BIBLE DOCTRINE
LECTURE 14
PERVERSIONS II
The following are excerpts from Jack Moorman’s article: “A Different Greek Text is Exalted in an Hour of Apostasy”
As the nineteenth century progressed, voices critical of the Received Text and the King James Version increased in
intensity. In Europe and Britain, German rationalism, Darwinian evolutionary thought, and other heretical philosophies
began to spread through most major denominations. The doctrine of the infallible inspiration of the Bible was being
questioned and contested widely. Many professors and church leaders believed the Bible was filled with errors, myths,
and inaccuracies; that instead of giving the infallible record of God’s revelation to man, it contained the imperfect
account of the evolution of man’s religious thinking. These influences were joined in the Church of England by powerful
Roman Catholic sympathies called the Tractarian or Oxford movement. The waning of the tremendous move of spiritual
revival that had swept the world since the Protestant Reformation was evident on every hand. It is within this unhealthy
spiritual climate that the philosophy of modern textual criticism developed.
Whereas the Reformation Bibles had been born in a climate of spiritual revival and faith, the modern Bibles were born in
a climate of apostasy and unbelief.
Chief among the Greek editors who produced new texts (based on Aleph and B) in the 1800’s were Griesbach, Hug,
Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf, and Westcott and Hort. These are the fathers of modern textual criticism [and the
subsequent myriad of Bible translation perversions].
J.J. Griesbach (1745-1812) was a New Testament professor with a passion for textual criticism. It is important to note
that Griesbach, “influenced from his undergraduate days by the rising tide of Rationalism sweeping over his country, was
a foe of orthodox Christianity” (D.A. Thompson). He abandoned the Received Text and constructed a new text that
contained many of the novelties later popularized by Westcott and Hort. The 1796 edition of Griesbach’s Greek text
removed the ending to Mark 16 (vv. 9-20), based on reports that the Vaticanus manuscript, which he considered the
oldest and best, did not contain these verses. Griesbach had not seen the Vaticanus, but had received reports that Mark
16:9-20 was omitted.
J.L. Hug (1765-1846) “in 1808 advanced the theory that in the 2nd century the New Testament text had become deeply
degenerate and corrupt and that all the extant New Testament texts were merely editorial revisions of this corrupted text”
(Hills, p. 65). This unbelieving theory totally contradicts God’s promise of the preservation of Scripture.
Karl Lachmann (1793-1851), who has been described as a German rationalist (Turner, p. 7), produced editions of the
Greek New Testament in Berlin, Germany, in 1842 and 1850. He was a professor of Classical and German Philology in
Berlin. Lachmann discarded the readings of the Received Text in favor of what he considered the oldest and best text
represented in the Vatican and a few other similarly corrupt manuscripts. Burgon notes that “Lachmann’s text seldom
rests on more than four Greek codices, very often on three, not unfrequently on two, sometimes on only one” (Revision
Revised, p. 21). In his scholarly arrogance, Lachmann was willing to overthrow centuries of godly discernment purified
in the fires of persecution in favor of modern novelties.
Samuel Tregelles (1813-1875) was one of the few 19th-century textual critics who was not theologically modernistic,
but, like Evangelical scholars today, Tregelles accepted the views of Modernists like Lachmann and Griesbach. Tregelles
said, “To Lachmann must be conceded this, that he led the way in casting aside the so-called Textus Receptus, and boldly
placing the New Testament wholly and entirely on the basis of actual authority” (Edward Miller, A Guide to the Textual
Criticism of the New Testament, 1886, p. 22). Lachmann’s supposed “actual authority” was the Vatican manuscript that
had lain in disuse for centuries in the Pope’s castle, and a few other similarly disreputable manuscripts.
Constantin Tischendorf (1815-1874) was a German textual editor who traveled extensively in search of ancient
documents. He was instrumental in bringing to light the two manuscripts most influential in modern Bible translation
work--Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. He operated under the false theory that the Bible commonly held among
faithful saints had become corrupt through the centuries.
The two most influential manuscripts (actually codeces) behind all the versions available today (except the TR line) are:
Aleph (Sinaiticus) and B (Vaticanus).
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Codex Sinaiticus. “In the year 1844 Tischendorf reached the Convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai (not the OT Mt
Sinai though). Here observing some old-looking documents in a basketful of papers ready for lighting the stove, he
picked them out, and discovered that they were forty-three vellum leaves of the Septuagint Version (these were later to
be known as Codex Sinaiticus). He was allowed to take these: but in the desire of saving the other parts of the manuscript
of which he heard, he explained their value to the monks, who being now enlightened would only allow him to copy one
page, and refused to sell him the rest.
The complete Sinai manuscript contained portions of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, the complete New
Testament, as well as the spurious Epistle of Barnabas, and a fragment of the spurious Shepherd of Hermas. On that first
visit, Tischendorf was not allowed to take the full manuscript, but he returned to the monastery in 1853 and again in
1856. On the final night of the latter visit, he was shown the desired codex, and he sat up all night copying a portion of it.
What portion did he lose a night’s sleep to copy, you may ask? Amazingly, and indicative of the man’s spiritual
condition, we believe, it was the extra-canonical Epistle of Barnabas!
Gaining a sympathetic hearing with the Superior Abbot over the monastery, Tischendorf managed to have the manuscript
brought to Cairo, where he was allowed to copy it that same year. After considerable political and religious wrangling
and the promise of a sum of money and honors for the monastic order, Tischendorf was allowed to take the manuscript to
St. Petersburg in Russia in 1862. Soon thereafter, in Leipzig, Germany, he produced 300 copies in four volumes.
Tischendorf was so enamored with the Sinai manuscript that he altered the eighth edition of his Greek text (1869-72) in
3,369 instances, largely in compliance with the Sinaitic.
Note that this manuscript, which has so powerfully influenced the men who developed modern textual critical theories,
was discovered in a wastebasket in an Orthodox monastery. Even the benighted monks dwelling in this demonically
oppressed place counted it only worthy of burning!
The pure Word of God, my friends, has not been “preserved” in an obscure Orthodox monastery or on the dusty shelf of
the Pope’s library, but in the Bibles and manuscripts which have been valued and used by the common believers through
the centuries.
Codex Vaticanus. Tischendorf was also instrumental in bringing to light the Vaticanus manuscript. The details of this
endeavor are almost as fascinating as that of his search for the Sinaiticus:
As its name shows, [the Vaticanus] is in the Great Vatican Library at Rome, which has been its home since some date
before 1481. A correspondent of Erasmus in 1533 sent that scholar a number of selected readings from it, as proof of its
[supposed] superiority to the received Greek text. [Erasmus subsequently rejected these readings]. ... Napoleon carried
the manuscript off as a prize of victory to Paris, where it remained till 1815... In 1845 the great English scholar Tregelles
was allowed indeed to see it but not to copy a word. His pockets were searched before he might open it, and all writing
materials were taken away. Two clerics stood beside him and snatched away the volume if he looked too long at any
passage! ... In 1866 Tischendorf once more applied for permission to edit the MS., but with difficulty obtained leave to
examine it for the purpose of collating difficult passages. all fourteen days of three hours each; and by making the very
most of his time Tischendorf was able in 1867 to publish the most perfect edition of the manuscript which had yet
appeared. An improved Roman edition appeared in 1868-81... (Frederic Kenyon).
The attitude Rome displayed toward those who sought to examine the Vatican manuscript is indicative of Rome’s
attitude toward the Word of God throughout most of its history. While the Baptists and the Reformers were diligently
bringing the Scriptures to light “so the plough-man could understand it,” Rome was just as diligently trying to keep
God’s Word from the common man.
Westcott and Hort and the Revised Version of 1881
At this point we quote Dr. Edward F. Hills (1912-1981), a respected Presbyterian textual scholar:
In the 1860’s, manuscripts Aleph [the Sinaiticus manuscript found in the trash can] and B [the manuscript locked up in
the Vatican library in Rome] were made available to scholars through the labors of Tregelles and Tischendorf, and in
1881 B.F. Westcott (1825-1901) and F.J.A. Hort (1828-1892) [both were Anglican professors of Cambridge University;
Westcott became Bishop of Durham] published their celebrated Introduction in which they endeavored to settle the New
Testament text on the basis of this new information. They propounded the theory that the original New Testament text
has survived in almost perfect condition in these two manuscripts, especially in the Vaticanus. This theory attained
almost immediately a tremendous popularity, being accepted everywhere both by liberals and conservatives. Liberals
liked it because it represented the latest thing in the science of N.T. textual criticism. Conservatives liked it because it
seemed to grant them that security for which they were seeking. But since this security had no foundation in faith, it has
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not proved lasting. For in the working out of their theory, Westcott and Hort followed an essentially naturalistic method.
Indeed, they prided themselves on treating the text of the N.T. as they would that of any other book, making little or
nothing of inspiration and providence. (Edward F. Hills, The King James Version Defended, pp. 65,66).
The Sinai and Vatican manuscripts represent a small family of documents containing various readings which the
churches rejected before the end of the 4th century. Under the singular care and providence of God, more reliable MSS
were multiplied and copied from generation to generation, and the great majority of existing MSS exhibit a faithful
reproduction of the true text which was acknowledged by the entire Greek ‘church’ in the Byzantine period A.D. 3121453. This text was also represented by the small group of documents available to Erasmus, Stephens, the compilers of
the complutensian edition and other 16th century editors. This text is represented by the Authorized Version and other
Protestant translations up to the latter part of the 19th century (The Divine Original, Trinitarian Bible Society).
The Revisers of 1881 made 36,000 changes in the English of the KJV as well as almost 6,000 in the Greek text. The
Sinai and Vatican manuscripts are responsible for most of the significant changes. As Canon F.C. Cook, chaplain to the
Queen of England in the late 1800s and author of a critical review of the ERV, says: “By far the greatest number of
innovations, including those which give the severest shocks to our minds, are adopted on the authority of two
manuscripts, or even of one manuscript, against the distinct testimony of all other manuscripts, uncial and cursive. ... The
Vatican Codex ... sometimes alone, generally in accord with the Sinaitic, is responsible for nine-tenths of the most
striking innovations in the Revised Version” (Cook, The Revised Version of the First Three Gospels: Considered in its
Bearings Upon the Record of Our Lord’s Words and of Incidents in His Life, 1882, p. 250).
Modern Greek texts are founded upon the Westcott-Hort text
Most modern Bible translators remain allured by the Sinaitic and Vaticanus manuscripts. The editors of the New
International Version, for instance, admit that they prefer the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus manuscripts: “...in most cases the
readings found in older manuscripts, particularly the great Greek uncials Vaticanus and Sinaiticus of the fourth century
AD, are to be preferred over those found in later manuscripts, such as those that reflect the TR [Received Text]” (Ronald
Youngblood, The Making of a Contemporary Translation, p. 152).
Sadly, the critical approach to the Bible that was evident among many nineteenth century scholars has continued to be
the dominant philosophy of the twentieth century. In light of Bible prophecy regarding the apostasy of the last hours, we
do not find this phenomenon surprising. It is upon the corrupt foundation of Westcott-Hortism that the entire edifice of
modern versions rests. [All contemporary English Bible versions are from this lineage. The following are the offspring
from these ‘Grandfathers of all Bible perversions’; they represent what is thought by Textual Critics to be the best Bible
scholars of our era:]
The Nestle’s Greek Text. Eberhard Nestle’s Greek text, which first appeared in 1895, was based on Tischendorf’s 8th
edition of 1869-72, Westcott and Hort’s edition of 1881, and the 1902 edition of D. Bernhard Weiss (TBS Article No.
56). Tischendorf stayed closely to the Sinaiticus, while Westcott and Hort largely followed the Vaticanus. Thus the
Nestle Text is founded largely upon the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts. The Nestlé’s Text has gone through 27
editions and has been widely used in Bible College and seminary classrooms and translation work. Aberhard’s son Erwin
Nestle succeeded to the editorship of the Nestle Text after Aberhard’s death in 1913. In 1950 Kurt Aland became
associated with the Nestle project and later editions of the Nestlé Text are called the Nestlé-Aland Text.
The United Bible Societies Greek Text. Since its third edition, this popular Greek text, published in Münster, Germany,
is identical to the 26th edition of the Nestlé-Aland Text. The 1st edition was published in 1966; the 4th, in 1983. The first
four editors were Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Bruce Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, and Eugene Nida “initiated,
organized, and administered” the first UBS project. Not one of these men believes the Bible is the infallible Word of
God.
Carlo M. Martini has been on the editorial committee since 1967. He is a Jesuit priest and the Archbishop Emeritus of
Milan. The Sunday Telegraph, London, England, Aug. 11, 1996, described Martini as “the new great hope of the
struggling Catholic Church” and “the man many believe will be the next leader of the world’s 800 million Catholics.”
But that was before Pope John Paul II outlived everyone’s expectations and Martini himself probably became too old to
be pope. Martini retired as Archbishop of Milan in the summer of 2002.
Eugene Nida (1914- ) is the father of the blasphemous dynamic equivalency theory of Bible translation. Originally with
Wycliffe Bible Translators, Nida has been associated with the American Bible Society and the United Bible Societies
since 1943. As to his view of biblical inspiration, Nida says, “...God’s revelation involved limitations. ... Biblical
revelation is not absolute and all divine revelation is essentially incarnational. ... Even if a truth is given only in words, it
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has no real validity until it has been translated into life. ... The words are in a sense nothing in and of themselves. ... the
word is void unless related to experience” (Nida, Message and Mission, New York: Harper & Row, 1960, pp. 222-228).
The Psalmist did not hold to Nida‘s theories about the words of Scripture. He said, “The words of the Lord are pure
words...” (Psalm 12:6).
Bruce Metzger. Another of the editors of the United Bible Societies‘ Greek New Testament is Bruce Manning Metzger
(1914- ). Metzger is Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary, and he
serves on the board of the American Bible Society. Metzger is the head of the continuing RSV translation committee of
the apostate National Council of Churches in the U.S.A. The Revised Standard Version was soundly condemned for its
modernism when it first appeared in 1952. Today its chief editor sometimes is invited to speak at Evangelical forums.
The RSV hasn’t changed, but Evangelicalism certainly has!
Metzger’s notes from “How to read the Bible with understanding”: “The opening chapters of the Old Testament deal
with human origins. They are not to be read as history ... These chapters are followed by the stories of the patriarchs,
which preserve ancient traditions now known to reflect the conditions of the times of which they tell, though they cannot
be treated as strictly historical. ... it is not for history but for religion that they are preserved ... When we come to the
books of Samuel and Kings ... Not all in these books is of the same historical value, and especially in the stories of Elijah
and Elisha there are legendary elements. ... We should always remember the variety of literary forms found in the Bible,
and should read a passage in the light of its own particular literary character. Legend should be read as legend, and poetry
as poetry, and not with a dull prosaic and literalistic mind.”
Kurt Aland (1915-1994) was co-editor of the Nestle-Aland Greek N.T. as well as one of the editors of the United Bible
Societies Greek New Testament. His wife, Barbara, is director of the Institute for New Testament Textual Research,
Munster, Westphalia, Germany.
Aland rejected verbal inspiration. “This idea of verbal inspiration (i.e., of the literal and inerrant inspiration of the text),
which the orthodoxy of both Protestant traditions maintained so vigorously, was applied to the Textus Receptus with all
of its errors, including textual modifications of an obviously secondary character (as we recognize them today)” (Aland,
The Problem of the New Testament Canon, 1962, pp. 6, 7).
Aland even claimed that the canon of Scripture is yet unsettled. “The present state of affairs, of Christianity splintered
into different churches and theological schools, is THE wound in the body. The variety in the actual Canon in its
different forms is not only the standard symptom, but simultaneously also the real cause of its illness. ... if we succeed in
arriving at a Canon which is common and actual, this means the achievement of the unity of the faith, the unity of the
Church” (Aland, The Problem of the New Testament Canon, 1962, pp. 30-33).
One fearful product of the exaltation of the critical Greek text has been the weakening of the authority of Scripture
throughout the nations. Dr. Charles Turner summarizes this:
The critical point of departure had been made [with the ascendancy of the Westcott-Hort Text]. No longer was the
majority of the Greek manuscripts, preserved by the churches, the basis for recognizing the original reading. From now
on, the learned professors would deliver the Christian world from their ‘blindness and ignorance.’ By their scholarly
expertise they would deliver to the churches a purer text of the N.T.. Dr. Machen called this kind of scholarship ‘the
tyranny of the experts.’ Now the ‘experts’ would rule over the churches and decide for them which variant reading was
the acceptable one. After Westcott and Hort, the Pandora’s box had been opened. As a result, all the evils of German
rationalism began to tear at the foundation of the Faith, the Holy Scriptures. This ‘wrestling’ of the Scriptures has
continued on until this day in both the higher and lower forms of textual criticism. The situation today involves almost as
many different texts of the Greek N.T. as there are scholars. Each ‘scholar’ decides for himself what he will or will not
accept as the Word of God.
It comes down to two choices. We can accept the text handed down by the churches for nearly two thousand years or
accept the findings of modern scholars, no two of which agree. If we go with the scholars, there is no one text that is
accepted by all of them. Confusion reigns among the scholars. There is no standard (Turner, Why the King James
Version?, p. 9). [God is not the author of confusion….]
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