Quote:
Originally Posted by mfblume
I do not ask you to trust my research. But you have evidently not researched the philosophies behind the two streams of texts that have arrived with us today. Regardless of what anyone from the Alexandrian group of contaminated texts says about God's Word remaining today, the philosophy behind the Nestle's text is corrupt and proposes there is no word of God left for us today.
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Brief posts about what I've researched...
An interesting read about Wescott and Hort, two of my favorite heretics.
The Anglican Spiritualists
The perplexity and inquisitiveness of the age had led to the formation of numerous Spiritualist societies. One of the early pioneers of Spiritualist inquiry was the Ghost Society at the University of Cambridge, England. The Founders of Psychical Research records the stated objective of the Cambridge Ghost Society:
"In 1851, was founded at Cambridge a Society to 'conduct a serious and earnest inquiry into the nature of the phenomena vaguely called supernatural,' and a number of distinguished persons became members." (20)
The Ghost Society is also described in the biography of one of its founding members, The Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, by Arthur Hort.
"Two other societies were started in both of which Hort seems to have been the moving spirit the other called by its members "The Ghostly Guild." The object was to collect and classify authenticated instances of what are now called 'psychical phenomena' the 'Bogie Club' as scoffers called it, aroused a certain amount of derision, and even some alarm; it was apparently born too soon."
The Society for Psychical Research: An Outline of its History and the Life of Edward White Benson by his son, Arthur, present further documentation of the distinguished founders of the Cambridge Ghost Society:
"Among the numerous persons and groups who in the middle of the nineteenth century were making enquiries into psychical occurrences may be mentioned a society from which our own can claim direct descent. In the Life of Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, by his son, A. C. Benson, will be found, under the year 1851-2, the following paragraph:
'Among my father's diversions at Cambridge was the foundation of a 'Ghost Society,' the forerunner of the Psychical Society [meaning the S.P.R.] for the investigation of the supernatural. Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort were among the members. He was then, as always, more interested in psychical phenomena than he cared to admit.'
"Lightfoot and Westcott both became bishops, and Hort Professor of Divinity. The S.P.R. has hardly lived up to the standard of ecclesiastical eminence set by the parent society."
Canon J.B. Lightfoot, Bishop B.F. Westcott, and Professor of Divinity F.J.A. Hort also served on the Revision Committee for the English Revised Version of 1881. Drs. Westcott and Hort produced a New Greek Text and created a new theory of textual criticism for this revision of the Authorized Version of 1611.
As an undergraduate at Cambridge, B.F. Westcott also founded the Hermes Club, which he named after the Graeco-Egyptian deity, Hermes Trismegistus. Subsequent Hermetic societies founded by other Spiritualists would become famous in England - one organized in 1884 by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, which was in close contact with the Theosophical Society, and The Order of the Golden Dawn founded by MacGregor Mathers and Wynn Westcott. James Webb has elucidated the meaning of Hermes:
"In the history of the Secret Traditions the Hermetica became important because of the great value place on them in Renaissance Europe; in their context they are significant because they typify this magical attitude to life. The fact that Hermes is taken here as the founder of astrology, alchemy, or magic, the revealer of occult correspondences, is useful to emphasize that European attempts at practicing astrology, alchemy, or magic, often called the "Hermetic sciences," have their origins in the same period of religious ferment as saw the flourishing of the Mysteries and the birth of NeoPlatonism the philosophical position of the Hermetica, with its doctrine that matter is evil and to be escaped, can be paralleled by the Gnostics."
In her Theosophical Glossary, Madame H.P. Blavatsky also reported the extensive use of Hermetic doctrines in Gnostic writings:
"Hermetic. Any doctrine or writing connected with the esoteric teachings of Hermes . . . Though mostly considered as spurious, nevertheless the Hermetic writings were highly prized by St. Augustine, Lactantius, Cyril and others. In the words of Mr. J. Bonwick, 'They are more or less touched up by the Platonic philosophers among the early Christians (such as Origin and Clemens Alexandrinus) who sought to substantiate their Christian arguments by appeals to these heathen and revered writings, though they could not resist the temptation of making them say a little too much.' Though represented by some clever and interested writers as teaching pure monotheism, the Hermetic or Trismegistic books are, nevertheless, purely pantheistic . . . "
A contemporary of B.F. Westcott, Mme. Blavatsky classified Westcott with the Gnostic philosophers, even laughing him to scorn in her channeled work, Isis Unveiled, for his credulity of The Pastor of Hermas. It seems that Anglican scholars gave the weight of Scripture to apocryphal literature from the occult underground with which she was familiar: "In their immoderate desire to find evidence for the authenticity of the New Testament, the best men, the most erudite scholars even among Protestant divines, but too often fall into deplorable traps. We cannot believe that such a learned commentator as Canon Westcott could have left himself in ignorance as to Talmudistic and purely kabalistic writings. How then is it that we find him quoting, with such serene assurance as presenting 'striking analogies to the Gospel of St. John,' passages from the work of The Pastor of Hermas, which are complete sentences from kabalistic literature?"
If this isn't interesting, just consider the fact that almost all modern versions of the bible base their translation endevours off of the Wescott/Hort Greek New Testament.
KJV and NKJV for me. All others I use and regard as a 'commentary' only, and I don't consider them to be the word of God.
That's just me.
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