The King James Version
Defended
By Dr.
Edward F. Hills
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS
AND
THE KING JAMES
VERSION
What about all the
modern Bible versions and paraphrases which are being
sold today by bookstores and publishing houses? Are all
these modern-speech Bibles "holy" Bibles? Does God
reveal Himself in them? Ought Christians today to rely
on them for guidance and send the King James Version
into honorable retirement? In order to answer these
questions let us first consider the claims of the Textus
Receptus and the King James Version and then those of
the modern versions that seek to supplant
them.
1. Three
Alternative Views Of The Textus Receptus (Received
Text)
One of the
leading principles of the Protestant Reformation was the
sole and absolute authority of the holy Scriptures. The
New Testament text in which early Protestants placed
such implicit reliance was the Textus Receptus
(Received Text), which was first
printed in 1516 under the editorship of Erasmus. Was
this confidence of these early Protestants misplaced?
There are three answers to this question which may be
briefly summarized as
follows:
(a) The
Naturalistic, Critical View of the Textus
Receptus
Naturalistic
textual critics, of course, for years have not hesitated
to say that the Protestant Reformers were badly mistaken
in their reliance upon the Textus Receptus. According to
these scholars, the Textus Receptus is the worst New
Testament text that ever existed and must be wholly
discarded. One of the first to take this stand openly
was Richard Bentley, the celebrated English philologian.
In an apology written in 1713 he developed the party
line which naturalistic critics have used ever since to
sell their views to conservative Christians. (1) New
Testament textual criticism, he asserted, has nothing to
do with Christian doctrine since the substance of
doctrine is the same even in the worst manuscripts. Then
he added that the New Testament text has suffered less
injury by the hand of time than the text of any profane
author. And finally, he concluded by saying that we
cannot begin the study of the New Testament text with
any definite belief concerning the nature of God's
providential preservation of the Scriptures. Rather we
must begin our study from a neutral standpoint and then
allow the results of this neutral method to teach us
what God's providential preservation of the New
Testament text actually has been. In other words, we
begin with agnosticism and work ourselves into faith
gradually. Some seminaries still teach this party
line.
(b) The High
Anglican View of the Textus
Receptus
This was the view
of Dean J. W. Burgon, Prebendary F. H. A. Scrivener, and
Prebendary Edward Miller. These conservative New
Testament textual critics were not Protestants but high
Anglicans. Being high Anglicans, they recognized only
three ecclesiastical bodies as true Christian churches,
namely, the Greek Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic
Church, and the Anglican Church, in which they
themselves officiated. Only these three communions, they
insisted, had the "apostolic succession." Only these
three, they maintained, were governed by bishops who had
been consecrated by earlier bishops and so on back in an
unbroken chain to the first bishops, who had been
consecrated by the Apostles through the laying on of
hands. All other denominations these high Anglicans
dismissed as mere "sects."
It was Burgon's
high Anglicanism which led him to place so much emphasis
on the New Testament quotations of the Church Fathers,
most of whom had been bishops. To him these quotations
were vital because they proved that the Traditional New
Testament Text found in the vast majority of the Greek
manuscripts had been authorized from the very beginning
by the bishops of the early Church, or at least by the
majority of these bishops. This high Anglican principle,
however, failed Burgon when he came to deal with the
printed Greek New Testament text. For from Reformation
times down to his own day the printed Greek New
Testament text which had been favored by the bishops of
the Anglican Church was the Textus Receptus, and the
Textus Receptus had not been prepared by bishops but by
Erasmus, who was an independent scholar. Still worse,
from Burgon's standpoint, was the fact that the
particular form of the Textus Receptus used in the
Church of England was the third edition of Stephanus,
who was a Calvinist. For these reasons, therefore,
Burgon and Scrivener looked askance at the Textus
Receptus and declined to defend it except in so far as
it agreed with the Traditional Text found in the
majority of the Greek New Testament
manuscripts.
This position,
however, is illogical. If we believe in the providential
preservation of the New Testament text, then we must
defend the Textus Receptus as well as the Traditional
Text found in the majority of the Greek manuscripts. For
the Textus Receptus is the only form in which this
Traditional Text has circulated in print. To decline to
defend the Textus Receptus is to give the impression
that God's providential preservation of the New
Testament text ceased with the invention of printing. It
is to suppose that God, having preserved a pure New
Testament text all during the manuscript period,
unaccountably left this pure text hiding in the
manuscripts and allowed an inferior text to issue from
the printing press and circulate among His people for
more than 450 years. Much, then, as we admire Burgon for
his general orthodoxy and for his is defense of the
Traditional New Testament Text, we cannot follow him in
his high Anglican emphasis or in his disregard for the
Textus Receptus
(c) The
Orthodox Protestant View of the Textus
Receptus
The defense
of the Textus Receptus, therefore, is a necessary part
of the defense of Protestantism. It is entailed by the
logic of faith, the basic steps of which are as follows:
First, the
Old Testament text was preserved by the Old Testament
priesthood and the scribes and scholars that grouped
themselves around that priesthood (Deut. 31:24-26). Second, the New
Testament text has been preserved by the universal
priesthood of believers by faithful Christians in every
walk of life (1 Peter 2:9). Third, the
Traditional Text, found in the vast majority of the
Greek New Testament manuscripts, is the True Text
because it represents the God-guided usage of this
universal priesthood of believers. Fourth, The
first printed text of the Greek New Testament was not a
blunder or a set-back but a forward step in the
providential preservation of the New Testament. Hence
the few significant departures of that text from the
Traditional Text are only God's providential corrections
of the Traditional Text in those few places in which
such corrections were needed. Fifth,
through the usage of
Bible-believing Protestants God placed the stamp of His
approval on this first printed text, and it became the
Textus Receptus (Received
Text).
Hence, as
orthodox Protestant Christians, we believe that the
formation of the Textus Receptus was guided by the
special providence of God. There were three ways in
which the editors of the Textus Receptus Erasmus,
Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevirs, were providentially
guided. In the first place,
they were guided by the manuscripts which God in His
providence had made available to them. In the second place,
they were guided by the providential circumstances in
which they found themselves. Then in the third place, and
most of all, they were guided by the common faith.
Long before the Protestant
Reformation, the God-guided usage of the Church had
produced throughout Western Christendom a common faith
concerning the New Testament text, namely, a general
belief that the currently received New Testament text,
primarily the Greek text and secondarily the Latin text,
was the True New Testament Text which had been preserved
by God's special providence. It was this common faith
that guided Erasmus and the other early editors of the
Textus Receptus.
2. How
Erasmus and His Successors Were Guided By the Common
Faith
When we
believe in Christ, the logic of faith leads us first, to
a belief in the infallible inspiration of the original
Scriptures, second, to a
belief in the providential preservation of this original
text down through the ages and third, to a
belief in the Bible text current among believers as the
providentially preserved original text. This is the
common faith which has always been present among
Christians. For Christ and His Word are inseparable, and faith in Him and in
the holy Scriptures has been the common characteristic
of all true believers from the beginning. Always they
have regarded the current Bible text as the infallibly
inspired and providentially preserved True Text. Origen,
for example, in the :3rd century, was expressing the
faith of all when he exclaimed to Africanus "Are we to
suppose that that Providence which in the sacred
Scriptures has ministered to the edification of all the
churches of Christ had no thought for those bought with
a price, for whom Christ died!"
(2)
This faith,
however, has from time to time been distorted by the
intrusion of unbiblical ideas. For example, many Jews
and early Christians believed that the inspiration of
the Old Testament had been repeated three times.
According to them, not only had the original Old
Testament writers been inspired but also Ezra, who
rewrote the whole Old Testament after it had been lost.
And the Septuagint likewise, they maintained, had been
infallibly inspired. Also the Roman Catholics have
distorted the common faith by their false doctrine that
the authority of the Scriptures rests on the authority
of the Church. It was this erroneous view that led the
Roman Church to adopt the Latin Vulgate rather than the
Hebrew and Greek Scriptures as its authoritative Bible.
And finally, many conservative Christians today distort
the common faith by their adherence to the theories of
naturalistic New Testament textual criticism. They smile
at the legends concerning Ezra and the Septuagint, but
they themselves have concocted a myth even more absurd,
namely, that the true New Testament text was lost for
more than 1,.500 years and then restored by Westcott and
Hort.
But in spite of
these distortions due to human sin and error this common
faith in Christ and in His Word has persisted among
believers from the days of the Apostles until now, and
God has used this common faith providentially to
preserve the holy Scriptures. Let us now consider how it
guided Erasmus and his successors in their editorial
labors on the Textus Receptus.
(a) The Life
of Erasmus—A Brief
Review
Erasmus was born
at Rotterdam in 1466, the illegitimate son of a priest
but well cared for by his parents. After their early
death he was given the best education available to a
young man of his day at first at Deventer and then at
the Augustinian monastery at Steyn. In 1492 he was
ordained priest, but there is no record that he ever
functioned as such. By 1495 he was studying in Paris. In
1499 he went to England, where he made the helpful
friendship of John Colet, later dean of St. Paul's who
quickened his interest in biblical studies. He then went
back to France and the Netherlands. In 1505 he again
visited England and then passed three years in Italy. In
1509 he returned to England for the third time and
taught at Cambridge University until 1514. In 1515 he
went to Basel, where he published his New Testament in
1516, then back to the Netherlands for a sojourn at the
University of Louvain. Then he returned to Basel in 1521
and remained there until 1529, in which year he removed
to the imperial town of Freiburg-im-Breisgau. Finally,
in 1535, he again returned to Basel and died there the
following year in the midst of his Protestant friends,
without relations of any sort, so far as known, with the
Roman Catholic Church. (3)
One might think
that all this moving around would have interfered with
Erasmus' activity as a scholar and writer, but quite the
reverse is true. By his travels he was brought into
contact with all the intellectual currents of his time
and stimulated to almost superhuman efforts. He became
the most famous scholar and author of his day and one of
the most prolific writers of all time, his collected
works filling ten large volumes in the Leclerc edition
of 1705 (phototyped by Olms in 1962). (4) As an editor
also his productivity was tremendous. Ten columns of the
catalogue of the library in the British Museum are taken
up with the bare enumeration of the works translated,
edited, or annotated by Erasmus, and their subsequent
reprints. Included are the greatest names of the
classical and patristic world, such as Ambrose,
Aristotle, Augustine, Basil, Chrysostom, Cicero, and
Jerome. (5) An almost unbelievable
showing.
To conclude, there
was no man in all Europe better prepared than Erasmus
for the work of editing the first printed Greek New
Testament text, and this is why, we may well believe,
God chose him and directed him providentially in the
accomplishment of this task.
(b) Erasmus
Guided by the Common Faith— Factors Which Influenced
Him
In order to
understand how God guided Erasmus providentially let us
consider the three alternative views which were held in
Erasmus' days concerning the preservation of the New
Testament text, namely, the humanistic view,
the scholastic
view, and the common view,
which we have called the common
faith.
The humanistic
view was well represented by the
writings of Laurentius Valla (1405-57), a famous scholar
of the Italian renaissance. Valla emphasized the
importance of language. According to him, the decline of
civilization in the dark ages was due to the decay of
the Greek and Latin languages. Hence it was only through
the study of classical literature that the glories of
ancient Greece and Rome could be recaptured. Valla also
wrote a treatise on the Latin Vulgate, comparing it with
certain Greek New Testament manuscripts which he had in
his possession. Erasmus, who from his youth had been an
admirer of Valla found a manuscript of Valla's treatise
in 1504 and had it printed in the following year. In
this work Valla favored the Greek New Testament text
over the Vulgate. The Latin text often differed from the
Greek, he reported. Also there were omissions and
additions in the Latin translation, and the Greek
wording was generally better than that of the Latin.
(6)
The scholastic
theologians, on the other hand,
warmly defended the Latin Vulgate as the only true New
Testament text. In 1514 Martin Dorp of the University of
Louvain wrote to Erasmus asking him not to publish his
forthcoming Greek New Testament. Dorp argued that if the
Vulgate contained falsifications of the original
Scriptures and errors, the Church would have been wrong
for many centuries, which was impossible. The references
of most Church Councils to the Vulgate, Dorp insisted,
proved that the Church considered this Latin version to
be the official Bible and not the Greek New Testament,
which, he maintained, had been corrupted by the
heretical Greek Church. (7) And after Erasmus' Greek New
Testament had been published in 1516, Stunica, a noted
Spanish scholar, accused it of being an open
condemnation of the Latin Vulgate, the version of the
Church. (8) And about the same time Peter Sutor, once of
the Sorbonne and later a Carthusian monk, declared that
"If in one point the Vulgate were in error, the entire
authority of holy Scripture would collapse."
(9)
Believing
Bible students today are often accused of taking the
same extreme position in regard to the King James
Version that Peter Sutor took more than 450 years ago in
regard to the Latin Vulgate. But this is false. We take
the third position which we have mentioned, namely, the
common
view. In Erasmus' day this view
occupied the middle ground between the humanistic view
and the scholastic view. Those that held this view
acknowledged that the Scriptures had been providentially
preserved down through the ages. They did not, however,
agree with the scholastic theologians in tying this
providential preservation to the Latin Vulgate. On the
contrary, along with Laurentius Valla and other
humanists, they asserted the superiority of the Greek
New Testament text.
This common
view remained a faith rather than a well articulated
theory. No one at that time drew the logical but
unpalatable conclusion that the Greek Church rather than
the Roman Church had been the providentially appointed
guardian of
the New Testament text. But this
view, though vaguely apprehended, was widely held, so
much so that it may justly be called the common view.
Before the Council of Trent (1546) it was favored by
some of the highest officials of the Roman Church,
notably, it seems, by Leo X, who was pope from 1513 to
1521 and to whom Erasmus dedicated his New Testament.
Erasmus' close friends also, John Colet, for example,
and Thomas More and Jacques Lefevre, all of whom like
Erasmus sought to reform the Roman Catholic Church from
within, likewise adhered to this common view. Even the
scholastic theologian Martin Dorp was finally persuaded
by Thomas More to adopt it."
(10)
In the days of
Erasmus, therefore, it was commonly believed by well
informed Christians that the original New Testament text
had been providentially preserved in the current New
Testament text, primarily in the current Greek text and
secondarily in the current Latin text. Erasmus was
influenced by this common faith and probably shared it,
and God used it providentially to guide Erasmus in his
editorial labors on the Textus
Receptus.
(c) Erasmus'
Five Editions of the Textus
Receptus
Between the
years 1516 and 1535 Erasmus published five editions of
the Greek New Testament. In the first edition (1516) the
text was preceded by a dedication to Pope Leo X, an
exhortation to the reader, a discussion of the method
used, and a defense of this method. Then came the Greek
New Testament text accompanied by Erasmus' own Latin
translation, and then this was followed by Erasmus'
notes,
giving his comments on the text. In his 2nd
edition (1519) Erasmus revised both his Greek text and
his own Latin translation. His substitution in John 1:1
of sermo
(speech) for verbum
(word), the rendering of the
Latin Vulgate, aroused much controversy. The 3rd edition
(1522) is chiefly remarkable for the inclusion of 1 John
5:7, which had been omitted in the previous editions.
The 4th edition (1527) contained the Greek text, the
Latin Vulgate, and Erasmus' Latin translation in three
parallel columns. The 5th edition (1535) omitted the
Vulgate, thus resuming the practice of printing the
Greek text and the version of Erasmus side by side.
(11)
(d) The
Greek Manuscripts Used by
Erasmus
When Erasmus came
to Basel in July, 1515, to begin his work, he found five
Greek New Testament manuscripts ready for his use. These
are now designated by the following numbers: 1 (an
11th-century manuscript of the Gospels, Acts, and
Epistles), 2 (a 15th-century manuscript of the Gospels),
2ap (a 12th-14th-century manuscript of Acts and the
Epistles), 4ap (a 15th-century manuscript of Acts and
the Epistles), and 1r (a 12th-century manuscript of
Revelation). Of these manuscripts Erasmus used 1 and 4ap
only occasionally. In the Gospels Acts, and Epistles his
main reliance was on 2 and 2ap. (12)
Did Erasmus use
other manuscripts beside these five in preparing his
Textus Receptus? The indications are that he did.
According to W. Schwarz (1955), Erasmus made his own
Latin translation of the New Testament at Oxford during
the years 1505-6. His friend, John Colet who had become
Dean of St. Paul's, lent him two Latin manuscripts for
this undertaking, but nothing is known about the Greek
manuscripts which he used. (13) He must have used some
Greek manuscripts or other, however, and taken notes on
them. Presumably therefore he brought these notes with
him to Basel along with his translation and his comments
on the New Testament text. It is well known also that
Erasmus looked for manuscripts everywhere during his
travels and that he borrowed them from everyone he
could. Hence although the Textus Receptus was based
mainly on the manuscripts which Erasmus found at Basel,
it also included readings taken from others to which he
had access. It agreed with the common faith because it
was founded on manuscripts which in the providence of
God were readily available.
(e) Erasmus'
Notes—His Knowledge of Variant Readings and Critical
Problems
Through his study
of the writings of Jerome and other Church Fathers
Erasmus became very well informed concerning the variant
readings of the New Testament text. Indeed almost all
the important variant readings known to scholars today
were already known to Erasmus more than 460 years ago
and discussed in the notes (previously prepared) which
he placed after the text in his editions of the Greek
New Testament. Here, for example, Erasmus dealt with
such problem passages as the conclusion of the Lord's
Prayer (Matt. 6:13), the interview of the rich young man
with Jesus (Matt. 19:17-22), the ending of Mark (Mark
16:9-20), the angelic song (Luke 2:14), the angel,
agony, and bloody sweat omitted (Luke 22:43-44), the
woman taken in adultery (John 7:53 - 8:11), and the
mystery of godliness (l Tim. 3:16).
In his notes
Erasmus placed before the reader not only ancient
discussions concerning the New Testament text but also
debates which took place in the early Church over the
New Testament canon and the authorship of some of the
New Testament books, especially Hebrews, James, 2 Peter,
2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation. Not only did he
mention the doubts reported by Jerome and the other
Church Fathers, but also added some objections of his
own. However, he discussed these matters somewhat
warily, declaring himself willing at any time to submit
to "The consensus of public opinion and especially to
the authority of the Church." (14) In short, he seemed
to recognize that in reopening the question of the New
Testament canon he was going contrary to the common
faith.
But if Erasmus was
cautious in his notes, much more was he so in his text,
for this is what would strike the reader's eye
immediately. Hence in the editing of his Greek New
Testament text especially Erasmus was guided by the
common faith in the current text. And back of this
common faith was the controlling providence of God. For
this reason Erasmus' humanistic tendencies do not appear
in the Textus Receptus which he produced. Although not
himself outstanding as a man of faith, in his editorial
labors on this text he was providentially influenced and
guided by the faith of others. In spite of his
humanistic tendencies Erasmus was clearly used of God to
place the Greek New Testament text in print, just as
Martin Luther was used of God to bring in the Protestant
Reformation in spite of the fact that, at least at
first, he shared Erasmus' doubts concerning Hebrews,
James, Jude and Revelation. (15)
(f) Latin
Vulgate Readings in the Textus
Receptus
The God who
brought the New Testament text safely through the
ancient and medieval manuscript period did not fumble
when it came time to transfer this text to the modern
printed page. This is the conviction which guides the
believing Bible student as he considers the relationship
of the printed Textus Receptus to the Traditional New
Testament text found in the majority of the Greek New
Testament manuscripts.
These two
texts are virtually identical. Kirsopp Lake and his
associates (1928) demonstrated this fact in their
intensive researches in the Traditional text (which they
called the Byzantine text). Using their collations, they
came to the conclusion that in the 11th chapter of Mark,
"the most popular text in the manuscripts of the tenth
to the fourteenth century" (16) differed from the Textus
Receptus only four times. This small number of
differences seems almost negligible in view of the fact
that in this same chapter Aleph, B. and D) differ from
the Textus Receptus 69,71, and 95 times respectively.
Also add to this the fact that in this same chapter B differs from
Aleph 34
times and from D 102 times and
that Aleph
differs from D 100 times.
There are,
however, a few places in which the Textus Receptus
differs from the Traditional text found in the majority
of the Greek New Testament manuscripts. The most
important of these differences are due to the fact that
Erasmus, influenced by the usage of the Latin-speaking
Church in which he was reared, sometimes followed the
Latin Vulgate rather than the Traditional Greek
text.
Are the readings
which Erasmus thus introduced into the Textus Receptus
necessarily erroneous'? By no means ought we to infer
this. For it is inconceivable that the divine providence
which had preserved the New Testament text during the
long ages of the manuscript period should blunder when
at last this text was committed to the printing press.
According to the analogy of faith, then, we conclude
that the Textus Receptus was a further step in God's
providential preservation of the New Testament text and
that these few Latin Vulgate readings which were
incorporated into the Textus Receptus were genuine
readings which had been preserved in the usage of the
Latin-speaking Church. Erasmus, we may well believe, was
guided providentially by the common faith to include
these readings in his printed Greek New Testament text.
In the Textus Receptus God corrected the few mistakes of
any consequence which yet remained in the Traditional
New Testament text of the majority of the Greek
manuscripts.
The following are
some of the most familiar and important of those
relatively few Latin Vulgate readings which, though not
part of the Traditional Greek text, seem to have been
placed in the Textus Receptus by the direction of God's
special providence and therefore are to be retained. The
reader will note that these Latin Vulgate readings are
also found in other ancient witnesses, namely, old Greek
manuscripts, versions, and Fathers.
Matt.
10:8
raise the
dead, is omitted by the majority of the Greek
manuscripts. This reading is present, however, in Aleph B C D 1,
the Latin Vulgate, and the
Textus Receptus.
Matt. 27:
35
that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They
parted My garments among them, and upon My vesture did
they cast lots. Present in
Eusebius (c. 325), 1 and other "Caesarean" manuscripts,
the Harclean Syriac, the Old Latin, the Vulgate, and the
Textus Receptus. Omitted by the majority of the Greek
manuscripts.
John 3:25
Then there
arose a questioning between some of John's disciples and
the Jews about purifying.
Pap 66, Aleph, 1 and other
"Caesarean" manuscripts, the Old Latin, the Vulgate, and
the Textus Receptus read the Jews. Pap
75, B. the
Peshitta, and the majority of the Greek manuscripts
read, a
Jew.
Acts
8:37
And Philip
said, If thou beievest with all shine heart, thou
mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. As J. A. Alexander (1857)
suggested, this verse, though genuine, was omitted by
many scribes, "as unfriendly to the practice of delaying
baptism, which had become common, if not prevalent,
before the end of the 3rd century." (17) Hence the verse
is absent
from the majority of the Greek manuscripts. But it is
present in some of them, including E (6th or
7th century). It is cited
by Irenaeus (c. 180) and Cyprian (c.250) and is found in
the Old Latin and the Vulgate. In his notes Erasmus says
that he took this reading from the margin of 4ap and
incorporated it into the Textus
Receptus.
Acts
9:5
it is hard
for thee to kick against the pricks. This reading is
absent here from the Greek manuscripts but present in
Old Latin
manuscripts and in the Latin Vulgate known
to Erasmus. It is present also at the end of Acts
9:4 in E, 431, the Peshitta, and certain manuscripts of
the Latin Vulgate. In Acts 26:14, however, this reading
is present in all the Greek manuscripts. In his notes
Erasmus indicates that he took this reading from Acts
26:14 and inserted it here.
Acts
9:6
And he
trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt Thou have
me to do? and the Lord said unto him. This reading
is found in the Latin Vulgate and in other ancient
witnesses. It is absent, however, from the Greek
manuscripts, due, according to Lake and Cadbury (1933),
"to the paucity of Western Greek texts and the absence
of D at this
point." (18) In his notes Erasmus
indicates that this reading
is a translation made by him from the Vulgate into
Greek.
Acts
20:28
Church of
God. Here the majority of the Greek manuscripts
read, Church of
the Lord and God. The Latin Vulgate, however,
and the Textus Receptus read, Church of God,
which is also the reading of Aleph B
and other ancient
witnesses.
Rom.
16:25-27
In the majority of the manuscripts this doxology
is placed at the end of chapter 14. In the Latin Vulgate
and the Textus Receptus it is placed at the end of
chapter l6 and this is also the position it occupies in
Aleph B C
and
D.
Rev.
22:19
And if any
man shall take away from the words of the book of this
prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life.
According to Hoskier, all the Greek
manuscripts, except possibly one or two, read, tree of life.
The Textus Receptus reads, book of life,
with the Latin Vulgate (including the very old
Vulgate manuscript
F), the
Bohairic version, Ambrose (d. 397), and the commentaries
of Primasius (6th century) and Haymo (9th century).
This is one of the verses which Erasmus is said to have
translated from Latin into Greek. But Hoskier seems to doubt that Erasmus
did this, suggesting that he may have followed Codex
141. (19)
(g) The
Human Aspect of the Textus
Receptus
God works
providentially through sinful and fallible human beings,
and therefore His providential guidance has its human as
well as its divine side. And these human elements were
evident in the first edition (1516) of the Textus
Receptus. For one thing, the work was performed so
hastily that the text was disfigured with a great number
of typographical errors. These misprints, however, were
soon eliminated by Erasmus himself in his later editions
and by other early editors and hence are not a factor
which need to be taken into account in any estimate of
the abiding value of the Textus
Receptus.
The few
typographical errors which still remain in the Textus
Receptus of Revelation do not involve important
readings. This fact, clearly attributable to God's
special providence, can be demonstrated by a study of H.
C. Hoskier's monumental commentary on Revelation (1929),
(19) which takes the Textus Receptus as its base. Here
we see that the only typographical error worth noting
occurs in Rev.17:8, the beast that was,
and is not, and yet is. Here the reading kaiper estin (and
yet is) seems to be a misprint for kai paresti (and is
at hand), which is the reading
of Codex 1r the manuscript which Erasmus used in
Revelation.
The last six
verses of Codex 1r (Rev. 22:16-21) were lacking, and its
text in other places was sometimes hard to distinguish
from the commentary of Andreas of Caesarea in which it
was embedded. According to almost all scholars, Erasmus
endeavored to supply these deficiencies in his
manuscript by retranslating the Latin Vulgate into
Greek. Hoskier however, was inclined to dispute this on
the evidence of manuscript 141. (19) In his 4th
edition of his Greek New Testament (1527) Erasmus
corrected much of this translation Greek (if it was
indeed such) on the basis of a comparison with the
Complutensian Polyglot Bible (which had been printed at
Acala in Spain under the direction of Cardinal Ximenes
and published in 1522), but he overlooked some of it,
and this still remains in the Textus Receptus. These
readings, however, do not materially affect the sense of
the passages in which they occur. They are only minor
blemishes which can easily be removed or corrected in
marginal notes. The only exception is book for tree
in Rev. 22:19, a variant which
Erasmus could not have failed to notice but must have
retained purposely. Critics blame him for this but here
he may have been guided providentially by the common
faith to follow the Latin
Vulgate.
There is one
passage in Revelation, however, in which the critics
rather inconsistently, blame Erasmus for not moving in
the direction of the Latin Vulgate. This is Rev. 22:14a,
Blessed are they
that do His commandments, etc. Here, according to
Hoskier, (19) Aleph and A and a few
Greek minuscule manuscripts read, wash their robes,
and this is the reading favored by the critics. A
few other Greek manuscripts and the Sahidic version
read, have washed
their robes. The Latin Vulgate reads wash their robes in
the blood of the Lamb. But the Textus Receptus
reading of
Erasmus, do
His commandments, is found in
the majority of the Greek manuscripts and in the
Bohairic and Syriac versions and is undoubtedly the
Traditional reading.
It is customary
for naturalistic critics to make the most of human
imperfections in the Textus Receptus and to sneer at it
as a mean and almost sordid thing. These critics picture
the Textus Receptus as merely a money-making venture on
the part of Froben the publisher. Froben, they say,
heard that the Spanish Cardinal Ximenes was about to
publish a printed Greek New Testament text as part of
his great Complutensian Polyglot Bible. In order to get
something on the market first, it is said Froben hired
Erasmus as his editor and rushed a Greek New Testament
through his press in less than a year's time. But those
who concentrate in this way on the human factors
involved in the production of the Textus Receptus are
utterly unmindful of the providence of God. For in the
very next year, in the plan of God, the Reformation was
to break out in Wittenberg, and it was important that
the Greek New Testament should be published first in one
of the future strongholds of Protestantism by a book
seller who was eager to place it in the hands of the
people and not in Spain, the land of the Inquisition, by
the Roman Church, which was intent on keeping the Bible
from the people.
(h) Robert
Stephanus—His Four Editions of the Textus
Receptus
After the death of
Erasmus in 1536 God in His providence continued to
extend the influence of the Textus Receptus. One of the
agents through whom He accomplished this was the famous
French printer and scholar Robert Stephanus (1503-59).
Robert's father Henry and his stepfather Simon de
Colines were printers who had published Bibles, and
Robert was not slow to follow their example. In 1523 he
published a Latin New Testament, and two times he
published the Hebrew Bible entire. But the most
important were his four editions of the Greek New
Testament in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551 respectively.
These activities aroused the opposition of the Roman
Catholic Church, so much so that in 1550 he was
compelled to leave Paris and settle in Geneva, where he
became a Protestant, embracing the Reformed faith.
(20)
Stephanus'
first two editions (1546 and 1549) were pocket size
(large pockets) printed with type cast at the expense of
the King of France. In text they were a compound of the
Complutensian and Erasmian editions. Stephanus' 4th
edition (1551) was also pocket size. In it the text
was for the first time divided into verses. But most
important was Stephanus' 3rd edition. This was a small
folio (8 1/2 by 13 inches) likewise printed at royal
expense. In the margin of this edition Stephanus entered
variant readings taken from the Complutensian edition
and also 14 manuscripts, one of which is thought to have
been Codex D.
In text the 3rd and 4th editions
of Stephanus agreed closely with the 5th edition of
Erasmus, which was gaining acceptance everywhere as the
providentially appointed text. It was the influence no
doubt of this common faith which restrained Stephanus
from adopting any of the variant readings which he had
collected. (21)
(i) Calvin's
Comments on the New Testament
Text
The mention of
Geneva leads us immediately to think of John Calvin
(1509-64), the famous Reformer who had his headquarters
in this city. In his commentaries (which covered every
New Testament book except 2 and 3 John and Revelation)
Calvin mentions Erasmus by name 78 times, far more often
than any other contemporary scholar. Most of these
references (72 to be exact) are criticisms of Erasmus'
Latin version, and once (Phil. 2:6) Calvin complains
about Erasmus' refusal to admit that the passage in
question teaches the deity of Christ. But five
references deal with variant readings which Erasmus
suggested in his notes, and of these Calvin adopted
three. On the basis of these statistics therefore it is
perhaps not too much to say that Calvin disapproved of
Erasmus as a translator and theologian but thought
better of him as a New Testament textual
critic.
In John 8:59
Calvin follows the Latin Vulgate in omitting going through the
midst of them, and so passed by. Here he accepts the
suggestion of Erasmus that this clause has been borrowed
from Luke 4:30. And in Heb. l l:37 he agrees with
Erasmus in omitting were tempted.
But in readings of major importance Calvin rejected
the opinions of Erasmus. For example, Calvin dismisses
Erasmus' suggestion that the conclusion of the Lord's
Prayer is an interpolation (Matt. 6:13). He ignores
Erasmus' discussion of the ending of Mark (Mark
16:9-20). He is more positive than Erasmus in his
acceptance of the pericope de adultera
(John 7:53-8:11). He opposes Erasmus' attack on the
reading God was
manifest in the flesh (1
Tim.3:16). And he receives 1 John 5:7 as
genuine.
To the three
variant readings taken from Erasmus' notes Calvin added
18 others. The three most important of these Calvin took
from the Latin Vulgate namely, light instead of
Spirit
(Eph.5:9), Christ instead
of God (Eph.
5:21), without
thy works instead of by thy works
(James 2:18). Calvin also made two conjectural
emendations. In James 4:2 he followed Erasmus (2nd
edition) and Luther in changing kill to envy.
Also he suggested that 1 John
2:14 was an interpolation because to him it seemed
repetitious. (22)
In short, there
appears in Calvin as well as in Erasmus a humanistic
tendency to treat the New Testament text like the text
of any other book. This tendency, however, was checked
and restrained by the common faith in the current New
Testament text, a faith in which Calvin shared to a much
greater degree than did Erasmus.
(j) Theodore
Beza's Ten Editions of the New
Testament
Theodore Beza
(1519-1605), Calvin's disciple and successor at Geneva,
was renowned for his ten editions of the Greek New
Testament nine published during his lifetime and one
after his death. He is also famous for his Latin
translation of the New Testament, first published in
1556 and reprinted more than 100 times. Four of Beza's
Greek New Testaments are independent folio editions, but
the six others are smaller reprints. The folio editions
contain Beza's critical notes, printed not at the end of
the volume, as with Erasmus, but under the text. The
dates of these folio editions are usually given as 1565,
1582, 1588-9, and 1598 respectively. There seems to be
some confusion here, however, because there is a copy at
the University of Chicago dated 1560, and Metzger
(1968), following Reuss (1872), talks about a 1559
edition of Beza's Greek New Testament.
(23)
In his
edition of 1582 (which Beza calls his third edition)
Beza listed the textual materials employed by him. They
included the variant readings collected by Robert
Stephanus, the Syriac version published in 1569 by
Tremellius, a converted Jewish scholar, and also the
Arabic New Testament version in a Latin translation
prepared by Francis Junius, later a son-in-law of
Tremellius. Beza also mentioned two of his own
manuscripts. One of these was D, the famous Codex Bezae
containing the Gospels and Acts, which had been in
his possession from 1562 until 1581, in which year he
had presented it to the University of Cambridge. The
other was D2,
Codex
Claromontanus, a manuscript of
the Pauline Epistles, which Beza had obtained from the
monastery of Clermont in Northern France. But in spite
of this collection of materials, Beza in his text rarely
departs from the 4th edition of Stephanus, only 38 times
according to Reuss (1872). (24) This is a remarkable
fact which shows the hold which the common faith had
upon Beza's mind.
In his notes
Beza defended the readings of his text which he deemed
doctrinally important. For example, he upheld the
genuineness of Mark 16:9-20 against the adverse
testimony of Jerome. "Jerome says this," he concludes.
"But in this section I notice nothing which disagrees
with the narratives of the other Evangelists or
indicates the style of a different author, and I testify
that this section is found in all the oldest manuscripts
which I happen to have seen." And in 1 Tim. 3:16 Beza
defends the reading God was manifest in the
flesh. "The concept itself," he
declares, "demands that we receive this as referring to
the very person of Christ." And concerning 1 John 5:7
Beza says, "It seems to me that this clause ought by all
means to be retained."
On the other
hand, Beza confesses doubt concerning some other
passages in his text. In Luke 2:14 Beza places good will toward men
in his text but disputes it in his notes.
"Nevertheless, following the authority of Origen,
Chrysostom, the Old (Vulgate) translation, and finally
the sense itself, I should prefer to read (men) of good will."
In regard also to the pericope de adultera
(John 7:53-8:11) Beza confides, "As far as I am
concerned, I do not hide the fact that to me a passage
which those ancient writers reject is justly suspect."
Also Beza neither defends nor rejects the conclusion of
the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:13) but simply observes,
"This clause is not written in the Vulgate edition nor
had been included in a second old copy (D?)."
The diffident
manner in which Beza reveals these doubts shows that he
was conscious of running counter to the views of his
fellow believers. Just as with Erasmus and Calvin, so
also with Beza there was evidently a conflict going on
within his mind between his humanistic tendency to treat
the New Testament like any other book and the common
faith in the current New Testament text. But in the
providence of God all was well. God used this common
faith providentially to restrain Beza's humanism and
lead him to publish far and wide the true New Testament
text.
Like Calvin,
Beza introduced a few conjectural emendations into his
New Testament text. In the providence of God, however,
only two of these were perpetuated in the King James
Version, namely, Romans 7:6 that being dead
wherein instead of being dead to that wherein,
and Revelation 16:5 shalt be instead
of holy.
In the development of the Textus
Receptus the influence of the common faith kept
conjectural emendation down to a
minimum.
(k) The
Elzevir Editions—The Triumph of the Common
Faith
The Elzevirs
were a family of Dutch printers with headquarters at
Leiden. The most famous of them was Bonaventure Elzevir,
who founded his own printing establishment in 1608 with
his brother Matthew as his partner and later his nephew
Abraham. In 1624 he published his first edition of the
New Testament and in 1633 his 2nd edition. His texts
followed Beza's editions mainly but also included
readings from Erasmus, the Complutensian, and the Latin
Vulgate. In the preface to the 2nd edition the phrase Textus Receptus
made its first appearance. "You
have therefore the text now received by all (textum ab
omnibus receptum) in which we give nothing changed or
corrupt." (25)
This statement has
often been assailed as a mere printer's boast or
"blurb", and no doubt it was partly that. But in the
providence of God it was also a true statement. For by
this time the common faith in the current New Testament
text had triumphed over the humanistic tendencies which
had been present not only in Erasmus but also Luther,
Calvin, and Beza. The doubts and reservations expressed
in their notes and comments had been laid aside and only
their God-guided texts had been retained. The Textus
Receptus really was the text received by all. Its reign
had begun and was to continue unbroken for 200 years. In
England Stephanus' 3rd edition was the form of the
Textus Receptus generally preferred, on the European
continent Elzevir's 2nd edition.
Admittedly
there are a few places in which the Textus Receptus is
supported by only a small number of manuscripts, for
example, Eph. 1:18, where it reads, eyes of your
understanding, instead of eyes of your heart;
and Eph. 3:9, where it reads, fellowship of the
mystery, instead of dispensation of the
mystery. We
solve this problem, however,
according to the logic of faith. Because the Textus
Receptus was God-guided as a whole, it was probably
God-guided in these few passages
also.
3. The Johannine
Comma (1 John 5:7)
In the Textus
Receptus 1 John 5:7-8 reads as
follows:
7 For there are
three that bear witness IN HEAVEN, THE FATHER, THE WORD,
AND THE HOLY SPIRIT: AND THESE THREE ARE ONE. 8 AND
THERE ARE THREE THAT BEAR WITNESS IN EARTH, the spirit,
and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in
one.
The words
printed in capital letters constitute the so-called Johannine comma,
the best known of the Latin Vulgate readings of the
Textus Receptus, a reading which, on believing
principles, must be regarded as possibly genuine. This
comma has
been the occasion of much controversy and is still an
object of interest to textual critics. One of the more
recent discussions of it is found in Windisch's Katholischen Briefe
(revised by Preisker, 1951); (26) a more accessible
treatment of it in English is that provided by A. D.
Brooke (1912) in the International
Critical Commentary. (27)
Metzger (1964) also deals with this passage in his
handbook, but briefly. (28)
(a) How the
Johannine Comma Entered the Textus
Receptus
As has been
observed above, the Textus Receptus has both its human
aspect and its divine aspect, like the Protestant
Reformation itself or any other work of God's
providence. And when we consider the manner in which the
Johannine comma
entered the Textus Receptus, we see this human
element at work. Erasmus omitted the Johannine comma
from the first edition (1516) of
his printed Greek New Testament on the ground that it
occurred only in the Latin version and not in any Greek
manuscript. To quiet the outcry that arose, he agreed to
restore it if but one Greek manuscript could be found
which contained it. When one such manuscript was
discovered soon afterwards, bound by his promise, he
included the disputed reading in his third edition
(1522), and thus it gained a permanent place in the
Textus Receptus. The manuscript which forced Erasmus to
reverse his stand seems to have been 61, a 15th or
16th-century manuscript now kept at Trinity College,
Dublin. Many critics believe that this manuscript was
written at Oxford about 1520 for the special purpose of
refuting Erasmus, and this is what Erasmus himself
suggested in his notes.
The Johannine comma
is also
found in Codex
Ravianus, in the margin of 88,
and in 629. The evidence of these three manuscripts,
however, is not regarded as very weighty, since the
first two are thought to have taken this disputed
reading from early printed Greek texts and the latter
(like 61) from the Vulgate.
But whatever
may have been the immediate cause, still, in the last
analysis, it was not trickery which was responsible for
the inclusion of the Johannine comma
in the Textus Receptus but the usage of the
Latin-speaking Church. It was this usage which made men
feel that this.reading ought to be included in the Greek
text and eager to keep it there after its inclusion had
been accomplished. Back of this usage, we may well
believe, was the guiding providence of God, and
therefore the Johannine comma
ought to be retained as at least
possibly genuine.
(b) The
Early Existence of the Johannine
Comma
Evidence for
the early existence of the Johannine
comma is found in the Latin versions and in the
writings of the Latin Church Fathers. For example, it
seems to have been quoted at Carthage by Cyprian (c.
250) who writes as follows: "And again concerning the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit it is written: and the Three are
One." (29)
It is true that Facundus, a 6th-century African
bishop, interpreted Cyprian as referring to the
following verse, (30) but, as Scrivener (1833) remarks,
it is "surely safer and more candid" to admit that
Cyprian read the Johannine comma
in his New Testament manuscript
"than to resort to the explanation of Facundus."
(31)
The first
undisputed citations of the Johannine comma
occur in the writing of two 4th-century Spanish
bishops, Priscillian, (32) who in 385 was beheaded by
the Emperor Maximus on the charge of sorcery and heresy,
and Idacius Clarus, (33) Priscillian's
principal adversary and accuser. In the 5th century the
Johannine comma
was quoted by several orthodox African writers to
defend the doctrine of the Trinity against the
gainsaying of the Vandals, who ruled North Africa from
489 to 534 and were fanatically attached to the Arian
heresy. (34) And about the same time it was
cited by Cassiodorus (480-570), in Italy. (35) The comma is also
found in r an
Old Latin manuscript of the 5th or 6th century, and in
the Speculum,
a treatise which contains an Old
Latin text. It was not included in Jerome's original
edition of the Latin Vulgate but around the year 800 it
was taken into the text of the Vulgate from the Old
Latin manuscripts. It was found in the great mass of the
later Vulgate manuscripts and in the Clementine edition
of the Vulgate, the official Bible of the Roman Catholic
Church.
(c) Is the
Johannine Comma an
Interpolation?
Thus on the
basis of the external evidence it is at least possible
that the Johannine comma is
a reading that somehow dropped
out of the Greek New Testament text but was preserved in
the Latin text through the usage of the Latin-speaking
Church, and this possibility grows more and more toward
probability as we consider the internal
evidence.
In the first
place, how did the Johannine comma
originate if it be not genuine, and how did it come
to be interpolated into the Latin New Testament text? To
this question modern scholars have a ready answer. It
arose, they say, as a trinitarian interpretation of I
John 5:8, which originally read as follows: For there are three
that bear witness the spirit, and the
water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
Augustine was one of those who interpreted 1 John
5:8 as referring to the Trinity. "If we wish to inquire
about these things, what they signify, not absurdly does
the Trinity suggest Itself, who is the one, only, true,
and highest God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
concerning whom it could most truly be said, Three are Witnesses,
and the Three are One. By the word spirit we
consider God the Father to be signified, concerning the
worship of whom the Lord spoke, when He said, God is a spirit.
By the word blood the Son is
signified, because the Word was made
flesh. And by the word water we
understand the Holy Spirit. For when Jesus spoke
concerning the water which He was about to give the
thirsty, the evangelist says, This He spake
concerning the Spirit whom those that believed in Him
would receive. "
(36)
Thus,
according to the critical theory, there grew up in the
Latin speaking regions of ancient Christendom a
trinitarian interpretation of the spirit, the
water, and the blood mentioned in 1 John 5:8, the spirit
signifying the Father, the blood the
Son, and the
water the Holy Spirit And out of this trinitarian
interpretation of 1 John 5:8 developed the Johannine comma,
which contrasts the witness of
the Holy Trinity in heaven with the witness of the
spirit, the water, and the blood on
earth.
But just at
this point the critical theory encounters a serious
difficulty. If the comma originated
in a trinitarian interpretation of 1 John 5:8, why does
it not contain the usual trinitarian formula, namely,
the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Why does it exhibit the singular
combination, never met with elsewhere, the Father, the
Word, and the
Holy Spirit? According to some critics, this unusual
phraseology was due to the efforts of the interpolator
who first inserted the Johannine comma
into the New Testament text. In a mistaken attempt
to imitate the style of the Apostle John, he changed the
term Son to
the term Word.
But this is to attribute to the interpolator a
craftiness which thwarted his own purpose in making this
interpolation, which was surely to uphold the doctrine
of the Trinity, including the eternal generation of the
Son. With this as his main concern it is very unlikely
that he would abandon the time-honored formula, Father,
Son, and Holy
Spirit, and devise an altogether new one, Father, Word,
and Holy
Spirit.
In the
second place, the omission of the Johannine comma
seems to leave the passage incomplete. For it is a
common scriptural usage to present solemn truths or
warnings in groups of three or four, for example, the
repeated Three
things, yea four of Proverbs 30, and the constantly
recurring refrain, for three
transgressions and for four, of the prophet Amos. In
Genesis 40 the butler saw three branches
and the baker saw three baskets.
And in Matt. 12:40 Jesus says, As Jonas was three days
and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son
of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth. It is in accord with biblical usage,
therefore, to expect that in 1 John 5:7-8 the formula,
there are three
that bear witness, will be repeated at least twice.
When the Johannine comma
is
included, the formula is
repeated twice. When the comma is omitted, the formula
is repeated only once, which seems
strange.
In the third
place, the omission of the Johannine comma
involves a grammatical difficulty. The words spirit, water,
and blood
are neuter in gender, but in 1 John 5:8 they are
treated as masculine. If the Johannine comma is
rejected, it is hard to explain this irregularity.
It is usually said that in 1 John 5:8 the spirit, the
water, and the blood are personalized and that this
is the reason for the adoption of the masculine gender.
But it is hard to see how such personalization would
involve the change from the neuter to the masculine. For
in verse 6 the word Spirit plainly refers to the Holy
Spirit, the Third Person of the
Trinity. Surely in this verse the word Spirit is
"personalized," and yet the neuter gender is used.
Therefore since personalization did not bring about a
change of gender in verse 6, it cannot fairly be pleaded
as the reason for such a change in verse 8. If, however,
the Johannine
comma is retained, a reason for placing the neuter
nouns spirit,
water, and blood in the
masculine gender becomes readily apparent. It was due to
the influence of the nouns Father and Word, which are
masculine. Thus the hypothesis that the Johannine comma is
an interpolation is full of
difficulties.
(d) Reasons
for the Possible Omission of the Johannine
Comma
For the
absence of the Johannine comma
from all New Testament documents
save those of the Latin-speaking West the following
explanations are possible.
In the first
place, it must be remembered that the comma could
easily have been omitted accidentally through a common
type of error which is called homoioteleuton
(similar ending). A scribe copying 1 John 5:7-8
under distracting conditions might have begun to write
down these words of verse 7, there are three that
bear witness, but have been forced to look up before
his pen had completed this task. When he resumed his
work, his eye fell by mistake on the identical
expression in verse 8. This error would cause him to
omit all of the Johannine comma
except the words in earth,
and these might easily have been
dropped later in the copying of this faulty copy. Such
an accidental omission might even have occurred several
times, and in this way there might have grown up a
considerable number of Greek manuscripts which did not
contain this reading.
In the
second place, it must be remembered that during the 2nd
and 3rd centuries (between 220 and 270, according to
Harnack); (37) the heresy which orthodox Christians were
called upon to combat was not Arianism (since this error
had not yet arisen) but Sabellianism (so named after
Sabellius, one of its principal promoters), according to
which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were one
in the sense that they were identical. Those that
advocated this heretical view were called Patripassians
(Father-sufferers), because they believed that God
the Father, being identical with Christ, suffered and
died upon the cross, and Monarchians,
because they claimed to uphold
the Monarchy (sole-government) of
God.
It is
possible, therefore, that the Sabellian heresy brought
the Johannine
comma into disfavor with orthodox Christians. The
statement, these
three are one, no doubt seemed to them to teach the
Sabellian view that the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit were identical. And if during the course of the
controversy manuscripts were discovered which had lost
this reading in the accidental manner described above,
it is easy to see how the orthodox party would consider
these mutilated manuscripts to represent the true text
and regard the Johannine comma
as a heretical addition. In the Greek-speaking East
especially the comma
would be unanimously rejected,
for here the struggle against Sabellianism was
particularly severe.
Thus it was
not impossible that during the 3rd century amid the
stress and strain of the Sabellian controversy, the Johannine comma
lost its place in the Greek text, but was preserved
in the Latin texts of Africa and Spain, where the
influence of Sabellianism was probably not so great. In
other words, it is not impossible that the Johannine comma
was one of those few true
readings of the Latin Vulgate not occurring in the
Traditional Greek Text but incorporated into the Textus
Receptus under the guiding providence of God. In these
rare instances God called upon the usage of the
Latin-speaking Church to correct the usage of the Greek
speaking Church. (38)
4. The King
James
Version
Not only
modernists but also many conservatives are now saying
that the King James Version ought to be abandoned
because it is not contemporary. The Apostles, they
insist, used contemporary language in their preaching
and writing, and we too must have a Bible in the
language of today. But more and more it is being
recognized that the language of the New Testament was
biblical rather than contemporary. It was the Greek of
the Septuagint, which in its turn was modeled after the
Old Testament Hebrew. Any biblical translator,
therefore, who is truly trying to follow in the
footsteps of the Apostles and to produce a version which
God will bless, must take care to use language which is
above the level of daily speech, language which is not
only intelligible but also biblical and venerable. Hence
in language as well as text the King James Version is
still by far superior to any other English translation
of the Bible.
(a) The
Forerunners of the King James
Version
Previous to the
Reformation a number of translations were made of the
Latin Vulgate into Anglo-Saxon and early English. One of
the first of these translators was Caedmon (d.680), an
inmate of the monastery of Whitby in northern England,
who retold in alliterative verse the biblical narratives
which had been related to him by the monks. Bede
(672-735), the most renowned scholar of that period, not
only wrote many commentaries on various books of the
Bible, but also translated the Gospel of John into
Anglo-Saxon. King Alfred (848-901) did the same for
several other portions of Scripture, notably the Ten
Commandments and the Psalms. And eclipsing all these
earlier translations in importance was that made by John
Wyclif (d.1384) of the entire Latin Bible into the
English of his day, the New Testament appearing in 1380
and the Old in 1382. Not long after Wyclif’s death a
second edition of his English Bible, more satisfactory
in language and style than the first, was prepared by
his close associate, John Purvey.
The first printed
English version of the Bible was that of William
Tyndale, one of England's first Protestant martyrs.
Tyndale was born in Gloucestershire in 1484 and studied
both at Oxford and Cambridge. About 1520 he became
attached to the doctrines of the Reformation and
conceived the idea of translating the Scriptures into
English. Unable to do so in England, he set out for the
Continent in the spring of 1524 and seems to have
visited Hamburg and Wittenberg. In that same year
(probably at Wittenberg) he translated the New Testament
from Greek into English for dissemination in his native
land. It is estimated that 18,000 copies of this version
were printed on the Continent of Europe between 1525 and
1528 and shipped secretly to England. After this Tyndale
continued to live on the Continent as a fugitive,
constantly evading the efforts of the English
authorities to have him tracked down and arrested. But
in spite of this ever-present danger his literary
activity was remarkable. In 1530-31 he published
portions of the Old Testament which he had translated
from the Hebrew and in 1534 a revision both of this
translation and also of his New Testament. In this same
year he left his place of concealment and settled in
Antwerp, evidently under the impression that the
progress of the Reformation in England had made this
move a safe one. In so thinking, however, he was
mistaken. Betrayed by a friend, he was imprisoned in
1535 and executed the following year. According to Foxe,
his dying prayer was this: "Lord, open the King of
England's eyes." But his life's work had been completed.
He had laid securely the foundations of the English
Bible. A comparison of Tyndale's Version with the King
James Version is said to indicate that from five sixths
to nine tenths of the latter is derived from the
martyred translator's work.
After the initial
impulse had been given by Tyndale, a number of other
English translations of the Bible appeared in rapid
succession. The first of these was published in 1535 by
Myles Coverdale, who translated not from the Hebrew and
Greek but from the Latin Vulgate and from contemporary
Latin and German versions, relying heavily all the while
on Tyndale's version. In 1537 John Rogers, a close
friend of Tyndale, published an edition of the Bible
bearing on its title page the name "Thomas Matthew",
probably a pseudonym for Rogers himself. This "Matthew
Bible" contained Tyndale's version of the Old and New
Testaments and Coverdale's version of those parts of the
Old Testament which had not been translated by Tyndale.
Then in 1539, under the auspices of Thomas Cromwell, the
king's chamberlain, Coverdale published a revision of
the Matthew Bible, which because of its large size was
called the Great Bible. This Cromwell established as the
official Bible of the English Church and deposited it in
ecclesiastical edifices throughout the kingdom. In the
reign of Queen Elizabeth two revisions were made of the
Great Bible. The first was prepared by English
Protestants in exile at Geneva and published there in
1560. The second was the Bishops' Bible, published in
1568 by the English prelates under the direction of
Archbishop Parker. And finally, the Roman Catholic
remnant in England were provided by their leaders with a
translation of the Latin Vulgate into English, the New
Testament being published in 1582 and the Old in
1609-10. This is known as the Douai Version, since it
was prepared at Douai in Flanders, an important center
of English Catholicism during the Elizabethan age.
(39)
(b) How the
King lames Version Was Made—The Six
Companies
Work on the King
James Version began in 1604. In that year a group of
Puritans under the leadership of Dr. John Reynolds,
president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, suggested
to King James I that a new translation of the Bible be
undertaken. This suggestion appealed to James, who was
himself a student of theology and of the Scriptures, and
he immediately began to make the necessary arrangements
for carrying it out. Within six months the general plan
of procedure had been drawn up and a complete list made
of the scholars who were to do the work. Originally 54
scholars were on the list, but deaths and withdrawals
reduced it finally to 47. These were divided into six
companies which checked each other's work. Then the
final result was reviewed by a select committee of six
and prepared for the press. And because of all this
careful planning the whole project was completed in less
than seven years. In 1611 the new version issued from
the press of Robert Barker in a large folio volume
bearing on its title page the following inscription:
"The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the
New: Newly Translated out of the Original tongues; &
with the former Translations diligently compared and
revised by his Majesties special Commandment. Appointed
to be read in Churches." The original tongues referred
to in the title were the current printed Hebrew Bibles
for the Old Testament and Beza's printed Greek Testament
for the New. The "former translations" mentioned there
include not only the five previous English versions
mentioned above hut also the Douai Version, the Latin
versions of Tremellius and Beza, and several Spanish,
French, and Italian versions. The King James Version,
however, is mainly a revision of the Bishops' Bible,
which in turn was a slightly revised edition of
Tyndale's Bible. Thus the influence of Tyndale's
translation upon the King James Version was very strong
indeed. (40)
(c) The King
James Version Translators Providentially Guided—Preface
to the Reader
The
translators of the King James Version evidently felt
themselves to have been providentially guided in their
work. This belief plainly appears in the 'Preface of the
Translators', written by Dr. Miles Smith, one of the
leaders of this illustrious band of scholars. Concerning
his co laborers he speaks as follows: "Truly, good
Christian Reader, we never thought from the beginning
that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet
to make of a bad one a good one; but to make a good one
better, or out of many good ones one principal good one,
not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our
endeavor, that our mark. To that purpose
there were many chosen, that were greater in other men's
eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth rather
than their own praise . . . And in what sort did these
assemble? In the trust of their own knowledge, or of
their sharpness of wit, or deepness of judgment, as it
were an arm of flesh? At no hand. They trusted in him
that hath the key of David, opening,
and no man shutting; they prayed to the Lord, the Father
of our Lord, to the effect that St. Augustine
did, O let thy Scriptures
be my pure delight; let me not be deceived in them,
neither let me deceive by them. In this confidence and with this devotion, did
they assemble together; not too many, lest one should
trouble another; and yet many, lest many things haply
might escape them.'' (41)
God in His
providence has abundantly justified this confidence of
the King James translators. The course of history has
made English a worldwide language which is now the
native tongue of at least 300 million people and the
second language of many millions more. For this reason
the King James Version is known the world over and is
more widely read than any other translation of the holy
Scriptures. Not only so, but the King James Version has
been used by many missionaries as a basis and guide for
their own translation work and in this way has extended
its influence even to converts who know no English. For
more than 350 years therefore the reverent diction of
the King James Version has been used by the Holy Spirit
to bring the Word of life to millions upon millions of
perishing souls. Surely this is a God-guided translation
on which God working providentially, has placed the
stamp of His approval.
(d) How the
Translators Were Providentially Guided —The Marginal
Notes
The marginal notes
which the translators attached to the King James Version
indicate how God guided their labors providentially.
According to Scrivener (1884), there are 8,422 marginal
notes in the 1611 edition of the King James Version,
including the Apocrypha. In the Old Testament, Scrivener
goes on to say, 4,111 of the marginal notes give the
more literal meaning of the original Hebrew or Aramaic,
2,156 give alternative translations, and 67 give variant
readings. In the New Testament 112 of the marginal notes
give literal rendering of the Greek, 582 give
alternative translations, and 37 give variant readings.
These marginal notes show us that the translators were
guided providentially through their thought processes,
through weighing every possibility and choosing that
which seemed to them best. (42)
The 1611 edition
of the King James Version also included 9,000 "cross
references" to parallel passages. These are still very
useful, especially for comparing the four Gospels with
each other. These "cross references" show that from the
very start the King James Version was intended not
merely as a pulpit Bible to be read in church, but also
as a study Bible to guide the private meditations of
God's people. (43)
As the marginal
notes indicate, the King James translators did not
regard their work as perfect or inspired, but they did
consider it to be a trustworthy reproduction of God's
holy Word, and as such they commended it to their
Christian readers: "Many other things we might give thee
warning of, gentle Reader, if we had not exceeded the
measure of a preface already. It remaineth that we
commend thee to God, and to the Spirit of His grace,
which is able to build further than we can ask or think.
He removeth the scales from our eyes, the veil from our
hearts, opening our wits that we may understand His
Word, enlarging our hearts, yea, correcting our
affections, that we may love it above gold and silver,
yea, that we may love it to the end. Ye are brought unto
fountains of living water which ye digged not; do not
cast earth into them, neither prefer broken pits before
them. Others have laboured, and you may enter into their
labours. O receive not so great things in vain: O
despise not so great salvation."
(44)
(e)
Revisions of the King James Version— Obsolete Words
Eliminated
Two editions
of the King James Version were published in 1611. The
first is distinguished from the second by a unique
misprint, namely Judas instead of
Jesus in
Matt. 26:36. The second edition corrected this mistake
and also in other respects was more carefully done.
Other editions followed in 1612,1613, 1616, 1617, and
frequently thereafter. In 1629 and 1638 the text was
subjected to two minor revisions. In the 18th century
the spelling and punctuation of the King James Version
were modernized, and many obsolete words were changed to
their modern equivalents. The two scholars responsible
for these alterations were Dr. Thomas Paris (1762), of
Cambridge, and Dr. Benjamin Blayney (1769), of Oxford,
and it is to their efforts that the generally current
form of the King James Version is due. In the 19th
century the most important edition of the King James
Version was the Cambridge Paragraph
Bible (1873), with F. H. A. Scrivener as its editor.
Here meticulous attention was given to details, such as,
marginal notes, use of Italic type, punctuation,
orthography, grammar, and references to parallel
passages. In 1884 also Scrivener published his Authorized Edition
of the English Bible. a
definitive history of the King James Version in which
all these features and many more are carefully
discussed. (45) Since that time, however, comparatively
little research has been done on the history of the King
James Version, due probably to loss of interest in the
subject.
(f) Obsolete
Words in the King James Version —How to Deal with
Them
But are there
still obsolete words in the King James Version or words
that have changed their meaning? Such words do indeed
occur, but their number is relatively small. The
following are some of these archaic renderings with
their modern equivalents:
by and by, Mark
6:25…………………………………………………
.at
once
carriages,Acts21:15…………………………………………………..baggage
charger, Mark
6:25……………………………………………………..platter
charity, 1 Cor.13:1………………………………………………………..love
chief estates,
Mark 6:21 ……………………………………………chief
men
coasts, Matt.
2:16
……………………………………………………..borders
conversation,
Gal.
1:13……………………………………………….conduct
devotions, Acts
17:23 ……………………………………..objects of
worship
do you to wit, 2
Cor. 8:1 …………………………………make known to
you
fetched a
compass, Acts 28:13
………………………………………...circled
leasing, Psalm
4:2,
5:6…………………………………………………...lying
let, 2 Thess.
2:7 ……………………………………………….……….restrain
lively, l Peter
2:5
……………………………………………..………….living
meat, Matt. 3:4
…………………………………………………………...food
nephews, 1 Tim.
5:4
……………………………………………grandchildren
prevent, 1 Thess. 4:15
……………………………………………….precede
room, Luke
14:7-10 ……………………………………………….seat,
place
scrip, Matt.
10:10 …………………………………………………………bag
take no thought,
Matt. 6:25
…………………………………..be not
anxious
There are several
ways in which to handle this matter of obsolete words
and meanings in the King James Version. Perhaps the best
way is to place the modern equivalent in the margin.
This will serve to increase the vocabulary of the reader
and avoid disturbance of the text. Another way would be
to place the more modern word in brackets beside the
older word. This would be particularly appropriate in
Bibles designed for private study.
(g) Why the
King lames Version Should be
Retained
But, someone
may reply, even if the King James Version needs only a
few corrections, why take the trouble to make them? Why
keep on with the old King James and its 17th-century
language, its thee and thou
and all the rest? Granted that
the Textus Receptus is the best text, but why not make a
new translation of it in the language of today? In
answer to these objections there are several facts which
must be pointed out.
In the first
place, the English of the King James Version is not the
English of the early 17th century. To be exact, it is
not a type of English that was ever spoken anywhere. It
is biblical English, which was not used on ordinary
occasions even by the translators who produced the King
James Version. As H. Wheeler Robinson (1940) pointed
out, one need only compare the preface written by the
translators with the text of their translation to feel
the difference in style. (46) And the observations of W.
A. Irwin (1952) are to the same purport. The King James
Version, he reminds us, owes its merit, not to
17th-century English—which was very different—but to its
faithful translation of the original. Its style is that
of the Hebrew and of the New Testament Greek. (47) Even
in their use of thee and thou the
translators were not following 17th-century English
usage but biblical usage, for at the time these
translators were doing their work these singular forms
had already been replaced by the plural you in polite conversation.
(48)
In the
second place, those who talk about translating the Bible
into the "language of today" never define what they mean
by this expression. What is the language of today?
The language of 1881 is not the
language of today, nor the language of 1901, nor even
the language of 1921. In none of these languages, we are
told, can we communicate with today's youth. There are
even some who feel that the best way to translate the
Bible into the language of today is to convert it into
"folk songs." Accordingly, in many contemporary youth
conferences and even worship services there is little or
no Bible reading but only crude kinds of vocal music
accompanied by vigorous piano and strumming guitars. But
in contrast to these absurdities the language of the
King James Version is enduring diction which will remain
as long as the English language remains, in other words,
throughout the foreseeable
future.
In the third
place, the current attack on the King James Version and
the promotion of modern-speech versions is discouraging
the memorization of the Scriptures, especially by
children. Why memorize or require your children to
memorize something that is out of date and about to be
replaced by something new and better? And why memorize a
modern version when there are so many to choose from?
Hence even in conservative churches children are growing
up densely ignorant of the holy Bible because they are
not encouraged to hide its life-giving words in their
hearts.
In the fourth
place, modem-speech Bibles are unhistorical and
irreverent. The Bible is not a modern, human book. It is
not as new as the morning newspaper, and no translation
should suggest this. If the Bible were this new, it
would not be the Bible. On the contrary, the Bible is an
ancient, divine Book, which nevertheless is always new
because in it God reveals Himself. Hence the language of
the Bible should be venerable as well as intelligible,
and the King James Version fulfills these two
requirements better than any other Bible in English.
Hence it is the King James Version which converts
sinners soundly and makes of them diligent Bible
students.
In the fifth
place, modern-speech Bibles are unscholarly. The
language of the Bible has always savored of the things
of heaven rather than the things of earth. It has always
been biblical rather than contemporary and colloquial.
Fifty years ago this fact was denied by E. J. Goodspeed
and others who were pushing their modern versions. On
the basis of the papyrus discoveries which had recently
been made in Egypt it was said that the New Testament
authors wrote in the everyday Greek of their own times.
(49) This claim, however, is now acknowledged to have
been an exaggeration. As R. M. Grant (1963) admits (50)
the New Testament writers were saturated with the
Septuagint and most of them were familiar with the
Hebrew Scriptures. Hence their language was not actually
that of the secular papyri of Egypt but biblical. Hence
New Testament versions must be biblical and not
contemporary and colloquial like Goodspeed's
version.
Finally, in the
sixth place, the King James Version is the historic
Bible of English-speaking Protestants. Upon it God,
working providentially, has placed the stamp of His
approval through the usage of many generations of
Bible-believing Christians. Hence, if we believe in
God's providential preservation of the Scriptures, we
will retain the King James Version, for in so doing we
will be following the clear leading of the
Almighty.
5. The Text
Of The King James Version — Questions And
Problems
When a believer
begins to defend the King James Version, unbelievers
immediately commence to bring up various questions and
problems in the effort to put the believer down and
silence him. Let us therefore consider some of these
alleged difficulties.
(a) The King
James Version a Variety of the Textus
Receptus
The translators
that produced the King James Version relied mainly, it
seems, on the later editions of Beza's Greek New
Testament, especially his 4th edition (1588-9). But also
they frequently consulted the editions of Erasmus and
Stephanus and the Complutensian Polyglot. According to
Scrivener (1884), (51) out of the 252 passages in which
these sources differ sufficiently to affect the English
rendering, the King James Version agrees with Beza
against Stephanus 113 times, with Stephanus against Beza
59 times, and 80 times with Erasmus, or the
Complutensian, or the Latin Vulgate against Beza and
Stephanus. Hence the King James Version ought to be
regarded not merely as a translation of the Textus
Receptus but also as an independent variety of the
Textus Receptus.
The King James
translators also placed variant readings in the margin,
37 of them according to Scrivener. (52) To these 37
textual notes 16 more were added during the 17th and
18th centuries, (53) and all these variants still appear
in the margins of British printings of the King James
Version. In the special providence of God, however, the
text of the King James Version has been kept pure. None
of these variant readings has been interpolated into it.
Of the original 37 variants some are introduced by such
formulas as, "Many ancient copies add these words";
"Many Greek copies have"; "Or, as some copies read";
"Some read". Often, however, the reading is introduced
simply by "Or", thus making it hard to tell whether a
variant reading or an alternative translation is
intended.
One of these
variant readings is of special interest. After John
18:13 the Bishops' Bible (1568) had added the following
words in italics, And Annas sent
Christ bound unto Caiaphas the high priest. This was
a conjectural emendation similar to one which had been
suggested by Luther and to another which had been
adopted by Beza in his Latin version on the authority of
Cyril of Alexandria (d.444). The purpose of it was to
harmonize John 18:13 with Matt. 26:57, which states that
the interrogation of Jesus took place at the house of
Caiaphas rather than at the house of Annas. The King
James translators, however, along with Erasmus and
Calvin, solved the problem by translating John 18:24 in
the pluperfect, Now Annas HAD sent
Him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest.
This made it unnecessary to
emend the text at John 18:13 after the manner of the
Bishops' Bible. Hence the King James translators took
this conjectural emendation out of the text and placed
it in their margin where it has retained its place unto
this day. (54)
Sometimes
the King James translators forsook the printed Greek
text and united with the earlier English versions in
following the Latin Vulgate. One well known passage in
which they did this was Luke 23:42 the prayer of the
dying thief. Here the Greek New Testaments of Erasmus,
Stephanus, and Beza have, Lord, remember me
when Thou comest IN Thy kingdom, with the majority
of the Greek manuscripts. But all the English Bibles of
that period (Tyndale, Great, Geneva, Bishops' Rheims,
King James) have, Lord, remember me
when Thou comest INTO Thy kingdom, with the Latin
Vulgate and also with Papyrus 75 and B.
At John 8:6
the King James translators followed the Bishops' Bible
in adding the clause, as though He heard
them not. This clause is found in E G H K
and many other manuscripts, in
the Complutensian, and in the first two editions of
Stephanus. After 1769 it was placed in italics in the
King James Version.
Similarly,
at 1 John 2:23 the King James translators followed the
Great Bible and the Bishops' Bible in adding the clause,
he that
acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also, and in
placing the clause in italics, thus indicating that it
was not found in the majority of the Greek manuscripts
or in the earlier editions of the Textus Receptus. Beza
included it, however, in his later editions, and it is
found in the Latin Vulgate and in Aleph and B. Hence modern
versions have removed the italics and given the clause
full status. The Bishops' Bible and the King James
Version join this clause to the preceding by the word but, taken from
Wyclif. With customary scrupulosity the King James
translators enclosed this but in brackets, thus indicating that it was not
properly speaking part of the text but merely a help in
translation.
(b) The
Editions of the Textus Receptus Compared — Their
Differences Listed
The differences
between the various editions of the Textus Receptus have
been carefully listed by Scrivener (1884) (55) and
Hoskier (1890). (56) The following
are some of the most important of these
differences.
Luke
2:22
their
purification, Erasmus, Stephanus, majority of the
Greek manuscripts. Her purification,
Beza, King James Elzevir,
Complutensian, 76 and a few other Greek minuscule
manuscripts, Latin Vulgate (?).
Luke
17:36
Two men
shall be in the field: the one shall be taken and the
other left. Erasmus, Stephanus l 2 3 omit this verse
with the majority of the Greek manuscripts. Stephanus 4,
Beza, King James, Elzevir have it with D, Latin Vulgate, Peshitta, Old Syriac.
John
1:28
Bethabara
beyond Jordan, Erasmus, Stephanus 3 4 Beza, King
James, Elzevir, Pi 1 13, Old
Syriac, Sahidic. Bethany beyond
Jordan, Stephanus 1 2, majority of Greek manuscripts
including Pap 66 & 75 Aleph A B.
Latin
Vulgate.
John
16:33
shall have
tribulation, Beza, King James, Elzevir, D 69 many other
Greek manuscripts, Old Latin, Latin Vulgate. have tribulation,
Erasmus, Stephanus, majority of
Greek manuscripts.
Rom.
8:11
by His
Spirit that dwelleth in you. Beza, King James,
Elzevir, Aleph A
C, Coptic. because of His
Spirit that dwelleth in you. Erasmus, Stephanus,
majority of Greek manuscripts including B D, Peshitta, Latin
Vulgate.
Rom.
12:11
sewing the
Lord, Erasmus 1, Beza, King James, Elzevir, majority
of Greek manuscripts including Pap 46 Aleph A B.
Peshitta, Latin Vulgate. serving the time,
Erasmus 2345,Stephanus, D G.
1 Tim.
1:4
godly
edifying, Erasmus, Beza, King James, Elzevir, D, Peshitta,
Latin Vulgate. dispensation of God,
Stephanus, majority of Greek
manuscripts including
Aleph A
G.
Heb.
9:1
Here Stephanus reads first tabernacle,
with the majority of the Greek manuscripts. Erasmus,
Beza, Luther, Calvin omit tabernacle with
Pap 46 Aleph B D,
Peshitta, Latin Vulgate. The King James Version
omits tabernacle
and regards covenant
as
implied.
James
2:13
without
thy works, Calvin, Beza (last 3 editions), King
James Aleph A B,
Latin Vulgate. by thy works,
Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza 1565,
majority of Greek
manuscripts.
This
comparison indicates that the differences which
distinguish the various editions of the Textus Receptus
from each other are very minor. They are also very few.
According to Hoskier, the 3rd edition of Stephanus and
the first edition of Elzevir differ from one another in
the Gospel of Mark only 19 times. (57) Codex B. on the
other hand, disagrees with Codex Aleph in
Mark 652 times and with Codex D
1,944 times. What a
contrast!
The texts of the
several editions of the Textus Receptus were God-guided.
They were set up under the leading of God's special
providence.
Hence the differences between them were kept down
to a minimum. But these disagreements were not
eliminated altogether, for this would require not merely
providential guidance but a miracle. In short, God chose
to preserve the New Testament text providentially rather
than miraculously, and this is why even the several
editions of the Textus Receptus vary from each other
slightly.
But what do we do
in these few places in which the several editions of the
Textus Receptus disagree with one another? Which text do
we follow? The answer to this question is easy. We are
guided by the common faith. Hence we favor that form of
the Textus Receptus upon which more than any other God,
working providentially, has placed the stamp of His
approval, namely, the King James Version, or, more
precisely, the Greek text underlying the King James
Version. This text was published in 1881 by the
Cambridge University Press under the editorship of Dr.
Scrivener and there have been eight reprints, the latest
being in 1949. (58) In 1976 also another edition of this
text was published in London by the Trinitarian Bible
Society. (59) We ought to be grateful that in the
providence of God the best form of the Textus Receptus
is still available to believing Bible students. For the
sake of completeness, however, it would be well to place
in the margin the variant readings of Erasmus,
Stephanus, Beza, and the Elzevirs.
(c) The King
James Old Testament—Variant
Readings
Along side
the text, called kethibh
(written), the Jewish scribes had placed in the
margin of their Old Testament manuscripts certain
variant readings, which they called keri (read).
Some of these keri appear in
the margin of the King James Old Testament. For example,
in Psalm 100:3 the King James text gives the kethibh, It is He
that hath made us and not we ourselves, but the King
James margin gives the keri, It is He that
hath made us, and His we are. And sometimes the keri is placed
in the King James text (16 times, according to
Scrivener). For example, in Micah 1:10 the King James
text gives the keri, in the house
of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust. The Hebrew kethibh,
however, is, in the house of
Aphrah I have rolled myself in the
dust.
Sometimes
also the influence of the Septuagint and the Latin
Vulgate is discernible in the King James Old Testament.
For example, in Psalm 24:6 the King James text reads, O Jacob, with
the Hebrew kethibh but the
King James margin reads, O God of Jacob,
which is the reading of the Septuagint, the Latin
Vulgate, and also of Luther's German Bible. In Jer. 3:9
the King James margin reads fame (qol) along
with the Hebrew kethibh, but the
King James text reads lightness (qal)
in agreement with the Septuagint, and the Latin
Vulgate. And in Psalm 22:16 the King James Version reads
with the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Latin Vulgate,
they pierced my
hands and my feet. The Hebrew text, on the other
hand, reads, like
a lion my hands and my feet, a
reading which makes no sense and which, as Calvin
observes, was obviously invented by the Jews to deny the
prophetic reference to the crucifixion of
Christ.
(d) The
Headings of the Psalms—Are They
Inspired?
Many of the
Psalms have headings. For example, To the chief
Musician, A Psalm and Song of David (Psalm 65). The King James translators separated
these headings and printed them in small type, each one
above the Psalm to which it belonged. Some conservative
scholars, such as J. A. Alexander (1850) (60) have
criticized the King James translators for doing this.
These headings, they have insisted, should be regarded
as the first verses of their respective Psalms. They
give three reasons for this opinion: first, in the
Hebrew Bible no distinction is made between the Psalms
and their headings; second, the New Testament writers
recognized these headings as true; third, each heading
is part of the Psalm which it introduces and hence is
inspired. This position, however, may go beyond the
clear teaching of Scripture. In any case, it is better
to follow the leading of the King James translators and
recognize the obvious difference between the heading of
a Psalm and the Psalm itself.
The King James
translators handled the subscriptions of the Pauline
Epistles similarly, printing each one after its own
epistle in small type. But this has never been a
problem, since these subscriptions have never been
regarded as inspired.
(e) Maximum
Certainty Versus Maximum
Uncertainty
God's
preservation of the New Testament text was not
miraculous but providential. The scribes and printers
who produced the copies of the New Testament Scriptures
and the true believers who read and cherished them were
not inspired but God-guided. Hence there are some New
Testament passages in which the true reading cannot be
determined with absolute certainty. There are some
readings, for example, on which the manuscripts are
almost equally divided, making it difficult to determine
which reading belongs to the Traditional Text. Also in
some of the cases in which the Textus Receptus disagrees
with the Traditional Text it is hard to decide which
text to follow. Also, as we have seen, sometimes the
several editions of the Textus Receptus differ from each
other and from the King James Version. And, as we have
just observed, the case is the same with the Old
Testament text. Here it is hard at times to decide
between the kethibh and the
keri
and between the Hebrew text and
the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate versions. Also there
has been a controversy concerning the headings of the
Psalms.
In other
words, God does not reveal every truth with equal
clarity. In biblical textual criticism, as in every
other department of knowledge, there are still some
details in regard to which we must be content to remain
uncertain. But the special providence of God has kept
these uncertainties down to a minimum. Hence
if we believe in the special providential preservation
of the Scriptures and make this the leading principle of
our biblical textual criticism, we obtain maximum certainty,
all the certainty that any mere
man can obtain, all the certainty that we need. For we
are led by the logic of faith to the Masoretic Hebrew
text, to the New Testament Textus Receptus, and to the
King James Version.
But what if
we ignore the providential preservation of the
Scriptures and deal with the text of the holy Bible in
the same way in which we deal with the texts of other
ancient books? If we do this, we are following the logic
of unbelief, which leads to maximum uncertainty.
When we handle the text of the
holy Bible in this way, we are behaving as unbelievers
behave. We are either denying that the providential
preservation of the Scriptures is a fact, or else we are
saying that it is not an important fact not important
enough to be considered when dealing with the text of
the holy Bible. But if the providential preservation of
the Scriptures is not important, why is the infallible
inspiration of the original Scriptures important? If God
has not preserved the Scriptures by His special
providence, why would He have infallibly inspired them
in the first place? And if it is not important that the
Scriptures be regarded as infallibly inspired, why is it
important to insist that Gospel is completely true? And
if this is not important, why is it important to believe
that Jesus is the divine Son of
God?
In short, unless
we follow the logic of faith, we can be certain of
nothing concerning the Bible and its text. For example,
if we make the Bodmer and Chester Beatty Papyri our
chief reliance, how do we know that even older New
Testament papyri of an entirely different character have
not been destroyed by the recent damming of the Nile and
the consequent flooding of the Egyptian sands?
(61)
6. Modern English
Bible Versions — Are They Of God?
Modern-speech English Bible versions were first
prepared during the 18th century by deists who were
irked by the biblical language of the King James
Version. In 1729 Daniel Mace published a Greek New
Testament text with a translation in the language of his
own day. The following are samples of his work: When ye fast, don't
put on a dismal air, as the hypocrites do (Matt.
6:16). Social
affection is patient, is kind (1 Cor. 13:4). The tongue is a
brand that sets the whole world in a combustion . . .
tipp'd with infernal sulphur it sets the whole train of
life in a blaze (James 3:6).
Similarly, in 1768 Edward Harwood published a New
Testament translation which he characterized as "a
liberal and diffusive version of the sacred classics."
His purpose, he explained, was to allure the youth of
his day "by the innocent stratagem of a modern style to
read a book which is now, alas! too generally neglected
and disregarded by the young and gay." And about the
same time Benjamin Franklin offered a specimen of "Part
of the First Chapter of Job modernized."
(62)
Serious efforts,
however, to dislodge the King James Version from its
position of dominance and to replace it with a modern
version did not begin until a century later, and it is
with these that we would now deal
briefly.
(a) The R.
V., the A. S. V., and the N. E.
B.
By the middle of
the 19th century the researches and propaganda of
Tischendorf and Tregelles had convinced many British
scholars that the Textus Receptus was a late and
inferior text and that therefore a revision of the King
James Version was highly necessary. This clamor for a
new revision of the English Bible was finally met in
1870, when a Revision Committee was appointed by the
Church of England to carry out the project. This
Committee consisted of 54 members, half of them being
assigned to the Old Testament and half to the New. One
of the most influential members of the New Testament
section was Dr. F. J. A. Hort, and the text finally
adopted by the revisers was largely the Westcott and
Hort text. The New Testament was finished November 11,
1880, and published May 17, 1881, amid tremendous
acclaim. Within a few days 2,000,000 copies had been
sold in London, 365,000 in New York, and 110,000 in
Philadelphia. The Old Testament was completed in 1884
and published in 1885. By this time, however, popular
demand had died down and the market for the entire
Revised Bible was merely fair, the sale of it reaching
no such phenomenal heights as the Revised New Testament
had attained.
While this work of
revision had been going on in England a committee of
American scholars had been organized to cooperate in the
endeavor. They promised not to publish their own revised
edition of the Bible until 14 years after the
publication of the English Revised Version (R.V.), and
in exchange for this concession were given the privilege
of publishing in an appendix to this version a list of
the readings which they favored but which the British
revisers declined to adopt. In accordance with this
agreement, the American Committee waited until 1901
before they published their own Revised Version, which
was very like its English cousin except that there was a
more thorough elimination of antiquated words and of
words specifically English and not American in meaning.
By the publishers, Thomas Nelson and Sons, it was called
the Standard Version, and from this circumstance it is
commonly known as the American Standard Version
(A.S.V.). (63)
Neither the R.V.
nor the A.S.V. fared as well as their promoters had
hoped. They were never widely used, due largely to their
poor English style, which, according to F. C. Grant
(1954), "was, in many places, unbelievably wooden,
opaque, or harsh." (64) Because of this lack of success
these two versions have been largely abandoned, and
their place has been filled by the Revised Standard
Version (1946) in America and the New English Bible
(1961) in England. Both are in modern speech. The R.S.V.
was prepared by a committee appointed by the
International Council of Religious Education,
representing 40 Protestant denominations in the United
States and Canada. The N.E.B. was prepared by a similar
committee representing nine denominations in Great
Britain.
The
modernism of the R.S.V. and the N.E.B. appears
everywhere in them. For example, both of them profess to
use thou when
referring to God and you when referring to men. Yet the
disciples are made to use you when
speaking to Jesus, implying, evidently, that they did
not believe that He was divine. Even when they confess
Him to be the Son of God, the disciples are still made
to use you.
You are the Christ,
Peter is made to say, the Son of the
living God (Matt.16:16). In both the R.S.V. and the
N.E.B. opposition to the virgin birth of Christ is
plainly evident. Thus the N.E.B. calls Mary a girl (Luke 1:27)
rather than a virgin,
and at Matt. 1:16 the N.E.B. and
some editions of the R.S.V. include in a footnote a
reading found only in the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript
which states that Joseph was the father of
Jesus.
The N.E.B.
exhibits all too plainly a special hostility to the
deity of Christ. This is seen in the way in which the
Greek word proskyneo is
translated. When it is applied to God, the N.E.B.
always translates it worship, but
when it is applied to Jesus, the N.E.B. persistently
translates it pay
homage or bow
low. Thus the translators refuse to admit that Jesus
was worshipped by the early Church. Even the Old
Testament quotation, Let all the angels
of God worship Him (Heb.1:6), is rendered by the
N.E.B., Let all
the angels of God pay him homage. The only passage
in which proskyneo is
translated worship when
applied to Jesus is in Luke 24:52. But here this clause
is placed in a footnote as a late variant reading. By
using the word worship
here these modernistic
translators give expression to their belief that the
worship of Jesus was a late development which took place
in the Church only after the true New Testament text had
been written.
(b)
Contemporary Modern-speech English
Bibles
In addition to the
R.S.V. and the N.E.B. at least 25 other modern speech
English Bibles and New Testaments have been published.
Some of these, notably the Weymouth (1903), the Moffatt
(1913), and the Goodspeed (1923), enjoyed great
popularity in their own day but now are definitely out
of date. We will confine our remarks therefore to
contemporary modern-speech versions which are being
widely used today by evangelicals.
(1) The New Testament
In the Language of the People, by Charles B. Williams (1937). As he states in
his preface, Williams follows the text of Westcott and
Hort. He not only adopts all their errors but even goes
beyond them in omitting portions of the New Testament
text. For example, he omits Luke 22:43-44 (Christ's
agony and bloody sweat) and Luke 23:34a (Christ's prayer
for His murderers) instead of putting these passages in
brackets as Westcott and Hort do. As for John 7:53-8:11
(the woman taken in adultery), he does not place this
passage at the end of John's Gospel, as Westcott and
Hort do, but omits it altogether. In addition, Williams
interjects bits of higher criticism into his
introductions to the various New Testament books. For
example, he tells us that the author of John's Gospel is
likely John the Apostle but some scholars think another
John wrote it. It is usually thought, he says, that Paul
wrote 2 Thessalonians, I and 2 Timothy, but some deny
it, etc.
(2) New American
Standard New Testament (1960) Lockman Foundation. As
its name implies, this is a modernization of the A.S.V.
I t follows the text of the A.S.V. very closely and even
goes farther in it’s omissions. For example, in Luke
24:51 it omits Christ's ascension into heaven, which the
A.S.V. had left standing in the text. In the “Way of
Life Edition" of this modern-speech version we have an
illogical mixture of pietism and naturalistic thinking.
In the text there are verses in black letter which a
sinner is to believe to the saving of his soul, while at
the bottom of the page are frequent notes which destroy
all confidence
in the sacred text, stating
that such and such readings are not found in the best
manuscripts, etc. How can such a Bible convert a
thinking college student? No wonder it has to be
supplemented by much music and mysticism, fun and
frolic.
(3) The New Testament in
the Language of Today (1963), by William F. Beck.
This modern-speech version makes much of Papyrus 75
mentioning it frequently. In John 8:57 the translator
adopts the unusual reading of Papyrus 75, Has Abraham seen
You? instead of the common reading, Have You seen
Abraham ? Consistency requires that Dr. Beck adopt
the other unusual readings of Papyrus 75, such as Neves for the
name of the Rich Man (Luke 16:19), shepherd for door (John
10:7), raised
for saved
(John 11:12). But in these
passages Dr. Beck adopts the common readings, forsaking
Papyrus 75, and he doesn't even mention the fact that
this recently discovered authority omits the blind man's
confession of faith (John 9:38). In short, as a textual
critic Dr. Beck seems rather capricious in his
choices.
(4) Good News For Modern
Man, The New Testament in Today's English Version
(1966), American Bible Society. This version claims
to be based on a Greek text published specially by the
United Bible Societies in 1966 with the aid of noted
scholars. The translation was prepared by Dr. Robert G.
Bratcher. In it some verses are omitted and others
marked with brackets. But this is done capriciously
without regard even to naturalistic principles. For
example, Christ's agony and bloody sweat (Luke 22:43-44)
is bracketed, while Christ's prayer for His murderers
(Luke 23:34a) is left unbracketed. This version has been
called "the bloodless Bible," since it shuns the mention
of Christ's blood,
preferring instead to speak of Christ's death.
(5) The Living New
Testament, Paraphrased (1967), by Ken Taylor. This
paraphrase uses the A.S.V. as its basic text. Like so
many other modern-speech Bibles in vogue among
evangelicals, it is arbitrary in its renderings. The
name, Son of Man,
for example, which Jesus applied to Himself is
rendered six different ways. Sometimes it is translated
I, sometimes
He, sometimes
Son of Mankind,
sometimes Man
from Heaven, sometimes Man of Glory,
and sometimes Messiah. And
this variation is kept up even in parallel passages in
which the Greek wording is identical. For example, in
Matt.9:6 Son of
Man is translated I, while in Mark
2:10 it is translated I, the Man from Heaven.
What reason is there for this
whimsical treatment of one of our Saviour's sacred
titles? Taylor gives none. Doctrinally also Taylor
wrests the Scriptures with his paraphrase. For instance,
in Rom. 8:28 Taylor tells us that all things work for
our good, if only we love God and fit into His
plans.
(6) The Jerusalem Bible
(1966), Doubleday. This Bible was originally a
French modern-speech version prepared by French Roman
Catholic scholars at L'Ecole Biblique (The Biblical
School) at Jerusalem and published in Paris in 1955. It
sold so widely in the French-speaking world that a few
years later commercial publishers in England and America
jointly undertook an equivalent English version, which
they published in 1966 under the sensational and
misleading title Jerusalem Bible.
The modernism of this Bible also
is offensive to orthodox
Christians.
(7) The New American
Bible (1970), Confraternity of Christian Doctrine.
This official, Roman Catholic, modern-speech Bible, with
a prefatory letter of approval from Pope Paul VI, has
been authorized as a source of readings in the Mass. In
the text and notes and in the introductions to the New
Testament books many critical positions formerly
regarded as official have been sharply reversed. For
example, it is now permissible for Roman Catholics to
hold that the Gospel of Matthew is an expanded version
of the Gospel of Mark and later than the Gospel of Luke.
Permission is also given to maintain that the Gospel of
John was not written by the Apostle John but by a
disciple-evangelist and then was later revised by a
disciple-redactor. It is also suggested that 2 Peter was
not written by the Apostle Peter and even that 1 Peter
may likewise have been pseudonymous. Mark 16:9-20 and
John 7:53-8:11 are not regarded as original portions of
their respective Gospels, and the Johannine comma
(1
John 5:7-8) is omitted without
comment. This complete about-face is ominous, for it
shows how far Roman Catholic authorities are willing to
go in their efforts to give themselves a "new image" and
to make room for modernists in their ecclesiastical
structure. Liberal Protestantism is about to collapse
and fall into the waiting arms of Roman Catholicism. And
many inconsistent Fundamentalists will be involved in
this disaster because of their addiction to naturalistic
New Testament textual criticism and naturalistic
modern-speech versions.
(8) New International
Version (1973), New York Bible Society. This
translation follows the critical (Westcott and Hort)
text. There seems to be nothing particularly remarkable
about it. However, it is falsely called International.
Obviously it is wholly American, sometimes painfully
so. For example, it joins Beck's version
and Good News
for Modern Man in consistently substituting rooster for cock.
But this is American barnyard
talk. Is there anything wrong with our American barnyard
talk? As good Americans we answer, of course not.
Nevertheless, however, such talk is not literary enough
to be given a place in holy
Scripture.
(c) The King
James Version — The Providentially Appointed English
Bible
Do we believing
Bible Students "worship" the King James Version? Do we
regard it as inspired, just as the ancient Jewish
philosopher Philo (d. 42 A.D.) and many early Christians
regarded the Septuagint as inspired? Or do we claim the
same supremacy for the King James Version that Roman
Catholics claim for the Latin Vulgate? Do we magnify its
authority above that of the Hebrew and Greek Old and New
Testament Scriptures? We have often been accused of such
excessive veneration for the King James Version, but
these accusations are false. In regard to Bible versions
we follow the example of Christ's Apostles. We adopt the
same attitude toward the King James Version that they
maintained toward the Septuagint.
In their Old
Testament quotations the Apostles never made any
distinction between the Septuagint and the Hebrew
Scriptures. They never said, "The Septuagint translates
this verse thus and so, but in the original Hebrew it is
this way." Why not? Why did they pass up all these
opportunities to display their learning? Evidently
because of their great respect for the Septuagint and
the position which it occupied in the providence of God.
In other words, the Apostles recognized the Septuagint
as the providentially approved translation of the Old
Testament into Greek. They understood that this was the
version that God desired the gentile Church of their day
to use as its Old Testament
Scripture.
In regard to Bible
versions, then, we follow the example of the Apostles
and the other inspired New Testament writers. Just as
they recognized the Septuagint as the providentially
appointed translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into
Greek, so we recognize the King James Version and the
other great historic translations of the holy Scriptures
as providentially approved. Hence we receive the King
James Version as the providentially appointed English
Bible. Admittedly this venerable version is not
absolutely perfect, but it is trustworthy. No
Bible-believing Christian who relies upon it will ever
be led astray. But it is just the opposite with modern
versions. They are untrustworthy, and they do lead
Bible-believing Christians astray.
It is possible, if
the Lord tarry that in the future the English language
will change so much that a new English translation of
the Bible will become absolutely necessary. But in that
case any version which we prepare today would be equally
antiquated. Hence this is a matter which we must leave
to God, who alone knows what is in store for us. For the
present, however, and the foreseeable future no new
translation is needed to take the place of the King
James Version. Today our chief concern must be to create
a climate of Christian thought and learning which God
can use providentially should the need for such a new
English version ever arise. This would insure that only
the English wording would be revised and not the
underlying Hebrew and Greek text.
(For further
discussion see Believing Bible
Study, pp. 81-88,
214-228).
(d) Which
King James Version? — A Feeble
Rebuttal
Opponents of the
King James Version often try to refute us by asking us
which edition of the King James Version we receive as
authoritative. For example, a professor in a well known
Bible school writes as follows: "With specific reference
to the King James translation, I must ask you which
revision you refer to as the one to be accepted? It has
been revised at least three times. The first translation
of 1611 included the Apocrypha, which I do not accept as
authoritative."
This retort,
however, is very weak. All the editions of the King
James Version from 1611 onward are still extant and have
been examined minutely by F. H. A. Scrivener and other
careful scholars. Aside from printers errors, these
editions differ from each other only in regard to
spelling, punctuation, and, in a few places, italics.
Hence any one of them may be used by a Bible-believing
Christian. The fact that some of them include the
Apocrypha is beside the point, since this does not
affect their accuracy in the Old and New
Testaments.
