Burgon's Damning Facts 5 Preface: What the Revisers actually did

Dean J W Burgon in his Preface to The Revision Revised, p. xxix:

"My apology for bestowing so large a portion of my time on Textual Criticism, is David's when he was reproached by his brethren for appearing on the field of battle,--"Is there not a cause?"

#23. For,--let it clearly be noted,--it is no longer the case that critical doubts concerning the sacred Text are confined to critical Editions of the Greek.

True. It was true then and it's still true. No, they are aired in all our Bibles, including the New King James, as noted in the last post.

"So long as scholars were content to ventilate their crotchets in a little arena of their own,--however mistaken they might be, and even though they changed their opinions once in every ten years,--no great harm was likely to come of it.

Which, of course, is no longer the case, and harm has come of it and keeps on coming of it.

Students of the Greek Testament were sure to have their attention called to the subject,--which must always be in the highest degree desirable; and it was to be expected that in this, as in every other department of learning, the progress of Inquiry would result in gradual accessions of certain Knowledge. After many years it might be found practicable to put forth by authority a carefully considered Revision of the commonly received Greek Text.

Let me emphasize what he is saying here:

He expects it would take MANY years to arrive at the point where it would be practicable to revise the text, the time being necessary for resolving all the problems raised by the many opinions. But Westcott and Hort and Company recklessly did not take the time to resolve the problems. Of course they didn't WANT to resolve the problems. They wanted their own private opinion to triumph.

And to put it forth BY AUTHORITY, rather than determined by a few men of doubtful competence for the job.

A CAREFULLY CONSIDERED Revision, blessed with many counselors of prayer as well as competence.

Of the COMMONLY RECEIVED Greek Text, that is, the Textus Receptus, as opposed to the corrupted texts chosen by these self-appointed experts.

Page xxx:

#24. But instead of all this, a Revision of the English Authorised Version having been sanctioned by the Convocation of the Southern Province in 1871, the opportunity was eagerly snatched at by two irresponsible scholars of the University of Cambridge for obtaining the general sanction of the Revising body, and thus indirectly of Convocation, for a private venture of their own,--their own privately devised Revision of the Greek Text.

Two "irresponsible scholars," he says. Strong language. It seems to me that in the context of such a book, in which Burgon demonstrates his scholarly grasp of all the issues involved in revising the Bible, that such strong language ought to be taken quite seriously as possibly pointing to a serious violation both of trust and of scholarship. It ought to give pause to those who have been more or less uncritically accepting Westcott and Hort as worthy textual critics. OUGHT to, I say.

They produced, he says, THEIR OWN PRIVATELY DEVISED REVISION OF THE GREEK TEXT. Are today's Bible scholars aware of this? Do they believe it? Does it matter to them? Would they defend it as proper scholarship? (Reminder to those tempted to dismiss all discussion of Westcott and Hort on the ground that their work does not figure so much in the modern Bible versions: This is not true. There have been changes, minor changes, to their Greek text, that have been published as different editions of the Critical Text, such as Nestle-Aland and the Unitied Bible Societies' text, but the changes are minor and it is W&H's adherence to the two most ancient texts, Aleph or Sinaiticus, and B or Vaticanus, that is the big problem, and that continues in all the Critical Texts and therefore all the modern versions (except for the NKJV if its translators' claims are correct, but there it continues in the deplorable multitudinous intrusive footnotes. Of course there is the other point of view: Michael Marlowe, the Bible Researcher, as I note below, appreciates this very fact as making the NKJV the most fully documented Bible).

He goes on:

On that Greek Text of theirs, (which I hold to be the most depraved which has ever appeared in print), with some slight modifications, our Authorised English Version has been silently revised: silently, I say, for in the margin of the English no record is preserved of the underlying Textual changes which have been introduced by the Revisionists. On the contrary. Use has been made of that margin to insinuate suspicion and distrust in countless particulars as to authenticity of the Text which has been suffered to remain unaltered. In the meantime, the country has been flooded with two editions of the New Greek Text; and thus the door has been set wide open for universal mistrust of the Truth of Scripture to enter.

The "most depraved which has ever appeared in print" says Burgon of the Greek Text produced by Westcott and Hort, which now in various forms underlies the majority of our English Bibles. This is, of course, the complete opposite judgment from that of the scholars who support the modern versions and the W&H production, or at least the later variations of it. They may not want to give as MUCH support to Sinaiticus and Vaticanus as Westcott and Hort did, but these mss are nevertheless still held in high esteem these days, even given special weight over the Traditional text, as Bible Researcher Marlowe affirms in his judgment of the NKJV, discussed in a post below. They are given this weight ONLY because they happen to be among the very oldest to have survived the wear and tear of time. (Their survival was very likely due to having been ignored and even discarded for all those centuries until they were discovered in the obscurity and ignominy to which they rightly belonged, dusted off and elevated to unmerited glory, but those who support them believe that finding them was a great gift of God to the church instead.)

#25. Even schoolboys, it seems, are to have these crude views thrust upon them. Witness the 'Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools,' edited by Dean Perowne,--who informs us at the outset that 'the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press have not thought it desirable to reprint the text in common use.'

(It doesn't meet their standards for sowing rationalistic doubts in schoolboys' minds apparently).

A consensus of Drs. Tischendorf and Tregelles,--who confessedly employed the self-same mistaken major premiss in remodelling the Sacred Text,--seems, in a general way, to represent those Syndics' notion of Textual purity. By this means every most serious deformity in the edition of Drs. Westcott and Hort becomes promoted to honour, and is being thrust on the unsuspecting youth of England as the genuine utterance of the HOLY GHOST.

Yes, a dishonorable and deformed text promoted to honor.

Would it not have been the fairer, the more faithful as well as the more judicious course,--seeing that in respect of this abstruse and important question adhuc sub judice lis est,--to wait patiently awhile? Certainly not to snatch an opportunity "while men slept," and in this way indirectly to prejudge the solemn issue! Not by such methods is the cause of GOD's Truth on earth to be promoted.

Is the enormity of what they did starting to get through to you? Or are you just against anyone, like Burgon, who takes the things of God so seriously?

Even this however is not all. Bishop Lightfoot has been informed that "the Bible Society has permitted its Translators to adopt the text of the Revised Version where it commends itself to their judgment." In other words, persons wholly unacquainted with the dangers which best this delicate and difficult problem are invited to determin, by the light of Nature and on the 'solvere ambulando' principle, what is inspired Scripture, what not; and as a necessary consequence are encouraged to disseminate in heathen lands Readings which, a few years hence,--(so at least I venture to predict,)--will be universally recognized as worthless.

Oh, I WISH that it were so. But what has happened instead is that as these Texts were disseminated by "persons wholly unacquainted with the dangers," trusting in Scholars rather than God, they were accepted everywhere as if they were the very truth of God, until the modern versions have spread like evil leaven throughout the world.

#26. If all this does not constitute a valid reason for descending into the arena of controversy, it would in my judgment be impossible to indicate an occasion when the Christian soldier is called upon to do so:--the rather, because certain of those who, from their rank and station in the Church, ought to be the champions of the Truth, are at this time found to be among its most vigorous assailants.

Doesn't this deserve our attention and concern? Aren't we aware that in fact out of the 19th century in many forms came the rationalistic tendencies that have produced all our Liberal apostate churches, and the Anglican is the queen of them all? Can you go on dismissing Burgon now? Can you just write him off as a fanatic or something? Doesn't this make you mourn over the compromised state of the church?

I hope next to get to some of the substantive facts and arguments Burgon gives against the Westcott and Hort Greek Text.