According to Kenyon,1 there are about 4,489 Greek New Testament manuscripts known to be extant. Of these 170 are papyrus fragments, dating from the second century to the seventh; 212 are uncial (capital letter) manuscripts, dating from the fourth century to the tenth; 2,429 are minuscule (small letter) manuscripts dating from the ninth century to the sixteenth; and 1,678 are lectionaries (lesson books for public reading containing extracts from the New Testament).
1 Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (New York, 1940), pp. 105-106.
The vast majority of these extant Greek New Testament manuscripts agree together very closely, so closely, indeed that they may fairly be said to contain the same New Testament text. This Majority Text is usually called the Byzantine Text by modern textual critics. This is because all modern critics acknowledge that this was the Greek New Testament text in general use throughout the greater part of the Byzantine Period (312—1453).
For many centuries before the Protestant Reformation this Byzantine text was the text of the entire Greek Church, and for more than three centuries after the Reformation it was the text of the entire Protestant Church. Even today it is the text which most Protestants know best, since the King James Version and other early Protestant translations were made from it.
Burgon was an ardent defender of this Byzantine text found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts. He gave to this text the name Traditional Text,2 thus indicating his conviction that this was the true text which by a perpetual tradition had been handed down generation after generation without fail in the Church of Christ from the days of the apostles onwards. Burgon believed this because he believed that it was through the church that Christ had fulfilled His promise always to preserve for His people a true New Testament text.
2 He used the word Traditional in its proper sense, signifying “handed down. In this sense the Scriptures are the “Divine Tradition” as opposed to “the traditions of men.”
The Byzantine text, he maintained, is the true text because it is that form of the Greek New Testament which is known to have been used in the Church of Christ in unbroken succession for many centuries, first in the Greek Church and then in the Protestant Church. And all orthodox Christians, all Christians who show due regard for the Divine inspiration and providential preservation of Scripture, must agree with Burgon in this matter. For in what other way can it be that Christ has fulfilled His promise always to preserve in His Church the true New Testament text?
“No sooner,” writes Dean Burgon, “was the work of Evangelists and Apostles recognized as the necessary counterpart and complement of God’s ancient Scriptures and became the ‘New Testament,’ than a reception was found to be awaiting it in the world closely resembling that which He experienced Who is the subject of its pages. Calumny and misrepresentation, persecution and murderous hate, assailed Him continually. And the Written Word in like manner, in the earliest age of all, was shamefully handled by mankind. Not only was it confused through human infirmity and misapprehension, but it became also the object of restless malice and unsparing assaults.”3
3 Traditional Text, p. 10.
“Before our Lord ascended up to heaven,” continues Dean Burgon, “He told His disciples that He would send them the Holy Ghost, who should supply His place and abide with His Church for ever. He added a promise that it should be the office of that inspiring Spirit not only to bring to their remembrance all things whatsoever He had told them, but also to guide His Church ‘into all Truth’ or ‘the whole Truth’ (John 16:13).
“Accordingly, the earliest great achievement of those days was accomplished in giving to the Church the Scriptures of the New Testament, in which, authorized teaching was enshrined in written form. . . . There exists no reason for supposing that the Divine Agent, who in the first instance thus gave to mankind the Scriptures of Truth, straightway abdicated His office; took no further care of His work; abandoned those precious writings to their fate. That a perpetual miracle was wrought for their preservation — that copyists were protected against all risk of error, or evil men prevented from adulterating shamefully copies of the Deposit — no one, it is presumed, is so weak as to suppose. But it is quite a different thing to claim that all down the ages the sacred writings must needs have been God’s peculiar care; that the Church under Him has watched over them with intelligence and skill; has recognized which copies exhibit a fabricated, which an honestly transcribed text; has generally sanctioned the one, and generally disallowed the other.”
In connection with Westcott and Hort’s theory Dean Burgon writes: “We oppose facts to their speculation. They exalt B and Aleph and D4 because in their own opinions those copies are the best. They weave ingenious webs and invent subtle theories, because their paradox of a few against the many requires ingenuity and subtlety for its support. Dr. Hort revelled in finespun theories and technical terms, such as ‘Intrinsic Probability,’ ‘Transcriptional Probability,’ ‘Internal evidence of Readings,’ ‘Internal evidence of Documents,’ which of course connote a certain amount of evidence, but are weak pillars of a heavy structure. Even conjectural emendation and inconsistent decrees are not rejected. They are infected with the theorizing which spoils some of the best German work, and with the idealism which is the bane of many academic minds especially at Oxford and Cambridge.
4 B=Codex Vaticanus, Aleph=Codex Sinaiticus, D=Codex Bezae.
“In contrast with this sojourn in cloudland, we are essentially of the earth though not earthy. We are nothing if we are not grounded in facts: Our appeal is to facts, our test lies in facts, so far as we can we build testimonies upon testimonies and pile facts on facts. We imitate the procedure of the courts of justice in decisions resulting from the converging product of all evidence, when it has been cross-examined and sifted.”
Burgon continues: “I proceed to offer for the reader’s consideration seven tests of Truth concerning each of which I shall have something to say in the way of explanation by-and-by. In the end I shall ask the reader to allow that where these seven tests are found to conspire we may confidently assume that the evidence is worthy of all acceptance, and is to be implicitly followed. A reading should be attested then by the seven following: 1. Antiquity or Primitiveness; 2. Consent of Witnesses, or Number; 3. Variety of Evidence, or Catholicity; 4. Respectability of Witnesses, or Weight; 5. Continuity, or Unbroken Tradition; 6. Evidence of the Entire Passage, or Context; 7. Internal Considerations, or Reasonableness.
“In the balances of these seven Tests of Truth the speculations of the Westcott and Hort school, which have bewitched millions are ‘Tekel,’ weighed in the balances and found wanting.
“I am utterly disinclined to believe,” continues Dean Burgon, “so grossly improbable does it seem — that at the end of 1800 years 995 copies out of every thousand, suppose, will prove untrustworthy; and that the one, two, three, four or five which remain, whose contents were till yesterday as good as unknown, will be found to have retained the secret of what the Holy Spirit originally inspired.
“I am utterly unable to believe, in short, that God’s promise has so entirely failed, that at the end of 1800 years, much of the text of the Gospel had in point of fact to be picked by a German critic out of a wastepaper basket in the convent of St. Catherine; and that the entire text had to be remodelled after the pattern set by a couple of copies which had remained in neglect during fifteen centuries, and had probably owed their survival to that neglect; whilst hundreds of others had been thumbed to pieces, and had bequeathed their witness to copies made from them. . . .
“Happily, Western Christendom has been content to employ one and the same text for upwards of three hundred years. If the objection be made, as it probably will be, ‘Do you then mean to rest upon the five manuscripts used by Erasmus?’ I reply that the copies employed were selected because they were known to represent the accuracy of the Sacred Word; that the descent of the text was evidently guarded with jealous care, just as the human genealogy of our Lord was preserved; that it rests mainly upon much the widest testimony; and that where any part of it conflicts with the fullest evidence attainable, there I believe it calls for correction.”
Since all the non-Byzantine New Testament manuscripts have been condemned by some noted modern critic or other, no scholar ought to be offended at Burgon’s treatment of this minority group. He also condemned these non-Byzantine texts in strongest terms, deeming them depraved — far inferior, that is, to the Byzantine (true) text found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts. “By far the most depraved text is that exhibited by CODEX D.”5 And concerning B and ALEPH his remarks are similar. “As for the origin of these two curiosities, it can perforce only be divined from their contents. That they exhibit fabricated texts is demonstrable. No amount of honest copying — persevered in for any number of centuries — could by possibility have resulted in two such documents. Separated from one another in actual date by 50, perhaps by 100 years, they must needs have branched off from a common corrupt ancestor, and straightway become exposed to fresh depraving influences.”6
5 Revision Revised, p. 12.
6 Ibid., p. 318.
Burgon regarded the good state of preservation of B and ALEPH in spite of their exceptional age as a proof not of their goodness but of their badness. If they had been good manuscripts, they would have been read to pieces long ago. “We suspect that these two manuscripts are indebted for their preservation, solely to their ascertained evil character; which has occasioned that the one eventually found its way, four centuries ago, to a forgotten shelf in the Vatican Library; while the other, after exercising the ingenuity of several generations of critical Correctors, eventually (viz. in A.D. 1844) got deposited in the wastepaper basket of the Convent at the foot of Mount Sinai. Had B and ALEPH been copies of average purity, they must long since have shared the inevitable fate of books which are freely used and highly prized; namely, they would have fallen into decadence and disappeared from sight.”7
7 Ibid., p. 319.
Thus the fact that B and ALEPH are so old is a point against them, not something in their favor. It shows that the Church rejected them and did not read them. Otherwise they would have worn out and disappeared through much reading. Burgon has been accused of sophistry in arguing this way, but certainly his suggestion cannot be rejected by naturalistic critics as impossible. For one of their “own poets” favored the idea that the scribes “usually destroyed their exemplars when they had copied the sacred books.” 8
8 See Kirsopp Lake, Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 21 (1928), pp. 347-349.
If Lake could believe this, why may not orthodox Christians believe that many ancient Byzantine manuscripts have been worn out with much reading and copying? And conversely, why may we not believe that B, ALEPH and the other ancient non-Byzantine manuscripts have survived unto the present day simply because they were rejected by the Church and not used?
Burgon attributed the false readings present in B, ALEPH, D, and the other non-Byzantine manuscripts to two principal causes. The first of these was the deliberate falsification of the New Testament Scriptures by heretics during the second and third centuries. The second was the doubtless well meant but nevertheless disastrous efforts of certain learned Christians during this same early period to improve the New Testament text through the use of “conjectural emendation.” In support of these contentions Burgon brought forth a number of quotations from the writings of the Church Fathers.
The early Christians of Alexandria were probably much influenced by the heretics who flourished there and who are known to have corrupted the New Testament text, by Basilides, for example, and Valentinus and their disciples. Moreover, the only Alexandrian Christian of whose New Testament textual criticism we have specimens is Origen, and his decisions in this field seem fanciful rather than sound.
Burgon refers us to an outstanding example of Origen’s New Testament textual criticism. In his comment on Matthew 19:1721־ (Jesus’ reply to the rich young man)9 , Origen reasons that Jesus could not have concluded His list of God’s commandments with the comprehensive requirement, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” For the reply of the young man was, “All these things have I kept from my youth up,” and Jesus evidently accepted this statement as true. But if the young man had loved his neighbor as himself, he would have been perfect, for Paul says that the whole law is summed up in this saying, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” But Jesus answered, “If thou wilt be perfect. . . ,” implying that the young man was not yet perfect. Therefore, Origen argued, the commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” could not have been spoken by Jesus on this occasion and was not part of the original text of Matthew. This clause, he believed, was added by some tasteless scribe.
9 Berlin, Origenes Werke, Vol. 10, pp. 385-388.
Thus it is clear that this renowned Father was not content to abide by the text which he had received but freely indulged in the boldest sort of conjectural emendation. In the very passage in which he speaks most fully concerning his critical work on the Old Testament text he gives us this specimen of his handling of the New. It is likely, moreover, that there were other Christian scholars at Alexandria who were even less restrained in their speculations than Origen. These well-meaning but misguided critics evidently deleted many readings from the original New Testament text, thus producing the abbreviated text found in B and ALEPH and in other manuscripts of their type.
In his Revision Revised Burgon gives his reconstruction of the history of the New Testament text in the vivid style that was habitual to him. “Vanquished by THE WORD Incarnate, Satan next directed his subtle malice against the Word written. Hence, as I think — hence the extraordinary fate which befell certain early transcripts of the Gospel. First, heretical assailants of Christianity — then, orthodox defenders of the Truth — lastly and above all, self constituted Critics . . . such were the corrupting influences which were actively at work throughout the first hundred years after the death of St. John the Divine.
“Profane literature has never known anything approaching to it — can show nothing at all like it. Satan’s arts were defeated indeed through the Church’s faithfulness, because — (the good Providence of God has so willed it) — the perpetual multiplication in every quarter, of copies required for Ecclesiastical use — not to say the solicitude of faithful men in diverse regions of ancient Christendom to retain for themselves unadulterated specimens of the inspired Text — proved a sufficient safeguard against the grosser forms of corruption. But this was not all.
“The Church, remember, hath been from the beginning the ‘Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ.’ Did not her Divine Author pour out upon her in largest measure, ‘the SPIRIT of truth’; and pledge Himself that it should be that Spirit’s special function to guide her children “into all the truth’? . . . That by a perpetual miracle, sacred manuscripts would be protected all down the ages against depraving influences of whatever sort — was not to have been expected; certainly, was never promised. But the Church, in her collective capacity, hath nevertheless — as a matter of fact — been perpetually purging herself of those shamefully depraved copies which once everywhere abounded within her pale: retaining only such an amount of discrepancy in her Text as might serve to remind her children that they carry their ‘treasure in earthen vessels’ — as well as to stimulate them to perpetual watchfulness and solicitude for the purity and integrity of the Deposit. Never, however, up to the present hour, hath there been any complete eradication of all traces of the attempted mischief — any absolute getting rid of every depraved copy extant. These are found to have lingered on anciently in many quarters. A few such copies linger on to the present day. The wounds were healed, but the scars remained — nay, the scars are discernible still.
“What, in the meantime, is to be thought of those blind guides — those deluded ones — who would now, if they could, persuade us to go back to those same codices of which the Church hath already purged herself?”10
10 The Revision Revised, pp. 334-335.
Burgon’s reconstruction of the history of the New Testament text is not only vividly expressed but eminently biblical and therefore true. For if the true New Testament text came from God, whence came the erroneous variant readings ultimately save from the evil one; and how could the true text have been preserved save through the providence of God working through His Church?
No doubt most Christians, not being High-church Anglicans, will place less emphasis than Dean Burgon did on the organized Church, and more emphasis on the providence of God working through the Church, especially the Greek Church, but this possible defect in Burgon’s presentation does not in any essential way affect the eternal validity of his views concerning the New Testament text. They are eternally valid because they are consistently Christian. In elaborating these views Burgon, unlike most other textual critics, was always careful to remember that the New Testament is not an ordinary book but a special book, a book which was written under the infallible inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a book whose text Christ has promised to preserve in His Church down through the ages.
The Canon and Text of the New Testament
The essential soundness of Burgon’s views is most readily seen when we compare the history of the New Testament canon with the history of the New Testament text, and, therefore, it is to this task that we must now address ourselves.
Why did the Christian Church receive the twenty-seven New Testament books and these only as her canonical New Testament Scripture? Hamack11 and other noted students of the New Testament canon have asked this question repeatedly and have endeavored to answer it in their own fashion. But, as Greijdanus12 and Grosheide13 point out, this question can be satisfactorily answered only on the basis of Christian faith. And when we look with the eye of faith upon the history of the New Testament canon, then we see in that history a mighty conflict between God and Satan, between the Holy Spirit on the one hand and the spirit of darkness on the other.
11 The Origin of the New Testament (New York, 1925), pp. 2-3.
12 Schriftgeloof en Canoniek (Kampen, 1927), pp. 76-77.
13 Algemeene Canoniek van het Nieuwe Testament (Amsterdam, 1935), pp. 206-207.
First, God gave to His Church the twenty-seven New Testament books through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and then through the Spirit also He began to lead the Church into a recognition of these books as her canonical New Testament Scripture. During the second century, however, Satan endeavored to confuse the Church by raising up deceitful men who wrote pseudonymous works, falsely claiming to be apostolic. These satanic devices hindered and delayed the Church’s recognition of the true New Testament canon but could not prevent it. Soon after the beginning of the fifth century the opposition of the devil was completely overcome. Under the leading of the Holy Spirit the Church was guided to receive only the twenty-seven New Testament books as canonical and to reject all others.
Dean Burgon believed that the history of the New Testament text was similar to the history of the New Testament canon; and all orthodox Christians will do well to agree with him in this, for a study of the New Testament manuscripts bears him out. In other words, during the early Christian centuries Satan directed his assault not only upon the New Testament canon but also upon the New Testament text.
No sooner had the New Testament books been given to the Church through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit than the spirit of darkness began his endeavors to corrupt their texts and render them useless, but in these efforts also the evil one failed to attain his objective. In regard to the New Testament text as well as in regard to the New Testament canon God bestowed upon His Church sufficient grace to enable her to overcome all the wiles of the devil. Just as God guided the Church to reject, after a period of doubt and conflict, all non-canonical writings and to receive only the true canonical New Testament books, so God guided the Church during this same period of doubt and conflict, to reject false readings and to receive into common usage the true New Testament text.
For an orthodox Christian Burgon’s view is the only reasonable one. If we believe that God gave the Church guidance in regard to the New Testament books, then surely it is logical to believe that God gave the Church similar guidance in regard to the text which these books contained. Surely it is very inconsistent to believe that God guided the Church in regard to the New Testament canon but gave the Church no guidance in regard to the New Testament text. But this seems to be just what many modern Christians do believe. They believe that all during the medieval period and throughout the Reformation and post-Reformation era the true New Testament text was lost and that it was not regained until the middle of the nineteenth century, when Tischendorf discovered it in the Sinaitic manuscript Aleph and Westcott and Hort found it in the Vatican manuscript B. Such inconsistency, however, is bound to lead to a skepticism which deprives the New Testament text of all authority. If we must believe that the true New Testament text was lost for fifteen hundred years, how can we be certain that it has now been found? What guarantee have we that either B or Aleph contain the true text? How can we be sure that Harris (1908), Conybeare (1910), Lake (1941), and other radical critics are not correct in their suspicions that the true New Testament text has been lost beyond possibility of recovery?
Burgon, therefore, was right in utterly rejecting the claims of Tischendorf (1815-74), Tregelles (1813-75), Westcott (1825-1901), Hort (1828-92), and other contemporary scholars, who insisted that as a result of their labors the true New Testament text had at last been discovered after having been lost for well-nigh fifteen centuries. “And thus it would appear,” he remarks ironically, “that the Truth of Scripture has run a very narrow risk of being lost forever to mankind. Dr. Hort contends that it more than half lay 1perdu’ on a forgotten shelf in the Vatican Library; — Dr. Tischendorf that it had been deposited in a wastepaper basket in the convent of St. Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai; — from which he rescued it on the 4th of February, 1859; — neither, we venture to think, a very likely circumstance. We incline to believe that the Author of Scripture hath not by any means shown Himself so unmindful of the safety of the Deposit, as these distinguished gentlemen imagine.”14
14 The Revision Revised, p. 343.
According to Burgon, the fundamental mistake of contemporary New Testament textual critics was that they ignored the unique character of the New Testament text. They would not recognize that they were dealing with a Book that was different from all other books, in short, with a divinely inspired and providentially preserved book. “That which distinguishes Sacred Science from every other Science which can be named is that it is Divine, and has to do with a Book which is inspired, and not regarded upon a level with the Books of the East, which are held by their votaries to be sacred. It is chiefly from inattention to this circumstance that misconception prevails in that department of Sacred Science known as ‘Textual Criticism.’
“Aware that the New Testament is like no other book in its origin, its contents, its history, many critics of the present day nevertheless permit themselves to reason concerning its Text, as if they entertained no suspicion that the words and sentences of which it is composed were destined to experience an extraordinary fate also. They make no allowances for the fact that influences of an entirely different kind from any with which profane literature is acquainted have made themselves felt in this department, and therefore that even those principles of Textual Criticism which in the case of profane authors are regarded as fundamental are often out of place here.”15
15 Traditional Text, p. 9.
We see here the fundamental difference between Burgon’s approach to the problem of the New Testament text and that adopted by his contemporaries, especially Westcott and Hort. In matters of textual criticism, at least, these latter scholars followed a Naturalistic method. They took particular pride in handling the text of the New Testament just as they would the text of any other ancient book. “For ourselves,” Hort declared, “we dare not introduce considerations which could not reasonably be applied to other ancient texts, supposing them to have documentary attestation of equal amount, variety, and antiquity.”16
16 New Testament in the Original Greek (London, 1881), Vol. 2 p 277.
Burgon, on the other hand, followed a consistently Christian method of New Testament textual criticism. He believed that the New Testament had been divinely inspired and providentially preserved, and when he came to the study of the New Testament text, he did not for one instant lay this faith aside. On the contrary, he regarded the Divine inspiration and providential preservation of the New Testament as two fundamental facts which must be taken into account in the interpretation of the details of New Testament textual criticism, two basic verities which make the textual criticism of the New Testament different from the textual criticism of any other book.
As we have seen, Burgon believed that it was through the usage of the Church that Christ fulfilled His promise always to preserve the New Testament text in its purity. By His Holy Spirit Christ guided His Church to reject false readings and to receive into common usage the true New Testament text. This Divine guidance, moreover, centered in the Greek Church, because it was this Church especially that actually used the Greek New Testament text. Such was Burgon’s view of the history of the New Testament text. There are, however, many orthodox Christians who cannot see their way clear to agree with Burgon. It is necessary, therefore, to devote some space to a consideration of their theories. How do they think that Christ fulfilled His promise always to preserve a pure New Testament text? A realization of the inadequacy of these alternative views will dispose us more than ever to follow Burgon.
In dealing with the problems of the New Testament text most conservatives place great stress on the amount of agreement alleged to exist among the extant New Testament manuscripts. These manuscripts, it is said, agree so closely with one another in matters of doctrine that it does not make much difference which manuscript you follow. The same essential teaching is preserved in them all. This reputed agreement of all the extant New Testament manuscripts in doctrinal matters is ascribed to Divine providence and regarded as the fulfillment of the promise of Christ always to preserve in His Church a trustworthy New Testament text.
It may be that certain orthodox Christians who have read the foregoing pages will reason thus within themselves. “Burgon’s views seem very reasonable and much more in accord with the fundamentals of our Christian faith than the theories of Westcott and Hort and other naturalistic textual critics. It is certainly much more reasonable to believe with Burgon that the true New Testament text has been preserved in the vast majority of the New Testament manuscripts than to suppose with Westcott and Hort that the true text is hardly to be found in any place save in Codex B, now securely locked up in the library of the pope — and in the small minority of the manuscripts which exhibit the same kind of text.
“Who but those with Roman Catholic sympathies could ever be pleased with the notion that God preserved the true New Testament text in secret for almost one thousand years and then finally handed it over to the Roman pontiff for safekeeping? Surely every orthodox Protestant will prefer to think with Burgon that God preserved the true text of the Greek New Testament in the usage of the Greek-speaking Church down through the centuries and then at length delivered it up intact to the Protestant reformers. Burgon’s views, in short, seem eminently reasonable and in accord with our orthodox Christian faith. We feel inclined to adopt them, but how about the facts? Are Burgon’s views in agreement with the facts?”
The answer to this question is an unqualified “Yes!” The evidence now available is amply sufficient to support the orthodox view that regards the Byzantine text as the authentic New Testament text and is even greater now than it was in Burgon’s day. There is now greater reason than ever to believe that the Byzantine text, which is found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts and which was used well-nigh universally throughout the Greek Church for many centuries, is a faithful reproduction of the original New Testament and is the divinely appointed standard by which all New Testament manuscripts and all divergent readings must be judged. No non-Byzantine reading may be regarded as possibly or probably true which in any way detracts from the divine fullness of the doctrine contained in the Byzantine text, for it is in the Byzantine text that Christ has fulfilled His promise always to preserve in His Church the true New Testament text.
Thus the evidence which has accumulated since Burgon’s day is amply sufficient to justify the view held by him and by all consistently orthodox Christians; namely, that it was through the usage of the Church that Christ has fulfilled His promise always to preserve the true New Testament text, and that therefore the Byzantine text found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts is that true text. To reject this view is to act unreasonably. It is to fly in face of the facts.
Those, moreover, who reject this orthodox view of the New Testament text have rejected not merely the facts but also the promise of Christ always to preserve the true New Testament text and the doctrines of the Divine inspiration and providential preservation of Scripture implied in this promise. Has Christ kept this promise or has He not? If we believe this promise, then we must do as Burgon and other orthodox Christians have done. Like Burgon, we must allow this promise to guide us in our dealings with the New Testament text. We must interpret all the data of New Testament textual criticism in the light of this promise.
It is just here, however, that many Christians are fatally inconsistent. They say that they believe in the promise which Christ has given always to preserve the true New Testament text, but in practice they ignore this promise and treat the text of the New Testament exactly like the text of an ordinary book concerning which no such promise has been made. Thus they are guilty of a basic unfaithfulness. In their efforts to be pleasing to naturalistic critics they themselves have lapsed into unbelief. They have undermined their own faith and deprived themselves of all ground for confidence in the infallibility of the Bible. For if the New Testament is just an ordinary book, then the trustworthiness of its text is, at best, only a probability, never a certainty.
Dean Burgon has a message for these waverers and for all who desire to attain unto a firmer faith. In his controversy with the revisionists of 1881 Burgon stood forth as the uncompromising champion of the King James (Authorized) Version. “As a companion in the study and for private edification: as a book of reference for critical purposes, especially in respect of difficult and controverted passages: — we hold that a revised edition of the Authorized Version of our English Bible (if executed with consummate ability and learning) would at any time be a work of inestimable value. The method of such a performance, whether by marginal Notes or in some other way, we forbear to determine. But certainly only as a handmaid is it to be desired. As something intended to supersede our present English Bible, we are thoroughly convinced that the project of rival Translation is not to be entertained for a moment. For ourselves we deprecate it entirely.”17
17 E. C. Colwell and D. W. Riddle, Prolegomena to the Study of the Lectionary Text of the Gospels (Chicago, 1933). J. R. Branton, ne Common Text of the Gospel Lectionary (Chicago, 1934). M. W. Redus, ne Text of the Major Festivals of the Menologion (Chicago, 1936). B. M. Metzger, The Saturday and Sunday Lesson from Luke in the Greek Gospel Lectionary (Chicago, 1944).
Burgon’s main purpose, however, was to defend the Byzantine (Traditional) text of the Greek New Testament upon which the King James Version is based. He was removed from earth, it is true, before he could complete his grand design; but even before his death he had in great measure accomplished his purpose. Christians who desire to study the problems of the New Testament text should make every effort to procure Dean Burgon’s works for their own possession. From him they will learn what it is to take first the standpoint of faith and then to deal faithfully and conscientiously with all the pertinent facts.
George Sayles Bishop
These extracts are- taken from a book by Dr. Bishop, The Doctrines of Grace published by Bible Truth Depot, Swengel, Pa., n.d. This is part of a discourse preached June 7, 1885, soon after the Revised Version of the Bible first appeared. The committee of the Revised Version was dominated and practically controlled by Westcott and Hort, which makes the message of Dr. Bishop most pertinent and timely for this generation of Christians who are seeking to stand true to the Scriptures, come what may.
I have set before myself a simple straight-forward task — to translate into the language of the common people and in lines of clear, logical light the principles involved in the new version of the Bible and just in what direction it tends. This thing is needed. Nothing at the present time is more needed nor so needed, for I am convinced that the principle at the root of the revision movement has not been fairly understood, not even by many of the revisers themselves, who, charmed by the siren-like voices addressed to their scholarly feeling, have yielded themselves to give way, in unconscious unanimous movement, along with the wave on which the ship of inspiration floats with easy and accelerating motion, toward rebound and crash upon the rocks.
That a few changes might be made in both Testaments, for the better, no man pretends to deny; but that all the learned twaddle about “intrinsic and transcriptional probability,” “conflation,” “neutral texts,” “the unique position of B” (the Vatican manuscript), and behind it the “primitive archetype,” i.e., text to be conjectured, not now in existence; and finally the flat and bold and bad assertion that “we are obliged to come to the individual mind at last” — that all this so-called science shutting right up to one “group” of manuscripts, at the head of which are two — both of them, Aleph and B, as the drift of the proof goes to show, of a common, perhaps questionable, Egyptian, origin — one of them discovered in 1859, and first published in October, 1862, little more than twenty years ago — the other the Vatican Codex, supposed to be earlier, first — and behind that forsooth, to supply its defects, conjecture, cloudland, where divine words float on the air, — that all this theory is false and moonshine and, when applied to God’s Word, worse than that; I firmly believe.
Because I am a minister of Christ, just as responsible to God as any man or minister on earth; because my business is to preach and to defend this Book, I cannot and will not keep silence. “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
A sword in the hands of a child is mightier than a straw in the hands of a giant, and no amount of earnestness can be condemned when pleading, on straight lines, the cause of God. I quote Dr. Thomwell, “To employ soft words and honeyed phrases in discussing questions of everlasting importance; to deal with errors that strike at the foundations of all human hope as if they were harmless and venial mistakes; to bless where God disapproves, and to make apologies where He calls us to stand up like men and assert, though it may be the aptest method of securing popular applause in a sophistical age, is cruelty to man and treachery to Heaven. Those who on such subjects attach more importance to the rules of courtesy than they do to the measures of truth do not defend the citadel, but betray it into the hands of its enemies. Love for Christ, and for the souls for whom He died, will be the exact measure of our zeal in exposing the dangers by which men’s souls are ensnared.”
That the Revised Version of the New Testament is based upon a new, uncalled for, and unsound Greek text — that mainly of Drs. Westcott and Hort, which was printed simultaneously with the revision and never before had seen light and which is the most unreliable text perhaps ever printed — one English critic says, “the foulest and most vicious in existence.”
In 1845 Dr. Tregelles, armed with a letter from Cardinal Wiseman, went to Rome with the design of seeing the manuscript, Codex Vaticanus. After much trouble Dr. Tregelles did see it. “Two prelates were detailed to watch him, and they would not let him open the volume without previously searching his pockets and taking away from him ink and paper. Any prolonged study of a certain passage was the signal for snatching the book hurriedly away. He made some notes upon his cuffs and fingernails.”
In 1867 Tischendorf, by permission of Cardinal Antonelli, undertook to study this same Vatican Codex. He had nearly finished three Gospels when his efforts to transcribe them were discovered by a Prussian Jesuit spy. The book was immediately taken away. It was restored again, months later, by the intervention of Vercellone for a few hours. In all Tischendorf had the manuscript before him forty-two hours and only three hours at any one time, and all but a few of those hours were spent on the Gospels; and yet, he says, “I succeeded in preparing the whole New Testament for a new and reliable edition, so as to obtain every desired result.” Every desired result in forty-two hours — all but two or three of them spent on the Gospels alone! Every desired result in three hours’ hurried glancing through 146 pages of old and stained and mutilated manuscript written on very thin vellum, in faded ink, with its letters throughout large portions touched and retouched, bearing marks of a very peculiar treatment of the Epistles of St. Paul, and confessed to have received some corrections from the first and the filling up of certain blank spaces from the beginning!
Codex B, the Vaticanus manuscript, must be the purest because of omissions! We have cut things down to the bone. To criticize is to cut. Whatever manuscript adds anything, the Vatican does not. Retrenchment, not contribution, is her forte. The manuscript which omits most, which has least of God’s Word, is the best because the least clogged with extraneous matter! See Westcott and Hort, Introduction, page 235. Let me quote: “The nearer the document stands to the autograph the more numerous must be the omissions laid to its charge.”
Omissions are what may be expected from Rome — Rome has had every opportunity to make the omissions — to tear off, for instance Hebrews 9 to 13 — and all the omissions are straight in her line.
The principle laid down is nonsense. Take Israel in the captivity. The ark was gone — Aaron’s rod was gone — the pot of manna was gone — the tabernacle curtains were gone. These things had been left in the path of bad progress! — first the curtains, then the pot of manna, then Aaron’s rod, then the ark — relics of their apostasy all the way down! History is against Drs. Westcott and Hort. The further back you go, if you go rightly, the more you get of any single document or ordinance given and settled of God.
Grant the principle, “the more numerous the omissions the purer, until you get back to the Vatican manuscript.” By that time you have cut out four and a half whole books. But you have three or four more conjectural manuscripts back of the Vatican — three or four links. Cut out three or four books at each link, and what will you have left when you get back to Peter and Paul!
Against all this we oppose, and firmly and steadily, the principle of the old translators. “External, prima-facie evidence is after all the best guide.” Call in all your manuscripts, all your data — uncials, cursives, versions, fathers — and that reading carries which brings the highest evidence, from numbers, from weight, from congruity with the rest of the Scriptures, and from the open and manifest mind of the Spirit of God.
We take the ground that on the original parchment every word, line, point, and jot and tittle was put there by God. Every sacred writing, every word as it went down on the primeval autograph was God-breathed. You breathe your breath on a glass; it congeals. So God breathed originally, Divinely, out of Himself and through Moses, through St. Paul, as through a bending and elastic tube upon the sacred page.
And every scrap or relic of that original writing found anywhere in the world (and God in spite of men will take care of it all) will shine wherever you find it by native irradiation, by light convincing, overwhelming and complete in glory all Divine. We do not say every “conjectural emendation” will so shine — in the transmission of God’s Word is no room for “conjectural emendation” — but every honest writing will so shine. We take the ground, the Sun needs no critic. When he shines, he shines the Sun — and so each word of God. We take the open ground that a single stray leaf of God’s Word found by the wayside by a pure savage — let it be the eighth chapter of John for instance — that this single stray leaf will so speak to that savage, if he can read it, that if he never heard or saw one syllable of the Bible before, that single leaf will shine all over to him, cry out “God!” and condemn him. That is our doctrine, and that, the New Departure, led in by Drs. Westcott and Hort, and their principle in the Revision, weakens not only, but kills and destroys.
The Revised Version weakens and removes the Deity of Christ in many places — one I mention in particular. 1 Timothy 3:16, “Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.” The Revised Version leaves out Theos, God, and renders it “Great is the mystery of godliness, He Who was manifest in the flesh” — i.e., the manifested One was only one phase — the highest — of godliness, the precise rendering for which all the Unitarians have been contending the last 1800 years. Codex “A” of the British Museum makes it, according to all testimony of 300 years, Theos. Dr. Scrivener, the foremost English critic, says it is Theos. He says his senses report it Theos. I quote him. “I have examined it twenty times within as many years and seeing (as every man must do for himself) with my own eyes, I have always felt convinced that Codex ‘A’ reads Theos.״ That conviction of Dr. Scrivener is my conviction and on the very same grounds — a conviction so deep that I will never yield it, nor admit as a test of my faith a Book pretending to be a Revelation from God which leaves that word out. The Holy Ghost has written it — let no man dare touch it — “Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.”
“Oh, but it is only one word!” Yes, but one word of Scripture of which it is said “Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy Name!” “Only one word!” But that word “God.” Better the whole living church of God should perish than that that one word should perish. “If any man take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part.” Let criticism pause. The principle at stake is solemn.
The point at issue in the whole controversy with “modern criticism” is, whether the Bible can be placed upon the same plane with other, merely human, literature and treated accordingly; or whether, as a Divine Revelation, it addresses us with a command and sanction? The power of the Book is shaken from the moment we deny its a priori binding claim on our belief and obedience. The Book is a royal document, or series of documents issued by the King of kings, and binding upon every subject. The Book, then, is to be received with reverence by one who falls upon his bended knees beneath the only shaft of light which, from unknown eternity, brings to the soul the certainties of God — of His dealings in grace with men, and of a judgment. The Old Testament is — in some sense — more awful than the New — as it begins with a creation out of nothing — as it thunders from Sinai, and as it prefigures and predicts the momentous facts of Calvary and the Apocalypse. But it has been represented that the Bible has twisted itself up like a worm from the dust by an Evolution in which the human element is most conspicuous.
Grant that a human element is in the Old Testament, who can determine how far that element extends? No one. Grant that something has been found out about the Bible, within the last fifty years, that makes it less reliable — less inerrant, in plain English, less free from mistakes than it was — in some ways, a book that is under suspicion, and the result is that the mind is unsettled. Grant this, and then grant that the story of the Fall itself, on which St. Paul grounds all his theology, is but a myth — or as Westcott and Bishop Temple — not to speak of pronounced heresiarchs — put it, an allegory covering a long succession of evolutions which had done their work, in forming man such as he is, before the narrative begins — Grant these things and what becomes of the awful impress of responsibility laid on the conscience by the Sacred Volume? What becomes of the tremendous parallel between the First and Second Adam on which is built the covenant of grace?
There is no reason, and there can be none, why God, who has made man in His own image and capable of communion with Himself, should not speak to man and, having taught him letters, write to man, in other words, to put His communication in permanent form. The man who denies the supernatural is one who contradicts his own limitations. Either he is the universe, or there is something outside of him. Either he is his own god or there is a God above him. The inspiration of the Old Testament including that of the whole Bible, is a matter, first of all, of pure Divine testimony, which leaves us nothing but to receive it. God says, “I am speaking.” That ends it. The instant order of the Book to every reader is “Believe or die!” The Book brings with it its authentication. Who would think of standing up under the broad blaze of the noonday sun to deny the existence of the sun? His shining is his authentication.
The Jews cherished the highest awe and veneration for their sacred writings which they regarded as the “Oracles of God.” They maintained that God had more care of the letters and syllables of the Law than of the stars of heaven, and that upon each tittle of it, mountains of doctrine hung. For this reason every individual letter was numbered by them and account kept of how often it occurred. In the transcription of an authorized synagogue manuscript, rules were enforced of the minutest character. The copyist must write with a particular ink, on a particular parchment. He must write in so many columns, of such a size, and containing just so many lines and words. No word to be written without previously looking at the original. The copy, when completed, must be examined and compared within thirty days; if four errors were found on one parchment, the examination went no farther — the whole was rejected. When worn out, the rolls were officially and solemnly burned lest the Scripture might fall into profane hands or into fragments.
The Old Testament, precisely as we have it, was endorsed by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. When He appeared on the earth, 1500 years after Moses, the first of the prophets, and 400 years after Malachi, the last of them, He bore open testimony to the sacred canon as held by the Jews of His time. Nor did He — among all the evils which He charged upon His countrymen — ever intimate that they had, in any degree, corrupted the canon, either by addition, diminution, or alteration of any kind. By referring to the “Scriptures,” which He declared “cannot be broken,” the Lord Jesus Christ has given His full attestation to all and every one of the books of the Old Testament as the unadulterated Word of God.
Our Blessed Lord puts “what is written” equal to His own declaration. He saw the Old Testament inspired from one end to the other, divine from one end to the other. Ah! how He valued the sacred text! Our modern critics, with arrogance which rises to daring impiety, deny to Christ the insight which they claim for themselves. The point right here is this, Did Jesus fundamentally misconceive the character of the Old Testament? Did He take for a created and immediate revelation what was of a slow and ordinary growth? Or was He dishonest, and did He make about Abraham, for example, statements and représentations which belong only to a geographical myth — a personality which never existed?
The authority of Jesus Christ, God speaking — not from heaven only, but with human lips — has given a sanction to every book and sentence in the Jewish canon, and blasphemy is written on the forehead of any theory which alleges imperfection, error, contradiction, or sin in any book in the sacred collection. The Old Testament was our Lord’s only study book. On it His spiritual life was nurtured. In all His life it was His only reference. Through His apostles He reaffirmed it. Five hundred and four (504) times is the Old Testament quoted in the New. The whole Jewish nation, down to this day, acknowledge, without one dissenting voice, the genuineness of the Old Testament. The Book reflects upon them and condemns them; it also goes to build up Christianity, a system which they hate, and yet, impressed with an unalterable conviction of their divine origin, they have, at the expense of everything dear to man, clung to the Old Testament Scriptures.
All churches, everywhere and always, and with one accord, declare the Bible in both Testaments to be the foundation of their creed. All the fathers, Melito, Origen, Cyril, Athanasius, in their lists include the whole thirty-nine books. The Council of Laodicea, held in the year 363, names and confirms them. A while ago an effort was made to discredit Jonah as fable, but it was found that the Deity of Christ went down with Jonah, that the linchpin between the Testaments fell out with Jonah, and the mass of evidence in favor of the book became so overwhelming that its doughty opponents beat a hasty and cowardly retreat into apology, retraction, and silence.
The Old Testament is inspired from end to end. What do we mean by this? We mean infallibility and perfection. We mean that the books are of absolute authority, demanding an unlimited submission. We mean that Genesis is as literally the Word of God as are the Gospels — Joshua as is the Acts — Proverbs as are the Epistles — the Song of Solomon as is the Revelation. We mean that the writings were inspired. Nothing is said in the Bible about the inspiration of the writers. It is of small importance to us who wrote Ruth. It is of every importance that Ruth was written by God. How did God write? On Sinai, He wrote, we are told, with His finger. We are told this in seven different places. God used men with different degrees of style. He made Amos write like a herdsman and David like a poet. He made the difference, provided for it, and employed it because He would have variety and adapt Himself to all classes and ages.
He wrote through the men. How did He do this? I do not know. The fact, I know, for I am told it. The secret is His own. I read that “holy men of old spake as they were moved” — then they did not choose their own language. I do not know how the electric fluid writes letters on a strip of paper. I do not know how my soul dictates to and controls my body so that the moving of my fingertips is the action of my soul. I do not know how, in regeneration, God does all and I do all. He produces all and I act all, for what He produces is my act.
“But there are discrepancies — contradictions.” No! Scores of times I have corrected myself, but never God’s Word. Patience and a larger knowledge will solve every knot. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says: “Not one single instance of a discrepancy in Scripture has ever been proved.” Would all the united wisdom of men have led them to relate the history of the creation of the universe in a single chapter, and that of the erection of the tabernacle in thirteen? The description of the great edifice of the world, would it not seem to require more words than that of a small tent?
To discredit the statement repeated in almost every chapter of Exodus and Leviticus — “And the Lord said to Moses.” “As the Lord commanded Moses.” To charge Christ with falsehood, who says, “Moses said,” “Moses taught you,” “David says” — quoting as He does not from the 7th and the 18th only, but from the 41st, the 110th, the 118th, and other Psalms. The result is to disintegrate the Bible and throw it into heaps of confusion mingled with rubbish — to shake faith to the very foundations and scatter Revelation to the winds. It is to elevate Robertson Smith, Wellhausen, Baur, Astruc, Cheyne, and other heretics, who seem to have taken God into their own hands, to a level with the Saviour of men and His prophets, whom they criticize freely. This is not exegesis, it is conspiracy. It is not contribution to religious knowledge, it is crime!
Think of the amazing, the stupendous difference between Christ quoting from a human compilation, or from the living Oracles of God! “I came not to destroy,” He says, “but to fulfil” — to fulfil what? A haphazard collection of Ezra’s time — made up of fragmentary documents of men, some of whom had an inspiration little above that of Browning and Tennyson! Had we the Old Testament alone it would be sufficient to save us. I myself was converted on that very part of Isaiah which the critics say he did not write. Men have been converted by the millions and are now in heaven who never knew anything but the Old Testament. They found God in it, and so may you and so may I. The Old Testament throws a light upon Christ and upon the whole Christian system without which the New Testament could not be understood. Atonement looms in Abel’s altar and runs on to the Great Substitute to be stricken for His people, upon whom the Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all. “The life of the flesh is in the blood,” says Leviticus, “and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atoneme-nt for the soul — for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Blood drips from each page of the Old Testament. Each letter stars crimson. What is all this, if not Christ? The Old Testament is the dictionary and key to the New. If with the Old Testament and without Christ we were helpless, equally — without the Old Testament and with Christ — we should be helpless. I beseech you, therefore, Brethren, beware of what is called “the modern school.”
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth!” Here are the Pillars of Hercules through which we pass from Time with all its changes into Eternity — a shoreless, changeless sea. Here are the frontiers of human exploration, beyond which rolls and surges the illimitable Ocean of Deity, self-existent, blessed forever and independent of all creatures.
The first utterance of the Bible fixes it that matter is not eternal. That there was a point when the universe was not and when God, by simple fiat, brought it into being. So that, as the apostle says, He called the existent out of the non-existent — the visible from that which had no visibility. In other words, God made the world out of nothing — an awful nothing — the idea of which we cannot comprehend. A lonely and a solitary Worker, out of emptiness, He created fullness — out of what was not, all things — getting from Himself the substance as well as the shaping — the fact as well as the how.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” He had to tell us that, for He only was there. He had to tell us that, but — being told, we, at once, believe it, for everything outside the Self-existent must have a beginning. Matter must have had a beginning, for — push its molecules back as far as you will, either matter was the egg out of which God was hatched or God hatched matter. Can there be any question as to which of these is true? “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” If this first sentence is unauthentic, the whole Bible is untrue and for six thousand years men have been duped and deluded who have loved and cherished its teachings. The credibility of the Bible, then, depends upon the truth of the First Chapter of Genesis. If that chapter contains “a few small scientific lies,” then the Book is a compilation of deceptions from cover to cover. Thus we are either Christians or skeptics! It has been claimed that no essential injury is done to Christian faith by concessions made to modem criticism — that if one believes in redemption, it is of small account what he believes of creation. But men who speak so rashly, overlook the fact that creation is the basis of redemption — that there must be man and man fallen before there can be man saved — and that the belief in creation depends entirely upon the acknowledgment of Genesis, as a historical document.
The difficulty with Higher Criticism is that it disbelieves in advance and the reason of this too frequently is that it is working with a brain whose crooked and vapid conclusions are guided by a heart averse to God — at enmity with God and working every way to get rid of Him.
Sir Robert Anderson
The following extracts are taken from the book by the same title, by Sir Robert Anderson.
. . . the extreme reverence with which the Jews regarded their Scriptures affords a powerful guarantee against any deliberate corruption of the text. It may be taken as certain that any errors which have crept in are errors accidentally made in copying the manuscripts. And when estimating the number and, what is of more importance, the character of such errors, the Jewish reverence for the text claims very special consideration. For it insured such care in copying as to make any blunder of a really serious kind improbable in the extreme.
We know, for example, that in the days of the Masoretes, to whom we practically owe our text of the Old Testament, not only the words, but the very letters, contained in the sacred books were counted. And we know also that even when words were believed to have been erroneously inserted or omitted, the scribes never dared to make a correction save by a marginal note. And there is no reason to doubt that these practices were based on the habits and traditions of earlier days.
Hostile critics have sometimes sought to score a point by appealing to the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint version. But not even a hostile critic would deny that if the Masoretic text were revised in the light of those authorities, the result would be prejudicial to accuracy; and, further, that even if the revision were drastic and reckless, it would not affect a single question of morals or a single point of Christian truth or doctrine. And this being so, the whole question, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, is one of purely academic interest.
And a kindred remark applies equally in regard to the New Testament. A fact which is all the more striking and important because the materials for hostile criticism here are vastly greater than in the case of the Old Testament. All our leading commentators have grappled with the question. As it has been well said, “All of them face that formidable phantom of textual criticism, with its 120,000 various readings in the New Testament alone, and will enable us to march up to it, and discover that it is empty air; that still we may say with the boldest and acutest of English critics, Bentley, ‘choose (out of the whole MSS) as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design out of the whole lump of readings, and not one article of faith or moral precept is either perverted or lost in them. Put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and even with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, or so disguise Christianity but that every feature of it will still be the same.’ ”
These words have since received most striking confirmation. In the Revised Version of the New Testament, textual criticism has done its worst. It is inconceivable that it will ever again be allowed to run riot as in the work of the Revisers of 1881. When that version appeared, Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln raised the question “whether the Church of England — which in her Synod, so far as this Province is concerned, sanctioned a Revision of her Authorized Version under the express condition, which she most wisely imposed, that no changes should be made tn it except what were absolutely necessary — could consistently accept a version in which 36,000 changes have been made; not a fiftieth of which can be shown to be needed, or even desirable.”
But what concerns us here is not the changes in the translation, but the far more serious matter of the changes in the text. The question at issue between the majority of the Revisers, who followed Doctors Hort and Westcott, and the very able and weighty minority led by Dr. Scrivener, the most capable and eminent “textual critic” of the whole company, was one with which every lawyer is familiar, but of which the Revisers may have had no experience, and with which they were not competent to deal.
We have a far greater number of MSS of the New Testament than of the heathen classics; but, strange to say, with four exceptions, none of these are older than the sixth century of. our era. But we possess “versions” (or translations) which are older than any known MSS; and the writings of the early Fathers abound in quotations from the New Testament. We are thus enabled indirectly to reach MSS much older than the oldest that have survived. And as the Fathers were scattered over the Christendom of their time, their acquaintance with the text was derived, of course, from very many independent sources. And when their quotations agree with one another, and also with the “versions,” as well as with our later MSS, many of which must have been copied from MSS more ancient than any which have survived, this agreement will satisfy any one who is versed in the rudiments of the science of evidence.
But while the lawyer understands the value of indirect evidence, the layman is always inclined to disparage it in favor of the direct. Witnesses of credit and repute testify that they saw the accused commit the crime with which he is charged. What more can any one want? The average juryman is ready at once to convict; and he cannot imagine why the judge should allow further time to be spent upon the case. But the judge knows well that evidence of this kind is apt to err, and needs to be tested with the utmost care. Now the old MSS are the witnesses of credit and repute, and the Revisers played the part of the average juryman; and there being unfortunately no one to check them, they convicted the Authorized Version of inaccuracy in numberless instances. But, in the opinion of the greatest critical authority among the Revisers, whose protests were unavailing to prevent this deplorable mutilation of the sacred text, the system on which these changes were made “is entirely destitute of historical foundation.”
If the Revisers had kept to the terms of their commission, and been content with the correction of “manifest errors,” a very few sessions would have sufficed to produce a text which might have commanded universal acceptance. But it is certain that errors were not manifest when many of the greatest of contemporary critics and scholars could not regard them as errors at all — men like the minority upon their own company, men like the eminent prelate I have quoted, and the learned editor of The Speaker’s Commentary. And as several of the Revisers themselves have explained in detail the principles on which the revision of the text was conducted, and those principles are found to be unsound when judged by the science of evidence, our confidence in the result of their labors is destroyed.
The “argument” of the present volume demands a reference to this question, but a fuller discussion of it would be out of place. I will therefore dismiss it by citing a single illustrative instance of reckless and erroneous alteration of the text. And instances of the kind abound, especially in the Gospels.
The instance I select is “the Herald Angels’ song,” and I choose it not only as being thoroughly typical of the methods of the Revisers, but also because of its importance and the interest attaching to it. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”: for these words, which hold such a place in the memory and heart of every English-speaking Christian, the miserable substitute offered us is, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased.” This one piece of mutilation might suffice to discredit the work of the Revisers.
Two questions are here involved, the altered text, and the translation of that text. The English of the Revisers, says one of the most eminent of their own number, “can be arrived at only through some process which would make any phrase bear almost any meaning the translator might like to put upon it.” “ ‘Men in whom He is well pleased,’ ” says the editor of The Speaker's Commentary, “seems to me impossible as a translation of their text. I do not know whether those Greek words have any meaning, but if they have they must designate men of a certain quality or character.” Then, as regards the text, the whole difference is the addition of the letter 5 to the word eudokia; and the manuscript authority for this addition is the reading of four ancient Greek MSS, every other known copy of the Gospels being against it.
Now this is precisely the sort of question in respect of which any one who has practical acquaintance with the science of evidence would appeal to Patristic authority, and that appeal would dispose of the whole matter; for the testimony of the Greek Fathers in favor of the familiar reading is overwhelming.
“On earth peace, good will toward men” — the Christian may still rejoice in these hallowed and most precious words. And he may assume with confidence that here, as in so many other instances, the Revisers’ changes in the text are new errors, and not the correction of old errors. And yet the fact remains — indeed it is universally acknowledged — that even a revision conducted so unwisely and on a system so opposed to all the principles and rules of evidence, has not destroyed a single truth of Christianity or left a single point of Christian doctrine or practice in jeopardy.
IN DEFENSE OF THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS -THE BASIS OF THE KING JAMES VERSION
Selections by David Otis Fuller
Excerpts taken from two books, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels and Causes of Corruption in the Traditional Text, by the late John William Burgon, B.D., Dean of Chichester. Published by George Bell and Sons, Cambridge, England, 1896. (Dean Burgon has proved to be one of the greatest orthodox scholars of the last century or indeed of any century. He ranks on an equality with Tregelles, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, Griesbach, Lachmann and many others, if not surpassing them in some instances.)
Burgon speaks of the “pericope de adultéra” (meaning the first 11 verses of John 8).
“But my experience as one who has given a considerable amount of attention to such subjects tells me that the narrative before us carries on its front the impress of divine origin. I venture to think it vindicates for itself a high, unearthly meaning. . . . the more I study it, the more I am pressed with its divinity.
“I contend that on all intelligent principles of sound criticism the passage before us must be maintained to be genuine scripture and that without a particle of doubt.” Burgon requests the student to go to the British museum and ask for the 73 copies of John’s Gospel, turn to the close of chapter 7 and in 61 copies you will find these verses 8:1-11. [Burgon took up the defense of these verses because of the many liberal critics who would eliminate them from the Gospel altogether, saying they were not of the original text.]
“Tischendorf’s last two editions of the four gospels in the Greek text differ from one another in no less than 3,572 particulars. He reverses in every page in 1872 what in 1859 he offered as the result of his deliberate judgment.”
Continuing on this theme of John 8:1-11 Burgon says: “Hort’s theory involves too much violation of principles generally received and is too devoid of anything like proof ever to win universal acceptance — It stands in sharp antagonism to the judgment passed by the church all down the ages and in many respects does not accord with the teaching of the most celebrated critics of the century who preceded him.
“I request that apart from proof of some sort it shall not be taken for granted that a copy of the New Testament written in the fourth or fifth century will exhibit a more trustworthy text than one written in the 11th or 12th century.”
Page 11 — “There exists no reason for supposing that the divine agent who in the first instance thus gave to mankind the scriptures of truth and straightway abdicated his office, took no further care of his work, abandoned these precious writings to their fate.”
Page 16 — “There can be no science of textual criticism, I repeat — and therefore no security for the inspired Word — so long as the subjective judgment, which may easily degenerate into individual caprice, is allowed ever to determine which readings shall be rejected, which retained.”
“Strange as it may appear, it is undeniably true, that the whole of the controversy may be reduced to the following narrow issue: Does the truth of the text of Scripture dwell with the vast multitude of copies, uncial and cursive, concerning which nothing is more remarkable than the marvelous agreement which subsists between them? Or is it rather to be supposed that the truth abides exclusively with a very little handful of manuscripts, which at once differ from the great bulk of the witnesses, and — strange to say — also amongst themselves.”
Page 20 — “Every fresh discovery of the beauty and preciousness of the Deposit in its essential structure does but serve to deepen the conviction that a marvelous provision must needs have been made in God’s eternal counsels for the effectual conservation of the inspired text.”
Page 22 — “The practice of reading Scripture aloud before the congregation — a practice which is observed to have prevailed from the apostolic age — has resulted in the increased security of the Deposit. The ear once thoroughly familiarized with the words of Scripture is observed to resent the slightest departure from the established type.”
Prebendary Scrivener, another great scholar, is quoted by Burgon as follows: “It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected originated within one hundred years after it was composed — that Irenaeus and the African fathers and the whole western with a portion of the Syriac church used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica or Erasmus or Stevens thirteen centuries later when molding the Textus Receptus.” “Therefore, [Burgon] antiquity alone affords no security that the manuscript in our hands is not infected with the corruption which sprang up largely in the first and second centuries.”
“That witnesses are to be weighed — not counted — is a maxim of which we hear constantly. It may be said to embody much fundamental fallacy. It assumes that the witnesses we possess are capable of being weighed and that every critic is competent to weigh them, neither of which proposition is true. Number is the most ordinary ingredient of weight. If ten witnesses are called into court and nine give the same account while one contradicts the other nine, which will be accepted? The nine, of course. 63 uncials — 737 cursive — 413 lectionaries are known to survive of the gospels alone. By what process of reasoning can it be thought credible that the few witnesses shall prove the trustworthy guide and the many witnesses the deceivers.
“It is doubtless inconvenient to find some 1490 witnesses contravening some 10 or, if you will, 20 favorites, but truth is imperative and knows nothing of the inconvenience or convenience of critics.
“When, therefore, the great bulk of the witnesses — in proportion suppose of 100 or even 50 to 1 — yield unfaltering testimony to a certain reading; and the remaining little handful of authorities while advocating a different reading are yet observed to be unable to agree among themselves as to what that different reading shall precisely be, then that other reading concerning which all that discrepancy of detail is observed to exist may be regarded as certainly false.
“It is pretended that what is found in either B (Codex Vaticanus) or in Aleph (Codex Sinaiticus) or in D (Bezae) although unsupported by any other manuscript may reasonably be claimed to exhibit the truth of the scripture in defiance of the combined evidence of all other documents to the contrary.
“Let a reading be advocated by B and Aleph in conjunction, and it is assumed as a matter of course that such evidence must needs outweigh the combined evidence of all other manuscripts which can be named. I insist that readings so supported are clearly untrustworthy and may be discussed as certainly unauthentic.”
Page 74 — “I have cited upon the last twelve verses of Mark no less than twelve authorities before the end of the third century, that is down to a date which is nearly half a century before Codex B and Aleph appeared. The general mass of quotations found in the books of the early fathers witnesses to what I say. So that there is absolutely no reason to place these two manuscripts upon a pedestal by themselves on the score of supreme antiquity. They are eclipsed in this respect by many other authorities older than they are.”
Page 75 — “I insist and am prepared to prove that the text of these two Codexes (B and Aleph) is very nearly the foulest in existence.
“On the other side (favoring the last twelve verses of Mark) I have referred to six witnesses of the second century, six of the third, fifteen of the fourth, nine of the fifth, eight of the sixth, and six of the seventh, all the other uncials and all the other cursives including the universal and immemorial liturgical use.
“Here as you must see B and Aleph in faltering tones and with an insignificant following are met by an array of authorities which is triumphantly superior, not only in antiquity, but in number, variety, and continuity.
“In point of hard and unmistakable fact there is a continual conflict going on all through the gospels between B and Aleph and a few adherents of theirs on the one side and the bulk of the authorities on the other. The nature and weight of these two Codexes may be inferred from it. They will be found to have been proved over and over again to be bad witnesses, who were left to survive in their handsome dresses while attention was hardly ever accorded to any services of theirs.
“Fifteen centuries, in which the art of copying the Bible was brought to perfection, and printing invented, have by unceasing rejection of their claims sealed forever the condemnation of their character and so detracted from their weight.”
Page 78 — “Codex B is discovered not to contain in the gospels alone 237 words, 452 clauses, 748 whole sentences, which the later copies are observed to exhibit in the same places and in the same words. By what possible hypothesis will such a correspondence of the copies be accounted for if these words, clauses, and sentences are indeed, as is pretended, nothing else but spurious accretions to the text?”
Page 79 — “Such recensions never occurred. There is not a trace of them in history. It is a mere dream of Dr. Hort. They must be ‘phantom recensions,’ as Dr. Scrivener terms them.”
Page 84 — “Let me next remind you of a remarkable instance of this inconsistency which I have already described in my book on ‘The Revision Revised.’ The five Old Uncials (Aleph, A, B, C, D) falsify the Lord’s Prayer as given by St. Luke in no less than forty-five words.
“But so little do they agree among themselves that they throw themselves into six different combinations in their departures from the traditional text; and yet they are never able to agree among themselves as to one single variant reading: while only once are more than two of them observed to stand together, and their grand point of union is no less than an omission of the article. I should weary you, my dear student, if I were to take you through all the evidence which I could amass upon this disagreement with one another.”
Page 88 — “B and Aleph are covered all over with blots — Aleph even more than B. How could they ever have gained the characters which have been given them, is passing strange. But even great scholars are human [he refers to Westcott and Hort, Tregelles and Tischendorf] and have their prejudices and other weaknesses, and their disciples follow them everywhere submissively as sheep — If men of ordinary acquirements in scholarship would only emancipate themselves and judge with their own eyes, they would soon see the truth of what I say.”
Page 89 — “My leading principle is to build solely upon facts — upon real, not fancied facts — not upon a few favorite facts, but upon all that are connected with the question under consideration.”
Page 90 — Dr. Miller, speaking of Dr. Hort: “It is to his arguments sifted logically, to the judgment exercised by him upon texts and readings, upon manuscripts and versions and fathers, and to his collisions with the record of history, that a higher duty than appreciation of a theologian however learned and pious compels us to demur.”
Page 93 — “Above all, did he [Dr. Hort] fancy, and do his followers imagine, that the Holy Ghost who inspired the New Testament could have let the true text of it drop into obscurity during fifteen centuries of its life (which Dr. Hort implies) and that a deep and wide and full investigation (which by their premises they will not admit) must issue in the proof that under His care the Word of God has been preserved all through the ages in due integrity? This admission alone when stripped of its disguise, is plainly fatal to Dr. Hort’s theory.
“Again, in order to prop up his contention, Dr. Hort is obliged to conjure up the shadows of two or three ‘phantom revisions’ of which no recorded evidence exists. But Dr. Hort, as soon as he found that he could not maintain his ground with history as it was, instead of taking back his theory and altering it to square with facts, tampered with historical facts in order to make them agree with his theory.”
Page 116 — “As far as the fathers who died before 400 A.D. are concerned, the question may now be put and answered. Do they witness to the traditional text as existing from the first or do they not? The results of the evidence, both as regards the quantity and the quality of the testimony, enable us to reply not only that the traditional text was in existence, but that it was predominant during the period under review.”
Page 117 — “Besides establishing the antiquity of the traditional text, the quotations in the early fathers reveal the streams of corruption which prevailed in the first ages, till they were washed away by the vast current of the transmission of the text of the gospels.”
Page 121 — “The original predominance of the traditional text is shown in the list given of the earliest fathers. Their record proves that in their writings, and so in the church generally, corruption had made itself felt in the earliest times, but that the pure waters generally prevailed.
“Not the slightest confirmation is given to Dr. Hort’s notion that a revision or recension was definitely accomplished at Antioch in the middle of the fourth century. There was a gradual improvement as the traditional text gradually established itself against the forward and persistent intrusion of corruption.”
Page 125 — “Dr. Hort was perfectly logical when he suggested or rather asserted dogmatically that such a drastic revision as was necessary for turning the Curetonian into the Peshitto was made in the third century at Edessa or Nisibis. The difficulty lay in his manufacturing history to suit his purpose instead of following it. The Curetonian must have been an adulteration of the Peshitto or it must have been partly an independent translation helped from other sources: from the character of the text it could not have given rise to it.”
Page 130 — “It is well known that the Peshitto is mainly in agreement with the traditional text. What therefore proves one, virtually proves the order. If, as Dr. Hort admits, the traditional text prevailed at Antioch from the middle of the fourth century, is it not more probable that it should have been the continuance of the text from the earliest times, than that a change should have been made without a record in history, and that in a part of the world which has been always alien to change?”
Page 159 — “Codex B was early enthroned on something like speculation, and has been maintained upon the throne by what has strangely amounted to a positive superstition.
“It was perhaps to be expected that human infirmity should have influenced Tischendorf in his treatment of the treasure-trove (Codex Aleph) by him: though his character for judgment could not but be seriously injured by the fact that in his eighth edition he altered the mature conclusions of his seventh edition in no less than 3572 instances, chiefly on account of the readings in his beloved Sinaitic guide.”
Page 160 — “The fact is that B and Aleph were the products of the school of philosophy and teaching which found its vent in Semi-Arian or Homoean opinions. It is a circumstance that cannot fail to give rise to suspicion that the Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts (B and Aleph) had their origin under a predominant influence of such evil fame.”
Page 219 — “With the blindness proverbially ascribed to parental love, Tischendorf follows Aleph, though the carelessness that reigns over that manuscript is visible to all who examine it.”
Page 238 — “We oppose facts to their [Westcott and Hort] speculation. They weave ingenious webs, and invent subtle theories, because their paradox of a few against the many requires ingenuity and subtlety for its support.
“We are nothing if we are not grounded in facts: our appeal is to facts, our test lies in facts, so far as we can build testimonies upon testimonies and facts upon facts.
“Our opponents are gradually getting out of date. Thousands of manuscripts have been added to the known stores since Tischendorf formed his system and Hort began to theorize.”
Page 240 — Luke 24:42 “. . . a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.” Four last words not found in six copies of the gospel. Westcott and Hort reject them. Revisers of 1881 persuaded by Westcott and Hort to exclude them also.
Page 246 — “Upon us, the only effect produced by the sight of half a dozen Evangelia — whether written in the uncial or in the cursive character we deem a matter of small account, — opposing themselves to the whole body of the copies, uncial and cursive alike, is simply to make us suspicious of these six Evangelia. We must answer those distinguished critics who have ruled that Codexes B and Aleph, D, and L, can hardly if ever err.”
Page 259 — “The eternal Godhead of Christ was the mark at which, in the earliest age of all, Satan persistently aimed his most envenomed shafts. Matthew 19:16-17. This place was eagerly fastened on by the enemies of the gospel — the most illustrious of the fathers sought to vindicate this divine utterance — certain of the orthodox with the best intentions, doubtless, but with misguided zeal in order to counteract the precious teaching which the enemies of Christianity elicited from this place of scripture deliberately falsified the inspired record. They turned our Lord’s reply ‘Why callest thou me good?’ in the first gospel into this ‘Why askest thou me concerning good?’
“The four uncial Codexes (B, Aleph, D, L) omit the epithet ‘good’ in ‘good master,’ but good (agathe) is found in the nearly 30 sources named including a number of the fathers so that at the end of 1700 years six witnesses of the second century, three of the third, fourteen of the fourth, four of the fifth, two of the sixth, come back from all parts of Christendom to denounce the liberty taken by the ancients and to witness to the genuineness of the traditional text.”
Page 272 — “The Church in her corporate capacity has been careful all down the ages that the genuine reading shall be rehearsed in every assembly of the faithful — and behold, at this hour it is attested by every copy in the world except that little handful of fabricated documents which it has been the craze of the last fifty years to cry up as the only authentic witnesses to the truth of scripture; namely, Codexes B, Aleph, D, L, and Origen.
“Dr. Scrivener has pronounced that [B and Aleph] subsequent investigations have brought to light so close a relation as to render it impossible to regard them as independent witnesses; while every page of the gospel bears emphatic witness to the fact that Codexes B, Aleph. D, and L are, as has been said, the depositories of a hopelessly depraved text.”
Page 279 — “Mark 1:17 the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It has of late become the fashion to call in question the clause ‘Huios Tou Theou.’ Westcott and Hort shut up the words in brackets. Tischendorf ejects them from the text. The revisers brand them with suspicion. Surely, if there be a clause in the gospel which carries on its front the evidence of its genuineness, it is this. Irenaeus (A.D. 170) unquestionably read Huios Tou Theou in this place. He devotes a chapter of his great work to the proof that Jesus is the Christ, very God as well as very man.”
In summary, you might say that if the honest student will continue to read more of the works of John W. Burgon, he will find him to be one of the greatest scholars and linguists that the church of Jesus Christ has produced. His book1 The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel of Mark is a masterpiece. Another one, The Revision Revised. The former is in print — the latter is out of print and has been for many years. Whatever the reader of these extracts can secure of the writings of Burgon, by all means, do so. He was a genius and we believe raised up of God at that particular time to stand against the critics who were seeking to bring into disrepute the traditional text which God in His marvelous providence has kept intact through the ages. The whole question may be summarized in this statement: If you and I believe that the original writings of the Scriptures were verbally inspired by God, then of necessity they must have been providentially preserved through the ages. That being the case, the next question is, which of the versions is the closest to the original writings? Without hesitation, we say that the King James Version is nearer to the original autographs than any other version in the English language.
1 This work now included in David Otis Fuller Counterfeit or Genuine, 1975, p. 25 ff.