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a brief look at those who have laid the foundations of modern textual criticism

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by Jordan Kurecki, Dec 24, 2014.

  1. Jordan Kurecki

    Jordan Kurecki Well-Known Member
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    The following information is taken from Chapter 1 of "For Love of the Bible" By David Cloud

    Richard Simon 1683-1712: according to Metzger he "laid the foundations of New Testament Textual Criticism"
    Was a French Roman Catholic, he did not regard the Bible as supernaturally inspired. He was basically an unbeliever.

    Richard Bentley 1662-1742
    one of his principles was "the difficult is to be preferred to the easier reading" which was based on a purely humanistic perspective of the biblical text.

    Johann Wettstein 1693-1754
    collated manuscripts and published a Greek New Testament.
    Was charched with Arian and Socinian heresy, expelled from the pastorate in Basle.

    Johannn Griesbach 1745-1812
    Student of the Modernist Johan Semler, he was influenced in his younger dats by the rising tide of rationalism sweeping over Germany. both Semler and Griesbach rejected the Deity of Christ and the infallibility of the scripture.
    Semler was "the leader of the reaction in Germany against the traditional views of the canon of scripture." Griesbach was associated with the mdoernist W.M.L. De Wette, and he wrote the preface to one of his works, in which he denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, claiming that Deuteronomy was not written until the reign of king Josiah.

    a theory that Griesbach adopted was readings favoring orthodoxy doctrine should be suspect..in other words if there is a reading that plainly teaches the Godhead of Christ or some other foundational doctrine of scripture, that reading should be held in suspect in favor of some other manuscript.

    Griesbach was the first to declare Mark 16:9-20 as spurious.

    His theories greatly influenced Wescott and Hort later on, Wescott and Hort said that they venerated the name of Griesbach "above that of every other textual critic of the New Testament.

    Wescott and Hort "refined the critical methodology developed by Griesbach"

    Griesbach's theories were bodly rejected by most Protestants and Baptists.

    Griesbach was however well recieved by the Unitarians.

    in the beginning of the 19th Century, Bible believing Christians rejected the Critical text as heretical, but the Unitarians and Modernists joyfully recieved the critical text because it supported their doctrinal heresies.

    Karl Lachman 1793-185
    a German Rationalist, produced editions of the N.T. he treated the Bible like any other book. He presupposed that the N.T. was "hopelessly corrupt"
    He discarded the Received Text in favor of what he considered to be the "oldest and best text" represented by Vaticanus and other similarly corrupt manuscripts.

    Constantine Von Tischendorf 1815-1874
    His work was so loved by the Unitarians that two of them reissued the 8th edition of his N.T. with critical notes after his death.

    Samuel Tragelles 1813-1875
    He adopted his textual criticism from the rationalists that preceded him.

    consider this quote from Burgon and Miller in the Traditional Text page 9:
    "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; that is, whose true Author is God.... it is chiefly from inattention to this circumstance that misconception prevails in that department of Sacred Science known as 'Textual Criticism"

    Consider this quote from Edward Hills, who was trained at the post graduate level in the principles of modern textual criticism, he recognized the rationalism and unbelief inherent in this system.

    "has the text of the New Testament, like those of other ancient books, been damaged during its voyage over the seas of time? ought the same methods of textual criticism to be applied to it that are applied to the texts of other books? in the realm of the N.T. textual criticism as well as in other fields the presuppositions of modern thought are hostile to the historic Christian faith..."

    Hills solemn challenge reminds us that modern textual criticism is founded upon unbelieving principles.

    Though he himself was not a modernist, Tragelles adopted the theories of textual criticism from modernistic rationalists such as Lachmann and Griesbach. this remains true today. When a man goes to an Evangelical or Fundamentalist seminary and studies textual criticism, what Textbooks does he normally use? he will use books by Bruce Metzger, Frederic Kenyon, Kurt Aland, F.F. Bruce.. etc.. All of these men, and the overwhelming majority of other men who have developed the theories of modern textual criticism, are rationalists who deny the infallibility of the scriptures, who hold to heretical documentary views of the Old Testament, etc Evangelicals and Baptist who have promoted textual criticism did not develop it themselves, but merely recieved it from the hands of the Griesbachs, Kenyons, Metzgers, and Alands, and have passed it along as the most up to date scientific thought.

    most men who graduate from colleges and seminaries, while assuming they know both sides of the textual debate, only know one side. most have never read the works of John Burgon, Edward Miller, Edward Hills, Terrance Brown, Donald Waite, or other scholarly defenders of the King James Bible and the Received text.

    now for a look at the manuscripts preferred by the textual critics

    Codex Sinaiticus:

    it was found in a waste paper basket.

    Dr, James Qurollo observes "I don't know which of them had the truer evaluation of it's worth, Tischendorf who wanted to buy it, or the monks who were getting ready to burn it."

    it contained portions of the O.T. and the Apocrypha,the complete N.T. as well as the Epistle of Barnabas, and a fragment of the Shepherd of Hermas.
    Tischendorf was so enamored with this manuscript that he altered the 8th edition of his Greek text in 3,369 places.

    According to Scrivener "the codex is covered with alterations of an obviously correctional character-brought in by at least ten different revisers, some o them systematicall spread over ever page.."

    Codex Vaticanus:
    Found in the Vatican Library

    It's interesting to note that Both Vaticanus and Sinaiticus have major disagreements with eachother in over 3,000 places in the Gospels alone.

    Hardly worth to be considered the "oldest and BEST"

    Wescott and Hort
    Were members of the 1881 Revision of the KJV, into what is now known as the R.V.

    They actually broke the rules for the translation, as it was only suppose to be a revision of the KJV, they went beyond this and totally changed the underlying Greek text.

    Wescott embraced the universal "fatherhood of God", denies that God had to be propitiated, taught that men could be divine in some way, espoused evolution, believed in man's perfectibility in the sense of denying man's sinfulness and depravity, denied that Heaven is a place and speaking of it as a 'state' (so did Hort), believed that Christ's redemptive work was to be found in his whole life, rather than his death, questioned the Pre-existence of the Lord Jesus Christ, him and Hort denied the Deity of Christ, He explained away some of the miracles of Christ, both him and Hort denied or gave a false meaning to the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, and had false views of the vicarious, substitution atonement of Christ.

    Consider this quote from Alfred Martin "at precisely the time when liberalism was carrying the field in the English churches the theory of Wescott and Hort recieved wide acclaim. These are not isolated facts. Recent contributions on the subject- that is, in the present century-following mainly the Wescott-Hort principles and method, have been made largely by men who deny the inspiration of the Bible"

    What is the Wescott and Hort Theory?

    Terrence Brown:

    "What is wrong with the text underlying the modern versions? this text has been constructed in accordance with a theory that gives too much weight and authority to a small unrepresentative group of ancient documents headed by the Vatican Copy known as Codex B and the Sinai copy known as Codex Sinaiticus... The theory was developed by Wescott and Hort abd propounded in their Introduction to the Greek New Testament at the end of 22, Hort expressed his determination to overthrow that 'vile Textus Receptus'.. The theories of Wescott and Hort very largely shaped the text adopted by the 1881 revisers and influenced practically every subsequent translation on both sides of the Atlantic. Their problem was how to account for the dominance of the 'Majority Text' from the 4th Century onwards. Codex B and Codex Aleph were both written in the 4th Century, and if they present the text in it's purest form, how was it that it remained unrecognized until the middle of the 19th Century?.. Their theory was there must have been some kind of deliberate but misguided editorial revision of the Greek text, probably in Syria, possibly in Antioch, perhaps during the latter part of the 4th century.. according to this theory, this edited text was wrongly permitted to eclipse the 'pure text' exhibited by B and Aleph-until these documents were rehabilitated in the 19th century."
     
  2. Jordan Kurecki

    Jordan Kurecki Well-Known Member
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    Later on when I have time we will lok at Carlo Martini, Eugene Nida, Bruce Metzger, and Kurt Aland, who edited the 3rd edition of the UBS Greek text.

    Some of the stuff about them is more red flags to the bible believing Christian.
     
  3. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Except that some of the very best tools used for studying the Bible came from those with a less than view of it, so why would that be so important, if the finished product was well done ?
     
  4. Jordan Kurecki

    Jordan Kurecki Well-Known Member
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    care to elaborate?
     
  5. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Kittle theological dictionary, had work from German critical scholars, and the BDB lexicon had criticak english scholars!
     
  6. Jordan Kurecki

    Jordan Kurecki Well-Known Member
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    Ok... There is a huge difference between putting out a dictionary or lexicon and
    trying to "restore" the original inspired words of God.

    The rationalism and flat out unbelief really impacts the way one treats the scriptures.. Would you really trust people who reject Christ's miracles, his deity, to be spiritually competent and discerning enough to give you an accurate Greek text? the way they approach the scriptures will be totally different from a bible believer.. because they don't hold it in as high esteem as we would.. That would be like going to an Atheist and asking him what he think's the bible really should say.. his unbelief is really going to affect what he decides.. big time.. it's the same thing with many of the scholars that have laid the foundation and popularized the theories whereby they determine what is and is not an accurate representation of scripture. Do you really want to trust in theories and techniques that are based on unbelief rather than faith?

    Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
    Heb 11:2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
    Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
    Heb 11:4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
    Heb 11:5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
    Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

    This is the problem with many people in the bible translation debate... many do not trust God to preserve his words for his church.. they think that God went through all the work of inspiring holy men of God to write perfectly inspired scripture, they believe that God is going to judge us according to his word, and then they don't think that God would allow us to have access to his pure words... What's the point of the words of the Lord being pure in Psalm 12.. if we don't even have access to them? The real issue is that many people don't trust God to give them his pure and preserved words. this is really the issue.. whether people want to admit it or not...people don't believe this... so they then resort to holding a view that only the originals were inspired.. which by the way do not exist anymore.. so these people who hold to this basically are admitting that we dont have access to the inspired word of God, since God allowed his words to pass away... This is not faith.. and is not pleasing to God.

    Now putting out a dictionary or lexicon is not going to be as impacted by their rationalism and liberalism.

    Completely different things.
     
    #6 Jordan Kurecki, Dec 25, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 25, 2014
  7. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

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    Is Cloud the one misspelling all the names?

    Wow, a lot of Ns there. How do you pronounce that?

    Oops, not enough Ns there.

    Why do you keep misspelling his name (TEN times in your post alone!)?

    Oops. Not enough Ns again.

    You're learning...a little. Nice job!

    Who's Tragelles?

    You do know that none of these three men held that every word in any edition of the KJV reflected the inspired word of God, right? Were they good textual scholars in your opinion? If they were, why shouldn't we agree with them? If they weren't, why should you quote them for us to believe?
     
  8. Jordan Kurecki

    Jordan Kurecki Well-Known Member
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    Oh stop nitpicking my spelling!

    And they were not King James Only, but they were against the critical text.
     
  9. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

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    I'm trying to figure out your definition of "God preserving his words for his church." Do you know whether God in history caused a single manuscript of the Bible, first, to contain only the 66 books that he inspired, and second, ever to be copied without containing a single scribal error? Whether he did or didn't, would you say that the amount of biblical manuscripts containing errors outnumbers the ones without a single error? Then, by your own definition, did God fail to preserve his words for his church more often than not? Or would you agree that throughout history the words of the Bible were considered to be preserved without error not in any one single manuscript but within the collective of them all?

    Every Bible any believer holds in his hands is God's inspired word to the extent that it represents the words of the originals and not copyist errors. Of course the originals no longer exist, so neither you nor I can prove that any current translation most accurately reflects the originals. But God handed down to us a deposit of his holy Word among thousands of copies and versional copies and patristic citations, and has so preserved his word. If sometimes we have erred and copied manuscripts inaccurately, we hope that not everyone in the world created the same error at the same place, and so we can often distinguish error from holy writ. Unfortunately, there are some places in this providentially preserved deposit handed down to us where the right reading is difficult to distinguish from the wrong one, but thankfully these places are relatively few.
     
  10. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

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    As to spelling, do you think that it's not important? Reading your posts is a course in textual criticism, and ironic, actually, considering the subject or your recent posts here.
     
  11. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
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    You have not demonstrated that Erasmus was a doctrinally-sound believer in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet you in effect trust the inconsistent textual criticism of Erasmus. Perhaps it was Erasmus who laid the foundation of modern textual criticism.

    Theodore Letis, a KJV defender, stated that "Erasmus had a subordinationist view of Christ" (The Majority Text, p. 136). Subordinationism is a view that assigned an inferiority of being, status, or role to the Son within the Trinity. Rolt also pointed out that Erasmus "defended the doctrine of subordination" (Lives, p. 48). Marius observed that "when Erasmus translated the Greek word logos as sermo [in his Latin translation], many thought that he was trying to imply that Christ was inferior to God the father" (Thomas More, p. 258).

    John Faulkner cited Erasmus as saying: "I could have been an Arian if the church had so willed it" (Erasmus: The Scholar, p. 213). The Cambridge Modern History also noted that in writing to Pirckheimer, Erasmus claimed that "he held the authority of the church so high that at her bidding he would accept Arianism and Pelagianism, for the words of Christ were not of themselves sufficient for him" (p. 682). Rolt indicated that Erasmus had claimed that Arianism was not "an heresy" (Lives, p. 48).

    B. Hall claimed that in the notes of Erasmus at Romans 9:5 and Philippians 2:6, Erasmus "undermined the value of their use against Arianism, and at 1 Timothy 3:16, he argued God had been added later to make the text explicit against the Arians" (Dorey, Erasmus, p. 102). Edward Hills pointed out that Calvin opposed "Erasmus' attack on the reading God was manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16)" (KJV Defended, p. 204). Hills affirmed that Calvin complained about Erasmus' refusal to admit that Philippians 2:6 taught the deity of Christ (Ibid.). In his commentary on Romans, Charles Hodge noted that Erasmus proposed at Romans 9:5 "to place a full stop after the words Christ came, and make all the rest of the verse refer to God" (p. 301). Robert Sider wrote that Zuniga had objected to the translations of Erasmus at Acts 4:27 "on the grounds that it invited interpretations leading to Arianism" (Paraphrase on the Acts, p. 192). Trench wrote: "Erasmus, indeed, out of that latent Arianism, of which, perhaps, he was scarcely conscious to himself, denies that, at Jude 4, despotes is to be referred to Christ; attributing only kurios to Him, and despotes to the Father" (Synonyms, p. 97). In a discussion with Farel where Farel referred to 1 John 5:7, Arthur Pennington quoted and translated the following: “’I answered,’ says Erasmus, ’that the words, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, are in no ancient manuscript, and have never been cited by those Fathers who have disputed most against the Arians, as Athanasius, Cyril, and Hilary’” (Life, p. 267).

    Tracy observed that "Antitrinitarian writers found in Erasmus's critical review of biblical proof-texts used by the Fathers against Arianism a basis for repudiating the doctrine of Christ's divinity" (Erasmus, p. 189). McLachlan pointed out that readers that applied Erasmus's "method of biblical criticism found their belief in the doctrine of the Trinity undermined" (Socinianism, p. 31). Richard Marius stated: "In some texts and notes, he [Erasmus] seemed to challenge the traditional Christian faith in the Trinity of the godhead, and he minimized the horrific old teaching that an eternally burning hell awaited the damned souls in the next world" (Thomas More, p. 238). Robert Wallace maintained that “Erasmus has given occasion, both to friends and foes, to consider him an Antitrinitarian” (Antitrinitarian Biography, III, p. 639). Rolt observed that Martin Luther accused Erasmus of Arianism (Lives, p. 81). Edward Lee, an English Roman Catholic and archbishop of York, also claimed that Erasmus had encouraged Arianism. Edward Lee had been a patron of Thomas Cranmer (MacCulloch, Cranmer, p. 48).

    Will Durant maintained that Erasmus "obviously doubted the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Virgin Birth" (The Reformation, p. 288). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation in its article on humanism noted that the emphasis of Erasmus "on the exemplary, moral, and pedagogical roles of Christ could be developed into a rejection of the atonement or of the divinity of Christ" (II, p. 268). McGrath stated that Erasmus "developed an essentially moral theology of justification" and that his view makes "justification dependent upon man's imitatio Christi" (Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, p. 58). Arthur McGiffert observed that in Erasmus’ book on Free Will, “he maintained the traditional Catholic belief that salvation is the product of divine grace and human effort” (History, II, pp. 392-393). Eriks observed that "Luther rightly points out that Erasmus says man merits salvation" (Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, April, 1999, p. 46). He added: "A serious implication of the view of Erasmus is that he denies salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone" (p. 47). Arthur Pennington maintained that “we learn also from this treatise [Enchiridion] that he [Erasmus] held the meritoriousness of good works” (Life, p. 61). In 1533 in his On Mending the Peace of the Church, Erasmus wrote: "Let us agree that we are justified by faith, i.e., the hearts of the faithful are thereby purified, provided we admit that the works of charity are necessary for salvation" (Essential Erasmus, p. 379). Thus, Erasmus seemed to defend the Roman Catholic view of the doctrine of justification. Halkin maintained that for Erasmus, the [Roman Catholic] Church was “the regulator of faith” (Erasmus, p. 159). He also noted that “for Erasmus, baptism was essential” (p. 253).
     
  12. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Strange that someone who would doubt the cardinal truths of Christianity is now lifted up as prime defender of the 'real Bible"
     
  13. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    I've often wondered (usually out loud) why KJVO proponents are so quick go call into question the theological beliefs of rather recent textual critical scholars but never apply the same tests to those who authorized the original 1611 KJV or its first translators.

    King James was a raging homosexual who had numerous affairs with men. Shouldnt this test of moral and theological purity also be applied to him?
     
  14. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Also, why are they so quick to grants those translators like inspiration on their work, yet knowing that many of them and had church of england views creep over into the finished work, such as baptism?
     
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