Where did Westcott and Hort find the ideas they had that was behind their negativism to the Textus Receptus and Jesus?
Westcott was a teacher and would have studied the trends in theology which were led by people who did not believe The Bible in a traditional sense and applied their new theories about it to their doctrinal approach to its interpretation. He was the teacher of Hort, who embraced Westcott's attitudes to The Textus Receptus and Jesus.
If Westcott had believed in God He would have listened to The Holy Spirit and not taught these things. If Hort had listened to The Holy Spirit he would not have accepted the teachings of Westcott.
The fact they ignored The Holy Spirit and followed their own imaginations and reasonings shows that their New Greek text, based on their belief system, could not be from God or they would have followed orthodox Christianity and not tried to replace it with heresy. Once you move away from that which is correct and accepted as truth you can only head in the direction of error and heresy, which these two people did.
When heresy has been accepted as truth for a period of time it becomes the truth and the orthodoxy it broke away from then becomes the error, which is why it is so hard to convince scholars of the errors of the New Greek as they now believe it is the truth and orthodox Christianity is the error..
A timeline of events leading to the New Greek text and some comments to show their attitude towards it
1825 Jan. 12th - Brooke Foss Westcott born at Birmingham.
1828 Apr. 23rd - Fenton John Anthony Hort born at Dublin.
1851 Dec. 21st - Westcott ordained "priest" in Church of England. All that follows before 1851 is from a period when they were not trained in theology by the orthodox church so were building their own theology from their imaginations and not from what was taught in bible colleges and similar.
As youth they embraced ideas and thought they were wise and able to judge what they had embraced when in fact they were not, being only young men with all the inexperience and lack of knowledge youth usually has when it judges things.
1846 Oct. 25th - Westcott: "Do you not understand the meaning of Theological 'Development'? It is briefly this, that in an early time some doctrine is proposed in a simple or obscure form, or even but darkly hinted at, which in succeeding ages,as the wants of men's minds grow, grows with them - in fact, that Christianity is always progressive in its principles and doctrines" (Life, Vol.I, p.78).
In other words Christianity evolves like evolution, growing from what man understands it to be as their understanding (reason) about it becomes greater and not from what The Bible says it should be.
1846 Dec. 23rd - Westcott: "My faith is still wavering. I cannot determine how much we must believe; how much, in fact, is necessarily required of a member of the Church." (Life, Vol.I, p.46).
They were questioning what is to be believed and not accepting what The Bible says we should believe.
1847 Jan., 2nd Sunday after Epiphany - Westcott: "After leaving the monastery we shaped our course to a little oratory...It is very small, with one kneeling-place; and behind a screen was a 'Pieta' the size of life (i.e. statue a Virgin and dead Christ)...I could not help thinking on the grandeur of the Romish Church, on her zeal even in error, on her earnestness and self-devotion, which we might, with nobler views and a purer end, strive to imitate. Had I been alone I could have knelt there for hours." (Life, Vol.I, p.81).
They did not worship Jesus solely and seemed to worship Mary more than Him. In other word they were idolaters and not Christians, followers of Mary and not Jesus. This is probably why the divinit of Jesus is attacked so that He was born like a normal person and was just a person like Mary was and not someone special.
1848 July 6th - Hort: "One of the things, I think, which shows the falsity of the Evangelical notion of this subject (baptism), is that it is so trim and precise...no deep spiritual truths of the Reason are thus logically harmonious and systematic...the pure Romish view seems to me nearer, and more likely to lead to, the truth than the Evangelical...the fanaticism of the bibliolaters, [Hort mocks those who believe the bible] ...still we dare not forsake the Sacraments, or God will forsake us...I am inclined to think that no such state as 'Eden' (I mean the popular notion) ever existed, and that Adam's fall in no degree differed from the fall of each of his descendants" (Life, Vol.I, pp.76-78).
They believed that some of t he doctrines of the Catholic church, even though not Biblical, were very important and so showed they considered The BIble was not as important as doctrine man had made.
July 31st - Hort: "I spoke of the gloomy prospect, should the Evangelicals carry on their present victory so as to alter the Services." (Life, Vol.I, p.160).
They questioned the doctrine and practice of the Anglican church and so showed they were not true followers of its articles of faith.
1851 Dec. 21st - Westcott ordained "priest" in Church of England.
1851 : Hort turns 23 and declares the Received Text to be Vile and Villainous though he read very little of it. It can be seen the undisciplined, foolishness, impetuousness and self-belief of youth leads him away from the truth as shown by his criticism of the Greek Text (Textus Receptus) when he knew little about I and had hardly studied it. IT did not suit his belief system or he would have studied and read it. Instead he wanted to replace it with a text more suited to his beliefs. As a result we have a New Greek text based on his perception of what it should say and not what he rejected it saying.
This is why the New Greek has the equivalent of two books of The Bible deleted and is 20% different to the Textus Receptus as this is how much he and Westcott had to alter it to make it say what he and Westcott believed.
In a private letter dated 1851, Mr. Hort betrayed his hatred toward the revered Textus Receptus when he wrote:
" I had no idea until the last few weeks of the importance of texts having read so little Greek Testament and dragged on with the villainous Textus Receptus. Think of that vile Textus Receptus leaning entirely on late manuscripts."
Thus at only twenty-three years of age and having admitted to reading little of the Greek Testament, Hort concluded that the Textus Receptus was "vile" and "villainous and that its manuscripts were late and so did not reflect the original manuscripts.
1851 Feb. 7th - Hort: "Westcott is just coming out with his Norrisian on 'The Elements of the Gospel Harmony.' I have seen the first sheet on Inspiration, which is a wonderful step in advance of common orthodox heresy." (Life, Vol.I, p.181).
It can be seen they embraced that which lead to heresy when it suited them. They had to have the Bible declared uninspired so that they could make the changes to it that they wanted to make.
1851 Dec. 29,30th - Hort: "I had no idea till the last few weeks of the importance of texts, having read so little Greek Testament, and dragged on with the villainous Textus Receptus.. Think of that vile Textus Receptus leaning entirely on late MSS.; it is a blessing there are such early ones" (Life, Vol.I, p.211)
They realise they need to find a text that backs up their heresies or they could not succeed in their 'improvements' to the Textus Receptus and rep[lace I t. This is why so much fuss was made about the two texts they chose which had been rejected by orthodox Christianity because they appeared to be older than the Textus Receptus line of manuscripts so could claim authority over them as being the manuscripts to follow as they were older than those of the Textus Receptus. IT also explains the theories they made up to discredit and manuscripts of the Textus Receptus line.
They could not have the Textus Receptus be older than their Vaticanus and Siniaticus or the basis of their rewriting the Greek to give us their New Greek text could not be justified.
1853 : Jan.-Mar. - Westcott and Hort agree upon a plan of a revision of the text of the Greek Testament.
Apr. 19th - Hort: "He (Westcott) and I are going to edit a Greek text of the New Testament some two or three years hence, if possible." (Life, Vol.I, p.250).
June - Commercial publisher, Mr. Daniel Macmillan suggests to Hort that he should take part in an "interesting and comprehensive New Testament Scheme." Hort was to edit the text in conjunction with Mr. Westcott; the latter was to be responsible for a commentary, and Lightfoot was to contribute a N.T. Grammar and Lexicon. (Life, Vol.I, pp.240,241). When complete the sell 2 million copies in just a few days.
Note that money was the incentive for the writing of the New Greek and is a major incentive behind the publication of most New Versions which is why they are copyright.
The publishers of the NIV had 100000 Bibles that had been printed and sent to Japan for missionary and similar work destroyed because ti breached copyright and no royalties had been paid. They stopped over 100000 people receiving a bible and thwarted the work of Christ. To them money was more important than the work of Christ which is why they also have the copyright to the Satanic Bible and publish both.
It is worrying when Mammon (the god of money and wealth) controls the distribution and printing of Bibles.
Sept. 29th - Westcott to Hort: "As to our proposed recension of the New Testament text, our object would be, I suppose, to prepare a text for common and general use...With such an end in view, would it not be best to introduce only certain emendations into the received text, and to note in the margin such as seem likely or noticeable - after Griesbach's manner?...I feel most keenly the disgrace of circulating what I feel to be falsified copies of Holy Scripture (a reference to the A.V.?), and am most anxious to provide something to replace them. This cannot be any text resting solely on our own judgment, even if we were not too inexperienced to make one; but it must be supported by a clear and obvious preponderance of evidence. The margin wiil give ample scope for our own ingenuity or principles...my wish would be to leave the popular received text except where it is clearly wrong." (Life, Vol.I, pp.228,229).-
- Nov. 4th - Hort: "I went down and spent a Sunday with Westcott...We came to a distinct and positive understanding about our Gk. Test. and the details thereof. We still do not wish it to be talked about, but are going to work at once" (Life, Vol.I, p.264).
They worked out they had to change the Greek text in a way it did not appear to have been changed or was changed because scholarship[ said it was better than what the Textus Receptus said. If they were not able to do this then their text would be rejected.
Fortunately for them there were sufficient people who were duped into believing was better doctrinally or who believed what it said doctrinally for their New Greek text to be accepted as being better than the Textus Receptus.
Westcott and Hort start work on their Greek text.
1856 Feb. ? - Hort ordained "priest" in Church of England.
First efforts to secure revision of the Authorized Version by five Church of England clergymen fails.
1858: Oct. 21st - Hort: "The principle literary work of these years was the revision of the Greek Text of the New Testament. All spare hours were devoted to it." (Life, Vol.I, p.399).
They were working on their heretical text 23 years before they presented it to the Revision committee which shows how prepared they had been to substitute their Greek for the Textus Receptus.
1858 Oct. 21st Hort: "Further I agree with them in condemning many leading specific doctrines of the popular theology as, to say the least, containing much superstition and immorality of a very pernmicious kind. : The positive doctrines even of the Evangelicals seem to me perverted rather than untrue...There are, I fear, still more serious differences between us on the subject of authority, and especially the authority of the Bible" (Life, Vol.I, p.400).
So 23 y ears before they had a chance to publish their rejection of orthodox Christianity they were already criticizing it and trying to find ways to replace it. All done in relative secrecy so that no one would know what they were doing and so could not expose them. The works of God are not done in darkness or hid away from that which could expose it and is shown that God could not behind the New Greek text or God would have allowed all to see it being formed so it could be correctly revised.
Aug. 11th - Westcott: "I never read an account of a miracle (in Scripture?) but I seem instinctively to feel its improbability, and discover some want of evidence in the account of it." (Life, Vol.I, p.52).
They did not believe in a powerful God or one th at was involved in the affairs of man because they reject His ability to do miracles or be involved in the interaction God had with a person for them to occur and be visible to humanity.
1860 May 1st - Hort to Lightfoot: "If you make a decided conviction of the absolute infallibility of the N.T. practically a sine qua non for co-operation, I fear I could not join you, even if you were willing to forget your fears about the origin of the Gospels." (Life, Vol. I, p.420).
May 5th - Westcott to Hort: "at present I find the presumption in favour of the absolute truth - I reject the word infallibility - of Holy Scripture overwhelming." (Life, Vol.I, p.207).
They did not believe in the infallibility of scripture for if they did they could not justify their new Greek text.
It can be seen how one error led to so many others, all necessary for them to be able to justify their belief system.
May 4th - Hort to Lightfoot: "I am also glad that you take the same provisional ground as to infallibility that I do." (Life, Vol.I, p.424).
They gathered around them people with the same view point so they could justify they were correct because others believed as t hey did.
May 18th - Hort to Lightfoot: "It sounds an arrogant thing to say, but there are very many cases in which I would not admit the competence of any one to judge a decision of mine on a textual matter, who was only an amateur, and had not some considerable experience in forming a text." (Life, Vol.I, p.425).
They could not accept they were wrong as if their self-esteem was based on making this New Greek Text and they could not afford to admit error as it would be threatened.
1860 Apr. 3rd - Hort: "But the book which has most engaged me is Darwin. Whatever may be thought of it, it is a book that one is proud to be contemporary with. I must work out and examine the argument in more detail, but at present my feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable." (Life, Vol.I, p.416).
They were caught up in the spirit of the age which questioned The Bible as being accurate and promoted Darwin's work which called into question God and creation. This alone shows they had in incorrect perspective of whom God was and of His workings and so naturally would write erroneous things having examined God from a man's perspective and not from a Biblical one.
15th - Hort: "I entirely agree - correcting one word - with what you there say on the Atonement, having for many years believed that "the absolute union of the Christian (or rather, of man) with Christ Himself" is the spiritual truth of which the popular doctrine of substitution is an immoral and material counterfeit...Certainly nothing can be more unscriptural than the modern limiting of Christ's bearing our sins and sufferings to His death; but indeed that is only one aspect of an almost universal heresy." (Life, Vol.I, p.430).
Having decided Christ was not divine they then started to attack His work of which Atonement was the principle one. This was continued throughout their whole New Greek text causing one person to ask w hat the NIV had against Jesus.
1861: Apr. 12th - Hort to Westcott: "Also - but this may be cowardice - I have a sort of craving that our text should be cast upon the world before we deal with matters likely to brand us with suspicion. I mean, a text, issued by men already known for what will undoubtedly be treated as dangerous heresy, will have great difficulties in finding its way to regions which it might otherwise hope to reach, and whence it would not be easily banished by subsequent alarms." (Life, Vol.I, p.445).
They wanted to have their heretical transition placed on the world before anyone was able to criticize it so published their Bible and released the Greek text they used to translate it a month after it was published so that no one could criticize it textually before ti was placed amongst Christians.
1862: Apr. 30th, May 1st - Hort: "It seems to be clearly and broadly directed to maintaining that the English clergy are not compelled to maintain the absolute infallibility of the Bible. And, whatever the truth may be, this seems just the liberty required at the present moment, if any living belief is to survive in the land." (Life, Vol.I, p.454).
They interpreted things as they wanted too and not as they actually were. They ignored the beliefs of their faith for their own belief system.
1864 Sept. 23rd - Hort: "I believe Coleridge was quite right in saying that Christianity without a substantial Church is vanity and dissolution; and I remember shocking you and Lightfoot not so very long ago by expressing a belief that 'Protestantism' is only parenthetical and temporary. In short, the Irvingite creed (minus the belief in the superior claims of the Irvingite communion) seems to me unassailable in things ecclesiastical." (Life, Vol.II, p.30,31).
A church system is necessary to justify a faith and it is sad they could use the Anglican church to do this for them.
1865 Sept. 27th - Westcott: "I have been trying to recall my impressions of La Salette (a shrine of Mary). I wish I could see to what forgotten truth Mariolatry bears witness"
1865 Nov. 17th - Westcott: "As far as I could judge, the 'idea' of La Salette was that of God revealing Himself now, and not in one form but in many." (Life, Vol.I. pp.251,252).
1865 Oct. 17th - Hort: "I have been persuaded for many years that Mary-worship and 'Jesus'-worship have very much in common in their causes and their results." (Life, Vol.II, p.50).
They worshipped another God than Jesus. What more could be said about their faith in Jesus that He was replaced by Mary in their affections. There are no similar comments I know of with similar affection for Jesus as they showed for Mary.
1867 Oct. 17th - Hort: "I wish we were more agreed on the doctrinal part; but you know I am a staunch sacerdotalist, and there is not much profit in arguing about first principles." (Life, Vol.II, p.86).
They believed in the necessity of sacraments which are man's interpretation of events as well as things man has imagined which are necessary for salvation that are not scriptural.
1870: Westcott and Hort print tentative edition of their Greek N.T. for private distribution only. (This they later circulated under pledge of secrecy within the company of N.T. revisers, of which they were members).
They were afraid people would find out about and stop them using it for their New Greek.
Feb. 10th - Southern Convocation of Church of England resolves that it is desirable to make slight revisions of the Authorized Version. Northern Convocation declines to cooperate.
May - Committee of 18 elected to produce a Revised Version.
The 7 members of the N.T. Committee invite 18 others, making 25.
-May 29th - Westcott to Hort: "though I think that Convocation is not competent to initiate such a measure, yet I feel that as 'we three' are together it would be wrong not to 'make the best of it' as Lightfoot says. Indeed, there is a very fair prospect of good work, though neither with this body nor with any body likely to be formed now could a complete textual revision be possible. There is some hope that alternative readings might find a place in the margin." (Life, Vol.I, p.390).
Westcott and Hort see a chance to introduce their heretical Greek text into mainstream theology using the revision of the King James and breaking nearly every important guideline they were given. This rebellion against the spiritual authority over them shows Satan was behind it and not God who had appointed the spiritual authority over the men.
The guidelines were as follows:
Both Committees on both branches of the work adopted at the outset a code of principles upon which the work should proceed. These principles were as follows:
Note they brokeguidelines1, 3 and 4 and were able to control the voting through selecting who was on the committee so that guidelines 5-7 were irrelevant to an correct editing of the Greek text. This is why they could substitute their own text for that of the Textus Receptus.
-June 4th - Westcott to Lightfoot: "Ought we not to have a conference before the first meeting for Revision? There are many points on which it is important that we should agreed. The rules though liberal are vague, and the interpretation of them will depend upon decided action at first." (Life, Vol.I, p.391).
Why did they need to meet before the revision committee met? So they could plan how to use their text instead of the Textus Receptus and substitute it for the Textus Receptus..
-July 1st - Westcott to Hort: "The Revision on the whole surprised me by prospects of hope. I suggested to Ellicott a plan of tabulating and circulating emendations before our meeting, which may prove valuable." (Life, Vol.I, pp.392,393).
-July 7th - Hort: "Dr. Westcott and myself have for above seventeen years been preparing a Greek text of the New -Testament. It has been in the press for some years, and we hope to have it out early next year." (Life, Vol.II, p.137).
-Aug. ? - Hort to Lightfoot: "It is, I think, difficult to measure the weight of acceptance won beforehand for the Revision by the single fact of our welcoming an Unitarian, if only the Company perseveres in its present serious and faithful spirit." (Life, Vol.II, p.140). (Dr. G. Vance Smith, a Unitarian scholar, was a member of the Revision Committee. At Westcott's suggestion, a celebration of Holy Communion was held on June 22nd before the first meeting of the N.T. Revision Company. Dr. Smith communicated but said afterwards that he did not join in reciting the Nicene Creed and did not compromise his principles as a Unitarian. The storm of public indignation which followed almost wrecked the Revision at the outset. At length however Dr. Smith remained on the Committee).
It can be seen how far away they were from accepting Jesus as Divine and God when they allow a Unitarian to have input into the New Greek text and the Bible they translated from it. This alone means Jesus would not be treated as divine.
Year? - Hort wrote to Williams: “The errors and prejudices, which we agree in wishing to remove, can surely be more wholesomely and also more effectually reached by individual efforts of an indirect kind than by combined open assault. At present very many orthodox but rational men are being unawares acted on by influences which will assuredly bear good fruit in due time, (Occult Assistance?) if the process is allowed to go on quietly; and I cannot help fearing that a premature crisis would frighten back many into the merest traditionalism” (Hort, Life of Hort, I:400).
The only voice defending the Textus Receptus was Dr Scrivener, probably the foremost scholar of the day in the manuscripts of the Greek New Testament and the history of the Text. But he was systematically outvoted by the Cambridge trio and out-done by Hort’s powerful debating skill. When the revision was completed, they had altered the Greek Text in 5337 places, thus violating the original rule that had been set for the committee of not altering the Greek Text unless absolutely necessary to do so.
1881: Bishop Ellicott submits the Revised Version to the Southern Convocation.
-May 12th - Westcott and Hort's "The New Testament in the Original Greek" Vol. I published (Text and short Introduction).
-May 17th - the Revised Version is published in England, selling two million copies within four days. It fails however to gain lasting popular appeal.
In fact parliament and THe Queen refused to sanction it and many people rejected it so it may have sold 2 million copies but then its true nature was found and people did not accept it.
-Sept. 4th - Westcott and Hort's "The New Testament in the Original Greek" Vol.II published (Introduction and Appendix).Oct. - first of Dean Burgon's three articles in the Quarterly Review against the Revised Version appears.
Note the criticism started on their work almost as soon as it was published.
1882 May - Ellicott publishes pamphlet in reply to Burgon, defending the Westcott and Hort Greek text.
1883 Burgon publishes The Revision Revised, including a reply to Ellicott.
1890 May 1st - Westcott consecrated Bishop of Durham.
1890 Mar. 4th - Westcott: "No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of Genesis, for example, give a literal history - I could never understand how any one reading them with open eyes could think they did - yet they disclose to us a Gospel. So it is probably elsewhere."
It can be seen that the two men thought the Bible was full of fairy tales (Mythology and did not believe in the fall and the need for Christ's atonement.
1892 Nov. 30th - death of Hort.
1901 July 27th - death of Westcott.
1908 The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia discusses the Westcott-Hort theory: "Conscious agreement with it or conscious disagreement and qualification mark all work in this field since 1881."
This is still almost literally true.
Unfortunately a scholarship has now grown up that believes the New Greek is the best and the Textus Receptus is full of errors so they see no need for many of the doctrines of the Textus Receptus and maintain the errors of over 350 doctrines that Westcott and Hort introduced in to their New Greek.
All the logic and ability in the world cannot overcome a faulty premise, since premise alone can render the most sound arguments and logical construction of textual theories false. And of course, premises are related to, or are revealed by a person's character and practices.
Occult Involvement
The fact they consulted or tried to consul demons showed how much Satan was in control of them and their work.
Westcott and Hort founded several occult societies, two of which were The Hermes Club and The Ghostly Guild. These were not merely school-boy projects. They were created at one of the highest learning institutions in the world's largest imperial world-power at that time - Great Britain. Members of these clubs and the occult associations that they went on to found, such as The Society for Psychical Research started the modern New Age movement, became and were prominent members of British Royalty and politics, as well as occupied the highest positions in the Anglican Church including that which is equilavent to that of the Pope in the RCC, the Archbishop of Canterbury. To say that Westcott and Hort were well connected is an understatement.
In a letter to his wife, 23 Oct 1864, Hort wrote (then age 36) :
"We had a pleasant evening, six of Westcott's Sixth Form boys dining with us .... Then we worked till near dinner, when we had a very nice little party, the two De Morgans, H. M. Butler, Farrar, Brady and his mother, and H. W. Watson. Mrs. Brady ... came in the evening. We tried to turn tables, but the creatures wouldn't stir. Both the De Morgans were radiant and pleasant."
The phrase "we tried to turn tables" is a direct reference to an occult seance and "the creatures" that "wouldn't stir" is a clear reference to the spirits that Hort and his guests were invoking to establish communication with. Westcott and Hort were accomplished practicers of the occult.
These statements are immediately prior to and even during the work of the King James Version revision committee commissioned in 1870 by the Anglican church that culminated in the release of the revised master greek text of 1881. However, we know that Wescott and Hort were secretly working on their revised greek text since at least as early as 1853 - 1857:
"The principle literary work of these years was the revision of the Greek Text of the New Testament. All spare hours were devoted to it." (Life, Vol.I, p.399). 1858: Oct. 21st - Hort
Wescott and Hort were Occult practictioners during the time that they were revising the Greek Text of the New Testament which shows God was not in charge of this work and that Satan was its main influence.
So Satan was at last able to stop the effect of the King James Bible and replace it with one he sanctioned and organised and which has led to the decline of Christianity and to a new God that is not the God of the Authorized Bible but one that allows new age activities in the church and loose morals in society and even in some churches where sexual immorality is praised as being from God.
Quotes Regarding Belief and Doctrine
Philo of Alexandria would have been proud of Westcott and Hort's allegorizing, spiritualizing, and pontificating. For the rest of us, who just want to read God's Word instead of intellectual balderdash.; I say thank the Lord for the internet so that these two elitest cancers can finally be radiated with light.
I conclude with this summary by Barbara Aho:
The New Testament Scheme
The progenitor of the Society for Psychical Research and the Fabian Society was the Cambridge University Ghost Society, founded in 1851. In 1853, two years after founding said Ghost Society, F.J.A. Hort and B. F. Westcott agreed, upon the suggestion of publisher Daniel Macmillan, to take part in "an interesting and comprehensive 'New Testament Scheme,'" that is, to undertake a joint revision of the Greek New Testament. (72) The project was withheld from public knowledge during the twenty years required by Westcott and Hort to complete the New Greek Text and during the subsequent ten years during which an English Revision Committee revised the 1611 Authorized Version. However, during this period of nearly thirty years, Drs. Westcott and Hort maintained their involvement in the Spiritualist pursuits of their various secret societies and political cabals: the Hermes Club, Ghost Society, Company of Apostles, and Eranus. The following entry appears in April, 1853 in The Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort:
"One result of our talk I may as well tell you. He (Westcott) and I are going to edit a Greek text of the New Testament some two or three years hence, if possible. Lachmann and Tischendorf will supply rich materials, but not nearly enough; and we hope to do a good deal with Oriental versions. Our object is to supply clergymen generally, schools, etc., with a portable Greek text which shall not be disfigured with Byzantine corruptions." (Italics in original) (73)
The elimination of "Byzantine corruptions" would be the substitution of minority (1%) Alexandrian manuscripts for the Textus Receptus, the Received Text which had been recognized for nearly two millennia of church history and which agrees with the majority (99%) of manuscripts extant. (74) Karl Lachmann (1793-1851) was professor of Classical and German Philology in Berlin, and also a German rationalist and textual critic who produced modern editions of the New Testament in Germany in 1842 and 1850. David Cloud expounds:
"(Lachmann) began to apply to the New Testament Greek text the same rules that he had used in editing texts of the Greek classics, which had been radically altered over the years… Lachmann had set up a series of several presuppositions and rules which he used for arriving at the original text of the Greek classics… He now began with these same presuppositions and rules to correct the New Testament which he also presupposed was hopelessly corrupted." (75)
Lachmann furnished the critical authority for Drs. Westcott and Hort in their formulation of a method of Textual Criticism, known as the Westcott and Hort Textual Theory. They hypothesized that that the original New Testament text had survived in near perfect condition in two manuscripts other than the Received Greek Text, which theory according to translators of the New King James Bible, "has since been discredited for lack of historical evidence." (76) In The Revision Revised, the brilliant textual scholar Dean John William Burgon refuted the claims of the Westcott-Hort Theory as:
"…the latest outcome of that violent recoil from the Traditional Greek Text, -- that strange impatience of its authority, or rather denial that it possesses any authority at all, -- which began with Lachmann just 50 years ago (viz. In 1831), and has prevailed ever since; its most conspicuous promoters being Tregelles (1857-72) and Tischendorf (1865-72) . . . Drs. Westcott and Hort have in fact outstripped their predecessors in this singular race. Their absolute contempt for the Traditional Text, -- their superstitious veneration for a few ancient documents; (which documents however they freely confess are not more ancient than the 'Traditional Text' which they despise;) -- knows no bounds." (77)
Dr. Hort had, in fact, repudiated the authority of Scripture, writing to a Rev. Rowland Williams in 1858, "There are, I fear still more serious differences between us on the subject of authority and especially the authority of the Bible." (78) To B.F. Westcott he wrote in 1860, "But I am not able to go as far as you in asserting the infallibility of a canonical writing." (79) In response to this admission of a heretical position, Westcott wrote:
"For I too 'must disclaim settling for infallibility.' In the front of my convictions all I hold is the more I learn, the more I am convinced that fresh doubts come from my own ignorance, and that at present I find the presumption in favor of the absolute truth -- I reject the word infallibility -- of Holy Scripture overwhelming." (80)
Constantin Tischendorf (1815-74) was a German textual editor whom Dr. Frederick Scrivener of the English Revision Committee ranked "the first Bible critic in Europe." Tischendorf traveled extensively in search of ancient documents and was responsible for finding the two manuscripts most relied upon in the Westcott-Hort Greek Text, the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Tischendorf discovered (c. A.D. 1844) the Vaticanus B manuscript in the Vatican Library and Sinaiticus Aleph in a waste basket in a Catholic Convent at the base of Mt. Sinai. (81) In The Revision Revised, Dean Burgon described for his English readers the corrupt character of the manuscripts primarily used by Westcott and Hort, not to revise the Textus Receptus, but to create an altogether new Greek Text.
"It matters nothing that all four are discovered on careful scrutiny to differ essentially, not only from ninety-nine out of a hundred of the whole body of extant MSS, besides, but even from one another. This last circumstance, obviously fatal to their corporate pretensions, is unaccountably overlooked. And yet it admits of only one satisfactory explanation: viz. That in different degrees they all five exhibit a fabricated text. . .We venture to assure [the reader] without a particle of hesitation, that Aleph, B, D, are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies extant: -- exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with: -- have become, by whatever process (for their history is wholly unknown), the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional perversions of Truth, -- which are discoverable in any known copies of the Word of God." (82)
The manuscripts in question were found to derive from an underground of occult scripture within Christendom that has been passed through successive generations since the apostolic era. As the occult Traditions have sought to infiltrate and transform the secular establishment, the Church has historically been attended by an Alexandrian Tradition, which seeks to smuggle Gnostic doctrines into the Sacred Canon via the "revision" or "correction" of Scripture. Bible scholar, Dr. Herman Hoskier parallels the folly of Israel returning to Egypt to the Anglican scribes searching for inspired writings in the ancient house of bondage:
"Nearly all revision appears to center in Egypt, and to suppose all the other documents wrong when opposed to these Egyptian documents is unsound and unscientific . . . those who accept the Westcott and Hort text are basing their accusations of untruth as to the Gospellists upon an Egyptian revision current 200 to 450 A.D. and abandoned between 500 to 1881, merely revived in our day and stamped as genuine." (83)
In light of the preceding, it seems particularly fitting that the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses, in his haste to accept the Wescott and Hort bible revisions, be buried under an Egyptian pyramid.