"Sprinkle" or "startle?" --Just Another Bit of Translational Skulduggery from Westcott and Hort

Heard a great message on Christian radio this afternoon on Isaiah 53, which really starts back in Isaiah 52.  When the preacher got to Isaiah 52:15 he commented that the Hebrew word nazah, which is translated in the KJV as "sprinkle," is best translated "startle." 

The KJV has:

So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

But supposedly it would be better as "So shall he "startle" many nations?" 

For me these days it's an unavoidable irritation to hear sermons where the preacher favors the Westcott and Hort-inspired translations over the KJV, and this one is especially irritating because "startle" just isn't anything like "sprinkle," so I wanted to find out what lay behind it.  It's not irritating, by the way,  because I think the KJV is perfect, which I don't, but because I know the KJV translators knew their languages and this felt like just another slap in their worthy God-fearing faces by the revisers who hated the KJV, I mean HATED it, which they even said in so many words, being closet Catholics.  So I have to suspect it's probably another one of those 36,000 unnecessary corrections made in Westcott and Hort's 1881 "revision"  (See Bishop Wordsworth quote Change for Change's Sake in right margin).

I decided to find out.

So I did a little research. 

The list of Bible versions at Blue Letter Bible for that verse shows that nine of the twelve English versions have "sprinkle" while only two of them, the New Living and the Revised Standard, have "startle" and one, Darby, has "astonish."

The Revised Standard Version IS Westcott and Hort's Revision.  ONLY theirs and the New Living Translation have "startle."  Interesting that all the other modern versions stuck with the KJV on "sprinkle" instead of following the lead of the RSV from which they're all textually descended.   Should that perhaps be explained as their recognizing that "sprinkle" is the better rendering, or is there some other explanation?

The Hebrew word nazah  according to Strong's Concordance, occurs 24 times in the Hebrew Bible. 
It is translated in the KJV 24 times as "sprinkle."  That is, it is never translated by any other English word than "sprinkle" any place it occurs in the text.

Strong's gives "sprinkle" as the main meaning in English but also notes a secondary meaning, "leap," from which "startle" is deduced. 

I've discovered that this is a typical pattern for the Westcott and Hort revision.  That is, it's as if they checked the Concordance for the English meanings of a particular word in Greek or Hebrew, and chose a meaning that is on the list but far from the most common rendering, in a way that looks like they had no other interest than to find a rendering that is as different from the KJV as they could get but still within the ballpark as it were. 

People who favor the new versions will argue, of course, that a particular word is simply a "better translation" than the word found in the KJV, although they have no expertise in the language themselves and in most cases there's really nothing to justify that opinion except the fact that it's in a particular translation and not in the KJV.  The argument becomes silly in those cases where there are many different words in the many different translations, which is often the case.  Which of those many words is the "better translation" is a matter of subjective judgment.  And often a word choice was made simply to meet the requirement to have a certain number of differences from other translations in order to qualify for copyright.  That is another reason for the babelous cacophony of the translations besides Westcott and Hort's basic motive of vandalism of the KJV.  

So, yes, it looks like this is one of those 36,000 unnecessary changes, and maybe because it occurs in the Revision itself it's accepted by even the best of preachers as "more accurate" than whatever the KJV has:

• despite the fact that nine of the twelve versions at BLB give "sprinkle" in agreement with the KJV
• and despite the fact that "sprinkle" is the most common rendering.

I suppose Darby got "astonish" from "leap" too, but his is an oddball translation anyway.

The New Living Translation gives "cleanse" as an alternative in a footnote, which is odd since "cleanse" isn't exactly a synonym of "startle," although it is of "sprinkle."  But this is an oddball translation too. 

The translation that counts in this context is the RSV, because I wanted to know if this particular change can be traced to Westcott and Hort's devious schemes, and it looks like it certainly can.

I also looked up the English word "startle" in Strong's.  The word does not occur in the KJV at all.

And the English word "astonish:"  It occurs in various forms in the KJV ("astonied" and "astonished"), not one of which translates a Hebrew word even remotely similar to nazah.

Information on the RSV at Blue Letter Bible:

Transcribed from: The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version containing the Old and New Testaments, translated from the original tongues: being the version set forth A.D. 1611, revised A.D. 1881-1885 and A.D. 1901: compared with the most ancient authorities and revised A.D. 1946-52. — 2nd ed. of New Testament A.D. 1971. There should be enough in the rest of the description to identify the text.

Excuse me if my lip curls in a sneer as I read this.  I'm sniffing sulfur from the pit of Hell, knowing that the RSV was produced by people who hated the KJV, who ignored the instructions to keep the revision to a minimum of changes by making 36,000 UNNECESSARY changes in the English (I assume a few were necessary), AND by palming off as "older and better" a few corrupted Greek texts which happen to have been approved by the Vatican, in the place of the KJV's Textus Receptus on which all the previous English translations had been based.  So to claim that it has anything whatever to do with the "version set forth A.D. 1611" except to mutilate it, is a big fat lie.  "Compared with the most ancient authorities" is just another piece of the Antichrist lie about the corrupted texts they've reinvented to be the oldest and best.  More Vatican inspired forgeries and deceptions.   Go watch Chris Pinto's films and listen to his radio shows.

Chris Pinto's new film "Tares Among the Wheat" is where he will investigate the 1881 disaster

So I'm happy to report -- and grateful too -- that today's (March 21) broadcast of Chris Pinto's radio show Noise of Thunder is on Bible History, and he did talk about the work he's currently involved in that should reveal some behind-the-scenes influences on our modern Bibles. This will be part of his film now in production titled Tares Among the Wheat.

Today's broadcast includes a lot of good information on the trustworthiness of the Bible documents. I gather he believes that the Alexandrian texts really were influenced by heretics in the early church, as did J W Burgon, and that will no doubt be covered in more detail in the film.

He puts much emphasis on Catholic -- Jesuit -- influence on the modern Bibles. Westcott and Hort revealed quite a bit of sympathy with the Roman Church themselves, not enough to suggest a Roman Catholic conspiracy behind their destructive work on the Bible Revision of 1881, but I would guess that Chris Pinto has unearthed some connections along those lines.

Chris Pinto's documentary films are really inspiring and informative productions and I'm particularly looking forward to this one.

The basic argument against the new versions

A talk given at the Trinitarian Bible Society in 2007 by Pastor John Thackway, The English Standard Version, covers all the basics.

I have a good impression of Pastor Thackway from having heard part of his series on the Song of Songs, which he recognizes as about the spiritual life of a Christian in our relationship with Christ.

Burgon the Perennial Footnote

I continue to be amazed at the near-absolute dismissal of Burgon by defenders of the modern versions. It's as if he doesn't exist. They have NO interest in reading him, they are content with what they've seen quoted from him -- from both sides.

Having spent some time in the last few weeks visiting anti-KJV-only websites, AND reading around in a couple of anti-KJV-only books, I find a near-total blackout on Burgon's contribution which is astonishing to me. Not that his name doesn't come up, but anything he actually argued is not discussed, he's really just ignored. I find footnotes about him, or his name is mentioned in passing in connection with some subject or other, along with others who also wrote on the same subject, while what Burgon himself wrote is known only through those who have quoted him -- or commented on him, sometimes unfairly. There are for instance some references to his "intemperate" manner rather than to anything he contributed to the discussion -- an "intemperate" manner I happen to think is appropriate to the enormity of the offense he is exposing, a passion for the glory of God and the wellbeing of His church against a destructive manhandling of the Bible, a context in which a neutral academic tone is out of tune.

Whatever the cause, Westcott and Hort's claims, which Burgon spent so much time criticizing, largely hold sway while Burgon is ignored.

What is it that happened? As the Revised Version and its new Greek text came out was it simply so rapidly accepted into the halls of academe that its critics were left behind in the dust? Apparently Burgon wasn't even addressed, his arguments weren't criticized, he WAS simply ignored, he simply disappeared from consideration. So W-H's propositions and arguments were studied by new generations without any exposure to their original critics? So whatever criticism came up was a product of that later study and never fed on the earlier?

Is that what happened?

Then perhaps the rise of the KJV-Only movement put the whole thing on such a different footing that their arguments became the focus instead of Burgon's, and that added to the eclipse of his work? He is loved by the KJV-Only movement but the bulk of their work doesn't overlap his. I just skimmed through the lengthy section on Burgon in David Cloud's For Love of the Bible and see that he reproduces mostly Burgon's polemics and his conclusions rather than his arguments themselves, although some of his evidence on the last twelve verses of Mark is included. He also shows the critics' unfairness to Burgon, partial quotes and that sort of thing, exposing the character assassination and lack of discussion of his arguments without himself presenting any of his arguments.

Burgon mustered a great deal of evidence against what Westcott and Hort did, against the Alexandrian texts both in general and with respect to specific verses, and against the English translation they did. He took years making comparisons among all the manuscripts then available in order to show the corruptions of the Alexandrian texts so favored by W-H. The Revision Revised is a collection of three articles he had first published in a scholarly journal, a 110-page critique of The New Greek Text including discussion of Greek terms that I can appreciate only indirectly, a 122-page article on The New English Version, and a 130-page article on Westcott and Hort's New Textual Theory, followed by a lengthy letter (150 pages) answering Bishop Ellicott who had written a pamphlet defending the revision. And this is only one book he wrote on the 1881 Revision. He also wrote a book completely addressed to exposing the corruptions in the Alexandrian texts, and another on the last twelve verses of Mark.

But when James White writes a book on the Bible versions he attacks the arguments of the extreme KJV-Only camp, that Burgon had nothing to do with. Here for instance is a whole page listing various criticisms of KJV and TR-only arguments, all by James White, none of which takes on Burgon. Burgon would not have aligned himself with the extremists like Ruckman and Riplinger and Marrs. (The likelihood that White has read Burgon is very slim; I would also doubt that he's read a book like David Cloud's For Love of the Bible either, but of course perhaps I'm wrong).

When D. A. Carson lists Fourteen Theses some of which were argued by Burgon he does not discuss what Burgon said about any of them; when he lists Seven Arguments in favor of the KJV they are arguments not defended by Burgon as far as I've found. He includes Burgon in quite a few footnotes but I get the impression that he may not have read Burgon himself. I get the same impression from most of the anti-KJV-only arguments I've read.

The controversy today is not the controversy as Burgon addressed it.

I don't know if reading Burgon would change minds of course, although personally I can hardly see how it could fail to do so -- probably not James White, but then who knows? However, I also appreciate other arguments such as DiVietro's which doesn't seem to have swayed anyone.

I hope I'll soon get back to posting quotes from Burgon.

Corruptions of the Greek manuscripts: evidence from Burgon that is simply dismissed today

Burgon doesn't ascribe all the corruptions in the Alexandrian Greek manuscripts to the work of heretics, but discusses many different causes of such corruption, spending about fifty pages of Revision Revised on this topic. He even wrote an entire book on this subject. Some of it he does ascribe to heretical tampering, however.

I want to quote from a passage in which he is imagining a dialogue with a critic of his point of view and a defender of Westcott and Hort. Here he's quoting

a very ancient Father (Caius) writing against the heresy of Theodotus and others who denied the Divinity of Christ. He is bearing his testimony to the liberties which had been freely taken with the Text of the New Testament in his own time, viz. about A.D. 175-200:--"

The Divine Scriptures,' he says, 'these heretics have audaciously corrupted: . . . laying violent hands upon them under pretence of correcting them. That I bring no false accusation, any one who is disposed may easily convince himself. He has but to collect the copies belonging to these persons severally: then, to compare one with another; and he will discover that their discrepancy is extraordinary.

Those of Asclepiades, at all events, will be founmd discordant from those of Theodotus. Now, plenty of specimens of either sort are obtainable, inasmuch as these men's disciples have industriously multipled the (so-called) "corrected" copies of their respective teachers, which are in reality nothing else but "corrupted" copies. With the foregoing copies again, those of Hermophilus will be found entirely at variance. As for the copies of Apollonides, they even contradict one another. Nay, let any one compare the fabricated text which these persons put forth in the first instance, with that which exhibits their latest perversions of the Truth, and he will discover that the disagreement between them is even excessive.

Of the enormity of the offense of which these men have been guilty, they must needs themselves be fully aware. Either they do not believe that the Divine Scriptures are the utterance of the Holy Ghost, -- in which case they are to be regarded as unbelievers: or else, they account themselves wiser than the Holy Ghost, -- and what is that, but to have the faith of devils? As for their denying their guilt, the thing is impossible, seeing that the copies under discussion are their own actual handywork; and they know full well that not such as these are the Scriptures which they received at the hands of their catechetical teachers. Else, let them produce the originals from which they made their transcripts. Certain of them indeed have not even condescending to falsify Scripture, but entirely reject Law and Prophets alike.

Now, the foregoing statement is in a high degree suggestive. For here is an orthodox Father of the IInd century inviting attention to four well-known families of falsified manuscripts of the Sacred Writings; -- complaining of the hopeless divergences which they exhibit (being not only inconsistent with one another, but with themselves); -- and insisting that such corrected, are nothing else but shamefully corrupted copies. He speaks of the phenomenon as being in his day notorious: and appeals to Recensions, the very names of whose authors -- Theodotus, Asclepiades, Hermophilus, Apollinides -- have (all but the first) long since died out of the Church's memory. You will allow therefore (will you not?), that by this time the claim of the oldest existing copies of Scripture to be the purest, has been effetually disposed of. For since there once prevailed such a multitude of corrupted copies, we have no security whatever that the oldest of our extant MSS. are not derived -- remotely if not directly -- from some of them. pp 323-4 Revision Revised

He goes on at length with this argument, showing that these corruptions belong to what are known as the Alexandrian text type. I may add more eventually. Presumably it can be read and decided in favor of Westcott and Hort. I decide it in favor of Burgon. Perhaps that is the best that can be said. I find his arguments convincing throughout his book.

MacArthur discussion concluded

Part 2: I don't really want to get into the specific arguments against the King James Only position, which is what Part 2 is about. But of course I do find occasional statements I'd like to answer, such as this one:

...the fact that TR manuscripts are older than originally thought does not make tham necessarily superior to other text types but would only allow for an even treatment. New papyrii discoveries from the second and third centuries A.D. do evidence that Byzantine text type variants were available, but do not support recognizing them as superior to coexisting manuscripts.

No, but it ought to go a long way toward squelching the claim that the Alexandrians were clearly earlier and therefore closer to the autographs.

The Alexandrian manuscripts are the oldest we presently possess. It is logical to expect that if there were other early families, they would have circulated to Egypt and thus would have been preserved there also.

Yes, as long as you are going to persist in the delusion that the Alexandrians are simply an honestly copied "family" of manuscripts and not the result of tampering, yes it is "logical" to suppose a simple traveling here and there of equal variants.

Obviously what has to be established is that the Alexandrians ARE corrupt, which is of course hinted at in the facts 1) that there are so few of them, 2) that such early copies have managed to survive in surprisingly good shape, and 3) that there are so many differences among them, but obviously that isn't enough to convince those who are most engaged in trying to answer the excesses of the KJVOs.

I'm going to have to spend more time in Burgon for this purpose. It's nice to get a clear sense of direction from time to time.

So on to Part 3:

It is true that the value of a manuscript is not determined by its age. A late manuscript could be a copy of a very ancient one, whereas an older manuscript might be a copy of one not much removed from it in time. All things being equal, however, the oldest manuscripts are closer in time to the autographs. The shorter time interval implies fewer copies and fewer chances for error. This is a principle of all literary textual criticism, not just textual criticism of the Greek New Testament.

This is just another reminder that the corruption of these texts is what needs to be argued. Again there are hints enough already that suspicions ought to be raised and such gullibility not so easily indulged, not to mention the existence of treatises that go into sufficient detail to demonstrate the point, BUT OK, at least, again, this narrows the job description.

Yes, "all things being equal" which means assuming honest treatment of the Alexandrians, they ARE closer to the autographs. BUT ALL THINGS ARE NOT EQUAL in this case. There is AMPLE proof that the Alexandrians are corrupt. It often seems to me that there must be a willful blindness to the evidence for this.

Also, the assertion that the oldest manuscripts survived only because they were faulty is disproved by the scribal corrections evident on these manuscripts. Logic demands that faulty manuscripts would have been destroyed or corrected rather than shelved for future use or discovery.

Not if they were intended to support heresy! Not if the scribal corrections represent layers of changes over time both for and against heretical interpolations. And HOW MANY are you talking about that were shelved for future use or discovery? TWO?

There is no factual substantiation to the claim that Aleph, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, or any other of the earliest Greek manuscripts in existence today were of gnostic origin and altered to conform to their heresies.

HAS ANYBODY READ BURGON????!!!

3. Mark 16:9-20 has evoked no end of critical discussion. Many believe that this questionable passage should be deleted since it is used to back up the claims of charismatics; others, Grace Church included, believe that it should be considered part of the authorative text and rightly interpreted.

Interesting. Neither argument has anything to do with the question of the TEXTUAL support for the passage, which is supposedly what this dissertation is all about. The Alexandrians eliminate it, the Byzantines include it. If you think the Alexandrians are the closest to the autographs, isn't it inconsistent to include a passage they don't include? On what basis do you decide it is "authoritative" then?

Then they go on to specific verses, arguing that although certain verses don't have some familiar KJV renderings, others in the same manuscript nevertheless do, which is a typical begging of the question of whether these renderings were added to or subtracted from the text, as if all anyone cares about is that the minimal doctrinal statement is present.

8. Perhaps the biggest error of fact is the claim that 1 John 5:7-8 is a part of the autographa and should be included in all versions of Scripture. To say that to delete the phrase in verse 7, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are One” is to deny the tri unity of God is not true. The passage is absent from every known Greek manuscript except four, and these four contain the passage of what appears to be a translation from a late edition of the Latin Vulgate. These four manuscripts are dated very, very late.

OK, I've run across this argument many many times and have pretty much figured that if there isn't good manuscript support for it there is no reason to retain it. But I think now that a VERY GOOD REASON to retain it, or at least not be so eager to jettison it, is that the KJV translators considered it worthy to be included in their text. I have been coming to the conclusion that since all this is mostly a matter of scholarly judgment and the scholarly judgment of the Westcott and Hort contingent is hideously deplorable, GREAT weight should be put on the decisions made by the KJV translators in deciding the legitimacy of any given reading. If it ever comes to a serious respectful prudent attempt to update the King James, THEN questions can be raised about their choices. But in the context of the Westcott and Hort debacle I'm not in a mood to countenance throwing away anything in the KJV. It may be that the story that follows about how Erasmus came to include it is true, but I want a LEGITIMATE body of SPIRITUALLY QUALIFIED scholars to decide these things. Also, wouldn't the KJV translators have been aware of how Erasmus claim to include it? If not, fine, but again I'm not of a frame of mind to let anyone who defends the Westcott and Hort legacy decide these things. These things need to be decided by rightly authorized agencies, not willynilly in debate, by publishing companies, by self-appointed lone translators etc.

As can be seen from the discussion of these verses, it is unlikely that doctrines were manipulated by heretics since truths were not consistently deleted.

This is logical, yes, but there is other evidence that in fact such deletions were the work of tampering even though their inconsistency about it is curious.

Part 4: I do have to agree with many of the answers given here to the extreme KJVO's. That is what makes this discussion so frustrating. Theirs are not the only arguments against Westcott and Hort and the modern versions, yet they get all the attention and the whole issue becomes associated with their thinking.

Here's how the Grace Pulpit discussion ends:

The following quote from the helpful brochure published by Grace Theological Seminary and written by its president, Dr. Homer A. Kent, Jr., is a fitting capstone to this discussion of textual variants:

It needs to be remembered that the differences between the Alexandrian and Byzantine text types are not nearly as great as might be supposed.

But they are a lot greater than the defenders of the Alexandrians seem willing to admit, and the differences among the Alexandrians themselves are far greater than the differences among the Byzantines which flies in the face of the assumption that fewer changes ("faults," "errors") should exist in such early manuscripts as opposed to later ones.

The gospel is crystal clear in either version.

This is a red herring.

It is regrettable that an issue is being made over this matter in evangelical circles, especially when some extremists are making one’s attitude toward the King James Version an article of faith, and unwarrantedly raising suspicions against those who do not.

I have to agree with this.

The issue is forcing many Christians to make a choice where they lack the necessary knowledge and skill to do so.

Very true. However, it is really the fault of the Revision of 1881 and the proliferation of Bibles since then that so much is required of Christians, and this should have been recognized as a problem long long ago. The extreme KJVOs are not helping matters though.

How much better it would be to thank God that His Word has been preserved intact for centuries, and that the wealth of manuscripts assures us that none of the words have been lost.

Maybe not in the whole collection of manuscripts, but that can't be counted on in any given translation from what are most certainly deficient manuscripts.

In a few cases, we may not be certain which of several variants is the original, but our problem is an embarrassment of riches, not of loss.

Unwarranted optimism I'm afraid. When there is a wolf in sheep's clothing in the sheepfold it is sad that the shepherd is fooled by his disguise.