“For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ” (2 Cor 2:17 NKJV).
In a carefully prepared campaign of deception designed to ambush the members of the Revision Committee and persuade them to adopt a new Greek text compiled by B. F. Westcott and W. H. A. Hort (WH), the Authorised Version was targeted for destruction by them and some of their partners in crime, in order to undermine and Catholicise the Church of England. As long as the KJV stood supreme, their revolution could not succeed.
The New Testament of the revision was released in 1881. Known as the Revised Version (RV), also known as the English Revised Version (ERV), the complete bible (Old and New Testaments) was published in 1884 and the RV Apocrypha were published in 1894. This revision was supposed to be a revision of the KJV; but it was really a brand-new version, because the text of the New Testament of the RV was based on different Greek texts to that of the KJV.
The physical manuscripts of this “new” (critical) Greek text are older than any of the extant physical Byzantine texts, so its supporters maintain that it is therefore more accurate and trustworthy. But the supporters of the Textus Receptus rightly insist that, because theirs is the majority of texts in existence, its readings can be found in some texts which are even earlier than those of the Westcott and Hort (WH) texts. Cyprian (early 3rd century), for one, clearly had a Byzantine manuscript from which he quoted the Johannine Comma (1 Jn 5:7); this was about two centuries before the oldest extant Alexandrian texts used for our modern bibles.
Soon thereafter an American version of this new English version was produced, published in 1901, known as the American Standard Version (ASV), thus beginning the first of many streams of bible versions based on the new Westcott and Hort (WH) text.
Virtually the only voices raised in vigorous and scholarly opposition were those of Dean Stanley Burgon and F.H.A. Scrivener, who exposed the corruption of the new text by revealing its unorthodox readings and omissions, and how and where it differed from the traditional and divinely preserved Greek text, the Textus Receptus (TR), which emerged from the divinely preserved Byzantine manuscripts. It wasn’t that differing from the KJV was a serious problem; it was that these changes altered the meaning of Scripture, and consequently, theology.
An ancient heresy clothed in the garb of a new theology
This new theology abandoned the Gospel of salvation in Christ by faith in his finished work on the cross, and replaced it with the Catholic system of salvation by works and a host of other false doctrines and dogmas. It was the Byzantine readings of the NT text, the most well-known being Textus Receptus, upon whichthe Authorised Version was based, which stood in the path of this attempted apostasy, and which was consequently hated by the revisers.
Theology of the Revisers
Most of the revisers of the KJV led by B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort were liberal or “modernist” in their theology, Catholic in heart, Darwinian evolutionists, spiritualists engaged in séances, having Marxist tendencies, did not believe in the necessity of faith in Christ alone for salvation, and other heretical and pernicious ideas; and one of them, George Vance Smith, was a Unitarian. The situation was the same for the American revision committee, led by arch-liberal Philip Schaff. These are the “higher” theological Critics with some “lower” or Textual Critics tagging along.
Uriah Smith concisely exposes Modernism
Of the Modernist theology espoused by these heretics, Seventh Day Adventist commentator, Uriah Smith, summarises it nicely: “According to this radical criticism is there any inspiration? None. Any Trinity? None. Any fall into sin? None. Any devil or angel? None. Any miracles? None. Any law from Mount Sinai? None. Any wrath of God? None. Any prophecy? None. Is Christ God? No. Is the death of Christ vicarious? No. Did Christ rise from the dead? No. Has there been any outpouring of the Holy Ghost? No. Will there be any resurrection of all the dead? No. Or a final judgment? No. This is rather radical, and practically robs Christianity of everything that it has” (Uriah Smith, 1908, p. 624).
The Greek Text of Westcott and Hort
The WH text consists of manuscripts most of which originate from ancient Alexandria, and most of which were discovered in the 19th century, and which enchanted liberal scholars who trumpeted that greater age means greater accuracy. Westcott and Hort concocted a text which they drew from the various manuscripts which had been discovered during the preceding decades, sifting and collating until they were satisfied with their achievement. Unfortunately, they accepted every “family” of texts except the widely accepted and circulated Byzantine, which was the vast majority of Greek texts. They hated this textual family, and Hort called the KJV, which is the best exemplar in English of the Byzantine, “vile” and “villainous”.
The manuscripts they regarded as closest to the autographs were Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph), and a third known as Alexandrinus (A); which is bizarre because Aleph and B differ from each other in thousands of places – just in the gospels there are around 3000 differences between them. And they’re filled with scribal corrections (Sinaiticus being the worst), the text being scrubbed out to allow a newer reading here, and various other changes and omissions there, over several centuries. Many of these changes and omissions either undermine or attack the deity of Christ, his Person, and his work.
Despite these manuscripts being demonstrably faulty and therefore corrupt, Westcott and Hort were enchanted by them. They are dated to late 4th and early 5th centuries and Westcott and Hort regarded them as being the earliest texts known to us and closest to the autographs. They are each almost a complete New Testament; they also contain the books of the Apocrypha and some other early Christian writings e.g. Epistle of Barnabas, and Shepherd of Hermas etc. The WH text has since morphed into the Nestle-Aland Text (NA) and the United Bible Societies Text (UBS), but they are all essentially the same, and known generally as the Critical Text, and based on the same few unique manuscripts. And all our bibles today are based on this corrupt text – if ever a bible text could be called “vile” and “villainous”, it is the Critical Text.
The Critical Problems with the Critical Text
Apart from the multitude of changes and omissions, the Critical Text has several built-in problems, which means that there can never be a standard bible used by all and which will remain authoritative and trustworthy. This is because the two textual versions are constantly being revised and updated (the current editions are NA27 and UBS 4) and necessarily continuing in this process endlessly; consequently, the Church can never again possess an authoritative bible as long as this text is its basis. The text is constantly being revised and updated, so the bible text is in a constant state of flux – a gift for publishers.
There are several categories in the Critical Text into which each word is placed – ‘most likely’, ‘less likely’, ‘least likely’ – and these are decided upon by the committee or its leader. The bizarre fact is that with each update, readings which were once in one category can be found in a different category in the update; and back again in the next. Each of these readings are debated and argued over as to which reading is the most likely to be closest to the autograph, and then a vote is taken to confirm it. Imagine that! The infallible, inerrant, authoritative, God-breathed Word and words of the Sovereign God of all creation, depends on a majority vote of a committee of fallible, unbelieving men and women before it can be trusted and used by the Church. After all the centuries of the Church on earth, is this what we have been reduced to? Jesus asked: “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Lk 18:8).
The whole process is reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s children’s’ story, “The Magic Faraway Tree”, in which the children never knew which magic land they would find when they climbed to the top of the tree. And it puts the Church in the ludicrous position of never being able to make definitive statements of doctrine, faith, or practice, because both the original language texts and the resultant bible versions are constantly changing.
Our modern bibles are therefore really only best-guess bibles, and every few years we have to buy the latest version to keep up with the latest manuscript discovery or the change in our language or any other whim or furphy the textual critics and bible translation committees and bible publishers choose to tell us is the truth. In the end it’s a gold mine for bible publishers but worse than useless for people who want to know with certainty what God says; and “truth is fallen in the street” (Isa 59:14).
Bible publishers don’t know anything about the LXX
The apostles did use a Greek text for the majority of their OT references, but nobody knows whether the LXX (Septuagint) they used contained the apocrypha. The original and early copies disappeared very early, and the LXX that circulated thereafter, not being the divinely preserved text, quickly became corrupted.
“The Encyclopaedia Judaica concludes that ‘what we term the Septuagint is in fact an almost accidental gathering together of texts from diverse sources.’
Although there are extant older fragments of the OT in Greek, the Encyclopedia continues, ‘For the most part, our earliest texts for this Greek material derive from codices from the third and fourth centuries [A.D.]; in particular, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Sinaiticus.’ These may or may not be good exemplars of the OT Greek translations of that time period” (Did the Apostles Favor the Septuagint? – Purely Presbyterian).
The LXX with apocrypha was subsequently corrected by some of the early Fathers, such as Origen, Lucian, Hesychius, and Jerome. They each corrected the many errors they had in their possession.
What is more startling though, and an established fact, is that Justin Martyr knew that the Jews had excised passages from the LXX because of its support for the deity of Jesus: “Your teachers have removed many complete passages of those Scriptures in their entirety from the translation of the elders who were with Ptolemy. Those passages show clearly that He who was crucified is both God and man and that His crucifixion and death were foretold” (Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 71).
So, bible publishers (some of them self-styled Evangelical), willingly use a proven corrupt text (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus) as the basis for their bible versions and revisions; use the LXX for corrections; and include the apocrypha which, in many places within its text is anathema to true Christianity. Thus, in order to make further sales and profit, they are careless about the confusion they sow among the churches and individual Christians. The church is the body of Christ (Eph 1:22-23) and his people the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16-17). “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are”.
Implications for Protestants
Now that Catholics and evangelicals all use the same Greek critical text as the basis for their bibles, and both accept them as the word of God, Protestants are bound to pray to departed saints, bound to pray for the dead, bound to believe in purgatory, bound to accept the totality of Catholic teaching and antichristian dogmas, if they would be consistent. Even if the apocrypha are not in their preferred version; even if the apocrypha are bound as a separate section to the Bible text; the fact is that the text in their version is a Catholic text with all its omissions, changes, and textual errors. And therefore, Protestants are obligated to follow where their Bible leads – which ultimately is Rome. If they don’t like this implication, let them use a KJV/NKJV which is free of the corruptions of the Alexandrian texts.
The Bottom Line
The KJV/NKJV is based on the Textus Receptus, which is the best exemplar of the Byzantine family of Greek NT texts. Very early Byzantine versions, one of which is the Peshitta, predate the extant Alexandrian manuscripts by centuries, even to the 2nd century; this is 2-3 centuries before codices A, D, and Aleph. Not only that, the Alexandrian texts are confined to a small area, namely Alexandria (hence, their name), whereas the Byzantine texts are spread across the whole ancient world and are the vast majority of extant texts.
This indicates that they were used by the Church universally and, although there are no very ancient extant manuscripts, the fact that they are in the majority and are so widely spread, indicates that they contain the true reading of the New Testament; and the Alexandrian textual variants were chopped and changed by unfaithful scribes for their own devious purposes for centuries after their first usage. Even if the changes were well intentioned in order to support the current theological views, they were still changed, and a change is still a corruption, no matter how well meant.
References
Smith, Uriah, “Daniel and The Revelation”, undated (circa 1899), published by The Stanborough Press, Watford, Herts.
Unless otherwise stated, the bible verses in this article are from the King James Bible.
For those who wish to know the apostate theology of Westcott and Hort taken from their own writings: FROM THEIR OWN MOUTHS – Westcott and Hort – Saved By Grace