Questions we’re not suppose to ask

Hi C4K

You suggested.......

This is my plan. (Always looking for the truth.)

 

Hello again everyone

I have been rather critical of Westcott and Hort, here on the BB; But since they seem to be kind of heros here, I thought it would be wise to check them out, to see if all that I had heard about them was true.

Here is what I have learned.
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Here is the most positive “subjective” opinion, that I could find about them......

Freqently Assaulted Quotations (or "...things have been calumniated")
vs.
Fully Accurate Quotations

In recent years, there has been an outbreak of false information about Westcott and Hort. Many things have been written (especially by extremist KJV-only authors) that paint a completely false and slanderous picture of Westcott and Hort - the thinking being that if they can discredit Westcott and Hort personally, that would thus discredit the Greek New Testament of 1881 and in turn most of the English Bibles since then. Some claim Westcott and Hort are guilty of "heresy", "occultism", etc., and may are being led to believe completely wrong things about Westcott and Hort. Others are less easily convinced, and are looking for verification and more detail about such quotes, as well as information on what they actually believed. That's why this section exists.

On the left are misquotes (constructed, misunderstood, and/or out of context) and false claims produced and repeated by those intent on discrediting Westcott and Hort, along with some discussion explaining the misuse of the quote. On the right are accurate, verifiable quotes to demonstrate what Westcott and Hort really believed, in their own words.

Most attempts at defamation take the form of misquotes: quotes taken out of context, quotes altered, even quotes constructed by piecing together words and phrases from entirely different chapters or even books. Initially, such misquotes were largely ignored because very few people actually took seriously the ones putting forth the quotes, and of those that did, nobody bothered to verify the references. However, during the last few decades, a snowball effect has taken place where KJV-only authors have fed off each other, using each other's "information" in their own writings. As the KJV-only movement has gained a foothold in some evangelical circles, the number of authors, preachers and laymen who are believing and repeating such misinformation has grown at an alarming rate. A simple search on the internet will reveal website after website where Westcott and Hort are unjustly attacked and falsehoods are repeated.

(It is worth noting here that people like Charles Spurgeon and Dean Burgon, who were comtemporaries with Westcott and Hort and knew them personally, never made such claims against their character and beliefs, even when vocally disagreeing with some of their approaches to textual criticism. Burgon and Spurgeon never called them heretics, never questioned or challenged their Christian faith, never challenged or questioned their doctrinal statements, never accused them of involvement or of condoning of occultic or New Age practices or beliefs, etc.)
http://www.westcotthort.com/quotes.html

I’ll stop after this paragraph, because I found it not to be true.

I located(& downloaded), a book by Dean Burgon, written in 1883(The Revision Revised), where he was clearly, very critical of Westcott and Hort;

(So the picture painted by this site, is less than accurate.)

On page 240 he said......
Drs. Westcott and Hort's New Testament in the original Greek was discovered to ' partake inconveniently of the nature of a work of the Imagination,'—as we had
anticipated. We became easily convinced that 'those accomplished Scholars had succeeded in producing a Text vastly more remote from the inspired autographs of the
Evangelists and Apostles of our Lord, than any which has appeared since the invention of Printing.

Now here is a man who knew them personally.

All 602 pages of Burgon’s book are filled with example after example of how Westcott and Hort’s new Greek manuscript was a joke.
I just can’t believe Bible’s were actually made from it.
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There is a wealth of information in the internet about them, and a clear 90% of it is negative: Therefore what follows, seems to the most even handed.......

QUESTION: Who were Westcott and Hort?

ANSWER: Two unsaved Bible critics.

EXPLANATION: Brook Foss Westcott (1825-1903) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892) were two non-Christian Anglican ministers. Fully steeped in the Alexandrian philosophy that "there is no perfect Bible", they had a vicious distaste for the King James Bible and its Antiochian Greek text, the Textus Receptus. [The infidelity of Westcott and Hort is well documented in this author's work entitled An Understandable History of the Bible, 1987, Bible Believer's Press, P.O. Box 1249, Pottstown, PA. 19464]
It cannot be said that they believed that one could attain Heaven by either works or faith, since both believed that Heaven existed only in the mind of man.
Westcott believed in and attempted to practice a form of Communism whose ultimate goal was communal living on college campus's which he called a "coenobium. "
Both believed it possible to communicate with the dead and made many attempts to do just that through a society which they organized and entitled "The Ghostly Guild."
Westcott accepted and promoted prayers for the dead. Both were admirers of Mary (Westcott going so far as to call his wife Sarah, "Mary"),and Hort was an admirer and proponent of Darwin and his theory of evolution.
It is obvious to even a casual observer why they were well equipped to guide the Revision Committee of 1871-1881 away from God's Antiochian text and into the spell of Alexandria.
They had compiled their own Greek text from Alexandrian manuscripts, which, though unpublished and inferior to the Textus Receptus, they secreted little by little to the Revision Committee. The result being a totally new Alexandrian English Bible instead of a "revision" of the Authorized Version as it was claimed to be.
It has only been in recent years that scholars have examined their unbalanced theories concerning manuscript history and admitted that their agreements were weak to non-existent.
Sadly, both men died having never known the joy and peace of claiming Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

http://www.chick.com/reading/books/158/158_44.asp

Believe me, there were many sites, that were much worse: (Or better yet see for yourselves.)

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Some might ask, “What is the big deal with Westcott and Hort?” “Why do I keep talking about them?”
Well the reason is, because they were truly “KJV haters”, and would have done anything to get it replaced.

And they are at the center of this entire discussion, because their fingerprints are on every English Bible, except for the KJV.

 

Hi preachinjesus

And be careful on the road.

You said.......

I don’t think so. Because of the great influence their manuscript, still has on modern Bibles.
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You also said......

Boy am I glad, that you don’t use them: And from what I have learned, almost ANYTHING is better.
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And finally.......

First, I wasn’t looking for “credibility”: I don’t care what people think.
I am only interested in the truth.
(And the truth about W&H, is crystal clear.)

And I have found that the only people who don’t like Jack Chick, are those who don’t agree with him.
If you can back up your charge....“Chick is completely unreliable” I would like to see it.

 

Hello Deacon

And nice to hear from you, “I think”:

You said........

You have no idea what I have done.
Just because others here may take shortcuts like that, doesn’t mean that I do.

No; I downloaded Burgon’s book(pdf file), and started doing word searches.
(I am not a speed reader, able to read 600 pages in a day

But this “exact” quote, is one of several that “I found”, and with the 10000 word limit here, I knew that I had to settle on just one quote.
(But believe me, the book is full of them.)

And this book is very readable, so I do plan to read it.
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Next you said.....

You need to study before you post: “I have never accused them of occultism.
(Although their heresy is obvious.)
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You also said.......

You sound like a real fan.
(Sorry for the bad news.)
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Also you said.....

If you read my post, I showed where “the first article”, was passing on lies about Burgon.
Undoubtedly, it was written by more fans of W&H.
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Finally you said........

I need to pass that advice along to you.
Your heros Wescott & Hort, were jokes in their time.
(And it is only the passage of time, that has elevated them.)

 

Hello C4K

You had three questions.......

Well, back in 2007, a Bible translator calling himself Nigel, came to visit the BB;
(I will borrow his words to answer your question.......)

What the New King James Version has done is to keep much of the poetry of the Authorised Version, but dive into Westcott-Hort text. This has resulted in some surprising changes concerning the doctrine of Christ. Personally, I would prefer for young readers less poetry, but total faithfulness to the Received Text. Poetry does not equal truth. Just because a translation sounds nice, that does not mean it is the real McCoy.

Personally, I feel misled by something calling itself the 'New' King James Bible because it does not rely on the orignal baseline text source that the Authorised Version does - and I know many Christians will have bought the NKJV because they think it is true to the original. At least the NIV is not appearing as something else - it makes no big deal about the fact that it is based on Westcott-Hort.
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As for your next two questions........

and

Deacon and Winman have answered them for me.

 

Hello Steven2006

And thank you for your post.

I can sure see how easy it would be for anyone to “misquote” another person’s words;
(And I would greatly appreciate it, if you could quickly alert me, if I ever do this.)

But let me also point out, that I have not used any quotes from W&H;
(I have only been studying their manuscript and what others of their time & today, have to say about it.)
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I noticed that your example, when back to 1983, showing that there was concern about W&H even then(before the internet).
But the source the I sited, went back to 1883(just 2 years after the publication of W&H’s manuscript).

As I have said, all I am interested in is the truth.
(And since the orignal baseline of the MV’s is based upon their work, credible facts about them and their work is very important.)

 

Hi Steven2006

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

You said........

Well that is just it:
I have not been......”researching what critics say about them”:
I have been researching what anybody and everybody, has to say about them.

I “was” totally open, to study what their supporters had to say about them, wanting to make sure, that I had not been sold a bill of goods.

And as I was reading one(frankly one, of only two positive sites that I was able to find), I came to a paragraph that they had highlighted, where they boasted that Charles Spurgeon and Dean Burgon, never had anything bad to say about W&H.

This intrigued me, and I started to search for supporting evidence.
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What I found, shocked me;
Because what I found is irrefutable, and yet was out there for the whole world to see.

I was shocked, that ANYBODY(any Christian), would ever come to their defense.

All I could think was, maybe they were unaware of the existence of this book.
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It is kind of like “the birthers”(who say Obama wasn’t born in the USA):
Fox searched out the birth announcements for the date of his birth, and therefore found irrefutable evidence that he was born in America.
This discovery, should forever silence the birthers.

Just as the facts about W&H’s work, should settle this argument once and for all.