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Westcott
The
NIV, released in 1978 was translated using, NOT the
Greek "Textus Receptus" but a series of translations
known as the Alexandrian or 'Westcott-Hort' text.
Just
what is this "Westcott-Hort" text, what is it and who
wrote it?
As the
names imply, the answer is two men: Brooke Foss Westcott
(1825-1903) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892).
Both
were Non-Christian Anglican "ministers" who held strongly
to Alexandrian beliefs and had a well documented
deep-rooted hatred for the King James Version of the Bible
and for the Greek "Textus Receptus".
Let's
examine the lives of these men and I'll let YOU decide how
"HOLY" their translation was:
Brooke Foss Westcott
As an
undergraduate at Cambridge, B.F. Westcott also founded the
Hermes Club, which he named after the Graeco-Egyptian
deity, Hermes Trismegistus. Subsequent Hermetic
societies founded by other Spiritualists would become
famous in England -- one organized in 1884 by Anna
Kingsford and Edward Maitland, which was in close contact
with the Theosophical Society, and The Order of the Golden
Dawn founded by MacGregor Mathers and Wynn Westcott.
In
1853, two years after founding the Cambridge University
Ghost Society, F.J.A. Hort and B. F. Westcott agreed, upon
the suggestion of publisher Daniel Macmillan, to take part
in "an interesting and comprehensive 'New Testament
Scheme,'" that is, to undertake a joint revision of the
Greek New Testament.
The
project was withheld from public knowledge during the
twenty years required by Westcott and Hort to complete the
New Greek Text and during the subsequent ten years during
which an English Revision Committee revised the 1611
Authorized Version.
However, during this period of nearly thirty years, Drs.
Westcott and Hort maintained their involvement in the
Spiritualist pursuits of their various secret societies
and political cabals: the Hermes Club, Ghost Society,
Company of Apostles, and Eranus.
Dean
John William Burgon refuted the claims of the Westcott-Hort
Theory as:
"the
latest outcome of that violent recoil from the Traditional
Greek Text, -- that strange impatience of its authority,
or rather denial that it possesses any authority at all,
-- which began with Lachmann just 50 years ago (viz. In
1831), and has prevailed ever since; its most conspicuous
promoters being Tregelles (1857-72) and Tischendorf
(1865-72) . . . Drs. Westcott and Hort have in fact
outstripped their predecessors in this singular race.
Their absolute contempt for the Traditional Text, -- their
superstitious veneration for a few ancient documents;
(which documents however they freely confess are not
more ancient than the 'Traditional Text' which they
despise;) -- knows no bounds." (John William Burgon,
B. D., The Revision Revised, Dean Burgon Society Press,
1883, pp. 241-42, 270)
WESTCOTT'S OWN WORDS
The
following are letters written from Brooke Foss Westcott to
various people and the quotes are directly from his
letters. The bold type, italics and color are placed for
emphasis and did not appear as such in his original
letters:
Written January 1852 concerning SPIRITUALISM
"The interest and importance of a serious and earnest
inquiry into the nature of the phenomena which are vaguely
called 'supernatural' will scarcely be questioned.' . . .
My father ceased to interest himself in these matters not
altogether, I believe, from want of faith in what, for
lack of a better name one must call Spiritualism, but
because he was seriously convinced that such
investigations led to no good. But there are many others
who believe it possible that the beings of the unseen
world may manifest themselves to us in extraordinary ways,
and also are unable otherwise to explain in many facts the
evidence for which cannot be impeached."
Written to John A. Hort, May 5, 1860
"For I too 'must disclaim settling for infallibility.' In
the front of my convictions all I hold is the more I
learn, the more I am convinced that fresh doubts come from
my own ignorance, and that at present I find the
presumption in favor of the absolute truth -- I reject the
word infallibility -- of Holy Scripture overwhelming."
June
14, 1886 -- To the Archbishop of Canterbury
"No doubt the language of the rubric is unguarded, but it
saves us from the error of connecting the presence of
Christ's glorified humanity with place: heaven is a state
and not a place."
March 4, 1890 -- To the Archbishop of Canterbury
"No one now, I suppose holds that the first three chapters
of Genesis, for example, give a literal history -- I could
never understand how any one reading them with open eyes
could think they did -- yet they disclose to us a gospel."
(Also in Westcott’s New Bibles, James H. Sightler, M.D.;
Page 14; Westcott, A., op.cit.,Vol. II,p.89)
Concerning the bodily resurrection of Jesus:
"It may indeed be said that the Church was founded upon
the belief in the Resurrection and not upon the
Resurrection itself; and that the testimony must therefore
be limited to the attestation of the belief, and cannot
reach to the attestation of the fact." (Westcott’s 1867
pamphlet, The Resurrection as a Fact and as a Revelation,
page 13)
"The
Revelation (of the Resurrection) was a Revelation to
believers…That which is of the earth can perceive only
that which is of the earth. Our senses can only grasp that
which is kindred to themselves: the world could not see
Christ, and Christ could not - there is a Divine
impossiblility - shew Himself to the world. To have proved
by incontestable evidence that Christ rose again as
Lazarus rose again, would have been not to confirm our
faith but to destroy it irretrievably" (The Gospel of
Life, New York; Macmillan & Co., 1892, p.35, Heresies of
Westcott and Hort 1979, pp 32-33)
"The
Resurrection, to set the matter in another light, was not
an isolated event. It was and is an abiding fact. It was
the beginning of a new and living relation between the
Lord and His People." (The Gospel of Life, New York;
Macmillan & Co., 1892, p.35, Heresies of Westcott and Hort
1979, pp 32-33)
Concerning Darwinism:
"A celebrated author and divine has written to me that ‘he
has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a
conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few
original forms capable of self development into other
needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act
of creation to supply the voids caused by the actions of
his laws." (Second edition of Darwin’s Origin, January
1860 quoting from Westcott’s letter)
Concerning Incarnation:
"The essence of the idea of the Incarnation lies not in
the recognition of a distinct divine person, but in the
personal and final union of the Godhead and humanity. The
Divine counsel of the union of God with man realized in
the Incarnation is the foundation of Revelation" (The
Gospel of the Resurrection of 1866)
"The
Incarnation if commonly made to depend on the Fall: the
conceivableness of the Incarnation lies in the thought of
what man was originally made, and not in what he became
through his self-assertion: Man did not lose the image of
God by the Fall. His essential nature still remained
capable of union with God, but it was burdened and
hampered. And further: “We believe that the Incarnation
would have been necessary for the fulfillment of man’s
destiny even if he had perfectly followed the divine law"
(Westcott,B.F. op.cit.,History Faith, p.250-51, Christus
Consummator, p.104,116,118., Historic Faith,p.66)
There
is much more that can be written to show what manner of
man Mr. Westcott really was, however, I think you've got
enough to understand.
Α Ω
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