following is a continuing post from the Book "Which Version is the
Bible" by Floyd Nolen Jones. Chapter 6, pages 75-82
Which Version is the Bible?
Copyright 1995 · Floyd Jones Ministries, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. This book may be freely reproduced in any form as long
as it is not distributed for any material gain or profit

Continued

merely stating dogmatically that no inversions existed. These men had
prepared for so long and delivered their conclusions and conjectures with
such vigor and authority, that their views were accepted by most without
reservation or challenge. Yet little actual documentation was presented to
support the theory.

The Letters of the "Fathers" - External and Internal Evidence As further
"proof" that the Textus Receptus was inferior, Hort contended that the
readings characteristic of the Syrian text did not occur in the early church
fathers' writings prior to A.D. 350. W-H claimed that Chrysostom (died c.407
A.D.) was the first "father" who habitually used the Syrian. This was the
keystone in their theory - the crucial external evidence. It was decisive
for it apparently confirmed and supported the "no inversion" pillar.

Next Westcott and Hort devised two criteria of internal evidence as
additional supports for their theory. They called one such prop "intrinsic
probability" and the other "transcriptual probability".

Intrinsic probability was author oriented. In other words, which readings
make the best sense, fit the context best? What reading was that which the
New Testament writer most probably would have written? The extremely
subjective nature of such a technique is obvious even to the non-textual
critic for this attributes ability to the critic's intellect beyond that
which is credible!

Transcriptual probability was scribe or copyist oriented. Which readings,
out of two or more probabilities, would most probably account for the origin
of the other readings in successive stages of copying? This, of course, was
based on the genealogical presumption (the family tree of mss) and held that
no malice had taken place - aside from inadvertent mistakes.

However, these two internal evidences, transcriptual and intrinsic
probabilities, often cancel each other due to their highly subjective
natures. The mind of the critic thus becomes the final judge.

Having already declared that any deliberate changes were not done for
doctrinal purposes, the question arises as to how Westcott and Hort knew
this. Aside from inadvertent copying mistakes, the presumed deliberate
changes gave rise to two textual canons.

The first canon was "the shorter reading is preferred". This was based on an
assumed propensity of scribes to add to the text. However, A.C. Clarke,
Professor of Latin at Oxford, showed in a study of classical text that
scribes were most prone to accidentally omit rather than add (Pickering p.
80). Once conflation had been accepted as factual, this canon became
necessary and natural in order to disallow the longer, fuller Syrian (TR)
readings.

The second canon was that "the harder reading is to be preferred." Thus, if
there existed five or six variant readings of a text, the harder reading was
presumed to be the correct one. This was based on the assumed propensity of
the scribes to simplify a difficult text. But such is highly conjectural!
Where is the proof? None was ever offered. Hort then declared the Syrian
text to be longer and more simple, thus eliminating that text from
consideration - thereby winning the day!

Albeit, Hort's problem was not yet totally solved. He had to explain how
this Syrian (Byzantine - Textus Receptus) text came into being in the first
place, and then explain how it came to dominate the field from the fifth
century unto the present. Why did this so-called "inferior" text totally
dominate in number such that nearly all of the extant Greek mss, about 95%,
contain the same text?

The "Early Revision"

Hort's solution was an organized ecclesiastical revision performed by
editors and not merely by scribes. In other words, Hort proposed that in the
early church of the third and fourth century, the Alexandrian, Neutral, and
Western translations were competing with each other for acceptance. Hort
promulgated the theory that an official text had been created by the church
with ecclesiastical backing for the purpose of resolving the conflict, it
having been completed by the middle of the fourth century (c.350 A.D.).

Westcott and Hort theorized that this text was a deliberate creation by
scholarly Christians for the purpose of producing a text in which the
readings reflected a compromise to end the turmoil over which of the three
competing texts should be accepted as authoritative. They proposed that the
Traditional Text was the product of an "official revision" (or "recension")
of the New Testament which supposedly took place at Antioch in two stages
between 250 and 350 A.D. Thus their theory was that the T.T. had
ecclesiastical backing for the purpose of constructing a text on which all
could agree, and that it was because of this official backing that it
overcame all rival texts and ultimately became the standard New Testament of
the Greek Church. Hort portrayed Lucian (Bishop of Antioch, died 311 A.D.)
as its probable initiator and overseer.

Thus Westcott and Hort advanced that it was the Christians themselves who
deliberately altered the Biblical text! This vacuous and specious proposal
borders on the preposterous for a genuine Christian would never do such a
wicked thing. Being believers in the infallibility of God's Word and in
God's promises to preserve that same Word, they would fear altering the Holy
Text believing literally that there is a curse from God on anyone who dares
to so do.

It is amazing that Westcott and Hort could seriously suggest that it was the
Christians who had deliberately altered the Scriptures instead of men like
Origen or Marcion who were gnostics or docetists and either did not believe
in the deity of Jesus or believed Him to have been a phantom. These were the
type of men who altered the Scriptures, not the Christians, for they
believed them to be true and God breathed. W-H would have us believe that
orthodox Christians corrupted the New Testament text; that the text type
used by the Protestant reformers was the most unreliable of all and that the
true text was not restored until the nineteenth century when it was brought
out of the Pope's library and rescued out of a waste basket at Mt. Sinai.
Modern textual critics would also have us believe, themselves being so
deluded and deceived, that Westcott and Hort were providentially guided to
construct a theory of the true text ignoring God's special providence and
treating the text of the New Testament as that of any other book. These
critics envision that the true text has been lost to the church for
centuries and that they themselves, as prophets, are engaged in the
monumental task of restoring the original readings - Westcott and Hort
having begun this undertaking by laying the foundation.

From:	admin
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1 A
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 2004 04:35:53 GMT

following is a continuing post from the Book "Which Version is the
Bible" by Floyd Nolen Jones. Chapter 6, pages 75-82
Which Version is the Bible?
Copyright 1995 · Floyd Jones Ministries, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. This book may be freely reproduced in any form as long
as it is not distributed for any material gain or profit

Genealogical Method

Hort's first step in solving the problem was to take the position that the
New Testament could be treated as any other book. In other words, that it
was not of a supernatural origin. This allowed the use of the genealogical
(family tree) method, developed by the students of the classics, to be
applied to the Greek manuscripts. Such a technique is only applicable if
there has been no deliberate altering of the text. However, as already
cited, Second Corinthians 2:17 tells us that the text was being altered even
as far back as the time of Paul. One of the great enemies of God, Marcion
the gnostic (fl. c.140 A.D.) deliberately altered, shortened and removed
from the mss to which he had access any Scripture which taught the deity of
Christ.

How did Hort deal with the problem of potential text tampering? He won the
day by simply authoritatively proclaiming that the text showed "no signs of
deliberate falsification ... for dogmatic (theological) purposes".
Amazingly, this brash misstatement of fact went practically unchallenged.

Let us examine how the genealogical method worked. Westcott and Hort applied
this technique in order to get to the place where the witness of one
manuscript could outweigh that of many. Beginning with the apostles'
autographs, i.e., the original copies of the New Testament written by the
apostles, let us suppose that two copies were produced from these originals
and identified as "Copy 1" and "Copy 2". If seven copies were made from Copy
2, they would represent the third generation (the apostles' autographs being
the first generation, Copies 1 and 2, the second). Now if Copy 2 were lost,
Copy 1 would "outweigh" the combined testimony of the seven copies which are
of the third generation because copy 1 was of the second generation, hence
nearer to the original reading. That would be true if malice had not entered
into the history of MS transmission, but once malice has entered, we cannot
know if someone has deliberately falsified Copy 1. Thus, one may no longer
assert that Copy 1 outweighs the seven copies of the third generation. This
method was used to justify the rejection of the majority text. It was W-H's
most invaluable tool. Its application enabled them to overthrow the
testimony of nearly 95% of the manuscripts.

Hort used this tool to reduce the manuscripts into four families (voices or
witnesses). These four families or voices Hort assigned the designations
"Neutral" (consisting primarily of Vaticanus B and Sinaiticus A),
"Alexandrian "Western" (or Roman) and "Syrian". He borrowed the idea from
Griesbach (1745-1812) who had previously worked along similar lines. Johann
Jakob Griesbach was a disciple of J.S. Semler (1725-1791). Both Semler and
Griesbach differed from Hort, concluding that there were only three
families.

As W/H read through the manuscripts, they would determine (often quite
subjectively) that a given ms read like the ones at Alexandria, Rome, or
those at Antioch (which are referred to as Syrian or Byzantine) whereas
others they deemed purely neutral (because they supposedly did not embellish
or "detract" concerning Jesus, i.e., Vaticanus or Sinaiticus). Reducing the
manuscripts into four families enabled them to lump large masses of the
extant manuscripts into only one voice or one witness. Next, Hort set about
to prove that the Syrian family was an inferior witness, even
inconsequential. How did he accomplish that goal - how did he "prove" that
all the Syrian manuscripts were unimportant Conflation Hort did so by his
second contrivance - his conflation theory. Once a manuscript had been
assigned to a family (or text type) on the basis of characteristic variants
(readings) which were shared in common, any manuscript which exhibited
readings of another family was declared to be "a mixture". "Conflation" was
supposed to be a special mixture - not merely the result of simple
substitutions of the reading of one document for another - but combinations
of both readings in order to form a composite whole. Thus the conflate
readings would always be longer. Logic demanded that a text with a conflate
reading had to be younger than the text which contained the various
components of the conflate reading. In other words, you had to have had
older pre-existing texts from which to make the combination reading - and if
they were older, they were judged to be more faithful to the original
writing.

Hort then offered eight examples of conflation where, by his interpretation,
the Syrian text had combined the Neutral and Western readings. Modern
textual critics reject Hort's "Neutral" family; hence they only recognize
three voices, saying that the Neutral and Alexandrian are the same. Thus to
the Modern, the Syrian text is not pure but a combination of the Alexandrian
and Western readings. The entire conflate theory is substantiated by only
eight readings taken from just two books of the twenty-seven in the New
Testament! This conflate theory has been proven false about fifteen times in
the past. The problem is that all the books proving it false are no longer
in print, it having been believed that the fallacious theory had once and
for all been laid to rest.

The eight passages offered as conflations are Mark 6:33, 8:26, 9:38, 9:49
and Luke 9:10, 11:54, 12:18 and 24:53. These pitiful few were all that they
could offer to prove their theory, yet there are 7,957 verses in the New
Testament! In other words, they could only detect eight verses out of almost
8,000 as proof to support their theory! Actually the entire concept of
putting the manuscripts into different families is artificial and synthetic.

It was essential in demonstrating the Syrian text to be a younger conflation
that no inversions be found - that is, where either the Neutral or Western
text contained a conflation of the other plus a Syrian reading. If
inversions existed, one would be unable to tell which reading was the
original. How did they so demonstrate? It was done by merely stating

"admin" wrote in message
news:Nh3md.27104$KJ6.15910@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...

From:	admin
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #4
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 2004 04:38:12 GMT

This is the end of this Chapter, Chapter 6

from the Book "Which Version is the
Bible" by Floyd Nolen Jones. Chapter 6, pages 75-82
Which Version is the Bible?
Copyright 1995 · Floyd Jones Ministries, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. This book may be freely reproduced in any form as
long
as it is not distributed for any material gain or profit

Thus we see that the modern designations delineated in the preceding
paragraphs can be and most often are just as subjective and non-scientific
as the former terms and techniques. Actually, these textual scholars
arrogate unto themselves (without any kind of ecclesiastical authorization)
the authority to make free choice among the variant readings as Colwell
attests: "in many cases solely on the basis of intrinsic probability. The
editor chooses that reading which commends itself to him as fitting the
context ... The weight of the manuscript is ignored. Its place in the
manuscript tradition is not considered." (author's emphasis)

But apart from divine revelation, what living man really possesses such
insight? As Pickering has observed - how can such rules be applied when
neither the identity nor the circumstances of the originator of a given
variant is known? Moreover, to base a final decision as to the true text
solely upon internal considerations is unreasonable, unacceptable, and
wrong. It ignores the massive external evidence of over 5,000 Greek MSS/mss
now extant as well as the testimony of the letters of the early Church
"Fathers" and the witness of the early versions. As there is no actual
history of the transmission of the text, the choice between variants
ultimately is reduced to conjecture and guesswork: "the editing of an
eclectic text rests upon conjectures". Yet incredulously, most scholars do
not practice pure eclecticism. Despite all their disclaimers, they still
work essentially within the W-H framework. This may be seen in that the two
most popular manual editions of the Greek N.T. in use today, Nestle-Aland26
and UBS3, vary but little from the W-H text (the same is true of the recent
versions, RSV etc.) - demonstrating that little "progress" has been made in
textual theory since W-HThe result of these efforts to "restore" the
readings to their pristine form has been mainly that of dismay. The project
is now viewed as impossible by nearly all modern critics (though
inexplicably the work continues). Typical acknowledgments to this effect by
foremost textual scholars are:

"In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort and of von Soden, we do not
know the original form of the Gospels, and it is quite likely that we never
shall."

"The primary goal of New Testament textual study remains the recovery of
what the New Testament writers wrote. We have already suggested that to
achieve this goal is well nigh impossible."

"it is generally recoginzed that the original text of the Bible cannot be
recovered."

"Great progress has been achieved in recovering an early form of text, but
it may be doubted that there is evidence of one original text to be
recovered."

"Each one of these critical texts differ quite markedly from all of the
others. This fact certainly suggests that it is very difficult, if not
impossible to recover the original text of the New Testament."

Thus all of these efforts over the past one hundred years have resulted in
maximum uncertainty as to the original reading of the New Testament text. By
stark contrast, that person who simply puts his/her faith in God's promise
to PRESERVE His Word concludes that God has done so and that it is to be
found in the vast majority of extant mss - and preserved in the English
language in the 1611 King James translation. This person is left with
maximum certainty, with peace of heart and peace of mind.

===Long quote snipped in order to post message. -- Mod.

From:	admin
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #4
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 2004 04:38:44 GMT

This is the end of this Chapter, Chapter 6

from the Book "Which Version is the
Bible" by Floyd Nolen Jones. Chapter 6, pages 75-82
Which Version is the Bible?
Copyright 1995 · Floyd Jones Ministries, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. This book may be freely reproduced in any form as
long
as it is not distributed for any material gain or profit

Thus we see that the modern designations delineated in the preceding
paragraphs can be and most often are just as subjective and non-scientific
as the former terms and techniques. Actually, these textual scholars
arrogate unto themselves (without any kind of ecclesiastical authorization)
the authority to make free choice among the variant readings as Colwell
attests: "in many cases solely on the basis of intrinsic probability. The
editor chooses that reading which commends itself to him as fitting the
context ... The weight of the manuscript is ignored. Its place in the
manuscript tradition is not considered." (author's emphasis)

But apart from divine revelation, what living man really possesses such
insight? As Pickering has observed - how can such rules be applied when
neither the identity nor the circumstances of the originator of a given
variant is known? Moreover, to base a final decision as to the true text
solely upon internal considerations is unreasonable, unacceptable, and
wrong. It ignores the massive external evidence of over 5,000 Greek MSS/mss
now extant as well as the testimony of the letters of the early Church
"Fathers" and the witness of the early versions. As there is no actual
history of the transmission of the text, the choice between variants
ultimately is reduced to conjecture and guesswork: "the editing of an
eclectic text rests upon conjectures". Yet incredulously, most scholars do
not practice pure eclecticism. Despite all their disclaimers, they still
work essentially within the W-H framework. This may be seen in that the two
most popular manual editions of the Greek N.T. in use today, Nestle-Aland26
and UBS3, vary but little from the W-H text (the same is true of the recent
versions, RSV etc.) - demonstrating that little "progress" has been made in
textual theory since W-HThe result of these efforts to "restore" the
readings to their pristine form has been mainly that of dismay. The project
is now viewed as impossible by nearly all modern critics (though
inexplicably the work continues). Typical acknowledgments to this effect by
foremost textual scholars are:

"In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort and of von Soden, we do not
know the original form of the Gospels, and it is quite likely that we never
shall."

"The primary goal of New Testament textual study remains the recovery of
what the New Testament writers wrote. We have already suggested that to
achieve this goal is well nigh impossible."

"it is generally recoginzed that the original text of the Bible cannot be
recovered."

"Great progress has been achieved in recovering an early form of text, but
it may be doubted that there is evidence of one original text to be
recovered."

"Each one of these critical texts differ quite markedly from all of the
others. This fact certainly suggests that it is very difficult, if not
impossible to recover the original text of the New Testament."

Thus all of these efforts over the past one hundred years have resulted in
maximum uncertainty as to the original reading of the New Testament text. By
stark contrast, that person who simply puts his/her faith in God's promise
to PRESERVE His Word concludes that God has done so and that it is to be
found in the vast majority of extant mss - and preserved in the English
language in the 1611 King James translation. This person is left with
maximum certainty, with peace of heart and peace of mind.

"admin" wrote in message
news:Nh3md.27104$KJ6.15910@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> following is a continuing post from the Book "Which Version is the
>

From:	admin
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 2004 04:35:38 GMT

VI. HOW HORT CONTROLLED AND SEDUCED THE 1881 COMMITTEE

HORT "INVENTS" A HISTORY OF THE BIBLICAL TEXT

Remember that Westcott and Hort joined this revision committee having worked
secretly for over twenty years preparing their own private New Testament.
Recall that they violated the charge which the church laid upon them
regarding the kind of changes that were to be made in the revision. The
church said to make only "minor" alterations, such as, capital letters,
punctuation, and the removal of archaic words. But Westcott and Hort seduced
the committee into a covenant of secrecy, meeting and working in this
clandestine fashion for eleven years. Now contrast that with the openness of
the King James Committee. The entire nation of England knew what was
forthcoming having been kept informed by the translators as the work
progressed. There were no surprises in 1611. But in 1881, suddenly there
appeared a radically different Greek text.

Dr. F.H.A. Scrivener - a very learned man of God and the most capable,
eminent textual critic of his day with regard to the N.T. manuscripts as
well as the history of the Text - served on the committee and tried to stem
the tide, but he was systematically out voted. Hort was such a tremendous
advocate that he convinced the majority of the members to accept his and
Westcott's translation almost to the exclusion of any other opinion. Few of
the other translators were familiar with the techniques and nuances of
textual criticism. Point by point they fell under Hort's persuasive spell, a
talent of near legendary proportion which Hort is reported by many to have
possessed. It was said that he would have made an unbeatable lawyer.

Time and again, Hort's side would out vote Scrivener. When Scrivener
realized what was happening, he should have broken the foolish vow of
secrecy and exposed the entire affair to the world. Thus he failed the Lord
and the Church in this whole matter. Bishop Wilberforce, originally
appointed to chair the committee, saw what was happening at the very onset.
Unable to bear the situation, he systematically absented himself after the
first meeting and refused to take part in the proceedings. Yet,
inconceivably, he also remained silent as to what he had seen and heard
during the remaining three years of his life.

Nearly every Bible written in English since 1881 has used as its basic New
Testament text the Westcott-Hort edition (Origen's privately "edited" N.T.).
This text has passed down to us via Eusebius through the copies which he
prepared for Constantine. The two remaining products of this "recension" are
known today as codices Vaticanus B and Sinaiticus Aleph. Hort's problem was
how to overthrow the Textus Receptus and supplant it with Codex Vaticanus B,
thereby elevating that manuscript above the sum total of all other extant
manuscripts - even though 90-95% agreed in text with the Textus Receptus and
yet were different from B. To achieve this goal he had to produce a
convincing history of the text in order to explain why essentially only one
type of text had survived and been preserved in all the later manuscripts
from the fourth and fifth centuries on. Then he had to show and explain how
this "historical account" justified the rejection of the dominant text, the
Textus Receptus.

"admin" wrote in message
news:Nh3md.27104$KJ6.15910@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> following is a continuing post from the Book "Which Version is the
> Bible" by Floyd Nolen Jones. Chapter 6, pages 75-82
> Which Version is the Bible?
> Copyright 1995 · Floyd Jones Ministries, Inc.

From:	sussmanbern
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 2004 00:13:30 GMT

This is absurd.

To begin with, the English Revision committee was sending copies of
all its minutes and notes to the American Standard committee, so there
was hardly any secrecy to their deliberations.

Second, there was very little voting going on in that committee.
There were discussions of the linguistic or paleological complexities
of every doubtful reading and, after fully thrashing out the issues,
the committee usually adopted its reading by consensus.

F.H.A. Scrivener may well have been one of the greatest textual
critics of his age .... but he wasn't a die-hard defender of the
Textus Receptus or of the KJV, nor hostile to critical editions of the
Greek NT (including Westcott-Hort). Scrivener wrote a monumental
study of the editing of the KJV which included lists of readings where
the KJV wasn't following the TR and sometimes wasn't following any
known ancient source, or otherwise mistranslated. He also wrote an
important textbook on NT textual criticism in which he documented that
that the so-called Textus Receptus was based on only a smattering of
manuscripts, many of them fragmentary and most of them dating from
after the Crusades. He also worked up a Greek NT edition that
synthesized the Greek text underlying the KJV -- the result agreed
with no single TR edition nor with any one manuscript, but agreed with
some editions here and other editions there. Scrivener didn't join
the Revision Committee to PREVENT a translation different from the KJV
from developing; he felt a new translation was in order. (The whole
purpose of commissioning a new translation was to get a translation
that wasn't the KJV!) And afterward he wrote a glowing review of the
English Revision for the Sunday School Times. He also gave Westcott &
Hort a favorable description in his textbook on textual criticism.

The actual Greek text used for the English Revision was NOT Westcott &
Hort's, but rather was worked up by Archb. Palmer and later reprinted
with an extensive apparatus by Souter; it very clearly departs from
Westcott & Hort in hundreds of places.

From:	admin
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 2004 06:01:01 GMT

Dear Sussmanbern: The book that I posted to this newsgroup i(Which Version
is the bible by Floyd Nolen Jones) is full of footnotes. The problem is the
footnotes would not post. I will send you the entire Book in zip format.
Please, unzip it and respond to the footnotes, etc. that document what
indeed DID take place.

God bless,

Steve Goltra
"sussmanbern" wrote in message
news:Kgvod.2505$uV6.2057@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> This is absurd.
>
> To begin with, the English Revision committee was sending copies of
> all its minutes and notes to the American Standard committee, so there
> was hardly any secrecy to their deliberations.
>
> Second, there was very little voting going on in that committee.
> There were discussions of the linguistic or paleological complexities
> of every doubtful reading and, after fully thrashing out the issues,
> the committee usually adopted its reading by consensus.
>
> F.H.A. Scrivener may well have been one of the greatest textual
> critics of his age .... but he wasn't a die-hard defender of the
> Textus Receptus or of the KJV, nor hostile to critical editions of the
> Greek NT (including Westcott-Hort). Scrivener wrote a monumental
> study of the editing of the KJV which included lists of readings where
> the KJV wasn't following the TR and sometimes wasn't following any
> known ancient source, or otherwise mistranslated. He also wrote an
> important textbook on NT textual criticism in which he documented that
> that the so-called Textus Receptus was based on only a smattering of
> manuscripts, many of them fragmentary and most of them dating from
> after the Crusades. He also worked up a Greek NT edition that
> synthesized the Greek text underlying the KJV -- the result agreed
> with no single TR edition nor with any one manuscript, but agreed with
> some editions here and other editions there. Scrivener didn't join
> the Revision Committee to PREVENT a translation different from the KJV
> from developing; he felt a new translation was in order. (The whole
> purpose of commissioning a new translation was to get a translation
> that wasn't the KJV!) And afterward he wrote a glowing review of the
> English Revision for the Sunday School Times. He also gave Westcott &
> Hort a favorable description in his textbook on textual criticism.
>
> The actual Greek text used for the English Revision was NOT Westcott &
> Hort's, but rather was worked up by Archb. Palmer and later reprinted
> with an extensive apparatus by Souter; it very clearly departs from
> Westcott & Hort in hundreds of places.
>

From:	admin
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 2004 01:30:54 GMT

Sussmanbern said: "This is absurd.

" To begin with, the English Revision committee was sending copies of all
its minutes and notes to the American Standard committee, so there
was hardly any secrecy to their deliberations."

Steve's response:
Your statement is the equivalent of saying that everything is O.K., because
the Fox is watching the Chicken House. Both Westcott & Hort and the NIV
committee as well as the American Standard Committee were corrupt.

I have sent you the entire book, to your home email address. Please, read
the book (Which Version is the Bilbe by Floyd Nolen Jones) and respond to
the footnotes that, for some reason, would not post.

Thank you, and God Bless,

Steve Goltra

"sussmanbern" wrote in message
news:Kgvod.2505$uV6.2057@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> This is absurd.
>
> To begin with, the English Revision committee was sending copies of
> all its minutes and notes to the American Standard committee, so there
> was hardly any secrecy to their deliberations.
>
> Second, there was very little voting going on in that committee.
> There were discussions of the linguistic or paleological complexities
> of every doubtful reading and, after fully thrashing out the issues,
> the committee usually adopted its reading by consensus.
>
> F.H.A. Scrivener may well have been one of the greatest textual
> critics of his age .... but he wasn't a die-hard defender of the
> Textus Receptus or of the KJV, nor hostile to critical editions of the
> Greek NT (including Westcott-Hort). Scrivener wrote a monumental
> study of the editing of the KJV which included lists of readings where
> the KJV wasn't following the TR and sometimes wasn't following any
> known ancient source, or otherwise mistranslated. He also wrote an
> important textbook on NT textual criticism in which he documented that
> that the so-called Textus Receptus was based on only a smattering of
> manuscripts, many of them fragmentary and most of them dating from
> after the Crusades. He also worked up a Greek NT edition that
> synthesized the Greek text underlying the KJV -- the result agreed
> with no single TR edition nor with any one manuscript, but agreed with
> some editions here and other editions there. Scrivener didn't join
> the Revision Committee to PREVENT a translation different from the KJV
> from developing; he felt a new translation was in order. (The whole
> purpose of commissioning a new translation was to get a translation
> that wasn't the KJV!) And afterward he wrote a glowing review of the
> English Revision for the Sunday School Times. He also gave Westcott &
> Hort a favorable description in his textbook on textual criticism.
>
> The actual Greek text used for the English Revision was NOT Westcott &
> Hort's, but rather was worked up by Archb. Palmer and later reprinted
> with an extensive apparatus by Souter; it very clearly departs from
> Westcott & Hort in hundreds of places.
>

From:	sussmanbern
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 2004 19:46:40 GMT

I have not yet received your e-mailed book.

I am not quite sure what your particular argument is. If it's that
the ERV committee was secretive, that is just plain wrong and provably
so. If it's that the KJV translators were not secretive, then you
have a total lack of evidence -- we have nothing that indicates their
meetings were open to the public, no minutes of their discussions, and
only fragmentary working notes of a few translators (one of them
working on the Apocrypha); in fact, we don't know the full names of
one or two of the KJV translators and we don't have basic bio
information about several more.

There was at least one companion volume to the ERV, with essays and
articles by a number of the committee members, and none of them
indicated that they were dominated, much less "seduced" or
"controlled", by either Westcott or Hort.

I don't know what would make a translation committee "corrupt". Or
what assurance you have that the KJV committees weren't.

From:	Steve Goltra
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Fri, 26 Nov 2004 02:02:57 GMT

Dear Sussmanbern: I have emailed it to you a second time. Is your return
email address at hotmail correct? If not, and you want the books, please
send me your personal email address and I will send them to you. If you do
not want personal email, you can view and print the books (in PDF Format)
for free at:
http://www.floydjones.org/ebooks.html

Or, you can download them, in Zip format, for free at:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/1157/floyd-jones.htm

Floyd Nolen Jones:
Floyd Nolen Jones, ThD., PhD.

Following a 14 year professional career during which he held varying
positions of responsibility as Paleontologist, Geophysicist, District
Geophysicist, Geophysical Manager, and Regional Geophysicist with Texaco and
Tenneco respectively, Dr. Floyd Nolen Jones was selected to attend Division
Manager School shortly before resigning from his scientific vocation in 1974
to pursue Biblical studies.

Having attained a Ph.D. as well as a Th.D., Dr. Jones has garnered majors in
the disciplines of Geology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Theology, and Education
from six institutions of higher learning. A magna cum laude graduate and an
ex-evolutionist, he also possesses a minor in Physics and is an ordained
Minister (SBC).

Dr. Jones twice served as adjunct Professor at Continental Bible College in
Brussels, Belgium. Having authored a definitive work on bible chronology, he
has also written several books on textual criticism in devense of the
traditional biblical text. He is currently engaged in ongoing Biblical
research and the teaching of God's infallible Word. He and his wife, as well
as his children and grandchildren, reside in Houston, Texas.

God bless,

Steve Goltra

"sussmanbern" wrote in message
news:Ay5pd.2983$NU3.686@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>I have not yet received your e-mailed book.
>
> I am not quite sure what your particular argument is. If it's that
> the ERV committee was secretive, that is just plain wrong and provably
> so. If it's that the KJV translators were not secretive, then you
> have a total lack of evidence -- we have nothing that indicates their
> meetings were open to the public, no minutes of their discussions, and
> only fragmentary working notes of a few translators (one of them
> working on the Apocrypha); in fact, we don't know the full names of
> one or two of the KJV translators and we don't have basic bio
> information about several more.
>
> There was at least one companion volume to the ERV, with essays and
> articles by a number of the committee members, and none of them
> indicated that they were dominated, much less "seduced" or
> "controlled", by either Westcott or Hort.
>
> I don't know what would make a translation committee "corrupt". Or
> what assurance you have that the KJV committees weren't.
>

From:	sussmanbern
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Sat, 27 Nov 2004 01:10:03 GMT

Your second email provided me with a WordPad version of the text -
which was stripped of footnotes. However the URL you provided for
the pdf version worked well.

I see that Jones's book first appeared in 1989 and was in its 17th
edition by 1999; this may not be a good sign. He also relies on
books by JJ Ray and Peter Ruckman and Jack Moorman; again not a good
sign.

Jones seemed to think that the ERV was ordered to use the same Greek
text as the KJV translators. This is not true. For one thing, there
is no Greek edition nor Greek manuscript that agrees one hundred
percent with the KJV. F.H.A. Scrivener worked up -- after the ERV
came out -- a Greek text based on the readings of the KJV. He used
Beza's TR edition as the foundation and then amended it according to
the KJV readings, wherever he found a departure from Beza (there were
more, perhaps a lot more, than a hundred such instances) he tried to
identify the KJV's source; out of about twenty important TR editions
(most predating the KJV) he found that the KJV did not consistently
adhere to any edition but sometimes sided with one or some editions
and elsewhere sided with others, and there were several readings that
couldn't be attributed to any Greek source but sometimes led to the
Latin Vulgate and sometimes couldn't be identified.

In fact, the actual rules for the ERV said "we do not contemplate any
new translation of the Bible, or any alteration of the language,
except where, in the judgment of the most competent scholars, such
change is necessary." This is not quite the same as forbidding the
use of any Greek edition since the KJV.

However, Jones did point me in the direction of some criticisms of the
so-called Majority Text, which I appreciate.

Jones - and the people he cites, like Ruckman - seem to think the ERV
NT is based on Westcott & Hort's Greek text. Demonstrably untrue.
The NT of the ERV was based a critical text worked up by Palmer and
later published with an apparatus by Souter. Scrivener's edition of
the Greek NT acc to the KJV (the original Cambridge edition) has
footnotes showing departures from the KJV by the ERV in the underlying
Greek, and these are very few (perhaps a hundred for the whole NT).
There have been only two major English translations which were based
on Westcott & Hort -- Goodspeed and the Jehovah's Witness - and there
are differences between these two.

From:	admin
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Sat, 27 Nov 2004 06:16:00 GMT

Sussmanbern said: "Your second email provided me with a WordPad version of
the text -
which was stripped of footnotes. However the URL you provided for
the pdf version worked well"

Steve's reponse: I have sent this zip file to many others, and no one has
been unable to read it in Microsoft Word format. The only reason that you
wouldn't be able to read it in Word format, and only in WordPad, is if you
did not have a recent versions of Microsoft Word installed on your computer.
All of the footnotes appear in the Zip file format that I sent you, as long
as you have the proper software installed on your computer.

Steve's continued response to Sussmanbern:

These are the types of "errors" that F.H.A. Scrivener found, nothing more
than cosmetic errors that do not affect the basic doctrine of the KJV:

Genesis 19:21 concerning this thing concerning this thing also Genesis 23:18
gates gate Genesis 39:1 hand hands Genesis 39:16 her lord his lord Genesis
47:6 any man any men Exodus 15:25 he made a statute he made for them a
statute Exodus 21:32 thirty shekels thirty shekels of silver Exodus 23:13
names name Exodus 35:29 hands hand Leviticus 2:4 it shall be an unleavened
cake it shall be unleavened cakes Leviticus 10:14 sacrifice sacrifices
Leviticus 19:34 shall be as one born shall be unto you as one born Leviticus
20:11 shall be put to death shall surely be put to death Leviticus 25:23
were strangers are strangers Leviticus 26:23 be reformed by these things be
reformed by me by these things Leviticus 26:40 the iniquity of their fathers
their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers Numbers 4:40 houses house
Numbers 7:55 charger of an hundred and thirty shekels charger of the weight
of an hundred and thirty shekels Deutnomy 5:29 keep my commandments keep all
my commandments Joshua 3:11 covenant, even the Lord covenant of the Lord
Joshua 7:14 households [2nd occurrence] household Ruth 3:15 and he went into
the citie. and she went into the city.

1 Samuel 18:27 David arose, he and his men

David arose and went, he and his men

1 Samuel 28:7 servant servants

2 Samuel 16:8 to thy mischief in thy mischief

2 Kings 11:10 in the temple. in the temple of the LORD.

2 Kings 23:21 this book of the Covenant the book of this covenant

1 Chron 7:5 were men of might were valiant men of might

1 Chron 11:15 of David to David

2 Chron 28:22 this his Job 33:22 His soul draweth near Yea, his soul draweth
near Psalm 141:9 snare snares Proverbs 7:21 With much fair speech With her
much fair speech Eccles 2:16 shall be forgotten shall all be forgotten Sg of
Solm 4:6 mountains mountain Sg of Solm 5:12 water waters Isaiah 34:11 The
cormorant and the bittern But the cormorant and the bittern Isaiah 49:13
heaven heavens Isaiah 49:13 God the LORD Isaiah 57:8 and made a covenant and
made thee a covenant Jeremiah 4:6 standards standard Jeremiah 31:14 be
satisfied with goodness be satisfied with my goodness Jeremiah 31:18 thou
art the Lord my God for thou art the Lord my God Jeremiah 51:12 watchman
watchmen Jeremiah 51:30 their her Ezekiel 6:8 that he may that ye may
Ezekiel 12:19 violence of them violence of all them Ezekiel 24:5 him them
Ezekiel 24:7 poured it upon the ground poured it not upon the ground Ezekiel
48:8 they ye Daniel 3:15 the midst of a fiery furnace the midst of a burning
fiery furnace Daniel 12:13 the lot thy lot Joel 3:13 the wickedness their
wickedness Amos 8:3 Temples temple Zechariah 7:7 of the plain and the plain
Malachi 3:4 offerings offering Matthew 12:23 Is this the son of David? Is
not this the son of David?

Matthew 14:9 othes oath's Matthew 16:16 Thou art Christ Thou art the Christ
Mark 6:26 othes oath's John 11:3 sister sisters John 12:22 told tell John
15:20 the Lord his Lord Acts 5:34 a doctor of law a doctor of the law Romans
14:10 we shall all stand for we shall all stand

1 Corinth 10:28 The earth is the Lords for the earth is the Lord's

1 Corinth 12:28 helps in governments helps, governments

1 Corinth 15:6 And After Philippians 4:6 request requests

2 Thessa 2:14 the Lord Jesus Christ our Lord Jesus Christ

1 Timothy 1:4 rather than edifying rather than godly edifying

2 Timothy 4:8 unto them also unto all them also Hebrews 3:10 hearts heart
Hebrews 12:1 run with patience unto the race run with patience the race

1 John 5:12 he that hath not the Son, hath not life.
he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

Revelation 13:6 dwelt dwell

2 Chron 33:19 [Cambridge KJV Editions] sin [Oxford KJV Editions] sins
Jeremiah 34:16 whom ye whom he (with the above evidence) A QUESTION for
"KJV-ONLYites" -

I sent you the book by Floyd Jones entitled "ripped from the bible". Check
that book out to see what Westcott & Hort and the committee did to the King
James. The changes made to the King James over the years, that you refer to
above, have been nothing more than cosmetic. Westcott and Hort ripped the
guts out of the KJV and replaced it with Vaticanus B. That is what has gone
on, and it is unethical and untrue for you to compare the minimal changes
done to the KJV to the MAJOR CHANGES THAT RELATE TO DOCTRINE- that actually
took place by Westcott & Hort & the Revision Committee. Westcott & Hort were
focused on changing doctrine, to coincide with the Catholic Bible, that had
always relied on the corrupt Alexandrian text.

There are over 140 different references in the footnotes that quote Sir
Frederick Kenyon and many other giants. For you to focus on two or three
authors that you look down on to besmerch the entire work of Dr. Jones does
not seem reasonable to me. Actually, it is more like the tactics of the
liberal , who crucifies the messenger, rather than focusing on the message
(which he wants no one else to read).

God Bless,

Steve Goltra

===Quote snipped in order to post message -- Mod.

From:	Steve Goltra
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #1
Date:	Sun, 28 Nov 2004 06:06:11 GMT

Dear Roger: The subject matter of exactly happened on the Westcott & Hort
Committee, their stated goal of replacing the Textus Receptus (the Received
Text) for the unreliable text relied on by the Catholic bible (Vaticanus B)
is a very detailed and involved study. Without doing our homework on this
issue, it becomes no more than one party (who has not studied what I have
posted, and then refuses to read the book that has all of the footnotes that
validate what I am saying) against another party (who has posted this work).
The result is name calling, etc. How can two walk together, if they don't
agree? If we do not have time to do the study, check out the footnotes, etc.
then we are wasting each other's time. It is worth the read because I truly
believe that one of the main reasons the Church is becoming apostate is that
we have a myriad number of translations. There is no memorization of
scripture anymore. God's word, as found in the Textus Receptus, has been
replaced by the counterfeit Vaticanus B, that all of the new versions rely
on.

God bless,

Steve Goltra
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Pearse"
To: "Steve Goltra"
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 11:56 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: the Greek Text of Westcott & Hort #4

> Dear Steve,
>
> Thank you for this. However sending a large unsolicited book is not
> really a good idea. I regret that this is not something I have the time
> to deal with.
>
> All the best,
>
> Roger Pearse
>

===Long quotes snipped in order to post message -- Mod.

From:	admin
Subject:	Re: Hort seduced and controlled the 1881 committee #3
Date:	Thu, 18 Nov 2004 04:36:11 GMT

following is a continuing post from the Book "Which Version is the
Bible" by Floyd Nolen Jones. Chapter 6, pages 75-82
Which Version is the Bible?
Copyright 1995 · Floyd Jones Ministries, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. This book may be freely reproduced in any form as long
as it is not distributed for any material gain or profit

ECLECTICISM AND ITS FRUIT

Indeed, as Dr. Edward F. Hills has stated, if the true New Testament text
were lost for fifteen hundred years, - how could we ever be sure it was
restored precisely? At the time the Westcott-Hort theory was advanced, its
proponents, including B.B. Warfield, felt that by utilizing the techniques
contained within the theory the true "lost" text could eventually be fully
restored.

Today's scholars no longer hold to the Westcott-Hort theory in toto, yet
their works always begin with Westcott and Hort's final conclusion - namely
that the text represented by the majority (the TR) is of no consequence and
that the true text lies mainly in the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS.

The modern critic uses what is known as the "eclectic" method of textual
criticism. Eclecticism is an outgrowth of the Westcott-Hort theory of
textual criticism. An eclectic editor "follows first one and then another
set of witnesses in accord with what is deemed to be the author's style or
the exigencies of transcriptional hazards." The technique involves
subjective judgment, ignores the history of the text, emphasizing fewer and
fewer canons of criticism. Most moderns emphasize only two. These are that a
reading is to be preferred which best (1) suits the context, and (2)
explains the origin of all others. Usually eclectics restrict the evidence
to only the internal evidence of variant readings.

Today, most of Westcott and Hort's terminology has been replaced with new
scholarly yet equally obscure sounding terms such as "Formal equivalence"
and "Dynamic equivalence". The work of the modern textual critic/translator
is largely composed of a balancing act. On one end is formal equivalence and
on the other, dynamic equivalence.

At the formal equivalence end, the word in question is translated exactly
according to the Greek lexicon, paying little or no attention to the quality
of the sentences that is being produced. The result is nearly a word for
word or literal rendition of the Greek into the other language. The problem
with this is that various languages contain different sentence structure
such that the resultant rendering is often out of context, out of order
within the sentence, may be either nonsensical or even misleading, and lacks
emotion. It is impossible to actually translate word for word from any
language to another and produce an intelligible result. For example,
consider a literal translation of the familiar John 3:16 passage - "For so
loved the God the world that the his Son the only begotten he gave that
every one the believes into him may not perish but may have life eternal".
One would hardly call this result "English". Realizing this, a condition has
been imposed by the proponents of formal equivalence to the effect that,
though they deem a word for word translation of utmost importance, it must
not be done so rigidly as to produce nonsense as in our example. This
necessitates a counterbalance.

Today, dynamic equivalence is that counterbalance. At the other end of the
see-saw, the translator attempts to verbalize the "message" that is being
conveyed. From the Greek, he extrapolates or takes out what he thinks the
author had in mind. Then, instead of translating or matching the words and
wording as they are found in the grammar, words are injected that express
the thought of the original author in the language the critic is using!? The
NIV is notorious for doing this. Thus dynamic equivalence is, for all
practical purposes, a paraphrase. A

paraphrase means to use several words to communicate the meaning of a single
word. For example, the Greek word theopneustos (qeopneusto") in II Timothy
3:16 is rendered "is given by inspiration of God."

The translator is constantly engaged in choosing between each extreme. Such
is extremely subjective and invariably one side of the see-saw is strongly
tipped - usually (though not always) toward the "formal" end for such is the
natural inclination of the scholar. Instead, he should seek to render a
verbal equivalence between the two languages before him as much as possible
and still make sense, while at the same time attempting to inject the
emotion and life of the original meaning.

Dr. D.A. Waite, a most qualified linguist possessing two earned doctorates
with majors in Latin and Greek and over 35 years of teaching experience in
varied areas which include Hebrew as well as Bible Greek, maintains that it
is at this very point the King James translators exhibited superior
translation technique because they avoided the dynamic equivalence method,
using instead "verbal" equivalence. "That is, the words from the Greek or
Hebrew were rendered as closely as possible into the English". Dr. Waite
further points out that the 1611 translators were most careful in their
application of formal equivalence by carefully attending to the "forms" of
the original wording. If the structure in the original language could be
brought into the English, they so did. That is, if the word was a verb, they
brought it over as a verb; they did not - as is common practice by most
modern translators - change or transform it into a noun or some other part
of speech.