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Old 12-06-2008, 06:17 AM
Steven Avery Steven Avery is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
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Hi Folks,

Quote:
Originally Posted by Manny Rodriguez
Scrivener was a Bible "corrector" in the similar sense that John Wesley and Noah Webster (author of the 1828 Websters Dictionary that Bible Believers hold so dear) were considering that they also authored their own revisions of the English Bible. These men had no disdain for the Traditional Texts or the KJV like Westcott and Hort and supporters of the Alexandrian Text crowd did/does. As the KJV was going through its purification process between 1611 and the 1800s, many of these men sincerely thought there was more work to be done. Of course, we now know that they were wrong. But I wouldn't put Scrivener in the same category as Westcott, Hort, Nestles, Nida, Aland, and others who manifested a real disdain for the KJV. Scrivener opposed Westcott and Hort and wrote extensively in disproving their translating theories, criticizing their corrupted Greek text, and uplifting the Received Texts of which the KJV was based upon.
While above I defend the Scrivener Greek text that represents the King James Bible, this misses a few points.

Scrivener's position was more milquetoast. Example: Wesley defended the Johannine Comma (quoting quite beautifully with a bit of modification the mariner's compass poem of Bengelius) Scrivener attacked it .. even while essentially recognizing the Cyprian citation. Scrivener also attacked other TR verses like Acts 8:37.

Noah Webster was a grammatical 'corrector', not a textual corrector. His view of the grammar of the King James Bible was similar to the Scrivener view of the text and translation, a desire to make "corrections", to meddle and muddle. With Scrivener that is why he was on the Revision committee, that is why even his Cambridge Paragraph Bible changed faith to hope in Hebrews 10:23 and why he wrote specifically opposing various Greek-minority TR verses.

Dean Burgon, while not strictly TR, never attacked these verses and wrote in a way that favored every more significant Received Text verse. Even in his case it would be more accurate to say he uplifted the Traditional Text. From outside Dean Burgon decimated the corrupt Revision, smashed it to smithareens. Something never done by the compromised Scrivener, who had been on the Committee.

Scrivener in a sense gave the Revision legitimacy by being on the committee and losing the textual battles against Hort the mesmerist (my conjecture, based on the seance attendance with occultists/mesmerists even when older). Losing in this context means outvoted in the Revision Committee. Even if he went in without full understanding, after a day or a month or a year of the charade he would better have left the Revision. Afaik, he remained to the bitter end and must be considered as an active participant in the biggest textual disaster of some centuries. (ie. Combined with the W-H Greek text accepted by the participants.) What did he accomplish in his 10 years or so ? Perhaps Scrivener prevented a couple of laughable Hortian "primitive corruptions" into the text or effected the manner the Revised Version deceived the publich in including the ending of Mark against its own text. Better to let the dogs lie to one another and have time for prayer and sleep.

While we can respect his scholarship (even including some of his KJB scholarship and historical analysis) and appreciate greatly his Greek KJB-text, and note various arguments he made that were solid, we should be slow to give F H A Scrivener more than faint praise, if that, for his Bible views overall. While he definitely should not be confused with Westcott, Metzger, Aland etc. his overall Bible text legacy is mixed.

Shalom,
Steven

Last edited by Steven Avery; 12-06-2008 at 06:28 AM.