dean burgon on bible preservation - pwm.pdf

Heaven andearth shall passaway, but My wordsshall not pass away.- Jesus Christ, Matt24:35

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Dean Burgon on Bible Preservation

Luke MounseyAugust 14, 2013Printer Friendly Version

Critics of the Byzantine Text/Textus Receptus or a “preserved text” position can invent some amazingthings to discredit and explain away the doctrine of Scripture preservation. One of these is to“disprove” that this doctrine was believed historically. Dean John Burgon was a 19th century defenderof the Byzantine Text. Critics will pull out quotes from his writings to prove that he didn't believe inpreservation:

That a perpetual miracle was wrought for their preservation–that copyists wereprotected against the risk of error, or evil men prevented from adulterating shamefullycopies of the Deposit–no one, it is presumed, is so weak as to suppose. (The TraditionalText, pg 11)

On first glance, it would appear from this quote that Burgon did NOT believe in Scripturepreservation. However, here he is just defining what preservation is NOT. Putting the quote back intocontext shows that Burgon did indeed believe in preservation:

The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

Before our Lord ascended up to Heaven, He told His disciples that He would send themthe Holy Ghost, Who should supply His place and abide with His Church for ever. Headded a promise that it should be the office of that inspiring Spirit not only to bring ‘totheir remembrance all things whatsoever He had told them [John 16:26]’, but also to‘guide’ His Church ‘into all the Truth,’ or, ‘the whole Truth [John 14:13]’ … Accordingly,the earliest great achievement of those days was accomplished on giving to the Churchthe Scriptures of the New Testament, in which authorized teaching was enshrined inwritten form. And first, out of those many Gospels which incompetent persons had ‘takenin hand’ to write or to compile out of much floating matter of an oral or written nature, Heguided them to discern that four were wholly unlike the rest – were the very Word ofGod.

There exists no reason for supposing that the Divine Agent, who in the first instance thusgave to mankind the Scriptures of Truth, straightway abdicated His office; took no furthercare of His work; abandoned those precious writings to their fate. That a perpetualmiracle was wrought for their preservation–that copyists were protected against the risk

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Dean Burgon on Bible Preservation - PWM http://preservedword.com/c/dean-burgon-on-preservation

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utterly unable to believe, in short, that God's promise has so entirely failed, that at theend of 1800 years much of the text of the Gospel had in point of fact to be picked by aGerman critic out of a waste-paper basket in the convent of St. Catherine; and that theentire text had to be remodelled (sic) after the pattern set by a couple of copies whichhad remained in neglect during fifteen centuries, and had probably owed their survival tothat neglect; whilst hundreds of others hand been thumbed to pieces, and handbequeathed their witness to copies made from them.

(The Traditional Text, pg 11,12, emphasis his, underline mine)

The Revision Revised

Burgon asserts scripture preservation in his other works. His Revision Revised has the indexentry:“Provision (God’s) for the safety of His Word … 8, 9, 338, 494” (Revision Revised, pg 547).

(1) The provision, then, which the Divine Author of Scripture is found to have made forthe preservation in its integrity of His written Word, is of a peculiarly varied and highlycomplex description. First,–By causing that a vast multiplication of COPIES should berequired all down the ages,–beginning at the earliest period, and continuing in anever-increasing ratio until the actual invention of Printing,–He provided the mosteffectual security imaginable against fraud. True, that millions of the copies so producedhave long since perished: but it is nevertheless a plain fact that there survive of theGospels alone upwards of one thousand copies to the present day.

(2) NEXT VERSIONS. The necessity of translating the Scriptures into divers languages forthe use of different branches of the early Church, procured that many an authenticrecord has been preserved of the New Testament as it existed in the first few centuriesof the Christian era. Thus, the Peschito Syriac and the old Latin version are believed tohave been executed in the IInd century. “It is no stretch of imagination” (wrote Bp. Ellicottin 1870,) “to suppose that portions of the Peshito might have been in the hands of S.John, or that the Old Latin represented the current views of the Roman Christians of theIInd century.” The two Egyptian translations are referred to the IIIrd and IVth. The Vulgate(or revised Latin) and the Gothic are also claimed for the IVth: the Armenian, andpossibly the AEthiopic, belong to the Vth.

(3) Lastly, the requirements of assailants and apologists alike, the business ofCommentators, the needs of controversialists and teachers in every age, have resultedin a vast accumulation of additional evidence, of which it is scarcely possible toover-estimate the importance. For in this way it has come to pass that every famousDoctor of the Church in turn has quoted more or less largely from the sacred writings,and thus has borne testimony to the contents of the codices with which he wasindividually familiar. PATRISTIC CITATIONS accordingly are a third mighty safeguard of theintegrity of the deposit. (Revision Revised, 8-9, emphasis his, underline mine)

…

“For, let the ample and highly complex provision which Divine Wisdom hath made forthe effectual conservation of that crowning master-piece of His own creative skill,–THEWRITTEN WORD,–be duly considered; and surely a recoil is inevitable from the strangeperversity which in these last days would shut us up within the limits of a very fewdocuments to the neglect of all the rest,–as though a revelation from Heaven hadproclaimed that the Truth is to be found exclusively in them. The good Providence of theAuthor of Scripture is discovered to have furnished His household, the Church, with(speaking roughly) 1000 copies of the Gospels:–with twenty Versions–two of which goback to the beginning of Christianity: and with the writings of a host of ancient Fathers.”(Quoted in Revision Revised, p 338, emphasis his, underline mine)

…

Behold then the provision which THE AUTHOR of Scripture has made for the effectualconservation in its integrity of this portion of His written Word! Upwards of eighteenhundred years have run their course since the HOLY GHOST by His servant, Paul,rehearsed the ‘mystery of Godliness;’ declaring this to be the great foundation-fact,–namely, that ‘GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH.’ And lo, out of two hundred and

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fifty-four copies of S. Paul’s Epistles no less that two hundred and fifty-two arediscovered to have preserved that expression. Such ‘Consent’ amounts to Unanimity;and, (as I explained at pp 454-5,) unanimity in this subject-matter, is conclusive.(Revision Revised, pg 494, emphasis his, underline mine)

The Causes of Corruption of the Traditional Text

Not that we would imply that permanent mischief has resulted to the Deposit from thevagaries of individuals in the earliest age. The Divine Author of Scripture hathabundantly provided for the safety of His Word written. In the multitude of copies,–inLectionaries,–in Versions,–in citations by the Fathers, a sufficient safeguard againsterror hath been erected. (Causes of Corruption, pg 98)

Burgon explains how varying manuscripts are a proof of preservation, not a testimony againstpreservation:

Witnesses of different kinds; from different countries; speaking differenttongues:–witnesses who can never have met, and between whom it is incredible thatthere should exist collusion of any kind:–such witnesses deserve to be listened to mostrespectfully. Indeed, when witnesses of so varied a sort agree in large numbers, theymust needs be accounted worthy of even implicit confidence … Variety it is whichimparts virtue to mere Number, prevents the witness-box from being filled with packeddeponents, ensures genuine testimony. False witness is thus detected and condemned,because it agrees not with the rest …

It is precisely this consideration which constrains us to pay supreme attention to thecombined testimony of the Unicials and of the whole body of the Cursive Copies. Theyare (a) dotted over at least 1000 years: (b) they evidently belong to so many diverscountries,–Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Palestine, Syria, Alexandria, and otherparts of Africa, not to say Sicily, Southern Italy, Gaul, England, and Ireland: (c) theyexhibit so many strange characteristics and peculiar sympathies: (d) they so clearlyrepresent countless families of MSS., being in no single instance absolutely identical intheir text, and certainly not being copies of any other Codex in existence,–that theirunanimous decision I hold to be an absolutely irrefragable (sic) evidence of the Truth.(Traditional Text, pg 50-51)

Related Materials:

God’s Word To Us: An Introduction to the Bible, Bible Preservation, and Bible Translations448 Reasons Why I Cannot Trust Any Modern Bible Version!: A Long List of ScriptureAlterationsLost in Translation?: Do all Bibles really say the same things?Preserved In Translations: Bible Series, article 6.0Bible Series: Introduction: Bible Series, article 1.0The Divine Inspiration of the Bible: Bible Series, article 1.1The Doctrine of Preservation: The Biblical Doctrine of Divine Preservation of the ScripturesThe Doctrine of Scripture PreservationD.A. Carson’s Big Blunder: He purposely misquotes scripture to disprove preservation, andworse.Some new Bibles: Nothing wrong with Mark of the Beast?: NIV, RSV & LB say 666 is man’snumber.

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