The Procedure of the Revisionist Committee

42 the Revisers have departed from the Textus Receptus nearly 6,000 times. The question of every proposed change should have been made a matter of careful investigation, and should have been reached according to the weight of the evidence, for and against. But from the published account of the proceedings, vouched for by the chairman (Bishop Ellicott) as correct, we understand that in no case was there any examination of the question, or weighing of the evidence by the Committee.

Upon this state of things Bishop Wordsworth remarks :

‘’The question arises whether the Church of Eng land, which sanctioned a revision of her Authorized Version Under the express condition (which she most wisely imposed) that no changes should he made in it except such as were absolutely necessary, could consistently accept a Version in which 36,000 changes have been made, not a fiftieth of which can be shown to be needed, or even desirable.”

Chapter VII Specific Examples of Textual Corruption

Specific Examples of Textual Corruption. The last 12 Verses of

Mark. The Angelic Message. The Lord ‘s Agony, and His Prayer on the

Cross. “The Mystery of Godliness.” Other important passages affected.

ENOUGH has been said, we think, to impeach successfully the credibility of the two ‘’ancient witnesses” whose testimony was so largely relied upon in constructing a Greek Text for the R. V. We will therefore proceed now to refer to some conspicuous instances wherein passages or clauses have been either corrupted or brought under unjust suspicion through their evidence, which is largely of a negative character. And this will throw further light upon the character of those witnesses ; for an effectual way of discrediting their testimony is to produce actual instances of the mischief that has been done by accepting it.

The Last Twelve Verses of Mark

In his “unanswered and unanswerable” work on this famous passage (published some years before the R. V. appeared, so that the Revisers were duly informed in regard thereto) Dean Burgon wrote as follows :

“The consentient witness of the manuscripts is even extraordinary. With the exception of the two uncial manuscripts which have just been named (Vatican and Sinaitic) there is not one Codex in existence, uncial or cursive (and we are acquainted with at least eighteen other uncials and about six hundred cursives of this Gospel), which leaves out the last twelve verses