The Myth of the Scrivener 1894 AV Greek text as a pro-AV text - it was 1881 for the decrepit Revision

[Steven Avery]

THE MYTH OF PRO-AV SUPERIORITY MOTIVES IN THE "1894 Scrivener" - which is actually the 1881 Scrivener edition

Facebook - Textus Receptus Academy
https://www.facebook.com/groups/467...k/548812225964644/?comment_id=549046189274581

THE MYTH OF PRO-AV SUPERIORITY MOTIVES IN THE
"1894 Scrivener" - actually the 1881 Scrivener edition

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Referring to this as an 1894 edition is quite confusing.

First Scrivener passed in 1891.

This text was published first in 1881, and I believe should be referred to as Scrivener 1881. Granted, this might make the connection with the decrepit Revision more obvious.

The New Testament in the original Greek: according to the text followed in the Authorized version, together with the variations adopted in the Revised version (1881)
https://books.google.com/books?id=bqA9AAAAYAAJ
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008410170

Followed by many editions.

The purpose was to support the Revised Version by showing the variations.

Preface:
"The Cambridge Press has therefore judged it best to set the readings actually adopted by the Revisers at the side of the page, and to keep the continuous text consistent throughout by making it so far as was possible uniformly representative of the Authorised Version."

Notice that Scrivener wrote with some equivocation.

There is nothing special about the 1894 edition, the text is identical (unless one or the other had a typo.)

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In this edition it has not been thought necessary to indicate variations from Beza by the mark * the Appendix, which is retained, sufficiently shewing the passages in question; moreover in lieu of using thicker type to indicate readings which have not been used by the Revisers, spaced type has been adopted.
Christmas, 1893.

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Timothy Berg actually gets this right.

"This Greek text was first printed in 1881 by Cambridge University Press as a companion volume to the 1881 Revised Version, the official revision of the 1611 KJV, or Authorized Version (AV). In order that the Revisers might comply with their instructions about presenting the textual variations of their text from the text of the AV, they had provided CUP with a list of places they had chosen to differ from the Greek text presumed to underlie the AV. This list had been kept by Scrivener, who was on the Revision Committee, and who was appointed the task by the Committee. The University Presses decided that rather than clutter the margins of the RV, the best way to present this list and comply with the instruction was to actually separately print the Greek text of the AV, a text which had not been printed before, and set out in the apparatus at the foot of the page the alternative readings adopted in the RV."

And discusses the origin of the 1894 myth.

"Unfortunately, some groups later reprinted the text itself, from the 1894 edition, (including an edition in a beautiful calfskin leather) not noting that it had existed before that date. They strangely omitted Scrivener's preface explaining the origins of the text, and omitted the apparatus which was the express purpose of the creation of the text; a purpose expressed in the very title of the original work. This was the edition used as the base text at my alma mater which professes that this text preserves, "the very words [God] inspired" (which had the unfortunate result of insulating students from reading the Preface and understanding the history of the text). .... Nor did he have any intention in publishing it to disassociate himself from the RV; his volume was published as a companion volume to the RV."

While Berg has the editions as:
First Edition 1881
Reprinted 1881 (twice), 1883, 1884, 1886, 1890, 1894, 1908.

It looks to me that this omits a number of reprint editions.

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Grantley McDonald got this all wrong, as well, and added the idea that this was a project that Scrivener was working on until he passed.

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Raising the Ghost of Arius - p. 298

The work of F. H. A. Scrivener illustrates the powerful gravitational pull of the Authorised Version. His expertise in biblical studies was considerable, and he did valuable work on important early manuscripts like the Codex Bezae. The last years of his life were devoted to a reconstruction of the Greek text underlying the Authorised Version, a composite of readings from a number of early printed editions. Scrivener’s edition of this Greek text, published posthumously in 1894 and reprinted unchanged to the present, remains the authorised Greek text of groups such as the Trinitarian Bible Society, even though it is as much the product of critical artifice as the eclectic Nestle-Aland text that conservatives deplore.5

5 http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/site/principles.asp, accessed 5 March, 2010

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The "product of critical artifice" comment is simply a junque aside, typical Critical Text claptrap.

No reference was given, so I wonder where Grantley got this "last years of his life" idea, whether it was his own deduction, or a blunder picked up from some writer without giving the refeernce.

Grantley gives this url
http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/site/principles.asp
Accessed March 6, 2010

Which leads to

Trinitarian Bible Society - Principles of the Society

The Greek Text: The Society uses the form of the Greek text of the New Testament known as the Textus Receptus or Received Text. This is the text which underlies the New Testament of the Authorised Version and the other Reformation translations. It is a faithful representation of the text which the church in different parts of the world has used for centuries. It is the result of the textual studies of conservative scholars during the years both before and after the Reformation, and represents for the most part over 5,000 available Greek manuscripts. The Society believes this text is superior to the texts used by the United Bible Societies and other Bible publishers, which texts have as their basis a relatively few seriously defective manuscripts from the 4th century and which have been compiled using 20th century rationalistic principles of scholarship.

Which does not answer our question.

 

[Steven Avery]

Timothy Berg did unravel a lot of this, and Maurice Robinson has excellent comments going back to 1995!.

I'll plan on adding this additional information shortly, I just wanted to get some basics onto the PBF.

 

[Steven Avery]

Maurice Robinson - 1995
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1995-10/9515.html


You might want to send these corrections to the b-greek group to resolve
the problems. Mention my name if you desire and that I am responsible
for the OLB Scrivener text etc.

... Scrivener did publish a number of different editions of the Greek NT. Nowhere do I know did he publish a complete unaltered copy of Beza 1598.

He did publish in 1881 the Greek text underlying the KJV, which he admitted was the text of Beza 1598 EXCEPT for 191 readings which were
specifically listed in the Appendix, which Appendix shows their actual source. His main text WAS constructed to be as close as possible to the
Greek text underlying the KJV, so long as such could be constructed from printed Greek editions before 1611. This rule also precluded Scrivener
from translating Latin Vulgate readings back into Greek when no printed Greek text before 1611 supported the KJV rendering (Scrivener did not want to become Erasmus redivivus).

> Can you be so kind as to post a couple of examples from the Scrivener's Text where the Greek text followed by the AV
> translators differs from Beza's 1598 edition? I'd like to find out just what kind of a "Scrivener's Text" I own.

I have the appendix in my reprint copy of the 1881 edition, but it is too extensive to list in toto. Sample readings by reference only include for
all of Matthew 1:8-9, 23; 2:11,17; 3:3; 9:18; 10:10,25; 11:21; 13:24; 20:15; for all of Mark 1:21; 4:18; 5:38; 6:45,53; 8:22; 9:38,42; 10:46; 13:9; 14:21; 15:3; 16:14,20. If you own a Scrivener text (whether 1881 or 1894), the text is identical and it is NOT a mere reprint of Beza 1598.

Scrivener himself states in the preface to the 1881 edition:

Wherever therefore the Authorised renderings agree with other Greek readings which might naturally be known through printed editions to the revisers of 1611 or their predecessors, Beza's [1598] reading has been DISPLACED from the text in favor of the more truly representative
reading, the variation from Beza being indicated by * [an asterisk].
. . . All variations from Beza's text of 1598, in number about 190, are set down in an Appendix at the end of the volume, together with
the authorities on which they respectively rest. (pp. viii-ix; emphasis added).

... The 1894 text and the 1881 text are identical. I suspect that Scrivener's 1894 edition simply contained the Greek text of the 1881 edition without the boldfaced main text variants from the Greek underlying the ERV or the footnotes showing such variant readings. I.e., I suspect the 1894 to be the bare text only in a "Reader's edition" type of text (with or without the Appendix as well).

The primary aim of the 1881 edition was to show (in heavy bold type) the differences made in the Reviser's Greek text underlying the 1881 English Revised Version from the text which presumably underlay the KJV. These differences were all noted at the foot of the page and the main text boldfaced to alert the reader of the change.

My own copy of the 1881 edition (D.A. Waite's xerox) is from the 1949 Cambridge University Press reprint of the 1881 volume (yes, it stayed in
print that long!). Its reprint history goes 1881 (3 printings), 1883, 1884, 1886, 1890, 1908, and 1949. No changes were made in any reprint
edition.

SA Note: Add 1894, (which is a second edition, possibly because of the ERV stuff, 1908 Cambridge University Press is listed as a sixth edition) and there may be an 1895.

Note that the 1894 edition is not listed in this lineage, but (as the Trinitarian Bible Society reprint of Scrivener 1894 states in its preface):

The present edition of the Textus Receptus underlying the English Authorised Version of 1611 follows the text of Beza's 1598 edition as the primary authority, and corresponds with "The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the text followed in the Authorised
Version" edited by F. H. A. Scrivener ... and published by Cambridge University Press in 1894 and 1902.

Neither the 1894 or 1902 dates are in the 1881 reprint lineage. My guess is that the 1894 edition was merely a separate printing which did NOT
emphasize in bold type the differences between the KJV and ERV as did the 1881 edition, but merely presented the reconstructed text of the
underlying KJV Greek from the 1881 edition. I also am not certain whether the 1894 edition included the Appendix, and would have to check the
library on that.

SA Note: The TBS would not want to deal with ERV stuff.

....

Again, Scrivener admits that the text is basically Beza 1598. Scrivener also clearly states that he DEPARTED from Beza 1598 exactly 191 times to
insert readings followed by the KJV translators which did NOT come from Beza 1598, and the original Beza 1598 readings are contained in the Appendix, together with the source editions of the readings followed by the KJV translators, which readings Scrivener placed INTO his 1881/1894 edition main text.

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[Steven Avery]

Facebook - King James Bible Debate
John Word
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212...7510136693&reply_comment_id=10158183903581693

I reject Scrivener's text as an authority over the KJB. Where the two differ (and they do) the KJB is correct. TR folks push the Scrivener text not realizing that it came AFTER the KJB and was produced by one man who worked under Westcott and Hort on their Revision Committee that produced the grandfather of the modern versions - the Revised Version of 1881. This was after he produced his 1873 Cambridge paragraph bible which changed words and reading in the KJB. He then went on to make his own Greek text based on the KJB but changing readings. He really did not believe the words of the KJB were authoritative. I reject Scrivener's text as an authority over the KJB. Where the two differ (and they do) the KJB is correct. TR folks push the Scrivener text not realizing that it came AFTER the KJB and was produced by one man who worked under Westcott and Hort on their Revision Committee that produced the grandfather of the modern versions - the Revised Version of 1881. This was after he produced his 1873 Cambridge paragraph bible which changed words and reading sin the KJB. He then went on to make his own Greek text based on the KJB but changing readings. He really did not believe the words of the KJB were authoritative.

Steven Avery
John Word
"Scrivener text not realizing that it came AFTER the KJB and was produced by one man who worked under Westcott and Hort on their Revision Committee that produced the grandfather of the modern versions - the Revised Version of 1881. "

AND the text was produced for the Revision endeavor (the reason, I believe, was to keep AV readings out of their margin) AND it was produced in 1881.

Attempts to call it an 1894 text can be considered disinformation attempts. (Possibly started by TBS and passed down the AV pike.) There were no changes in the text from 1881 to 1894.

PBF
The Myth of the Scrivener 1894 AV Greek text as a pro-AV text - actually it was 1881 for the decrepit Revision
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...ly-it-was-1881-for-the-decrepit-revision.1330

Steven Avery

 

[Steven Avery]

Can add some from this new thread:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/193387170719787/permalink/4117438298314635/

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the Timothy Berg blogs

Steven Avery
“yes I recently read Berg’s article on Scrivener, and beside his anti TR/KJV stance, it is worth the read.”

The Preface To The Greek TR Of F. H. A. Scrivener - (used for discussion in previous post)
Timothy Berg
May 1, 2019
https://bloggingtheword.com/the-blog/scrivener-s-greek-tr

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apparently he moved some articles to the hew blog

“I share the full original preface to this text here, and a little bit about its history;”

The Preface To The Greek TR Of F.H.A. Scrivener
Timothy Berg
May 25, 2020
https://kjbhistory.com/the-preface-to-the-greek-tr-of-f-h-a-scrivener/

loaded with typos even a year later
my questions and corrections on the Facebook thread
One relates to a supposed Scrivener list of variants.

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