Chapter I: Front Matter

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The Revision Revised.

Three Articles

Reprinted From The “Quarterly Review.”

I. The New Greek Text.

II. The New English Version.

III. Westcott and Hort’s New Textual Theory.

To Which is Added A

Reply to Bishop Ellicott’s Pamphlet

In Defence Of

The Revisers and Their Greek Text of the New Testament:

Including a Vindication of the Traditional Reading of 1 Timothy III. 16.

By John William Burgon, B.D.

Dean of Chichester.

“Little children,—Keep yourselves from idols.”—1 John v. 21.

Dover Publications, Inc.

New York

1971

CONTENTS

Dedication. Preface. Article I. The New Greek Text. Article II. The New English Version. Article III. Westcott And Hort’s New Textual Theory. Letter To Bishop Ellicott, In Reply To His Pamphlet. Appendix Of Sacred Codices. Index I, of Texts of Scripture,—quoted, discussed, or only referred to in this volume. Index II, of Fathers. Index III, Persons, Places, and Subjects. Footnotes

[Transcriber’s Note: This book contains much Greek text, which will not be well-rendered in plain text versions of this E-book. Also, there is much use of Greek characters with a vertical bar across the tops of the letters to indicate abbreviations; because the coding system used in this e-book does not have such an “overline”, they are rendered here with underlines. It also contains some text in Syriac, which is written right-to-left; for the sake of different transcription methods, it is transcribed here in both right-to-left and left-to-rights, so that regardless of the medium of this E-book, one or the other should be readable.]

The following is PREBENDARY SCRIVENER’S recently published estimate of the System on which DRS. WESTCOTT AND HORT have constructed their “_Revised Greek Text of the New Testament_” (1881).—That System, the Chairman of the Revising Body (BISHOP ELLICOTT) has entirely adopted (see below, pp. 391 to 397), and made the basis of his Defence of THE REVISERS and their “_New Greek Text._”

(1.) “There is little hope for the stability of their imposing
structure, if _its foundations have been laid on the sandy ground
of ingenious conjecture_. And, since barely the smallest vestige
of historical evidence has ever been alleged in support of the
views of these accomplished Editors, their teaching must either be
received as intuitively true, or _dismissed from our consideration
as precarious and even visionary_.”

(2.) “DR. HORT’S System _is entirely destitute of historical
foundation_.”

(3.) “We are compelled to repeat as emphatically as ever our
strong conviction that the Hypothesis to whose proof he has
devoted so many laborious years, _is destitute not only of
historical foundation, but of all probability, resulting from the
internal goodness of the Text which its adoption would force upon
us_.”

(4.) “ ‘We cannot doubt’ (says DR. HORT) ‘that S. Luke xxiii. 34
comes from an extraneous source.’ [_Notes_, p. 68.]—_Nor can we,
on our part, doubt_,” (rejoins DR. SCRIVENER,) “_that the System
which entails such consequences is hopelessly self-condemned_.”

SCRIVENER’S “Plain Introduction,” &c. [ed. 1883]: pp. 531, 537, 542, 604.

DEDICATION.

To The Right Hon. Viscount Cranbrook, G.C.S.I., &c., &c., &c.

MY DEAR LORD CRANBROOK,

_Allow me the gratification of dedicating the present Volume to yourself; but for whom—(I reserve the explanation for another day)—it would never have been written._

_This is not, (as you will perceive at a glance,) the Treatise which a few years ago I told you I had in hand; and which, but for the present hindrance, might by this time have been completed. It has however_ grown out _of that other work in the manner explained at the beginning of my Preface. Moreover it contains not a few specimens of the argumentation of which the work in question, when at last it sees the light, will be discovered to be full._

_My one object has been to defeat the mischievous attempt which was made in 1881 to thrust upon this Church and Realm a Revision of the Sacred Text, which—recommended though it be by eminent names—I am thoroughly convinced, and am able to prove, is untrustworthy from beginning to end._

_The reason is plain. It has been constructed throughout on an utterly erroneous hypothesis. And I inscribe this Volume to you, my friend, as a conspicuous member of that body of faithful and learned Laity by whose deliberate verdict, when the whole of the evidence has been produced and the case has been fully argued out, I shall be quite willing that my contention may stand or fall._

_The_ English _(as well as the Greek) of the newly __“__Revised Version__”__ is hopelessly at fault. It is to me simply unintelligible how a company of Scholars can have spent ten years in elaborating such a very unsatisfactory production. Their uncouth phraseology and their jerky sentences, their pedantic obscurity and their unidiomatic English, contrast painfully with __“__the happy turns of expression, the music of the cadences, the felicities of the rhythm__”__ of our Authorized Version. The transition from one to the other, as the Bishop of Lincoln remarks, is like exchanging a well-built carriage for a vehicle without springs, in which you get jolted to death on a newly-mended and rarely-traversed road. But the __“__Revised Version__”__ is inaccurate as well; exhibits defective scholarship, I mean, in countless places._

_It is, however, the_ systematic depravation of the underlying Greek _which does so grievously offend me: for this is nothing else but a poisoning of the River of Life at its sacred source. Our Revisers, (with the best and purest intentions, no doubt,) stand convicted of having deliberately rejected the words of __ Inspiration in every page, and of having substituted for them fabricated Readings which the Church has long since refused to acknowledge, or else has rejected with abhorrence; and which only survive at this time in a little handful of documents of the most depraved type._

_As Critics they have had abundant warning. Twelve years ago (1871) a volume appeared on_ the “last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark,”—_of which the declared object was to vindicate those Verses against certain critical objectors, and to establish them by an exhaustive argumentative process. Up to this hour, for a very obvious reason, no answer to that volume has been attempted. And yet, at the end of ten years (1881),—not only in the Revised English but also in the volume which professes to exhibit the underlying Greek, (which at least is indefensible,)—the Revisers are observed to separate off those Twelve precious Verses from their context, in token that they are no part of the genuine Gospel. Such a deliberate preference of_ “mumpsimus” _to_ “sumpsimus” _is by no means calculated to conciliate favour, or even to win respect. The Revisers have in fact been the dupes of an ingenious Theorist, concerning whose extraordinary views you are invited to read what Dr. Scrivener has recently put forth. The words of the last-named writer (who is_ facile princeps _in Textual Criticism) will be found facing the beginning of the present Dedication._

_If, therefore, any do complain that I have sometimes hit my opponents rather hard, I take leave to point out that __“__to everything __ there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun__”__: __“__a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing__”__: a time for speaking smoothly, and a time for speaking sharply. And that when the words of Inspiration are seriously imperilled, as now they are, it is scarcely possible for one who is determined effectually to preserve the Deposit in its integrity, to hit either too straight or too hard. In handling certain recent utterances of Bishop Ellicott, I considered throughout that it was the_ “Textual Critic”—_not the Successor of the Apostles,—with whom I had to do._

_And thus I commend my Volume, the fruit of many years of incessant anxious toil, to your indulgence: requesting that you will receive it as a token of my sincere respect and admiration; and desiring to be remembered, my dear Lord Cranbrook, as_

_Your grateful and affectionate_ _ Friend and Servant,_ _ John W. Burgon._

DEANERY, CHICHESTER, All Saints’ Day., 1883.