FROM THE BOOK “NEW AGE BIBLE VERSIONS” BY GAIL RIPLINGER
APPENDIX A
A Summary: Westcott and Hort
A peek into the private thoughts of the men who wrote the Greek text underlying the new versions (Westcott and Hort) can be had by reading their personal correspondence preserved in their biographies. The following chart chronicles the concurrent thoughts and activities of these men while they were preparing the ‘New’ Greek Text and the Revision of the New Testament, (emphasis mine) Their exploration of necromancy and esoteric clubs and individuals was occurring while they were deciding what does and does not belong in the bible, (e.g., On a trip to view a N.T. manuscript, Westcott made a pilgrimage to a shrine of the Virgin commenting that "God appears in many forms.")
[S]o can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
James. 3:12
THEIR NEW AGE HERESIES
THEIR NEW GREEK TEX
1840
“….he took a strange interest in Mormonism….procuring and studying the Book of Mormon." (Westcott, Vol 1, p. 19)
1842
"In the evening I go with Tom to the wizard; but he does not dare perform before us." (Westcott, Vol. 1. P. 9)
1845
Westcott, Hort, and Benson start the 'Hermes' Club.
1846
“….his diary tells of a walk to Girton with C. B. Scott in which metaphysics was discussed." (Westcott, Vol. 1. P. 42.)
[RJefers to evangelicals as "dangerous" and "unsound." (Westcott, Vol 1, pp. 44-45.)
"New doubts and old superstitions and rationalism, all trouble me….I cannot determine how much we must believe; how much in fact is necessarily required of a member of the church." (Westcott, Vol. 1, pp. 46-47.)
1847
"So wild, so skeptical am I; I cannot yield." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 52.)
In speaking of heretic Dr. Hampden, he says, "If he be condemned, what will become of me?" (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 52.)
1848
Hort refers to the “….fanaticism of bibliolaters.” He remarks, "The pure Romish view seems to me nearer and more likely to lead to truth than the evangelical." (Hort, Vol. 1, pp. 76-77.)
"Protestantism is only parenthetical and temporary." (Hort, Vol II, p. 31.)
1850
Hort speaks of “….confused evangelical notions….”
He says, "I spoke of the gloomy prospect should the Evangelicals carry on their present victory." (Hort, Vol. 1, pp. 148, 160.)
Westcott was, "troubled in thought about this passage" (blasphemy against the
Spirit)." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 109)
1851
Hort joins the 'Philosophical Society' and comments, "Maurice urged me to give the greatest attention to Plato and Aristotle and to make them the center point of my reading." (Hort, Vol. 1, pp. 202, 93.)
Hort refers to, "the common orthodox heresy: Inspiration." (Hort, Vol. 1, p. 181.)
Westcott, Hort, and Benson start the 'Ghostly Guild'.
Westcott was ordained a 'priest' in the Anglican church.
Hort also joins 'the Apostles', a secret club.
1852
Westcott and Hort distribute 'Ghostly Guild' literature.
Westcott, in speaking of Revelation, admits, "On this, my views are perhaps extreme." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 225.)
Referring to the Traditional Greek Text, then currently in use, Westcott says, "I am most anxious to provide something to replace them."
He admits the drastic changes he plans and calls it, "our proposed recension of the New Testament." (Westcott, Vol 1, p. 229.)
1853
Hort "was diligently preparing for his ordination" into the Anglican priesthood.
"It was during these weeks with Mr. Westcott, who had come to see him, [Hort] at Umberslacle, that the plan of a joint revision of the text of the Greek Testament was first definitely agreed upon." (Hort, Vol. 1, p. 240.)
"About this time Mr. Daniel Macmillan suggested to him [Hort] that he should take part in an interesting and comprehensive ‘NewTestament Scheme’. Hort was to edit the text in conjunction with Mr. Westcott, the latter was to be responsible for a commentary, and Lightfoot was to contribute a New Testament Grammar and Lexicon." (Hort, p. 241.) "He and I are going to edit a Greek text of the New Testament some two or three years hence if possible." (Hort, Vol. 1, p. 250.)
"We came to a distinct and positive understanding about our Greek Text and the details thereof. We still do not wish to be talked about but are going to work at once and hope we may have it out in a little more than a year. This of course gives good employment." (Hort, Vol. 1,p.264.)
1855
"How certainly I should have been proclaimed a heretic." (Westcott Vol. 1,p.233.)
1856
"Campbell's book on the Atonement….unluckily he knows nothing except Protestant theology." (Hort, Vol. 1, p. 322.)
"I hope to go on with the New Testament Text more unremittingly." (Hort, Vol. 1, p. 355.)
1857
"I am just now chiefly occupied about a proposed Cambridge translation of the whole of Plato….another scheme likely to be carried out if a publisher can be found." (Hort, p. 349.)
1858
"But no doubt there was an element of mystery about Westcott. He took his turn preaching in chapel, but he dreaded and disliked the duty and he was quite inaudible." (Westcott, Vol. I, p. 198.)
"The principle literary work of these years was the revision of the Greek Text of the New Testament. All spare hours were devoted to it."
"Evangelicals seem to me perverted….There are, I fear, still more serious differences between us on the subject of authority, especially the authority of the Bible."
"At present many orthodox but rational men are being unawares acted upon by influences which will assuredly bear good fruit in due time if the process is allowed to go on quietly, but I fear that a premature crisis would frighten back many into the merest traditionalism." (Hort, Vol. I, p. 400.)
1859
"I shall be very glad to learn what are the objectionable parts in my sermon: I fancied that I kept wonderfully within the limits of orthodoxy: but I trust that my object was rather to say what I felt rather than square what I say with some scheme." (Westcott, Vol. I, p. 208.)
"My dear Lightfoot, thank you very much for your kind present. But why did you send beer instead of coming yourself? I have another question to ask about palimpsest fragments of the first seven chapters of St. Luke….I can testify to the high value of the MS. (Hort, Vol. I, pp. 403-404.)
1860
"If only we speak our minds, we shall not be able to avoid giving grave offense to….the miscalled orthodoxy of the day." (Hort, Vol. 1, p. 421.)
“I….looked at the Christian Observer[’s]….condemnation of my heresy." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 241.)
"If you make a decided conviction of the absolute infallibility of the New Testament a sine qua non for cooperation, I fear I could not join you." (Hort, Vol. 1, p. 420.)
"[M]y doubts about infallibility [remain]." Lightfoot wants you to take Hebrews, if it does not go to Benson [Ghostly Guild]." (Hort, Vol 1, p. 422.)
"I reject the word infallibility of Holy Scriptures overwhelmingly." (Westcott, Vol 1, p. 207.)
"I am also glad that you take the same provisional ground as to infallibility that I do….In our rapid correspondence about the New Testament, I have been forgetting Plato." (Hort's letter to Lightfoot, Hort, Vol. 1, p. 424.)
1861
“….imputations of heresy and the like against me." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 222.)
[T]his may be cowardice—I have sort of a craving that our text should be cast upon the world before we deal with matters likely to brand us with suspicion. I mean, a text issued by men who are already known for what will undoubtedly be treated as dangerous heresy will have great difficulty in finding its way to regions which it might otherwise hope to reach and whence it would not be easily banished by subsequent alarms." (Hort's letter to Westcott regarding their writing other things.) (Hort, p. 445)
1862
"English Clergy are not compelled to maintain the absolute infallibility of the bible." (Hort, Vol. 1,p. 454.)
1864
"Westcott talks of our keeping pace with the printers."
1865
"[T]he idea of La Salette [appearances of the Virgin] was that of God revealing Himself, now, not in one form, but in many." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 251.)
During his trip to visit the shrine of the Virgin he stopped in Milan to make
"examination of the Muritorian Fragment of the Canon." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 254.)
1866
"All the questionable doctrines which I have ever maintained are in it." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 290.)
1869
"We must somehow contrive….some way of adding to income." (Hort, Vol II, p. 108.)
"Westcott urges me to try what writing will do." (Hort, Vol. II, p. 110.)
1870
Dr. Butler calls him [Westcott]….mysterious….His voice reached but a few and was understood by still fewer." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 272.)
"Dr. Westcott and myself have for about seventeen years been preparing a Greek text….we hope to have it out early next year." (Hort, Vol II, p. 137.)
“….strike blindly….much evil would result from the public discussion." (Westcott, Vol. 1,p. 229.)
1871
"I shall aim at what is transcendental in many peoples eyes….I suppose I am a communist by nature." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 309.)
Westcott, Hort, and Lightfoot were invited to join the Revision Committee of the New Testament. "Westcott….believes we ought to seize the opportunity especially since we three are on the list." (Hort, Vol. 2, p. 133.)
1872
Westcott, Hort and Lightfoot begin the Eranus Club (the "we three" of the Ghostly Guild). Sidgwick and Balfour, of upcoming Society for Psychical Research, also join Eranus.
[Work on New Testament revision continues, 1871-1881.]
1873
"Truth is so wonderfully large." (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 333.)
1877
Eranus meet in Hort's room.
1881
"Our Bible as well as our Faith is a mere compromise." (Westcott, On the Canon of the New Testament: A General Survey, p. vii)
"[T]he work which has gone on now for nearly 30 years was brought to a conclusion." (Hort, Vol. II, p. 234 )(The Revised Version and “New” Greek are published; or is he talking about the Ghostly Guild, which also began exactly 30 years ago and inspired the S.P.R. in 1882?)
1882
"The truth seems to me to be so overwhelmingly vast and manifold that I shrink
from drawing any outline except provisionally." (Westcott, Vol. II)
1889
"Life and truth grow more and more mysterious." (Westcott, Vol. II, p. 61.)
1893
"He sometimes with much seriousness professed to be much drawn to beer..." (Westcott, Vol. II, p. 178.)
"His zeal in the cause of pure beer involved him in a correspondence which was published in the news-papers in the later part of 1893 and his picture together with some of the following words spoken by him, was utilized for the adornment of the advertisement of a brewer of pure beer."
"My idea is that they might have a public house in which good beer alone would be sold….I consider pure beer….to be an innocent and wholesome beverage….[Substitutes for malt….is not what the purchaser demands nor expects." [Westcott's letter written to Brewer's Society in complaint against inferior beer] (Westcott, Vol. II, pp. 218-219, 177.)
1896
"The Prohibitionists once more showed themselves to be unstatesmanlike. . ." (Westcott, Vol. II, p. 238.)
1899
“But from my Cambridge days I have read the writings of many who are called mystics with much profit.” (Westcott, Vol. II, p. 309.)
You can fool some of the people all of the time
And all of the people some of the time, but…
You Can't Fool Mom: Hort
Hort's mother appears to have been an evangelical Christian. Her influence seems to have provided the Christian branch of his syncretistic tree. Hort's biography states, he "outgrew the Evangelical teaching which he came to regard as "sectarian…fanaticism…perverted." Of his mother, Hort's biography states:
Her religious feelings were deep and strong….[H]is mother was….an adherent of the Evangelical school and she was to a certain degree hampered by it….She was unable to enter into his theological views which to her generation seemed a desertion of the ancient way; thus pathetically enough, there came to be a barrier between mother and son. The close intercourse on subjects which lay nearest to the hearts of each was broken….[Concerning] her different point of view….he….had to recognize that the point of view was different. She studied and knew her bible well.1
His mother wrote to him, pleading that he would not be "missing" from,
….the many mansions of our Heavenly Father's House and my darling, Now happy it will be if we all meet there; no one missing of all our household.2
As Hort's career progressed, he retained his distaste for Evangelicals who held tenaciously to the "articles of the Christian faith." Hort writes to Lightfoot mocking an Evangelical Bishop:
….Claughton's fierce denunciation of everyone who questions an article of the Christian faith as an enemy of God and holiness.3 [There are] serious differences between us on the subject of authority, and especially the authority of the bible.4
The "fanaticism of bibliolaters," Hort bemoans.5 His son writes, "Hence he was led to seek firmer foundation than he could find in the Evangelical position."6
His shift from his evangelical upbringing was prodded by membership in the Philosophical Society and by his grandfather, an Archbishop who wanted to "interpret the Bible in a manner agreeable to the principles of Philosophy."7
Fourteen years after his instigation of the 'Ghostly Guild' with Westcott and Benson, Hort writes:
During the last 15 years my thoughts and pursuits have grown and expanded but not considerably changed. In Theology itself I am obliged to hold a peculiar position, belonging to no party, yet having important agreements and sympathies with all….I perhaps have more in common with the Liberal party than with others….I look upon freedom and a wide toleration as indispensable….8
Of Westcott a friend wrote:
What a theology it was—how broad….anti-dogmatic; how progressive.9
The errors in the 'New' Greek Text and new versions, stemming from the liberal and hypocritical lives of Westcott and Hort, are leaving a generation of souls hungry. God foretold this in Isaiah 32.
The vile person shall no more be called liberal. For the vile person will speak villainy and his heart will work iniquity, to practice hypocrisy and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry….to destroy the poor with lying words….the liberal diviseth liberal things.
Hort Haunts Today's Pulpits
If Hort were applying for the position of pastor in your church, he might reply as he did in 1871, when asked by the Bishop of Ely's to be a chaplain. (This was the very year he joined the New Testament Revision Committee.)
I doubt greatly whether I possess some of the qualifications….in views, and still more in sympathies. I do not sufficiently conform to any of the recognized standards….on what might be called the details of even these matters of faith, I am not sure that my views so far as they are fixed would be generally accepted….[T]o give an instance, there are certain parts of the Old Testament. [Mr. Maurice's books] have led me to doubt whether the Christian faith is adequately or purely represented in all respects in the accepted doctrines of any living school….I have….a keen interest in philosophy, a conviction that their vigorous and independent progress is to be desired for the sake of mankind, even when for the time they seem to be acting to the injury of the faith….[A] fundamental difference in the subject of the Atonement, if it existed, would place me in a false position as your examining chaplain….I have friends of various creeds and creedless, from whom I believe I should do wrong to dissociate myself. It is quite possible that I might wish to write papers or books in which some of these facts would unavoidably come to light.10
Webb wrote of the dismal state of the Church of England at this time; it is evidenced in the fact that, in spite of Hort’s admission of 'heresy', he was hired as chaplain! His son writes:
[F]or the next six years [he] lectured to the theological students at Emmanuel College. The subjects were Origen….Clement….etc….[h]is lecturing which exercised a kind of spell over the more thoughtful listener….[T]here has grown up….a kind of cult around him. There is something mysterious about those lectures.11
And those bibles!
………………..
SO THERE IT IS, ABOUT THESE TWO THEOLOGIANS FROM FAR OUT PLANET PLUTO; AND TODAY THEY HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS OF 99.9 PERCENT OF A SO-CALLED “CHRISTIAN” PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD.
THE FORCES OF THE SATANIC WORLD HAVE BEEN VERY BUSY OVER THE LAST 150 YEARS OR SO, TO TAKE AWAY THE MAJORITY RECEIVED GREEK TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
BUT CHRISTIANS TODAY ARE NOT CONCERNED, IT DOES NOT MATTER TO THEM, FOR THEY CHOOSE THE CHURCH OF THEIR CHOICE, AND GO THERE TO BE ENTERTAINED WITH ALL THE MODERN RITES OF “BANDS” “STAGE ACTS” “AND SMOOTH TALK” AND WITH SOME "EMOTIONS RUNNING HIGH AS WITH THE WIDE VARIETY OF PENTECOSTALISM.”
TODAY FEW PEOPLE CARRY BIBLES WITH THEM TO THE “DIVINE WORSHIP SERVICE” AS THEY ARE NOT NEEDED. THEY COULD CARE LESS WHAT ENGLISH TRANSLATION IS USED.
MOST WHO GO UNDER THE NAME OF “CHRISTIAN” DO NOT STUDY THE BIBLE TO BASE THEIR LIFE ON LIVING BY EVERY WORD OF GOD, AS JESUS TAUGHT [MAT. 4:4]. SO WHICH TRANSLATION IS USED DOES NOT MATTER TO THEM.
THERE IS INDEED A “FALLING AWAY FIRST” BEFORE THE MAN OF SIN IS REVEALED; THAT WICKED WHOM THE LORD SHALL CONSUME WITH THE SPIRIT OF HIS MOUTH [2 THES. 2:3-8] - THE GREAT FALSE PROPHET OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION; THE ANTI-CHRIST.
THE FALLING AWAY STARTED WITH THE TWO MEN FROM PLANET PLUTO - WESTCOTT AND HORT. IT STARTED WHEN THE RECEIVED/MAJORITY GREEK TEXT WAS REPLACED WITH THE FALSE GREEK TEXT OF THE REVISION COMMITTEE OF THE LATTER HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY.
IT CONTINUED INTO THE LIBERAL MOVEMENTS OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY, WHERE THE WEEKLY SABBATH DAY [SUNDAY, THOUGH THE WRONG DAY, WAS OBSERVED AS A SABBATH BY MOST NATIONS OF THE WEST, BUSINESSES CLOSING UP ETC.] WAS THROWN OUT OF SOCIETY AND MOST CHURCHES, AS AN OLD RELIC THAT DOES NOT FIT A MODERN VERY BUSY SPACE-AGE WORLD.
IT CONTINUED INTO “JUST COME AS YOU ARE” - LITERALLY IN YOUR WORK-A-DAY CLOTHES LIKE JEANS AND “T” SHIRT AND RUNNERS FOR MANY “CHURCHES” THEN…..
IT CONTINUED INTO ENTERTAINMENT ON STAGE WITH THE SO-CALLED GOSPEL “ROCK” BANDS, AND WHATEVER TO KEEP THE YOUNGER GENERATION INTERESTED, WELL OUTWARDLY, IN “CHRISTIAN RELIGION.”
IT CONTINUES TODAY AS “CHRISTIANITY” IN THE WESTERN WORLD IS ON THE DECLINE…… LESS THAN 3 PERCENT IN BRITAIN ATTEND CHURCH ON A REGULAR BASIS. A STUDY DONE ABOUT THE YEAR 2,000 SHOWED ONLY TWO CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS ON THE INCREASE…… ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND THE SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS.
ONE DAY JESUS WILL RETURN AND THERE WILL BE A RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS. WHICH WILL INCLUDE THE CORRECT GREEK TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
GOD SPEED THAT DAY!
Keith Hunt