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WHO IS WESTCOT AND
HORT?
The 1881
Revision
A Brief Historical Synopsis
 In
1881 A.D. part of the Church of England (Anglican)
decided to revise the King James Bible (the Authorized
Version). The Greek New Testament upon which this
translation had been based was the result of years of
study and work by the brilliant scholar, Desideruis
Eransmus (1466 - 1536 A.D.) Being satisfied with the
King James Bible, the northern convocation of the Church
of England did not want a revision. However, the
southern convocation favored a change and proceeded
alone. A committee of Hebrew and Greek scholars was
selected and was charged to change the obsolete
spelling, update punctuations, change archaic words like
"concupiscence" to "unholy desires", etc. and thus
update the language. As the Southern convocation was
content with the text itself, no real overhaul of the
version was intended. All changes were to be of minor
significance. That is not what the committee did. The
men composing the revision committee went against the
directive that the Anglican Church had given them.
Without authorization and in totally direct
insubordination, rather than merely improve the English
they produced a radically different Greek text - a very
different New Testament! They did not even use the Greek
text upon which the King James was based. Cast aside as
worthless were the Greek manuscripts upon which not only
the King James but the many other English Bibles which
had preceded the King James
 had
been based (i.e. the Great Bible, the Bishops' Bible,
Matthew's Geneva etc.) They thus produced an entirely
different "Bible". This is one of the least know facts
and greatest guarded secrets within the confines of
Christendom. Few people, laymen or pastors are aware of
these happenings.
We must understand
that if we have a version other than the King James, it
has been based upon a Greek text different from the one
used to produce the King James Bible. Although it was
misleadingly named the "Revised" Version, it was not a
revision. Instead, the committee altered the original
Greek text - introducing 5,337 alterations - yet almost
no one is cognizant of this! From whence came this New
Greek text? To answer and unravel this calls for a look
into the past. Several diverse paths must be followed
and examined. Strengthen yourself gentle reader that
which follows is a dreadful account of compromise,
deception, and betrayal - all directed against the
Living God, His Word, and His people.
This excerpt was taken from Which Version is the Bible?
by Floyd Jones.
Who are
Westcott and Hort?
THE GREEK TEXT OF WESTCOTT AND HORT
The Men Who Controlled the 1881 Revision
Let us return to the
1881 Revision Committee and examine the lives and text
which its two leading members produced - Westcott and
Hort. These two men had been working in secret prior to
the revision for over twenty years putting together a
theretofore unpublished Greek text of the New Testament
which was based almost exclusively upon one manuscript,
Vaticanus B. Their New Testament altered the
140,521-word text of the Textus Receptus at 5,604 places
involving 9,970 Greek words. Representing 7 percent of
the total word count, these 9,970 included Greek words
that were either added, subtracted or changed.
When the Committee
initiated its revision process in 1870, W - H succeeded
in getting it to agree to a secrecy pledge concerning
the actual product of the revision. On this committee
was Vance Smith, a Unitarian scholar who did not believe
in the deity of Jesus Christ and had so stated in
writing. At the initial meeting, Westcott and Hort
insisted that Smith be included in the inaugural
communion service. This speaks loudly as to the true
commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ that these two
"professors" of faith actually held forth.
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" I had no idea
until the last few weeks of the importance of
texts having read so little Greek Testament and
dragged on with the villainous Textus Receptus.
Think of that vile Textus Receptus leaning
entirely on late manuscripts." |
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Thus at only age
twenty-three and having admitted he had almost no
preparatory background, Hort concluded that the Textus
Receptus was "vile" and "villainous." At that time he
dedicated his life to its overthrow, intending to
supplant it with another text. The text he eventually
replaced the TR with was Codex Vaticanus B.
At the time of this
decision, young Hort had been schooled in Classical
Greek and was unaware that the New Testament had not
been written in that form of the Greek language. Since
the Greek of the New Testament as recorded in the Textus
Receptus did not rigidly follow the syntax of the Greek
of the classics, Hort deemed it as an inferior quality
of Greek. This misconception was responsible for his
having rashly termed the TR as "vile" and "villainous."
Indeed, the Egyptian papyri, which proved that the N.T.
had been written in Koine (common) Greek rather than
Classical Greek had not yet been discovered.
Vaticanus B had been
"discovered" in 1481 on the library shelf of the
Vatican. To understand Vaticanus B, we have to go back
to approximately 200 A.D. to an early so-called "Father"
of the church named Origen. If the student researches
encyclopedias and other reference materials, he will
find Origen, Westcott and Hort spoken of as having been
great men of God - men of faith. They will state how
much the Church is indebted to them, that Origen was the
first scientific textual exegetical of the Scriptures,
etc. However, such is not what one finds upon close
examination of the facts. For further information on
this subject please see Which Version is the Bible?, by
Floyd Jones.
AN
ASSESSMENT OF WESTCOTT AND HORT - THEIR CHARACTERS
Westcott, an Anglican Bishop and professor at Cambridge
University, and Hort - also an ordained Anglican priest
and professor at Cambridge - came to participate in the
1881 Revision Committee of the King James Bible under
the guise of being Protestant scholars. Actually, they
were very Roman Catholic in doctrine, belief and
practice. Both conservative and liberal branches of
Christendom hold Westcott and Hort in high esteem as if
God had greatly used these men to reestablish and
restore the text of the Bible. However, it is most
difficult to believe that God would use two men to
perform such a task who did not believe that the Bible
was the verbal Word of God.
From published letters written by Westcott and Hort,
either to each other or to family members, the following
has been gleaned. On one occasion, Mr. Westcott was near
a monastery and upon going into the chapel, found a
Pieta. In writing from France to his fiancée in 1847
concerning the event he wrote: "Had I been alone, I
could have knelt there for hours." As he was not alone,
he had to refrain for to have so done would have
revealed just how Roman his beliefs actually were.
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