Greetings and welcome to Word Magazine. This is Jeff Riddle. I'm the pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia. And in this episode, we're going to be presenting part two of a three-part series on the influential work of F.H.A. Scrivener, who lived from 1813 to 1891. Scribner was an Anglican churchman and scholar who produced a printed edition of the Greek New Testament in 1881, which became the standard printed edition of the classic Protestant received text, or textus receptus, of the Greek New Testament in use around the world today. Scrivener and his work have sometimes been unjustly criticized and even misrepresented in the modern era, especially by those who have embraced the modern critical text and who oppose the retrieval and continued use of the classic Protestant texts of the Bible. I was prompted in part to do this series, as I explained in part one, after reading an online article by Stephen Steele, a Presbyterian minister in Scotland, and an outspoken and sometimes caustic critic of the received text, who claimed that Scribner's TR is, to use his words, quote, a reverse-engineered Greek text based on the text's critical choices of an English translation the KJV." I think that claim is simply inaccurate, and in part three of this series I think I will be able soundly to demonstrate this through multiple direct examples. But for now we're in part two, and just to give us a lay of the land, part one was a life of FHA Scrivener. Part two, which we're doing now, is going to be looking at Scrivener's Greek New Testament. And then part three, as I said, we'll be looking at the question, did Scribner back translate or reverse engineer his Greek New Testament from the King James Version? For each of these episodes, after a brief introduction, I'm simply going to be sharing an excerpt from a lecture that I presented in 2022 at the Kep Pure in All Ages Conference that was held at the Five Soldiers Church in Reidsburg, Wisconsin, where I addressed some of these issues related to Scrivener, his Greek text, and misrepresentations of it. Again, the second episode you're listening to now, and I'm speaking about now, is going to focus on Scrivener's printed edition of the Greek New Testament. There have been some, like YouTuber Dwayne Green, who have criticized Scribner's edition because it was not based on comparison and eclectic selections made from currently extant Greek New Testament manuscripts. I point out in the lecture that Scribner's Greek New Testament is indeed not a work of modern eclectic textual criticism. Instead, Scribner's Greek New Testament was based primarily on comparison of printed editions of the Greek New Testament that were available to Scribner as the editor. I also point out in the lecture that I'm going to share with you that this was a standard method for compiling such editions of the Greek New Testament in Scribner's era in the 19th century and on into the 20th century as well. It was, in fact, the method that was used by Eberhard Nessel in his early editions of the Novum Testamentum Graecae. In fact, it wasn't until 1963 that the Novum Testamentum Graecae was produced using a modern eclectic selection of readings from various Greek New Testament manuscripts. And also, as I point out in the lecture, that we're going to be presenting, this method of producing a Greek New Testament based on comparing previous printed editions is still one that is sometimes used today. Most recently, it was the method used to compile the Society of Biblical Literature, SBL, Greek New Testament of 2010. Of course, many critics are also offended because Scribner compiled his Greek New Testament with special reference to the authorized version. As I point out, however, this was completely understandable given that the Authorized Version or the King James Version was the Protestant English translation of his time. It really didn't have any rivals. So Scribner is an Englishman, he's an Anglican cleric and scholar. Most people are reading and using the Authorized Version And so it makes perfect sense that he would compile a Greek text with a special eye toward the English translation of the Bible that was most prevalent in his day. We need to be clear, however, to say that he used the Authorized Version as a reference point or guideline for his printed Greek New Testament is not, however, to say that he back-translated or reverse-engineered his Greek New Testament from the Authorized Version. And I think, again, I will soundly demonstrate this when we get to part three. And hopefully we can bury this anecdote or legend, inaccurate account of Scrivener reverse engineering his Greek New Testament from the authorized version. The Trinitarian Bible Society edition of Scrivener, as well as the Grange Press Reader's Edition, which recently came out, were also criticized by Steele and they'd been criticized by others for not including the original preface that a Scrivener used for his 1881 edition or the appendix that he added to his 1881 edition, as well as the bold and asterisks that appeared in the texts in the original 1881 edition. The bold emphases in that text were used to mark places where the traditional text or Texas Receptus he was compiling diverged from the English revised version that was being produced by the committee that had been put together by the Canterbury committee. And the asterisks that appeared in that 1881 edition pointed out places where the text diverged from Beza's Greek New Testament, which it was primarily based upon. In response, let me just say that it wouldn't have made any sense for the TBS or Grange Press editions to include the preface to Scribner's 1881 printed edition of the Greek New Testament because it was primarily about the ways in which this text was related to and diverge from the readings that were followed in the English revised version. And that is a consideration that really is no longer relevant because the English revised version is no longer in print. It's no longer widely used. Scholars who have historical interests in Scrivener's original 1881 printed edition or the English revised version or the history of English translations, they can certainly have access to that preface easily by getting a used print copy. I have one of Scrivener's 1881 edition or it's available in these days digitally online And persons who have a scholarly interest in textual matters and want to look at comparison between Scribner's printed edition and Beza's printed edition and the various printed editions that Scribner used in compiling his Greek New Testament can also have access to that 1881 original, either through print editions they might acquire, library copies, or online, in these days, online copies of it. The Trinitarian Bible Society, and they make this clear when they began printing a Scribner's text in the 1970s, they stated that they were not interested in presenting an academic text but they wanted to put forward a practical text for reading, preaching, and translation that would be of service to ministers, to individual Christians, and to churches. One thing I did not make clear in the 2022 lecture that I'm going to share with you is that the TBS edition is in fact not taken from the original 1881 edition by Scribner. The text is the same, but it's taken from a revised edition that was also printed by Cambridge University Press in 1894, and again in 1902, after Scribner's death, that offered what we could call a clean text that didn't have the bolds, didn't have the asterisks, And it was just a reprinting of the naked text. And that's the one that Trinitarian Bible Society took and reprinted. That's the one that Grange Press used in its very helpful reader's edition publication of this Gribner's Received Text. And this is explained very clearly in the final paragraph in the preface to the 2022 reformatted edition of the Trinitarian Bible Society's Greek New Testament. Let me just read that to you. It reads as follows, this present edition of the Texas Receptus follows the text of Beza's 1598 edition as the primary authority and corresponds with The New Testament in the original Greek according to the text followed in the authorized version, edited by F. H. A. Scribner, and published by Cambridge University Press in 1894 and 1902. And there's a footnote that gives you the precise bibliographical material for how to locate those two printed editions of 1894 and 1902. It proceeds to say, these two editions differed from the 1881 Scribner edition in two main ways. Any differences that Scribner purportedly identified with Bayes' 1598 edition and related to the other corresponding Greek editions and available versions, such as Stephanos' 1546 in the appendix, found in both Cambridge editions, are not indicated in the actual text, and thus it is not intended for textual study. Furthermore, the differences with the Greek underlying the revised English version, I called it the English revised version, but I guess its name here is the revised English version, were not marked in bold type. This clean text, with any spaced type removed in the TBS edition, fits with the purpose of the Trinitarian Bible Society edition, to provide an edition of the Texas Receptus for use by translators, ministers, Bible students, and Christians around the world rather than a textual study or comparison to the revised version or any other version. And so I think that explains it very, very clearly. Well, with that introduction, I'm gonna bring, well, with those words, I'm gonna bring this introduction to a close and bid my farewell to you. I won't come back on at the end, I want to present now this section of the 2022 lecture that I did at the KEPP Pure Conference in which I discussed Scribner's Greek New Testament. I hope you'll find this material helpful and edifying, and I hope it informs and even clarifies some of what I think are the misrepresentations and misunderstandings related to Scribner's Greek New Testament. Since I won't be back on, I will give you my customary prayer that the Lord would richly bless you and edify you, and I'll just turn it over now to myself. Now, let's talk about Scribner the man. Let's talk about the addition of the Texas Receptus that he was responsible for editing and printing. He composed the work in 1880 and it was first published in 1881. In the front matter it points out that the original title of this work was the New Testament in Greek according to the text followed in the authorized version together with variations adopted in the revised version. The work was published by the syndics of the Cambridge University Press The first edition was in 1881. It was reprinted twice more in 1881, in 1883, in 1884, in 1886, in 1890, in 1908, and in 1949 by Cambridge University Press. If you look at that original, it has three parts. First, there is a preface. And the preface begins, quote, the special design of this volume is to place clearly before the reader the variations from the Greek text represented by the authorized version of the New Testament, which had been embodied in the revised version. He then explains that this was in response to a rule given to the revision committee by the convocation of Canterbury that they were to make notes of places where, quote, the text adopted differs from that which the authorized version was made. Rather than provide a long list of these differences, Scribner explains, it was determined to be more desirable to produce this text, since, quote, the authorized version was not a translation of any one Greek text then in existence, and no Greek text intended to reproduce in any way the original of the authorized version has ever been He adds that Beza's fifth and latest text of 1598 was more likely than any other to be in the hands of the King James Version revisers and to be accepted by them as the best standard within their reach. It is, moreover, he continues, found on comparison to agree more closely with the Authorized Version than any other Greek text. He further acknowledges that the Authorized Version does not always follow Beza, however, and sometimes, he says, it corresponds but loosely with any form of the extant Greek original. Scribner also relays that he set down in an appendix to this work about 190 variations from Bezos' 1598 Greek New Testament which appear in the text. Scribner ends the preface with a quotation in continuous Greek text from the beginning of 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. It's signed FHAS Christmas 1880. It's got the preface. Then there's the text, the text of the New Testament. When you look at the text proper in the original 1881 edition, you see that there are places in the text where it differs from the revised version. They put the text in bold font, and then they put a footnote at the bottom of the page telling you how the text in the TR differed from the text that was used in the English revised version. And then there's also an asterisk at every point in the text where it differs from Basis 1598. So there are 190 of these asterisks throughout the text. And then last of all, there is the appendix. The appendix begins, quote, containing a list of the passages marked with an asterisk in the Greek text of this volume wherein the readings of Beza's New Testament 1598 are departed from to agree with those adopted by the authorized version on the authority of certain earlier Greek editions, end quote. He then lists the early printed editions of the Greek New Testament and the printed Protestant editions of the TR, which he consulted to compose his text. They include the following, the Complintention New Testament of 1514, Erasmus' five editions, 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535, the Aldine of 1518, the Colonnaeus of 1534, the Stephanus in four editions, 1546, 1549, 1550, 1551, The Plantin, or the Antwerp Polyglot of 1572, bases five editions, 1560, 1563, 1582, 1598. So Scribner is telling us that he consulted 18 printed editions of the Greek New Testament in compiling his work. The TBS edition. It is clear that Scribner's Greek New Testament was well received at its initial publication, given that it was reprinted twice more in the same year in which it appeared, and frequently in the years that followed. But if you look at the printing tradition, you see a trajectory. It began to slow. And by the early 20th century, it was not being reprinted as frequently. Why? Because of the rise of the popularity of the modern critical text. In 1976, the Trinitarian Bible Society produced its own edition of this work under the title Heikene Deotheke, The New Testament. with the subtitle taken from Scribner, the Greek text underlying the English authorized version. And there are copies of this that are for sale at the TBS table at the back. This new edition replaced Scribner's original preface with a brief two-page preface, which is well worth reading. I always tell students when I'm teaching Survey of the New Testament, when you pick up a Bible, you should always read the front matter. Read the preface. It tells you what the translation philosophy is, what what text it's based upon. And so read those couple pages, a lot of information in a short space. Also, within their reprinting of it, they, again, took out the long original introduction of a two-page preface, and they also took out from the text the bold that mark the differences from the English revised version. They also took out the asterisks that mark the places where it differs from Beza so that you have simply the text itself to work with. It's much simpler, much cleaner just to look at the text and to read it. Scribner's is not a work of modern textual criticism. We noted above what was one of the things that Green said. He said, Scribner, he didn't consult the manuscripts, compare readings, and thus figure out which ones were authentic. And he's criticizing Scribner for that. But that's something that's granted. Scribner's was not a work of modern textual criticism. It does not use reasoned eclecticism. It's not going to the manuscripts, comparing them, it's looking at printed editions of the TR. It's a work based on the comparison of 18 printed editions of the TR, using the preeminent and unrivaled English Protestant translation of the day, the authorized version, as a guideline for the text. We should not rush negatively to evaluate this approach from our contemporary perspective with our crowded Bible market and its plethora of niche translations. At Christmas of 1880, when Scribner completed this work, there was only one Protestant English translation of the Bible that was used anywhere, and it was the authorized version. You can't hardly fault the man for using that as a guide in compiling this work. That's when he completed it in Christmas of 1880. The next year, the English Revised Version, which is the mother translation for the American Standard Version, and then the Revised Standard Version, and the New Revised Standard Version, and also for the ESV. The ESV is the daughter of the RSV, of the English Revised Version. Anyways, that would be released the next year. And by the way, it tanked initially. It didn't sell well. And the Authorized Version continued to be used among English-speaking people. But it was perfectly fitting at the time that he composed this that the A.V. readings would direct his text. He was also required to do this by the convocation at Canterbury. The idea of a printed edition of the Greek New Testament drawn from previous printed editions and not from study, comparison, and deliberation over manuscripts, that is, textual criticism, was nothing unusual or extraordinary for those times. And it remains so even up to the present day. In fact, the first edition of Eberhard Nessel's Novum Testamentum Graecae First edition of 1898 followed a similar design. In the booklet, Textual Research on the Bible, An Introduction to the Scholarly Editions of the German Bible Society, we find this description of the Novum Testamentum Graecae, First Edition, 1898. Quote, it was edited by Eberhard Nessel and followed a simple but nonetheless ingenious principle. Nessel compared the three most significant editions of the Greek New Testament from the 19th century, Tischendorf, Wescott and Hort, and Weymouth. The last mention was replaced by the edition of Bernard Weiss in 1901. Whenever one of these differed from the other two, Nestle adopted the reading given in the two identical versions and supplied a note in the apparatus showing the divergent reading," end quote. In fact, it was only in the 13th edition of the Nestle-Holland, or what was then just the Nestle, Novum Testamentum Graecae, 13th edition of 1927, under the editorship of Erwin Nessel, who was the son of Eberhard, that, quote, this edition was for the first time further developed with the addition of its own apparatus criticus that cited not only other scholarly editions but also the most important reference manuscripts. However, Nestle did not consult manuscripts directly but continued to compile his information on their readings from the other scholarly editions, end quote. Furthermore, it was not until the 25th edition of this work In 1963, that then co-editor, Kurt Aland, quote, was the first to verify the information in the text and critical apparatus against the originals themselves, end quote. Along with his colleagues at the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, which he established in 1959, quote, he also extended the apparatus to include readings from many additional manuscripts, end quote. So get this. We've only had what we know today as the modern critical text handbook in the form with which we're familiar since 1963. In addition, there are also modern editions of the Greek New Testament based on the approach that is similar to that taken by Scribner's TR and in the early editions of the Novum Testamentum Graecae. Some of you may be familiar with the Greek New Testament SBL edition published in 2010 by Scholars Press in Atlanta, which is the main arm for the Society of Biblical Literature. So this work was published in 2010, edited by Michael W. Holmes. It follows the same basic method of comparing printed editions rather than looking at individual manuscripts. The introduction to that work notes, quote, In particular, four editions of the Greek New Testament were utilized as primary resources in the process of establishing the SBL Greek New Testament." The four editions that they used were Westcott & Hortz, Tregalus', a Reader's Greek New Testament published in 2003, which is a reconstruction of the Greek text behind the NIV, and Robinson Pierpont's Byzantine text form of 2005. Note, I haven't heard anyone yet accuse the Greek New Testament SBL edition of 2010 of NIV-onlyism. Conclusion on this point. There's nothing strange or unusual about the approach taken by Scrivener to base his text both on the usage of the predominant Protestant translation of the Bible in his native language and on comparison of previous printed Greek editions of the TR.