Page 83 - Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible Christianity. Based on the King James Bible

BIBLE VERSIONS

books are not hated by the devil and attacked by false skilled Ecclesiastics of the highest theological
teachers. attainment. Bearers are they perforce of a vast number
Modern Textual Criticism Principle: The Greek Received of Copies of the Scriptures, and (by the hypothesis) the
Text is the product of an official ecclesiastical revision. latest possible dates of any of these Copies must range
“Nearly all text critics assume that between 250 and between A.D. 250 and 350. But the Delegates of so
350 A.D. there was a revision of the Greek text which many ancient Sees will have been supremely careful,
produced the traditional text” (A.H. McNeile, An before starting on so important and solemn an errand,
Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, p. 428). to make diligent search for the oldest copies anywhere
The theory of recension is how Westcott and Hort discoverable: and when they reach the scene of their
accounted for the dominance of the Greek Received Text deliberations, we may be certain that they are able to
in the manuscript record, but there is no historical appeal to not a few codices written within a hundred
evidence that the Traditional Text was produced by a years of the date of the inspired Autographs themselves.
Recension. John Burgon, who knew as much about the Copies of the Scripture authenticated as having
history of the Bible text as any man in the last two belonged to the most famous of their predecessors,--and
centuries, called Hort’s theory “an excursion into cloud- held by them in high repute for the presumed purity of
land; a dream, and nothing more” and “mere their Texts,--will have been stowed away--for purposes
moonshine.” Frederic Cook was just as blunt: “The of comparison and avoidance--specimens of those
supposition [of a Lucian Recension] is a manifest dreaded Texts whose existence has been the sole reason
absurdity” (The Revised Version of the First Three Gospels why (by the hypothesis) this extraordinary concourse of
Considered, 1882, p. 202). learned Ecclesiastics has taken place. After solemnly
If Hort’s theory of a formal ecclesiastical recension invoking the Divine blessing, these men address
themselves assiduously to their task; and (by the
were true, it would mean that the most influential hypothesis) they proceed to condemn every codex
church leaders of the 3rd and 4th centuries rejected the which exhibits a ‘strictly Western,’ or a ‘strictly
Egyptian text as corrupt, which would be a powerful Alexandrian,’ or a ‘strictly Neutral’ type. In plain
testimony IN FAVOR OF the Traditional Text! John English, if codices B, Aleph, and D had been before
Burgon observed this in his masterpiece The Revision them, they would have unceremoniously rejected all
Revised, and it is a fact that devastates the modern three... When, therefore, at the end of a thousand and
textual criticism’s theory of recension. Consider the half a thousand years, Dr. Hort ... proposes to reverse
following very carefully. “Somewhere between A.D. 250 the deliberate sentence of Antiquity,--his position strikes
and 350, therefore,--(‘it is impossible to say with us as bordering on the ludicrous. ... Yes, we repeat it,--
confidence’ [Hort, p. 137] what was the actual date, but Dr. Hort is in direct antagonism with the Fathers of the
these Editors evidently incline to the latter half of the IIIrd and the IVth Century. HIS OWN FANTASTIC
IIIrd century, i.e. circa A.D. 275);--we are to believe that HYPOTHESIS OF A ‘SYRIAN’ TEXT,’--the solemn
the Ecclesiastical heads of the four great Patriarchates of expression of the collective wisdom and deliberate
Eastern Christendom,--Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, judgment of the Fathers of the Nicene Age (A.D. 250--
and Constantinople,--had become so troubled at A.D. 350),--is the best answer which can by possibility
witnessing the prevalence of depraved copies of Holy be invented to his own pages,--IS, IN OUR ACCOUNT,
Scripture in their respective churches, that they resolved THE ONE SUFFICIENT AND CONCLUSIVE REFUTATION
by common consent on achieving an authoritative OF HIS OWN TEXT. ... The essential thing to be borne in
Revision which should henceforth become the standard mind is that, according to Dr. Hort,--on two distinct
Text of all the Patriarchates of the East. ... The inference occasions between A.D. 250 and 350--the whole Eastern
is at least inevitable that men in high place at that time Church, meeting by representation in her palmiest days,
deemed themselves competent to grapple with the deliberately put forth that Traditional Text of the N.T.
problem. Enough was familiarly known about the with which we at this day are chiefly familiar. That this
character and the sources of these corrupt texts to make is indeed his view of the matter there can at least be no
it certain that they would be recognizable when doubt. ... Be it so. It follows that the text exhibited by
produced; and that, when condemned by authority, they such codices as B and Aleph was deliberately condemned
would no longer be propagated, and in the end would by the assembled piety, learning, and judgment of the
cease to molest the Church. This much, at all events, is four great Patriarchates of Eastern Christendom. At a
legitimately to be inferred from the hypothesis. Behold period when there existed nothing more modern than
then from every principal Diocese of ancient Codices B and Aleph,--nothing so modern as A and C,--
Christendom, and in the Church’s palmiest days, the all specimens of the former class were rejected, while
most famous of the ante-Nicene Fathers repair to such codices as bore a general resemblance to A were by
Antioch. They go up by authority, and are attended by
common consent pointed out as deserving of confidence

Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity 83