ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS

My Reviewers agree with me, I see, that the marginal reading which I brought to notice here is unjustifiable. How many unjustifiable records must be written on the eternal pages, either in, the text or in the margin, before my Reviewers will recognize that any part of the Revised Version is unjustifiable which threatens the standing of the Authorized. They inform us that this dangerous piece of Gnosticism was not taken from the Vaticanus or Sinaiticus, a fact which my reviewers bring into relief. Right here I might say that those authorities of first rank in the field of textual criticism, who have been shocked over the changes in the Revised Version, long recognized that when the Revisers failed to secure from the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, unjustifiable phrases which lent themselves to their theological bent of mind, then they used another manuscript. This is but another indication of the Gnosticism of the Revisers.

My Reviewers admit, at least they do not oppose the conclusion I advanced that-the omission of the two words "unworthily" and "Lord" would turn this verse into an Anti-Protestant verse, if the same words were not found in verse 27. In other words, they offer again their oft-repeated argument, that because expressions are found once, there is no great danger if they are struck out in other instances. They failed to mention that the chief witnesses for these omissions are B and Aleph; two other of the manuscripts justify the King James. I reject the theory of my Reviewers that because a truth occurs in some other scripture, it makes little or no difference whether we leave it in the particular scripture under consideration.

The Revised Version made a serious change here when it told us to "confess therefore your sins to one another" instead of "Confess your faults one to another." The first reason given by the Reviewers for this change is that "the testimony of the best MSS requires the change." The truth of the matter is, that the change is found in the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, supported by two other uncials, three Old Latin MSS and one cursive; with an overwhelming host of MSS witnessing on the other side. Of course they can justify any of these startling changes on their assumption that the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are the best MSS.

Then they launch into a discussion about the change from the Greek word paraptoma for faults in the AV, to the Greek word harmartia for sins in the Revised Version. Consider what a serious change this is. The Greek word for sin in the Revised, is the same word found in I John 3:4, which in the AV reads: "Whosoever committeth sin trangresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law."

(Right here to show how the Revised has weakened the force of our standard definition for sin in I John 3:4, I give how it reads in the Revised:

"Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness."

SIN, hamartia, is the trangression of the law. It is the same word used for "the man of sin" (II These. 2:3) in the Textus Receptus.

This word for sin, hamartia, is translated in the AV 171 out of 172 times as "sin"; only once as offense. This shows that the word is so serious that "offense" is not the underlying idea. Whereas, paraptoma the new Greek word displayed by the ARV is used 23 times and translated "sin" only 3 times, 20 times as "trespasses", and "faults", and NEVER "sin as in the meaning of hamartia. John said, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins..." Did Jesus here mean that we should confess our sins one to another? Absolutely not. We might tell to one another our sins asking for prayer, but never to confess one to another for forgiveness. For as Dean Alford says on this text:

"It might appear astonishing, were it not notorious, that on this passage among others, is built the Romish doctrine of the necessity of confessing sins to a priest." "Greek Testament." Vol. IV, p. 328.

Therefore, with centuries behind us showing the danger of this change, the Revisers took upon themselves considerable liberty to change "faults" to "sins" in James 5:16. One by one the rings which hang the curtains of the sanctuary have been removed until the curtains hang dangerously near to fall. And yet my Reviewers are trying to defend these changes. They do not seem to see the danger in this verse. But Dean Alford saw it, and others outside of Seventh-day Adventists see it, and my Reviewers ought to see it. Are we going to surrender the very gospel to Rome rather than relinquish the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus?

What has the Spirit of Prophecy to say on this? From "Ministry of Healing" pages 228,229:

"The Scripture bids us, 'Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed! To the one asking for prayer, let thoughts like these be presented: 'We cannot read the heart, or know the secrets of your life. These are known only to yourself and to God. If you repent of your sins, it is your duty to make confession of them.' Sin of a private character is to be confessed to Christ, the only mediator between God and man... Every sin is an offense against God, and is to be confessed to Him through Christ."

My Reviewers ask, "What bearing does the interpretation of the Catholic Dublin Review have on the translation"? I wonder if my Reviewers will accept the authority of Sister White on this point. She says:

"Confess your sins to God, who only can forgive them, and your faults to one another." "Testimonies", Vol. V p. 539. (Emphasis mine)

This is the very position. I take in my book. My Reviewers took exception to it.

Thus we see Sister White endorses the reading as in the AV. Sister White uses sixteen other references in the Spirit of Prophecy, all throwing the weight on the side of the AV.

Does this mean anything to us? Do we not here again see the Spirit of Prophecy lined up on the side of the AV; while on the other side the Reviewers, the Revisers, and Rheims of 1582 stand together?

In the translating of this text the Revisers have nowhere else more clearly shown their inferiority to the translators of the Authorized Version, in the handling of the Greek, than here. In defending the Revisers, my Reviewers say, "Undoubtedly." This is my Reviewers opinion. I expect to give you something more than an opinion, something more in the old Testament than simply Zechariah 6:11.

The expression "house of God" as found in this text is used only one other time outside of the Gospels in the New Testament, and that is in I Tim 3:15 where this "house of God" is distinctly said to be the church. It is used in the Gospels in connection with only one incident, referring to the temple. Likewise the Greek word, megan for "high" referring to the high priest is used nowhere else in the New Testament with the word "priest". Is it not remarkable that two exceptional expressions, used nowhere else in combination in the New Testament, come together in this verse? The Protestant scholars of 1611 saw that Jesus Christ in this verse was more emphatically referred to as "high" priest, than in any other verse in the New Testament.

In other words, all through the Greek Old Testament, the word used for "high" in referring to the high priest, was not the Greek word "arch" which is generally used in the New Testament, but another Greek word "mega". Thus, by not translating "megan" as "high", is obscured this direct reference to our Lord as the antitype of the Jewish high priest. In the 20 references in the Old Testament, where the word "high priest" is used, the Septuagint translators always used the word "mega"! Therefore, if there was any verse at all in the New Testament in which the Greek word going with priest should distinctively have been translated "high", it is in this verse. Why did the Revisers not do it? There are two reasons which I now offer.

First, the scholars on the Revision committee of 1871-1881 were deficient in their knowledge of the Septuagint, or of the Greek Old Testament. As Dean Burgon says, speaking of these same men:

"One is surprised to discover that among so many respectable Divines there seems to have been one sufficiently familiar with the Septuagint to preserve his brethren from perpetually falling into such mistakes as the foregoing. We really had no idea that the Hellenistic scholarship of those who represented the Church and the sects in the Jerusalem Chamber, was so inconsiderable." "Revision Revised", pp. 183,184.

The second reason is that this verse, Hebrews 10:21, is a rare verse in the New Testament. It is composed of two rare expressions. The first is "the house of God" which is used outside of the Gospels only twice in the New Testament; once here, and once before, where it is defined as the church of the Living God. (I Tim. 3:15) The second, is that the word for "high" here, as in the Authorized Version, is never used elsewhere in the New Testament for "high priest". The other Greek word "arch" the "chief" priest, is more generally used, and is also more often used for other priests than the high priest. But the word megan in the verse under consideration could never be used for other priests than the high priest, therefore it is a special word. So the Revisers of 1881 saw that to put the high priest over the church (house of God) would point to Jesus only. Here was a good chance to put a "great priest" and not a "high priest" over the church. Since Dr. Hort, dominating Reviser, constantly and persistently complained of Protestants' horror of priesthood, here was a good chance to give the church "the house of God", a human priest whom they would call great. Dr. Hort wrote to Westcott,

"But this last error can hardly be expelled until. Protestants unlearn the crazy horror of priesthood." "Life of Hort". Vol.11, p. 51. (Emphasis mine)

My Reviewers have acknowledged (Section III, Chapter 12, page 8) that the Revisers did color the translation of Revelation 13:8 to the upholding of their theological views, and the Revisers have likewise, as well as the Reviewers confessed the same thing. Now if they did it once, why should they not do it here? In other words, the oft, repeated claim that the Revisers were true to the original Greek in its rendering, is not so.

See my answer to this SECTION VI, Chapter 6 p. 12.

My Reviewers defend the omission of the article "the" from Heb. 9127, making the passage read "after this cometh judgment" instead of as in the AV, "But after this, the judgment." And this in spite of the quotation I gave from Canon Farrar, who points out that the change in the Revised opened the way for the great doctrine of the "intermediate state". It will not answer for my Reviewers to make light of this statement by Canon Farrar. The Canon was a member of the Apostles Club, an organization in Cambridge University, frequented by the Revisers, who were members thereof, so that Canon Farrar was well aware of the principles believed by these men; for they discussed them at the Club.

On this verse in the Greek, Dr. Middleton, who is an authority on the Greek article, having written a book under the title, says of the omission of the Greek articles:

"Verse 27, Krisis. This word, though used of the final judgment, very properly wants the Greek Article in this place; the proposition not asserting the notoriety or magnitude of the event, but only that it will happen." "The Greek Article", p. 418.

Another quotation from Sir Edmund Beckett, L.L.D., Q. C.F.R.A.S.

"Heb. 9:27. Here again they go out of their way to destroy a famous and solemn sentence, foisting in a dull prosaic word of their own which does not even profess to have any word for it in the original, and is not the least required. We are no longer to hear 'It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment', but... 'after this (cometh) judgment' evidently because they were determined to expunge 'the' on account of krisis there having no Greek article, as if there could be the smallest doubt that it meant THE judgment; and secondly, I suppose they thought the Authorized Version not grammatical enough for their precision, and did not see, or care, that it is all the more striking for the sudden change and break of the grammar, which is still more common in Greek" "Should the Revised N.T. be Authorized" pp. 138,139.

It is surprising how the Reviewers can defend in this text, its rendering as being literal when the Revisers have supplied the word "cometh". My Reviewers try to defend this liberty taken by the Revisers on the ground that it is "to ease reading". What startling changes could not translators make if they were allowed to operate under this excuse. There is only one judgment which comes to men after death, and it is the general. Of course the Catholics and Romanizers teach that there is an individual judgment coming by repetition to each man at the death of each. In the blessed words of inspiration, freighted as they are with immortal importance what right had the Revisers here to omit the word which would designate this judgment as THE judgment, the judgment par excellence, the general judgment, and take an unwarranted liberty to supply another word which would sustain their purpose. What is this but to change doctrine?

It is evident that the Revisers saw in these "mansions", as they say in their margin, "abiding places" or stations on the road in the intermediate state, if my Reviewers did not. Read the quotations in my book from Bishop Westcott and Mr. Cox. These prove that the Revisers intended to breathe their doctrine into the margin, whether my Reviewers get it out of the margin or not.

Probably in no other passage in the New Testament did the translators of 1611 show their splendid skill, delicate touch, and strong arrangement in translating, as they did in handling Luke 1:72. To effect this result the AV supplies the word "promised" which my Reviewers condemn, regardless of the great results achieved, forgetting how often the Revisers supplied words, not only effecting disastrous results, but sometimes to change God's immortal doctrines.

My Reviewers say of me, "He lauds the AV for putting into the text a word that is not there, and then wanders off into a digression on limbo and purgatory". I do not like that, "he wanders off". The fact of the matter is, I am not the originator of the purgatory exposition for this text in the Revised; I have no less an authority than the Catholic Bishop of Erie PA., who shows plainly that the Revised version is so like the Jesuit New Testament of 1582, that the Catholic doctrine has been restored. The Catholic Bishop says:

"For the text was one which, if rendered literally, no one could read without being convinced, or at least suspecting, that the 'fathers' already dead needed 'mercy'; and that 'the Lord God of Israel' was prepared 'to perform' it to them. But where were those fathers? Not in heaven, where mercy is swallowed up in joy. And assuredly not in the hell of the damned, where mercy could not reach them. They must therefore have been in a place between both, or neither the one or the other. What? In Limbo or Purgatory? Why, certainly. In one or the other." Mullen, Canon," p. 332.

Will it lessen the indictment of the Revised Version to say that I was wandering off into digression, when I used statements made by Catholic scholars affirming the change in their favor by the Revised? Are you going to brush aside and ignore as evidence, the exultation of Catholic scholars, that the Revised Version has helped in restoring to Scriptural authority Catholic doctrines, which cannot be sustained by the Authorized Version?

My Reviewers and the Revisers make three mistakes here. In the first place, the Revised Version, as usual in the crucial cases I have been handling, does not agree with the context. Dr. Field has truly said of the Revised Version, it neglects the great testimony of Internal Evidence. Let us notice the triple alignment of these verses here and as found in the words of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. I quote Luke 1:70-73.

"70. As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:

71. That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;

72. To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant."

Thus Zacharias brings into relief three if not four of God's promises made in the past: A-What he predicted by the mouth of his holy prophets: B-His holy covenant which was to be remembered; C- the oath which he aware to our father Abraham. All these going before and after, proclaim that it was mercy promised. Therefore the AV rightly inserted the word promised. But to make assurance doubly sure, notice that Mary also covered the same ground in her beautiful hymn that follows! Luke 1:54,55.

"54. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his his mercy;

55. As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever."

Thus the words of Mary in the same chapter definitely show that the subject under consideration was mercy promised to the fathers who long since were dead. This makes all the distinction in the world. It makes a great difference whether God is to show to us, their children, the mercy promised to the fathers; or to perform mercy not to us, but to the dead fathers. The argument is complete. The scholars of 1611 clearly saw through these two triple chains of statements and translated the verse so true to divine utterances that the doctrine of purgatory was shut out. Whereas the Revisers, most all of whom believed in purgatory, either failed to see the evidence, or did not wish to see the evidence plainly manifest as to what should be the right translation, and so left the verse open, as the Catholic Bishop says, to teach the doctrine of purgatory.

As to the second mistake of the Revisers, is there any one who can defend them, when here they translate the Greek verb poieo, meaning "to do," as, "to show", when the commonest knowledge of Greek teaches that this verb means "to do" or "to perform". What was their motive in so translating it?

The third mistake of the Revisers was substituting in the translation "toward" for "to". What is the difference between the King James translation "to perform the mercy promised to our fathers" and that of the Revised "to show mercy towards our fathers"? What is the use of stretching your imagination to understand it as in the Revised when you have it clearly in the AV, the difference is that the thought is clearly expressed in the AV while the ARV throws us back into the arms of the Jesuit Bible of 1582. Here again we need the King James Version to protect us from the Romish tendencies of the Revised. Here again my Reviewers criticize the King James for its righteous principles and approve the ARV for its unwarranted translation which favors Rome. Is not this a change of doctrine?

My Reviewers, when they seek to defend the spiritualistic translation of the ARV in Job 26:5, in my humble judgment, say just nothing at all.

They say that the only difference between the two verses is that the subject of the AV is "dead things", while the subject of the ARV is "They that are deceased", which they would let us believe mean the same thing. Pardon me. We are not talking about the subject of the sentence; please notice that we are talking about the predicate. Why did not my Reviewers notice that this is the point between the two renderings in the text. It makes a vast difference whether dead things "are formed under the waters" as in the AV, or whether they that are deceased "tremble beneath the waters", as in the ARV. But I have another point at issue here. The margin of the ARV substitutes the expression "the shades" for "they that are deceased" in the text. Let me read you from the International Dictionary, the definition of the word "shade":

"Shade, the soul after its separation from the body; so called because the ancients supposed it to be perceptible to the sight, though not to the touch; spirit; ghost; 'the shades', the nether world; Hades, supposed by the ancients to be the abode of disembodied spirits."

I ask my hearers to judge fairly if the margin, as well as the text, of the ARV does not give us a spiritualistic rendering. Is not this a change of doctrine?

But I have still a further point at issue with my Reviewers in this matter. They want to know what bearing has the comment of a Reviser on this matter, who plainly told us that the Revised Version changed this text so as to give "a vivid reference to God's control over departed spirits". I would answer that it indicates that some of the Revisers had a spiritualistic mentality.

I am very glad to notice that my Reviewers have acknowledged that I was right in my objection to the Revised for its inacceptable translation of 2 Peter 2:9. This teaches the doctrine of Purgatory and I am happy that my Reviewers agree with me in saying that this text was colored by the theology of the Revisers. The Reviewers here rightly acknowledge, what they should always acknowledge that the context must be taken into consideration.

Here again my Reviewers admit that I have found a just ground for my complaint against the inacceptable translation of Rev. 13:8. However, let it not be forgotten that I plainly pointed out that this text was the battleground for decades between the Jesuits and the Reformers. The Jesuits claimed in their day, a translation such as now appears in the ARV, because they knew it favored their doctrine. On the other hand, the Reformers contested this translation every step of the way. Do you think that the Revisers translated it wrong here, in view of these facts, am I not right in claiming that they translated it to suit their own doctrine, which was practically a Jesuitical doctrine? It is not fair for my Reviewers to claim that I said the Revisers rendered this passage in order to side with the Jesuits. I claim then as I claim now, that their doctrine was similar.

We now come to the all important question of the number of the Beast, or the number of his name. Five times in the book of Revelation, this all-important expression "the number of his name" is brought to our attention, but only once are we told the number. Moreover serious consequences hang upon our knowing what that number is. We are to drink of the wine of the wrath of God, if we have it; if we got the victory over it, we are to stand on the sea of glass. How important it is then, that that information be correct. Yes, and more than correct, it must not be confusing or contradictory. 'Consider then with how great a shock it comes to find that the margin of the Revised Version reads "616", and to us who for 300 years have been led to believe that the number was "666", and that only.

Yet my Reviewers dismiss the whole problem with a toss of the hand, saying, "On the whole, however, we need not be disturbed by the harmless marginal note." I protest against this effort to convert one of the most shocking deeds committed by the ARV, into a mere matter of no importance. Shall one of the most precious portions of inspired Revelation be cut down before our eyes, on the pretext that nothing great has happened.

I do not need to go further than this point here, to declare that the world at large, and our people in particular, need same pamphlet or book about safe and dangerous translations in order to protect them from just such dangers as this.

Five times divine Revelation solicits us to learn the number of the Beast. It is important then that we rightly locate this great apostatizing system, whose name we are solemnly warned to discover with God's help. We shall then learn that its name is the name of blasphemy. We shall arise astonished, and have a commission appointed to publish that the Beast has a name unlike any other name in the world. But to locate, to discover, to learn that name, we must know the number of it. We go to the Revised Version to obtain this coveted information, and alas! We discover that the beast has two numbers. Whither shall we turn in our confusion and distress?

Which of the two numbers is correct, 666 or 616? They both cannot be correct. Am I to understand that down through the ages, God was not able to protect the right number, and to transmit to me one marked with certainty? If He did, then what business had the Revisers to throw it into confusion and uncertainty? I reject with indignation their marginal reading. And unless they have some "preponderating evidence", as their appointing body charged them to have, to justify this other number of the Beast, I charge them with high-handed adding to the sacred word of God.

I gave in my book, a quotation from Dean Burgon on this deed of the Revisers. It was correct; it showed the seriousness to the saints of the change; it uttered a grave indictment against the Revisers. My Reviewers acknowledged the correctness of Dean Burgon's conclusion. But that was all. Why did they fail to tell us also of the seriousness of the Dean's facts and of the gravity of his indictment? In order that my audience may hear all, I will produce again the quotation of Dean Burgon. Kindly note that the Dean recognized the margin, "616", as an "alternative reading" and protested against it, my Reviewers to the contrary notwithstanding. To prove that it is an "alternative reading", Burgon uses the Reviser's Preface, describing "alternative readings". Why did my Reviewers seek to make of it a "harmless marginal note"? Dean Burgon said:

"But why is not the whole truth told? viz., why are we not informed that only one corrupt uncial (C):-only one cursive copy (11):-only one Father (Tichonius): and not one ancient Version - advocates this reading? which, on the contrary, Irenaeus (A.D. 170) knew, but rejected: remarking that 666, which is ''found in all the best and oldest copies and is attested by men who saw John face to face,' is unquestionably the true reading. Why is not the ordinary reader further informed that the same number (666) is expressly vouched for by Origen, Hippolytus, by Eusebius: as well as by Victorinus and Primasius, not to mention Andreas and Arethas? To come to the moderns, as a matter of fact, the established reading is accepted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, even by Westcott and Hort. WHY therefore for what possible reason at the end 1700 years and upwards, is this which is, so clearly nothing else but an ancient slip of the pen, to be forced upon the attention of 90 millions of English speaking people?"

"Will Bishop Ellicott and his friends venture to tell us that it has been done because 'it would not be safe to accept' 666, 'to the absolute exclusion of ' 616?... 'we have given alternative readings in the margin,' (say they) 'where ever they seem to be of sufficient importance or interest to deserve notice.' Will they venture to claim either 'interest' or 'importance' for THIS?

Or pretend that it is an 'alternative reading' at all? Has it been rescued from oblivion and paraded before universal Christendom in order to perplex, mystify, and discourage 'those that have understanding,' and would fain count the number of the beast,' if they were able? Or was the intention only to insinuate one more wretched doubt, one more miserable suspicion into minds which have been taught (and rightly) to place absolute reliance in the textual accuracy of all the gravest utterances of the SPIRIT; minds which are utterly incapable of dealing with the subtleties of Textual Criticism; and, from a one-sided statement like the present, will carry away none but entirely mistaken inferences, and the most unreasonable distrust? ...Or, lastly, was it only because, in their opinion, the margin of every Englishman's N.T. is the fittest place for reviving the memory of obsolete blunders, and ventilating forgotten perversions of the Truth?...To really pause for an answer." "Burgon, "Revision Revised", pp. 135,137

You have been listening to this ringing, serious utterance of Dean Burgon on the number "616". Shall we seek to tone down the seriousness? My Reviewers call it a 'harmless marginal note'. Is a doubt about the number of the name of the Beast a harmless thing? Dean Burgon did not so regard it, yet he was only a critic of manuscripts. He was not an Adventist; he was not facing the Beast and the number of his name in the last great conflict as we are. We have a thousand reasons to make this substitute marginal reading a more serious matter than he did.

The forces in the world, working in favor of the Beast seek earnestly to blur all the identification marks which will fasten upon the Roman Catholic Church her identity with the Beast of the Bible. This substitute number "616" in the ARV blurs the number "666". God has branded the Beast with the number 666. Did the Revisers seek to put another brand upon it? To Adventists further argument is superfluous.

Authorized and Revised Differ Profoundly.

To show how misleading is the statement that there is no great difference between Versions, I will give two quotations from the 28 paces which Dr. Schaff devotes to his estimate of Luther's Version, Vol. V of his "History of the Christian Church";

"A Roman Catholic version must be closely conformed to the Latin Vulgate, which the Council of Trent puts on an equal footing with the original text. A Protestant version is bound only by the original text, and breathes an air of freedom from traditional restraint. The Roman Church will never use Luther's Version or King James version, and could could not do so without endangering her creed; nor will German Protestants use Enser's and Eck's Versions, or English Protestants, the Douay Version." p. 365.

"It (the Anglo-American Revision) involves a reconstruction of the original text, which the German Revision leaves almost untouched, as if all the pains-taking labors of critics since the days of Bengel and Griesbach down to Lachmann and Tischendorf (not to speak of the equally important labors of English scholars from Mill and Bently to Westcott and Hort) had been in vain.

"As to translation, the English Revision removes not only misleading errors, but corrects the far more numerous inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the-minor details of grammar and vocabulary; while the German Revision of the New Testament numbers only about two hundred changes, the Anglo-American thirty-six thousand." p. 367

Even though Germany was the home of destructive higher criticism, her Revisers never dared, because of the people, to take the shocking liberties with the German Revision that Westcott and Hort, followed by Schaff, did with the Anglo-American revisions.

My Reviewers committed an error in their endeavor to answer the claims of my book respecting the change in Matt. 2:15. I took this change as typical of hundreds of others. Farrar, Milligan, Westcott, Vaughn, and other writers acknowledge that the entire meaning of hundreds of texts in the New Testament relating to Old Testament prophecies have been changed.

One of the instruments of this change is the new rule for handling the tense form, the "aorist". I note that my Reviewers' definition of this tense form is that it "is employed to denote the simple occurrence of an act in past time, without indicating whether the act is instantaneous, progressive, or in a completed state." This definition would give a great deal of latitude in translating the aorist, Then why did they not abide by it? Evidently my Reviewers do not agree with the Revisers in their understanding of the aorist. Neither do I.

My Reviewers seek to interpret Dean Farrar's comment as giving "added light in the study of the Scriptures", and criticize me for indicating that those changes were extensive and revolutionary. They failed to notice the remark from Dean Farrar, quoted on page 209 in my book, where he says,

"The Revisers help, as they have done in so many other places, silently to remove deep seated errors."

If this is not extensive and revolutionary, then please tell, me what is extensive and revolutionary. Please note the word, "silently".

My Reviewers seek to parry the indictment that the Revisers change tense forms so as to throw the meaning of the great crises in Christian life, towards the teachings of Rome. But did I not (1) quote Dean Farrar when he truly claims that the Revisers' change of tense form did change the meaning of the crises in Christian life; (2) and did I not quote Westcott, and other Revisers, that they sought to permeate Christendom with their conception of doctrines whose meaning to them was neither Presbyterian or Episcopalian, but whose meaning I showed to be Romish? I wish now to give a quotation from one of the learned nobility of England to the effect that the Apostles never made such distinction of tense forms as both the Reviewers and the Revisers claim they did. I now quote from Lord Edmund Beckett:

"The same may be said about the modern rules for construing aorists and perfect tenses, to which are due another multitude of alterations. Such rules are probably right enough generally (in the sense of usually), so far that there is a presumption in favor of observing them, but certainly no more, as we shall see continually. And as all such rules can only be a matter of induction from experience in the books to which they are intended to be applied, and cannot be deduced from any axioms or necessary truths, as in mathematics, the assertion that any such rule is universal is at once refuted by finding that it would sometimes produce absurd or manifestly wrong results...The English speaking people of the world want the English Bible to express the full and substantial meaning of the writers of the original in the best way, and not in the way that is used to test school boys; knowledge of the parsing of every word. It is nothing to us whether Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, Jude and the uncertain writer of Hebrews, all mind their aorists and articles, participles, and particles, as good scholars may expect them to have done, but as it is clear that they did not; because we find it sometimes makes nonsense or confusion to assume that they did." Beckett, "Revised N.T." pp. 14,15.

My Reviewers emphasize the fact that the Greek verb here is in the present perfect passive form. Well what of it? It is used intransitively here, and when so used can be translated to awake, to arise, which is not passive. (See Robinson's Greek and English Lexicon, p. 218.) If then, it could be translated the way it now is in the King James Version, and so fits in with the two other verbs, why did they not do it? Why did they not leave it alone as it was in the AV, and in there correctly? Why make the change, I repeat? Dean Farrar revealed that it was in this very verse THAT they made the change to minimise the death of Christ, and to magnify his resurrection, which is the doctrine of triumvirate. Westcott, Hort and Lightfoot, who had fully determined ten years before Revision began to find expressions to their convictions. Rome and Romanizers also minimize the death and magnify the resurrection of Christ. Such a belief strikes both at the Atonement and at the seventh day Sabbath, bringing in Sunday.

Here again Sister White agrees with the Authorized Version. Christ was dying when he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" She says:

"No eye could pierce the gloom that surrounded the cross, and none could penetrate the deeper gloom that enshrouded the suffering soul of Christ. The angry lightenings seemed to be hurled at Him as He hung upon the cross. Then 'Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani?' 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?'... The spotless Son of God hung upon the cross, His flesh lacerated with stripes...Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe." "Desire of Ages". pp. 754-756.

The ARV margin says, "Why didst thou forsake me". This would mean that God has forsaken him for a moment in the past, but now as Christ was speaking God had returned to him. In other words, the Revisers would seem to teach that Christ's death was not accompanied by terrible sufferings and therefore that our redemption came not so much by His sufferings and death. As I will show in handling my next text, the change in the Revised Version was to teach that thought.

The Revisers in their doctrines, minimized the death of Christ, but magnified His incarnation and His resurrection. They used their "self-imposed rules" to bring this about. Did they have a purpose in it?

My Reviewers feel constrained to ask this question, "Does the author want it to appear that the apparent forsaking of Christ by the Father at the time of His agony should be supreme and continuous in effect?" No ! I said nothing of the kind. I said that evidently the Revisers thought, that they feared, that the AV made the death of Christ too strong. This fear is a Catholic fear. Protestants make the death of Christ the supreme act of the Atonement. Romanists and Romanizers minimize the act. Sr. White says: "In consequence of limited ideas of the sufferings of Christ, many place a low estimate upon the great work of the Atonement." Vol. II p. 200.

I protest against the weakening of this doctrine whether it is in the text, or in the margin. Bishop Westcott teaches this weakening, as I showed in my book, using this passage as his evidence. Evidently at the Revision table he failed to get it into the text, but succeeded in putting it into the margin.

Reviewers justify the omission of "take eat" in this text because these words ARE found in Matt. 26:26. Then they justify the omission of "broken" because they are NOT found in Matt., Mark, Luke. In other words I am justified in having an account of $1,000.00 In the Takoma Park Bank, because I have a similar account of $1,000.00 in the Riggs Bank in the City. Then I am justified in having another account of $500.00 in the Takoma Park Bank because I DO NOT have an account of $500.00 in the Riggs Bank. What kind of reasoning is that? What has Riggs Bank to do with Takoma Park Bank? Why does not each case stand on its own merits? Especially when they use the argument both ways.

The problem here which I present was the omission of the word "broken". This omission permits the ritualistic Protestants, to enforce their argument for sacramental salvation. I presented the quotation from Dr. Milligan who said very distinctly,

"The doctrine of the Sacraments may next engage our attention, and here again the variations in the renderings of familiar texts, though they may not appear at first of great importance, involve far-reaching truths.. .The Bread that is the body of Christ, recalls more particularly His incarnation apart from His sufferings." Milligan, "Expository Value." 120, 122.

The author of the above quotation, as well as the Revisers, who for ten years or more were in steady contact with this problem, and who knew much more than my Reviewers what happened, have no hesitation on declaring that if the changes made in the Revision were important on other subjects, with regard to the doctrine of the sacraments, they "involve far reaching truths".

As power lay in the locks of Samson, so in the doctrine of Sacramental Salvation lay the power of Rome. Especially is this true of the sacrament, the mass. Through this she commands to her priests to rule the spirits of men. Through this she buys the choicest lands, erects magnificent buildings, and orders kings to put their neck under her foot on penalty of losing their crowns.

Only one help existed to keep the people from this awful tyranny- that is the Bible. Yet it is from the bible that Rome claims to secure her authority for her doctrine of the sacraments. How important then that we have the correct words of lad in those four accounts of how Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper.

But would you be surprised to learn that the Revised Version could not keep its hands off any one of these four accounts? Would it interest you to know that it changed either in the text or in the margin each one of these accounts? The change is not serious, to be sure, in some instances, as in other. Nevertheless, each change is Romeward. It changed the account in I Cor. 11 in five places. It changed in three places (text and margin) the account in Luke. It changed in two places, the account in Mark, and in Matthew it changed the account in one place, 11 changes in all.

Consider how serious this is. The whole Christina Protestant world is drifting toward Rome. Brethren, do you want also to see our bible so doctored up that it also is drifting towards Rome? Once our good old Protestant Bible spake out in clear definite utterances; it gave the trumpet a certain sound. Do you want to see it speak with stammering lips and faltering tones? "Oh! the manuscripts, the manuscripts," they say. What manuscripts? Why a certain few, especially the one in the Vatican, which they choose by their own arguments to call ancient, to the exclusion of 3,000 or more other MSS which are against them and which we believe carry a Bible none ancient, more true and more apostolic than those MSS which are Catholic, not simply because the Catholics possess them, but because Rome needs them, uses them, and relies on them.

This word "broken" found in the text under consideration in the AV, but omitted in the RV is a barrier in the way of new theology touching on the Lord's Supper and on the Person of Christ. Romanists and Romanizing Protestants claim that, in the Lord's Supper, the sufferings of Christ are represented in the cup only. The bread should not be "broken" as that represents the incarnation, apart from Christ's sufferings. We are redeemed, they teach, not by the death and sufferings of Christ, but by his being made flash and thus raising humanity from condemnation to fellowship with God.

When the priest puts the wafer on the tongue, when the Protestant ritualist gives the communicant the bread. Christ is (they claim) really and truly present. They partake of the Person of Christ. The church then is instilled with heavenly life. The church now becomes the body of Christ. This heavenly life, this light permeates the church and in the light of it we rate the Scriptures. In fact the impartation of this life puts the church above the Bible and salvation is acquired by the sacrament. The wafer must be whole not "broken" so certain MSS omit the word "broken". Emphasis must not be placed upon "Take, eat", but upon "this is my body." Therefore, certain MSS omit the words, "take, eat,"

Why should this information be withheld from the public? When I seek to show the background of the theology of the Revisers and how that would interest them to favor these eleven (11) changes in the four accounts of the Lords Supper, my Reviewers make a few general statements, which I consider have no bearing on the problems, as sufficient reason why I should not expose the modernistic, ritualistic doctrine of "The Person of Christ" the chief inspiration of ritualists and Romanizers today.

One of the eleven changes favors the Catholic doctrine of Communion in one kind. The good old Protestant doctrine of Communion in two kinds points to the atoning death of Christ in both the wine and the bread; but communion in one kind points to the wine only as representing the blood of Christ, while the wafer points, not to His death, but to His incarnation. Thus step by step, the later changes in the Bible, whether based on the Greek text, or the English text, or the English margin, favor the drift towards Romanism.

My Reviewers say; "The author has utterly failed in the acid test of proving his contention by the results actually seen in the Revised translations submitted in evidence." (Conclusion, p. 1).

My Reviewers seem pressed in spirit to single out certain propositions upon which they makestand or fall my book. Thus (Section I, p.13) they say: "The decisive consideration is "whether the Itala originated in N. Africa or not; and again, (Section I, p. 17) they make bold to declare: "when this claim (i.e. that the Waldenses had a pure text Bible, the foundation of the Textus Receptus, etc.) is overthrown, the very foundation of the book under review is removed." Finally, they chose to make the discussion over the bible passages compared in Chapters 6, 11 and 12 of my book, "the acid test".

They charge me (Section III, pp. 2,3) with:

I. Ignoring the context; II. Disregarding parallel texts; III. Alternative readings in the margin; IV. Criticizing the marginal reading; V. Criticizing the Literal Reading; VI. Disregarding Greek forms; VII. Disregarding Greek MSS; VIII. Looseness of reasoning and assertion; and place opposite to each of the charges the example which they choose to consider as having, because of their treatment of those examples, supported those charges.

However, I have conclusively exposed their false reasoning on practically every one of the texts. Therefore, thee charges based upon them, fall and their acid test vanishes. Likewise their eight pages of summary of scripture texts are answered. Manuscripts, authorities, history, and the Spirit of Prophecy are against them.

They especially charge me (Section III-Chapter 6, p. 3) with using quotations from questionable sources and of questionable kind. To the arguments used and the four (4) examples cited I reply. Since a Catholic of the most dangerous type, Cardinal Newman, was invited to sit with the Revisers; Since a Unitarian was of member of the Committee; Since Revisers of Gnostic tendencies, and Protestants of faulty theological tendencies were in abundance on all Revision Committees, I had a right to quote these all. Moreover, since quotations of fact from the ranks of enemies constitute the highest kind of evidence, I had a right to quote authorities form the class mentioned. Of the four examples given, three refer to the "Dublin Review", of which Cardinal Newman was sometimes editor, and the fourth is from the renowned Canon Farrar, always closely associated with the Revisers. Pray tell us what is questionable about these authorities?

ANSWERS-TOC

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