Burgon's Damning Facts 2

I am going on from the previous section in Revision Revised with a gap of one page. It's hard to leave anything out at all, because everything he says here is of importance and it seems to me ought to have the effect of jolting some people awake who have been passively accepting what passes for scholarship in the defense of the modern Bible versions. Just about every page of Burgon has something of this nature on it so if I faithfully pursued my inclinations I would reproduce the entire book here. I'm sure I don't have that much stamina -- or time -- but I can only hope that what I do get copied out will have the impact I feel strongly it OUGHT to have in reorienting some people's thinking.

The Number 666

Next he deals with the passage about the number 666. Have you, as I have, noted the footnote on this subject in some versions, or had someone owlishly inform you that "Some manuscripts say it's really 616?" Now that did throw me when I first heard it. What? This is a test of wisdom, after all, it has to be accurate. If there is any doubt about it we are in real trouble. Burgon restores the Truth.

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(d) Only once more. And this time we will turn to the very end of the blessed volume. Against Rev. xiii. 18---

"Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him "count the number of the Beast; for it is the number of a Man: and his number is six hundred and sixty and six."

Against this, we find noted, -- 'Some ancient authorities read six hundred and sixteen.'

But why is not the whole Truth told? viz. why are we not informed that only one corrupt uncial (c): -- only one cursive copy (11):--only one Father (Tichonius): and not one ancient Version--advocates this reading?--which, on the contrary, Irenaeus (A.D. 170) knew, but rejected; remarking that 666, which is 'found in all the best and oldest copies and is attested by men who saw John face to face,' is unquestionably the true reading. Why is not the ordinary Reader further informed that the same number (666) is expressly vouched for by Origen,--by Hippolytus,--by Eusebius:--as well as by Victorinus--and Primasius,--not to mention Andreas and Arethas? To come to the moderns, as a matter of fact the established reading is accepted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles,--even by Westcott and Hort. Why therefore--for what possible reason--at the end of 1700 years and upwards, is this, which is so clearly nothing else but an ancient slip of the pen, to be forced upon the attention of 90 millions of English-speaking people? Will Bishop Ellicott and his friends venture to tell us that it has been done because "it would not be safe to accept" 666, "to the absolute exclusion of" 616? . . . "We have given alternative Readings in the margin," (say they,) "wherever they seem to be of sufficient importance of interest to deserve notice." Will they venture to claim either 'interest' or 'importance' for this? or pretend that it is an 'alternative Reading' at all? Has it been rescued from oblivion and paraded before univeral Christendom in order to perplex, mystify, and discourage 'those that have understanding,' and would fain 'count the number of the Beast,' if they were able? Or was the intention only to insinuate one more wretched doubt--one more miserable suspicion--into minds which have been taught (and rightly) to place absolute reliance in the textual accuracy of all the gravest utterances of the SPIRIT: minds which are utterly incapable of dealing with the subtleties of Textual Criticism; and, from a one-sided statement like the present, will carry away none but entirely mistaken inferences, and the most unreasonable distrust? . . . Or, lastly, was it only because, in their opinion, the margin of every Englishman's N.T. is the fittest place for reviving the memory of obsolete blunders, and ventilating forgotten perversions of the Truth? . . . We really pause for an answer.

Well, modern versions apologists? I'm pausing for an answer too.

No longer "More tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah?"

(e) But serious as this is, more serious (if possible) is the unfair Suppression systematically prctised throughout the work before us. "We have given alternative Readings in the margin,"--(says Bishop Ellicott on behalf of his brother-Revisionists)--"wherever they seem to be of sufficient importance or interest to deserve notice." [iii.1.] From which statement, readers have a right to infer that whenever "alternative Readings" are not "given in the margin," it is because such Readings do not "seem to be of sufficient importance or interest to deserve notice." Will the Revisionists venture to tell us that,--(to take the first instance of unfair Suppression which presents itself,)-- our LORD's saying in S. Mark vi. 11 is not "of sufficient importance or interest to deserve notice"? We allude to the famous words, --"Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city:"--words which are not only omitted from the "New English Version," but are not suffered to leave so much as a trace of themselves in the margin. And yet, the saying in question is attested by the Peschito and the Philoxenian Syriac Versions: by the Old Latin: by the Coptic, Aethiopic and Gothic Versions:--by 11 uncials and by the whole bulk of the cursives:--by Irenaeus and by Victor of Antioch. So that whether Antiquity, or Variety of Attestation is considered, --whether we look for Numbers or for Respectability,--the genuineness of the passage may be regarded as certain.Our complaint however is not that the Revisionists entertain a different opinion on this head from ourselves: but that they give the reader to understand that the state of the Evidence is such, that it is quite "safe to accept" the shorter reading,--"to the absolute exclusion of the other." --So vast is the field before us, that this single specimen of what we venture to call 'unfair Suppression,' must suffice. (Some will not hesitate to bestow upon it a harsher epithet.) It is in truth by far the most damaging feature of the work before us, that its Authors should have so largely and so seriously falsified the Deposit; and yet, (in clear violation of the IVth Principle or Rule laid down for their guidance at the outset,) have suffered no trace to survive in the margin of the deadly mischief which they have effected. [Italics are Burgon's]

Read it and weep, I say.