy. Origin, himself, was beguiled by this religious philosophy. A final question. Is it not possible that these two manuscripts hold a decidedly Gnostic bent in their writing? The answer is yes. It is here, and nearly only here, that we find the Book of Mark mutilated by the omission of the last portion of the final chapter. Consider that the Book of Mark is the only Gospel which does not begin with the dual nature of Jesus, as the God/Man, pictured. If the Gnostic were to remove the references to the resurrection of Jesus in the latter portion of that Book, he would have a Gospel with which he might be comfortable. Might this have been a rational for tampering with the text?
No kidding!
Fuller, again (Which Bible?) points out the theological shortcoming of the Westcott and Hort committee.
�It is hard to see how God would allow the true text to sink into virtual oblivion for fifteen hundred years only to have it brought to light again by two Cambridge professors who did not even believe it to be verbally inspired.�
Even foregoing the latter part of Fuller�s statement, it is very hard to see how God would allow His true message to mankind, which must have been important to Him, to wallow in the dust of ages. If God is indeed God, would He not have worked to preserve His obviously important message to humanity?
Obviously, YES!
Next session, God willing, we will begin to take a closer look at the operating principles of Westcott and Hort in their new translations and text.
26 January 2007
WESTCOTT AND HORT (Continued)
This week we will begin to examine some of the core theories of Westcott and Hort, and, ultimately, the revision committee which they led. These key theories, core beliefs which would not allow the conviction that God had preserved His Word through the ages, which would lead them to jettison the Traditional Text in favor of an eclectic text over which they were the ultimate masters, have continued to influence the critic and scholar of even this day.
One of these keystone theories, touched upon by Hills (The King James Version Defended), is that the Traditional Text was an ecclesiastical revision.
�...Westcott and Hort�s theory was that the Traditional Text was an official text created by a council or conference of bishops and leading churchmen meeting for the express purpose of constructing a New Testament text on which all could agree, and in their discussion of the history of the Traditional Text they continue to emphasize its official character. ... This emphasis on ecclesiastical authority, however, has been abandoned by most present-day scholars.�
One of the problems associated with this view of an ecclesiastical council issuing a decree that the text of the church would now follow a new standard, a harmonized standard, is that there is not one word of evidence for this theory in all of history. It is a pure fabrication. It is fashioned out of a need to explain why 85% to 95% of all the extant evidence of manuscript, lectionary and church father will conform to the Traditional Text.
Modern critics who have dismissed this theory partly because of the dearth of evidence to even suggest that it be true, have no compelling rational to explain that singular fact of the unanimity of evidence which is the Traditional Text.
Without the bedrock of this theory, the entire foundation of the modern critic is molded upon a framework of gossamer. Only the conviction that God could not, or at least did not, preserve His Own message to humanity gives any sort of rational to the correcters of the Word of God.
The critic will dismiss my assessment as untrue. But it remains his duty to explain why so much of the evidence disagrees with his pontificating over the matter.
As to the mechanic�s of this belief in a fictional conference, Gipp (An Understandable History of the Bible) weighs in.
�[Hort�s] theory was that the �originals� agreed with the local [Alexandrian] Text, and that this Local Text was �edited� by the Syrian church at Antioch in the Fourth Century to become what we know as the Universal {Received) Text, and was forced upon the people by the church council.�
Once again the question of �what council,� and �when� are asked. If there is no evidence of such a council, then why would there be an assumption that such a council existed? What is the reasoning to suggest that this Alexandrian text type, which so strongly disagrees with the Traditional Text and the vast weight of evidence to support this Traditional Text, is at all correct? Is it not more reasonable, even on a natural plane, to suspect that the one (or few) manuscripts which disagree with the many (overwhelmingly many) is an aberration and not worthy of trust.
It would take a great faith to accept the Alexandrian text type over the Traditional Text. But, that faith would not be centered in an all-powerful and loving God. It would be a faith that was seated in man�s own expertise. It would be a faith that doubted the goodness of God.
It would also be a faith which overlooked the writings of the church father�s who quoted from the Traditional Text in the centuries before this mythical fourth century revision committee. We have noted elsewhere that Irenaeus quoted from the last portion of the final chapter in Mark. We are now assured, on extremely scant evidence, that this portion is not authentic. Was Irenaeus, then, a prophet who foretold a text not yet composed? And, if this text were a spurious addition to the Word of God, then was Irenaeus a false prophet?
This is just another pesky problem for those who would not accept the �ecclesiastical revision� theory of Westcott and Hort, and would yet except the conclusions which this duo had extrapolated from their flawed theory.
Even the editors of the Thomas Nelson�s �The Prophecy Bible� have admitted problems in this area.
�Since the latter nineteenth century the theory has been held by some scholars that this traditional text of the New Testament had been officially edited by the fourth-century church. Recent studies have caused significant changes in the view, and a growing number of scholars now regard the Received Text as far more reliable than previously thought.�
To realize just how hard it would have been for a revision such as envisioned by Westcott and Hort to have ever taken place without a loud cry of revulsion from, at the very least, several quarters, one has only to look at the outcry generated in the current King James Bible controversy. But, there is no �paper trail� suggesting such a revision as accepted by Drs. Westoctt and Hort ever happened. None. Nada. Ain�t no mention of it anywhere in antiquity!
The fraudulent �The Gospel of Judas,� which was recently discovered and hyped by many, is mentioned as false by the church fathers. But, they nowhere mention an ecclesiastical revision of the Scripture. Other Gnostic flights of fancy are mentioned, and rebutted by those same church fathers. But, they nowhere mention an ecclesiastical revision of the Scripture.
The truth is, and you�d be hard pressed to find any authority who could offer counter opinion, this ecclesiastical revision never took place. And, without this revision, the entire �house of cards� of both Westcott and Hort, and the modern textual critic who discounts the preserving power of the Hand of God upon His Scripture, comes crashing down in the ignominy of bias and unbelief.
Fuller (True or False) asks the obvious question:
�Why should anyone put credence in the Westcott-Hort theory that enabled the two scholars to reject as of no value about ninety-five percent of the available evidence and in effect to make the text of Vaticannus the magic touchstone?�
Why, indeed!
In our next session, God willing, we will consider the Conflate Theory of Westcott and Hort. Until then, trust the God Who cared enough to give His Word and to keep it for all generations. He is neither capricious nor powerless. He is the Lord of Glory Who loves us.
One point I want to reemphasize, for the sake of clarity: The Received Text and the Traditional Text are so nearly synonymous as to be often referred to interchangeably.
January 2007