The Revision Revised

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.

The ensuing three Articles from the Quarterly Review,(wrung out of me by the publication [May 17th, 1881] of the Revision of our Authorized Version of the New Testament,)appear in their present form in compliance with an amount of continuous solicitation that they should be separately published, which it would have been alike unreasonable and ungracious to disregard. I was not prepared for it. It has caused meas letter after letter has reached my handsmixed feelings; has revived all my original disinclination and regret. For, gratified as I cannot but feel by the reception my labours have met with,(and only the Author of my being knows what an amount of antecedent toil is represented by the ensuing pages,)I yet deplore more heartily than I am able to express, the injustice done to the cause of Truth by handling the subject in this fragmentary way, and by exhibiting the evidence for what is most certainly true, in such a very incomplete form. A systematic Treatise is the indispensable condition for securing cordial assent to the view for which I mainly contend. The cogency of the argument lies entirely in the cumulative character of the proof. It requires to be demonstrated by induction from a large collection of particular instances, as well as by the complex exhibition of many converging lines of evidence, that the testimony of one small group of documents, or rather, of one particular manuscript,(namely [pg x] the Vatican Codex b, which, for some unexplained reason, it is just now the fashion to regard with superstitious deference,)is the reverse of trustworthy. Nothing in fact but a considerable Treatise will ever effectually break the yoke of that iron tyranny to which the excellent Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol and his colleagues have recently bowed their necks; and are now for imposing on all English-speaking men. In brief, if I were not, on the one hand, thoroughly convinced of the strength of my position,(and I know it to be absolutely impregnable);yet more, if on the other hand, I did not cherish entire confidence in the practical good sense and fairness of the English mind;I could not have brought myself to come before the public in the unsystematic way which alone is possible in the pages of a Review. I must have waited, at all hazards, till I had finished my Book. But then, delay would have been fatal. I saw plainly that unless a sharp blow was delivered immediately, the Citadel would be in the enemy's hands. I knew also that it was just possible to condense into 60 or 70 closely-printed pages what must logically prove fatal to the Revision. So I set to work; and during the long summer days of 1881 (June to September) the foremost of these three Articles was elaborated. When the October number of the Quarterly appeared, I comforted myself with the secret consciousness that enough was by this time on record, even had my life been suddenly brought to a close, to secure the ultimate rejection of the Revision of 1881. I knew that the New Greek Text, (and therefore the New English Version), [pg xi] had received its death-blow. It might for a few years drag out a maimed existence; eagerly defended by some,timidly pleaded for by others. But such efforts could be of no avail. Its days were already numbered. The effect of more and yet more learned investigation,of more elaborate and more extended inquiry,must be to convince mankind more and yet more thoroughly that the principles on which it had been constructed were radically unsound. In the end, when partisanship had cooled down, and passion had evaporated, and prejudice had ceased to find an auditory, the Revision of 1881 must come to be universally regarded aswhat it most certainly is,the most astonishing, as well as the most calamitous literary blunder of the Age. I. I pointed out that the New Greek Text,which, in defiance of their instructions,1 the Revisionists of the Authorized English Version had been so ill-advised as to spend ten years in elaborating,was a wholly untrustworthy performance: was full of the gravest errors from beginning to end: had been constructed throughout on an entirely mistaken Theory. Availing myself of the published confession of one of the Revisionists,2 I explained the nature of the calamity which had befallen the Revision. I traced the mischief home to its true authors,Drs. Westcott and Hort; a copy of whose unpublished Text of the N. T. (the most vicious in existence) had been confidentially, and under pledges of the strictest secrecy, placed in the hands of every [pg xii] member of the revising Body.3 I called attention to the fact that, unacquainted with the difficult and delicate science of Textual Criticism, the Revisionists had, in an evil hour, surrendered themselves to Dr. Hort's guidance: had preferred his counsels to those of Prebendary Scrivener, (an infinitely more trustworthy guide): and that the work before the public was the piteousbut inevitableresult. All this I explained in the October number of the Quarterly Review for 1881.4 ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 36722
Author: Burgon, John William
Release Date: Jul 13, 2011
Format: eBook
Language: English