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Wescott and Hort

Discussion in '2003 Archive' started by Prince of Preachers, Dec 6, 2002.

  1. Prince of Preachers

    Prince of Preachers New Member

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    Are these men great translators of the Bible or great idiots?
     
  2. Siegfried

    Siegfried Member

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    Neither. They edited a Greek text of the New Testament.

    Did they ever translate the Bible? If so, I've never heard of it.
     
  3. BrianT

    BrianT New Member

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    I can understand why someone would think they were great translators, because they were highly skilled in Greek. But why would anyone ever think they were "great idiots"???
     
  4. Pastor_Bob

    Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member

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    I think they were neither. Westcott in particular, IMO, was a deceptive individual who tried to convince his colleagues that he was orthodox in his theology when in fact he was not.

    This is important because the Nestle-Aland text used as the basis for the MVs differs in less than 400 places from the Westcott/Hort text.

    Some would argue that Westcott's theology does not matter and did not affect his choice of Greek manuscripts. I believe that it does matter and that his theology influenced his choice of Codices Aleph, B, and D as sources for his Greek text.

    The Religion of Yesterday and Tommorrow Kirsopp Lake 1925 pp. 61-62
     
  5. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    Pastor Bob, we don't reject the KJV for the bad doctrine of the one's who translated it? Actually, I do just to be consistent.
     
  6. Rev. Joshua

    Rev. Joshua <img src=/cjv.jpg>

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    I can see certain benefits to textual critics who are not Christians - since presumably they would not approach the text with preconceived notions about what the text should say.

    That's not to say I think Westcott and Hort weren't Christians. I simply don't think it's relevant to the quality of their scholarship.

    Joshua
     
  7. romanbear

    romanbear New Member

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    Hi Pastor Bob 63; [​IMG]
    Amen and Amen [​IMG]
    May God bless you.
    Romanbear
    Peace
     
  8. Pastor Larry

    Pastor Larry <b>Moderator</b>
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    The Religion of Yesterday and Tommorrow Kirsopp Lake 1925 pp. 61-62[/QUOTE]Did anything stop to think about this statement???? How can a writer's skill be great if he communicates the exact opposite of what he intended. That is not skill; that is ineptitude. For the record, the reports of Westcott and Hort's doctrine are greatly exaggerated, have been shown on many cases to so, and yet these things keep getting repeated.

    The reality is that there is no such thing as "believing" or "unbelieving" textual criticism. It is a matter of looking at the material in front of you, using the canons of textual criticism (whatever form you may prefer) and making a choice. Everyone who has more than one manuscript or translation is involved in "textual criticism" of some sort or another. Some do it from solid bases and other from weak bases. It would be good for these issues to be thought through more carefully.
     
  9. BrianT

    BrianT New Member

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    Do you have any evidence supporting this, besides what appears to be unsupported slander written after he was dead (as if we didn't already have enough of that)?
     
  10. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    I can see certain benefits to textual critics who are not Christians - since presumably they would not approach the text with preconceived notions about what the text should say.

    I'm inclined to agree. This has happenned even with the KJV. For example, "Jesus" appears in the 1611 KJV in Heb. 4, when it should have been "Joshua". Many believe that this was an attempt by the KJV translators to "Christianize" the OT. Personally, the OT does a good job of speaking to Christ on its own. It does not need anyone's help.

    Perhaps having a translation that is done by outside observers would serve us better.
     
  11. AV Defender

    AV Defender New Member

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    I read in years past that they were "closet catholics."

    [ December 06, 2002, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: JYD ]
     
  12. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    I dunno... ever try kneeling in a closet? And the incense... whew!!! A closet is just too small of a place to be a catholic.
     
  13. Ransom

    Ransom Active Member

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  14. AV Defender

    AV Defender New Member

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    Take it for what it is worth, I read it some time ago.Personaly I dont think they are any more credible that Origen was.
     
  15. Pastor_Bob

    Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member

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    To save me some time, what kind of evidence do you need? Statements by contemporaries or direct quotes by Westcott himself?
     
  16. BrianT

    BrianT New Member

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    Statements by contemporaries would be good (as long as they're not just "opinion", but discuss specifics), and statements by Westcott himself would be better.
     
  17. Pastor_Bob

    Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member

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    Dr. Westcott taught that the Resurrection was a “spiritual event” by which the Tabernacle of God’s presence was restored to men.

    The Revelation of the Risen Lord B.F. Westcott 1891 pp. 11-12

    The Gospel of the Resurrection B.F. Westcott 1888 p.294

    Westcott slyly cautions critics who say that there was no eye-witness to the Resurrection, while at the same time he advances a giant step toward their conclusions by spiritualizing the Resurrection himself.

    In 1867, Westcott wrote a pamphlet for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (S.P.C.K.), entitled The Resurrection as a Fact and as a Revelation, A Tract Written for the S.P.C.K. , which, on account of its heretical views of the subject, could not be published by that organization. This account may be found in Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott A. Westcott 1903 p. 256

    On page 13 of Westcott’s tract he writes:
    On page 19 he writes:
    Westcott's view of the Resurrection was tentative and spiritualized at best.
     
  18. BrianT

    BrianT New Member

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    Pastor Bob, I don't think those passages you quoted are to be understood as you are understanding them. The first seems to me to simply be an argument *for* faith (ie. "faith" is not needed if "proof" exists). The third quote is similar to the first, and the last does is not even dealing with the resurrection, but Christ's appearance to Paul on the road to Damascus.

    About the second quote, I have that book so I looked it up. The passage is arguing *for* Christ real resurrection (not denying it), because the rest of the paragraph says "That which had to be made clear as to Christ, was the reality of His new life. This was first established for the apostles by their complete experience of the continuity of His manifestation to them, and for the church in all ages through the signs of His power. And it is here that the 'proof' of the Resurrection is to be found. Christ lives, for He works still." The same section (pages 298-299) says "We have, in the Synoptic Gospels and the appendix to St Mark (to summarise results which appear to me to be unquestionable), a general view of the oral teaching of the Twelve, which was the foundation of the Church: we have in the writings of St Paul, who must have been well acquainted with the earliest belief of Christians, and explicit statement of what he 'received' and taught with intense personal conviction won through experience: we have in the Gospel of St John the personal testimony of one who had actually seen and heard the Risen Lord; and these three distinct lines of evidence are in complete accordance as to the reality, the nature, and the effects of the Resurrection of Christ. It is utterly unhistorical to say that 'the whole of the evidence for the Resurrection reduces itself to and undefined belief on the part of a few persons, in a notoriously superstitious age, that after Jesus had died and had been buried they had seen him alive.'" In fact, the entire appendix this quote appears in affirms over and over and over Christ's bodily resurrection. Whomever supplied your quote went to considerable effort to ignore (deliberately?) all the surrounding pages.

    Here's some more quotes I found, dealing with the *physical* aspect of resurrection:

    "But it was not possible that He should be holden of deat: His flesh saw no corruption: His soul was not left in Hades. And we confess that the third day He rose again from the dead. If death, as I said, is presented to us as the separation of soul and body, the Resurrection is the most complete, nay the eternal, union of the two. Being raised from the dead Christ dieth no more. The human life which He had before lived under the conditions of space and time, of decay and dissolution, was not gained subject to no changed and free from the limitations of earth. At the same time nothing was laid aside or lost which belongs to the fulness of our human nature." (The Historic Faith, Westcott, p.78)

    "...how the man whom we know is identified in part by scars in soul and body, we may ask how he, the friend of our human affection, will survive this glorious change when it is consummated in heaven. Therefore in regarding the future we complete our confession and say: I believe in the resurrection of the body, or, as it is in the original without variation, the resurrection of the flesh....I believe that body soul and spirit, the manifold powers of which I act and feel and think and hold communion with the unseen here in a condition of humiliation, will be preserved entire in the day of the Lord and find a new expression in a condition of glory." (Ibid, pg. 135)

    "Believing this we repeat one for another, each for all, the apostle's prayer: The God of peach Himself sanctify you wholly: and my your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame, at the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ."

    I can provide plenty more quotes, but the length of this post is already getting out of hand. [​IMG]
     
  19. BrianT

    BrianT New Member

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    Bump. There's some stuff in this thread relevant to recent discussions. [​IMG]
     
  20. Steve K.

    Steve K. Guest

    Amen Pastor Bob!
     
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