Customer Reviews

True or False?

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had a copy of this very valuable book several years ago and loaned it out. I just got it back and say that every serious Christian owes it to themselves to read True or False and Which Bible to find the evidence against the Wescott-Hort Theory that permeates all modern bibles today. Would it bother you if your Bible did not have 1st and 2nd Peter? Well, that is what is missing from your modern texts because of following the Wescott-Hort text. The articles are timely and well written. I wish I had known John W. Bargon and his works long ago. David O. Fuller presents a good selection of articles giving one the necessary tools to combat the downward slide into the pit of dispair! Where is the man to stand in the gap because there was a cause?

David Otis Fuller (1903-1988) was a graduate of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois and Princeton Theological Seminary. He pastored Chelsea Baptist Church in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the well known Wealthy Street Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has also edited Which Bible? (5th Edition) and Counterfeit or Genuine.

Like his earlier book 'Which Bible?' this book (first published in 1973) collects writings of others which are critical of the Westcott-Hort textual theories. Contributors include scholars such as Philip Mauro ("Which Version?") and John William Burgon ("The Revision Revised").

Here are some excerpts from the book:

"HOW can anyone honestly say that any modern version based on the Westcott and Hort Greek text is more accurate than the Authorized Version when the Westcott and Hort text is based upon two of the worst manuscripts, Aleph (Siniaticus) and B (Vaticanus)?" (Pg. 18)
"It seems not to have occurred to this learned man, any more than to the others, that mere antiquity was not a safe test of reliability where witnesses were in conflict, and that a late copy of a correct original should be preferred to a corrupt Ms. of earlier date." (Pg. 69)
"Against Rev. 13:18 ... we find noted: 'Some ancient authorities read six hundred and sixteen.' But why is not the whole truth told? Why are we not informed that only one corrupt uncial (c), only one cursive copy (II), only one father (Tichonius) and not one ancient version, advocates this reading? (Which, on the contrary, Irenaeus knew, but rejected...)" (Pg. 147-148)

The full title of this book is in fact "True or False? The Westcott-Hort Textual Theory Examined", but I think my review title states it more accurately. Included in this volume are several detailed, fact-based critiques of the theory of textual criticism underlying the Revised Version (and virtually all subsequent English versions) of the Bible, dating from John William Burgon's blistering evisceration published in direct response to the Revision of 1881, through Philip Mauro's 1924 critique, up to William Norman Pickering's 1968 doctoral thesis.

Since supporters of the Westcott-Hort theory have never been able to refute any of these criticisms, it should come as no surprise that there is a lot of repetition here as each critic repeats and adds to the never refuted arguments of his predecessors. We are entitled to presume much from the fact that the strongest argument against Westcott-Hort critics is that they have been too sarcastic, too unchristian, too "mean" about it. Well, maybe, but methinks a certain amount of righteous anger is deserved by advocates of a theory this easily debunked who deal with criticism primarily by the expedient of ignoring it! However, I will grant that Pickering's soft-spoken vindication of Burgon and respectful but total discrediting of Hort based upon discoveries made since 1881 is by far the most effective argument in the book.

Note: The argument begins in Which Bible? and continues in Counterfeit or Genuine? Mark 16? John 8?.