SCHOLASTIC SKULLDUGGERY

I understand that the Alexandrian reading has behind it the following:

1. Aleph — 4th

2. A — 5th — Alexandrian & Byzantine

3. 1006 — 11th — Alexandrian

4. 2020 — 15th — Byzantine

5. 2053 — 13th — Alexlandrian

6. it.^ar

7. it.^c — 12th

8. it.^dem — 13th

9. it.^div — 13th

10. it.^haf — 19th

11. vg. — 4th

12. cop.^sa — 3rd

13. eth — 6th

14. Ath — 4th

15. Ful — 6th

16. Apri — 6th

17. Prim — 6th

18. PS — Amb — 6th

19. Haymo — 9th

20. (N)? — 6th Byzantine

Now let's evaluate this evidence according to Burgon's Seven Tests:

1. Antiquity — based on the fact that the Receptus reading is found in the second century (sy), third century (Tert), Cyp, (cop^{bo ),} and 4th century (Tyconius) and the Alexandrian reading only in the fourth century (Aleph), the third century (cop^{sa )}, and the fifth century (A), it seems that antiquity speaks for the Receptus reading. Bishop Ellicott and Archdeacon Palmer wrote a pamphlet in defense of the Westcott-Hort Greek Text in which they were compelled to admit that: "This remarkable statement completes the pedigree of the Received Text. That pedigree stretches back to a remote antiquity. The first ancestor of the Received Text was, as Dr. Hort is careful to remind us, at least contemporary with the oldest of our extant manuscripts, if not older than any of them." (Two members of the New Testament company on the Revisers Greek text, pp. 11,12 as quoted by Wilkinson, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, p. 55).

2. Number of witnesses — for the Receptus reading — sy (all or most Syrians in agreement: "R" (046, as well as by the mass of later manuscripts), ( Nestle's 23rd edition, p. 68, 69). (Compare with our list of evidences for the KJV reading.)

3. Variety of Evidence — the Receptus reading is found in the Uncials, cursives, the early church fathers, and in early translations. The Alexandrian, Byzantine, and Western families have manuscripts with the Receptus reading in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. The variety of evidence is there. Dean John Burgon says: "…[T]he Uncials and the whole body of Cursive copies. They are (a) dotted over at least 1,000 years; (b) they evidently belong to so many diverse countries… Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Palestine, Syria, Alexandria, and other parts of Africa, not to say Sicily, Southern Italy, Gaul, England, and Ireland: (c) they exhibit so many strange characteristics and peculiar sympathies: (d) they so clearly represent countless families of manuscripts, being in no single instance absolutely identical in their text, and certainly not being copies of any other Codex in existence… that their unanimous decisions I hold to be an absolute irrefutable evidence of the Truth. If again only a few of these copies disagree with the main body of them, I hold that the value of the verdict of the great majority is but slightly disturbed." (Burgon and Miller, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Vindicated and Established, p. 51).

4. Respectability of the witnesses — Dean Burgon, who is the only man who ever collated the Gospels of the five oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, viz. Alexandrinus (A), Vaticanus (B), Sinaiticus (Aleph), Ephraemi (C), Beza (D), presents some interesting data on these old uncial manuscripts. "It is discovered that in 111 (out of 320) pages of an ordinary copy of the Greek Testament, in which alone these five manuscripts are collectively available for comparison in the Gospels… the serious deflections of A from the Textus Receptus amounts to only 840; whereas in C they amount to 1,798; in B, 2,370; in Aleph 3,392, in D to 4,697. The readings are peculiar to A within the same limits are 133; those peculiar to C are 170. But those of B amount to 197; while Aleph exhibits 443 and the readings peculiar to D (within the same limits) are no fewer than 1,829… We submit that these facts… which result from merely referring five manuscripts to one and the same common standard… are by no means calculated to inspire confidence in codices A, B, Aleph, C, D: codices, be it remembered which come to us without character, without any history, in fact without antecedents of any kind." (Burgon, Revision Revised, pp. 14-15).

Scrivener says of Sinaiticus: "It must be confessed, indeed, that Codex Sinaiticus abounds with similar errors of eye and pen, to an extent not unparalleled, but happily rather unusual in documents of first-rate importance… Letters, and words, even whole sentences, are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately canceled; while that gross blunder (Homeoteleuton) whereby a clause is omitted because it happens to end in the same words as the clause preceding it occurs no less than 115 times in the New Testament, though this defect is often supplied by a more recent hand." (Scrivener, Full collation of the Sinaiticus, pg. 31.)

Referring to the five oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, Scrivener says moreover: "The reader has but to open the first recent critical work he shall meet with, to see them scarcely ever in unison; perpetually divided two against three, or perhaps four against one." (Scrivener, Introduction, etc. Vol. 11, page 277). Burgon says: "We venture to assure him (Bishop Ellicott), without a particle of hesitation, that Aleph, B and D are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies extant; exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with… having become, by whatever process (for their history is wholly unknown), the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional perversions of truth… which are discoverable in any known copies of the word of God." Burgon, Revision Revised, page 16).

5. Continuity — The list of evidences we have given, demonstrates the continuity of the King James reading. In fact, the very term "traditional text" (used for the Textus Receptus) speaks for the continuity of the reading. Continuity the King James reading can be established far more easily than any other so-called family of manuscripts. So why change it?

6. Evidence for the entire passage or context — This is about equal, as I am best able to determine.

7. Internal Reasonableness — Why would a Christian need to "wash his robes" (Revelation 22:14), when he himself has already been washed? "… unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." (Revelation 1:5).

Revelation 1:5 is talking about born again believers! We are washed in His blood and have eternal life now (cf. I John 5:12). It should be apparent that verse 14 is not a Church Age passage at all, but applies to the Millennium and those event following. The believers spoken of in Revelation 22:14 must "do his commandments" to have access to the tree of life, (cf. Revelation 12:17, 14:12). They need access to this tree because, being saved during the Great Tribulation or the Millennium, none of them are born again. Even as Adam — these, if they partake of the tree of life, will never die.

All things considered, why should one change this passage when the evidence doesn't demand it? The Textus Receptus reading certainly seems more reasonable.