The Attack Intensifies

19th-Century Efforts to Destroy the Bible

INTRODUCTION

The 19th century was considered very important by Satan. The impending climax of the great controversy in our world, watched as it is by unfallen beings throughout the universe, was about to begin. Knowing this, Satan aroused his angels to still more feverish activity, to destroy the basis of the Christians faith, the holy Bible.

"Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."Revelation 12:12.

As the century opened, he and his demons knew that the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 was slated for its final fulfillment within less then half a century.

Another prophecy, Revelation 11:19, clearly stated that, within a few years, the Ten Commandments would once again be discovered.

Revelation 14:6-12 disclosed that a worldwide movement was soon to start, which would proclaim the special truth about obedience by faith in Christ to the law of God.

The concluding verse of Revelation 12 clearly stated that, in the final years before Christ's return, there would be a small group which fearlessly chose to obey Gods commandments, in spite of heavy persecution.

Desperate to ward off these closing events of human history and, hopefully, to quench them entirely, Satan began turning loose on the world a flood of error, apostasy, and perversion.

Here are a few of these things; each one either began or alarmed a resurgent attack on the Bible in the 19th century:

German higher criticism, a basic attack on the integrity of the Bible.

British textual criticism, a focused attack on the text, especially of the New Testament.

Modern Bible versions, based on a few low-quality, and even corrupt, Bible manuscripts.

All of the above constituted a direct attack on the Bible. This present book will concern itself with each of the above three items.

Yet, before doing so, let us briefly list some other aspects of the satanic onslaught which exploded in the 19th century:

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, although extremely defective from a scientific standpoint, was overwhelmingly received by atheists and skeptics worldwide.

Atheistic totalitarianism, masking as communism, was let loose by Karl Marx and his associates.

False religions and prophets began evangelizing the Western nations. Satan knew, in advance, that the Spirit of Prophecy would be revived. So Mormonism, Christian Science, and the Watchtower Society, plus many other strange cults, were initiated.

The theories of sociology and progressive education were founded; both of these had a devastating effect on our world.

Sigmund Freud's theories and modern so-called psychology were slated to affect great damage on people.

Modern spiritualism experienced a powerful revival and continues today in old forms with new names.

A dramatic increase in modern armaments and methods of warfare took place.

Every one of the above seven things began within decades of 1844, but more was to come. As the 20th century unrolled before our eyes, the overwhelming intensity of what has developed, clearly showed that Satan was determined to introduce every possible form of delusion in order to so corrupt the planet, its books, entertainment, morals, and even the atmosphere and soil, that few would be able to withstand the devastating effects.

Here is a list of but a few things which have exploded onto the stage of action within just the last half of the 20th century:

Entertainment craze

Abortion

Euthanasia

Gambling

Major crime

City riots

Organized street gangs

Terrorism

Pornography

Skeptical and agnostic philosophies

Poisonous chemicals

Narcotics

Gigantic corporations

Bribery of public officials

Corrupt courts

Mass migrations

Extermination of large populations

Heavy persecution of Christians

Overpopulation crisis

New forms of disease

Upsurge of old diseases

Sports craze

Massive enlargement of cities

People locked into those cities

Dangerous technologies

Weapons able to destroy all life

Destruction of animals

Deforestation of trees

Elimination of the old-fashioned family

Invasion of Eastern spiritualism

Poisoning of wells and groundwater

Pollution of the air we breathe

Major overextension of credit

Immense financial panics

If Christ does not return soon, there will be few to return for! We truly are nearing the end.

In this present study, we will only consider the attack on the Bible. First, we will briefly overview German higher criticism; and then, in far greater depth, we will view the effort to eradicate that most accurate and reliable English Bible translation ever produced: The King James Version (also known as the Authorized Version).

CONTINENTAL HIGHER CRITICISM

Higher criticism consists of vicious speculative theories by liberals, in an attempt to undermine the authorship of Scripture.

Modern theology was seriously affected by the so-called Enlightenment and its aftereffects, which declared that man and human reason were more important than God and divine revelation.

18th-century philosophers and theologians, especially in Germany and France, carried that concept further. Immanuel Kant stressed the importance of reason and the rejection of everything else. Friedrich Schleiermacher rejected creeds and doctrines, declaring that all that mattered in religion was feeling. Georg Hegel saw religion as a constant evolution with the synthesizing of two opposing views. These three men deeply affected later theological thought, down to our own time.

Every theology student today who is trained in outside universities is subjected to this kind of thinking. Few graduate from those worldly institutions who do not accept it.

In Old Testament criticism, the concept of documentary hypothesis won the thinking of the liberals. Regarding the Pentateuch, it taught that the first five books of the Bible were a compilation of different documents, written over a span of five centuries by various authors. And Moses was not one of them.

Jean Astruc (1684-1766) started it off by suggesting that Moses copied from two different documents. His idea became the foundation of documentary hypothesis. Johann Eichhorn (1752-1827) expanded the concept by dividing up Genesis and part of Exodus. Wilhelm DeWette (1780-1849) applied it to Deuteronomy. Others made further atheistic contributions; and, then, Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) put it all together in a unified theory of multiple authors of the Pentetuch, over several centuries.

This higher-critical approach did much to destroy the historically held views concerning the authorship of the Biblical books. The way was prepared for dissecting all the books of the Bible and generally assigning late dates to their writings. In the New Testament, for example, Paul was rejected as the author of anything.

Closer to our own time, Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) developed a radical criticism of the Biblical text, known as form criticism. This was an attempt to discover the literary forms and sources used by the writer of each book. He concluded that the Gospel records are nothing more than a collection of myths "which portrayed truths about mans existence rather than telling about actual historical events." In order to understand the New Testament, according to Bultmann, it is necessary to demythologize them.

BRITISH TEXTUAL CRITICISM

As we have observed, continental (German and French) higher criticism was primarily concerned with destroying the value of the content of the Bible.

In Britain, a different approach was taken by men who also chose to think themselves smarter than Gods Word. They set to work to switch manuscript sources for the Bible. This is called textual criticism.

It is of interest that Richard Simon (1638-1712), a Roman Catholic priest, was the first to delve into Biblical criticism.

"A French priest, Richard Simon (1638-1712), was the first who subjected the general questions concerning the Bible to a treatment which was at once comprehensive in scope and scientific in method. Simon is the forerunner of modern Biblical criticism."Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 492.

"Biblical scholar. From 1662 to 1678, he was a member of the French Oratory. His Histoire Criticque du Vieux Testament (1678), arguing from the existence of duplicate accounts of the same incident and variations of style, denied that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. He is generally regarded as the founder of Old Testament criticism."Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 476.

The Jesuits believed that they could use textual criticism to help them win Protestants back to the fold, by replacing the King James Bible. During the Oxford Movement, they had their opportunity to lay the groundwork in England.

The beginnings of the revision of the King James Version occurred at Oxford University during that period, known as the Oxford Movement, which began in 1833. This was a direct attempt to infiltrate Catholicism into the minds of the intellectual leaders of England.

In order to better understand what we are discussing, a brief overview of the Oxford Movement is in order:

"Despite all the persecution they [the Jesuits] have met with, they have not abandoned England, where there are a greater number of Jesuits than in Italy; there are Jesuits in all classes of society; in parliament, among the English clergy; among the Protestant laity, even in the higher stations.

"I could not comprehend how a Jesuit could be a Protestant priest or how a Protestant priest could be a Jesuit; but my [Catholic] Confessor silenced my scruples by telling me, omnia munda mundis [when in the world, be of the world], and that St. Paul became as a Jew that he might save the Jews. It was no wonder, therefore, if a Jesuit should feign himself a Protestant, for the conversion of Protestants."Dr. Desanctis, Popery and Jesuitism in Rome, pp. 128, quoted in Walsh, Secret History of the Oxford Movement, p. 33.

Desanctis was for many years a priest, working in the Vatican, who renounced Catholicism and became a Protestant.

The Protestant historian, Froude, wrote this about what he was taught while attending Oxford University in those days:

"In my first term at the University, the controversial fires were beginning to blaze . . I had learnt, like other Protestant children, that the Pope was the Antichrist, and that Gregory VII had been a special revelation of that being.

"[But] I was now taught [at Oxford] that Gregory VII was a saint. I had been told to abhor the Reformers. The Reformation became a great schism. Cranmer a traitor and Latimer a vulgar ranter. Milton was a name of horror." J.A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, pp. 161, 167.

Rome had been trying to win over England for centuries; and, in doing so, she was only continuing a penetration, and using methods, which she had been using elsewhere for hundreds of years.

"Whoever, therefore, desires to get really to the bottom of what is commonly called the Catholic revival in England is involved in a deep and far-reaching study of events, a study which includes not merely events of ecclesiastical history, some of which must be traced back to sources in the dawn of the Middle Ages." F.C. Kempson, The Church in Modern England, p. 59.

Does all this sound a little creepy to you? It should. Exactly the same procedure is now occurring within the Seventh-day Adventist denomination! No one seems to be in charge; everyone does what he wants; and, as long as leadership in the church is not opposed, the colleges and universities are free to change the thinking of the denomination! And, if time lasts, within a few decades they will be able to do it, since they train the future leaders of the church.

In order to grasp the immensity of what was happening in mid-19th century England, the reader needs to understand that, by the early part of that century, the center of the Church of England was Oxford University. Half of the young clergymen of the nation were instructed in this institution. Catholics on the continent also recognized that it was the heart of the Anglican Church.

In 1832, John Henry Newman (1801-1890), vicar of St. Mary's at Oxford, went to southern Europe, accompanied by Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-1836), another secret Catholic. While there, Newman sought an interview with Cardinal Wiseman, who was later to have a telling influence on the 1871-1881 revision of the King James Bible and the romanizing of the English Church.

It is known that, with Froude by his side, Newman asked Wiseman what it would take to return England to the Roman faith. The answer to the two Oxford professors was this: The Church of England must accept the Council of Trent. Newman's future was now clear to him. He immediately left the city of Rome, declaring, "I have a work to do in England." (It was on the return voyage that he wrote the words for the hymn we so often sing, "Lead kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom." He felt God was leading him out of Protestantism, back to the Mother Church.)

Upon his return to England, on July 9, 1833, the Oxford Movement began. He organized secret Catholics (including Jesuit agents planted in the church and university) into a working whole. They were quietly taking orders from the Vatican. In 1841, he wrote this to a Roman Catholic:

"Only through the English Church can you act upon the English nation." J.H. Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sue, p. 225 [published years later when he openly renounced Protestantism and became a Catholic cardinal].

Newman was able to accomplish so much, so rapidly, because he and his associates had gained control of the teaching faculty at Oxford University! This is the reason why the liberals in our own denomination have been able to make such rapid inroads! The Theological Seminary at Andrews University has been almost entirely composed of new theology liberals since 1980. Most of our other colleges and universities in North America have, since the early 1980s, swung into the orbit.

These pro-Catholics at Oxford came to be known as "tractarians," because of the many small leaflets and tracts they published. These were called Tracts for the Times, and were written between 1833 and 1841. Newman wrote 24 of them. Each paper said it was written "against Popery and Dissent"; yet, without exception, these little sheets explained why Britains needed to return to Rome. And neither university officials nor the British government moved a finger to shut this down!

One might wonder how these men could so lie through their teeth. But the answer is simple enough. They were using the Jesuitic method adapted by Ignatius Loyola from an earlier baptized pagan, Clement of Alexandria (about A.D. 200). The device is known as mental reservation and was used in these tracts.

Clement wrote this:

"He [the Christian] both thinks and speaks the truth; except when consideration is necessary, and then, as a physician for the good of his patient, he will be false, or utter a falsehood . . He gives himself up for the church." Clement of Alexandria, quoted in Newman's Arians, p. 81.

The son of Mr. Ward, another prominent leader in the movement, later made this comment about the activities of those men:

"Make yourself clear that you are justified in deception and then lie like a trooper." Newman's letters, Vol. 2, p. 249.

It was for such reasons that Newman and his associates would, at times, vigorously attack Rome. This relaxed their critics, so the work of changing the beliefs of the students and the English people who read the publications could continue.

Nearly a hundred of these tracts were published. In Tract 90 (published in 1841), Newman declared that the principles of Roman Catholicism could be taught in the Church of England under the Thirty-Nine Articles. Release of that tract created a terrific stir in the nation. By 1845, it was obvious that Newman had accomplished all he could secretly, so he then openly left the Church of England. Pope Leo XIII later made him a cardinal.

"One of the better-known Jesuit plants of this period was Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1990). His followers such as Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) had labeled the preaching of fellow Englishmen like Booth, Whitefield, and Wesley as detestable and diabolical heresy. Of course, their influence had also spread to English politics. The Emancipation Act of 1829 made it legal for Roman Catholics to become elected to parliament. After years of spreading pro-Vatican propaganda within the Church of England, the Oxford professor [Newman] finally jumped ship and returned to Rome where he was given a cardinals hat in 1879. Part of the story is that within one year of his exodus, over 150 clergy and laymen also crossed over to join him."W.P. Grady, Final Authority, p. 210.

From the beginning, Newman saw the value of using the university, where the clergy were trained for service, as the basis of his attempted takeover of the denomination.

Newman had claimed that the foundation creed of the Anglican Church, the Thirty-Nine Articles, was essentially like the decrees of the Council of Trent. The two great obstacles which stood in the way of Catholicism's invading the mental defenses of English Protestantism were these: The Thirty-Nine Articles and the King James Version of the Bible.

He also wrote that the King James Bible was a spurious text, devoid of divine authority. He contrasted it with the Catholic Vulgate which, he declared, was "a true comment on the original text."

Something still had to be done to undercut the influence of that holy book. The King James Bible was scornfully referred to by the Catholics as the "Protestants paper pope." The Jesuits well-knew that it was that book which was the center of the strength and religious life of the British people.

Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman (1802-1865) was the other leader in the Catholic penetration of England. In 1850, the pope made a cardinal of Bishop Wiseman, and appointed him Archbishop of Westminster. Wiseman soon established a chain of twelve Catholic bishoprics throughout England, from which papal teachings could be spread among the people.

"The Catholic most responsible for directing Protestant aggression against the Authorized Version was Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman (1802-1865). While rector of the English College at Rome, he studied under Cardinal Angelo Mai (1782-1854), prefect of the Vatican library and celebrated editor of the Codex Vaticanus." W.P. Grady, Final Authority, p. 211.

Wiseman was responsible for the conversion of hundreds of English Protestants, including Prime Minister William Gladstone (1809-1898), Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886), and John Newman (1801-1890). Trench and Newman worked closely with him in devising ways to replace the King James Bible with something they considered more appropriate.

By this time, German higher criticism was beginning to invade England, and many Anglican clergymen were being attracted to it. This only added to the confusion and disintegration of spirituality in the nation.

There were four key resolutions, adopted at the Council of Trent, which focused on papal authority as above that of Holy Scripture. They are important:

1 - Papal tradition is on a level with Scripture.

2 - The Apocryphal books are equal to the canonical ones.

3 - Jerome's Latin Vulgate Bible contains no errors.

4 - Only the Roman Catholic clergy have the right to interpret the Scriptures.

Thanks to the effects of the Oxford Movement, a process was set in motion which, in the 20th century, has resulted in the elevation of textual critics and modern critical Greek Texts above that of the King James Bible, the crowning achievement (in English) of the Majority Greek Text which God protected down through the centuries.

Just as Cardinals Newman and Wiseman (both ex-Anglican priests) laid the groundwork in Oxford for the British takeover, so there were two other men who provided the theory which was used to downgrade the King James Version in the eyes of the public.

WESTCOTT AND HORT

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892) were the men who devised the basis for the 20th- century attempt to replace the King James Bible with inferior translations.

The average believer who uses an English translation of the Bible, different than the King James, does not realize the beliefs of the men who provided the Greek Text for those modern Bibles.

In order to better understand the objectives of these two men who are said to have "laid the basis for modern Biblical knowledge" we need to understand their personal beliefs.

We find much information in two books: The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, Vols. 1-2, by his son Arthur Westcott (1903), and The Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, Vols. 1-2, by his son Arthur Fenton Hort (1896).

It is significant that the name, "Jesus," was used only nine times in the 1,800 pages of these two books. Westcott and Hort had a secret love for Catholicism and even paganism, but they had little patience for Christianity.

At the age of 22, Westcott revealed his doubts on the Inspiration of Scripture. He wanted to have a part in changing the situation in England for something he thought was better. In a letter to his fianc�, dated Advent Sunday, 1847, he wrote:

"The battle for the inspiration of Scripture has yet to be fought, and how earnestly I pray that I might aid the truth in that."Life of Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 95.

That same year, he wrote from France to his fianc� about his fascination for the Catholic doctrine of Mariolatry (Mary worship). In the letter, he said that he loved to kneel before an image of Mary.

"I could have knelt there for hours." Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 81.

Later he wrote:

"I wish I could see to what forgotten truth Mariolatry bears witness." Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 251.

Westcott and Hort worked well together, for they had so many interests in common. Hort was also a secret Mary worshiper.

"I have been persuaded for many years that Mary worship and Jesus worship have very much in common in their causes and results." Life of Hort, Vol. 2, p. 49.

Hort wished he could have been a Catholic priest. In a letter to Dr. Lightfoot, a member of the Revised Version Committee who believed the same as Hort, he wrote:

"But you know I am a staunch sacerdotalist." Op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 86. ["Sacerdotalism" refers to the performing of the Catholic ceremonies.]

Frederick Maurice was a close friend of Hort's, who Hort said "deeply influenced me" (ibid., p. 155). Maurice was a dedicated Unitarian minister who had been discharged from Kings College because of his atheistic teachings, yet was appointed to the Revised Version Committee through Hort's influence.

Hort wrote to a friend in 1864:

"Christianity with a substantial church is vanity and disillusion. I remember shocking you and Lightfoot not so long ago by expressing a belief that Protestantism is only parenthetical and temporary." Op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 30.

Hort believed that many of the things in the Bible were myths.

"I am inclined to think that no such state as Eden (I mean the popular notion) ever existed, and that Adams fall in no degree differed from the fall of each of his descendants." Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 78.

Westcott fully agreed.

"No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of Genesis, for example, give a literal history."Life of Westcott, Vol. 2, p. 69.

Although both men were salaried by the Anglican Church, Hort wrote this:

"With that world Anglicanism, though by no means without a sound standing, seems a poor and maimed thing besides the great Rome." Life of Hort, Vol. 2, p. 30.

Here are a few additional quotations by, or about, Wescott:

"He took a strange interest . . not very long after that time, especially in Mormonism . . I recollect his procuring and studying the Book of Mormon about 1840." Comment by Arthur Westcott, in Life and Letters of John Westcott, pp. 19-20.

"Oh, the weakness of my faith compared with that of others! So wild, so skeptical am I. I cannot yield." Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 52 (August 31, 1847).

"I dare not communicate to you my own wild doubts at times . . which I should tempt no one to share." Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 94 (November 11, 1847).

"I cannot help asking what I am? Can I claim the name of a believer?" Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 92 (November 7, 1847).

"What a wild storm of unbelief seems to have seized my whole system." Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 111 (May 13, 1849).

Over a period of time, the present writer has discovered that a number of founders of new, devilish organizations were receiving communications with demons!

The founder of Jesuitism, Ignatius Loyola, regularly held s�ances with a spirit which would come to him in the woods, in the form of a being clothed in shining light and speak to him as he worked on his rule books for the Society of Jesus.

The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, also held regular communication with a demon presence who spoke to him.

The founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses, C.T. Russell, was guided by spiritualist s�ances in the development of his teachings.

We know that Sigmund Freud held regular contact with spirits.

We know that Adolf Hitler was personally guided by demons.

It is very likely that Charles Darwin was also, but I found no definite information on that.

All of those men started major new organizations which had an important influence on the lives of many in our century.

You will recall that Buddha is supposed to have received enlightenment--guidance--as he sat under a tree one day. Buddhism was the result.

It is a known fact that Muhammad regularly consulted with a special demon who guided him in his writing of the Koran.

In the process of devising their Bible-shattering theory, both Westcott and Hort (both of whom were Cambridge professors) also dabbled in the occult!

I would not want anything to do with a theory which demons helped develop! Would you? Yet the theory which modern Bible translations are founded on was developed by those two men. Here is the story. The sons of the two men documented it well.

In the year 1851, Dr. Hort founded a society for the investigation and classification of ghosts and psychic phenomena. Westcott's own son described such practices as "spiritualism" (op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 119).

Westcott and Hort called their club, which had a number of members, the Ghostly Guild. They continued its weekly meetings for decades and were receiving guidance throughout the 1871-1881 Revision Committee.

In one issue of their publication, the Ghostly Circular, Westcott wrote about the wonderful knowledge which could be gained by contact with spirits:

"The interest and importance of a serious and earnest inquiry into the nature of the phenomena which are vaguely called supernatural will scarcely be questioned. Many persons believe that all such apparently mysterious occurrences are due either to purely natural causes, or to delusions of the mind or senses, or to willful deception. But there are many others who believe it possible that the beings of the unseen world may manifest themselves to us in extraordinary ways, and also are unable otherwise to explain many facts the evidence for which cannot [be] impeached . . [by such contacts]. Some progress would be made towards ascertaining the laws which regulate our being, and thus adding to our scanty knowledge of an obscure but important province of science."Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 118.

Westcott wrote as one who had been successfully making frequent contacts with the spirit world. What were the demons teaching him? We will learn that Westcott and Hort were taught what was needed to be done to change 20th-century Bible translations! They had master instructors to guide them.

"The very name of witchcraft is now held in contempt. The claim that men can hold intercourse with evil spirits is regarded as a fable of the Dark Ages. But spiritualism, which numbers its converts by hundreds of thousands, yea, by millions, which has made its way into scientific circles, which has invaded churches and has found favor in legislative bodies, and even in the courts of kings, this mammoth deception is but a revival in a new disguise of the witchcraft condemned and prohibited of old.

"Satan beguiles men now, as he beguiled Eve in Eden, by exciting a desire to obtain forbidden knowledge. Ye shall be as gods, he declares, knowing good and evil. Gen. 3:5. But the wisdom which spiritualism imparts is that described by the apostle James, which descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. James 3:15.

"The prince of darkness has a masterly mind, and he skillfully adapts his temptations to men of every variety of condition and culture. He works with all deceivableness of unrighteousness to gain control of the children of men, but he can accomplish his object only as they voluntarily yield to his temptations. Those who place themselves in his power by indulging their evil traits of character, little realize where their course will end. The tempter accomplishes their ruin, and then employs them to ruin others."Story of Redemption, pp. 395-396.

Hort "came under the spell of Coleridge," the poet and opium addict who worked to bring a wider knowledge of German higher criticism to England.

Hort also read avidly in the writings of John Keble, the Oxford professor who Newman later said was "the true and primary author of the Oxford Movement" (Lee and Stephen, National Biography, Vol. 10, p. 1180).

In addition, Westcott liked to study ancient pagan writers.

"I can never look back on my Cambridge life with sufficient thankfulness. Above all, those hours which were spent over Plato and Aristotle have wrought in me which I pray may never be done away."Life and Letters of Westcott, Vol. 1, pp. 175-176.

Hort highly valued what he learned from ancient pagans. In one letter, he mentioned that it was his atheist friend, Maurice, who urged him in that direction.

"He urged me to give the grandest attention to Plato and Aristotle, and to make them the central points of my reading, and other books subsidiary."Life and Letters of Hort, Vol. 2, p. 202.

In 1865, only five years before he began work as a member of the Revised Version committee, Westcott visited the Shrine of the Virgin Mary at LaSalette, France. LaSalette was one of the more famous shrines of France, where the Catholics claim that the Virgin Mary works miracles. Westcott wrote that a miracle took place while he was there.

"An age of faith was restored before our sight in its ancient guise . . In this lay the real significance and power of the place."Life and Letters of Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 254.

When he wrote up a paper which he wanted to publish on the thrilling experience he had observed at the feet of Mary, Dr. Lightfoot persuaded him not to release it, because it would hinder Westcott's efforts to ultimately use their critical Greek Text to change the Bible. Lightfoot was far more influential in the Anglican Church than either Westcott and Hort, and it was he who got them into the committee and helped get the others to vote in favor of their daily textual recommendations.

In July 1970, Pope Leo XIII declared himself infallible! This shocked many people throughout the world, but not Hort. He wrote his daughter, that he was so thankful that his mother had sent him a photograph of the pope to place on his wall and treasure (Life and Letters of Hort, Vol. 2, p. 227)!

Six weeks after Hort hung the picture on his wall, Leo XIII issued his encyclical, Inscrutabili, in which he declared:

"The Church . . is in very truth the glory of the Supreme Pontiffs that they steadfastly set themselves as a wall and bulwark to save human society from falling back into its former superstition and barbarism."Leo XIII, quoted in Avro Manhatten, The Vatican-Moscow Alliance, p. 67.

Ten years later, Hort sent a letter from Rome and excitedly told his daughter that he had purchased a ticket to take part in a Pontifical Mass; he hoped to be able to kiss the pope's foot (Life and Letters of Hort, Vol. 2, p. 393).

Hort wrote to Lightfoot in 1880, that he utterly rejected the infallibility of Scripture. He considered the Bible to be just another book, less interesting than Plato.

"The more I learn, the more I am convinced that fresh doubts come from my own ignorance, and that at present I find the presumption in favour of the absolute truth, I reject the word infallibility' of the Holy Scripture overwhelmingly."Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 420.

Anything savoring of unbelief caught their attention.

"Have you read Darwin? I should like a talk with you about it! In spite of difficulties, I am inclined to think it unanswerable. In any case it is a treat to read such a book."Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 414.

Hort did not believe in the existence of Satan or the atonement (op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 120). He believed that a person could repent of sin after he died (op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 275) and that there was a purgatory (op. cit., Vol. 2, 336).

Westcott believed he could efficaciously pray for the dead (Life and Letters of Westcott, Vol. 2, p. 349).

Neither one liked to preach from the pulpit, for they really had little interest in Christianity. A personal experience with Christ was something neither ever had.

Unbelief, spiritualism, Catholicism, higher criticism, and pagan lore were the deep loves of Westcott and Hort. And his satanic highness used them both as polished instruments to tear down confidence in the King James Bible and the manuscripts on which it was based.

It is important that we spend time on the above, discovering the beliefs of those two men, for much that followed in 20th-century Protestant Bible history has been based on a theory they devised.

Prior to Westcott and Hort, all translations of the Bible had been made from the Majority Text (the Received Text, or Textus Receptus, family of manuscripts). Because of their influence, all translations since then (from 1881 onward) have been based on the Sinaiticus / Vaticanus family.

Their theory is essentially this: The very small Sinaiticus / Vaticanus manuscript family should be preferred in all instances in which it conflicts with the very large Majority Text family. It is said that the Sinaiticus / Vaticanus family was written before the others; therefore it is more accurate.

But we will find that this is not true.

In this book, we are going to learn that the Sinaiticus / Vaticanus family is not earlier; and, because that family is smaller, its excessive, mutually exclusive variants are not as trustworthy.

In order to properly understand the Westcott-Hort theory, we need to go back to the first centuries after Christ's time, when the early manuscripts were produced.

Hort himself grudgingly conceded, "A theoretical presumption indeed remains that a majority of extant documents is more likely to represent a majority of ancestral documents at each stage of transmission than vice versa."

B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek,
Vol. 2, p. 45