Are these men great translators of the Bible or great idiots?
Wescott and Hort
Discussion in '2003 Archive' started by Prince of Preachers, Dec 6, 2002.
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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. -
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"???
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Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member
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.
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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.
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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 -
Hi Pastor Bob 63;
Amen and Amen
May God bless you.
Romanbear
Peace -
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. -
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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. -
I read in years past that they were "closet catholics."
[ December 06, 2002, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: JYD ] -
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.
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JYD said:
I read in years past that they were "closet catholics."
And when you actually read the works where the "closet Catholicism" supposedly comes from, you find out quite the opposite. Sam Gipp's mangling of a letter of Westcott's to prove he was a Mariolator is a particularly egregious example. -
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.
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Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member
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Pastor_Bob Well-Known Member
Dr. Westcott taught that the Resurrection was a “spiritual event” by which the Tabernacle of God’s presence was restored to men.
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:
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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. -
Bump. There's some stuff in this thread relevant to recent discussions.
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Amen Pastor Bob!
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