Assault against Common Sense: Undue Veneration of the KJV

The 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible is a noteworthy milestone in development of English Bible translation. The role that the KJV has play in Western culture should not be underestimated but neither should its place in the history of English Bible translation be deified.

Even the translators acknowledged their place in history in the 1611 KJV when they wrote, "But … to show in brief what we proposed to ourselves, and what course we held in this our perusal and survey of the Bible. Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, … but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavor, that our mark." (Preface to the KJV, 1611; all KJV-only people would benefit from a careful reading of this preface).

Again, this great anniversary gives us pause to appreciate the great gift the KJV has been to many and to honor those whose sacrifices made possible the translation of the Bible into English. Nonetheless, proponents with extreme single-translation fixation will, no doubt, find this an occasion to picket for their cause. One such propoents is Ron Hammon who recently wrote "Assault against the King James Bible in 1881" (http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2011/05/10/faith/doc4dc8cc9d3d539390386756.txt). Since Hammon offer argumentation somewhat typical of KJV-only proponents, I have copied his article below in blue. My comments will follow each of his paragraphs where I think some counterpoint is needed. 

As we said last week, the publication of the King James Bible in 1611 marked the culmination of Protestant Reformation efforts to place the Bible into the hands and language of the English-speaking people.

Culmination may be too strong, unless, of course, Hammon is saying that the Protestant Reformation ended in the seventeenth century. Protestants continue the process of English translation to the present with the NIV (2010) marking the continuing tradition of bringing the Bible to English readers. If what Hammon said about culmination is true then there would have been no need for any revisions of the KJV which took place as early as 1612; in fact, according to Jack P. Lewis (The English Bible: From KJV to NIV), the 1613 edition had 413 changes. Readers might be surprised to know that in 1629, an edition of the KJV was the first to exclude the Apocrypha. Revising the text of the KJV has been an ongoing work since 1611, as the New King James testifies.

While additional Reformation texts can be found in other languages, that the English language would eventually rise to become the trade language of the world in modern time proves the King James Bible to be the greatest gift that the reformers gave to the whole world.

The word "prove" is too strong since the causal relationship between the KJV and the prominence of the English language would be difficult to substantiate and even harder to measure meaningfully. I'm still not sure what these other Reformation texts are. 

It bears repeating that though initially published during the height of the Geneva Bible’s popularity, once established in the hearts of the people, no other English translation was forthcoming for some 270 years. And even at the end of 270 years, what had been commissioned was not a new translation, but a revision of the beloved text. You simply cannot change Greek texts and honestly call it a revision.

Here Hammon simplifies the matter too much. I have already mentioned the various revisions of the KJV in this period but the Geneva Bible continued to be published and used in this period. However, more to the point, Hammon assumes that one should accept the exact textual base (namely, the so called "textus receptus" on which the KJV was based) for any future revision of the KJV.  However, it seems strange that one would want to ignore the vast amount of manuscripts that have become available since 1611.

Two men would rise to the challenge of overthrowing the dominance of the King James Bible, as daunting a task as it has proven to be. Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, both Anglican high churchmen, had been tasked with revising the King James. While there is evidence in their personal writings of Mariolatry, Darwinism and possibly even the paranormal, what is important for us to understand here is their bent against the King James Bible as evidenced by their supplanting of the Reformation Greek text with one which would eventually bear their name, the Wescott and Hort text (also known as The New Testament in the Original Greek).

Now the pastor has stepped into water he little understands. First, the ad hominem smear on Westcott's and Hort's character is immaterial to their ability to work with Greek manuscripts of the NT. And, furthermore, to make such a sweeping generalization should certainly require some bibliographic data.

But more important to the case that Hammon wishes to make: he is correct that W and H wanted to supplant the TR. Their motives were not sadistic or underhanded. Some history will help here. There was (and remains) no "received text" until the publisher Elzevir claimed this for Erasmus' Greek text compiled from a limited number of manuscripts. In 1633, Elzevar wrote, "Textum ergo habes, nunc ab ominus receptum; in quo nihil immutatus aut corruptum damus (What you have here, then, is the text which is now universally recognized; we offer it free of alteration and corruptions)." However, as the Alands (The Text of the New Testament an Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism) note, the editions since 1633 have been far from uniform. Furthermore, Elzevar overstated his case, as book sellers still do: Neither the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox church would have any interest in switching from their revered texts for the TR's Byzantine text.

What W and H actually did in the editing for their Greek NT was to take the evidence as known to them seriously. They were forthright about their methodology which was designed to help scholars sort through the vast array of manuscripts of the NT that had come down to them. While many have criticized W and H, no one to date has put forward a theory of textual transmission that makes more sense than theirs.  

While it is not our purpose here to discuss at length the Textus Receptus, the Greek text underlying the King James Bible, what is necessary to understand is that during the 18th and 19th centuries, German rationalism had crept into Protestantism. By the time Westcott and Hort appeared on the scene, this had manifested itself in the idea that the oldest Greek texts were the best and most reliable — a pretty convenient invention considering Roman Catholicism had been busy burning bibles during the Dark Ages.

Wow! Really? Actually, the role of the TR is central to the reliability of the KJV. It provided the text from which the KJV was translated. If the TR is found lacking, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that any translation based on it will also be lacking. And that is the case. This is not to name a fault as it is to point the obvious reality of Bible translation: When better manuscripts are discovered, faithful Bible translators will want to incorporate anything valuable from them.

In this paragraph, though, Hammon leaves the exact role of German rationalism unclear. So W and H are German liberals?

By the way, W and H did not always think the oldest Greek manuscripts were the best—they actually preferred some early manuscripts over other early ones. So if the oldest manuscripts are not the best, for the sake of argument, how does one weigh which later ones are? No cogent theory of the transmission of any ancient text would argue out of hand that the later manuscripts are the best. Manuscripts must be studied.

Given the anti-Catholicism of Hammon's argument below, Hammon intimates that Catholics were destroying the better manuscripts. Notice that Hammon confuses the destruction of Greek manuscripts (something Catholics would not do) with burning Bibles (which they did do since they believed the new translations were unfaithful to the Catholic tradition).

Regarding manuscripts, the irony is that it is Catholic and Orthodox MONKS who preserve and transmit the Greek text of the NT! Additionally, most of our manuscripts come from Egypt where the Eastern church held sway. 

With the infatuation of ancient manuscripts firmly entrenched in their minds, Wescott and Hort based their Greek text on two such manuscripts, the first known to us today as the Codex Sinaiticus. Found by Constantin von Tischendorf in 1859, what makes this manuscript interesting is that the monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery had deemed it so poor that they were about ready to burn it. Over the centuries of its existence, it had been erased and overwritten so many times that it was considered unreliable. But for the worship of antiquity, all this was swept away.

While it is true that Tischendorf found Codex Sinaiticus in the trash, the explanation has to be other than Hammon gives. First, monks consider manuscripts as relics; they preserve them as long as they could. Secondly, Hammon revises the tale of Tischendorf's discovery. Tichendorf first discovers part of the codex in 1844 when he notices some parchment about to be thrown in the furnace. Apparently the monks throwing the manuscripts in the trash did do not know what they were throwing away. Hammon should also mention that Codex Sinaiticus is the only complete Greek NT in the old Uncial script that we have. Aside from the relative quality of the manuscripts, this is an important discovery for understanding how the Greek NT was passed down to us.

But also of note is that Saint Catherine’s is a Catholic monastery. Located at the foot of Mount Sinai on the Sinai Peninsula, this monastery has also been known as the Monastery of the Holy Virgin. Add to this that this manuscript is dated back to the fourth century, we can safely conclude this a Roman Catholic manuscript.

Holy Crap! Sorry, I can't think of a better way to say this. Every manuscript of the Greek New Testament will have been at one time or another either a Catholic or an Orthodox manuscript. Remember, monks? And St. Catherine's is an Orthodox monastery.  

Their second manuscript is known to us today as the Codex Vaticanus. Of note with this manuscript is that, as its name implies, this is property of the Vatican Library, being catalogued as early as 1475. Also of note is what is missing from this manuscript: five entire New Testament books.

Many ancient manuscripts have damage. Besides normal wear and tear, manuscripts were sometimes dismantled to sell it in smaller lots to fetch more money. This particular manuscript deserves more description than Hammon gives it. First, it originally contained both the Old and the New Testament. Second, it also contained the Aprocrypha as did the 1611 KJV. And, finally, it is missing more than just the five NT books per Hammon. At the beginning of the codex about forty six chapters of Genesis are missing; some thirty Psalms are gone and the concluding pages past Hebrews 9.14 are missing. So both the front and back pages have been torn away. Among the back pages would have been the Pastorals, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation. Hammon also fails to mention that ancient manuscripts often rearrange the books of the NT in orders different than printed NTs today.

While I cannot suggest a reason as to the exclusion of the tiny epistle of Philemon, it is easy to see that the absence of Paul’s pastoral epistles is in large part due to the conflict between the sacrament of celibacy and Paul’s requirement that a bishop be “the husband of one wife.” With regard to the absence of the book of Revelation, there is no doubt that it fell out of favor in identifying Babylon the Great in chapter 17 as Rome, which not only sits on seven mountains (verse nine), but also was the great city that reigned “over the kings of the earth” in John’s day.

Wow, again! Hello! The Catholics were sure successful in keeping these books secret! Have you ever looked at the Vulgate! These texts are all there and so are the "husband of one wife" (unius uxoris virum) and the seven hills (septem montes) of Revelation are there, too. Maybe the fact the Vulgate was not in English kept Europeans from reading it.

Again, what needs to be understood here is that while the King James Bible represents the culmination of Protestant Reformation efforts, the Greek text of Westcott and Hort and its progeny, the English Revised Version of 1881 represents a bid to undo and reverse Reformation victories.

Really? Evangelical Bible translators are today undermining the gains of the Reformation? No further comment needed here. 

While the English Revised Version, and its American counterpart, were initially vigorously opposed, they really only suffered partial defeat. For though they are not in common usage today, the seeds of their usurpation were sown. Through the multiplicity of versions and the disassociation of Westcott and Hort from the critical texts in use today, most are completely unaware that the Reformation hangs in the balance today. But as the saying goes, “all roads lead to Rome.”

So, in the end, according to Hammon, the modern critical study of the Greek NT is a tool the Catholic church is using to undermine the Protestant Reformation.

I would like to offer an alternative scenario—since I'm among those who collate and index these ancient manuscripts. Is it possible, in light of the new manuscript discoveries since the KJV, that textual critics are more interested in weighing all of the evidence as opposed to accepting a few, not so good, manuscripts that some printer called the "received text"?