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Dear Ole Westcott & Hort
- Thread starter Gregory Perry Sr.
- Start date
Ok.
W & H made a Greek New Testament based mainly on the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.
jonathan.borland
Active Member
Well, the main point being made again and again is that an idea or system must be judged on its own apart from the one(s) who express(es) it. King James was a homey, but that doesn't mean that the KJV is less worthy because of that. And similarly for Herman Hoskier, who was a critic of Westcott and Hort and the Alexandrian manuscripts and a full blown occultist. Also Hort eating with famous occultists and trying to call forth dead spirits with them. Their textual views must be judged on their own merits or faults. Similarly, just because pastors fall into moral sin doesn't mean the gospel is hogwash, although the world naturally will sensationalize this non sequitur.
Sincerely,
Jonathan C. Borland
Sincerely,
Jonathan C. Borland
That is essentially what I've been speaking to in my last couple of posts.
The truly impressive thing about the W&H work is that it was the doorway to a method which developed the critical text that has done so much to prove the textual accuracy of the NT and OT that we have today. By utilizing the foundations they laid in method our MVs are better translations for our day that reflect better the intentions of the authors and elevate the inspiration of the text. To a point the W&H methodology had made Christianity better and more grounded in truth.
The truly impressive thing about the W&H work is that it was the doorway to a method which developed the critical text that has done so much to prove the textual accuracy of the NT and OT that we have today. By utilizing the foundations they laid in method our MVs are better translations for our day that reflect better the intentions of the authors and elevate the inspiration of the text. To a point the W&H methodology had made Christianity better and more grounded in truth.
jonathan.borland
Active Member
I actually agree with and follow most of Westcott and Hort's theoretical methodology in principle but have come to starkly different results than they in actual practice.
They formed a college aged group to investigate psychic phenomena and got no results. Reading Hort's biography I got the sense it was kind of a humorous lark that they engaged in. It lasted about 5 months, near as I can tell.
Hort did attend a seance, I'm guessing out of curiosity. Nothing happened.
Because of these two instances, Gail Riplinger has labeled Hort an occultist, a new-age pagan bent on perverting God's word.
jonathan.borland
Active Member
What are you talking about? I could be wrong, but it appears you haven't read Hort's life and letters for yourself. I read over 100 pages of it a few days ago. Interesting stuff. To the point, Hort was very interested in and very serious about the subject, but it was more than frowned upon by most. Westcott's draft of the Ghostly Guild's circular was also serious, though he left Cambridge before the investigation really got going. Hort writes him later very enthusiastic about the club's progress and printing and distribution of papers. The fact that Hort participated in a seance 15 years after makes it appear that it was more than just a passing fad, though without context we can't tell if he was serious or as you say, just a joke with some students.
Gregory Perry Sr.
Active Member
Uhhnnn....?
Bro.Jon...well....yes, no, maybe, possibly, but maybe not, or it could be, but ya never know until somebody suggests it, but it might be but....:laugh:
I draw your attention to the following article about Bro.Burgon by D.A.Waite... I don't believe Burgon would have supported/endorsed either Westcott and Hort or this avalanche of MV's in our day.
Who Was Dean John William Burgon? (by D.A.Waite)
Bro.Greg
Bro.Jon...well....yes, no, maybe, possibly, but maybe not, or it could be, but ya never know until somebody suggests it, but it might be but....:laugh:
I draw your attention to the following article about Bro.Burgon by D.A.Waite... I don't believe Burgon would have supported/endorsed either Westcott and Hort or this avalanche of MV's in our day.
Who Was Dean John William Burgon? (by D.A.Waite)
Bro.Greg
Bro. Greg, I'm another witness that Burgon was not KJVO or even TR-only. He was a Majority Text defender. I frankly don't believe he would have agree with the stand of Dr. Waite and the Dean Burgon Society in their insistence on the specific Scrivener TR and the specific Masoretic Text of the Hebrew OT (Ben Chayyim, 2nd Rabbinical Ed., printed by Bomberg) that they insist upon. He certainly would have been appalled that Jack Moorman of the DBS quotes Ruckman over and over as a scholarly source, and that until recently the DBS not only approved of Gail Riplinger but sold her stuff.
I'd be happy to find quotes from Burgon's works if you would like me to. (I have several of his books and have read two of them completely.)
Edited in: And H. D. Williams of the DBS quoted Riplinger as a scholarly source in his badly flawed book, Word-for-Word Translating of the Received Texts. Now of course the DBS won't have a thing to do with her or Ruckman, but the record is already clear, and the past can't be erased.
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John, do you agree with the following? (emphasis added)
Does the "Majority Text" support the TR?
Are most modern Bible versions based on the Majority Text?
This may be a very simplistic statement/question. As a layman, sometimes I feel like I'm looking for needles in fields full of haystacks. Without the magnet of years of study the task is difficult indeed. TIA for your thoughts.
I'm not quite sure what of all those quotes you want me to respond to. The bolded places in your first extended quote are all true except "English translations produced during the twentieth century increasingly reflected the work of textual criticism," The truth is that ALL translations reflect the work of textual criticism to one degree or another, one kind of another, including the KJV.
In your second extended quote, again, I'm not sure what you want me to respond to, so I'll just make some statements that you can interact with.
(1) I'm a Byzantine text advocate, but I don't normally discuss KJVO issues on the BB since I am a missionary.
(2) Westcott and Hort did not necessarily have a bad methodology, but they had a very faulty presupposition that the Byzantine is a bad text type, and this skewed their results.
(3) I am the lead translator of an effort to translate the Scrivener TR Greek text into modern Japanese with a literal method, which when finished will be the first such complete NT in history, though there is one classical Japanese NT from the TR. (I oppose the dynamic equivalence method.)
(4) The DBS has taken a public stand against the Japanese effort I lead, though no DBS leader knows Japanese, with H. D. Williams saying that he "could not and would not use Mr. Himes’ translation work or advocate him as a member of a translation team" (http://www.deanburgonsociety.org/Articles/response.htm). Their problem? I dared to give a negative review on Amazon of DBS former VP Williams' book on Bible translation. So they would rather Japan have, by their standards, a non-Bible for the Japanese rather than a TR based translation that I have worked on. That to me is incredible hypocrisy and negates everything they stand for.
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My take on all of this is that it is fine to use TR/Bzt/MT/CT as the basis to do a translation into the language of choice, as don't each one of them essentially have the same Greek text underlinign them?
that any modern version would be valid for use using any of those texts IF proper translation principles were being applied?
As its not that there is ONLY 1 Greek text for today, but that there are many that are close enough to what was actually penned to have them all be seen as the word of God to us today?
As the KJVO position would imply ONLY one accurate/real text, but there are many accurate texts, its just some might be closer to originals than others?
Thank you, John, for your reply. In the morning, I'll try to further fine tune what I was asking. Must admit that I was in a rush this morning, and looking back at the post, I wasn't nearly as clear as I should have been. However, you've partly answered my question.
Sadly, I'm still in a rush and must leave, again, for church in a few minutes. Thank you for your reply and your patience.
I'll go ahead and answer just these questions at the end of your post. (Discussing the boldface points in your second extended quote would be an essay.)
Modern English versions based on the Byzantine or TR include: the NKJV, World English Bible, Modern KJV and a few others.
There is a third main text type of Greek manuscripts, the Western, but to my knowledge, to date no one has (a) edited a complete Greek NT from the Western, or (b) translated a NT from it.
The TR was edited following Majority text type (also called Byzantine, etc.) manuscripts. I consider it a subset of the Majority/Byzantine.
No, the modern versions are usually based on the critical text (United Bible Societies or UBS, and Nestle's--both the same Greek text), which is based on the Alexandrian text type.
Modern English versions based on the Byzantine or TR include: the NKJV, World English Bible, Modern KJV and a few others.
There is a third main text type of Greek manuscripts, the Western, but to my knowledge, to date no one has (a) edited a complete Greek NT from the Western, or (b) translated a NT from it.
Well, I've done a comparison of the Byz. Textform to the Scrivener and Stephanus TRs, but not the Hodges/Farstad to the Byz. and so forth. I will say, though, that the majority of the differences will not affect the translation, such as spelling Moses differently and so forth. There are some differences in other places though, such as the TR having a few passages the others don't, such as the famous Johannine Comma.
All I will say about this is that I believe any of the ones you listed would be inerrant within that text, and that I believe the proper translation principles are extremely important.
I mentioned before possible quotes about John Burgon and the TR. (Note: "Dean" was not his name, but his title in the Church of England. I really don't know why everyone calls him "Dean" so long after he's dead. He doesn't hold the title now. :smilewinkgrin: ) Though no one ended up asking for it, I'm going to put this quote on anyway.
The quote is actually by the man who edited Burgon's works after he died, Edward Miller, who was another Byzantine advocate. (I have his 1886 A Guide to the Textual Criticism of the NT, which is pretty good for the day.) Here is the quote:
"First, be it understood that we do not advocate perfection in the Textus Receptus. We allow that here and there it requires revision. In the Text left behind by Dean Burgon about 550 corrections have been suggested by him in St. Matthew's Gospel alone. What we maintain is the TRADITIONAL TEXT" (An Introduction to Textual Criticism, Vol. 1: Unholy Hands on the Bible, the works of Burgon ed. by Jay Green, p. 3; caps in original--JoJ.) Interestingly enough, the 1st ed. of the Byzantine Textform Greek NT edited by Robinson and Pierpont only has about one sixth of that 550 corrections in Matthew!
Botton line: Burgon's true position would not be welcome in the Dean Burgon Society, though they still sell his books. And that's the rest of the story. :type:
The quote is actually by the man who edited Burgon's works after he died, Edward Miller, who was another Byzantine advocate. (I have his 1886 A Guide to the Textual Criticism of the NT, which is pretty good for the day.) Here is the quote:
"First, be it understood that we do not advocate perfection in the Textus Receptus. We allow that here and there it requires revision. In the Text left behind by Dean Burgon about 550 corrections have been suggested by him in St. Matthew's Gospel alone. What we maintain is the TRADITIONAL TEXT" (An Introduction to Textual Criticism, Vol. 1: Unholy Hands on the Bible, the works of Burgon ed. by Jay Green, p. 3; caps in original--JoJ.) Interestingly enough, the 1st ed. of the Byzantine Textform Greek NT edited by Robinson and Pierpont only has about one sixth of that 550 corrections in Matthew!
Botton line: Burgon's true position would not be welcome in the Dean Burgon Society, though they still sell his books. And that's the rest of the story. :type:
So in a nutshell, the big question really isn't "Do you trust your text?" as much as it is "Do you trust your translator?"- correct?
Well, I would agree that "Do you trust your translator?" comes first, but I do believe researching the texts is important.
Sorry, but that is wrong. Both Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort were on the translation committee for the ERV of 1881.
What is not at issue is this ERV. Their contributions to that translation aren't the issue, rather the critical text and methodology they formulated (which was greatly improved through the years) is at issue.
