The Destructive Effects of the Modern Bible Versions

According to Wikipedia there are 450 English translations of the Bible. Their number includes versions in premodern English as well as those most in use today. The modern versions are based on the work of Westcott and Hort that came out of the last Church-convened reviving committee in 1881. Again according to Wikipedia, the most popular version among scholars today is the New Revised Version based on that work. Most Bibles in use today are based on the Critical Text which indludes readings from the Greek manuscripts Westcott and Hort introduced to the revising committee. There are usually some dozen or so translations listed wherever you go online to look up a passage from scripture. There may be many more modern versions than that but at least a dozen are popular.

There has been a big controversy for decades about the Greek manuscripts that underlie the modern versions, splitting the English-speaking Christian world into the KJV-Only camp versus those who accept the work of the revising committee. The KJV-Only group argue that the new Greek manuscripts are not genuine, but the scholars have prevailed in most of the churches, accepting the judgment of Westcott and Hort. My own attempt to understand the controversy put me on the side of the KJV-Only camp, but not completely since some of them tend to a sort of superstitious belief in the divine source of that English version. I came to the view that the KJV should be updated to keep up with changing English usage, which means I don't regard it as divinely ordained, but that the Greek manuscripts that underlie it ARE divinely ordained.

The view I find most persuasive is that of Dean John William Burgon who wrote extensively against the work of the 1881 revising committee. He objected both to the new Greek manuscripts and to the committee's translation which he dismissed for its "schoolboy" level understanding of Greek. He regarded the Greek manuscripts Westcott and Hort brought into the new revision as the work of heretics in the early Church, which he said was known by the Church before Westcott and Hort legitimized them and based their revision on them.

Since then more information suggestzs that those manuscripts may have been later forgeries. In any case they are in oddly pristine condition which suggests that they didn't undergo the wear and tear of use that has left most Greek manuscripts as well as older translations in fragments no older than the tenth century. (If I'm remembering correctly, Chris Pinto's documentaries "Tares Among the Wheat" and particularly "Bridge to Babylon" present evidence against the legitimacy of the manuscripts).

The worst effect of the legitimizing of those manuscrupts comes from the fact that they leave out some well-knownn passages, so that accepting them as the authentic originals discredits the King James version which includes those pasages, and all others based on the earlier Greek textual tradition known as the Received Text or Textus Receptus. Westcott and Hort made up a theory without any evidence whatever that the early Church had added in those passages that are not found in their favored manuscriptus but are found in the manuscripts that underlie the King James. That argument of course destroys the authenticity of the King James, and calls into question the inerrancy of the Bible.

Some try to argue for Bible inerrancy despite the destructive effects of Westcott and Hort's theory, and most of the modern versions incorporate the passages missing from their new manuscripts just because they are so well known, which of course anyone with a logical mind knows is deceitful. Yet most of the churches accdept the new versions as legitimate.

Burgon also objected to the English translation produced by the revising commnittee of 1881 as bad Enghlish based on worse Greek. Of course I have no way of judging this, at least not the Greek, but Burgon is clearly an eminent scholar and to my mind far more convincing than his opponents. And of course my own reaction to the English doesn't carry any weight, but I do enormously appreciate Burgon's criticism of one particular element of the translation: Westcott and Hort render the "aorist" tense in Greek into a klutzy aping of it in English rather than into correct English usage. That is, the Greek has this special tense called the "aorist" which conveys an ongoing action, wheras English puts ongoing action in the simple past tense.

For instance, take a phrase like "Jesus taught the people" which implies an ongoing action in English, while the Greek puts it in the aorist tense because that's how the Greek language conveys ongoing action. Westcott and Hort translate it "Jesus was teaching the people" instead of the simple "taught the people." I remember hearing a very popular Bible translation lauded for its accuracy because of this rendering of the aorist tense, whereas Burgon calls it bad English. English doesn't need this aorist tense. We know when it implies ongoing action as opposed to a one-time past action, and in the rare situations where it isn't clear THEN we can use the other form but it's rarely needed. Westcott and Hort use this klutzy phrasing so often I can hardly stand to listen to some versions being read out loud by the teachers who use them. I'm no linguist of course but it grates on me. It's lousy English and when I saw that Burgon objected to it I was enormously grateful.

They brought heretical Greek manuscripts into our Bible, they threw a monkey wrench into Biblical inerrancy and they contributed to the debasement of the English language. What's not to like? The destructive effect of the modern Bibles based on the 1881 revision should be classed up there with the destructive effect of the Liberal Theology that came out of Tubingen, Germany, also in the 19th cemtury, and the Marxist attack on Western Civilization and the Darwinian attack on the Bible. The 19th century seems to have been the devil's playground, and after it all went through the intensification of the sixties it's brought us to the mess we're in today. .

But I digress. Sort of . The conlusion I came to about the Bible versions is that the KJV is the only legitimate Bible we have these days. Yes I agree it could use some updating but even so any updating needs to be done by men of the caliber of the KJV translators of 1611 and I don't think that's possible today. It also needs to be done under the auspinces of the Church and not by commerciqal interests as so many of the modern versions were done, and not by any self-appointed individual or group. Even a Church appointed committee can get it wrong though, which is certainly evidenced by the work of the committee of 1881 that included at least one heretic and was was manipulated by Westcott and Hort. We're probably better off leaving the KJV alone for now.

There's also the problem of having different translations at all. I know some people say it's only the underlying text that's the problem, a translation is just a translation, no big deal. But I think it is. Once you've learned a passage from the KJV, say a familiar psalm, it is jarring to hear it from a different translqation. Even if the words have the same meaning there's a kind of violence in hearing a different set of words. And if it is also a bad translation, which to my ear is the case with even the most popular translation from the Westcott and Hort family --which I wouldn't have the nerve to say if Burgon hadn't already said it, but it's a sort of violence to the body of Christ to hear in other words something that is as familiar as a loved psalm.

Guess I can say what I like out here in the cyber gulag, nobody needs to take me seriously. But it feels good to get it said. If it pleases God may He get any glory.