PART 2-

My Reviewers give a page full of quotations (Section IT, p.5) taken from the New Testament in original Greek by Westcott and Hort. The sum total of this page of single space lines is to say that the change from the Textus Receptus to the Greek Text of Westcott and Hort is practically nothing. Here is one statement:

"If comparative trivialities, such as changes of order, the insertion or omission of the article with proper names, and the like are set aside, the words in our opinion still subject to doubt can hardly amount to more than a thousandth part of the whole New Testament."

My Reviewers would give us to understand them that the amount of differences, which would stand above trivialities between the Textus Receptus and the Greek, Text of the Revisers, or of Westcott and Hort, is only a 1/1000 part of the whole New Testament. Since there are approximately 8,000 verses in the whole New Testament, a 1/1000 part, of course, would be 8 verses. How can such a claim as this be advanced when we know that in the revised version, in the last chapter of Mark alone, 12 verses are branded with suspicion? This is a fair example of the sooth-saying with which modernists, as Westcott and Hort would allay our alarm at what has been done in the 5,337 changes of the Greek of the Revised New Testament. If my Reviewers really believed that the differences were so little between the versions, it would seem that they have gone to a lot of trouble over this subject.

Nevertheless a little further on the Reviewers devote four and one-half pages of single space typewritten matter with quotations from Souter, Smith, Gregory, Kenyon, and Ellicott, with one from Dr. Scrivener, all to show us that the Greek text of Erasmus was built upon manuscripts "neither ancient nor valuable". The way these quotations are thrown together is very misleading. The severest of them evidently apply to the first edition of Erasmus; nevertheless, the ordinary reader would get the idea that when Erasmus died, and in fact even till now, the Textus Receptus was built on very questionable manuscripts.

If that is so, then why has it persisted for 300 years in its splendid leadership? Is it not a fact that in Cambridge University, the very university in which Westcott and Hort taught, the Textus Receptus is the standard Greek text? I wish to use, however, one of these quotations, which I feel certain my Reviewers did not discern when they used it, that it really overthrows their severe arraignment of the Textus Receptus. It reads:

"The Complutensian Edition of the Greek New Testament of Cardinal Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros was printed in 1514, though not circulated until 1522. Erasmus produced his edition in 1516 and so won in the race with Cisneros ...and thus laid the foundation for the Textus Receptus which held the field till the critical text of Westcott and Hort, in 1881." - A.T.Robertson, "Biblical Review", Jan. 1931.

If the Textus Receptus is so badly built on poor MSS, why did not scholars reject it before 300 years passed by. "It had the field", says this author.

A severe indictment, it is thought, is found when we are repeatedly told that all the manuscripts which Erasmus used were seven. Putt how many manuscripts did Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles use? We are treated to the names of Lachmann, Tichendorf and Tregelles continually. We have them for breakfast, for dinner, and for supper. Lachmann brought forth a Greek New Testament much different from the Textus Receptus. And how many manuscripts did he use? - Just four! Tischendorf brought forth an edition of the Greek New Testament and on how many manuscripts did he rely? - He informed us that he threw away eighty-nine ninetieths of the manuscripts. Westcott and Hort brought forth a Greek New Testament and how many did they rely on? -- principally the Vaticanus and one other of the same family, the Sinaiticus. Then why belittle Erasmus who used three times as many?

Much has been said about the great wealth of material which was at the disposal of the Revisers. Would it not be astounding to you if I read from Dr. Ellicott, Chairman of the Revision Committee, that their Greek Text was brought out before the great wealth of Papri was found.

I quote from Dr. Ellicott, Chairman of the English New Testament Revision Committee:

"What I shall now do will be to show that the principals on which the version of the New Testament was based have been in no degree affected by the copious literature connected with the language of the Greek Testament and its historical position which has appeared since the Revision' was completed. It is only quite lately that the Revisers have been represented as being insufficiently acquainted, in several particulars with the Greek of the New Testament, and in a word, being twenty years behind what is now known on the subject. Such charges are easily made, and may at first sight seem very plausible, as the last fifteen or twenty years have brought with them an amount of research in the language of the Greek Testament which might be thought to antiquate some results of the Revision." "Revised Version of the Holy Scriptures", pp.96, 97 (Emphasis mine)

Another great authority, Dr. Adolf Deissmann, tells us, in his famous book, "Light from the Ancient East", (p. 67), how this wealth of material came since the Revision. You will remember that Dr. Deismann was an outstanding figure in the researches among the papyri., ostraca, and other materials unearthed the last thirty years by the spade. He says:

"Memorials of the popular colloquial language, on the other hand, memorials of the spoken Greek of the people, were scarcely known to the general run of scholars at a period distant only some score or so of years from the present day." (1922)

It will thus be seen from the words of this great scholar that the Great wealth of material unearthed by the spade in the field of which we speak, began about the year 1902, or twenty years after the copies of the English and American Revisions were finished. He further says:

"The work to be accomplished by the linguistic historian on the New Testament includes great problems yet unsolved, but one thing is clear already. The New Testament has been proved to be, as a whole, a monument of late colloquial Creek, and in the great majority of its component parts the monument of a more or less popular colloquial language." - "Light From the Ancient East", n. 69

From the above quotation it is evident that Dr. Ellicott, Chairman of the English New Testament Revision Committee, felt obliged to answer the strong indictments brought against their work by outstanding scholars in the field of textual criticism in the twenty years following the appearance of the Revision. My Reviewers use Kenyon, 1901, Price, 1907, Gregory 1907, Souter 1910, and Robertson, 1925, in support of their contention about the manuscripts in general. Of these authorities it may be said, (1) They are all followers of the Westcott and Hort theory; (2) Kindly inquire will you, and find out how many of them are not textual critics, but simply secondary writers in the field. (3) From the dates you will see that Robertson only, wrote late enough to speak from having a grasp of the new theories which arose from the new findings indicated by Dr. Deissman. A testimony, therefore, of these witnesses would not rank, in general, very much above the use of the good common sense of the men who are now listening to me. A little bit later I shall present a whole array of authorities on the other side of the question, giving their denunciation of Westcott and Hort's paper theory, and of the corruptions of the Vaticanus and sinaiticus MSS.

The work of the Revisers of 1871-1881 ended in the complete spoliation of the Textus Receptus -in the New Testament. Yet my Reviewers would have you believe that the difference between the RV Greek text and the Textus Receptus is not much. On the other hand, listen to Dr. Schaff:

"On this line the great battle of the purest text of the New Testament must be fought out. The question is between the oldest MSS and the latest, between the uncial text and the Stephanic or Elzevir text." - "Companion to Greek N.T.", p. 120.

Why did not the Revisers accomplish the same results in the way of spoliation for the Hebrew Textus Receptus in the Old Testament? My Reviewers have taken me to task as to why most of my book concerns the New Testament of the Revised Version and not the Old. Very plainly did I tell in my book that it would mostly concern the New Testament and why. But now I will say this: First of all the Revisers of the Old Testament were obliged to proceed on directly opposite theories from the Revisers of the New Testament. It is a well-known fact that the skilled copyists of the Hebrew period always preferred the latest manuscripts copied, above the older manuscripts. In other words, the schools engaged in copying and translation of the Hebrew manuscripts, as soon as a Hebrew manuscript became old and worn relegated it to the discarded collection. In their eyes, the newer the manuscript, the better it was. It is upon this theory that the Textus Receptus of the Old Testament is built as we have it today for both AV and ARV.

How differently has been the treatment of the manuscript of the New Testament since the unwarranted principles of textual criticism came into vogue the last one hundred years. Starting with Griesbach about one hundred years ago the campaign against the Greek Textus Receptus of the New Testament has grown in volume and intensity. The only way, however, it could hope to succeed was upon the principle that the more ancient the manuscript, the more valuable it is. Dr. Scrivener points out that the worst corruptions which befell MSS occurred in the period before the Council of Nicea (Introduction, II, p.264). From then on two streams of MSS come down - the uncorrupted and the corrupted. Since the ancient MSS we have are few and some of them differ widely from the later MSS of which we have three or four thousand, it is evident, suspicion naturally being directed more toward the ancient than the later MSS, that the few which differ are of the corrupted type. I have before proved, the great mass of Greek New Testament manuscripts- Tregelles says 89/90, Burgon says 99/100 of them- (1) Date from the 9th century, (2) are witnesses to the Textus Receptus, (3) are practically identical, and (4) Hort says their Greek New Testament or the text written on the MS, can be traced back to about 300 A.D. Just as Roman Catholic Theology steadily advanced during the last 100 years, successfully capturing Germany, England, Scandinavia, Scotland, etc., so step by step, kept growing, the numbers of textual critics, and of secondary writers in this field, who denounced the more recent manuscripts (thousands of them) of the Greek New Testament as practically valueless and staked all their claims on some five, some three, some two, and in some cases, even one old Greek manuscript. The facts above given constitute one reason why claim can be justly made that the damage done to the Old Testament by the Revisers was comparatively small to what was done to the Greek New Testament.

The second reason for this is found in the fact that the Old Testament Revision Committee in England finished its work several years after the New Testament Revision Committee did. What does this mean? It means this, that as soon as the new Revised New Testament appeared in 1881 a storm broke over all England. So intense was this storm and so terrible, that it dealt a death blow to the Revised Version in England. Works of a masterly nature appeared at once, which pointed out the unjustifiable principles that had been adopted by that Revision Committee and their apparent effect upon the English New Testament which they printed. During the time of this storm the English Old Testament Revision Committee was still sitting. They saw the point, they ran to cover, and seeking to avoid the terrible storm, this time against the Old Testament Revision we find that the Hebrew Textus Receptus was spared the terrible handling that was given to the Greek Textus Receptus.

My brethren, explain to me why we will accept the Hebrew Textus Receptus on certain principles and have it still with us as it has been practically since the days of the Apostles; yet confused or misled by the theories of Westcott and Hort and their ardent followers, we refuse to establish the Greek New Testament upon the same principles upon which we establish the Hebrew Textus Receptus. On what ground of reason or justice can my Reviewers explain why, in respect to the Old Testament, they adopt one principle, while in respect to the New, they adopt the very opposite.

One or two quotations to support my contention that the English Revision is dead in England. First I will quote from an author who is popular with my Reviewers, Dr. Robinson:

"Of the thirty-six thousand changes in the New Testament alone may appear to be changes for the sake of change; in fact, purely arbitrary. Hence, their work was not appreciated. Nearly fifty years have now passed and still this new English version is valued chiefly by scholars, and is anything but popular with the common people. Yet, it was intended to be a translation especially adapted to ordinary readers. Time has shown that its improved grammatical accuracy is not a sufficient compensation for the music of the old cadences, which in so many cases has been sacrificed for some trifling point in syntax! 'Two thirds' majorities decided many of the changes that were made by the Committee, but today the reading public are deciding that the English Version can never displace the Authorized. From time to time, scholars are demonstrating that in certain instances it is even less true to the originals than the old version, and less exact in its exegesis." - Where Did We Get Our Bible" pp. 174, 175.

I wish now to present to you another quotation from Dr. Ellicott, Chairman of the New Testament Revision Committee, where as Bishop of his diocese he bewails the fact that 25 years have passed and the English Revised Version is not making its way in his own parish:

"My fixed opinion therefore is this, that though, after a long and careful consideration of the subject, I do sincerely desire that the Revised Version should be introduced into the churches of this diocese, I do also sincerely desire that it should not be introduced without a due preparation of the congregation for the change, and some manifestation of their desire for the change. There will probably be a few churches in our diocese in which the Revised Version is used already, and in regard of them nothing more will be necessary than, from time to time, in occasional addresses, to allude to any important changes that may have appeared in the Lessons and recent reading of Holy Scripture, and thus to keep alive the thoughtful study of that which will be more and more felt to be, in the truest sense of the words, the Book of Life. But, in the great majority of our churches--though in many cases there may have been passing desires to read and to hear God's Word in its most truthful form--no forward steps will have been taken. It is in reference then to this great majority of cases that I have broken my long silence..." -"The Revised Version", pp. 125, 126.

So you see that the Chairman of the Revision Committee was not able to have the Revised Version adopted in his own diocese.

Just a further word from a well-known modernist writer concerning the failure of the Revised Version:

"But we have not yet produced our best. This Revised Version of 1880 is not our last word. It ought to have been a great success. It had more in its favor than any previous version. And yet we have to say, after thirty years, that the Old Authorized Version with all its defects, is still holding the ground, going out every year in quantities a hundred times greater than those of the Revised Version.

"The Old Version holds the ground not only by the familiarity of its language but by its wonderful charm. It is universally accepted as a literature masterpiece, as the noblest and most beautiful book in the world. The New Version is more accurate, more scholarly, more valuable. But it avails not. It lacks the literary charm. The verdict is, 'The Old is better.'

"On the whole we may assume that far into the twentieth century the Authorized Version will still remain the popular Bible. The Version that is to supercede it will come some day, but when it does it will have more than accurate scholarship. It will have in some degree at least the literary charm and beauty which for 300 years has brought the whole English world under the spell of the old Bible." --Smythe, "How We Got Our Bible", pp. 152, 153, (Emphasis mine)

Finally note that Putnam (Vol. II, p. 344) says that the Geneva Library in Calvin's day contained so many Greek MSS that it ranked second to the Vatican; that Swete said, ("Introduction", p.181) the Catholic scholars appointed by the Council of Trent to visit all the libraries of Italy, and find Greek MSS on which to base their officially voted Bible, the Vulgate, came back to the Vatican and the big Vatican MSS, just where Westcott and Hort came in 1881; and that Fulke told the queen of England in 1583 that the Greek Textus Receptus was in everybody's hand; and again, that Dr. Jacobus declared the textual critics of 1600 were at least as good, if not superior to those of our day. All this evidence shows that the men of 1611 had material ample enough to vouchsafe to us the dependability of our great Protestant Bible.

I will now answer my Reviewers disparaging estimate of Dean Burgon. Dean Burgon is discounted only by those who are looking for people who believe as they do, and who discount all who disagree with them. Burgon's knowledge and scholarship and integrity will stand. An estimate of this godly and scholarly man is given as follows, by the Bishop of Chichester:

"No part of his character was more remarkable than his intense reverence for the Word of God. He might take to himself the words of David, when he said, 'Lord, what love have I to Thy Word; all the day long is my study in it.' Every jot and tittle of the scriptures was inestimably precious to him; he treasured them in his heart and mind as coming from God by the inspiration of prophets, evangelists, and apostles, each in their own good time. He delighted in searching out from the commentators on the Scriptures, but he did not disdain such assistance from the old Fathers of the Church, and I do not believe that there is any man who had so large and perfect acquaintance with them; the old divines of our own Church he held also in special regard; but he was no slave to commentators and always said what he thought. He used his own unbiased judgment, and his interpretations of Holy Writ always came fresh free his hands. The years of this careful study to the Scriptures he gave to the world in the so-called "Plain Commentary on the Gospels", a work which later commentaries have in no way superseded. The late Dean has made this work not only useful as a work of reference, but a treasury of Christian counsel. In our sister church of America, I have reason to know, Dean Burgon's commentary holds a high place. This was expressed to me by several of the Bishops whom I met lately at the great Lambeth Conference. The Bishops with one accord expressed their sense of his services to our common Church, and their anxiety on his behalf. Now, this reverence for the letter as well as the spirit of Holy Writ--and he held that the spirit was inseparably bound up with the letter, and that both were divine- I say this reverence led him to vindicate with great learning, and as was confessed with great ability, the authority of the last verses of the Gospel of St. Mark. This vindication was directed against a certain school of thought which the Dean very justly suspected of subverting the authority of the Word of God, and that they were thereby undermining the faith of many half-learned persons 'wise in their own conceit,' and also the faith of many simple souls. For this reason he set himself the task of criticising the revised version of the Bible. I believe, it and therefore will speak of it, that it was his burning zeal for the Word of God which supported him in coming forward as the champion of the cause of which he then was the prophet, and this, I think, cannot be denied that his arguments and critical judgment upon the basis upon which the revised version was constructed, and in a few cases to the errors which he pointed out in the translation, have retarded, if not completely stopped, the reception of this revised version into our Church, and of thereby supplanting that old version, the inheritance of the English people the world over. It would be a great injustice to consider Dean Burgeon only as a vigorous controversialist, with his thoughts wholly centered in defending the truth of that faith in which he lived." - The Bishop of Chicester in "The Guardian" Aug. 8, 1888. (Emphasis mine)

I will now introduce a quotation from Canon Cook, found in the Bibliothec Sacra:

"He recalled...'The strong impressions made by the weight of authority with which the Revised Version was supported, that the question seemed to be regarded as at last settled. Then came the tremendous onslaught by Dean Burgon, when the popular verdict was pronounced unmistakably. It is already admitted on all hands that the Revised Version is a great blunder." - p. 28.

The Reviewers (Section II, p. 18) in order to show the superior sources of manuscripts available in 1881 over that of 1611 use three quotations from different authors. Unfortunately for them these quotations are like the inhabitants of the land of Canaan that ate up one another. A short examination of these quotations will serve to call to remembrance--or to instruct, if not already known-- points of interest concerning manuscripts which we must always hold in mind if we would have a clear understanding of the problem involved.

In the first place the Reviewers quote from the preface to the Parallel New Testament, to the effect that the manuscripts upon which the Greek Text of the King James version is founded were of a comparatively late date and few in number. In the light of the facts of the case neither of these points have any great bearing; because a manuscript is of a late date is no evidence that the text is of an inferior nature. In fact this is a very strange piece of information to be held in much esteem by those who seek to impress upon us the idea that there is not much difference among Bibles in general anyway. The manuscripts, as I have previously pointed out, are few in number from the fourth century to the ninth; then we begin to have thousands of them. Why should a manuscript of the ninth century, if it has been faithfully copied and is a legitimate descendant of the Apostles' Bible, be held up to considerations of inferiority above a manuscript that was executed in the fourth century? I have previously pointed out that the Jews--and their copyists cannot be surpassed in skill-always considered a manuscript of a later date better than one of an older date.

With regard to Manuscripts in 1611 being few in number, let it first be inquired what is meant by "few in number". I have already brought before you the fact that Erasmus had access to many manuscripts in his day. Among the great body of cursives and uncial manuscripts which the Reformers had possessed, the majority agreed with the Received Text. The Reformers had access to many MSS. I quote from Putnam:

"Casaubon secured in 1600, at the instance (?) of his friend, Do Vic, appointment as Keeper of the Royal Library (at Geneva) ... the collection of Greek manuscripts was said to be second only to that of the Vatican."--Censorship of the Church of Rome, Vol. II p. 354.

We are indebted for the following information to Dr. F.C. Cook, editor of the "Speaker's Commentary," chaplain to the Queen of England, who was invited to sit on the Revision Committee, but refused:

"That Textus Receptus was taken in the first instance from late cursive manuscripts; but its readings are maintained only so far as they agree with the best ancient Versions, with the earliest and best Greek and Latin Fathers, and with the vast majority of uncial and cursive manuscripts." - E.C. Cook--"R.V. of the First Three Gospels", p. 226.

The above quotation will also answer the quotation (Sec. II, p.19) which says that the MSS of 1611 were "not selected on any estimate of merit."

I wish to present testimony on the value of these manuscripts from other authorities:

"The popular notion seems to be, that we are indebted for our knowledge of the true texts of Scripture to the existing uncials entirely; and that the essence of the secret dwells exclusively with the four or five oldest of these uncials. By consequence, it is popularly supposed that since we are possessed of such uncial copies, we could afford to dispense with the testimony of the cursives altogether. A more complete misconception of the facts of the case can hardly be imagined. For the plain truth is THAT ALL THE PHENOMENA EXHIBITED BY THE UNCIAL MANUSCRIPTS ARE reproduced by the cursive copies." (Caps. mine).- Burgon and Miller, "The Traditional Text", p. 202.

The admirers of the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus belong to this class who have completely misconceived the whole subject.

We give a further testimony from another eminent authority:

"Our experience among the Greek cursives proves to us that transmission has not been careless, and they do represent a wholesome traditional text in the passages involving doctrine and so forth." Dr. H.C.Hoskier, "Concerning the Genesis of the Versions." p.416.

As to the large number of manuscripts in existence, we have every reason to believe that the Reformers were far better acquainted with MSS than later scholars. Dr. Jacobus in speaking of textual critics of 1582, says:

"The present writer has been struck with the critical acumen shown at that date (1582), and the grasp of the relative value of the common Greek manuscripts and the Latin version." --Dr. Jacobus, "Catholic and Protestant Bible", p. 212.

On the other hand, if more manuscripts has been made accessible since 1611, little use has been made of what we had before and of the majority of those made available since. The Revisers systematically ignored the whole world of manuscripts and relied practically on only three or four. As Dean Burgon says, "But nineteen-twentieths of these documents, for any use which has been made of them, might just as well be still lying in the monastic libraries from which they were obtained." We feel, therefore, that a mistaken picture of the case has been presented with reference to the material at the disposition of the translators of 1611, and concerning their ability to use that material.

I want my hearers to get this point for it sweeps away the whole theory of the late critics and the supporters of the method used by the Revisers and consequently the position taken by my Reviewers. The point is this; The Revisers, it is claimed, had so many more MSS to compare and consult than Erasmus and the King James translators had. But of what value were they? The Revisers like my Reviewers based the whole fabric of their vision on the Sinaiticus, the Vaticanus, and two or three more MSS. All others are relegated to the rear if they do not agree with B (Vaticanus) and Aleph (Sinaiticus). Hence, if they had a million MSS the poverty of the Revisers would have been just as great, for they confined themselves to the narrow limits of just their four or five manuscripts after all. All this talk about the large number of manuscripts accessible to the Revisers is of no consequence since they ignored them in their great zeal for the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus. Dr. Scrivener protests in these words:

"A judge is not impartial if he rejects the testimony of eighty-nine out of a hundred witnesses. It is a law of evidence that the very few are to be suspected rather than the very many." - "Bibliotheca Sacra", p. 35.

Returning now to Section II, (page 18) my Reviewers quote again from the "Dictionary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings, to tell us that in 1611 there were about 25 manuscripts while now there are 7,000, but this is not what Dr. Hastings says. The quotation reads:

"'The TR (Textus Receptus) is consequently derived from (at most) some 20 or 25 MSS, dating from the last few centuries before the invention of printing..." p.916

You will note that Dr. Hastings did not say that there were only 25 MSS in existence in 1611; his contention is that the TR was derived from about that many. There is a difference between "derived" and "existing". Dr. Hastings goes on to say of these 20 to 25:

"They may be taken as fairly representative of the great mass of Greek Testament MSS of the late Middle Ages, but no more." - p.916 (Emphasis mine)

These 20 or 25 are representative of the great mass, and the fact that they are splendidly representative is backed by the history of the four hundred years of unrivalled leadership.

When did this hunt for ancient Greek MSS begin? It began at the Council of Trent, in order to find a Greek MSS which would dethrone the Textus Receptus and vindicate the Vulgate. And they found it - the Vaticanus. Charles V stood with drawn sword over the Council of Trent, ordering it to become reconciled to the Protestants. His great Protestant general, Maurice, at the head of his armies, stood with drawn sword over Luther and Melanchthon ordering the Protestants to go to Trent and be reconciled to the Catholics. Neither he, nor Charles V, however, knew the Jesuits who had seized control of the Council and were determined to rule the world. The first four resolutions of the Council broke with the Protestants on the Bible and enthroned the Vulgate.

When did the modern hysteria to enthrone the Vaticanus begin? Tregelles reveals it. He says that when he saw that the Vaticanus in Greek had become the standard for Greek editions of the Old Testament, he was convinced it should become also the standard for editions of the Greek New Testament. Tregelles was a model for Westcott and Hort, and also a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee.

To show how misleading was the Reviewers' handling of this same quotation, I will go on with the next sentence in the quotation we have been handling. Dr. Hastings says:

"At the present time we have over 3,000 MSS of the N.T., or of parts of it, and they range back in age to the 4th century." (page 916)

But we must not believe that any large number of these 3,000 Greek MSS date back to the early centuries. If so, then the next quotation used by the Reviewers (Section II, pp. 18, 19) will completely demolish any such idea; for in the following quotation from the "National Standard Bible Encyclopedia" we are informed that all the MSS that we have of the fourth century are 2; of the fifth century 10; and of the sixth century 25. Authorities know that the great bulk of MSS date from the ninth century on.

That the Textus Receptus was built from the material available in 1611 in an almost perfect condition, can be seen from a very interesting report from which I will now read. A committee of 34 Hebrew and Greek scholars were selected to prepare the Tercentenary Edition of the Authorized Bible. Because 1911 made a convenient opportunity to celebrate the work of the King James Version for 300 years, a great exposition over this matter was held in London, England that year. This committee reported, as a result of a careful scrutiny of the entire text, that they repudiated over 98 percent of the changes introduced by the Revisers of 1881. (See Mauro, "Which Version , p. 94). From the Preface to the Tercentenary Edition of the Bible we quote the following:

"The continued confidence of the Church Universal through out English speaking lands in the Authorized version is seasoned and mature. Despite a limited number of passages in which the Revisers of 1611 seem to have missed the true meaning, and a number of other passages which have, through changed usage, become obscure, the A.V. is still the English Bible." -Mauro, "Which Version", p. 94.

The above quotation shows very clearly that the Authorized Version has not changed materially since 1611. And most certainly this report shows that if there should have been some "plain and clear errors" in the A.V., to remedy these would be a very long way from changing it into the RV; for these 34 Greek and Hebrew scholars on this committee of 1911 point out that after thorough examination they were obliged to reject 98 per cent of the changes made in the Revised Version. Let us not forget, moreover, that this took place in the year 1911, thirty years after the R.V. appeared. And note further that the conclusion of the Committee of 34 refutes the oft-repeated claims that it was the later accumulation of MSS which showed revision necessary. Is not this, therefore, a repudiation of the Greek New Testament underlying the RV, and also of the Revised Version itself, as the ENGLISH BIBLE?

In two different statements my Reviewers claim that in the changes made by the Revisers they "do not find the fundamentals of our faith altered." (Section II-11) (Quoting Kenyon, "Our Bible and the Ancient MSS", pp. 99, 100). And that further, the truth of God "is found abundantly in any of the great outstanding versions of the Holy Scriptures." (Section II, p.4).

What do my Reviewers mean by the great outstanding versions of the Holy Scriptures? How many of them are there? Which are they? Name them. What great outstanding versions do we have in English besides the Authorized, the Revised, and the Douay? Will the Reviewers put along side of these, the Unitarian Version with its manifest efforts to deny the divinity of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, or the Shorter Bible?

I do not believe they will agree to that. Let us go a little further. By the "great outstanding versions" do they mean Moffat, Weymouth, Rotherham, Goodspeed, and other versions gotten out by individuals? Evidently not, because they quote (Section 1, p.3) with approval a letter from Dr. Grant Stroh, writing officially for the Moody Bible Institute under date of Jan. 23, 1931:

"Here at the Institute we recommend the American Revision. We use both it and the Authorized. In most instances when changes are made the American Revision is more accurate. We do not endorse the various irresponsible individual versions, such as the Moffat translation." (Emphasis mine)

Also in the Signs of the Times, December 10,1929, we read:

"Within the last two or three years two English translations of the Old Testament have appeared and been rather widely advertised - one made by James Moffatt, an English scholar, and the other by several professors of the Chicago University. Those who wish to be informed as to the freedom with which Biblical scholars of the modern school, handle the original Hebrew text, amending and transposing it, to make it conform to their own ideas, can secure this information." Then the writer calls those "these modernistic translations."

Apparently then, in English the field of the "great outstanding versions" is narrowed down to the Authorized, the Revised, and the Douay (Catholic). Will the Reviewers claim that the truth of God can be found abundantly in the Douay Version? Do they not know that this Version sanctions image worship and also Mariolatry, and also endorses the Apocryphal books and the spurious additions to the Book of Daniel and other books? Perhaps the Reviewers will claim that outside of these spurious readings and spurious books in the Catholic Versions the truth of God can still be found abundantly.

The Reformation was compelled to rule out the Vulgate and the Douay translation of it, before the pure gospel could go to the world. To prove it I will now quote from Dr. Edgar:

"It is certainly a remarkable circumstance that so many of the Catholic readings in the New Testament, which in reformation and early post-reformation times were denounced by Protestants as corruptions of the pure text of God's word, should now, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, be adopted by the Revisers of our time-honoured English Bibles." "Bibles of England " p. 347 (Emphasis mine)

If you wish to see what kind of a version the Douay is, read the 14th chapter of Daniel.

The above-quotation from this worker in the field of Bibles and their history reveals two things: (1) That the Protestants in Reformation and post Reformation times eliminated from their New Testament many of the Catholic readings; and (2) that the Revisers put them back in again. If there were no difference between the Vulgate and the Textus Receptus, why did not the Reformers and Protestants take the Vulgate as the basis of their translations? Not only Luther, but since Luther, outstanding German Versions, as those of Dr. Leander Van Ess (1889), Dr. R. Brockhus, (1871), Dr. Franz E. Schlacter (1902), and Dr. L. Reichard (1878) are translated from the Textus Receptus.

Therefore in English the great outstanding versions are not reduced to two... the King James and the Revised... they are reduced to simply one, the Authorized. And I would be very glad to have my Reviewers explain what they mean by saying that the truth of God can be found abundantly in any of the outstanding versions.

Now with reference to the field outside of the English versions, note how difficult it is to consider this apart from our Authorized Version. The Washington Star says there are two hundred million English speaking people in the world. The nearest approach to this number speaking a single tongue is the Russian Speaking people, one hundred million, and the German speaking people, one hundred million. Historians tell us that the two hundred million English speaking people have been bound together by one great common bond, and that bond is our Authorized English Bible. Moreover, it is now quite generally recognized that the British Empire and United States hold the balance of power in the world, that in fact without them, civilization would go to ruin. How then can we consider the great outstanding Versions outside the English as having any very important bearing upon the whole problem of the world situation? If my line of argument then be true, we are brought down to the fact that the great outstanding dominating Version which contains abundantly the truth of the Living God, and which must be guarded preciously, is the Authorized Version. It must be guarded against the changes made in it by the Revisers of 1881, 98 per cent of which were rejected by the Committee of 34 Greek and Hebrew scholars of 1911.

Referring again to the statement from Bishop Westcott, which was represented wrongly by my Reviewers, (Section I, p. 23), that Bishop Westcott claimed that articles of faith were changed by the repetition of changes in the Revised, I will say that when I come to discuss the closing sections of this Reply, we will see that my Reviewers, themselves, admit that on certain passages my contention is correct that the theology of the Revisers influence in changes which very disastrously affected great doctrines, and I shall show others of the same kind, which my Reviewers would not admit. Furthermore the quotation from the Presbyterian Magazine at the beginning of the Chapter XV of my book claims that the Revisers wished to change doctrine.

The examination of the claim that the Rheims New Testament (Jesuit New Testament of 1582) had any influence on the AV, I have answered very positively in the negative in Example No. II in the first section of this reply. I believe now that I have answered in this section, and perhaps in one or two instances, in other sections, most all that my Reviewers have offer ed for my consideration in their Section II, On the Bible MSS in General.

With regard to the value of the Vaticanus, just a word before taking up Section III, from one who as late as 1921 summed up the findings of later critics:

"Another scheme devised by Dr. Hort to justify his abbreviated text was to put forward the Vatican Codex B as the purest text and nearest to the original autographs This preference has been condemned by later critics." "Bibliotheca Sacra", 1921, P.33

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