Why We Use the King James Bible, Lesson 8: The Men Behind the Modern Text

Welcome to Authorized Sword Ministries. This is Lesson 8 in our series, Why We Use the King James Bible. Today's lesson is called The Men Behind the Modern Text.

We're so glad you're here.

In Lesson 6 we saw two streams of manuscripts. Today we look more closely at the men whose work most changed the Greek text behind modern English Bibles. We are going to be careful here. We will not overclaim, and we will not attack anyone's character with stories we cannot prove. We will explain what they did, how their method worked, and why that method still matters when you open a Bible today.

Our Key Verse

"Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."
— Proverbs 30:5-6 (KJV)

Every word is pure. Nobody has the right to add to God's words or to take away from them. That warning is why a change in the Greek text is never only a scholar's business.

The Bible also closes with a solemn word about the words of this Book:

"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
— Revelation 22:18-19 (KJV)

Westcott and Hort

Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort were Cambridge scholars in the Church of England in the 1800s. For many years they worked on a new edition of the Greek New Testament. In 1881 they published it under the title The New Testament in the Original Greek. That same year, the English Revised Version appeared, and their Greek work was closely tied to that revision.

They did not hide their method. They gave very great weight to a small number of old manuscripts, especially Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, which we met in Lesson 6. They believed those witnesses, in the main, stood closer to the original than the text found in the large majority of later manuscripts. They treated the common church text, sometimes called the Syrian or Byzantine text, as a later recension, that is, a later edited form, rather than as the text God had preserved in the churches.

That is the heart of the change. For centuries, translators had started from the Received Text, the text in common use. Westcott and Hort started from a different place, and they judged the commonly used text to be later and less pure.

What Came After Them

Their approach did not stay in 1881. Eberhard Nestle published a new Greek New Testament in 1898 that drew on this same kind of critical work. In the twentieth century that edition became the Nestle-Aland text, and it has been joined by the United Bible Societies text. Those editions are not word-for-word identical with Westcott and Hort in every line, and later editors have used more manuscripts, including papyri discovered since 1881. But the basic path is the same. A small group of older witnesses is allowed, again and again, to outweigh the text that the churches had received.

Most modern English versions, including the NIV and the ESV, are translated from this critical tradition. That is why the same verses keep changing or dropping out, as we have seen in Lessons 1 and 7. The translators are not always inventing new wording out of the air. They are following a different Greek text.

How We Should Speak of These Men

We want to be fair. Westcott and Hort were learned men, and they worked hard. Many later scholars have followed them because they were convinced the method was sound. We do not need to pretend they were villains in order to disagree with them. Some writers have circulated harsh claims about their private beliefs and motives. We will not repeat charges we have not carefully proved, and we will not win a case for the King James Bible by being unkind.

Our disagreement is about the method and the fruit of the method. We do not believe God preserved His New Testament mainly in a few manuscripts that sat in a library or a monastery, while the churches for centuries used a lesser text. We believe He kept His words in the Scriptures His people were actually reading, preaching, copying, and translating. When a new Greek text removes words that touch the person and work of Jesus Christ, or moves whole verses to a footnote, we think that is a serious matter, no matter how sincere the editors were.

Why This Still Matters

You may never read a page of Nestle-Aland. You may never see a photograph of Vaticanus or Sinaiticus. But if you have ever wondered why your friend's Bible is missing a verse that is in yours, this is a large part of the reason. The men behind the modern text changed the starting point. The versions that follow them will keep showing those changes.

God's warning still stands. Do not add. Do not take away. Every word of God is pure. That is why we stay with the Received Text and with the King James Bible that was translated from it.

A Simple Step for This Week

Read Proverbs 30:5-6 and Revelation 22:18-19 slowly. Then, in your own words, explain to a friend or write down: "Modern versions often differ because they are translated from a different Greek text, not only because the English was updated." If you can explain that one sentence kindly, you have understood this lesson.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You that every word of God is pure. Keep us from adding to Your words or taking away from them. Give us a sober mind, a kind tongue, and a loyal heart toward the Book You have preserved. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Thank you for spending this time with us. This is Authorized Sword Ministries. God bless you.

Study Questions

1. What warning do Proverbs 30:5-6 and Revelation 22:18-19 give about God's words?
2. Who were Westcott and Hort, and what did they publish in 1881?
3. Which manuscripts did they lean on most heavily?
4. How did they regard the common church text, sometimes called the Byzantine text?
5. What later Greek editions carried on this approach?
6. Why do so many modern English versions omit or footnote the same verses?
7. Why does this lesson refuse to attack these men's character with unproven claims?
8. What is the real disagreement, if it is not a personal quarrel?
9. How would you explain, in one sentence, why two English Bibles can disagree in these places?
10. How will this lesson change the way you talk about Bible versions with other Christians?

Sources

The historical outline in this lesson is limited to widely agreed facts: Westcott and Hort's 1881 The New Testament in the Original Greek; their preference for a small number of older witnesses, especially Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, over the common Byzantine or "Syrian" text; the appearance of the English Revised Version in the same year; Nestle's 1898 Greek New Testament; and the later Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies editions that stand in the same critical tradition and underlie most modern English versions. Private letters and disputed charges about the editors' motives are intentionally not used here.