The King James Verison Defended (1956) - Edward F Hills (1912-1981), E-book, do posegregowania
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"The King James Version Defended: A Christian
View of the New Testament Manuscripts (1956)"
Edward F. Hills
GOD'S THREE-FOLD REVELATION OF HIMSELF
A SHORT HISTORY OF UNBELIEF
A SHORT HISTORY OF MODERNISM
A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE BIBLICAL TEXT
THE FACTS OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM
DEAN BURGON AND THE TRADITIONAL NEW TESTAMENT TEXT
THE TRADITIONAL NEW TESTAMENT TEXT
THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS AND THE KING JAMES VERSION
CHRIST'S HOLY WAR WITH SATAN
PREFACE
If, indeed, we are in the midst of "a revival of the almost century-old view of J.W. Burgon" (Eldon Jay
Epp, "New Testament Textual Criticism in America: Requiem for a Discipline,"
Journal of Biblical
Literature
98 [March 1979]: 94-98.), the question naturally arises: How did such a development come
to pass? Our answer in a large measure is to be found at the doorstep of Edward F. Hills (1912-1981),
in his comprehensive work
The King James Version Defended: A Christian View of the New
Testament Manuscripts
(1956). This publication was, in its day, an indication to the established school
of New Testament text criticism that Burgon was not without an advocate from within its own ranks,
even if such a position were only to be regarded as an anomaly (v. Bruce M. Metzger,
The Text of the
New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration
[1968], p. 136 n. l; J. Harold Greenlee,
Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism
[1964], p. 82 n. 2).
Recently, however, his contribution has brought new entrants into the textual arena who have
followed his lead (if not his entire methodology) and thus have opened for fresh debate a
forum for the defense of the Byzantine text. Hills lived to see this gratifying development,
noting thankfully that his work was finally being seen by some as more than just a "scholarly
curiosity"
(a la
Greenlee op. cit.). On the contrary, he will now be regarded as the Father of
this 20th century revival of the Majority Text.
It is, nevertheless, ironic that of all who have offered a contribution to the Byzantine text
defense, Edward F. Hills is the only bonafide New Testament text critic to do so since the days
of Scrivener, Burgon and Hoskier. Why then are his views not playing a larger role in this
current stage of the debate? An answer in part is to be found in a sentiment expressed to this
author by Gordon Fee when he was asked why Hills had been ignored in the lively exchange
that took place in the
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
(Vol. 21, nos. 1&2 1978).
His response was that Hills' works were "museum pieces." This impression, no doubt, is a
result of Hills choosing to publish himself, rather than go through the conventional publishing
channels. But, the climate then—in 1956—was not that of today. It is, therefore, high time to
dispel forever any such unrealistic and flippant impressions.
Moreover, the time has now come for this present edition to make its unique contribution felt.
Unique in that, while Hills was the only recognized, published New Testament text critic to
advocate the primacy of the Byzantine text either in his day or in the present, no one since has
been more innovative than he was in attempting to integrate his confessional, theological
perspective with the discipline of New Testament text criticism. This is a taboo that even the
recent Majority Text advocates have attempted not to transgress, preferring to work from
within a purely scientific framework. But Hills' training under J. Gresham Machen, John
Murray, R. B. Kuiper and most especially, Cornelius Van Til, would not allow him to rest
content with the neutral method to which he had been initiated at the University of Chicago
and Harvard. Kuiper recognized the value of this integrational approach to a highly specialized
discipline, in which few confessing evangelicals had ever distinguished themselves, in his
preface to the first edition of this work:
For more than a decade he [Hills] has taken a special interest in New Testament Textual
 Criticism. The subject of his dissertation, written in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Th.D. degree was:
The Caesarean Family of New Testament
Manuscripts.
The
Journal of Biblical Literature
has published three articles by him,
each bearing directly on the field of his special interest: "Harmonizations in the
Caesarean Text of Mark" in 1947, "The Interrelationship of the Caesarean Manuscripts"
in 1949, and "A New Approach to the Old Egyptian Text" in 1950. Professor C. S. C.
Williams of Oxford University took cognizance of the first of these articles in
Alterations to the Text of the Synoptic Gospels and Acts
(1951), and the second was
referred to by G. Zuntz, another Oxford Professor, in
The Text of the Epistles
(1953).
It is evident that Dr. Hills is entitled to a hearing because of his scholarship. I think it no
less evident that he deserves a respectful hearing because of his theological convictions.
This is not just another book on New Testament Textual Criticism. On the contrary, its
approach to that theme is decidedly unique. Dr. Hills founds his criticism of the New
Testament text squarely and solidly on the historic doctrines of the divine inspiration
and providential preservation of Holy Scripture, and it is his firm conviction that this is
the only proper approach. Hence, he not only differs radically with those critics who
have a lower evaluation of the Bible, but is also sharply critical of those scholars whose
evaluation of the Bible is similar to his but who have, in his estimation, been persuaded
that they ought not to stress the orthodox view of Scripture in their study of the New
Testament text.
Underlying this position taken by Dr. Hills is a philosophy of truth. God is truth.
Because God is one, truth exists as unity. And as God is the author of all diversity, truth
also exists as diversity. In a word, there is
the truth,
and there are also
truths.
By reason,
which is a precious gift of the common grace of God, the unbeliever can, and actually
does, grasp many truths. But for the proper integration of truths and knowledge of the
truth, faith in God, as He has revealed Himself in Holy Scriptures, is indispensable.
Hence, in every department of learning the conclusions of reason must be governed and
controlled by the truth which is revealed in God's Word and is perceived by faith. Any
so-called neutral science which seems equally acceptable to the faithful and faithless
but sustains no conscious relationship to the Scriptures is by that very token headed in
the wrong direction.
Applied to the subject in hand this means that, while willingly granting that believers
may well be indebted to unbelieving critics for a number of facts concerning the
Scriptures, Dr. Hills insists that the interpretation and correlation of the facts can safely
be entrusted only to believing students of the Word. That they too are fallible goes
without saying.
Conservative Scholars have long taken that position with reference to the so-called
higher criticism. Said James Orr under the head
Criticism of the Bible
in the 1915
edition of the
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia:
"While invaluable as an aid
in the domain of Biblical introduction (date, authorship, genuineness, contents,
destination, etc.) it manifestly tends to widen out illimitably into regions where exact
science cannot follow it, where often, the critic's imagination is his only "law". In the
same article he also stated that "textual criticism has a well-defined field in which it is
possible to apply exact canons of Judgment". However, the question may well be asked
whether unbelieving critics have not in that discipline too at times given broad scope to
their imagination. Significantly Orr went on to say: "Higher criticism extends its
operations into the textual field, endeavoring to get behind the text of the existing
sources, and to show how this 'grew' from simpler beginnings to what now is. Here,
also, there is wide opening for arbitrariness". And of the Biblical criticism in general he
said: "A chief cause of error in its application to the record of a supernatural revelation
is the assumption that nothing supernatural can happen. This is the vitiating element in
much of the newer criticism".
The assertion appears to be warranted that the position which was implicit in Dr. Orr's
teaching forty years ago has become explicit in this book by Hills.
Recently Hills has received a degree of vindication from John H. Skilton, Professor of New
Testament, Emeritus, and former head of the New Testament Department at Westminster Theological
Seminary, for the conscious, theological element in his method:
For men who accept the Bible as the Word of God, inerrant in the original manuscripts, it should be
out of the question to engage in the textual criticism of the Scriptures in a "neutral" fashion—as if the
Bible were not what it claims to be . . . Whether one realizes it or not, one makes a decision for or
against God at the beginning, middle, and end of all one's investigating and thinking. This is a point
which Cornelius Van Til has been stressing in his apologetics and which Edward F. Hills has been
appropriately making in his writings on textual criticism. All along the line it is necessary to insist, as
Hills does, that 'Christian, believing Bible study should and does differ from neutral, unbelieving
Bible study.' He is quite correct when he reminds us that 'to ignore...the divine inspiration and
providential preservation of the New Testament and to treat its text like the text of any other book is
to be guilty of a fundamental error which is bound to lead to erroneous conclusions.'
(The New
Testament Student Vol. 5,1982 pp. 5-6)
Finally, it must be stated that Hills did not hold to an uncritical, perfectionist view of the TR as some
have assumed
(Believing Bible Study
2d. ed. p. 83); nor did he advocate with absolute certainty the
genuineness of the
Johannine Comma (The King James Version Defended p.
209). What he did argue
for, however, was a "canonical" view of the text
(KJV Defended p.
106), because, in his experience,
this was the only way to be assured of "maximum certainty"
(KJV Defended
pp. 224-225) versus the
results of a purely naturalistic approach to the text of the New Testament.
Reformation Day 1983
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Theodore P. Letis
INTRODUCTION
TEXTUAL CRITICISM AND CHRISTIAN FAITH
Old books have sometimes been likened to little ships which have sailed across the tides of time,
bearing within themselves their precious freight of ancient knowledge and culture. None of these
books, however, has enjoyed an uninterrupted voyage over the century stretching seas. The vessels
which commenced the journey have perished, and their cargoes have been subject to frequent re-
shipment in the course of their perilous passage. The original manuscripts of these ancient works have
long since been lost, and they have come down to us only in copies and copies of copies, which were
produced by the pens of scribes during the progress of the intervening ages. And just as cargoes of
merchandise are likely to incur damage whenever they are transferred from one vessel to another, so
the copying and recopying of manuscripts has resulted in some damage to their cargoes of words,
which are commonly called their
texts.
Textual criticism, therefore, is the attempt to estimate this
damage and, if possible, to repair it.
Has the text of the New Testament, like those of other ancient books, been damaged during its voyage
over the seas of time? Ought the same methods of textual criticism to be applied to it that are applied
to the texts of other ancient books? These are questions which the following pages will endeavor to
answer. An earnest effort will be made to convince the Christian reader that this is a matter to which
he must attend. For in the realm of New Testament textual criticism as well as in other fields the
presuppositions of modern thought are hostile to the historic Christian faith and will destroy it if their
fatal operation is not checked. If faithful Christians, therefore, would defend their sacred religion
against this danger, they must forsake the foundations of unbelieving thought and build upon their
faith, a faith that rests entirely on the solid rock of holy Scripture. And when they do this in the sphere
of New Testament textual criticism, they will find themselves led back step by step (perhaps, at first,
against their wills) to the text of the Protestant Reformation, namely, that form of New Testament text
which underlies the King James Version and the other early Protestant translations.
1. The Importance Of Doctrine
The Christian Church has long confessed that the books of the
New
Testament, as well as those of the
Old,
are divine Scriptures, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. "We have learned from
none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us,
which they did at one time proclaim in public, and at a later period by the will of God, handed down
to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.
The Scriptures are perfect, inasmuch as they were uttered by the Word of God and His Spirit." So
wrote Irenaeus (1) in the second century, and such has always been the attitude of all branches of the
Â
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]