Herman Hoskier

From Textus Receptus

Herman Hoskier

Herman Charles Hoskier (1864–1938), was a biblical scholar, British textual critic, and son of a merchant banker, Herman Hoskier (1832–1904).^[1]

Hoskier, as textual critic, supported the Byzantine text-type against the Alexandrian text-type. He compared, in Codex B and It Allies, the text of Codex Vaticanus with Codex Sinaiticus, and shown how many significant disagreements the best witnesses of the Alexandrian text have. Hoskier attempted to demonstrate that Vaticanus presents a text which has been conformed to the Coptic versions. Hoskier compared text of the Minuscule 700 with the Textus Receptus and exhibits 2724 differences.

Hoskier collated every known Greek manuscript of the Apocalypse up to 1918. It took 30 years for him. Result of this work was published in 1929 (Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse). Hoskier shows parallels between Papyrus 46 and the Ethiopic Version in the Pauline epistles.^[2]

Herman C. Hoskier said in the late 1800's:

Three and a half years ago I was in Dean Burgon's study at Chichester. It was midnight, dark and cold without; he had just extinguished the lights, and it was dark, and getting cold within. We mounted the stairs to retire to rest, and his last words of that night have often rung in my ears since :

"As surely as it is dark now, and as certainly as the sun will rise to-morrow morning, so surely will the traditional text be vindicated and the views I have striven to express be accepted. I may not live to see it. Most likely I shall not. But it will come."

Quotes

"The text printed by Westcott and Hort [based almost exclusively on B and Aleph] has been accepted as the true text, and GRAMMARS, WORKS ON THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM, WORKS ON HIGHER CRITICISM, AND OTHERS, HAVE BEEN GROUNDED ON THIS TEXT. If the Hort text makes the evangelists appear inconsistent [and it does], then such and such an evangelist errs. Those who accept the W-H text are basing their accusations of untruth as to the Gospellists upon an Egyptian revision current 200 to 450 AD and abandoned between 500 to 1881, merely revived in our day and stamped as genuine." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p 468

"Modern scholars love to touch on the forbidden ground of the speculative philosophies St. Paul so often condemns in his pastoral epistles. They touch upon it and withdraw, but the harm for the reader is done." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p 478

"The claims put forward by us are that B does not exhibit a neutral text... That B is guilty of laches, of a tendency to "improve," and of "sunstroke" amounting to doctrinal bias. That the maligned Textus Receptus served in large measure AS THE BASE WHICH B TAMPERED WITH AND CHANGED, and that the Church at large recognised all this until the year 1881 -- when Hortism (in other words Alexandrianism) was allowed free play -- and has not since retraced the path to sound tradition." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p 464

"There remains one argument to be dealt with, and that concerns the possibility of someone saying that, after all, the variations of B are few in number and probably less than in most MSS. That is hardly so. If the reader wants a tenth-century example of a MS true to the Church type let him examine Matthaei's k, a most beautiful and neat MS, one of our very early cursives, and in this MS will be found a true exponent of the Koine. Had Erasmus used this, no fault could have been found, and yet BUT LITTLE DIFFERENCE IS TO BE FOUND BETWEEN K AND THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS, WHILE B AND HIS GROUP DIFFER INFINITELY MORE AMONG THEMSELVES AT A PERIOD MUCH MORE REMOTE." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p 456

"I present therefore an indictment against the MS B and against Westcott and Hort, subdivided into hundreds of separate counts... If I now throw some bombs into the inner citadel, it is because from that Keep there continues to issue a large amount of ignorant iteration of Hort's conclusions, without one particle of proof that his foundation theory is correct." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p i-ii

"Now in the following pages I submit a vast number of other instances where B has a doctored text, plainly, indubitably doctored." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p vi

"The Church at large disagreed with Origen's conclusions. Westcott-Hort after nearly 1700 years merely wish to replace us textually in the heart of an Alexandrian text, which after AD 450 or thereabouts fell into discredit and disuse." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p 9

"We do not necessarily recover Origen's manuscripts when we are inclined to follow Aleph and B and Origen, but very likely only Origen himself." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p 10

"Now as B does not change all these datives, it might be thought that Antioch for some reason had made a harmonious whole and turned some genitives into datives in the supposed revision. It is just here that Aleph offers its important testimony, for Aleph does not use the genitive on the first occasion, thereby showing that it was EGYPT WHICH REVISED SOME OF ST. MATTHEW'S DATIVES, and not Antioch which cancelled some genitives." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p 35

"Finally, observe that up to the time of Westcott and Hort the lower criticism had kept itself quite apart from so-called higher criticism. Since the publication of Hort's text, however, and of that of the Revisers, much of the heresy of our time has fallen back upon the supposed results acquired by the lower criticism to bolster up their views. By a policy of indecision in the matter of fundamental truths of the Christian religion - truths specifically set forth by its Founder - and by a decided policy, on the other hand, of decision in the matter of heresy in the field of lower criticism, the beliefs of many have been shaken not only to their foundations, but they have been offered free scope to play the Marcion and excise whatever appeared extra-ordinary or unintelligible to them. Many, who should have raised their voices against the mischief wrought, have sat by in apathy or have willfully fostered these heresies." Codex B & Its Allies, Vol I, p 422

Works

A Full Account and Collation of the Greek Cursive Codex Evangelium 604, London, 1890. (with two facsimiles)
Concerning the Genesis of the Versions of the New Testament (1910) (2 vols.)
The golden Latin Gospels in the library of J. Pierpont Morgan (1910).
Concerning the date of the Bohairic Version (1911)
Codex B and Its Allies, a study and an indictment, Bernard Quaritch (London 1914). (Volume 1–Volume 2)
The text of Codex Usserianus 2., or2 (microform) ("Garland of Howth") with critical notes to supplement and correct the collation of the late T. K. Abbott, Bernard Quaritch (London 1919)
Immortality (The Daniel Company, 1925).
The Complete Commentary of Oecumenius on the Apocalypse. 1928.
Concerning the Text of the Apocalypse: Collation of All Existing Available Greek Documents with the Standard Text of Stephen’s Third Edition Together with the Testimony of Versions, Commentaries and Fathers. 2 vols. (London: Bernard Quaritch, Ltd., 1929).
The Bronze Horses (The Mosher press, 1930).
What is Nirvana? (The Mosher press, 1930).
In Tune with the Universe.
The back of beyond (The Daniel Company, 1934).
A commentary on the various readings in the text of the epistle to the Hebrews in the Chester-Beatty Papyrus P46 (circa 200 A.D.), Bernard Quaritch, (London 1938)

References

1. He was a Member of the Union Bank of London, and a Director of the Guinness Brewery.
2. Appendix to an Article on the Chester-Beatty Papyrus of the Pauline epistels.

External links

Codex B and Its Allies (Part I)
Codex B and Its Allies (Part II)
Books of Hoskier at the Internet Archive

External Links

Online Books by Herman Hoskier

The King James Version 2023 Edition New Testament is now complete and in print format here.

Internal Links

Old Testament - New Testament KJV 1900

New Testament KJV 2016

Scrivener's 1894 Textus Receptus

2016 Urdu New Testament (TR Based)

Russian Synodal Version (TR Based)

Reina Valera Gómez Spanish (TR Based)

Marginal Notes in the 1611 Authorized Version

Ephesians 3:9

Why We Should Not Passover Easter 1, 2, & 3

Will Kinney

List of TR/KJV based foreign bibles

List of New Testament minuscules

List of New Testament lectionaries

List of New Testament Papyri

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