tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post562260909693934551..comments2024-03-29T07:11:17.775+00:00Comments on Evangelical Textual Criticism: “Guest Post” from the Grave: William G. Pierpont on E.F. HillsP.J. Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04388225485348300613noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-50853143111588497592022-08-11T01:16:22.952+01:002022-08-11T01:16:22.952+01:00Ximenes and Erastus seem to have wished to produce...Ximenes and Erastus seem to have wished to produce a Greek text that would refine the Latin, and Beza continued that theme of refining the Latin. What, evidently, they wanted - or one of their goals - was to refine the ecclesiastical text. That sort of approach was evident also in the series of the great English translations - Tyndale 1526 (whole New Testament) and 1534 (part Old Testament), Coverdale 1535 (whole Bible), Coverdale 1539 (revision, receiving Royal Assent, ie first authorised Bible), Bishops’ 1568 (receiving Royal Assent. Ie second authorised Bible), Authorised 1611 (ordered and commissioned and financed by the King, ie third authorised Bible). On the appearance of the AV/KJV, only it and the Geneva Bible continued as the two English Bibles in common use : the one being the official and public Bible, and so accepted; the other being the (not banned) the private home and study Bible, and so used. The two Bibles were both in use until, we may say,1688, the year of Bunyan’s death and of the “Glorious Revolution”. Thereafter, the AV/KJV was “our common version”. Parris revised it a little in 1762 at Cambridge, and Blayney revised it further in 1769 at Oxford. Those revisions were entirely acceptable to the English. Scrivener published his Cambridge Paragraph Bible in 1873; but it was never adopted by the English as the next in line of “our common version”. Thereafter, the rot set in. Despite the warnings of many, including many who were for further gentle revision, it was the National Church(!), the Church of England, that smashed the unity of “our common version’ : the southern Convocation of Canterbury - the northern Convocation of York would have nothing to do with it - precipitously embarked on the Revised Version, which in turn - when the English and the Americans fell out - led to the American Standard Version…….and the to the Revised Standard Version, etc., etc. etc.. In all this, while Bible readers were not unaware of the fact of the Biblical languages and of the need to refine “our common version” - this latter awareness amply demonstrated by the linear history of the English Bible from Tyndale to Blayney - their “common version” was taken from them. Is it any wonder that KJV- Onlyism should have set in? Now we have KJV-Onlyists who will not budge from ther KJV; but there are also others who would accept gentle revision, initially by way of an enlarged or second margin (one of the neglected proposals of the nineteenth century). [Meanwhile, let me commend the Trinitarian Bible Society’s excellent and inexpensive Westminster Reference Bible.]<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Alexander Thomsonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-71144336601129486202022-06-22T14:28:25.177+01:002022-06-22T14:28:25.177+01:00Hi Darrell, thanks for this informative comment. I...Hi Darrell, thanks for this informative comment. I think TR defenders would argue that since we don't know what all did exist at one point and has since been lost, we can't *know* from the manuscripts that still exist that God didn't do it in a public way. Of course I think this is terrible reasoning (for the very reasons you give).<br /><br />I heard someone say recently that when we say "God must have..." what we really mean is "If I were God I would have...". That's a terrible place to be theologically. Why not simply say that God has indeed given us sufficient access to his Word, and that this is indeed publicly accessible? That puts one's faith in God to provide and not in man to be able to identify infallibly which copy to believe—Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and hope that is seen is not hope. If we have to see it on our terms to believe it, what is that?Elijah Hixsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05816323223305820788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-34282856618715326432022-06-22T14:14:46.055+01:002022-06-22T14:14:46.055+01:00Hi Ryan, thanks for this. I'd agree with Hills...Hi Ryan, thanks for this. I'd agree with Hills on the existence of divine providence, but it's difficult for us to see God's purposes clearly when we're in the midst of them. It seems to me that Hills' position effectively has God's providence stopping in 1611, though Hills himself would say that God's providence continues with the defense of the KJV (I just found a letter to Pierpont in which Hills says this explicitly). Why that and not manuscript discoveries?<br /><br />I do see the presumption, but as I see it, it's not so much presuming that the data supports their case when rightly interpreted (though that too), it's that they presume what the data *is* before making conclusions about it. You see that in Hills's Believing Bible Study—you get lip-service paid to a handful of places where the TR ≠ the Majority text, but the rhetoric is strongly majority text/traditional text. It's as if the presumption is that the majority of manuscripts are all the same and all support the TR (except in these very few places), but that's not the evidence that God in his providence left for us. You can't interpret the evidence correctly if you don't know what it is in the first place.Elijah Hixsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05816323223305820788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-41412450976253501972022-06-21T21:30:20.401+01:002022-06-21T21:30:20.401+01:00Regarding axiom 1) “The purpose of PP is to preser...Regarding axiom 1) “The purpose of PP is to preserve the infallibility of the autographic text, and that God must have done so in a public way, i.e., so that all may know where and what it is-- not hidden somewhere among the MSS and requiring to be searched out.”<br />Appeals to “God must have” and “all may know” are immediately falsified by the subsequent proposition that it cannot be “hidden somewhere among the MSS.” In other words, there is the admission here that some MSS differ, and so whoever copied these differences were among those who “didn’t know” and copied in violation of what “God must have done.” There seems to be a confidence that the vast majority “knew” against only a slim minority of copyists who “didn’t know” or that these copies made by those who “didn’t know” died out and were no longer copied. <br />But the problem is the data is so much more complex. I am currently working on a large project to collate every continuous text manuscript that includes John 11. By my count, 1,824 MSS include at least a portion of John 11. As of today, I have collated 1,154 continuous text manuscripts (and 23 Lectionaries). <br />Thus far, I have isolated at least 88 manuscript families, clusters, or pairs, that together represent 583 out of the 1154 manuscripts collated. These are identified as MSS that agree together at a higher percentage than each agrees with the MT. Then there are many MSS that display a mixed text with no close relatives, meaning the scribes who copied these also “didn’t know.” Then of the remaining MSS, these tend to agree with the 2005 R-P Majority text at a clip of about 948 to 953 words out of the 953 in John 11. Depending on one’s appetite for absolute precision in what God must have done, most of these MSS could get tossed out by the occasional nonsense reading, spelling variation of proper names, or variations around the ‘moveable nu’ or the addition or elision of the final vowel in certain words. <br />And this is entirely limited to John 11. If a MS matches the MT perfectly, 953 out of 953, there still could be nonsense readings or other variations in other chapters of John, or the other books bound with it. <br />I can affirm the good news that the text of John 11 is remarkably stable. There are only a few places where the precise nuance of meaning is in question, and these do not detract at all from being able to understand what was originally penned in John 11. The editors of both the NA/UBS text and the R-P Majority Text did a good job, given the goals of each of these texts. So far, I see only one MT reading that may turn out to be the minority reading. There is also one reading in the NA text that I personally would overturn based on the MS evidence collected and then applying the principles for textual criticism.<br />But given the proposition that God must have made it so “all may know,” it appears that the actual scribes who did the copying were somehow among those who “didn’t know.”<br />Darrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05514916694063974131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-86206483745847606572022-06-20T16:02:27.691+01:002022-06-20T16:02:27.691+01:00The other day I couldn't find my keys. That m...The other day I couldn't find my keys. That made me late leaving. But then I arrived at just the right moment to find an old friend who needed my help. Was that just good fortune? Or was God at work? <br />The later option might sound inspirational, but consider the implications: are we really imagining that God is in the habit of sneaking around my house hiding my keys?<br /><br />Maybe. Who really knows? But that's actually the point. As much as I might want something to have been the work of God, unless God himself takes the credit I think it's presumptuous - sinfully presumptuous - of us to give it to him.<br /><br />In Steven's citation above we see many examples of something that Hills and others in the KJV movement frequently seem to do: point to basic historical events and presumptuously attribute them to God's providence. It maybe wouldn't be so bad if they didn't then usually take the next step of deriving theological intention from that providence, all so that they can enlist the will of God in support of their own arguments. Ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10915737233077999632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-42927279498145261892022-06-19T19:33:55.291+01:002022-06-19T19:33:55.291+01:00One difficulty with accuracy as you put it is that...One difficulty with accuracy as you put it is that Pierpont says his assessment is made with both editions "together with several items of personal correspondence"—it may be that Hills himself did vocalize these things in private but did not publish them in King James Version Defended. After all, he did explicitly claim that the Byzantine text was a later corruption in his doctoral dissertation (p. 89: "so here the presence of these harmonizations in the Textus Receptus may be an indication that the Byzantine text descended, at least in part, from the Caesarean text."; p. 103: "Returning to the proposition that the Byzantine text is the result of a mixture of the Caesarean text with the Neutral text, we find that there is also a certain historical probability for this hypothesis."), but would anyone say that those statements reflected his actual, public views? Hills did write those statements though.<br /><br />I know there are some letters from Hills in the next batch of Pierpont correspondence that I am scanning, but I haven't made it to them yet. The only thing from Hills in what I have already scanned was a short paper on how to read Tischendorf's apparatus that Pierpont had sent to Hills for feedback and Hills sent back with notes, but that isn't helpful here.<br /><br />I will say that I searched the 1956 version for some keywords from what you quoted, and I couldn't find that quote—doesn't mean it isn't there, just that I couldn't find it. The 1956 edition of the book is almost 100 pages shorter than the 1973 edition though.Elijah Hixsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05816323223305820788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-49907487279078378712022-06-19T19:16:19.045+01:002022-06-19T19:16:19.045+01:00Thanks for this. If I remember correctly, Reuss di...Thanks for this. If I remember correctly, Reuss didn't do complete collations either but had a series of test passages he checked in each edition.Elijah Hixsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05816323223305820788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-76572426276125671372022-06-19T16:08:23.963+01:002022-06-19T16:08:23.963+01:00Clearly no one is anxious to get into a discussion...Clearly no one is anxious to get into a discussion of accuracy relating to two respected men who have both passed.<br /><br />William Grover Pierpont (1915-2003)<br />Edward Freer Hills (1912-1981) <br /><br />Positions could have been in flux, they may have changed, the conversation may be recorded from a one-sided perspective. <br /><br />And I think it is very clear that there is a big difference between what is put in the book in 1983 by Hills, and/or his compiler, compared to how his position is represented in the post above. <br /><br />The book was originally published in 1956 but it is not easy to check that edition. It would be interesting to see if it has more of a Greek-primacy approach than the 1983 edition, which might help us understand the William Pierpont summary above.<br /><br />Anybody have the 1956 handy? Or even any intermediary edition before 1983.<br /><br />Thanks! <br /><br />Steven Avery<br />Dutchess County, NY USASteven Averyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18019556495973817763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-44408554870182495672022-06-18T21:30:06.135+01:002022-06-18T21:30:06.135+01:00Let's have Edward Freer Hills speak directly:
...Let's have Edward Freer Hills speak directly:<br /><br />======================<br /><br />The King James Bible Defended (1983 edition)<br />Edward Freer Hills<br />https://www.febc.edu.sg/assets/pdfs/VPP/TheKingJamesVersionDefended.pdf<br /><br />The special providence of God is particularly evident in the fact that the text of the Greek New Testament was first printed and published not in the East but in Western Europe where the influence of the Latin usage and of the Latin Vulgate was very strong. Through the influence of the Latin-speaking Church Erasmus and his successors were providentially guided to follow the Latin Vulgate here and there in those few places in which the Latin Church usage rather than the Greek Church usage had preserved the genuine reading. Hence the Textus Receptus was a further step in the providential preservation of the New Testament. In it the few errors of any consequence occurring in the Traditional Greek Text were corrected by the providence of God operating through the usage of the Latin speaking Church of Western Europe.<br /><br />... during the 16th century when the New Testament text was being printed for the first time, God worked providentially through the usage of the Latin-speaking Church to influence Erasmus and the other editors and printers of that period to follow the Latin Vulgate in those few places in which the Latin Church usage rather than the Greek Church usage had preserved the genuine reading. ...<br /><br />There are also a few passages in which the Latin Vulgate has preserved the true reading rather than the Greek Traditional New Testament Text. As we shall see in the next chapter, these few true Latin Vulgate readings were later incorporated into the Textus Receptus, the first printed Greek New Testament text, under the guiding providence of God.<br /><br />======================<br /><br />Steven Avery<br />Dutchess County, NY USASteven Averyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18019556495973817763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-72358676535857039612022-06-18T01:13:30.990+01:002022-06-18T01:13:30.990+01:00If this is an accurate portrayal of Hillis’ argume...If this is an accurate portrayal of Hillis’ arguments for the TR and KJV then I am flabbergasted that proponents of the TR/Ecclesiastical/KJV rely on him as their experts. Dr. Robinson’s MT is a much surer foundation! Timothy Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06641788186736340533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-71487682307245044982022-06-17T22:16:14.206+01:002022-06-17T22:16:14.206+01:00I don’t think I have seen anyone address the issue...I don’t think I have seen anyone address the issue of manuscripts versus eclectic texts when discussing the TR. The 1872 book “BIBLIOTHECA NOVI TESTAMENTI GRAECI” by Eduard Reuss shows from a span of 1514 to 1650 there were 173 Greek NT published by 40 authors and a great majority have differences between them. Also some do not have Erasmus’s error at Rev 22:19 and only the Beza’s NT have the emendation at Rev 16:5. I believe when talking TR or TT this should be made apparent to the reader even though this would add more confusion to the layreader when they discover their Bible is translated from an eclectic text and not from a manuscript or codex. IMHOCharliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02118624376124137512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-47232142637480124702022-06-17T15:43:12.815+01:002022-06-17T15:43:12.815+01:00I thought it was interesting that Pierpont seemed ...I thought it was interesting that Pierpont seemed to accept axioms 1 and 2, and primary principle b.<br /><br />Those seem to me to make a pretty shaky foundation to build on. I don't think the passages cited for primary principle be support the conclusions Hills drew from them. Nor do I think primary principle b logically follows from primary principle a, the way the wording implies.Eric Rowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13379106188046530722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-83294756386360907482022-06-17T14:35:36.214+01:002022-06-17T14:35:36.214+01:00I just fixed it; thanks for catching that!I just fixed it; thanks for catching that!Elijah Hixsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05816323223305820788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17859011.post-58763587869191210532022-06-17T11:23:46.128+01:002022-06-17T11:23:46.128+01:00Thank you for making this available! I would like ...Thank you for making this available! I would like to draw your attention to a minor typo which can be easily corrected to <br /><br />"In order to admit "corrections" from this source (or others?) Dr. Hills lays down this rule: such readings from non-TT sources may be made part of the good text if they "seem to be improvements" in wording and if they m no way" - m no way should be in no way.Daniel Mounthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04192884791044413967noreply@blogger.com