We get a rare glimpse of the muddled thinking and confusion during the 1880s from the unpublished lectures of
C. W. Hodge (Princeton).
As well as giving us a closer view of previous textual critics who contributed to the fiasco and the virtual shipwreck of faith during the late 1800s and early 1900s, we get to see the view through the eyes of those who lived in the 1870s.
Here we see the current battle was between the calm and conservative
F. H. A. Scrivener on the side of the traditional text, and
S. P. Tregelles on the other side, impatient to jettison the standard text in favour of the latest fads and critical theories.
Very quickly the whole scene would change, after
Hort dominated the
Revision Committee for the NT (1882) and published his large
Introduction, rationalizing his adoption of the critical principles and text of previous liberal critics.
To a large degree, scholarship was swept away by
Hort, because they wanted to be, while the voices of conservative reason were mostly ignored.
The battle then became one of
Hort versus
Dean John Burgon on the side of conservation of the traditional text, but unfortunately, because those in academia had already sided with Hort, this battle was lost on the battlefield of the universities of England, particularly Oxford and Cambridge.
Yet the Christian public of the English speaking world soundly rejected the fanciful mutilations of the NT adopted by the Revisors of 1882, and chose to keep their King James Bibles!
The Christian world wisely waited in large part for a later less drastic revision of the
Authorized Version, which met the needs of a more modern language, while keeping the Christian text and interpretation of it largely intact.
Although the
Revised Version (1880) was popular among college and university campuses, and seminaries, where the liberals held sway, the Christian public both in the Commonwealth and in America hung onto their
King James versions, shunning the 'innovations' (deletions) of apostate scholars.
http://adultera.awardspace.com/SUPLEM/Hodge.html
peace,
Nazaroo
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