References to the New Testament Greek
Textus Receptus Bible edited by F. H. A. Scrivener often appear in the Bible
Versions Debate. It seems to me that both sides often portray Scrivener and/or
the edition as something they are not. I have read a KJVO rate Scrivener as
near the top of KJVO advocates. I have read an anti-KJVO act as if Scrivener
took the King James Bible and back translated it into Greek to create The New Testament in the Original Greek, according to the Text Followed by the Authorised Version. Both beliefs are basted in baloney butter. In contrast, I post
here the “Preface” of The New Testament in the Original Greek so that you may read it for yourself
and come to some of your own conclusions.
PREFACE.
The special design of this volume is to
place clearly before the reader the variations from the Greek text represented
by the Authorised Version of the New Testament which have been embodied in the
Revised Version. One of the Rules laid down for the guidance of the Revisers by
a Committee appointed by the Convocation of Canterbury was to the effect “that,
when the Text adopted differs from that from which the Authorised Version was made,
the alteration be indicated in the margin.” As it was found that a literal
observance of this direction would often crowd and obscure the margin of the
Revised Version, the Revisers judged that its purpose might be better carried
out in another manner. They therefore communicated to the Oxford and Cambridge
University Presses a full and carefully corrected list of the readings adopted
which are at variance with the readings “presumed to underlie the Authorised Version,”
in order that they might be published independently in some shape or other. The
University Presses have accordingly undertaken to print them in connexion with
complete Greek texts of the New Testament. The responsibility of the Revisers
does not of course extend beyond the list which they have furnished.
The form here chosen has been thought by
the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press to be at once the most convenient
in itself, and the best fitted for giving a true representation of the Revisers’
work. In their Preface the Revisers explain that it did not fall within their province
to construct a continuous and complete Greek text. Wherever a variation in the
Greek was of such a nature that it could properly affect the English rendering,
they had to decide between the competing readings: but in most other cases they
refrained from spending time on work not needed for the purposes of an English translation.
It was therefore impossible to print a continuous Greek text which should
include the readings certified as adopted by the Revisers, without borrowing
all the intervening portions from some printed text which had not undergone
their revision, and in which, to judge by analogy, they would doubtless have
found many readings to disapprove. It is true that all variations in this
unrevised part of the text must from the nature of the case be comparatively
unimportant: but they include many differences of order and grammatical form
expressive of shades and modifications of meaning which no careful reader would
neglect in studying the Greek original. The Cambridge Press has therefore
judged it best to set the readings actually adopted by the Revisers at the foot
of the page, and to keep the continuous text consistent throughout by making it
so far as was possible uniformly representative of the Authorised Version. The
publication of an edition formed on this plan appeared to be all the more
desirable, inasmuch as the Authorised 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 Authorised Version has ever been printed.
In considering what text had the best
right to be regarded as “the text presumed to underlie the Authorised Version,”
it was necessary to take into account the composite nature of the Authorised Version,
as due to successive revisions of Tyndale’s translation. Tyndale himself
followed the second and third editions of Erasmus’s Greek text (1519, 1522). In
the revisions of his translation previous to 1611 a partial use was made of
other texts; of which ultimately the most influential were the various editions
of Beza from 1560 to 1598, if indeed his Latin version of 1556 should not be included.
Between 1598 and 1611 no important edition appeared; so that Beza’s fifth and
last text of 1598 was more likely than any other to be in the hands of King
James’s revisers, and to be accepted by them as the best standard within their reach.
It is moreover found on comparison to agree more closely with the Authorised
Version than any other Greek text; and accordingly it has been adopted by the
Cambridge Press as the primary authority. There are however many places in
which the Authorised Version is at variance with Beza’s text; chiefly because
it retains language inherited from Tyndale or his successors, which had been
founded on the text of other Greek editions. In these cases it is often
doubtful how far the revisers of 1611 deliberately preferred a different Greek reading;
for their attention was not specially directed to textual variations, and they
might not have thought it necessary to weed out every rendering inconsistent
with Beza’s text, which might linger among the older and unchanged portions of
the version. On the other hand some of the readings followed, though discrepant
from Beza’s text, may have seemed to be in a manner sanctioned by him, as he
had spoken favourably of them in his notes; and others may have been adopted on
independent grounds. These uncertainties do not however affect the present edition,
in which the different elements that actually make up the Greek basis of the
Authorised Version have an equal right to find a place. Wherever therefore the
Authorised renderings agree with other Greek readings which might naturally be
known through printed editions to the revisers of 1611 or their predecessors,
Beza’s reading has been displaced from the text in favour of the more truly
representative reading, the variation from Beza being indicated by *. It was
manifestly necessary to accept only Greek authority, though in some places the
Authorised Version corresponds but loosely with any form of the Greek original,
while it exactly follows the Latin Vulgate. All variations from Beza’s text of
1598, in number about 190, are set down in an Appendix at the end of the volume,
together with the authorities on which they respectively rest.
Wherever a Greek reading adopted for the
Revised Version differs from the presumed Greek original of the Authorised Version,
the reading which it is intended to displace is printed in the text in a
thicker type, with a numerical reference to the reading substituted by the Revisers,
which bears the same numeral at the foot of the pages. Alternative readings are
given in the margin by the Revisers in places “in which, for the present, it would
not in their judgement be safe to accept one reading to the absolute exclusion
of others,” provided that the differences seemed to be of sufficient interest
or importance to deserve notice. These alternative readings, which are more
than 400 in number, are distinguished by the notation Marg. or marg. In the
Revised Version itself the marginal notes in which a secondary authority is
thus given to readings not adopted in the text almost always take the form of
statements of evidence, and the amount of evidence in each instance is to a
certain extent specified in general terms. No attempt however has in most cases
been made to express differences in the nature or the amount of this authority
in the record of marginal readings at the foot of the page. For such details
the reader will naturally turn to the margin of the Revised Version itself.
The punctuation has proved a source of
much anxiety. The Authorised Version as it was originally printed in 1611,
rather than as it appears in any later edition, has been taken as a primary guide.
Exact reproduction of the English punctuation in the Greek text was however
precluded by the differences of grammatical structure between the two languages.
It was moreover desirable to punctuate in a manner not inconsistent with the
punctuation of the Revised Version, wherever this could be done without
inconvenience, as punctuation does not strictly belong to textual variation.
Where however the difference of punctuation between the two Versions is
incompatible with identical punctuation in the Greek, the stops proper for the
Authorised Version are given in the text, with a numerical reference, without
change of type, to the other method set forth in the foot-notes. Mere changes
in punctuation, not consequent on change of reading, are discriminated from the
rest by being set within marks of parenthesis ( ) at the foot of the page. The
notes that thus refer exclusively to stops are about 157.
The paragraphs into which the body of the
Greek text is here divided are those of the Revised Version, the numerals
relating to chapters and verses being banished to the margin. The marks which
indicate the beginning of paragraphs in the Authorised Version do not seem to
have been inserted with much care, and cease altogether after Acts xx. 36: nor
would it have been expedient to create paragraphs in accordance with the
traditional chapters. Manifest errors of the press, which often occur in Beza’s
New Testament of 1598, have been silently corrected. In all other respects not
mentioned already that standard has been closely abided by, save only that, in
accord not been represented as part of the speech or quotation which it
introduces, and the aspirated forms αὐτοῦ, αὐτο, αὐτόν, &c. have been discarded. In a
very few words (e. g. μαργαρίται) the more recent and proper accentuation has been followed. Lastly, where Beza has been inconsistent, the form which appeared the better of the two has been retained consistently: as νηφάλιος not νηφάλεος, οὐκέτι
not οὐκ έτι, ἐξαυτῆς not ἐξ αυτῆς, ἵνα τί not ἵνατί, but τὰ νῦν not τὰνῦν, διὰ παντὸς not διὰ παντός, τοῦτ ἔστι not τουτέστι.
ΠΑCΑΓΡΑΦΗΘΕΟΠΝΕΥCΤΟCΚΑΙΩΦΕΛΙΜΟC.
F.
H. A. S.
Christmas, 1880.
“Preface,” The New Testament in the Original Greek, according to the Text Followed by the Authorised Version, together with the Variations Adopted in the Revised Version, F. H. A. Scrivener, Editor. Cambridge: University Press, 1881, pp. v-xi
